The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Thieving Bastard

Sometimes bad things happen to good people. And sometimes bad things happen to people like me; predominantly good but fairly bitchy and often forgets birthdays.

Okay, so I don’t always stand up on the tube for old people because I am tired from dragging my old lady shopping trolley around and my Vivienne Westwood flats are rubbing. But I don’t commit crimes or hurt people. Not on purpose anyway. If you get in the way when I’m pulling my old lady shopping trolley and I clip you round the ankles, that’s your own stupid fault, not mine.

But yes, I believe that I am generally a ‘good’, law-abiding person but I am certainly not naive enough to believe that everybody else in the world is just like me. I am more than aware that the world is also inhabited by total scumbags. I sit in front of my TV when I get home at night with a bottle of wine and happily watch episode after episode of ‘Road Wars’ and make negative judgements on all of the people on it whilst being reassured of my own law-abiding goodness. It’s practically a hobby.

But it’s still a shock when you come face to face with a ‘bad’ person.  And I am talking about an actual ‘ bad’ person. I’m talking about the ‘bad’ people who I got told about at primary school via the magic of eighties public information films. In those films there were ‘bad’ people who tried to lure children into the backs of Ladas with the promise of some sweets or the chance to see some puppies. I guess eighties kids were easily pleased. These days the ‘bad’ people would need to drive a Renault Megane and own an IPod complete with Angry Birds for a ten year old to even consider getting into the back.

And then I got older and went to an all girls Secondary School where retired police officers turned up and told us about ‘bad’ people who also wanted to get us into the backs of cars. The policeman would never go into detail about why these men wanted to get girls in school uniform into the backs of their vehicles. They tended to just mumble something about shouting ‘Fire’ before handing out free rape alarms.

I have also dealt with ‘bastards’ (ex boyfriends who corrected my grammar and raised their eyebrows when I ordered dessert) and I have dealt with ‘badly behaved’ people (actors who were constantly late for the half and hid pornographic images amongst the props on a kids show) but they weren’t bad people, although I question the motives of somebody who feels the need to look at porn while standing about two feet away from a hundred twelve year olds.

But none of these people were truly ‘bad’ and certainly not capable of causing another person to feel fear. The ‘bastards’ simply made me feel that I wanted to be single again and the ‘badly behaved’ actors just made me feel the need to phone up friends who were also Casting Agents and have a little chat. Seriously, if you have ever really pissed off a stage manager and then your auditions have dried up, it ain’t no coincidence.

 A couple of weeks ago I came home at about one o clock in the morning after an evening with my sister. I was looking forward to a quick half hour of ‘Night Cops’ before bedtime and skipped happily into my abode, only  to discover a ‘bad’ man in my living room. He was rummaging through my belongings and it only took me a moment to realise that my laptop was not where I had left it. The bottle of red wine which was running through my veins dulled my senses and prevented me from panicking. (See, wine is a good thing.)

 I know that I am not the first person in the world to interrupt a burglar but I am almost certain that I am the first person to interrupt one with the words ‘Excuse me. Can I help you?’

The burglar didn’t seem to be too distressed by my presence but then I doubt anybody would be that alarmed by the presence of a 5’3” girl clutching a doggy bag of left over pizza and swaying slightly. On closer inspection, I realised that the intruder was actually not much taller than me and was just a bloke in his mid-thirties with a saggy belly and droopy, loose flesh on his arms. As he acknowledged me I noticed that he too was swaying slightly. I assumed that this was also due to booze and correctly ascertained that he was definitely more intoxicated than I was.

Once I was certain that the drunken little twit was not that capable of hurting me, I decided that I really wanted my stuff back, especially my laptop. I was in the final week of rehearsals before we went into Tech Week and everything was on that laptop. Setting lists, running lists, costume plots and paper prop templates. Tech Weeks are difficult and stressful enough without some fat loser nicking my laptop.

I did try to prevent him leaving but my efforts proved pretty fruitless. He may have been short but he was a fat, solid lump and his halitosis alone meant I was kept a good foot away. I know it sounds like a ridiculous thing to say but I was most disturbed by his pure ugliness. His face was pasty and pock-marked and his eyes were black and piggy. Even his nose didn’t sit in the middle of his face and seemed pushed to one side. His mouth hung slack and he seemed to be sneering at me.

Soon we were both outside my property and it appeared that he was going to escape into the night with my things, leaving my Tech Week ruined and my living room in chaos. The chubby little prick had even knocked over my large hole punch and the floor was now covered in tiny white paper circles.

I made a rather half-hearted attempt at blocking his path but this was met by him snarling ‘Get out of the fucking way or I’ll punch you in the fucking face.’

Obviously it was very upsetting to be spoken to like that but it did trigger something within me.  Some blokes have treated me pretty badly and I have let them. But this ugly, nasty piece of vermin had entered my home without respect and then taken what was not his. To threaten me with physical violence was just one step too far and I felt frightened yet frustrated tears spill out over my cheeks.

I have no doubt that a man in my situation would grab a nearby kitchen implement, develop an American accent and say ‘I don’t think so motherfucker’. And with the correct training in Martial Arts maybe I could have rocked out some ‘Kill Bill’ moves, cleverly used my Robert Dyas pizza slicer as an offensive weapon and overpowered the ruffian.

But I am a girl and I have no training in any self-defence methods. I also haven’t carried a rape alarm with me since an embarrassing incident in C and A when I was sixteen. So I decided to do what drunk Northern girls do best.

I threw a tantrum.

The burglar had obviously never witnessed an irate, half-cut girl from the Wirral venting her frustration before (believe me, it’s a sight to behold) and looked fairly startled before he once again attempted to escape.

But my shrieks and wails had the desired effect and although the burglar tried to flee, my neighbours came to my aid. The police were called, arrived impressively quickly and then chased after him. I was disappointed that the police weren’t accompanied by a camera crew because then I could have been on ‘Night Cops’.  But I did get to shout ‘He went that way!’ And then point.

The burglar was caught attempting to burgle another property and my laptop was found about his grubby, pathetic little person. I grabbed it and hugged it to my chest and it was only because I had such a large audience that I didn’t repetitively kiss it. I then turned and screamed obscenities at the burglar which didn’t help matters but it made me feel tons better. There have been a couple of moments in my life when I have felt the need to point at somebody and scream ‘YOU FUCKING CUNT!’ in their face. But those situations have usually arisen when such actions would be deemed very inappropriate, so to be given the opportunity to do just that and have my audience deem it perfectly acceptable was actually quite satisfying.

Night soon turned into dawn as I gave statements and held cups of tea which went cold. The wine evaporated from my system and was replaced with pure adrenalin which left me exhausted yet wide awake and emotional.

 My incredible neighbours offered me a bed for the night as I felt uncomfortable sleeping in my abode alone. I drifted off for a couple of hours but before I knew it my alarm was going off and I took myself into work in a bedraggled and shell-shocked state. Even though he hadn’t laid a finger on me, I felt like the Rebel Without A Clue actually had punched me in the face.

It was the penultimate day of rehearsals before we started teching the show on Monday and the theatre was a hive of activity. I sat at my desk and cast my half-closed eyes over my large To Do list which suddenly seemed fairly daunting.  I had made my To Do list the previous day and all of the tasks had seemed perfectly achievable. Not all of them were particularly pleasant (even when I haven’t been a victim of crime I’m still fairly unenthusiastic about approaching the political nightmare of dressing room allocations) but at the time of making the list, I had felt confident that by six pm, I would have all the items on my list ticked off and could go home to ‘Night Cops’, safe in the knowledge that everything was done and ready for the final Rehearsal Day.

But that evening I had starred in my very own episode of ‘Night Cops’ and it hadn’t been exciting or entertaining. It had been crap.

‘Jess? Could I borrow your hole punch?’ asked the costume supervisor, clutching her Wardrobe Plots.

