Merry Christmas from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

Isn’t this the best Christmas present?  2012 has been the year for unadulterated love of being British proudly stamping it with endless bunting.  We have pomped our way through the Diamond Jubilee, cried and cheered during the Olympics and adored the Queen for jumping out of a plane with James Bond.  Just as we were starting to get a bit depressed about vile journalism, horrified at Savile investigations and appalled by government Arts cuts or indeed the government in general, the Royal Family swoop back in and recover our patriotic spirit.

Kate is pregnant!!  Kate and Wills are gonna be parents!

Sorry...The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting a future monarch of England.  But they’re just so accessible and smiley that you feel that we can still call them Wills and Kate!

 

I have to admit I have spent much of 2012 wishing I could be more like Kate.  When you are the same age as somebody you cannot help but draw comparisons between your lives (Beyonce is also the same age as me but I had to give up those comparisons as the results left me feeling lardy and depressed at my lack of brilliant booty skills!)  But Kate seems to embody everything that we aspire to be; fabulous hair, ability to rock a winter coat and now she’s happily married with a little one on the way.  Give me Kate over Pippa’s bum and her questionable authorship skills any day.

Judging by the deluge of articles about morning sickness since Monday we can safely say that Kate’s pregnancy will be under scrutiny.  Do we really need to know “I had morning sickness too,” “I’ve been through what Kate’s going through,” “Is it twins?” because 9 months is a long time to read waffle.  Kate’s high-street chain wearing accessible-ness, plus the fact that she is baking a future King or Queen, means we have a vested interest in her pregnancy.  We’ve followed her from that catwalk outfit at Uni, through the brief break up and to her wedding.  But we do need to remember that having a first child is an intensely private thing between a young couple and must to refrain from tracking her weight gain, food cravings or circling her varicose veins in Heat! Magazine.

I saw a quote this week saying that poor Kate’s womb has been under pressure to perform since that kiss on the balcony last year.  We all know that wombs don’t work well under pressure; not since Henry VIII and his desire for an heir has there been so much speculation over Royal fertility!  Luckily, William seems slightly more relaxed about the sex of his heir so I don’t think there’ll be any heads rolling anytime soon.

The thing I love most about Kate Middleton is that she seems to transcend the default female behaviour of envy.  Women are sometimes quick to bitch or judge about a fellow female if they feel threatened by such gorgeous perfection.  We have all been guilty of it, that’s why I stopped my Beyonce age comparisons because it was taking me to a bad place and switched to Britney instead!  But with Kate, women seem to genuinely love her; my 31 year old self doesn’t be-wail my lack of a baby or husband in comparison or my short and dumpy to her tall and sleek.  We are thrilled that she is pregnant and wish her the best even though we know she will manage to glow for 9 months whereas we may balloon and sweat!

We don’t need to hear about swelling ankles or stretch marks because she has that old Hollywood glamour which prefers mystery to tabloid ‘no-holds barred’ gossip.

Let’s just hope that there are no French paparazzi around when she goes into labour.

A Sensitive Subject - Self Employment

Someone has made me cry today.  And it is their fault that I am now eating Ferrero Rocher in quick succession and snivelling over my laptop.  I wasn’t bullied in the playground and my boyfriend didn’t forget our anniversary; instead I have been judged and discarded by someone I don’t even know.

I should be used to that; as an actress I am not given jobs all the time because of my look, height or dodgy soprano notes and I have made my peace with that.  I have been building my armour against such personal affronts for over a decade but I have left a chink in it.  I forgot to create a thick skin against attacks on my finances.  I have been too busy hardening myself to comments about my weight, cast-ability and talent that I didn’t realise that people are also eager to judge me on what money I have.

Money is a sensitive subject to us all as we dip up and down in recessions and worry about being able to afford to put the heating on this winter.  But to a self-employed person talking money is like eating ice-cream when your teeth have never experienced Sensodyne toothpaste; discomfort verging on pain.

A finance company used by an estate agent were asked to get references about me when I applied to rent a new property.  Pretty standard - I have been renting since I was 18 and think that I have successfully managed to be a grown up, pay bills and rent each month despite my choice to be a self employed person.  This company didn’t want to take the word of my accountant who gave submitted my quite acceptable yearly earnings (probably on par with or more than the average admin staff at this firm) because my accountant didn’t belong to a cool accountant’s club.  So I was asked to scan every bank statement I have received since April and send it to them.  I know I am a sensitive soul who leans towards the dramatic sometimes but it felt like they were rooting about in my knickers drawer.  What right do they have to see how much I spend on groceries or petrol?

So today I get a call saying they deem me not to have sufficient funds to be able to pay rent.  I’m sorry?  There’s no hanging out in the red and I have regular income.  I have looked up the average national annual salary and I earn more than that, so how much should somebody earn to pay £450 rent a month?  I feel like they’ve picked up my oldest, grey-ist knickers from my private drawer and waved them about in public judging them not to be good enough.

 Self-employed people may be on a different tax code than “Ms Normal” but we still earn money.  It is just sporadic and we quickly learn how to do self-assessment, organise our wages and survive on baked beans for 3 days.  We may get thousands one month and less another but it all still works out to be the same as anyone else so I’ll be damned if some assistant is going to make me feel unworthy because the way I earn money looks different on paper.  I suspect that many people’s bank account aren’t ‘desirable’ at the moment but they still manage to stay afloat.

Sorry to rant but I find it upsetting; don’t judge something unless you fully understand it.  I don’t scrutinise where Ms Office Clerk spends her regular monthly income or whether she runs up credit card bills on Amazon as she sits at a desk from 9-5.  So why should she question my choice, to be in an admittedly unstable career, because to be honest I have managed much larger bills in the past and don’t intend to stop now.

