Aurevoir Fitzy

Well, Panto finished last night. It’s been tremendous fun to do, arduous at times but so worthwhile. I might be able to pop some video clips on here if I can figure out the technology. Sadly I wasn’t able to stay for the aftershow party for too long, pity really as the cast & directors have been great fun.

My buttocks are relieved however. Getting a swift boot up there each night has taken it’s toll and there have been occasions when it wasn’t only my buttocks that received a blow. Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not planning any more children.  So, the moustache has gone for now, so have the big hats and gratuitous eye-liner.

Today was rehearsal for Streetcar, which I’m also looking forward too. I love the intensity of the play and it’s such a fine cast. Once more I left with bruises but I’m brimming with confidence about the next production.

Panto mad

We are fast approaching the last week of panto. It’s been great fun but I must say it’s knackering!

It’s been 2 weeks so far, playing to lots of screaming children and at times adults. Today should have been my day off but I had Streetcar rehearsal.

I must say that it was vastly different to panto.  Today was intense, fun but a totally different atmosphere. Still, variety is the spice of life isn’t it?

I had an audition last Sunday, which went much better than expected. I got a plum part playing a colonel. This means that the moustache will have to stay now until the end of May.

I’ll update when I have had some rest!

Opening night

Thank goodness. No more rehearsal. It’s time to get things started, it’s time to light the lights (etc etc).
Opening night and I’m so relieved. Once the production opens, I can sleep again, no more strange dreams about forgetting lines, or sets collapsing or new bits being inserted into the script.
I’ll post photo’s later and let you know how it went.
You lucky people.

Made up!

I have to admit it, but I don’t have the patience to be a transvestite.
I shall explain, yesterday was dress rehearsal for the panto. I spent an absolute age in make-up and ended up looking like a cross dressing wizard.
Normally, stage/TV make-up is a 2 second job. Some powder on the forehead and nose so that the light doesn’t bounce off too harshly. That’s fine. Humiliating, but fine.
The sight of a man putting mascara on is really quite horrific. Whilst sat in the chair, I felt like I was in Clockwork Orange, the part where Alex has his eyes held open whilst being subjected to traumatising film clips.
Then lip-gloss. Why do women do this? It’s deeply unpleasant. It felt like my lips had been glued with boiled down horse hooves. I couldn’t drink a cup of tea without leaving it looking as though a slut had been trying to eat it.
Then there is the experience of taking it off. After using a wipe, I showered my face, then used a hot towel and still I felt like I had make-up on.
The morning was spent with my good lady who instructed me on the art of wearing tights. These pesky items of clothing are fickle and prone to disintegration. It’s also a nightmare when one hears the call of nature. However, I suppose as an aspiring actor I should be glad to finally be in tights!

So long to all that

This time of year the Television schedules are fit to bursting with tedious review shows. These inane dribllefests are hosted by a vacuous panel of D-list celebrities who plough through a three hour show bereft of any humour.

The relentless head shots, repeats of footage you only saw last week and pithy comments tend to bring on feelings of self-harm after about 3 hours.

So, with that in mind, I thought I would do my own review of the year.

January:

The year started off really badly. I was started a poorly paid boring job, listening to corporate drones who used newspeak. However rather than hang myself I went for an audition and got the part of Dr Spivey in One Flew Over The Cuckoos nest.

Feb:

More tedium in my paid job. Child protection training was done on-line, which was ironic I suppose. I had to suffer the horror of cartoon social workers blabbering away about things such as neglect and abuse. This made me want to go out and punch the nearest child in the face and steal his dinner money.

March:

March was actually not a bad month. I had a night out in a pretend casino and lost lots of pretend money and drank real tequila. Actually, that was probably the only highlight. So, really it was another shite month.

April:

Ah, this month I did Cuckoo’s nest. It went down a storm, but afterwards I felt like there was a huge hole in my life. With no new productions coming up, I had precious little hope of any form of relaxation to look forward to. I did a few days filming, which was something of a curates egg. I did not enjoy getting up at 4:30am. I did however appreciate a large cooked breakfast that was free of charge, lunch and afternoon snacks. Oh, I started this blog as my previous site (which was hosted by Blogger) died on me.

May:

My career reached yet another nadir. I don’t think there is a collective noun for the plural of nadir but maybe ‘a nuisance of nadir’ would be appropriate. I turned down a job, as frankly I have to admit to myself that I am far too judgemental of people’s behaviour at times. Sexual health promotion would not be the ideal job for me. I can’t be laissez-fair about this sort of thing. I am typically English, and I like being repressed. I spent my day job handing out ill-fitting shoes to people and trying to work on peoples inter-relatedness. Hmm. I’m a fine one to do that.

June:

I met my new and truly terrifying new dentist whom I thought was both evil and attractive at the same time..I’m such as sucker for that.  I had some shots done for a theatrical agent, erm….I think that was it. I’m sure something was going on somewhere else but I can’t recall.

July:

Audition month. I went for the 39 steps, which I didn’t get. I did however get my first part in a musical. I’ve never done a musical before. I must admit it was quite daunting at first, my character didn’t sing but I did sing in the chorus the songs ‘Oldest established’ , ‘Luck be a lady’ and ‘Sit down your rocking the boat’. Meeting this new company did me the world of good however and I’ve made some great friends there. It was also the holiday to Majorca which went very well, despite the appalling food, the family and I had a blast.