‘No. It’s at.... home.’

I thought about where my hole punch was. Splayed open on my kitchen floor surrounded by stupid little white dots and the invisible footprints and fingerprints of a man who had blundered his way into my neat little sanctuary and tried to take away my hard earned possessions. His ugly, gurning face came into my sleep-deprived head at regular intervals during the day but I scolded myself for taking it so badly. I mean, I had not been hurt and my prized objects had been returned to me, but I still felt sad and uneasy.

Just looking at my To Do list was making me feel exhausted and I briefly thought about my bed. But as I did, I knew that I would not sleep in it that night and that I would take up the offer from good friends and accept a spare room. Just one small event and I had been reduced to somebody who could not sleep alone and needed the light left on. I was back to being a little girl and scared of the ‘bad’ man.

The stuffy and airless atmosphere in The Office was suffocating me. People offered kind words and asked if I was okay and generally I lied and said I was. Eventually I slammed my notebook shut and got out of the room, heading to the theatre itself. My ‘To Do’ List could wait. I had time left and the majority of the show was in good shape.

It was a very hot, humid day and as I stepped into the cool, dark theatre I instantly felt better. The lighting designer and technicians were doing the focus and the majority of the stage and auditorium were in darkness. I moved to a seat at the back and plonked myself next to the board operator who was sat, slouched slightly, at the lighting desk which was half buried under Pret A Manger wrappers and Tesco carrier bags. I took a large Tupperware box out of my bag and put it under his nose, watching his face light up.

I always go into Tech weeks with a large container full of Haribos, Fizzy Fish, Jelly Babies and Wine Gums. Even the grumpiest of lighting designers at nine o’clock in the evening can’t help but smile at the sudden presence of Tangtastics.

The board operator and I sat in a comfortable silence, sucking on Cola Bottles, and I turned my attention to the stage which was predominantly in darkness. I could just make out the dark figures of the Lighting Designer and Production Manager as they stood together in the centre.

‘Go into Cue 49?’ called the Lighting Designer. The board op straightened himself slightly and tapped a few buttons on the desk before leaning back again.

I took an audible intake of breathe. The set was now practically glowing and all of the furniture and props seemed to pulse slightly. Our play is set in a 1920’s bedroom and the designer and I had pored over hundreds of images so that we could capture the era and present it in this small space. A chest of drawers stood proudly stage left and on top was placed a heavy telephone. The handset rested in a gold cradle and the dial was mounted on a green and white marble base. Next to the chest of drawers rested an antique doctor’s bag. I had found it in Spitalfields market and got it for a good price. It’s leather was slightly cracked and worn but its locking mechanism was well oiled and snapped shut in a satisfying manner, something I thought an actor could have fun with.

On stage right there was a delicate dressing table covered in various paraphernalia, but my favourite tiny prop was a powder puff. Such a small detail but with it’s ivory handle and feathery, swansdown base, it set off the dressing table and you immediately understood the essence of the woman, the character, who would sit there.

‘Have you got any jelly babies?’ The Lighting Designer had perched himself on the row behind and was delving into the Tupperware box from over my shoulder.

‘Naturally,’ I replied. ‘God, it looks so..... beautiful.’

The three of us sat there for a minute, taking in the splendour of the set. I always relish these peaceful moments. On Monday I knew that the set would suddenly be filled with actors getting used to the differences between a rehearsal room and a stage but until that happened I could take some ownership of the space.

‘Sorry to hear what happened mate,’ offered the Board Operator.

‘It’s okay honey.’ I sighed.

And actually, I wasn’t lying. I had everything I needed for Tech Week and my face had not been punched or rearranged. Tech weeks are never the easiest of things to get through but this was one was not going to be made any more difficult by the slightly fateful meeting between myself and a rather unsightly man.

There will always be ugliness and unpleasantness in this world. But as I sat and looked at the stage, which I had helped to create and which many audiences would also sit and admire, I knew that as long as I was here, at my place of work, I would feel safe and secure and utterly protected.

Because in here, it’s always beautiful.

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Dime Bars, Tequila and Good Will Hunting

 

 

A friend of mine, Lily, teaches stage management in a Drama School and is introducing a ‘Mentor’ scheme. The general idea is that a professional stage manager, the ‘Mentor’, is introduced to a student who is about to graduate and for the first twelve months following their graduation, the student is in regular contact with their ‘Mentor’. The contact will mostly be through texts and e mails but the Mentor is expected to meet up with the graduate about once a month.

Lily is one of my Grown Up friends. This doesn’t mean that she is any older than me. It just means that she owns a house and a car and a fifty five piece cutlery set. I on the other hand, rent a boat, drag a shopping trolley around with me and own a Tesco’s cutlery set which is missing a teaspoon because I threw it out with an empty yoghurt pot when I was hungover.

I love hanging around at Lily’s although sometimes it means that i leave feeling slightly deflated, wondering how somebody the same age as me and in the same industry as me has ended up living such a different lifestyle to me.

One Saturday night I was hanging round at Lily’s, lounging on her Grown Up Habitat sofa, drinking wine from a glass the size of a small goldfish bowl and watching ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. She was telling me about the Mentoring thing, although I was only really half-listening. If I have to either concentrate on a body-popping Romanian or someone talking about stage management, the Romanian will win hands down every time.

'I think you should do it,’ suggested Lily.

‘Go on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’?' I suppose I could do my trick with a beer bottle....’

‘No, you tool. Be a Mentor.’

I turned my full attention to Lily. ‘How the hell would I mentor someone?’

‘It’s easy. Just, you know, meet up with them occasionally, encourage them, pass on your knowledge....’

‘My knowledge!?’ I struggled not to spit my Merlot out across her Grown Up, fluffy Heals rug.

‘Oh, come on,’ sighed Lily in a Grown Up exasperated fashion. ‘You’ve been doing this for ten years, you must have some knowledge.’

I took another gulp of my wine and focussed on the much more entertaining spectacle of a middle-aged couple playing the theme from ‘Titanic’ on hand-bells and tried to ignore Lily who was still talking about the mentoring thing.

‘I think you’d get on with her,’ she said.

‘Amanda Holden?’

‘No! Fuck’s sake. This girl on my course. She’s about to graduate and I think you would get on with her.’

I rested my glass on the Grown Up John Lewis coffee table and peered at Lily through my fringe.

‘Do I get paid?’

‘Nope.’ Lily shook her head firmly, ‘No money. Not even expenses. But think of how good you’d feel, knowing that you are helping someone. You might even make a friend.’

‘I have friends,’ I muttered before rolling my eyes and picking up my wine glass again. But I could feel Lily’s eyes boring into me in her slightly disapproving Grown Up way. The very same way that she had stared at me when I confessed to her that I sometimes used a friend’s old ‘Baby on Board’ badge so that I could always sit down on the tube, even when it was rammed. Teamed with a hand resting on the small of my back and a big lunch I was pretty much guaranteed a seat every time.

‘I’ll think about it,’ I promised, reaching for the Grown Up bottle of wine from Selfridges and generously topping up both of our glasses.

By two am, Lily and I had finished three bottles of Grown Up wine and were dancing around to All Saints videos which we had found on You Tube using Lily’s Grown Up 27 inch iMac (although at this point Lily was behaving in a far from Grown Up manner). And then at three am I even demonstrated my beer bottle trick which involves me positioning an opened beer bottle in my cleavage, putting my mouth around the top and then going into the crab position and downing the entire bottle in about twenty seconds without spilling a drop.

I doubt that it would get me on to the Royal Variety Performance but it’s a hit at Press Night Parties.

The next morning I woke up in my own bed  with a throbbing headache and the vague recollection that I had drunkenly agreed to mentor one of Lily’s students in return for a bottle of Tequila, a family pack of Dime Bars and (according to Lily), the opportunity to be “just like Robin Williams in ‘Good Will Hunting’.” It only took a quick scan around my bedroom for me to locate a half drunk bottle of Jose Cuervo and several empty chocolate bar wrappers which explained the toffee stuck in my teeth.