I currently look like this - although with a mouthful of Ferrero Rocher!

Money clearly is my button pusher ‘du jour!’  I normally smile and let criticism wash over me by allowing myself to reason with it.  So why the tears and the soap box rant?  Why do I feel so personally attacked?  Tell me I can’t play Elphaba in Wicked because green isn’t my colour or I sing like a fornicating fox and I’ll accept that gracefully but tell me I can’t move into a house with boyfriend because you’ve raked through one current account of mine and my inner lioness is ready to fight.  Or at least ready to weep tears of frustration.

I guess my point it that sometimes you need to look at the bigger picture and not just be seen to tick a box.  Things are never just black or white and you can be a more tolerant and nicer person if you just accept the grey.

I just can't get you out of my head!

I was recently battling through the London Underground during rush hour half asleep but wholly agitated.  As I waded through the stone-faced commuters I found myself singing “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” in my head – it came from nowhere and I managed the whole song before exiting the turnstile.

It was only when listening to a programme on Radio 4 by Shaun Keaveny (Granny Dani has a new favourite thing, I’m now too old even for Radio 2!) that I realised that this Chitty incident was actually an attack of a well-known affliction. 

Earworms.

The word conjures up both comedy and gross images and it made me chuckle.  Now you know me, I love learning something new, so I got straight onto Google and found out..........that I was the last to know about this ailment.

Good ol’ Wikipedia defines an earworm as “a piece of music that sticks in one's mind so that one seems to hear it, even when it is not being played.......a type of song that typically has a high, upbeat melody and repetitive lyrics that verge between catchy and annoying.”

Radio 6 Music presenter Shaun Keaveny has been collecting his listeners’ earworms for three years and has now teamed up with a psychologist and Goldsmiths University to try “unearth” (ha-ha) why people become infected and which songs may be the most “earwormy.”  The Radio 4 programme was fascinating; explaining the high risk situations when these worms can attack such as when we’re doing boring, repetitive activities, early or late in the day or when we are stressed.  I love the idea of a song worming away through your head and what that reveals about your subconscious. 

Without going into too much detail of my medical history, I have found that I seem to suffer from these earworm invasions when I am stressed (see above; in rush hour) or as Frank Sinatra would say, “in the wee small hours.”  I am sure this is common; who hasn’t lain in bed all snuggled up only to find an earworm snuggling up in your brain and gnawing away at your sanity.

My most random experience has to be when I had to have a brain scan:  I found myself in a backless hospital gown being reversed into the long white cylinder and told to “relax” which I can assure you is impossible when you people are peering into your brain.  Well, for some strange reason as I attempted to “relax” and focus on every yoga class I’d ever attended these words entered my head:  “Is it worth a-waiting for, If we live till 84, All we ever get is gru-el.”  It was like a chant over and over again until (inwardly) I broke into the chorus “Food, Glorious, Food, Hot sausage and mustard.....”  Now, I’ve never been in Fagin’s gang nor had I recently watched the film Oliver! or auditioned for the show so why the f&*k was THAT song my earworm in the middle of a brain scan?  What must my reading have looked like?  I am surprised that the nurses didn’t wheel me straight down the corridor to the psychiatric unit or point me towards the nearest Actor’s Retirement Home.

A print out from my MRI scan!

For that occasion my earworm wasn’t annoying but some kind of subconscious safety mechanism. 

According to research by James Kellaris, 98% of individuals experience earworms. Women and men experience them equally often, but earworms tend to last longer for women and irritate them more.  Apparently there are certain groups of people who are more vulnerable to an earworm attack and creative people who work with music are one of them, so as a female musical theatre performer, I instantly fall into the “more vulnerable to an outbreak” category.  Add into the mix that people who sing along with the radio or on their own are even more susceptible and I can only be a one-woman epidemic.  My boyfriend recently exclaimed as I danced around the kitchen “You sing ALL the time!”  I am oblivious to this although his point was proved when I visited my parents and heard my Dad constantly singing or rapping to himself and I found myself joining in or harmonizing from upstairs!  Perhaps it is a genetic or learnt condition?

Researchers at Goldsmith’s University investigated which songs were classic earworms and ABBA’s Waterloo was near the top.  I didn’t need a scientist to tell me that; after years of performing the Mamma Mia! megamix I would get the tube to Waterloo Station, see the sign, and start singing that song again on a loop until the early hours.  As if an 8 show week wasn’t enough!

The words “affliction,”“infected” and “contagious” sound rather dramatic and don’t help with their image but supposedly these earworms are harmless and won’t do us any damage but try telling me that when you have the 2^nd alto line of Mmm Bop! in your brain at 4am; you certainly feel like reaching for a brown paper bag or phoning the NHS helpline then!

So if a scientist was to study me and my earworms would they conclude that I reach to childhood songs in times of stress to remember an innocent, stress-free time or do I simply yearn to live in a musical?  Either way I’m going to embrace my earworms, welcome them in and perhaps dance along in the kitchen to the dismay of my boyfriend.  It seems the healthy option!

All together now.....”Oh you Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, pretty Chitty Bang Bang we love you!”

Are books becoming Kindle-ing for the fire?

I was waiting to go into an audition on Friday leafing through pages of a printed out script praying that one last peruse would make the lines go in.  A fellow auditionee came in; we made the usual pleasantries “Hiya,” “What time are you in?” “Weren’t the tubes a nightmare...” and went back to our scripts. 

There were three major differences between me and my fellow auditonee; 1) He was a boy 2) He was at least a decade younger than me and 3) His script was on an iPad.  As I shuffled paper, he scrolled, I thumbed pages and he touch-screened.

