Support needed to fuel acting bug
I was bitten by the acting bug at a very early age. The highlight of my youth was playing chief angel year after year in the school nativity play. It may have helped that I was tall for my age and had angelic blonde hair, but I’d like to think it was the way I wore my halo with panache and told the shepherds where to go.
As the third orphan in a junior production of Annie, I screamed louder than anyone else when abducted by the baddies. And playing the mayor’s wife in the Pied Piper of Hamlin, I chased the rats from the stage with such abandon that the play actually finished in record time. I recall that one of the vermin refused to speak to me from then on. Well, it’s a cut-throat world out there, right?
Years later, I’m still treading the boards. I’m just about young enough to play Shakespeare’s heroines but, sadly, too old to bare much flesh without the comfort of some Marks and Sparks fishnets. In my twenties I happily flashed pantomime audiences as a semi-naked sea nymph, and was type cast as drama queen Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I used to play the principal boy every Christmas. When I started in the part, at about twenty-one, I wore gold hot pants and thigh high boots. By the time I was 28, I was in cropped velvet trousers that showed a glimpse of calf. This year, I should imagine I’ll be in the longest trousers anyone can find. With support tights underneath.
And it’s not only the body that is heading south with age – my intelligence is suffering too. It’s seems to be far harder to remember lines these days. I used to be word perfect in not just my speeches, but everyone else’s too. I had the ability to cover when people forgot their lines, keep it moving when the action slowed up, and even – in one memorable performance when the princess forgot her entrance – cobble together a monologue raging against the wicked witch. These days, alas, I’m worried that other actors may have to cover for me!
As I get older, the fear of something going wrong is definitely taking its toll. It’s like skiing – at ten, I’d happily take black runs at full speed. But last year, I took the Sun Valley family run at a pace that would have been more fitting for an OAP beginner. It’s not that I don’t have the skill – it’s the fear again – now I’m older I seem to be more aware of things that could go wrong. Although most things get easier with practice (eating spaghetti, heartbreak, parking) you’re also more tuned in to the risks. And so, pre-performance, I won’t be rushing around like a mad thing amidst the backstage babble and bustle. I’ll be silently pacing the corridors, script in hand, heart in mouth…
But it is all worth it in the end. Rehearsing night after night, poring over lines, annotating scripts – it’s definitely hard work. But it’s all worthwhile once you’ve actually got the show on the road; the thrill when a scene comes off perfectly, and the relief when nobody notices everything has gone haywire! It happens a lot more than the audience ever realise…
Come to think of it, the pantomime times I remember are not the amazing performances we’ve put on, but the times when it did all go wrong…
Back in Mother Goose, when the blue curtain stuck halfway up and one of the actors extemporised a monologue on the low-lying mist. The Goose actually falling off the stage in the dress rehearsal and suffering mild concussion. The Dame changing outfit one scene too early and missing his cue, leaving two of the comedy characters delivering knock knock jokes for nigh on five minutes. And another Dame who completely lost his voice to the flu on opening night and delivered each word in a Strepsil-fuelled squawk. The child in the junior chorus who couldn’t be stopped from having a good scratch during the walkdown. The kids who so took against the baddy in Aladdin that they attacked him en masse as he ran through the audience. The random sound effects that often seem to come out of place, such as the huge roll of thunder during Cinderella’s highly romantic solo. The sword that snapped at the first lunge, leading to the shortest stage fight in history…
There’s never a dull moment. I’m sure I actually thrive on all this drama.
So come opening night, I may be more wibbly than a jelly in an earthquake, but the minute I hit the stage I’ll be away. As long as I’m wearing support tights.
