Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Acting (But Were Afraid To Ask, Dear) (24 page)

Sometimes you may be extremely lucky and your landlady will offer to cook for you, which can be very nice. However, it can also be very un-nice if your landlady is a sweaty mammoth who has a tendency to dribble and pick at her feet. I know many actors who have eaten home-cooked food which contained scabs, hair and body parts. Although you may feel rude turning this home-prepared delicacy down, your gut will thank you for it in the long run.

A great treat on tour is the ‘microwave meal’. These handy little snacks are a lifesaver, especially nowadays when you can get
healthy
microwave meals. M&S is a particular favourite – they do a lovely range of healthy meals that fill you up and take less than an hour to come out the other end. You should always make ‘microwave hunting’ one of your first priorities when entering a new theatre. It is also very handy to find a fridge. The fridge comes in very useful, particularly for keeping your interval alcohol chilled. It is also a rather fun place to hide the understudies in.

Actors – becoming a vegan does not make you a better actor. It just makes you a smellier one, dear.

A recent trend in actors is to become a vegan. Whilst this is all lovely, and may have long-term health benefits, it is not very considerate to your fellow cast members. There is nothing worse than walking on stage to be greeted with the pungent aroma of a vegan’s fart. I have had the pleasure of sitting in a rehearsal room watching an entirely vegan cast rehearse the dance routine to ‘The American Dream’. And I can tell you, I will never forget the smell of those fourteen bendy vegans doing the splits.

I am not saying that I don’t approve of healthy eating, because of course I do. But I think everything should be done in moderation. I tried being a vegan once for a month, and whilst I lost half a stone in body weight and felt fantastically fit, my partner banished me to the spare room as the things that were coming out of my bottom were toxic.

Of course, in rehearsals I will always try and provide biscuits. Biscuits are a necessity in the rehearsal room – and a lack of them can cause extreme unpleasantness. I remember Brian Blessed getting so upset about the lack of biscuits one morning that he ran away, left the show, and started doing voice-overs for
Peppa Pig
.

Sometimes, if you are extra lucky, cake will be given – to keep you keen. With cake I always get my company manager to report back who takes the biggest slice – as it is useful to know who the greedy actors are. I even know one director who begins his rehearsal period by throwing a tin of Quality Streets on the floor and telling the actors to ‘find their favourite’. He finds the whole exercise very revealing, and believes that each sweet says something different about the actor. If ever you find yourself faced with this ‘sweetie challenge’, be warned: do not choose the Purple One. And never, ever take two sweets, as this means you hog centre-stage, dear.

Essential Things to Take on Tour

A pillow
– Avoids you resting your head on a sweaty, lumpy one. There is nothing quite so disconcerting as being confined to two months of sleeping on a stain-covered brick.

DVD box set
– You need something to keep you entertained when going back to your cold, Dickensian digs. Even if you are sharing digs it can be rather fun to have a DVD night with your room-mates. It alleviates boredom and is a welcome distraction when you have nothing else to say to each other.

Warm pyjamas
– Inevitably you will get cold, particularly when touring in the winter. It is highly recommended you have something warm and comfortable to snuggle into on those occasions. Your pyjamas do not necessarily have to be sexy and flattering, unless you plan on using another member of the company to keep you warm. If this is the case, may I recommend a larger member of the company as they tend to have more naturally occurring body heat.

Personally, I always pack my themed pyjamas. If I’m going to have an overnight stay watching
Les Mis
somewhere, I’ll take my
Les Mis
pyjamas. They are tight, beardy, and have a life-long ‘One Day More’ guarantee.

Emergency card
– You should always carry an emergency contact card in your wallet. This card should have your agent’s phone number and your headshot on it. It proves very useful if you ever get so hideously drunk that you forget who you are represented by. I have heard of actors losing out on potential roles due to forgetting who their agent is. At some point in your career you will undoubtedly be found outside some public toilets by an important casting director – and in moments like this it is essential you are prepared and have your emergency card at hand.

Cutlery
– A clean set of your own personal cutlery can be a godsend. I always carry some with me – particularly when dining at colleagues’ houses. Nothing is more off-putting
than a knife with old pickle residue, or a fork with fungus growing between the prongs. Most theatres will have some cutlery, but you have to be careful. A lot of the cutlery in theatres dates back to the early seventeenth century – and indeed some recent tests done on a spoon found backstage at the Palladium had some of Shakespeare’s saliva on it. Sadly this was quickly sucked off by an overambitious understudy. However, there will undoubtedly be theatres that don’t have cutlery – and if you are equipped with your own you will be greatly admired and envied by the rest of the company.