Now I know this isn’t unheard of; up-to-date media is compulsory for us all nowadays even Granny Dani has succumbed to an iPhone and will happily list the benefits, but this is the first time I have seen a lack of paper in a ramshackle audition room.  I have always secretly thought that the acting profession was still slightly in the dark ages but maybe that’s just me?

I have an undisclosed love of books, scripts and all things paper.  My bookshelves are bursting and I dream of one day having a library with floor to ceiling books, a classic green banker’s lamp and perhaps even a ladder so I can whoosh about like Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, but I digress....

"There must be more than this cyber liiiiiiiiife.."

I appreciate the advantages of iPads and Kindles and although I won’t march to Parliament opposing goggle-eyed screen gazing, I won’t get one myself.  I have an on-going spat with my brother-in-law who has embraced his Kindle and the variety it provides whilst I constantly disparage it by buying him endless paperbacks for his birthday!  Our whole lives are online; we work online, bank online, watch TV and can even find our soul-mate so I feel loathed to read books from a screen too. 

My A-Level English tutor taught me to appreciate the old fashioned book showing me there is nothing better than the tangible quality of being able to hold something that is definite and real.  I wish I hadn’t sniggered along with everybody else as he grabbed a nearby tome, fanned its pages and inhaled deeply exclaiming “Oh yummy yummy books,” because Mr Jones, you may find me doing something similar now!

There could be a balancing act between the two

I am totally aware of my hypocrisy as I write this via an online blog and as an aspiring writer I might, too, one day be swayed by self-publishing and eBooks.  EBooks are increasingly becoming the way to get your writing “in print” and has opened up a whole new world of freedom where a writer is not controlled by an editor.  In August of this year Amazon announced that eBook sales surpassed regular hardbacks and paperbacks for the first time in Britain; an expected and realistic statistic but it makes me shudder. 

 I mourn that my un-born children may not have a library of encyclopedias for homework or a stack of books for bedtime stories; I could retain prehistoric paperbacks at home but then they’d be the bullied kids who didn’t have the latest gadget.

Yes I am old-fashioned; my room is full of printed out audition scenes, old magazines and bank statements but I’d go around writing with a quill if I could.  I may turn out to be the Mum whose kids have to have secret Kindle session beneath their duvets or I may download my next audition script and “get down”, sorry, “scroll” down like all the cool kids .

I shall leave the final word to a proper published author, Jilly Cooper, who when asked if she’d ever buy a Kindle said, “you can’t drop it in the bath and the idea of going on holiday with 1,000 books is so depressing, I mean, you wouldn’t have time to get off with anyone would you?”

‘Nuff said!

Phillip Schofield - know your place

Many a true word is spoken in jest; there is an old quote from a Harry Enfield and Chums sketch “Women! Know Your Place.”  Although a woman’s place is now wherever she so pleases, there is an element of truth behind accepting what your place is.

As an actress you have to accept your place; not as a lower class citizen as believed about the first actresses in London but what our ‘cast-ability’ truly is.  We are judged by our looks, talents and niche and the sooner you accept what your cast-ability is the happier your audition life will be.  I may want to be Nala in The Lion King but I have to face facts that it is never going to happen.

Similarly, Phillip Schofield may want to be the next hard-hitting journalist hack but it ain’t gonna happen.  His place is as a warm, friendly, popular culture television presenter; we want to see him giggling uncontrollably with Holly Willoughby about phallic shaped parsnips not leading a campaign against the government.

from The Telegraph

I have always been a fan of the Silver Fox from the gopher, to loin cloths to the This Morning sofa but I think he got it wrong yesterday.  I suspect it was the This Morning editorial team/producers with Panorama aspirations that pushed this idea with dreams of Daytime TV seen to front the campaign against cover ups and paedophilia.  But they need to remember that This Morning is exactly that – “Daytime TV.”

It can be argued that David Cameron was booked as a guest so therefore This Morning was obliged to cover hard hitting topics (he was booked to discuss Dementia) however, it is doubtful that Downing Street’s PR team book the Prime Minister on such television shows for an in-depth debate.  The purpose of these appearances is surely to display how in touch he is with the people of the UK - those ironing at 11am and those waiting to hear from auditions although wherever he is, interviewed, David Cameron should expect to answer tough quesitons.  Debate and confrontation is welcome in all kinds of television and I am not insinuating that daytime viewers don't have opinions and a desire to share them but such acts must be done in the right setting.

The act of Phillip Schofield handing over a list of Tory names allegedly linked to child molestation claims to David Cameron has been called a “silly, tabloid stunt,” and I have to agree.  It wasn’t a presentation of well thought-out research, documentation or a manifesto but a list scribbled on a cue card that Phil said he “had got off the internet” the night before; his turn of phrase cheapened the act before he even handed it over. 

You don't wanna laugh but......image from http://unitedshadesofbritain.wordpress.com/

This conversation and David Cameron’s calm response obviously went viral over the Internet within hours; everyone had an opinion or a mock up-photo to tweet.  I am loathed to say it but I think the government are right to warn against “trial by Twitter.”  Response and opinion can be created so quickly online by any number of people and although there are so many advantages to the cyber world, it is right to be wary of this force, too.  Specualtion is expected but we must be careful of creating lists about such a scandalous and sensitive subjects without documented evidence.  Tom Chivers has written a great comment in The Telegraph blog today about this, citing how people are “incredibly prone to groupthink” and prompting us to remember the “name and shame campaign” of The News of the World a few years ago prompting vigilante behaviour against paedophilia.  He makes some throught-provoking points, take a look http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/tomchiversscience/

So Phil, you were a lovely Joseph but since I have accepted that I cannot audition for the blonde, leggy Ulla in The Producers, you need to accept that you cannot audition to be Jeremy Paxman – it would confuse the Dancing on Ice viewers.