I groaned and rummaged around in the duvet for my Blackberry. Sure enough I had a text message from Lily with the name and number of the girl who I was going to ‘Mentor’.  Although sitting up in my cheap Ikea futon at ten o clock on a Sunday morning, clutching a half-drunk bottle of Tequila and contemplating having a Dime bar for breakfast, I didn’t really think I was fit to be put in charge of or advise anyone younger than myself.  

Surely it would be like asking Lindsay Lohan to be Brown Owl.

One sausage and egg McMuffin later and I was starting to feel relatively more responsible but was hardly in Robin Williams territory. As I munched on my third Dime Bar of the morning, I composed a text to Charlotte, the girl who I was apparently going to Mentor. (My Mentoree?)

I fired off a text (friendly, casual, no kisses) about how I’d be happy to meet her for a drink one night. She replied quickly enough and after a few texts, we had arranged to meet at a pub in Soho on Wednesday night once I’d finished rehearsals. As the days passed by I started to feel slightly more high spirited about our forthcoming rendezvous and the possibility of being a wise, firm and less beardy Robin Williams to her unguided and fledgling Matt Damon.

She was waiting for me when I arrived at the pub and I recognised her from the picture that Lily had previously texted to me. She looked younger than her age (twenty one), with natural ash- blonde hair cut into a fuzzy bob which framed her pale, freckled face. Her eyes were green and heavy-lidded with mascara-free, light eyelashes and on her nose rested bright red, square framed glasses.

Charlotte’s clothes were baggy and black and her hooded jumper had the name of her drama school emblazoned across the front. I hadn’t really needed Lily’s photo reference. 

I would have known it was her.

We made our slightly awkward introductions and I saw the half empty glass of coke sat in front of her.

‘Shall I get you a drink?’ I offered.

‘Yes thank you. I’ll have a coffee if they do them.’

I dutifully went to the bar and sure enough, they had fresh filter coffee bubbling away in a machine underneath the spirits. Personally I don’t really see the point of going into pubs and asking for coffees or soft drinks. I think that it’s the equivalent of going into a brothel and asking for a hug.

I bring the drinks back to our table and perch opposite Charlotte on a little red stool, wondering why I feel like I’m on a first date. Charlotte is playing with her beer mat and looking down at her lap. I decide to do what I often do on first dates and take a long gulp of wine.

‘So....’ I prompted, ‘Not long now till you graduate.’

That was enough to start Charlotte off and she told me in a lilting Midlands accent about her course and the people she liked and the people she didn’t like and what she would miss.

‘I like it at insertnameofdramaschoolhere,’ she states, ‘The tutors are more like friends. Most of them anway. I’ll keep in contact with them all when I leave.’

‘That’s nice,’ I smile, realising I sound like a patronising Auntie. There is a silence and I desperately resist the urge to ask her about her hobbies.

‘So what do you want to be?’ I ask, making sure I don’t finish the question with ‘when you grow up?’

Charlotte bites her bottom lip and looks up at the ornate pub ceiling.

‘Start off as an ASM, I guess. Then work my way up to CSM.’ She peers back at me, her bespectacled eyes blinking slowly. ‘Lily said that’s what you did.’

‘Yeah I guess I did.’

‘Is that the right way?’ she fires back.

‘Erm. I don’t think that there is a right way. It just kind of happened like that.’

Charlotte looks disappointed and I also feel slightly deflated. I don’t ever remember a scene in ‘Good Will Hunting’ where Robin Williams said that things ‘just kind of happened like that’ before nervously draining the dregs of a wine glass. I try to think of a suitable ‘Good Will Hunting’ quote but now is not the right time to look Charlotte in the eye and softly say ‘Real loss is only possible when you love something more than you love yourself.’

I’ll save that one for later.

Charlotte goes to the toilet and I get us a couple more soft drinks, no wine, as I am self-conscious of being less Robin Williams and more Robbie Williams(circa 1995).

When she comes back I ask her if she has found a job to go to and sure enough, she has just accepted the role of Stage Manager at a small pub/fringe venue for a very low fee. She plays with the elasticated cord at her hood while she tells me and brings her shoulders up towards her ears.

‘I’m quite nervous about it actually,’ she confides in me.

At this point, Robin Williams would stand up, point his finger at Matt Damon and shout ‘Why are you still so fucking afraid of failure!’ but if I did that it would get surely back to Lily. And then she would be annoyed with me and that would mean the end of drinking expensive wine on Grown Up sofas, which is always preferable to knecking cheap tequila whilst sat on my futon. Not that I do that.

Much.

So instead I say, ‘What is it that you’re nervous about?’

She chews thoughtfully on the cord. ‘It’s just.... the props list. It’s quite long and some of it I don’t really know where to start.’

‘Okay. Well why don’t you tell me some of the stuff. Maybe I can help?’

Charlotte rummages around in her bag and pulls out an alarmingly Grown Up filofax from which she pulls out her Props List and I scan over it.

It’s pretty tough. It’s the kind of props list that if I was presented with it, I would spend the first day of rehearsals phoning up more experienced stage managers and asking them for their input. And it’s a fairly frightening moment when I look up at Charlotte’s hopeful, freckled face and realise that in her eyes, I am the more experienced stage manager

‘Well’, I start hesitantly ‘I think that there is quite a lot of stuff here that is pretty tough. But most theatres will have it in their props stores. And I’m sure I can help you as I have some contacts.’ I look back down at the list and rack my brains for something more inspirational and helpful to say but nothing comes.

Sat on my worn stool with my soft drink in front of me, I don’t feel anything like a Mentor. Or Robin Williams. I feel just like I did when I was back in Drama School; nervous and incompetent and terrified of looking like a dick.

But when I look back up at Charlotte she is smiling. It’s the first time I have seen her smile properly all evening. Her lips part to reveal even, white teeth and the corners of her mouth dimple her cheeks. She looks pretty when she smiles.

She should do it more often.

‘I’m kind of glad that you also think it’s a hard list,’ she explains. ‘I would have felt really rotten if you had just looked over it and known exactly where to get everything from. Then I really would have felt like I was out of my depth.’

I laugh and shake my head.  Charlotte’s shoulders relax and she rests her elbows on the table before carrying on

‘I thought that people like you in the industry just knew everything.’

‘Well that’s definitely not true. You spend a lot of time just making it up as you go along. But there’s never anything wrong with asking for help. If you don’t know how to do something you can always find somebody who does. For instance, I know jack shit about woodwork and tools but I also know that if I point my breasts in the right direction I can usually locate someone willing to help me.’

Charlotte blushes and giggles into her empty glass. I get my wallet and stand up.

‘Why don’t I get us some proper drinks?’

She nibbles her bottom lip again. ‘Okay.’

An hour and a half later, Charlotte and I parted ways at the mouth of the tube with promises to meet up soon and I jumped onto a Jubilee Line tube which was absolutely rammed so I was forced to stand. My ‘Baby on Board’ badge was in my handbag but as I was clearly quite inebriated I decided against using it. Nothing angers the British public more than a pissed and pregnant woman.

Back at home I clambered onto my boat and straight into my little futon to watch ‘Road Wars’ (my favourite late night viewing) and considered the evening’s events. Just as Lily had predicted, I thought that I may well have made a friend and did actually feel slightly better about myself. When I had told Charlotte about my rather Un Grown Up boat her eyes had widened and she had clapped her hands together.

‘A boat? That’s so cool.’

And maybe I didn’t know everything that there was to know about stage management and maybe there was still a lot that I didn’t know about. And maybe I didn’t have a Grown Up flat with a wine rack and a Jospeh Joseph chopping board and Molton Brown hand soap.

But as Robin Williams once said to Matt Damon,

‘People may call those imperfections, but no. That’s the good stuff.’