A cup
– Many theatres will have a lack of cups, and any that you can find will usually belong to the resident stage crew.
Be warned
: never, ever steal a cup that belongs to the stage-management team. It can have disastrous results. Stage management are a very important species who are essential in the smooth running of a show. If they are ever starved of a relaxing drink from their favourite cup they will strike, refuse to move the set, or simply drop the safety curtain halfway through your lovely monologue. There have even been extreme cases where actors have gone to their dressing room and found naughty pictures of the human anatomy scribbled all over their headshots. Shocking, dear.

I suggest having a neutral cup, of average size and not very expensive. Use a marker pen to write your name very clearly on
all
sides – and also stick a copy of your headshot on the bottom, so those actors who can’t read have no excuse.

You should resist the natural urge to take a ‘show mug’ on tour with you – as this is a sure way to provoke ridicule and taunting for the rest of the contract.

A good book
– Reading matter is particularly essential if you spend a lot of time offstage during the show. In which case you may need a few good books. If you can’t read, there are some wonderful animated books that you can just stare at instead.

A small, medium or large bag
– The size of your bag varies on the length of the tour. But the use of the bag is for
the same reason: to put all your receipts in.
Always
ask for a receipt for everything and anything you buy and do on tour. You will need them when sorting expenses for your tax return. Never throw a receipt away, even if it’s for an embarrassing porno movie you bought in Hull, as this can still be classed as ‘career research’.

Make-up bag
– Every good actor has a make-up bag. And every really good actor has two. Having a good supply of make-up is very useful – even if you are in a show where the director tells you not to wear it. Directors are funny like that. These days they tend to want things to look realistic, which results in a plethora of pasty-looking actors skulking around our stages. It is absurd! If I wanted to watch a lot of grey, depressed humans shuffling about I would go to my local dole office. When I go to the theatre I want to be entertained, uplifted, enlightened – and for that I want to see rouge, nail varnish and fake eyelashes. I don’t care if it’s not historically accurate. It’s not historically accurate that trains can sing, but did that stop Andrew Lloyd Webber? No. I rest my case.

Your script
– You should always have a copy of the script with you – or at least in your dressing room. It gives the impression you take your job very seriously indeed. If you really want to impress, have some of those sticky coloured things randomly sticking out, and write something on every page.

Your contract
– There will be times when you get into a disagreement with your company manager about overtime, hours worked, subsistence money, etc. It saves a lot of unnecessary time and energy if you have your contract to hand. Although, to be honest, your contract really doesn’t mean much. But it is a rather intimidating and clever tool to bring out during a company meeting.

An actor without a contract is the same as an actor with a contract, dear.

Your favourite musical
– Always have a copy of your favourite musical with you. Whether it is on your iPod, your laptop, or simply on a CD, it is an essential companion for long and arduous journeys between venues. Your favourite musical will hopefully have good memories for you – and is the perfect enthusiasm restorer for when you are feeling down (unless you are listening to
Love Never Dies
).

Glasses
– Useful for reading books and watching TV (depending on your eyesight). And also a necessary tool if you are unsure about your character. If in doubt, give them a pair of glasses.

A shirt and shoes
– Always take at least one nice pair of shoes and a good shirt/dress with you. This is for the press night – when you dress to impress. Some actors like to ‘dress down’ on these occasions as they think it makes them appear cool. It does not. It just makes them look like they can’t be bothered. My dears, if you can’t be bothered to dress nicely then don’t bother coming. You are an actor – and an actor should always dress like an actor, particularly at social events.

Trainers and warm-up gear
– Vital for the company warm-up. Also useful for going to the gym. Many theatres will have special discounts for touring companies at local leisure centres. These gyms can be very cheap, and are a marvellous way of getting rid of excess alcohol weight, and picking up discreet encounters.

A sleeping bag
– Essential for when the bed you are offered on tour is covered in other actors’ stains. There is nothing as off-putting as a dirty bed, and the quick laying of your own sleeping bag alters this situation in a second. It will also act as a brilliant extra cover if the bed you are staying in is too cold. A good sleeping bag can also be used to hide bottles of gin and whisky very effectively.