Christmas Countdown - Oh Yes it is!

Bonfire Night has whizzed away but there’s no time to mourn the smouldering village bonfires or rocket wrappers on the ground; Christmas is less than 50 days away!

Supermarkets and catalogues have been chucking festive food in our faces since August bank holiday but we’re just catching tentatively booking turkeys and choosing which 2013 calendar to buy, (Cliff Richard for me every time!) I love Christmas and I got my first anticipatory tinsel shivers when the Christmas edition of Red Magazine arrived in the post.  Every magazine is packed with festive outfits, recipes and stocking fillers in their November edition which although seems premature can actually fuel our yuletide anticipation.

Yes I'd look daft in any of these
but they're still Xmas "must haves!"

But as I read each page I felt slightly despondent; does everyone really have so many parties to go to that we must buy 3 sequined tops?  Who are the people with these busy social seasons and time to make canapés and drink champagne? Do we all have a lazy two weeks free to fill with family walks and tins of Quality Street?  I dream of having that fantasy Christmas seen in magazines, not the one you see depicted annually in Albert Square, but sadly, my inner 5 year old rattling presents on Christmas Eve is quashed by the working adult.

 

You see, I can only aspire to mince pie and port parties in a sparkly outfit because I am an actress and I haven’t had a proper Christmas since 2002.  Christmas is the one time of the year that actors are mostly in work; our agents’ bank accounts soar as we don thigh-high boots, jerkins and villagers outfits across the country in pantomime.

You can’t get more Christmassy than yelling “It’s behind you,” I hear you cry so, yes, we do indulge in the Christmas spirit but in a very different way to the Christmas in magazines.  Actors are the only humans not to gain weight during Christmas; the twice sometimes thrice daily performances guarantee that mince pies will not cling to your hips but the downside is the bags under your eyes get bigger and darker with each passing finale.

Our festive families become the 14 new faces at the first day of rehearsals and the 3 groups of local dance school children who supply the cards, homemade treats and cuddles in case we get homesick.  Christmas drinking partners can’t be your old chums in the local so instead it’s eggnog with Buttons, Abanazar and a celebrity or two to sign your autograph book. 

Replace this image with character shoes, berocca and 2litre Evian - that's more like it!

We may have the nightly festive night cap or company meal but most of the season is spent planning the drive home on Christmas Eve so that we can spend 24 hours under our family’s Christmas tree before heading back up the M1 at 6am on Boxing Day for the matinee.  Note to all patrons; it may be an English tradition to visit the pantomime on Boxing Day but more fool you.  Snow White and her seven dwarfs will either be shattered from an 8 hour round trip in the car, hungover, still drunk or just plain miffed that their families are enjoying a Boxing Day buffet whilst we are re-heating turkey in the green room microwave in-between shows.  A merry matinee it isn’t; the best time to see pantomime is Christmas Eve when we’re all full of Cadbury’s Yule Logs and anticipation to jump into our cars parked opposite stage door!

Even if an actor is in a West End job there still isn’t the chance of living up to the magazine Christmas; evenings are spent onstage instead of at parties and the “Company Christmas Do” is usually in January when the show schedule quietens down and room rental is cheaper.  The only people you see in sequins post New Year’s Eve are drag queens so you usually end up in an old frock like any other old night out to save face.

Everyone loves a fairytale wedding!

 Despite all this I have always loved working over Christmas and have many happy festive memories of children’s faces lit up by over-priced colourful wands as they shout and scream at the stage.  But I have opted to have a “normal person” Christmas this year; I am determined to attend a Christmas ‘do’, see friends and spend quality (street) time with precious family.  But like all plans well made.....my other half is still doing panto in Torquay, so I’ll still be spending much of the holiday season driving up and down the M5 to see him. “You can take the actress out of the pantomime.....”

 

But maybe I’ll do it wearing a sparkly outfit and munching Waitrose canapés!

Have we all been "Brand"ed?

"Ouch!"

Before you jump to conclusions I haven’t got a burnt image on my bottom like a cow’s hide in the Wild West or succumbed to the effects of Russell like many a female starlet, but I’m marvelling at the pull of big market brands on us all.

I heard yesterday that the town of Totnes in Devon had successfully fought off an application from Costa Coffee to set up a branch in their high street.  “In yer face big soulless corporation!”  They wanted to preserve the independent businesses culture found in the town and, for once, the corporation listened and retracted the bid.  It must have been a hard fight for they succeeded where so many have failed; I am sure Tesco wouldn’t have been so humble, they seem happy to jump into the empty grave of a pub with tactless haste.

I like to think that I am all for local businesses and independent traders; I recently found a stunning local cafe in Twickenham called LuLu'z (@LuluzTwickenham) and will thwart bigger chains on the high street for their comfortable sofas and epic cake selection.  But I have to hold my hands up and say that this has not always been the case and I can’t promise I will never be seen holding a Starbucks Chocolate Chunk Shortbread again, (to the detriment of local business and my hips.)  For no matter how much tax certain companies get out of paying, a trip to a coffee chain is like going home for your Mum’s roast; it is familiar, comforting and you know what you’re going to get.

