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The Last Cigarette
Cancer and Society
Simon Gray once went 6 months without a cigarette. He chewed plenty of nicotine gum in that time— in fact, he was rarely without it—but he smoked no cigarettes. It was a victory, of sorts. He had agreed to direct one of his plays in New York. There, Gray found himself butting up against an obstreperous cast member; “an eye-rolling, shoulder-shrugging gesticulatory young ham of an actor”, actually. “One night”, Gray recalls in his memoir The Last Cigarette, “I found myself at the bar nearest the theatre, quivering with rage at a new on-stage walk he had developed, as if he had two wooden legs”. Gray ordered a double whisky. It became inevitable: “it wasn’t until I was on my third or fourth cigarette that I realised I was smoking again.” He didn’t try to quit again for 20 years. At which point, he embarked on The Last Cigarette with the quixotic hope that he could write tobacco out of his life. “I intend to give up smoking”, he begins. “There. I’ve put it down. It’s legible, in firm blue ballpoint. There’s no getting away from it because it’s plonk in the middle of the page, and to tear it out would be cheating.” That was a rainy summer’s day in 2005. As 2006 turned into 2007, Gray was still puffing away. Perhaps this would be his year: “let’s start by putting down yet again all the reasons for giving up. No let’s not. Let’s sit by the window, light a cigarette, and see if we can see the fox in the garden.” The entry resides in a concluding chapter entitled Some Bewilderments. The greatest bewilderment was to come: “I have a tumour in my lung”, Gray revealed. “Absolutely certainly, one way or another, I’m coming up to my last cigarette.” He died in August, 2008. The Last Cigarette is the second of a trilogy of memoirs—cheerily jostled by The Smoking Diaries and Coda— www.thelancet.com/oncology Vol 10 July 2009
loosely adapted for the stage by the author in collaboration with Hugh Whitemore, and playing at London’s Trafalgar Studios until August. Gray is played by three actors; all of whom occupy the stage simultaneously, none of whom looks much like him, and one of whom is a woman. The youngish Jasper Britton plays Simon 1. The rather older Nicholas Le Prevost—Simon 2—seems to have the funniest lines, although, of course, his job is considerably easier than Felicity Kendal’s (Simon 3). The three leads—who are clearly having a good time—alternate speeches, correct each other, speak in excited unison, and occasionally take on other parts: Le Provost’s chipmunk-like oncologist is a particular highlight. The dialogue—which would otherwise be a monologue—is propelled towards some kind of understanding of the author himself, and of the people who were important to him. It doesn’t always work, but it’s certainly entertaining. The curtain rises to Gray’s image superimposed on the backdrop. He’s smoking, obviously, and looking slightly amused. Grays 1, 2, and 3 begin an energetic rendition of the evening Simon Gray and his wife refused to answer their front door: Gray feared that the doorstep would be occupied by a policeman—not that he’d committed any crime, he just lived in fear that they’d one day come for him—or perhaps by a violent criminal. Caught between the cops and the robbers, the intrepid author preferred to hide in his study. It turned out to be Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia Fraser. The four dined together regularly, and Pinter frequently directed Gray’s plays. The two ageing writers would sit together and growl complaints about English cricket and seedy politicians. Although, not tonight. Tonight was the night that Pinter revealed that he had cancer.
Cancer casts something of a shadow over proceedings, Gray’s reminiscences are prompted by his recognition that he’s coming to the end of his final act. The play’s most affecting passage is that of Gray and the terminally ill Pinter sitting together discussing Australian all-rounder Keith Miller. In fact, The Last Cigarette is surprisingly effective when it slows down. The conclusion, for example, is rather moving: the doctor has given Gray 18–24 months. It’s longer than he was expecting. He’s delighted, although he decides to assume it will be 18 months, “to avoid disappointment”. The tumbling play does capture much of the author’s exuberance, some of his dry wit, and a little of his sardonic ill-temper. His boundless enchantment with cigarettes emerges intact. Perhaps this is the aspect of The Last Cigarette—more prominent in the memoirs—that readers of The Lancet Oncology will find most interesting: the manner in which it unravels the fabric of tobacco addiction. There’s a truth to Gray’s experiences, instantly discernable both to smokers, and to those of us who— after countless maddening failures— managed to finally, definitely quit. Cigarettes provided Gray’s life with a heady punctuation. The seven stages of man smokily contracted: “short trousers, long trousers, cigarettes”, he says gleefully. He endlessly romanticised the whole affair, waxing lyrical on the most sumptuous cigarettes, and dutifully enslaving himself to the habit, accepting all the minor, and eventually major, illeffects of the addiction. But although smoking did leave Gray terminally ill, it was an aneurysm that killed him. For him, the love affair did not prove deadly after all.
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration The Last Cigarette Simon Gray and Hugh Whitemore Trafalgar Studios, London until Aug 1, 2009.