Yeah.

 

 

 

 



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Bold Choices

My play has finished. It’s all over. The cast and I have said our drunken and tearful goodbyes, the dressing rooms have been cleared of discarded Press Night cards and my Sliding Doors have been dismantled. Well, I say dismantled. They have been yanked off their frames using brute force and ignorance by a second year LAMDA student who is being paid with beer (just the one) and a promise from Production Manager that they will ‘definitely get some paid work soon’.

I am now into Week Two of a four week rehearsal period for the next project and my days are spent sourcing props and furniture, making to do lists and attending to the needs of my cast and director.

I was in the Green Room this morning, reading my Rehearsal Notes when Rebecca, our intern, came in and put the kettle on.

Rebecca is with us on a three month internship programme which basically means that she earns absolutely no money. None at all. However, if you ask her to photocopy something she will automatically make you a spare and neatly lay it on your desk with a Post-It on top saying what it is. Whenever she goes to the Green Room, she calls out to see if anybody would like a cup of tea while she’s there and she knows off by heart who has sugar and how milky people like it. At the weekend she bakes delicious cakes and brings them in to work for everybody to eat during the Monday meeting. Her enthusiasm for theatre knows no bounds and she sees about three different productions a week. When people talk to her about her internship she tells them how lucky she is to work within such a creative building and that, even though the work is unpaid, she just adores every single moment.

We all despise her. But nobody is really sure why.

‘Cup of tea?’ she asks.

‘Er... yeah.’

‘White, no sugar?’

‘Yes. Thanks.’

‘Anything in today’s Rehearsal Notes?’

I scan the Notes in my hand and at first, everything seems pretty self-explanatory. Someone needs a handbag. The chair for Scene Three will be stood on and needs reinforcing. And Lead Actor is going to smoke a cigarette in Scene Five. I don’t take too much notice of that last one. I have discovered that during Week Two of rehearsals, a lot of actors make what we in the industry call Bold Choices.

Bold Choices usually mean trouble for stage management.

Lead Actor has made the Bold Choice that his character is a smoker. Lead Actor is a smoker himself and I can’t help but suspect that smoking during the scene is not so much a Bold Choice but more of a Personal Choice. As soon as a tea break is called he is the first out of the room and down in the yard quicker than you can say Ryan Giggs.

Anyway, what usually happens is that in Week Four, the actor gets presented with cigarettes, a cigarette case, a lighter and an ashtray. The ashtray is, unpleasantly, filled with KY Jelly to ensure that the cigarette is extinguished the second it leaves the actors fingers. Once presented with all of the fiddly yet necessary apparatus, the actor will suddenly find the scene intensely complex and he will struggle to organize the various paraphernalia which now occupies his costume.

The simple task of taking out a cigarette, lighting it, smoking it and then putting it out is made much more convoluted when you throw in the tedious chore of having to simultaneously act. Some actors will persevere stubbornly and accept the rod that they have made for their own back and if that is the case, then I too will surrender myself to weeks of having to deal with leaking, antique Zippo lighters. I will also cheerfully tolerate cleaning out ashtrays which are filled with a peculiar and slimy substance and it's the only kind of substance you can get if you mix half a tube of KY Jelly with cheap, half-smoked, lipstick stained cigarettes.

But sometimes I am fortunate enough to be saved from those dull and arduous tasks by an actor who is willing to admit defeat. Although of course, he will be quite cunning in how he admits that he has lost and will do it by making yet another Bold Choice. After another rehearsal spent hovering around the very specifically placed ashtray, waiting for a cigarette to be short enough to logically extinguish, an actor will usually sigh and wave a little white flag. Metaphorically speaking.

‘You know, I’ve been thinking about this. A lot. And actually, I don’t think my character does smoke.’

So there it is on my Rehearsal Notes. Lead Actor has made the Bold Choice that his character is a smoker.

I look up at Rebecca and smile.

‘No. Nothing of any interest.’

‘How are you getting on with the company?’

‘Erm... I haven’t been in the rehearsal room that much Rebecca so I don’t really know what to think of them.’

This is, of course, a total and utter lie. I have made snap judgements on every single one of them. But I’m not going to relay that information to Rebecca, who looks disappointed. But she perseveres regardless.

‘Lead Actor seems nice.’

I nod my head in a non-committal manner, but actually I don’t know how I feel about Lead Actor.  There may be people who read this blog who believe that all stage managers have an instant disliking for all actors and this is just not true. I have worked with gifted actors whose thought-provoking, heart-wrenching performances have touched my heart. I have worked with astute actors whose words of wisdom and considered advice have touched my life. And, let’s be honest, I’ve worked with some pretty yummy actors who have just plain touched me. On the boobs and stuff.

But at this moment I am unsure as to my feelings about Lead Actor. And this is due to an incident which took place on the second day of rehearsals. I had come in to the Rehearsal Room at the end of the day and was talking through the following days call with Leah. I had a pen in my hand (a nice gel one from Paperchase) and also a notebook. Lead Actor was still in the room and was on his mobile phone chatting to someone who I can only believe was his agent.

Halfway through me making notes about the schedule for the following day, Leah remembered she had something very important to tell me about her opinion on Cheryl Cole’s hair. As we discussed hair extensions and whether having big hair made you thinner, Lead Actor got closer to us, still on his phone.

‘Yep... Yep.... Monday?  Yeah I don’t think I’m called. So where am I going? Okay... hold on... I need to write this down.’

Lead Actor did the classic I’m On The Phone And I Need A Pen Quickly Dance, where you turn in a full circle one way and then immediately turn another full circle in the opposite direction, darting your head around like a pigeon and rapidly groping around in mid-air with your free hand. If people are near you, you carry on talking to the person on the other end of the line but perform a frenzied charade of somebody writing in the direction of anyone else in the vicinity.

Once he had completed the dance, he spotted the pen in my hand and lunged for it. No eye contact was made, no silently mouthing the word ‘pen’ at me. He just lunged. And snatched it from my hand.

Leah later said it was one of those times when everything goes into slow motion. Although for me it seemed to happen alarmingly fast. One moment the pen was in my hand, the next Lead Actor had it and was leaning on the desk, scribbling down the address of an audition he had to attend on Monday. He stopped to listen for a while and then casually, thoughtlessly, put the pen in his mouth and chewed the end. Leah audibly took an intake of breath.

Lead Actor finished his call and laid the pen on the desk.

‘Cheers for that. Laters.’

And then he left the room.

‘Oh my god,’ Leah murmured.

‘I know.’

‘He just...’

‘I know.’

‘And then he...’

‘I know!’

We didn’t say the word. But it hung in the air. Wanker.

This was a few days ago now but the rudeness of it has troubled me and I have found it difficult to forget the experience. But I don’t want to tell Rebecca about the drama of Pengate. She would think it silly and childish to dislike someone because they took your pen without asking and as I write this I think I may have over-reacted. But stage managers have strong feelings towards stationary and we like it to be treated with respect.

I realise that Rebecca is looking at me curiously so I indulge her slightly.

‘Yes. Lead Actor does seem nice.’

But if I’m honest,  I just don’t think we are going to get on.

At that moment, Leah comes into the Green Room. It’s eleven thirty. Tea break. She plonks herself on the sofa next to me and idly flicks through my magazine.

‘How was rehearsals?’ I ask her.

‘Yeah good. Oh, I’ll put it on Rehearsal Notes but just so you know, Lead Actor isn’t going to smoke anymore.’

‘Wow. That’s quick seeing as he only decided to smoke yesterday. Did he make another Bold Choice?’

‘No, actually. He said he realised that smoking in that scene was wanky and just gave him something to do with his hands. He also said that the only reason he decided to smoke originally is because he fancied a fag at the time and that he knew he was being a,’ Leah made the inverted commas sign with her hands,

‘”Dickhead Actor.”’

