WEEK TWO IN THE ACTORS' STUDIO

I’m slouched, feeling rough as a badger, on the front steps off the Esteemed Dramatic Institution polishing off a medicinal Gauloises at 9.28am before the first three-hour movement class … and I don’t feel like moving.

Watching my fellow classmates bound up the stairs as if they were auditioning for the Wizard of Oz is slightly less mortifying than the appearance of my new best friend: Miss Keen Bean. Oh, and today (bless her) she’s wearing the EDI stash - hoodie and t-shirt (the latter exposed when the former removed). Who could find time to buy the college ‘sweats’ before week two? I want to trip her up.

I realize I’m late and dribble in after her. My head aches. God. Stairs. I wheeze up, jeans straining against my aching knees, Miss K.B bounding ahead: all black pumps and ‘sweat pants’. I hate that expression. What’s wrong with good-old tracksuit bottoms? That’s what they were called at my school anyway. That and pleated gym skirts and green flash. Sweat pants? That’s both too coy and too graphic.

The day was saved by the teacher. The most extraordinary, exquisitely unexpected man with something of a gut - a man of the trade who also likes a pie! A fellow soldier on this battlefield of the wan, the thin and the healthy! Hurrah! He told us about a technique Grotowski submitted his students to which allowed them to discover the power of their own bodies. He would deposit them in an isolated forest, forcing them to fend for themselves for weeks on end, one of these experiments resulting in a student’s death. I try to blot out the image of a bloodied and mangled K.B. as we begin to dance.

Well, some people danced. They did. I shuffled and stumbled and breathed heavily down people’s necks – a heady mix of espresso, fags, last night’s Rioja and Listerine. Mmm.

It was a kind of early morning madness that seemed suddenly absolutely right and exactly what everybody should be doing at 9.45 in the morning: throwing themselves around a studio to Bach and Beyonce, whirling dervishes, waltzing and jiving and swirling, curling, curving, the room, me, the others, life! Carpe Diem! I wanted to bellow out the windows: “what the fuck, you pedestrians, you land lubbers, you CIVILIANS, you slugs of the pavement! Look at us; we are the SOLDIERS OF THEATRE.”

At this point I had to face that I was still drunk from the night before and my whirling dervishness came to an abrupt halt as I bolted for the bathroom and vomited furiously. Feeling much refreshed I returned, realizing with some triumph and not a little amusement, that I realize I am turning into Peter O’Toole in the latter stages of his career at the very beginning of mine. Chin chin!

WEEK ONE IN THE ACTORS’ STUDIO

I’m still totally foxed as to how I got through the audition. Am I an actor? No way. A director? Nah. A designer? Nope. And after week one I’m not sure I want to be any of those things.

Who are these people? When I was selected out of the thousands of people who applied I assumed they’d be thoughtfully honing down a list of no-hopers to find a ready made friendship group for me! Oh no they didn’t. It’s like the bar in Star Wars. Some of them are giggling at everything the tutor says like love sick teenagers (males and females) it’s gross – you’d think he was Universal’s casting director. Come to think of it, maybe he is…. Some are foreign and kind of impenetrable – I suppose they have potential. Many of them are deeply, deeply and pretentious (or is that nervous? See, I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt). I’ve had enough of people drinking herbal tea and eating Guarana berries for their spiritual and physical well-being. God deliver me from Pilates. F*ck Pilates. It’s just bullsh*t.

A bottle of red wine and some fish and chips is what’s needed. The girls are all so incredibly thin. They definitely need a dose of that. Doesn’t the world ever want fat actresses? Obviously not. I guess it’s easier to don a fat suit than the other way round. Nobody smokes. It’s a disaster. The men are men, I suppose and a bit of a rum lot. To be honest I haven’t actually had the courage to talk to any of them yet and am dismissing them as they looked like they knew a lot more about theatre than me. I’m afraid I feel like a shambling slob so far. Circus skills next week can only finish me off.

Today we played with a paper cup. I’m serious. We had to walk towards a paper cup, pick it up and give it to the director. Then we had to do it with our eyes closed. We all f*ked it up of course. How are you supposed to pick up a cup half way across a room with your eyes closed? I ask you. They told us a story: apparently Stanislavski told an actress, on her first day of training; “there is a needle hidden in that curtain over there and I want you to act as if you are looking for it and that if you don’t find it then I will chuck you off the course”. So she goes mental trying to find the needle, wailing in fear and frantically searching. He stops her. He tells her that there really IS a needle in the curtain and if she doesn’t find it she will be chucked off the course. She suddenly becomes very serious and searches with great care and slow attention. So, I guess we shouldn’t overact or we’ll get chucked off the course. Not sure how you overact failing to pick up a paper cup. My fumbling was real, not acting. What is this all about? I’m supposed to be keeping a reflective diary for my tutor. The page has the giant doodles of a lunatic right now like those Samaritan posters. Need someone to talk to? Damn right.

And when am I ever going to have to pick up a cup or search for a needle when I’m being an extra in The Bill which is the sum total of my ambition right now. Or I’d just settle for being an extra in a zombie film to get me back in the company of humans.