He was an amazing actor and could mimic anybody's voice. My

Host: The evening was painted in shades of blue and gold, a fading sunset bleeding across the river, its light catching the windows of an old theater that hadn’t known applause in years. The marquee letters had long fallen away, leaving only a ghostly outline of their former pride. Inside, the air smelled of dust, wood, and the faint memory of cigarette smoke — the kind that clings to ghosts of performance and passion.

At center stage stood Jack, hands in pockets, staring up at the curtain as if expecting it to rise on its own. Jeeny sat on a nearby chair, her legs crossed, her gaze fixed on him with that quiet, attentive warmth that made even silence feel conversational.

Outside, the city hummed like a distant orchestra warming up for a concert no one had paid to attend.

Jeeny: “Charley Boorman once said, ‘He was an amazing actor and could mimic anybody's voice. My sister Katrine was walking past one day and could hear our dad shouting and thought, “God, I won't go in that room!” but realised it was Nicol Williamson mimicking my father's voice perfectly.’”
She smiled, the kind of smile that hid admiration beneath curiosity. “Isn’t that incredible, Jack? To be able to sound like someone so completely that you become them?”

Jack: (chuckling) “Or terrifying. I don’t know if that’s talent or trickery. I mean, where’s the person beneath all the pretending?”

Jeeny: “Pretending?”
Her eyebrows lifted, almost playfully. “You think acting is pretending?”

Jack: “Of course it is. You wear someone else’s voice, someone else’s pain, someone else’s truth — for applause. That’s pretending with better lighting.”

Host: A faint draft drifted through the theater, fluttering old posters on the wall — faces of long-forgotten performers, forever captured mid-expression. The sound of the river outside mingled with the creak of floorboards as if the building itself were eavesdropping on their debate.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that what empathy is, Jack? The ability to feel someone else’s life — to walk inside their voice for a while?”

Jack: “Empathy isn’t mimicry. It’s understanding without imitation. What Nicol Williamson did — what actors do — it’s performance. Precision. It’s calculated emotion.”

Jeeny: (softly) “And what’s wrong with that? Don’t we all perform, every day?”

Host: Her words hung in the dusty air, heavy and sharp. The light caught her face — half in shadow, half illuminated — like truth caught between confession and defense.

Jack: “You sound like you’re quoting Shakespeare now.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Maybe I am. He said, ‘All the world’s a stage.’ And he wasn’t wrong. Look around — people mimic emotions they’re told to have. They laugh at parties when they’re lonely, they smile in meetings when they’re dying inside. The difference is, actors know they’re performing. The rest of us just pretend it’s real.”

Host: Jack looked down, his hands tightening in his pockets. The silence thickened, the kind that asks for truth rather than sound.

Jack: “That’s the problem, Jeeny. We’ve blurred the line between performance and person. When everyone’s performing — who’s left to be honest?”

Jeeny: “Maybe the performance is honesty, Jack. Maybe truth isn’t something pure and untouched — maybe it’s something we have to become.”

Jack: (raising an eyebrow) “You mean like Nicol Williamson becoming Charley Boorman’s father?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. He didn’t just copy his voice. He inhabited it. That’s more than imitation — it’s transformation. It’s what artists do. They turn understanding into embodiment.”

Host: The theater lights flickered faintly — a few bulbs humming back to life as if stirred by their words. The shadows on the walls seemed to lean closer, listening.

Jack: “Or maybe it’s possession.”
He took a step toward the stage. “When you lose yourself in another person’s voice — where do you end and they begin? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Jeeny: “Dangerous, yes. But that’s where the art lives — in that thin line between surrender and control. To mimic another’s voice is to admit they live in you somehow.”

Jack: “Or to admit you have none of your own.”

Jeeny: (sharply) “That’s not fair.”
Her voice cracked slightly, the emotion she rarely showed flickering through. “You think identity is so fixed — that being yourself means never shifting. But we’re built of echoes, Jack. Every word we’ve ever heard, every person who’s ever touched us — they shape our tone, our rhythm, our silence.”

Host: The sound of her breathing filled the quiet stage. The lights dimmed further, narrowing their world to the space between their eyes.

Jack: (after a pause) “You think that makes us real — being a collage of other people?”

Jeeny: “It makes us human.”
Her voice softened now, trembled like the whisper of a forgotten note. “We mimic the ones we love. We inherit their laughter, their sighs, even their pain. That’s how memory survives — through imitation.”

Host: The words lingered, delicate and devastating. Outside, a car horn blared and faded, swallowed by the night. Inside, time slowed — the air thick with revelation.

Jack: “You mean we’re all actors in someone else’s story.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, someone else becomes an actor in ours.”

Host: Jack turned toward the empty seats, imagining ghosts of audiences long gone. He could almost hear applause, faint but real — not for a performance, but for the honesty of it all.

Jack: “You know, my father used to quote lines from old war films. He’d recite them with such conviction, I thought they were his own words. Maybe that was his way of feeling brave. Maybe mimicry is how people survive when their own voice isn’t enough.”

Jeeny: (gently) “Then maybe that’s what Nicol Williamson was doing too — surviving by speaking through others. Maybe that’s what all artists do. They borrow voices until they find one that fits.”

Host: The lights rose slightly now, as if the theater approved of their fragile truce. A faint breeze from the broken window stirred the old curtain, and a dusting of gold light fell across the stage floor.

Jack: “So maybe the mimic isn’t a liar. Maybe he’s a mirror.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”
Her smile bloomed slowly, almost shyly. “And the best mirrors don’t just reflect — they reveal.”

Host: Jack looked at her for a long moment, then nodded — the smallest, most genuine gesture he’d made all night.

Jack: “You know, for once, I don’t want to argue.”

Jeeny: “That’s a first.”

Jack: “Yeah. Maybe I just realized that even when we argue, we’re mimicking something too — some older version of ourselves who used to need to win.”

Jeeny: (laughing softly) “Then let’s retire that script.”

Host: The stage lights dimmed, leaving only the glow of one single spotlight, resting where they stood — not as performers, but as people learning to speak in their own voices again.

Outside, the river kept moving — calm, reflective, endless. Inside, the two of them remained in that circle of light, their shadows touching, merging, indistinguishable.

And as the curtain finally swayed shut, the Host’s voice came softly, like the echo of truth itself:

Host: “Perhaps the greatest performance isn’t in mimicking others — but in learning how to sound like yourself after the echoes fade.”