We both laugh.

Maybe Lead Actor and I will get on after all.

Follow me on Twitter @agirlinthedark or 'Like' my Facebook page 'Girl in the dark' for more posts.

Getting to the Bottom of Politics

The theatre I am working at has asked me to stay on for the next show.

This hopefully means that they like me. And I think it also means that I have been forgiven for an unfortunate incident which occurred during Tech Week. This incident involved myself, the sound designer, the sound designer’s expensive leather shoes and an open tin of gloss paint. I won’t go into details about what happened but let’s just say that if in the future I decide to randomly start dancing to the sound check music again, I will first ensure that anything in my hands is stored safely away or at least has some kind of lid on it.

That’s the amazing thing about theatre. I just never stop learning.

I got to the theatre one afternoon and found Production Manager in the Green Room, stretching out his tape measure. I have a genuine theory that all Production Managers do absolutely nothing except spend their days on their I Phones, loitering in empty rooms. But when they hear someone approaching they swiftly whip out a tape measure and hold it against the nearest object. In this case a microwave.

Production Manager saw me and instantly his face coloured. He looked rather worried.

 ‘Erm....I think we need to talk about the pub downstairs.’

Oh. That again. We have an ongoing issue with the pub downstairs. We have to share a stairwell with them which goes directly past our stage so any noise made on this stairwell carries through and interrupts performances. (See ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ in the April file for more info). I generally spend most of my time either sending the Pub Manager, David, polite yet firm emailsor trying to calm my irate cast.

‘Well, I think the noise situation is getting better. On Saturday’s it’s still bad but....’

He interrupts me. ‘No, it’s something else. Erm... how do you think your relationship with the pub staff is?’

 ‘Well. It’s okay. I think. Why?’

Production Manager looks serious, ‘I only ask because.... some graffiti has appeared in the Gents toilets of the pub.  And it’s about you.’

‘Me?!’

 ‘I’m sorry honey. It’s not very nice.’

‘How do you know it’s about me?’

‘It mentions your name.’

‘Well so what? My name is pretty common. It could be about anybody.’

‘No it’s definitely about you.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because it says ‘Jess from upstairs has a massive arse’.

I take a sharp intake of breathe, ‘I don’t believe this!!’

‘Do you want to see it?’ he offers helpfully ‘I took a photo on my I Phone.’

‘No!’

Production Manager looks sympathetic but still rather earnest. ‘I think you need to improve your relationship with the pub. Especially if you are going to work with us again. When Mike worked here...’

‘Yes I know.’ I snap,’ Mike had a great relationship with the pub staff. And if it wasn’t for the fact he turned up drunk he would probably still be the stage manager.’

‘Maybe.’ He sighs. ‘I’m sorry but you really need to sort this. We can’t have it as an ongoing issue. People from The Office are getting annoyed and if they know that you have fallen out with the pub....’

‘Okay. I’ll sort it.’

Production Manager sees my crestfallen face and puts an arm round my shoulder.

‘But so what if you have a massive arse? Nigella Lawson’s got a whopper and I still would.’

As something inside of me dies, Production Manager’s mobile rings and he leaves the Green Room. I call Shelley our Marketing Manager, and summon her outside for an emergency fag. After a few minutes and several puffs on a Marlboro Light I have relayed the awful story to her. She chooses her next words rather unwisely.

‘Bummer.’

Yes. Bummer. Big fat massive bummer. In spite of myself, I have to laugh.

‘Oh, Shelley. What the fuck will I do?’

‘Don’t worry babe. Everyone here likes you. I mean they’ve asked you to stay haven’t they?’

‘Yeah. But just because I’ve been given the job, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Maybe they just gave it to me because the last person fucked it up so badly. Maybe I got it because I was the best of a bad bunch. Sometimes people get jobs and it’s very thrilling and exciting but it’s not long before they have fucked it up and everyone hates them.’

Shelley takes a drag and considers this. ‘Like Nick Clegg?’

Oh God. Maybe I’m the theatrical equivalent of Nick Clegg. With a massive arse.

But sometimes I reckon those politicians have got it easy compared to stage managers. But then, I always think that stage managers have the hardest job in the world compared to any other profession.

A couple of years ago after one particularly stressful Dress Rehearsal, I went home to my then boyfriend who Did Not Work In Theatre and who had a keen interest in Human Rights. I flopped on to the couch and instantly relayed to him details about my dreadful day and moaned about how exhausted and over-worked I was. I looked expectantly to him for sympathy and a cup of tea, but instead he picked up a newspaper and read an article to me about the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.

I listened intently as he told me all about those poor captives in their orange jumpsuits and what they were subjected to. Apparently they would be locked in a dark, windowless room for up to fifteen hours a day. They were deprived of food and water and their captors would randomly flash bright lights on them and play odd sounds to completely disorientate them. After periods of bright lights they would then be plunged back into darkness. The prison guards would then scream in their faces and ask confusing questions over and over and over again. Eventually they would be let out to sleep for a few short hours but then they would be dragged back into the room and the hellish process would start again for another fifteen hours.

He proudly laid down his paper and looked at me with a smug grin. ‘So,’ he said triumphantly, ‘What do you think about that?’

I said it sounded like a pretty average tech week.

I didn’t get my cup of tea and was single soon after.

‘Why do you think the pub staff hate you so much?’ asked Shelley.

‘I don’t know. My e mails are always really polite.  I put up laminated signs about being quiet on the stairs but I made sure they were very friendly.’

‘So you’ve never spoken to them?’ Shelley was incredulous.

‘Of course I bloody haven’t. They’re fuckwits, I avoid them like the plague.’

Shelley fixed me with a knowing look.

Oh.

So, just before the show, I ventured into the pub and asked to speak to David, the Pub Manager who I had exchanged such regular correspondence with but never actually met. The surly bar maid said that he was in the office and she would ring him for me. She picked up the receiver from a wall mounted phone and dialled a number.

‘There’s someone to see you’. (Pause) ‘It’s Jess.’ (Pause) ‘From upstairs?’ I almost leant in and shouted ‘With the massive arse!’

She eventually hung up and told me that he was on his way. A few short moments later, David appeared. He was younger than I imagined, probably only my age and he had a kind face but it darkened slightly when he saw me. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin and I noticed a small scar on his left cheek. It almost looked like a dimple.

‘Jess?’

‘Yes. Hi.’

He considered me for a second and then gestured to the sunny pub garden.

‘Step into my office?’

Outside, we sat opposite each other at a table. He ran his hands through his hair, rested his elbows on the table and spoke first.

‘This isn’t working is it?’ The expression on his face was so pained and sorrowful that I half expected him to tell me that he had met somebody else and then ask for the spare keys to his flat back. I took a breathe and recited my carefully thought out speech.

‘I think it can work. Really. And I’m sorry if my cast and I are being a pain. It’s just, we really care about the play and want it to be the best it can. It really distracts the actors when they hear all the noise from the stairs. They get so easily distracted.’ David considers this for a moment and lights a fag.

‘Well it would help if you and your precious cast said hello to us once in a while.’

This completely and utterly throws me. He carries on, obviously quite keen on this topic.

‘I mean, we see you on the stairs but you never speak to us. We just see all these different people from all these different casts in mad clothes and carrying weird shit and you never say hello. Maybe if we even knew what we were being quiet for it would be different.’

‘You mean..... you’d like to see our play?’

‘You think because I run a pub I have no interest in theatre?’

I don’t know what to say to this so I do what I always do in these situations. I light a fag. Then it comes to me.

‘Well... we will be starting rehearsals for our next play soon. Maybe you could be guests at our dress rehearsal or something.’

David looks away from me and into the pub where the rest of the staff have huddled behind the bar and are looking out at us. He slowly turns back and begins to smile.

‘I think we’d really like that.’