We have become creatures of habit blinded by brands and scared to go out of our comfort zone.  I have previously joked that the touring cast of Avenue Q should have been given shares in Marks & Spencer’s Food Hall but the same can be said for any touring actor; despite our meagre wages we rely on Fuller for Longer microwave meals and ready to eat prawns.  We all gravitate like Lemmings to the Starbucks or Costa in any town and are quick to label certain towns as “dumps” if they have yet to open a recognisable coffee house, “Oh how I miss London,” we lament.  As much as I spent hours trying to explore each town and find spots of local interest, I would collapse in a recognisable chair full of crumbs in a franchise brand and drink green tea because it was familiar. 



When you are working away anything that is recognisable becomes a comfort and lessens the miles between you and home.  I shamefully remember sitting in a Starbucks in every German town I visited on the Mamma Mia! tour instead of sampling the local cafe culture, but perhaps the fact that I was fake-tanned like a tangerine in deepest winter is the more shameful part of that memory. 

 

Or as they say in Germany "Ich liebe es!"

Another tangerine dancer friend was worse; he would screech “The Golden Arches!” in his Glaswegian drawl as our coach drove through a new town, because seeing a MacDonald’s meant he could eat for the next 14 days.  Was he a heathen sucked in by corporation brands or just homesick and unable to swallow any more Kartofflen and sauerkraut?

 

Like it or not, we have all succumbed to branding and I think it would be an interesting experiment to see if we could last a week without having any brands in our life at all.  I am not sure if I could – my friends would certainly miss the fake name game that is the current trend when visiting a Starbucks.  Could we be as angelic as the inhabitants of Totnes and really fight for local culture instead of just chat about our gripes over a Costa cappuccino?  Or are we allowed to have this modern human weakness for soulless but safe beverages that always taste the same from Tyneside to Truro?

But what about poor Martin from Totnes?  He contacted a radio programme discussing the fight against Costa and said, “I would have quite liked to have a Costa here, I like their coffee!”  Spare a thought for that lemming who will have to get on a bus to Newton Abbott for his caramel latte.

Read all about it! - What goes on tour stays on tour

Oh dear Gareth!  It must be a slow news day, despite more pressing headlines such as the murder charges against Mark Bridger the celeb gossip section exploded with another alleged affair between the married Gareth Gates and an on-stage co-star.

I say “another” because he was caught out in his last touring musical, Les Miserables, and now his wife seemingly has to endure more headlines about his alleged musical theatre infidelities.  Post Levenson, we are all aware of the underhand tactics certain parts of the press will take to find (or create) a scoop and having personally witnessed such vile antics I am not quick to believe anything I read. Despite the likelihood that these rumours and photos are creating something out of nothing, it got me thinking about my experiences of the musical theatre tour bubble and the effect it can have on your “normal” life.

Being on tour as an actor is not unlike a 12 month work conference at an out-of-town Holiday Inn or the Christmas party in the office world; all routine situations, morals and sense become skewed.  Behaviour or feelings that you wouldn’t even register in your normal life become available and accepted in what can only be described as a bubble.  It is only you and your cast mates with the routine of daily gym visits, trips to the local Nandos and in-jokes.  The bubble grows over a contract and suddenly bursts on the last performance and you happily return to your normal life, as I hope Mr Gates can do if it is intact.

Bubbles are beautiful but they always burst

Over my 11 years as a professional actress I have played all the roles in this set-up.  I have been the partner left at home trying to understand the closeness between virtual strangers with jealous inclinations threatening a relationship and more recently, I have been the partner away working.  It is probably because I have learnt from what I have witnessed or experienced in the past that I did everything in my power to keep my relationship my priority this time.  Not wanting my other half to know what it feels like to wait by a phone when the curtain has gone down and to know that I would always choose coming home over Saturday night bevvies.  The one thing that flummoxed me in today’s article was the fact that the Gates’ show was playing Wimbledon and he was seen heading to the digs of his co-star instead of travelling the few miles home to West London.  If they were in a far flung city it is easier to comprehend socialising after a show but to me when you are performing in a venue near home it is a no-brainer; surely you rush back to your wife and child?

I have also seen the damage resulting from a young cast member basking in the light of the affections of a leading man.  It is more intoxicating than Doctor Footlights himself, the feeling of being chosen, special and by their side.  You start to live your on-stage romance for real with all the glamour and enticing angst that it entails and once you add a hint of celebrity to the mix then it becomes a lethal cocktail.

What is it that makes actors fall for each other?  Why should kissing someone on-stage every night suddenly become an off-stage activity lit only by the flashing call from your spouse on a mobile phone?  You spend 3 years at drama school learning “how to act,” so why are some people unable to keep their emotions separate from the acting?  Just because your character falls in love with your co-star doesn’t mean you, the actor, also has to; kissing someone for a living shouldn’t distort reality.  Most actors acknowledge it is actually quite a disconcerting and embarrassing thing to do, especially TV actors who are more worried about hitting marks and the technicalities of such scenes.

It is possible to have a dramatic kiss without the drama

And yet it is such a common story; two leading actors falling in love.  Obviously sometimes in-cast relationships can work but both parties being previously unattached always helps; certain people still hate Angelina for ‘stealing’ Brad from Jennifer but we celebrate the union of Greg Wise and Emma Thompson because as far as we know, no-one’s feelings were hurt.  I spent a whole pantomime season spouting my wisdom about touring bubbles to my leading man turn partner and have thankfully been proved wrong, plus the fact that we have been married on stage over 100 times also lets him off the hook for a bit!

But when the two characters are not totally single it can be awful, even for the rest of the people in the tour bubble.  You have to see the visiting spouse whilst knowing it is not your place to reveal the certain events you were privy to in a recent Wetherspoons, everybody is put in an awkward position. 

