A NEW LIFE:Nell Murphy left the world of acting and started a new career in cooking
WITH THEATRE in the blood, perhaps it was inevitable that Nell Murphy would one day carve out a life for herself on the stage. Her father is the playwright Tom Murphy, and while he may have influenced her initial career, for her subsequent career change into the catering business Murphy took her cue more from her mother's home-cooking, which she considers the best in the world.
It's been an eventful journey from stage fright in London to working to the point of exhaustion in Michelin-starred restaurants, yet Murphy feels that she has now found the right career path. For the moment she's as committed as she's ever been, she says.
Looking back, Murphy harboured an ambition to act for as long as she can remember: "It's something I wanted to do ever since I was a little child but I just don't think I was ever going to be as good as I wanted to be. I went to drama school in London, having been in Paris for a year after school, teaching English.
"The drama school - called the Guildhall - was pretty hard to get into, and quite difficult training, but an incredible experience. People like Daniel Craig were in my class, and Ewan McGregor was a year below me."
It was a time when physical theatre was beginning to emerge on the fringes of the London theatre scene, and Murphy became attracted to the freedom it offered. "The physical theatre hadn't quite come into its own yet, and I loved that aspect of work.
"I made my base in London but was coming back and forth between there and Ireland. My family were in Dublin, and the travel was hard. When I wasn't working I was signing on, and doing lots of odd jobs to keep me going, like running a little shebeen in Soho."
Nell Murphy remembers clearly the day she walked away from her career, ironically at a time when roles were coming her way in increasing volume. Yet, she was never fully satisfied by her life as an actor.
"About 10 years into the career I remember I was doing a show in London working with the actress June Browne, and I started to get terrible stage fright. It was really bad, and the play itself had difficult material - I was playing the part of a woman who had this horrible boyfriend who killed her. It was very physical and gruesome at the same time.
"I remember having to be literally pushed on stage. Once I got on I was fine, it was just the fear, and also the general malaise I was feeling about the medium. Acting is such a hard thing to do, that I think you have to be really consumed by it. I said to my agent after that I didn't want to do this any more - she tried to persuade me not to give up, as the work was coming in, but I had to leave it."
Following her decision to leave the acting world, Murphy picked up a variety of jobs, including organising parties, running clubs, and doing bits of PR work.
Having become well-known on the theatre scene, when a PR role became vacant at the Galway Arts Festival, she was suggested as an ideal candidate, and subsequently remained in the role part time for five years. "I had no real experience for the PR work, but I loved it. It was work that appealed to the actress in me, and it kept me involved in the arts and gave me a lot of confidence back. I was doing stuff like arranging photo shoots, talking to artists and arranging interviews with journalists and that type of thing.
"It was pretty hectic, with over 200 acts participating over a period of two weeks. I started off sending e-mails, but grew more into the role as time went on. Part of the job was also to make sure everyone was okay at night and that the festival club ran smoothly. So you could be working 18-hour days, but it was a great atmosphere."
Thanks to her mother, food had always played a big part in Murphy's life, and from time to time she found herself organising large parties or working in the catering industry in between jobs.
"I don't know anyone who has eaten my mother's cooking and doesn't think it's the best in the world," she says. "I grew up looking at her cooking but I suppose my older brother became more interested in it than me. But then after a while I began to see food as an art form, and I would get work cooking on film sets or on photo shoots and more and more it appealed to me."
Cooking began to play a larger role in Murphy's life, and she realised that she wanted to take her newfound passion to another level. She toyed with the idea of opening a restaurant in France, and after inheriting some money, decided to take a cordon bleu cooking course in the UK.
Following that she landed a role in the kitchen at the famous L'escargot restaurant in central London, an experience she describes as "terrifying, exhausting and exhilarating at the same time". Her life experience stood to her in the highly-charged kitchen atmosphere, and it proved a steep learning curve.
"I was paid pennies, and sometimes getting only three hours' a night, but I was also helping to create incredible food and learning so much. Yet, I knew from doing that, there was no way I could own my own restaurant.
"So I started thinking about one of my favourite food outlets, Sheridan Cheesemongers in Galway, and whether I could open something along those lines in London."
Murphy left the Michelin-starred environment of L'escargot to gain experience behind the counter of a deli in Holland Park in London. While working there, a shop became vacant in Brixton, near where she lived, and she decided the time was right to begin her own outlet.
Called Spoon, and located on New Park Road in Brixton, last week she celebrated her first year in business, and while it's not without its stresses, thus far the career switch appears to have paid off. "The business side of things has been the steepest learning curve. I was cooking, running the business and making sure the premises were in order all at the same time," she says. "This meant working 100 hours a week at the start, and luckily I found an incredible accountant who helped me a lot with the books, something I was never good at.
"My partner Mark has been an amazing help, and I don't think you can start up a business like this without the support of those closest to you. Also, when people see you are doing something for yourself, you get help from all sorts of places. People respond to your initiative I think."
Murphy has taken a 10-year lease on the premises, and the business is almost at break-even stage, something of a milestone, especially after only 12 months in operation. She makes her own foods, as well as pastries, and has built up a loyal customer base attracted to good home-cooking.
"I have found something I love, and of course there are times when I would love to phone in sick, but in general I get a real kick out of it and find it all consuming. So far so good then," she says.