After a couple more fags, a pint of (free) Diet Coke and some tapping on my Blackberry, I have arranged for the pub staff to attend the dress rehearsal of our next show with free programmes thrown in. David shakes my hand as I leave and some of the pub staff even offer a tentative yet wary wave as I walk out the door.

That night’s show goes smoothly and while I hover next to my Sliding Doors, I listen out for any stair noise. But there’s nothing.

‘Problem solved!’ smiles Leah, as she types up the Show Report (with a comment of how undisturbed it was) and e mails it off.

But I struggle to share her celebratory mood, as despite solving the issue, there is something still upsetting me. I go downstairs to the pub and see the staff behind the bar, busy trying to serve the evening rush. They haven’t spotted me enter and nobody notices as I slip to the Toilets and veer towards the Gents. I take a breathe, push open the door and seeing that it’s completely empty, I gingerly step inside.

Sure enough, there it is. Scrawled crudely with thick black marker above the urinals;

Jess from upstairs has a massive arse.

I swallow hard.  Hearing about it was bad enough but being faced with it is tougher. The staff may be quieter now but I can’t deny the writing on the yellow tiled wall. Just as I am making a solemn vow to myself to only eat when the lightheadedness gets too much, I notice something else. With much neater handwriting and a red marker, somebody has crossed out ‘massive’ and written above it ‘quite nice’.

Jess from upstairs has a quite nice arse.

My Blackberry beeps with an email from Production Manager in response to the Show Report.

‘Well done honey. Great work.’

I flush with pride and duck quickly out of the Gents, making a beeline through the revellers to the door and smiling at the thought of the negotiations which took place out in that pub garden.

As I sashay out of the pub I consider the possibility that maybe I’m not like Nick Clegg after all. Maybe I’m a bit more like Winston Churchill.

But with a ‘quite nice’ arse.

(Follow me on twitter @agirlinthedark)

Hopes, Dreams and Men Who Wear Waistcoats

I had a date.

I like going on dates for various reasons. Firstly because I am a normal girl in my late twenties with wants and needs. And secondly because I work in theatre and we rarely say no to a free meal. Complimentary food in general is always accepted with gratitude and if I am going to an event where I know there will be canapés, I will always attend carrying Tupperware. At the last Press Night I went to I came away with nine vol-au-vents and a cupcake. The caterers may have smirked at me but who was laughing at breakfast the next day? Me, that’s who.

Anyway, the man I went on the date with was a friend of a friend and most excitingly, he Does Not Work In Theatre.

This is positive and exciting for the following reasons. The fact that he Does Not Work In Theatre means that unlike people who Do Work In Theatre;

1. I haven’t slept with any of his friends.
2. He hasn’t slept with any of my friends.
3. He has not been told the now infamous tale of how I once got so hammered in the Players that I loudly booed the pianist, flipped the finger at Diana Vickers and snogged a Jersey Boy. When they threw me out I announced that I was ‘fucking leaving anyway’. My friends found me outside MacDonalds on the Strand, clutching a Big Mac and trying to light a tampon. ‘I need to go home,’ I hiccoughed, ‘but I don’t have enough money for a cab.’ The terse response to this was ‘Well it is only ten fifteen so you can probably get the tube.’

Anyway, I got invited to a house party thrown by Jenna and Mark, friends of mine who Don’t Work In Theatre. I got there fairly late having just done a show and made a beeline for the kitchen in order to catch up and reach everybody else’s fairly inebriated level. After a couple of tequilas, and some red wine, I was confident that I had ‘caught up’ but had not made the common mistake of ‘taking over’.

Jenna and I were still hanging in the kitchen a couple of hours later and I was trying to concentrate on a conversation about her hatred for Fearne Cotton when through the door, I noticed a guy in the living room wearing an unbuttoned waistcoat over a blue shirt. I am unquestionably interested by men in waistcoats and have absolutely no explanation for it. But maybe it wasn’t just the waistcoat. Maybe I noticed him because he had a nice smile. And green eyes.

‘Who is that?’ I asked Jenna. She turned round and took him in before whirling back to me.

‘Oh my god. That’s Stuart.’

‘Stuart?’

‘Twenty nine. Single. Teacher.’

I do love Jenna. There was more.

‘And...’ she squealed. ‘he goes rowing!’

I was a bit confused. As a girl, I knew that we dutifully did squealing for firemen and sports therapists. But rowing? I vocalised this.

‘ You’re squealing about rowing?’

‘Shoulders,’ she hissed. I rolled my eyes and turned back to examine Stuarts’s.... strapping, powerful shoulders.

‘Stuart!’ called Jenna, and beckoned him to the kitchen. ‘New beer?’

‘Sure.’ Stuart came over and while Jenna rummaged in the fridge, he turned to me and introduced himself and I got a bit lost in the strong handshake, green eyes and Dolce and Gabbana aftershave. As Jenna gave him his fresh beer, she performed her hostess duty of starting a conversation. She did this by using a phrase I have heard parroted at many social functions.

‘Jess works in theatre.’

Stuart turned his full attention to me. ‘Are you an actress?’

‘Oh no I’m a Stage Manager’. I replied. And then had an overwhelming urge to say ‘But I’m really good in bed.’

I didn’t though.

At ten past midnight I complimented him on his waistcoat. At quarter past one I made him laugh with a rubbish joke about which cheese to use to hide a horse (mascarpone). And then at twenty past three he asked for my phone number.

Over the next few days we had several text message conversations which could all be deemed as successful. Oh, except one when he finished by saying ‘well I’m off to hit the gay.’ This transpired to be the result of some unfortunate predictive text messaging and what he actually meant was ‘I’m off to hit the hay’. We both laughed (well we LOL’d) and then, satisfied in the knowledge that he wasn’t a violent homophobe, I agreed to go on a date with him.

He took me to an Italian place he knew in West London with soft lighting, great service and thick linen napkins. And he wore a waistcoat.

The evening passed by in a giggly haze of wine, mozzarella, warm dough balls and hands that brushed against each other ‘accidentally’.

But waistcoats and shoulders aside, he made me laugh and was intelligent and even managed to remind me that my job is actually quite interesting. I think I forget that sometimes. And I genuinely found his job interesting. He taught English Language/Literature at a secondary school in North London and I asked him why he enjoyed his job. He took a swig of wine and said,

‘Working in a school means that even as a teacher, I never stop learning.’

Nice.

An hour or so later, the remnants of a shared tiramisu were being cleared away and he asked me about my Hopes and Dreams.

I’m not a massive fan of talking about Hopes and Dreams. Mostly because I’m not entirely sure what they are. At the age of 29 you would think I had a better idea but I am still fairly flummoxed. I didn’t even have an incredibly strong ambition to work in theatre and kind of ‘fell’ into it. I guess that my Hope is that one day in about ten years I will ‘fall’ into something else. I’m crossing my fingers it will be Managing Director for a company that makes yachts for millionaires but I’m prepared for disappointment.

Stuart and his unbelievable green eyes are looking at me over a cappuccino, expecting me to divulge what my Hopes and Dreams are. I don’t want to disappoint so decide that the best option is to lie.

‘I want to travel to Haiti and build a theatre for orphans.’

He’s impressed. I turn the question back on him ‘What about you?’

‘Well, my father died a couple of years ago.’

I tut and do my god-thats-really-awful face.

‘And he left me a lot of money.’

I swallow and try very hard not to do my oooh-are-you-actually-quite-loaded face.

‘So now I’m thinking that maybe I will use it to do what I really love, you know? Maybe have a bit of faith in myself.’

‘Totally.’ Without thinking I rest my hand on his. He has lovely hands. Bit callousy but I’m assuming that’s from all the rowing and it’s rowing which gives him the Shoulders so I’ll forgive it. He smiles at my touch.

‘I think I will leave teaching soon. I’ve done it for a while now.’

‘Wow.’ I lean in closer. ‘So what will you do?’

He takes a breath.

