Truly, Madly Pottery

The diaries of Alan Rickman, who dies hard

In February 2022, Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the world that the invasion of Ukraine is not about Ukraine, and he was right. And I said so on repeated occasions. I’m not Nostradamus but, like you, dear reader, I’m not Andy Pandy either. The Ukraine invasion is about the world. A whole world of world.

I was talking recently about The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and also Harry Potter. I said I hadn’t really understood The Hobbit and my friend said “You need to have seen The Lord of the Rings first,” and I said, “So, why don’t they say that at the start of the film – like, ‘Do make sure you saw The Lord of the Rings first before you settle down with your nacho chips’?” I added, because I think it’s funny and also because it just happens to be true, that I own the entire series of Harry Potter films (bar the last one, I think), which were purchased at the behest of life partners who have since quit my life, and that I never watched one of them without falling asleep. Maybe I worked too hard.

I don’t know therefore comprehensively that Mr Snape – that was his name, I think – never slept in a Harry Potter film, but apart from broomsticks and flying golden balls, I don’t remember much about any of these films. A triple-decker bus and jumping into a station wall and, oh, yes, the Glenfinnan Viaduct. I’m a train fan. Nor, in fact, did Mr Rickman, who played Snape in the movies. So he wrote a diary to remind him of how awful he thought they were. I didn’t keep a diary, but I do share his views. And I will tell him over a glass of ambrosia when I get up and join him in the clouds.

“No one else knows these things.” What things? Well, things about the Snape backstory that no one knows except Ms Rowling and that Mr Rickman would soon be privy to. Backstory helps actors fill out a role. And that helps audiences understand what the heck is going on. Clearly, Mr Rickman was to convey what Snape was all about without revealing what Snape was all about. Can be done, but there’s a book I have that explains the backstory to all the characters in the Billy Bunter stories. Frank Richards was never so coy as J. K. Rowling. But, then, he had nothing to hide. Ms Rowling, on the other hand, reveals to Rickman the inner workings of his character “nervously” in the form of “a few glimpses”. Ms Rowling, why didn’t you just write the book and leave us wondering, instead of leaving both us and Mr Rickman wondering?

If you had been wondering, Robbie Coltrane took his name from John Coltrane, the jazz musician he so admired. I never knew until recently what “J. K.” meant, and now I at least know what “J.” means – the “K.’s” still a mystery deeper than Master Potter was. What confused me in all this Tolkien and Pottery was the entrances and exits of characters whose relevance escaped me except to say in the moment “Thou shalt not pass!” But, everything passes, and Mr Rickman passed in the end. In fact, Rickman’s finest moment for me came in an old, old, old (1991 is old, thank you) made-for-tv film called “Truly, Madly, Deeply”, about a cellist who divides her time between her neighbour come to repair the plumbing and her dead husband, played by Rickman, whilst occasionally playing her violoncello. It was one of the finest dramatic events I ever saw, and I find it fitting that Mr Rickman’s diaries are to be named in honour of that film. I shall buy them. And, perhaps just change my name to Rickman, as Robbie did for John. Whatever you call them, Mr Rickman’s diaries will have a whole world of another world in them.

The Guardian takes a peek in 11 years’ worth of Rickman here.

Looks like a couple of schoolboys joshing with their schoolmaster and an officious parent. And it was.