January 2011 Archives

Beethoven had the right idea and indeed composed that rather memorable tune in tribute to one of my favourite things — joy.

This week has been full of it in various forms and it’s something that I think we often forget to indulge in as schedules get busier, puddles get larger and TfL continue to insist upon doing whatever they do to our trains and buses.

Indeed, getting to know all about you: I’ve had the pleasure of attending two meet and greets in as many weeks.

Having memorised 30 out of the 60 or so faces (the majority of whom I’m sure work tirelessly but we won’t see again until the cork pops at the press night after party) and chortled at perhaps one out of so-and-so’s three amusing facts about such-and-such, I realised that the meet and greet is the inevitable first day hurdle to overcome that never seems to get easier or less awkward.

I say ‘realise’: most actors will feel the same. And as I discovered last week, some actors will even try and play the “39 years old, ex-gymnast and single” card, despite having recently turned 52 with a 20 year marriage under their belt and the prospect of squeezing into an all in one gym singlet a very unlikely treat. So how best to go about the meet and greet/first day of rehearsals?

If you’re anything like me, and have all the desire but the complete inability to muster up the willpower to walk past a fondant fancy, then this is the time of year when you’ll steel all your resolve , channel your inner zen master and make the life changing decision to be a better person in every way imaginable.

Readers of this blog will know I have entire note books dedicated to ‘to-do’ lists. My technique is to start the list with a trivial task that has already been achieved, ie:

numero uno) brush teeth.

With relish, I tick the box. Instant sense of self gratification and… voila, we’re on our way! But in this game, it’s hard to work out exactly where it is we’re on our way to sometimes. Back in the safe confines of the educational system, ticking things off your to-do list got you places; it brought you closer to a clearly defined end goal and you could see the results in black and white.There was a logical process; a ladder on which you could place one foot and then the other and each little shimmy upwards was heading in the right direction.

This theatre lark on the other hand… Of course there are ladders. You will see others effortlessly gliding up them. But there are so many side steps. Sometimes it seems a bit like one of those optical illusions of staircases which appear to lead you somewhere and then you find yourself exactly where you started. It seems to me that this is exactly when you need to feel like you are making your own personal headway, ticking off your own boxes and feeling like you’re climbing up rather than treading water. Ahem. Wow. Enough of that analogy.

So, back to the mantra: small, achievable goals. I will not lie to myself: I know full well that I will not lie in semi-supine for an hour every day, working the old pelvic clock and ‘sussing’. The likelihood is that I shall not be able to high kick like a chorus member in Chicago before the summer is upon us and as much as I hate to admit it, I think aspirations of adding ‘concert pianist’ to the CV is probably beyond my small hobbit hands.

At this time of year many discerning writers are taking the chance to take a look back over last year’s highs and lows as well as looking forward to what 2011 will offer us in the way of theatrical proceedings. But as I find the stuff of discerning writers bland, dull and predictably tedious I’m going to instead look ahead to the things I hope 2011 will bring us; the things that perhaps have been neglected last year or in the current climate of cuts and downsizing the companies, productions and ideas that need even more support in the coming months.

2010 saw the return to form of London’s eclectic fringe theatre scene. As well as the opening of several new venues, established producing houses upped their game and brought us outstanding shows, the standard of which would (if given the chance) rival much on show in the West End. So I have to ask why are we still neglecting our fringe theatres? How can we plug the gap between sell out runs in 100 seat studio spaces to slightly awkward and unsupported transfers to 200 seat small auditoriums?