The proverbial wisdom is it's the early bird that catches the worm. I'm not sure I've ever really been an early bird. The first 10 or 15 years of my working career were based around theatre, where the day's climax was the evening and relaxation time didn't begin until 10.30 at night after a particularly long Shakespeare. It was the pub or dinner, and bed rarely came before 1 am in the morning. Rehearsals often dragged one out of bed the following day. But wherever possible, I would enjoy a lazy morning between the sheets. Revelry was quite often the cause of those lazy mornings, so when I gave up drinking 25 years ago, one of the benefits I discovered almost immediately was the fact that I had so much extra time as I woke by 8 most mornings. I could complete my to-do list for the day by 9.30 and have the day stretch in front of me with opportunities and possibilities. For the last three weeks, I have been dragged out of bed at 5 a.m. to get in the car at 5:30 to...
Most people, if they’re lucky, only do three or four job interviews in their life. A couple of shifts here, a rung or two up the ladder there, and before you know it you’re in a swivel chair with a pension scheme and a lanyard. Lovely. For actors, it’s different. We do them all the time. Weekly, sometimes daily. Except we don’t call them interviews. We call them auditions. These days, that often means a self-tape — two syllables that strike more fear into the average actor than “tax return”. Picture the scene: you, in front of the only bit of white wall in your flat that isn’t cracked, crooked or adorned with a poster of Les Mis. You’re trying to summon the emotions of a broken man while balancing your phone on a stack of cookbooks and praying the neighbour’s dog doesn’t start yapping during your big moment. You send it off, you wait, you hear nothing. Then weeks later you’re watching telly with a digestive and a cuppa when there it is — the very job you auditioned for, being play...
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