For the majority of “jobbing actors” such mistakes are made out of the media glare but that is sadly not the case for somebody with a celebrity status.  The theatre world is a small one; everybody quickly learns of your business without the aid of The Daily Mail and sadly the characters in both the latest scandal and the Les Miserables rumours surrounding Gates are known either by me or by many of my colleagues.  Some may be outraged and protective over the allegations others may be nodding knowingly, either way it leaves a horrid taste in your mouth.

Whether the speculation is true or not, it can’t have been nice reading for Mrs Gates or a proud moment for the actresses’ parents.  The press seems to forget that real life relationships are not as easily resolved as the ones we portray on stage. 

See for yourself;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2214005/Gareth-Gates-gets-close-star-number-2.html

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single actress in possession of her audition folder must be in want of a treat!

I am heartily disappointed in Starbucks.  Not as part of an anti-commercialism vendetta, I love to support a local business but I don’t pretend you won’t see me in a Nero or Costa.  The reason for my annoyance with Starbucks and Co is that they, like many other eateries, have now put the calorie content on the signs next to their treats.

hmmmm....well done me!

So I now know that my favourite Chocolate Chunk Shortbread is a calorific 497 calories with a heart-clogging 18g of fat – it is only the size of my hand and yet it constitutes a whole meal and a half with enough fat to insulate a small bear through winter.  I wish I didn’t know the full horrors of the shortbread because that biscuit was my audition treat and now I have to think twice before I part with my £1.75.

Audition treat, I hear you ask? 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single actress in possession of her audition folder must be in want of a treat. 

A post-audition treat to be precise; I’m sorry Ms Austen for bastardising your wonderful words but I’m sure even you would crave some sugary satisfaction after a particularly hard meeting with an editor!

For some strange reason I feel obligated to reward myself after an audition as if the two minutes of singing to strangers is enough cardio to warrant it!  I like to think that it's a reward for the whole process – from the phone call from your agent, to the frantic hunt for sheet music, maybe a trip to Chappells to buy a £25 compilation just to use one song, the early rising for vocal warm ups in the shower, the anxiety that lives with you all day until the 4.45pm call time to the final two minutes of screeching inappropriately to a panel who are mentally already on their trains home.  Phew!  You see a reward is clearly needed.

I am not the only one on this reward scheme; so many female friends do similar things.  Starbucks is a habitual recurrence in their admissions perhaps because there literally is one of every corner especially near London rehearsal rooms.  One drama school colleague goes for the cinnamon swirl, another prefers a chocolate muffin.  A dear friend of mine went to an open audition for The Lord of The Rings musical and after queueing since dawn and managing to sing 16 bars of Meadowlark in a different key to the one played by the accompanist she ended up in Haagen Daz in Leicester Square.  Whilst weeping to her Mum down the phone she nursed an ice-cream sundae, her reward for getting through such a trauma until one of those pesky Leicester Square pick-pockets, a pigeon, came and swiped it.  Obviously the weeping became wailing and a bad day became worse, the pigeon had denied her the one good thing about her day!

These Ballet-Boyz at an open audition don't look the types for beer or cakes!
from guardian.co.uk

This post was prompted by a conversation whilst rehearsing The Last Five Years that opens tonight.  My character Cathy has a song called “Climbing Uphill” where we see her audition disasters recounted over dinner with her Dad.  I suggested that she may have some kind of junk food because after a bad audition ALL actresses eat rubbish; this observation was met with confusion by the others!  But they trusted me (probably because of my 11 years worth of experience of bad auditions and chubby thighs!) and we now have Cathy munching a McDonalds whilst singing about going to the gym.  This does seem to be a predominantly female reward scheme, when I have mentioned this to other male theatre friends they look at me incredulously.  “No,” they reply with confusion, “well, I suppose I do go and have a pint.” Ah ha! We all do it but in the “Men are from Mars, Woman are from Venus” way!

This behaviour may worry nutritionists and is probably classified as emotional comfort-eating.  There are countless articles and books about how to stop emotional eating and the dangers to your health and well-being.  I read a scary article on this subject titled “You’re not a dog, so don’t act like one.”  This kind of reward eating is like drooling for a bone but it also harks back to childhood routines (what kind of psychotherapy doesn’t?!) where we were given treats if we were quiet/tidied our room/did well at school.  So perhaps the answer isn’t switching my Starbucks for fruit or nuts but in fact re-training my brain to think I actually don’t require a reward for doing my job!

I personally have to curb this kind of behaviour not only because my metabolism is now over 30 years old and therefore on shut down, but mainly because what if I suddenly have 5 auditions in one week? 

The anxiety + 2485 Starbucks calories = one week nearer to being air-lifted out of my house by crane on one of those daytime programmes. 

Actually, who am I kidding, what actor or actress has 5 auditions a week nowadays?  Sadly in today’s climate we are more likely to get 5 every 6 months so with my brain re-training and this lull in auditions I may finally be able to kick the habit.

So as I go into ‘tr-eating’ rehab the only person who will suffer is Mr Starbucks; without us emotional eating actors you’ll only have the yummy mummy’s for your profit margins and they’re always on diets!

 

In case you want to read that scary article, here it is http://www.limitless365.com/2012/08/27/youre-not-a-dog-so-why-act-like-one-food-as-a-reward/

Speech Making - It's Testing 1,2,3 -

I’ve been asked to make a speech at my old drama school for the newly enrolled students and I am terrified.  My immediate reaction is what do I have to say to 75 slightly pissed students at the end of Fresher’s week?

I am hardly an enticing alumni option; they could have had Michael Ball, Brenda Blethyn or even Beppe from Eastenders. Young people these days aren’t impressed by normalcy, they want to hear words of wisdom from someone ‘off the telly’ or at least from the final 10 of a TV talent search, not some West End understudy who they’ll all probably meet in an audition dance call in 2015 for “High School Musical 7 – the Adult Ed Years.” 

