Putting some Soul into show business

DAVID SOUL has a lot of problems. He has a problem with The Edinburgh Fringe, he has a problem with politics, he has a problem with Warner Brothers and most of all he has a problem with critics who dish out bad reviews without bothering to see the play they are writing about.

Any actor who has ever felt the sting of a slate must have charged their glasses and drunk a toast to the former Starsky and Hutch man last December, when he triumphed in one of the most remarkable libel cases of recent years.

The case ended up costing the Daily Mirror £170,000 after their former showbiz columnist Matthew Wright, who had panned Soul’s play, The Dead Monkey, admitted that he had not actually seen it.

"Without doubt, the worst West End show I have seen," wrote Wright wrongly. "Stunned American tourists could hardly believe the balding old man with a wobbly beer gut was the handsome guy they remembered from his Hutch days. Muffled sniggering turned to hoots of derisive laughter."

In fact, Wright had not bothered to see the play and had sent another journalist before writing the piece as if he had - doh!

"It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that if you don’t see a play you shouldn’t write about it," chuckles Soul. "That guy could have saved himself and The Mirror hundreds of thousands of pounds if he’d just bought an £18 ticket."

The 58-year-old Soul was awarded £20,000 in damages and admits that his lawyers were the big winners, but nothing could tarnish this particular victory. "I’ve been involved in reviews which have been as hurtful, but at least there’s been a touch of truth in them and usually I’ll let it go. But in this particular case it was so blatant and so specifically driven by a personal attack that I couldn’t let it go."

Soul, it has to be said, is no stranger to bad reviews after his less than successful Fringe production of Sam Shepard, Fool For Love two years ago.

It all looked so promising - an acclaimed play by one of America’s most highly-regarded writers in the new Fringe venue of Dynamic Earth. Soul promised the play would be an experiment in what he called "Etheatre - a unique multimedia experience," featuring still photography, film footage, 3D-imaging and live video to enhance the theatrical experience. Then the play opened.

The first performance was beset by technical problems because Soul said he and his company had insufficient time to rehearse and was promptly panned.

Never one to back down from a fight, Soul called an unprecedented press conference outside Dynamic Earth, lambasted Scottish International who were running the venue, cancelled the next scheduled performance and then personally refunded the money to ticket holders. It was, in short, a real brouhaha and Soul is still bitter about the experience.

"The company Scottish International had some heavy-duty financial debts but were still operating as a legal entity and here were people coming from all over the world and to this day they were never paid - they were royally screwed," claims Soul.

"A lot of the press made it sound like it was sour grapes, but the real issue is the venues," he says. "The Fringe once was a magnificent experiment that was open to everyone, but now it’s top heavy and that’s where all the money goes. That’s an issue that has to be put to the city council and [Fringe Director] Paul Gudgin.

"I know that performers should approach the Fringe like: ‘OK we’re not going to make any money here but this could be helpful to us’. But they shouldn’t come to get screwed either. You don’t just go in and go ‘f*** me!’ " he laughs.

The experience may have soured Soul on the Fringe but it hasn’t dulled his desire to experiment with multi-media theatre. "The last major breakthrough for the theatre was electricity and we have to push beyond that if we want to move beyond the blue-haired old ladies in the stalls. I’m going to keep working on the integration of film and video technology."

Blue-haired old ladies needn’t despair, however. Deathtrap, the play that brings Soul to the Capital next week is a very different affair. A traditional murder mystery with an impeccable pedigree (it was pennned by Rosemary’s Baby and Stepford Wives author Ira Levin), all its cutting-edge tricks are confined to the plot, which has more twists and turns than the proverbial twisty-turny thing.

Soul is happy with the play, which he describes as "singularly well-written" and is pleased to have the chance to take part in its UK tour because it has given him the chance to familiarise himself with his new home.

Although he has lived here for six years, he has just applied for British residency. "The big money may be in the States, but the big happiness is over here," explains Soul, who lives in North London with his partner, actress Alexa Hamilton.

For years Soul has hinted that he would like to return to the role that made him famous in the seminal Seventies cop show Starsky and Hutch. But now the threat of legal action from Warner Bothers, who made the original series, looks to have killed the reunion.

Warners want to revive the duo themselves, but in a kitschy retro-comedy thriller like the recent Charlie’s Angels. Ben Stiller has been cast as Starsky alongside Owen Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums) as Hutch while Snoop Doggy Dogg will play Huggy Bear.

"Paul Michael Glaser and I have talked about this project for years and what we wanted to do was to pick the characters up 25 years down the road in order to give closure to that relationship," says Soul.

"Unfortunately, we’ve run into muddy waters with Warner Brothers, who own the rights. Starsky and Hutch is their trademark, their franchise, their brand name," he spits the words out, more in anger, than in sorrow.

"This is what it has come to in this day and age - we created the image of Starsky and Hutch, but if we trade on that we are in violation. This is television, it’s all about marketing and it sickens me."

• Deathtrap, The King’s, Tuesday-Saturday, 7.30pm, £16-£7.50, 0131 529 6000