March 2011 Archives

My taller half is decidedly cynical with regards to those workshops and seminars that pop up on various casting sites and find their way into every actor’s inbox. His thinking is that for the acting graduate, the application of common sense will cover the most part of the content and the exorbitant fees capitalise on the naïveté of young actors who are willing to hand over their cash for a fast route to meeting those elusive CDs, who in reality are not too interested in scouting new talent but every interest in your wallet. Whilst they have their place, they are not it seems, for him.

To some extent I would agree with him; and so did Benjamin Warren, a well established actor and one of the founding members of The Actors Guild. Founded in November 2010 by a collective of like-minded actors determined to do things their way, the Guild describes itself as an organisation which provides actors with ‘access to the highest quality classes with key industry professionals, whilst offering an antidote to the enterprises that might be out to take advantage of actors. Providing a haven, a support network and the opportunity to work with, and get feedback from, the very people you meet in the audition room’ With no obligation to commit to a ‘block of six’, members are able to pick and choose which classes they feel would be of most use, and which industry professionals they may garner the most from working with.

Given the conspicuous absence of TV work on my CV, (nobody seems to care about my one, exceptionally memorable line “just a burger, please” in kids classic ‘Kerr-ching!’ Sigh….), I accepted the Guild’s invitation to attend a workshop on ‘Auditioning for TV’ with director Terry Iland.

To coincide with the sun making it’s long overdue return to the London skyline, I was thrilled to make my annual spring visit to the National Theatre which I like to imagine as the official first outing to which flip flops are obligatory. And what a treat it was to sit on the terrace with a glass of wine to muse over just how marvellous Mark Gatiss was in Season’s Greetings. It was great to see such heart to this production to match the brilliant comedy of Gatiss and co. I even warmed to Catherine Tate, so all in all a wonderful Sunday.

I also took a trip to the ‘West End’ home of Sadlers Wells last week to see Shoes. Previously billed as a musical revue and now officially Shoes the Musical, I wasn’t too sure what I was watching. It suffers from perhaps the worst opening to a show I’ve ever seen and a woefully incoherent design but I did rather enjoy it. There are sections of choreographic genius in Hush Puppies (Kate Prince) and some wonderful input from Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Mark Smith all under the watchful eye of Stephen Mear who much to my delight held back his trademark Mattox style until the finale.

Richard Thomas quips in the programme “How many songs can you possibly write about shoes?” and the answer is quite clearly too many. For it’s the lyrics to an otherwise exciting score that scupper proceedings here. Still, despite its identity crisis, it’s a fun night out and only has one week left — so get along if you’re keen to see some of the finest dancers in action.

For the last few months, especially since having left my former agent, when putting myself forward for castings I have encountered the same stumbling block over and over again. ‘Please attach link to showreel’. It was, as I found myself writing to one agent, ‘if you go to my website, and then go to to the film section, and then click on this film link, and then watch from about 2.48 minutes in, then you’ll see me do a bit of acting…’ that I realised that I was not doing myself any favours. Having spoken to various friends on the other side of the casting table, and employing that rarely used common sense, the fact is that we need to make the Casting Director’s job as easy as it can possibly be. Asking them to jump through hoops in order to catch a glimpse of you, isn’t going to make you very popular.

With this in mind, the last few weeks have seen the launch of Operation Showreel — tracking down the footage for all those short films, organising a shoot with Freshly Squeezed Productions, and compiling a montage that would rival Rocky’s training sequence.

I look forward to the next blog I write outside of a dark theatre but as we hit tech last week I remained in ginger swagger awaiting calls. I’m not an avid fan of technical rehearsals, having so many people want to sort things out all at once tends to rub egos up the wrong way and leave actors restless and fidgety, but as this is in fact my second tech (third if you count 3 days re-teching for tweaks) despite the customary tiredness it’s been surprisingly calm and efficient. And with the new cast now firmly in place it’s almost as if last week didn’t happen.

Big news this week is of course the results of the revamped Olivier Awards, presented at a star-studded event at Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Sunday. Despite a few technical glitches with the highly anticipated ‘extended’ BBC coverage, even following the events on my phone with a glass of wine post Season’s Greetings at the National and then with dinner on the South Bank was a thoroughly pleasant experience. Surely with next year’s already much hyped transfer to the Royal Opera House the awards will receive the full broadcast they proved they deserved on Sunday with (mostly) fantastic performances and several moving tributes to Sondheim and his work.