A beautiful night for a murder…

So the day after the worst audition in the world(!) I sat alone in my bedroom, watching the beautiful John Barrowman strutting his stuff in Torchwood, and drinking a nice bottle of Rose wine which I received back in May for my birthday! I know what you’re thinking, but I was too busy to drink it before!!

I was feeling slightly tipsy but had that quiet confidence that people seem to get after drinking, and I thought it would be a good idea to look for some acting jobs. I logged in to my casting website of choice and scrolled through all the rubbish until I found something of interest. And I found this...

‘Professional actors [m/f] of the highest calibre are required for an inter-active murder mystery event on Saturday 30th July 2011 in the Northamptonshire area. Actors must be:
-aged 25-45
-must be able to demonstrate skills and experience in Murder Mystery events
-have own transport
-reside in any of the following areas: Northampton, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Coventry.’

Well, the job was clearly for me! I’m a professional actor, I was free on that day, I live in Northamptonshire, have been in a few murder mysteries and have my own car! Sorted! At approximately 11pm, off went my application.

I awoke the next morning bright and breezy, and not long after my wake up alarm had gone off, I received an email. It thanked me for my application, could I please fill in the attached application form for the company and return it ASAP, casting will be done tonight. Fair enough, application form filled in and sent off. About an hour later another email arrived. Thank you for your application, here is your contract. Please fill it in and return it before 6pm tonight. Further details will be sent to you via email next week. Now, I know that things move fast in the acting world but that was ridiculous! There was no audition (which I was immensely grateful for!), the money was good and it was local, what more could I want?

Over the next few days I received several emails, each one revealing a bit more of what the evening would entail but it still seemed like a bit of a mystery, and I wasn’t even trying to work out whodunit!

Saturday rolled around, and I realised that I hadn’t properly looked at the script that I’d been sent! I’d been to see Adam in one of his plays again on the Friday and had stayed over in Travelodge Nuneaton(!) with him, so drove my car home as fast as I dared in its tired state, and spent the afternoon going over the information I had been sent. I did try my best to learn most of the lines but as with any murder mystery, there’s a lot of improvisation so I didn’t think it would matter too much.

The title of the evening was called ‘Murder at the Moulin Rouge’. I would be playing a character called Mossy Cleft. Yes, it was going to be one of those evenings! I read through all of the information I was given to do with my character’s background, skimmed over the lines a few more times and made my way to the venue. Naturally I got lost trying to find it, until I looked at the building straight in front of my nose and realised I’d been circling it for ten minutes.

I arrived first, early as always , so I sat in the car park and looked over the plan for the evening again whilst watching out for the man in charge. I had no idea what he looked like but when I saw a man entering the hotel on his own, I took a chance and followed him in. It was him. Again, he was nothing like what I was expecting, perhaps I should stop judging people by their emails! We were shown to the room where we would be performing, and I think we were both disappointed with what we saw. It was just the most plain white room you’ve ever seen, with 4 round tables in it, each seating around 7 people. It really did look like they’d forgotten we were coming and had just shoved a few tables in there. The only ‘feature’ in the room was a white board on which someone (I’m presuming a manager) had written “Assume makes an ass of u and me”. I’m guessing it was meant to be a device to motivate their staff to ask questions to their guests but they all looked as if they’d rather be at home and that we were wasting their time.

While we were waiting for the receptionist to find us a room to get changed in, the next actor arrived. A lovely girl called Emma. She was playing the world’s only talking mime. Told you it was one of those nights! Just after she arrived, one of the managers came over to us and told us that the hotel was full and that we would be in an out-of-order room. She handed over 2 keys and showed us to room 101. And what a room it was. It was basically being used as a storage room. On top of the bed were several items of furniture, there were about 50 chairs stacked up in piles of 4 all over the room, and of course there was a fridge and a lawnmower. My car was looking like a more appropriate dressing room at that point. Just as we were settling in, the final actor arrived, Rachel. And she was bonkers! Imagine a drama teacher, multiply the eccentricity by about 100, and that’s who we got! She was so excited to be there, she was bouncing of the walls, asking about 20 questions a minute, mad! She plunged straight into moving things around so that we had space to get changed, throwing hairs left and right and climbing all over the furniture!

