Reclaiming the altar of wokery
“I’M QUITE FULL-ON AS A PERSON, quite passionate,” Laurence Fox insists. The actor who is now auditioning to be mayor of London is so direct in conversation that it is a surprise to learn that he has had media training in preparation for May’s election. Where are the usual tell-tale tactics of the politician who has been tutored in interview techniques? Far from trying to divert uncomfortable subjects on to easier territory, Fox gives the impression he could find ignition just by looking at a car key.
In Britain, at least, there is always the suspicion that actors who turn into political campaigners draw upon skills of adaptability and emotional artifice far beyond the range of the average one-dimensional rhetorician. With Laurence Fox, it is the disarming frankness, not the hint of artful manipulation, that predominates.
As events transpired, 2020 was a good year for actors to find something else to do, but Covid’s consequences for that profession were all but unimaginable in January last year when he jeopardised his acting career (right).