August:

Time for my post holiday psychosis. I decided to roll dice to make decisions for a few weeks. I re-started meditation, read books on Buddhism and the Tao. Spent my paid working hours doing absolutely nothing at all.

September:

I started to write my book ‘Kevin the third’. I did nothing else other than rehearse that month.  Not really my most memorable.

October:

Show time. Guys and Dolls was a blast as was the after-show party. I auditioned for Dick Whittington and got the part of Alderman Fitzwarren. Donned a moustache. Went to work in a team I had previously been fired from. I had job interviews but in the end I turned them down, my heart isn’t in mental health nursing.

November:

I spent a great deal of time rehearsing and reading about economics. Not at the same time of course, that would be dangerous.

December:

Lots more rehearsing for Panto. Of course we had Christmas which wasn’t particularly fun for myself and Lady Nobacon. I may post more about that once the festive season is over.

Hmm

What a boring year!

On having a ‘dirty’ mind.

I think the more panto rehearsals I do, the more I become like the late Frankie Howerd.
It has become almost impossible for me to read a line without making it sound suggestive, filthy or camp.
This morning for example, I was teaching and I had to read the following sentences;
“It’s nice for me to be here”.
“Why don’t you put your fish in?”
“Don’t be selfish, move over and let Tim play too”.
and the one I could not repeat due to the tears of laughter running down my face was “I like the way you make the duck float”.
Oh the joy of parenting programmes.

Bad dreams and costume failures.

Sorry I’ve not updated the blog recently. The thing is, I’ve been busy with real things. Never mind, such trivialities as life means that my preferred status as a ‘flight of fancy’ seeker are disrupted at times.

However, panto rehearsals have been long and frankly ill tempered at times, work has been predictably busy too.

The nearer I get to a show, the more anxious I become. This week I’ve had dreams where I’m swearing profusely at a gorilla on stage, despite the audience being made of up children.

Then had dreams where my costume had a hunchback sewn into it.

All perfectly normal prior to the show opening of course.

I remember one dream prior to a show, where the director asked me to include a speech about Richard Nixon half way through. Others have featured mega-stars in the audience who boo loudly!

I’m not overly concerned though. I know that by February this panto will be spot on.

NB Panto runs 6th of Jan till 21st Jan.

No place like home

Feeling much better now and have had quite a successful week all in all. I’ve got a part in ‘A street car named desire’, which comes on in the theatre straight after the pantomime. This means my schedule will be as follows, Monday Friday/Thursday and Sunday evening rehearsals for street-car. Wednesday, Friday and Sunday lunch time will be panto rehearsals. The two productions are worlds apart of course, whilst panto means lots of slap stick humour and me getting my backside kicked and then tickled with a feather duster, Street-car is dark, depressing and violent. I also have to work on a New Orleans accent, I very rarely play a British character so it seems!

Also the schedule looks hard work meaning that I’m not going to be at home much.

My wife understands but as I’m hardly home these days I feel a little like a visitor.

A sickly week

Plague has struck my home this week. An epidemic that has impacted on the health of both my son and I. Clearly a disease that affects only men!

My son was taken ill at school, and the fuss pots they are felt unable to manage a child with a mild illness and he was summarily dispatched to the warmth and safety of the home. Strange that he can look so pale in a classroom and yet so full of vitality whilst playing the X-box.

I temporarily lost my voice, and have been suffering from ‘man-flu’ all week. I’m glad that it happened this week and not last week however. Big Jule, spoke like he had a serious condition however so I doubt it would have made a huge difference, but of course the thing with stage acting is that your voice much reach every corner of the theatre without shouting.

Whilst not managing to go to the office, I did manage to get to panto rehearsal. Hmm. I was feeling as rough as anything but there is quite a bit of slap-stick involved, and timing is everything so rehearsals are a must. After being kicked up the backside and slapped on the head for an hour, I actually felt worse!

So, I am suffering for my art!

 

Silly season is upon us

Ah joy. I’ve heard my first Christmas carol today. Okay it’s not a carol but it’s a christmas song. In September. I’m not keen on forced joviality, it seems a bit Teutonic for my liking. When I was a young man I worked for a time in a cinema. A fabulous old building that is sadly no longer in use. The seats smelt musty, the walls were covered in a thick brown tar like substance that was more akin to a smokers lung rather than any form of paint.
It was there that I began to empathise with Jean Paul Satre. He wrote a play called ‘No-Exit’. Essentially in this play, 4 characters are locked in a room for all eternity, which lead Satre to the immortal line ‘Hell is other people’. Well, it was like that at the cinema. 4 people on duty, a hot, dark and strange smelling building, where ghosts would be afraid to haunt in case they caught something. We were there for 8 hours per day and listening to christmas songs, played endlessly, haunting our ears and driving us further into insanity.
It was like a scene from a Lovecraft novel, or a greek tragedy featuring Sisyphus.
Hence now, when I listen to Christmas songs I feel as though part of me is dying. As though a streak of melancholy runs through my being and solidifies.
I will have to overcome this though as I’ve been cast in the upcoming Panto at the theatre. Of course I am highly delighted at this and can’t wait to get going on it.
Just so long as we avoid singing Slade songs I think I’ll be fine.