I haven’t made a speech since I entered a debating competition for my Year 9 English class.  I discussed the merits of co-ed education against single sex schools reading my cue cards and shaking like a leaf.  I, like many actors, would rather perform to 1,000 people in a darkened auditorium than for 5 in my lounge.  There is something safe about hiding behind a character, a costume and somebody else’s words.  I feel vulnerable and metaphorically naked having to stand and orate alone, thank god I’ll never have to make a best man’s speech.

I could lie on the psychologists couch and discuss why actors are so insecure and more comfortable as characters than in their own skin but that would make you all scroll down to the end!  Bloody actors trying to understand themselves again!  It’s blindingly obvious that we crave the applause as some kind of validation for our life choice and have a peculiar childhood bond with the dressing-up box.

Freudian problems aside, I am rubbish at making speeches.  I talk at 100mph, gabbling like a toddler on amphetamines, I physically shake and I will probably be unable to see over whatever lectern or stand they give me, thus losing any gravitas or authority.  Should I open with a joke about an actress and a bishop to endear myself or should I give a parental lecture about the effects of alcohol and promiscuous sex?  I could go for the tough love approach and start with that classic line “99% of actors are out of work at one time,” which will have them reaching for razor blades or maybe “if you are prepared to sell your soul, morals and dignity you could be Jesus/Maria/Joseph.” 

All together now...."I'm sorry, I'm sorry.."

I could use the old trick and imagine my audience all naked but I feel like that’s just a bit pervy or I could watch endless footage of Martin Luther King or Hitler for tips on capturing a crowd.  I could take some tips from politicians when speech-making; use staccato arm gestures and big pauses between points.  Or perhaps I could auto-tune my voice and speak-sing it to a beat box track a la Clegg?

No, I want people to take me seriously. 

Looks like I will have to rely on being myself.  These students may have a greater photo opportunity with Michael Ball or Beppe for their Facebook page but I hope I can impart a bit of realism.  I believe that the majority of these students will work as actors but few will reach the dizzy heights of stardom so to hear how I survive as a jobbing actress might be of some value. 

So I just need to take a deep breath and natter away like I would to you guys, if not, I’ll down a bottle of plonk and then there’ll be 76 pissed actors in the room!

Me and Jason Robert Brown - The Last Five Years

Jason Robert Brown - composer and
and writer of The Last Five Years

I have never felt good enough for Jason Robert Brown, well his material anyway!  Perfect casting you may think for the insecure, struggling actress, Cathy, in The Last Five Years whose personal demons contribute to the downfall of her marriage to Jamie, as shown in Guildford Fringe’s production in October. 

As an actress you spend years learning your niche; I know I suit a Rogers and Hammerstein style musical and can get away wearing rags on a barricade whilst lyrically dying in the French revolution but playing a modern 20-something actress in a failing relationship?  Well that sounds far too close to home and for some bizarre reason I feel much more comfortable playing a Yellow Bad Idea Bear in Avenue Q.  See, we actresses are complex and downright daft sometimes!   The challenge of ‘The Last Five Years’ (L5Y) is to attempt complex music, emotions and have enough chutzpah about you to hold a stage; I always felt those roles were best left to better known performers like Julie Atherton or Hannah Waddingham, not little jobbing actresses like me.  But after conquering ‘Avenue Q’s Kate Monster, a role synonymous with Atherton in the UK, I thought it was about time I got a bit of self-belief!

Putting my personal insecurities aside, Jason Robert Brown does write challenging music for both performer and musician.  Audition pianists shoot eye daggers at you if you dare to bring any of his songs to sing and after The Guildford Fringe’s first sing through last week of L5Y I nearly requested oxygen and a stretcher to take me home after a knackering rendition of “Summer in Ohio!”



performed by The Guildford Fringe Company October 2nd - 6th 2012

Jason Robert Brown exploded into my consciousness when I was a drama student in the distant early naughties.  Like any student, drama students lap up new material, wanting to be at the cutting edge of knowledge in their beloved subject.  I had a dear friend and roommate, Rochelle, who hailed from the glamorous New York City and who, along with tales of serving Al Pachino as a waitress and buying bras with Bernadette Peters, introduced me to new musical theatre composers including Jason Robert Brown.  She enthused about his work and slowly songs from ‘Parade’ and ‘Songs for a New World’ crept into to our presentation classes, (singing a different song each week for critique, it was terrifying!)

We shunned Rogers and Hammerstein and Jerry Herman for ‘Taylor the Latte Boy’ and ‘John and Jen’ because we wanted to put our own stamp on something, not be the 3,603^rd student to sing ‘Summertime.’  Little did we know that every other student across the country was doing the same thing, but then isn’t that is nearly always the case? Anything new is very quickly picked up and becomes a trend; just look at 50 Shades of Grey, although I won’t compare the writing talents of Jason Robert Brown to that inane idea of prose and fortunate result of an incredible but mis-placed marketing campaign.

Someone in Guildford said to me that there is ‘a type of person’ who would appreciate L5Y, and who would that be - that specific and rare breed of human who has been involved in a relationship with another person?  Because that is everyone at some stage of their lives.  I want to banish all these beliefs that certain musicals are just for ‘elite’ musical fans or a certain type of audience. 

photo by Anthony Illott

I will be so bold as to say that there will not be a person in our audience who hasn’t felt or said at least one of the lyrics that Nick Wyschna and I will attempt to convey in L5Y.   That is why Jason Robert Brown is so clever; he has made a universal topic specific to this one couple, because when ‘it’ happens to you, you do feel as if you are the only person in the world to feel such joy or pain.  So how can this musical be just for the musical-loving elite?  Yes, we all have different musical tastes; some preferring a well-known ballad to the intricate melodies of Sondheim that can be hard to follow, but listen to the lyrics of any song to connect to it. 