‘I want to be an actor.’

In one fluid movement I have pulled back my hand and signalled for the bill.

Handymen and Heroes

The situation with the pub has got worse.  (If you don’t know what I’m talking about you need to read  a previous post called Upstairs, Downstairs. My blog isn’t like ‘Lost’, you know,  I’m not going to do a re-cap at the beginning of each entry.)

The shrieking is continuing and our play is still constantly being disrupted. I have sent several e-mails to the Pub Manager, David. And he replies dutifully to every single e mail.  I have put thought and great care into the e mails(probably not as much as I put into this blog but I always run a spell check)  and it is clear that he is doing the same but we are going round in circles. I am running out of polite and gracious ways of saying ‘our play is the most important thing in the world so when it is on, you and your staff must shut the fuck up’. And he is struggling to find ways to say ‘I run a pub, not a bloody library’ without causing offence. Each day these e mails pass between us but I can tell that we are growing weary of each other. He has stopped beginning his with ‘Dear’ and I have ceased to put kisses at the bottom of mine. Hey, I can be a right bitch when I want to be.

He does always promise though that they will try to ‘keep it down’. Whatever. When people say they are going to try to ‘keep it down’, they invariably don’t. It is one of those great lies of life and I regard it with suspicion. You know, the same way you are suspicious of people when they say ‘The taxis just round the corner’, ‘your cheque is in the post’ and ‘I won’t come in your mouth’.

Whole meetings have been dedicated to this (the noise issue, not what to do about men who come in your mouth without warning), and people are always coming up with various solutions. At one point, somebody from The Office suggested that we place an Usher IN the stairwell for the entire duration of the performance. Our Ushers are very sweet locals who volunteer and are only paid with the privilege of watching some fabulous free theatre. They do not come and give their services for nowt so that they can then be placed in a dingy, lightless stairwell to confront the pub staff when they get rowdy. Having to deal directly with the public is bad enough.

We have yet another meeting with people from The Office and we decide that the Ushers should not be expected to deal with the pub staff and that we need to think of something else.  Various ideas fly backwards and forwards. There are some we can’t afford (sound-proofing the doors) and there are others that are tempting but not really realistic (planting vast amounts of cocaine behind the bar and getting the pub shut down.) That was my idea.

One of my cast is getting increasingly fraught as the shows go by and has a suggestion of his own.

‘Can’t you just kill them???!!!’

I was in his dressing room at the end of a particularly badly interrupted performance and watched him as he tore off his costume and threw it in the laundry basket.

‘I mean, these people should die. Die!!! They are so fucking disrespectful!’

Actors appear to have murderous thoughts about a lot of people; audience members whose mobile phones go off, bloggers who write about shows during previews (not guilty) and people who eat crisps loudly and continuously during plays. One of these days I swear that one of them will crack, go on a bloody rampage and after a four day manhunt be tracked down to a West End pub where there will be a tense stand off. After fifteen hours of bargaining they will get dragged into a Police van screaming ‘I was doing a monologue and the phone went off twice! Twice! And he didn’t stop it! In the middle of my monologue!’

Just as one of these ‘what do we do about the noisy pub staff’ meetings is wrapping up and I’m yanking my Marlboro Lights from my pocket, one of the admin girls comments loudly,

‘It’s very strange. We never had a problem when Mike was the stage manager.’

Wow.

In this entire situation, I had assumed that we, as a theatre, had been directing our murderous feelings of hatred and resentment towards the pub. It had never even crossed my mind that my stage management ability was under scrutiny.  I don’t wait around for the standard post-meeting tea and cake and flee The Office, shamefaced and slightly distraught.

In the theatre I locate my Production Manager who is measuring something (measuring, always measuring) and casually ask him about Amazing Mike.

 ‘Oh yeah. Mike. He was the stage manager here. He was great.’

‘Great?’

‘Yeah. Great team player and amazing carpenter. So useful to have around.’

This is bad news. Especially as I struggled to assemble my Ikea wardrobe and even now the right hand door swings open for no reason and I have to jam my radiator against it.

So the score is Mike 1 –Me Nil. Production Manager sees my crestfallen face.

‘But it’s great having you here too! You’re really great at... the scheduling. Mike was crap at that.’

Tis true. I like a good schedule and tackle them with relish. One all.

‘Soooooo...... how was the pub situation when Mike was here?’

‘It was very good. He was very good at dealing with it.’

Mike 2 – Me 1

After further questioning it transpires that one night, Amazing Mike overheard one of the Pub Staff moaning about a broken cupboard in the kitchen. Amazing Mike heard this cry of distress, sped down there with his toolbelt and fixed the dodgy cupboard in a flash. Within minutes the Pub Staff were carrying him around on their shoulders in a celebratory frenzy and jubilantly chanting his name.

Okay so maybe that didn’t happen but that’s the image I get in my head. I also can’t prevent myself from picturing him clad head to toe in skin tight lycra, a picture of a purple hammer emblazoned across his chest like some kind of superhero. Carpenter Man.  Armed only with a Leatherman he is saving the world from badly assembled furniture, one chipboard cupboard at a time.

From that day on, he went down to the pub after every single performance. He befriended all of the pub staff and was a regular at lock-ins. They all absolutely adored him and called upon him to fix and refurbish their rather dodgy pub furniture.  In return for his services they kept quiet on the stairwell and crept about silently, in fear of upsetting Mike and having to repair any breakages themselves.

Now how the hell am I supposed to compete with that? I rack my brains but struggle to work out what services I could offer the hostile pub staff. In a moment of need and crisis, nobody wants Scheduling Woman to appear on the scene equipped with a Filofax, post-it notes and a biro.

‘But he never works here anymore?’

Production Manager sighs. ‘No. I had to fire him.’

Things are looking up. ‘How come?’

‘He turned up to a matinee still pissed from a lock in the night before.’

Game Over.

So yeah, maybe I do struggle with electric screwdrivers. Okay, and normal screwdrivers. And, yes, I’ll admit that if anyone ever presents me with a broken piece of wooden furniture I instinctively reach for the Gaffa tape.  But turn up inebriated for work?  I wouldn’t dare.

‘By the way,’ Production Manager continues ‘speaking of schedules, I have been looking at the one for next week and it’s a real head-fuck. Could you please give me a hand and sort it out?’

He hasn’t even finished the sentence and I have produced (seemingly out of nowhere), a biro, my Filofax and some small post-its.

It’s Scheduling Woman to the rescue.

Party Pooper

It was just before the show and I was backstage, sporting my headset and waiting to be told that all of our audience were in their seats and that we could start our performance. Waiting in the wings with me were Adam and Chris, two of my actors. Both young, attractive and brimming with fresh talent. I had come to the conclusion that with the right agent, at least one of them would appear in an ITV murder mystery in the next six months.

I had been chatting away on my headset to Leah, my fabulous DSM, and Austin, my lighting board operator. Austin graduated about a year ago. He is a whizz at programming an ETC Ion and when he’s sporting his harness, he swings expertly and adeptly around a rig like a monkey. A bespectacled, slightly overweight, Super Dry wearing monkey.  I would have a lot more time for Austin if he didn’t assume that his extensive knowledge of various lighting desks meant that he was also an authority on absolutely everything, including how I did my job. He reminds me of a young Piers Morgan. And I’ve told him that.

I checked my watch; 7.31. We had loitered here for about five minutes and the boys had gone through their usual warm ups. (Lots of punching the air and humming loudly) All I was waiting for was for my DSM, Leah, to tell me over the headset, that we had Front of House clearance. Once that happened I would give Withnail and I the signal, and as soon as they were in position, I would get back to her and tell her to start the show.  

‘That’s clearance’ Leah trills.

‘Thank yoooooooou. Let me tell the boys.’ I waved to Adam and Chris who nodded that they were ready. Some last minute punching happened and then they both settled. I crossed to my Sliding Doors and opened my mouth to let Leah know she could start. Then suddenly, in the darkness, I felt a hand grip my arm. I looked round. It was Adam.

