An Accidental Actor

It was my wife, Kate’s fault. She was looking for a hobby. I, on the other hand, had too many hobbies and really did not need another one. She had always been a frustrated actress and felt she had something to offer, but was always too busy with work and other stuff to get around to joining a drama group. So when we settled in our new house in Downham, the time was right. We had already seen a few Stage 2 productions and she decided to attend a reading for an upcoming play to be put on by the group. She asked if I would go along for moral support, and being the sort of model husband that I am, I did.

After being introduced and warmly welcomed by the director we all sat around in a circle, scripts in hand to be allocated reading parts. Hang on, hang on, I’m only here for the moral support bit, I can’t act... really, I can’t... I’ve never been on stage in my life... etc (protests too much, blah, blah, etc)

Well, you’ve guessed it. After a most enjoyable evening of reading in a completely relaxed, supportive and fun environment, I was completely hooked and unbelievably cast in my first play. I could not believe it. I was delighted. Dennis Dobbins in A Bunch of Amateurs.

‘A masterful debut of inconceivable subtlety...’, ‘one would never believe it was his first acting role...’ ‘Crikey, his flies are undone’ were some of the snippets of conversations not heard from the retiring audience. And so it began...

My next big opportunity came (get me, now I sound like Derek Jacobi) when, again, quite unbelievably, I was cast in a leading role in Strangers on a Train. This time it was an intense, serious part which required me to adopt an american accent in this dark psychological thriller. I was slightly reticent at first as I didn’t think I could do it, and I was concerned about the amount of dialogue I would need to learn. However, I had people around me who were incredibly supportive and encouraging who dragged me along, kicking and screaming. The rehearsals were draining affairs which took a lot out of me but I loved the intensity and the contrast between this and my previous debut role.

I was in the process of trying to learn my lines about a week before the first performance when disaster struck in the shape of Covid 19 which had already been hovering around the nation like a bad smell – it had a terminal effect on our little production. About 5 days before curtain up we were forced to cancel the show. Costumes had been acquired, sets built, everyone had been gearing up to our first night (most of the cast even knew their lines!). We were left with nothing to show for all our hard work. It was a massive blow.

But of course, the show must go on, and so it does as we work towards our next production and the machine starts up again, slowly at first, oh no, line learning again...