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!