Talha Burki [email protected]
651
iStockphoto
Theatre The Last Cigarette
Simon Gray once went 6 months without a cigarette. He chewed plenty of nicotine gum in that time— in fact, he was rarely without it—but he smoked no cigarettes. It was a victory, of sorts. He had agreed to direct one of his plays in New York. There, Gray found himself butting up against an obstreperous cast member; “an eye-rolling, shoulder-shrugging gesticulatory young ham of an actor”, actually. “One night”, Gray recalls in his memoir The Last Cigarette, “I found myself at the bar nearest the theatre, quivering with rage at a new on-stage walk he had developed, as if he had two wooden legs”. Gray ordered a double whisky. It became inevitable: “it wasn’t until I was on my third or fourth cigarette that I realised I was smoking again.” He didn’t try to quit again for 20 years. At which point, he embarked on The Last Cigarette with the quixotic hope that he could write tobacco out of his life. “I intend to give up smoking”, he begins. “There. I’ve put it down. It’s legible, in firm blue ballpoint. There’s no getting away from it because it’s plonk in the middle of the page, and to tear it out would be cheating.” That was a rainy summer’s day in 2005. As 2006 turned into 2007, Gray was still puffing away. Perhaps this would be his year: “let’s start by putting down yet again all the reasons for giving up. No let’s not. Let’s sit by the window, light a cigarette, and see if we can see the fox in the garden.” The entry resides in a concluding chapter entitled Some Bewilderments. The greatest bewilderment was to come: “I have a tumour in my lung”, Gray revealed. “Absolutely certainly, one way or another, I’m coming up to my last cigarette.” He died in August, 2008. The Last Cigarette is the second of a trilogy of memoirs—cheerily jostled by The Smoking Diaries and Coda— www.thelancet.com/oncology Vol 10 July 2009
loosely adapted for the stage by the author in collaboration with Hugh Whitemore, and playing at London’s Trafalgar Studios until August. Gray is played by three actors; all of whom occupy the stage simultaneously, none of whom looks much like him, and one of whom is a woman. The youngish Jasper Britton plays Simon 1. The rather older Nicholas Le Prevost—Simon 2—seems to have the funniest lines, although, of course, his job is considerably easier than Felicity Kendal’s (Simon 3). The three leads—who are clearly having a good time—alternate speeches, correct each other, speak in excited unison, and occasionally take on other parts: Le Provost’s chipmunk-like oncologist is a particular highlight. The dialogue—which would otherwise be a monologue—is propelled towards some kind of understanding of the author himself, and of the people who were important to him. It doesn’t always work, but it’s certainly entertaining. The curtain rises to Gray’s image superimposed on the backdrop. He’s smoking, obviously, and looking slightly amused. Grays 1, 2, and 3 begin an energetic rendition of the evening Simon Gray and his wife refused to answer their front door: Gray feared that the doorstep would be occupied by a policeman—not that he’d committed any crime, he just lived in fear that they’d one day come for him—or perhaps by a violent criminal. Caught between the cops and the robbers, the intrepid author preferred to hide in his study. It turned out to be Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia Fraser. The four dined together regularly, and Pinter frequently directed Gray’s plays. The two ageing writers would sit together and growl complaints about English cricket and seedy politicians. Although, not tonight. Tonight was the night that Pinter revealed that he had cancer.
Cancer casts something of a shadow over proceedings, Gray’s reminiscences are prompted by his recognition that he’s coming to the end of his final act. The play’s most affecting passage is that of Gray and the terminally ill Pinter sitting together discussing Australian all-rounder Keith Miller. In fact, The Last Cigarette is surprisingly effective when it slows down. The conclusion, for example, is rather moving: the doctor has given Gray 18–24 months. It’s longer than he was expecting. He’s delighted, although he decides to assume it will be 18 months, “to avoid disappointment”. The tumbling play does capture much of the author’s exuberance, some of his dry wit, and a little of his sardonic ill-temper. His boundless enchantment with cigarettes emerges intact. Perhaps this is the aspect of The Last Cigarette—more prominent in the memoirs—that readers of The Lancet Oncology will find most interesting: the manner in which it unravels the fabric of tobacco addiction. There’s a truth to Gray’s experiences, instantly discernable both to smokers, and to those of us who— after countless maddening failures— managed to finally, definitely quit. Cigarettes provided Gray’s life with a heady punctuation. The seven stages of man smokily contracted: “short trousers, long trousers, cigarettes”, he says gleefully. He endlessly romanticised the whole affair, waxing lyrical on the most sumptuous cigarettes, and dutifully enslaving himself to the habit, accepting all the minor, and eventually major, illeffects of the addiction. But although smoking did leave Gray terminally ill, it was an aneurysm that killed him. For him, the love affair did not prove deadly after all.
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration The Last Cigarette Simon Gray and Hugh Whitemore Trafalgar Studios, London until Aug 1, 2009.
Talha Burki [email protected]
651
iStockphoto
Theatre The Last Cigarette