By Megan Mooney

  

So, Nicholas Campbell is someone I see on a regular basis, we live in the same neighbourhood.  I’ve never spoken to the man.  Not for any specific reason, I just never really had occasion to.  But the write-up in today’s Globe and Mail intrigues me.

The first thing I learned is that I really do not follow nearly enough gossip as I should in order to be properly effective in this business.  I had no idea that he was "the bad boy of Canadian drama"

The second thing I learned is that the place I go to on a daily basis, and do much my writing (you know, when I have a laptop – I am still sans-laptop, as you may have noticed, given the practical non-existence of my writing on here), is apparently a "seedy location".  Which means, apparently, that along with not following gossip enough, I also clearly have no grasp of the seedy.  I suspect the former will pose less of a problem in my forays into the Toronto theatre scene.

I’m not sure what it is about this article that struck me enough to write about it here – but it really did capture my attention.  Perhaps just because I see him all the time in my neighbourhood, I’m not sure.  But honestly, I have loved Nicholas Campbell for a long long time.  I have no idea if anyone remembers the show Diamonds, but I remember it.  It was burned in my brain for some reason.  Except, really, it’s only Campbell that was burned into my brain.

I wasn’t even in high school yet when the show first aired, and only in grad 9 when it was cancelled – but his performance in it struck me in some way that I can’t really describe.  I had no idea until I started writing this that Campbell was actually one of the writers of the show.  Anyway, what I remember was how relaxed and ‘real’ the dialogue seemed.  When I got older and actually knew a tiny bit about acting it was briefly in re-runs and I realised that probably it was a hell of a lot of improv, which just kind of made it that much more impressive to me.

So, with all of this in my brain (as well as seeing him in other various television things) I am excited to see Festen on Tuesday.  You see, even though Campbell managed to burn himself into my brain when I was a young impressionable thing, I’ve never had the opportunity to see him on stage.  I’m always curious about how an excellent television actor translates on stage.  There is, of course, the distinct possibility that they will be amazing, but there is also the equally distinct possibility that they are too used to acting to a camera and the experience becomes woefully disappointing. 

Only time will tell.  In the meantime, I think I might head off to my seedy haunt, Jet Fuel, for a dodgy delicious latte.

 

Photos of Nicholas Campbell By Peter Redman (National Post)