Very showbiz this week, loves. Oh yes. It was The Festival Of Multiple Birth, your see, so I celebrated down The Smoke. Although I also had a chat with a director about a brand new production as well, so it wasn't all high jinks.
The Festival Of Multiple Birth, as I like to call it, is the celebration of the birthday of three actor friends all within one week of each other. All three went to the Webber Douglas Academy with my other 'alf, Rebecca. The Webber D was a fine institution, that alas, after over 100 years, fell foul of commercialism and died an ignoble death just a few months ago. But like the other big, famous London drama schools, RADA, LAMDA, Central et al, most of the students that went there were all of a high quality. There are nearly 1000 potential thesps competing for each place at the Top 5 London schools apparently - and don't get me started about the obscenity of ending vocational grants for drama students. That's for another time, perhaps. But you should know that,
1. I like Drama Students and...
2. Although I'm waving the flag for the West Midlands, I also love London.
So the Festival Of Multiple Birth offers me an annual chance, along with the Boat Race and other great British Events, to combine two of my passions. Or three, if you include my woman, of course, who lives in Chiswick. (She's also a Brummy. But went to London and stayed. Something I'm hoping to address with the New Maverick Theatre.)
So I record a radio show at The Arrow, then jump in me Renault Retard and pootle down the M40. Fortunately there's a parking space on the drive outside our house. When I say our house, I mean the Bedsit With A Bog we inhabit inside the house with about 4 other people. Afford a house on Chiswick High Road. I wish!
We jump on the 27 bus which whisks us almost directly to the Gastro Pub where we are meeting for the 2nd Birth Event. It takes us an hour and I'm reminded again how BIG London is. (London is big. World copyright N. Hennegan!) One of the birth trio, the beautiful, talented and VERY organized Anne, has managed to track down a '2 courses for a tenner' offer in a newspaper. Very few actors can ever afford to turn down an offer.
Because I'd been on the radio, I'd missed the 1st Birth Event on Friday, a Barndance! Young and funky apparently! But the 2nd Birth Event event, although more intimate, with just the 3 Birthday celebrants and Rebecca and me, was very pleasant. We had a nice gastro meal for a tenner and a couple of glasses of wine and then, this being London and a Saturday night, realised it was going to be impossible to get a drink after 11pm. Where are the hordes of drunken rioters the right wing press predicted? In bed, probably. We eventually found a bar that stayed open till (shocked gasp!) midnight! The Monsters! I expect civilization to collapse around Paddington any day now. Caroline, the second of the birth trio teamed up with Anne to find a night club. A formidable duo. Anne, tall, blond and beautiful and Caroline with her cascading dark hair and flashing Celtic eyes, also beautiful but looking about 14. She is blessed with uncanny youth and it's no surprise to know she has done many recordings as Doctor Who's assistant.
Michael, the third of the Birth Trio, got so spannered the night before he decides not to accompany the chicks to a club and save himself for the the Third Birth Event, an all day party on Sunday. Michael is an attractive mix of boy band looks and Northern sensibility with a keen interest in world affairs. He's also the most famous Son of Leyland currently working in the West End and a sharp actor too, although he's been more on the technical side for the last few years.
So he and we head home having completed the Second of the Three Birth Events and I'm struck again about how nice the Birth Three are. It's a bit of a fiction, in fact a lot of a fiction about actors being queeny and demanding. There is perhaps a vulnerability and insecurity with some - god, you try working for the money and conditions most actors have to work for - but nearly all the actors I've come across over the years are warm, considerate friendly people.
Rebecca and I walk to Barnes on Sunday and have a leisurely pint watching the second half of the England v France rugby game. I'm impressed. Not just with the Rugby, but with Rebecca. She doesn't really Do Walking.
On Monday I'm to meet a theatre director, Chris, in a coffee bar in Soho to talk about a play about a famous comedian we want to tour in the Autumn of 2008. I still get a thrill walking and working in London. The first time I met Chris, a few years ago, we sat outside a small unpretentious Italian restaurant in Belgravia. As we were talking, Chris nodded to two people passing. One looked strangely familiar. When I felt it appropriate (I was very nervous talking to a big shot London director. Well you would be, wouldn't you!) I casually asked who they were.
"Oh, that's Edward. You know, Prince Edward. And his detective." and although we continued to talk about a proposal for another new work I really wished me Mom had been here!
Chis drops another bombshell this Monday. I'm telling him about Henry V - Lion of England and the tour this autumn. I ask him for his ideas about casting if the actor I've approached can't do it. Does he know anyone?
"I have the perfect person in mind," he smiles. "The ideal actor for Henry V - Lion of England would be you!"
Me? Blimey. Didn't see that one coming.
No comments:
Post a Comment