You Should Have Adventures: Martin Sherman on Acting for the First Time at 87

Liberace Candelabra. Credit: Jonathan Warren.

At 87, Martin Sherman is doing something he never expected to do professionally: stepping onto a stage as an actor.

Sherman has spent most of his life writing for theatre. His play Bent is regarded as one of the defining works of twentieth-century theatre, and its 50th anniversary is approaching.

Now, in I’ll Be Seeing You, he finds himself on the other side of the words, performing in his own play alongside Simon Russell Beale.

It is a very different position from the one he has occupied for most of his career. And it is something Sherman once thought he had left behind.

A Second Chance

Sherman studied acting at university, but the experience did not convince him to pursue it.

“The problem was I wasn’t any good,” he says. “I wasn’t at ease with myself. I didn’t really know who I was, and I wasn’t comfortable with myself. I wasn’t comfortable with my body. I wasn’t comfortable with anything about me, and you have to be in order to be a genuinely good actor. So I just wasn’t ready in any way.”

Nearly 70 years later, he has found himself back in front of an audience. Asked whether he feels ready this time, his answer is simple.

“Yeah.”

Living Inside Your Own Words

For a playwright, there is something unusual about performing a character you have created yourself. Sherman has spent a lifetime writing dialogue for actors, but this time he is responsible for saying the words as well as writing them.

“I don’t write to be read. I write to be acted, only to be acted,” he says.

That is part of what keeps drawing him back to theatre. Writing for the stage is ultimately about what happens when words are spoken, shared and experienced in the room.

“There’s a great joy in that, which you don’t really get in the same way on film, because it’s in pieces, and it’s different.”

After a career spanning theatre, film and television, Sherman does not overcomplicate the reason he keeps coming back.

“Because it’s bliss.”

Fra Fee and Martin Sherman in rehearsals. Credit: Olivia Attwooll-Keith.

The Long View

Sherman has had a career long enough to have seen productions celebrated, criticised and everything in between. One piece of advice has stayed with him. It came from his agent, the legendary Peggy Ramsey, after Messiah opened to mixed reviews. Sherman was preoccupied with the negative ones.

“Darling, you’ve got to stop this,” Ramsey told him. “It’s not about a production. What you have to think about is that you have a career.”

Sherman still considers it the best advice he ever received.

“It’s the long run.”

That idea feels particularly fitting now. At 87, after decades spent writing roles for other people, Sherman is taking on something he once decided was not for him.

“I’m very, very, very, very old,” he says. “And you should do things you’ve never done when you’re very, very, very old. You should have adventures.”

For Sherman, this is the latest one.

For more of Martin Sherman’s wisdom from this extended interview, and for more special photographs of Mr. Showmanship himself, Liberace, purchase an I’ll Be Seeing You programme, featuring this exclusive content.

Martin Sherman’s memoir, On The Boardwalk, is also available to purchase from our theatre shop, offering readers the opportunity to explore more of his life and remarkable career.

You Should Have Adventures: Martin Sherman on Acting for the First Time at 87

A Second Chance

Living Inside Your Own Words

The Long View

I’ll Be Seeing You runs from 22 Sep – 11 Oct 2026. Don’t miss it!