‘I can’t go on.’

Bloody hell. I had heard about things like this happening; actors getting actual stage-fright and just suddenly being unable to perform. Stephen Fry famously walked offstage during a 1995 West End production of ‘Cell Mates’ and was only discovered a week later in Belgium. (Who knew that vast quantities of chocolate and beer could cure stage fright.) And Ian Holm was struck by such awful stage fright during a 70’s production of ‘The Iceman Cometh’ that he didn’t grace the stage for almost two decades.

The grip on my arm was tightening and even in the darkness I could see Adam’s pale face and the whites of his eyes. The panic started in my stomach, quickly rose through my body and made the vein in my temple throb wildly against my headset.

‘What do you mean you can’t go on?’ I hissed back, bracing myself for him to suddenly flee the wings and hail a cab to Gatwick. He gulped and I could now see small beads of sweat on his forehead.

‘I need to poo.’

Jesus.

‘Really? Right now?’

‘Yes. Seriously.’

‘No. We’ve got clearance.’

‘ It’s a Party Poo. It’s urgent.’

‘Party...?’

But he’s gone. He has left the wings and fled in the direction of the Gents. I turn to Chris who is nodding solemnly.

‘What was that all about?’ I ask him. ‘Party poo?’

Chris is wise and knowledgable in the ways of Party Poos.

‘Its when you’ve been on a heavy one the night before. The next day you have an upset tummy and your poo is....’ He looks uncomfortable.

‘Go on.’

‘.....a bit runny and unpleasant. And it smells reeeeeally bad. But it’s totally necessary. He has to go.’

‘Right.’ Despite my annoyance I flick a switch on my headset and relay this information to Leah.

‘Adam has gone for a poo.’

‘But we’ve had clearance.’

I sigh. ‘Yes I know but it’s a Par..... It’s urgent.’

Austin wastes no time in telling me his opinion. ‘You shouldn’t have let him go.’

‘Well I didn’t have much choice.’

A minute passes by but it feels like a lot longer. The audience are shifting in their seats. All of these people are tense with the anticipation of the theatrical magic which is about to unfold before them. I am tense with the knowledge that the play can not start until one of my cast has had a poo. God he’s taking his time.

‘He’s been ages.’

 ‘Yes, thank you Austin. I’m going to go and find him.’ I remove my headset, leave the wings and head off in the direction of the Gents Toilets. On the way I bump into the Front of House Manager, Rob.

‘Oh hi Rob.’

He looks aggrieved. ‘We gave you clearance ages ago. Why haven’t you started?’

‘It’s Adam. He needs to po.... prepare.’

Despite my current annoyance with Adam, I always feel a very odd sense of loyalty towards my company. I love them all dearly and am not prepared to disclose information about Adam’s  embarrassing bowel issues to other theatre staff. But Rob isn’t buying it.

‘Well tell Adam to prepare quicker. The audience are all in and if we don’t start soon I’ll get complaints. And if that happens,’ he pauses for dramatic effect , ‘I’ll tell them we’re having technical difficulties.’

Bastard.

‘Oh for fu.... Fine. Fine. I’ll get him,’  I promise and march past.

I discover Adam in the Gents toilets where a cubicle door is, thankfully, preventing me from seeing what is happening within . Sadly the door does not stop me from being able to hear Adam’s extensive and strenuous battle with his Party Poo. I quite fancied Adam when I first met him. I don’t anymore.

‘Adam babe. You really need to hurry up.’

‘I’m........ trying,’ is the strained reply.

When I started this career in theatre, I was excited about where it would take me and who I would meet. I never envisaged myself in the mens loos of a small theatre, waiting for an actor to empty his bowels. And I’m not even waiting for someone important or worthy of a dinner table anecdote like Rupert Everett. I’m  waiting on an actor who has starred in a Burger King advert and is yet to even audition for Midsomer Murders. As I contemplate a career move, I hear a door creak behind me. Adam and I are no longer alone. Rob has joined the party. He’s gripping a walkie talkie and looking very pissed off.

‘What the hell is going on and what are you doing in the mens?’

These are two very good questions and ones I am beginning to ask myself. Rob doesn’t even give me a chance to reply.

‘Helping Adam prepare are you?’

I know exactly what’s being insinuated here and I am painfully aware that this situation looks slightly dodgy. But as I have said before, I am fiercely loyal when it comes to my cast and am not ready to embarrass one of my male leads in front of other theatre staff. However, I do enjoy working at this theatre and would like to again. Being caught in the gents, with an actor, when the show should have started is not the way to go about it. Bollocks to it. Sink or swim.

I point accusingly at the cubicle door.

‘Adam has to poo.’

Rob looks unimpressed. ‘Poo?’

‘A PARTY POO!!!!’ comes the anguished wail.

Rob looks from me to the cubicle door. ‘A party poo?’ He contemplates this. ‘Feeling rough mate?’ he calls.

‘Yeah.’ Adam whimpers.

‘Good night was it?’

‘Blinding, mate.’

‘Nice one!’

‘Yeah. Think I need a pint to sort me out now though, bruv.’

Rob leans casually against the doorway and plays with the antennae on his radio.

‘Well, come the pub with us after the show mate.’ He suggests.

‘Ace.’ And with this we hear the flush of the loo and Adam emerges from the cubicle, looking satisfied and triumphant. The battle with the Party Poo is over and Adam has emerged victorious. A nation rejoices.  ‘Which pub?’

‘One round the corner. The Rose and...’

‘HELLO!!!!’ Both of these men seem to have completely forgotten my presence and I am starting to wonder if I should be ushering the audience in here so that they can witness a scaled down theatrical version of ‘Brokeback Mountain’.  As far as I am aware however, both of these men are very straight so maybe its more like ‘Bromance Mountain.’

‘Adam. Backstage. NOW.’

Adam reluctantly exits the loos and I follow him. In Scene Two he serves food and drink to other cast members. He hasn’t washed his hands. Nobody needs to know.

Backstageand next to the Sliding Doors, I replace my headset and check my watch. Christ, we’ve been gone for ages.

‘You were gone for ages.’

‘Yes thank you Austin. Leah, we’re ready. You can start’.

7.41. The show hasn’t even begun and I am now officially In A Strop. Through gritted teeth, I growl ‘Stand by.’

Adam is now standing behind the Sliding Doors, awaiting his entrance. He stands tall, shoulders pushed back and presumably feels a pound or so lighter. He looks over at me sheepishly and apologetically.

‘I’m sorry,’ he mouths.

And when I look at him, something inside me softens. He looks so handsome in his medieval costume with his strong jawline clearly visible in the backstage gloom. His hair falls across his face and when he takes that preparatory breath, his shoulders rise and fall as if he is readying himself for war.

I try to forget what has just taken place and I remind myself that I must not take for granted what a privileged position I am in. Every night I get to witness story telling at its greatest and work with truly talented individuals and Adam is definitely one of those talented individuals. Reviewers have used words such as ‘mesmerising’ and ‘rising star’ when describing him.

I make a mental note to try and treat Adam with slightly more respect. I have shown him little so far and was maybe not as sympathetic towards his pre-show panic as I could have been.  As his stage manager, I should be somebody who he feels comfortable to approach in his hour of need. Not somebody who begrudges him a few short minutes so that he can feel totally at ease when appearing before an audience.

I return Adam’s slightly nervous smile with an encouraging and supportive grin to show that I forgive him and that all is well again between cast and crew. Just before the Sliding Doors open he again mouths something at me. Another heartfelt apology?  It takes a second for me to work it out but then the smell of rancid milk and overcooked cabbage hits me.

‘I’ve farted.’

He passes through the doors and I slam them shut behind him, practically locking myself within the stench of his hungover innards.

Wanker.