A weekend of reflection…

It’s a Monday afternoon, I’m sat outside in the sunshine, saturated in Factor 30 suncream and sipping a nice cold Pimm’s… bliss!

It’s times like this when I can’t help but think of the stresses my good friend Jacc is going through. It’s show week…

I met Jacc in September 2003. I was in my third(!) year of 6th Form at the all-girls secondary school I attended, and Jacc was finishing his A-Levels at our school. As we were both outsiders (my friends had all left to go to University), we struck up a friendship that has got better and better every time we see each other. In the few months of the school year that we had left, we came up with our grand plan. We would audition for drama schools, train in Performing Arts together, and take the theatrical world by storm! How things change…

Our first audition was up in Cumbria. It took forever to get there on the train, and we were separated at the audition due to applying for slightly different courses. The day, we both felt, was a success. Jacc was determined that this was the place he was destined to be, and refused to go to any more of his auditions! Fair enough. I was spectacularly rejected from Cumbria, but gutted as I was, I found my own little piece of dramatic heaven, and trained down in Bournemouth.

Our courses made us into amazing (obviously- haha!) performers, and on my return to Kettering at the end of the demanding three years, I was pretty sure I wanted to have a little break before plunging into the big wide world of acting. Plus, I was absolutely terrified! As soon as I got back, Jacc told me he had landed himself a job with a touring theatre company. As happy as I was for him, I was gutted we wouldn’t be able to hang out and catch up properly for another few months. So that very night, I started researching theatre companies, and sure enough, two weeks later, I too was touring the country with a portable set and show.

After Jacc’s tour had ended, I was also at the end of my third tour. I was looking forward to some more silliness and comparing touring stories when he then got a job as an entertainer in Majorca. Cue major envy from me… I ended up working in a hotel that summer! For reasons I won’t go into, Jacc didn’t finish the length of his contract, and came home. We had a few weeks of general messing around (as we do) and then it was me who left for another brand-spanking new tour.

By the time I got back that Christmas, Jacc had moved in with his lovely boyfriend Craig, and was about to become a teacher at a local secondary school. If there’s one thing I like in the world, it’s seeing my friends happy and doing well. From the teaching job, Jacc set up his own dance classes which have gone amazingly well, are constantly expanding, and in just over a year, we are now onto the fourth production show, as well as dancing in local events around the county.

Which brings me back to show week! Jacc has never asked me to be part of his shows; we have an understanding… He forces me to be in them, and wherever I am, I will make it back to Kettering and perform in that show, no matter what state I am in, or however badly rehearsed I am!

Usually, I’m home during show week. I don’t mind, but I normally end up practically abandoning my family, moving into Jacc’s, annoying Craig with my sewing machine, and listening repeatedly to the backing track of the solo that Jacc will be singing in the show! But that’s not the case this time. Instead, as I have told you, I’m sat in the sun, near Swindon, sipping my (now slightly warm) fruity summer beverage. And I feel quite guilty about it!

Despite doing everything I possibly could while I was back a couple of weeks ago, there are still things to be done, costumes to be made and panicking to be done. I’ve even been sworn to secrecy about an issue regarding a member of the cast…

I know everything will work out fine, because Jacc is a complete professional and won’t let anything or anyone get in his way of putting on a less-than-perfect performance. I just feel a bit naughty that I’m not there and it’s show week! *Just for the record, we do NOT joke about in show week!

Apart from all this, I can’t help thinking back to when we were 18(!), had our lives planned out, and our ambitions to take over the world seemed so close to becoming true. I don’t think life has planned out the way we thought it would go so far. I certainly didn’t think I’d be sat in Wiltshire, writing this fresh from dressing up as the Artful Dodger this morning but there we go! Okay, so I’m not doing what I imagined I’d be doing, and no, my dreams of acting in the West End haven’t come true yet, but I know that it’s going to take hard work and determination to get there, and sometimes you have to start where you don’t want to. I’m just grateful that I’ve managed to be almost constantly in professional acting work since I graduated, for my amazing friends who put up with me disappearing for weeks on end, and who are so ridiculously excited and happy to see me home, and the fact that I get paid to travel the UK, see so many beautiful places, and get drunk on Pimm’s on my afternoons off!

Jacc, congratulations again on putting together another fantastic show… See you Friday! Now where’s that rehearsal CD…?!?! x