After a week in Newcastle
playing The Tempest in The RSC
and three weeks swimming in tropical rain storms and downing rum punches
that ripped our insides out Minnie (Mariah Gale ) and I, by now inseparable,
huddled together in my Walthamstow flat contemplating the forthcoming London
run of Anthony and Cleopatra and The Tempest. It was January 2007. Cold and
dark outside even my humble flat seemed cosy and inviting as the train
continued to rumble past and the rain, freezing this time, dogged our days and
nights. I began therapy. It seemed the sensible thing to do given my disastrous
love life and I looked forward to some clarity as the nights came early and the
days were dank and dark.
Rehearsing in London at the Novello theatre on the strand was
wonderful. I had not been back to the West End since my fleeting brush with the
high life of a leading lady in Ragtime in 2003 so it was with great excitement
that I found myself back treading the hallowed boards. We rehearsed the main
cast first and we girls found ourselves stationed in a dressing room on the top
floor of an enormous rickety old theatre, five flights up. Great thigh work
out. Once The Tempest was up and running after a rapturous first night and
glamorous party it was on to the understudy rehearsals. During this time I
continued with therapy. Beth was a wonderful woman who lived in a gorgeous
ramshackle house in Islington. I would mirror climbing the stairs in the
theatre as I climbed the many stairs in her house to the tiny room at the top
where I would express my hopes, my fears, my pain and my disappointment, my
anger and my humour and feeling cleansed and purged I would descend to rinse my
face with cold water and face the world.
After three or four weeks I started to think more about the
man that I had met before the great RSC experience and when he invited me out
to tea during understudy rehearsals for Miranda I realised what lovely blue
eyes he had, swiftly followed by how kind he was feeding me a big chicken
dinner and before I knew it I was realising I had made a mistake and that this
was a wonderful man not a rogue or a ‘b’anker or a dumper or a weird internet
guy but a lovely person who just might be the real thing.
And so the huge RSC experience was racing to an end. It had been
a phenomenal roller coaster of a ride and with two weeks to go I checked my
bank balance only to realise that, horror of horrors, I was going to have to go
back to the proverbial temping! None of the auditions I had gone to towards the
end of the run proved fruitful and so I was back to square one. And so two
weeks before we finished I found myself getting up to go to my lettings job in
the day and appearing in The Tempest at night. Fourteen hour days. I was cream
crackered.
Jonny and I resumed our relationship and swiftly found that
we wanted to steam ahead. Within a few months I had found a flat through my job
which was by Angel tube and was affordable between us. Again at the top flight
of many stairs we decided to take it for fun and convenience and rent out our
flats. It was amazing to be living in almost central London and loads of
friends dropped by continuously. Meanwhile, I was auditioning and auditioning
and having no luck. At least, I thought, I can walk to work and I have a great
boyfriend. Things are actually looking up.
After a particularly upsetting experience when my boss
shouted drunken abuse at me I managed to land a work shop for a show directed
by Jude Kelly called King Cotton which had been written by Jimmy McGovern of
‘The Streets’ fame. I was thrilled. The workshop was short but a great tonic
and when they finally decided to do the show up at the Lowry Theatre in Salford
I was really excited to be offered the job thinking to myself that this could
lead to the elusive T.V. work that I never seemed destined to get.
I picked the cheapest digs which looked close to the theatre.
Big mistake. As Jonny drove me nearer to the house I was to be living in the
streets began to resemble a horror movie. Boarded up windows and no lights on
save the street lamps it felt like a different country. Uh oh. My land lady was
lovely. She was young and fun and she used to be a makeup artist on West end
and touring shows but was now a wig maker based in Manchester so that she could
stay in one place. We shared sentiments of being fed up with touring as we came
into our thirties and I realised that I was unhappy. I did not want to be
living the rest of my life like this living out of a suitcase. Although the
show was wonderful and I reconnected with old friends and made new ones I
missed home and in particular Jonny. I had turned thirty-five.
Back at home the idea of going back to letting flats had lost
its appeal. I applied through the back of The Stage magazine for an advert for an
education agency that took people to work as teaching assistants with special
needs children. I secured a couple of references from Steve Marmion assistant
director at the RSC and Gill King who ran all the educational workshops that I
had done with Ed Kingsley who had played understudy Ferdinand. I was in.
My first assignment was working with a boy in a school in
Belsize Park who was behind developmentally. It was a great and worthwhile job
and I really enjoyed it. It took me through the Christmas period and then out
of the blue on a trip to Gloucester to stay with friends and watch the rugby
Jonny proposed! I had certainly not been expecting a proposal out in a muddy
field under a huge tree but it was wonderful and I accepted happily and
tearfully.
Suddenly everything snow balled. I was offered a tour of
Godspell without auditioning through Paul Kerryson who I had worked for ten
years earlier and was to sing the fantastic song: ‘Day by Day’. I said yes as
it was three weeks on and one week off and some places were commutable. I had
one week to learn the show and then we opened in Brighton as I was replacing
someone who was leaving the contract. And so again I had one week to learn
something! Terrified I staggered through the first night.
On the way home after the second show I ran for the train to
London. It dawned on me after a while that the stops were becoming unfamiliar
and I asked someone where we were going. It was not a London bound train. What
to do? I got off at the next stop and asked a guard. He said that if I got back
to Brighton the last train to London was at 1.05 am. I would need to get a taxi.
Right. I ran to the taxi rank and urged the driver to get back to Brighton as
fast as he could. He chatted and drove like a snail. As I rushed on to the
platform I watched the last train to London pull out. Manically I phoned my new
theatre companions who were all still in the pub and more than luckily two of
them were living with a land lady who had a spare room. I was saved. Running to
the pub I laughed to myself and thanked God for small mercies.
The tour was great. The people were wonderful. The producer
was a crook. But I was engaged and pretty happy. Planning the wedding was going
to be crazy since we decided to get married in June 2008 and the tour ended in
April. Also Jonny managed to get a theatre job at the Finborough Theatre in
Earls Court. The director allowed him four days off to get married. I turned 36
and was soon to be wed.
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