When plays and musicals tackle the fundamental elements of being a human they can appeal to us all, whether you are a musical snob or a fan of Dirty Dancing, because human nature doesn’t change.  The new advert for John Lewis has that exact sentiment “the things that really matter do not change” and that is one of the main reasons why Shakespeare’s plays persevere because we will all, forever, be plagued with jealousy, love, friendship, family differences and the need to belong.  I am not suggesting that Jason Robert Brown is the Shakespeare of musicals but he writes characters and stories that we can all relate to and that is why L5Y affected me so much at 20 and affects me more so at 31.  I couldn’t relate to “I’m Still Hurting” at 20 (although I thought I could) but a few relationships down the pan 11 years later and who needs Stanislavski!

I hope we do see lots of drama students in the audience eager to see this revered piece but also see the average theatre go-er who is eager, as always, to see the L5Y “hold as ‘twere  the mirror up to nature....”...that Shakespeare knew his stuff!

see our rehearsal vid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqLWizTWjQM&sns=fb

The Good Ol' Days - thinking like my Grandad on his birthday

I saw this picture on Facebook this week and yelled “Yes” this is exactly what my Grandad and I sit and chat about.  As a music lover and being involved with bands at a young age, my Grandad has firm ideas on what makes a good song; “You have to be to come away humming the tune” he says, sadly does not apply to all of the musicals he has sat through because of me.

Yes, you might get the tune of “Here’s my number so call me maybe” on a loop in your head like some kind of Japanese torture but compare the lyrics with ‘old standards’ as this picture does, and it makes me weep.  If you ever meet my granddad, ask him about his opinion on modern song lyrics, his impression is hilarious.  “I walk down the street.... go up the path....... and ring the bell” in a wonderful monotonous drone, “it means nothing” he sighs before chatting about Matt Monro or Sinatra.

I have often thought that I was born in the wrong era because I agree with my Grandad entirely.  I choose lindy hop over hip hop and I couldn’t name you any song in the charts now since I stopped listening to the Top 40 on a Sunday night!  As my last post proved I am more High Society than We Will Rock You and as for my desire to be in Downton Abbey.....don’t get me started! (9pm this Sunday people, hooray!!!)

Change has always unnerved me.  I remember watching Alan Ayckbourn’s play Comic Potential where “actoids” had replaced actors in television soaps and I was distraught that the profession I dreamt of entering may succumb to robots before I got a chance to go to drama school!  It genuinely worried me!  Although we have yet to see actoids, you could argue that a few robotic performances have slipped into theatre and TV but that’s a whole different rant!

The fact that you can control the thermostat of your home via your mobile phone and effectively buy everything you need online and never see a shop again doesn’t make me applaud modern science, it scares me!  I like shopping in shops, talking to people and don’t want robots choosing my clothes for me in my wardrobe! Although if they want to clean my bathroom......?

If you think about how far the world has developed in just the last 150 years and the rate at which technology and medicine has advanced it can make me shudder to think about what our lives will be like by 2050.  Maybe I won’t be an arthritic 69 year old?  Maybe Death Becomes Her could come true and I’ll look exactly the same, although with a few improvements! 

So why do I hanker for a simpler time?  Well history seems glamorous to me.  Hollywood stars had an air of mystery that made them appear to be grander beings, you didn’t see pictures of Lauren Bacall with her cellulite circled in the newspapers and despite the publicity surrounding Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton their relationship certainly had more grace and glamour than the on/off drama that was Jordan and Peter Andre.  

Libraries are bursting with compilations of letters by Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde and diaries of Samuel Pepys and Joe Orton but what will my children have to look forward to, an e-book of Marian Keyes’ tweets or Stephen Fry’s blogs?  We still have great wordsmiths and writers but I pray that their words will be recorded correctly and wholly instead of in the style of many 16 year old English GCSE exam papers “Midsummer Night’s Dream was gr8 and Bottom made me laugh lol!”  

Without computers or telephones people used to have a desire and need to communicate effectively.  I read some newspaper articles about the sinking of Titanic where every single part of the launch was described in such detail; pages and pages describing the colours, weather and atmosphere.  They did this because there were few photographs or videos to show on the TV and this was the only way for people to experience the news.  It was so well-crafted and beautiful to read but you could argue time-consuming compared to watching a clip on YouTube.  Which would you prefer?

Sinatra sang “Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread,” whereas 2 Live Crew shouts “Face down, A*s Up, That’s the way we like to f*%k!”.........I know.  You should have seen my face the first time I heard that in an Avenue Q physical warm-up.  Granny Dani was not impressed.

Don’t imagine I choose to live a simpler life without TV or a microwave ‘a la Felicity Kendal in The Good Life’ as some kind of moral stand; I indulge in all of the luxuries that the 21^st century can offer.  Despite resisting the iPhone for years with diatribes about losing social skills you now find me checking Twitter as soon as I open my eyes and shamelessly using my Google map as a walk along unknown streets.  You do have to move with the times or you get left behind but it doesn’t mean I have to like it all.

I will take advantage of our incredible modern medicines and Skype loved ones far away but I shall also listen to classical music whilst reading historical fiction, wear tea-dresses, use grammar in my texts and write letters to people.  And most importantly, I will continue to wish that my boyfriend will walk on the outside of the pavement to prevent the horses and cart splashing mud on me, chivalry isn’t dead yet, my Grandad taught me that!