Me and my boy, treading the boards: Father and son to both perform in the West End - The Jewish Chronicle

They live in the sleepy Hertfordshire village of Shenley and are looking forward to an upcoming barmitzvah. So far, so North London Jewish.

But this is no ordinary Yiddishe family: father and son Ben and Bertie Caplan are this week both appearing on stage in London’s West End.

Feted actor Mr Caplan is playing Sherlock Homes in the yuletide detective story Sherlock Carol at Marylebone Theatre. And Bertie, just 11, makes his professional stage debut today in the political thriller Watch on the Rhine at Covent Garden’s Donmar Warehouse.

“The timing of the two shows is very exciting for the family, but as for Bertie’s acting talent and passion, that has been clear for years,” Mr Caplan told the JC. “He’s been eagerly visiting me on set and at theatres for some time and when he joined our local drama group a couple of years ago, he took to the stage like a duck to water.”

Ben and Bertie Caplan

Mr Caplan, whose 30-year career spans film, TV and theatre — with screen work including Band of Brothers and Call the Midwife and stage credits including Mike Leigh’s Two Thousand Years — did not plan for his son to follow in his thespian footsteps, however.

“My wife, the theatre director Emma Gersch, and I were keen for him join our local drama club because we know that acting can help build a child’s confidence,” he said.

“But soon after he joined, an agent who was keen to expand his books visited and things started to happen for Bertie. He was hired for a few ads and after that he got roles in a couple of TV dramas including ITV’s Doc Martin. His first big film, Wonka, comes out next year.”

But when the agent suggested Bertie audition for the role of a little German boy in Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine, now in its first major London revival in more than 40 years, his parents were initially against the idea.

“He is in Year 7 and we were concerned that he settle into secondary school properly. But Bertie was so keen to meet the director, we relented. Then, of course, he gets offered the part,” he laughed.

Happily, the parental concerns proved unwarranted. “He only misses one lesson a day and still has time to do his homework and play football on the weekend. And he’s having an absolute ball of a time on set. He’s effectively getting a masterclass in drama.”

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Bertie (centre) rehearsing this week

Meanwhile, the cast adore having Caplan junior on board. “I picked him up from rehearsal the other day and everyone was raving about him. Patricia Hodge, who played my mother in the film Maxwell, described him as a ray of sunshine.”

It is an auspicious beginning to what could be a long career treading the boards, but if that is how the plot turns out, Mr Caplan knows there will be tough times ahead for Bertie too.

“I’m obviously very proud of him, and will support him as my parents, who aren’t actors, supported me. But I am also being a protective dad because I know this industry very well.

"It can build you up, but just as quickly break you down,” he said. “It’s difficult not to take it personally when you don’t get work and there’s also the emptiness you feel when a job ends. And for a child that feeling is even more acute.

"My LA manager once remarked that the biggest challenge for young actors is how to get back to real life after finishing a gig, and he was right. So, I am explaining all this to Bertie and, being the emotionally mature and sensitive child that he is and which I think all good actors are, he gets it.”

Before long, “real life” for Bertie will involve barmitzvah preparations.

“We’re in the process of joining the Masorti branch of St Albans for this very reason, but he already has a strong sense of his Jewish roots thanks to his Jewish primary school, Clore Shalom, which is round the corner from us.

"Emma and I are what you’d call traditional rather than observant Jews, but we are very respectful of our United Synagogue background and it’s always been important to us that Bertie and his little sister Jessie, who’s still at Clore Shalom, know who they are.”

Over the course of his illustrious career, Mr Caplan has also explored Jewish identity on the stage. Earlier this year he appeared in Ben Brown’s play The End of the Night about a meeting between Himmler and a Swedish Jew called Norbert Masur just as the world was waking up to the horrors of the Nazis.

And he has just finished playing the Prince of Arragon and Solanio in The Merchant of Venice at the Globe, which organised workshops on antisemitism for the cast. “There were definitely nerves on the theatre’s part, but they ultimately handled it well,” he said.

In the New Year, we’ll see him playing Golda Meir’s son in Golda, the eagerly awaited film starring Helen Mirren as Israel’s legendary prime minister.

“Not surprisingly, that also triggered lots of post-rehearsal discussions about Jewish affairs,” he said. “They’ve been a long time coming, but these conversations are now happening in my industry, and it’s most welcome.

“It’s important that people try and understand the struggles and complexities of what it is to be Jewish.”

Topics:

Theatre

Family