Tony had gone to his car while we were moving things to get the costumes from his car. He’d taken a key to get back in so we were surprised when he knocked the door. His key didn’t work- he took them back to reception. And then they told us... that they had shown us to the wrong room. We had to move all of the furniture back where we had found it and made our way down the corridor to room 104. Which was lovely! There wasn’t anything wrong with the room so the hotel had clearly lied to us when they said that the hotel was full. We made ourselves at home and put our costumes on ready for action.

The evening had been planned out so that the action would take place at certain intervals of the night between the guests meal courses, with our first scene being played just before the starters were served. And so we began. Tony went into the room, introduced the evening and brought each of us in as our characters to meet the crowd. I decided for some bizarre reason to be extremely flirty, and headed straight for the first man I laid my eyes on. His name was Alf. Alf was lovely! I asked him if he wanted to be part of the show at the Moulin Rouge but he was having none of it. I’d been given a whip as a decoy prop so I used it to amuse Alf, much to his delight and his wife’s amusement. After we were all introduced, we made our way back to the room and waited for Tony to return. He burst into the room with a big smile on his face (although he was the type of man who seems to be constantly happy- I don’t think he’s ever frowned in his life!), and said that it was a good start, but the guests food orders hadn’t even been taken yet! Our schedule was already thrown out of the window. We sat down to plan out which scenes we could change about so that we didn’t have to leave the guests waiting for too long.

The evening was going well, and then we arrived at the part of the evening that I was a little nervous about. The interrogations! We all went to a table each and the guests were able to question us for 3 minutes before we had to move to the next table. It turned out that I needn’t have worried too much. As the guests hadn’t seen much to deduce what was going on so far, their questions were quite easy to answer and it went by quite quickly. We were back in our room before I knew it. We were all in an excitable mood by this point as we told each other some of the bizarre questions we had received and the lies we had been telling to send the guests off in the wrong direction. It was working, I was the murderer but I had convinced everyone that it was Rachel’s character Vanessa. It seemed I was good at lying! A few more structured scenes passed and then it was on to round two of the interrogations.

The guests were getting quite suspicious of me by this point and were throwing increasingly difficult questions at me. The other characters had been making up wild stories about me and hadn’t told me so I was trying to deflect all the lies away to other people. And then I reached my third table...

In a previous scene, I had had a conversation with my half-sister Arsou about some accounts not adding up. I hadn’t seen the account sheet which was fine, but I didn’t know what was ahead. A man asked me if I’d ever been to the address on the accounts sheet. I didn’t know what the address was so I walked over to him to have a look and there it was. He asked me again, “Have you ever been to Barebutt Mansion?” Well that was it! Character meltdown. Absolute failure! I burst out laughing, so hard that tears were rolling down my face. I was at the table for 3 minutes but was laughing so much that I couldn’t answer any questions for about 2 and a half minutes. We made our way back to the room and I tried to compose myself before the big reveal- the murder itself!

We huddled outside the room and listened to the guests thoughts of who had committed the crime, and only two out of the four tables had guessed that it was me, and only the table that had made me laugh had guessed correctly how and why I had done it. Every detail, spot on. We then showed the murder scene before revealing the winners of the night. I loved the murder scene, everyone was in the scene so the guests were watching everything, and listening to the gasps and ‘ooh’s as I poured poison into a drink for the victim was priceless! I stormed out of the room after my final line “You’re fired!” with a menacing laugh a la Cruella De Ville. And it felt good! I love being the villain!

We all went back to the room and had a chat about how good an evening it had been, and then we were off. The evening had flown by, but it hadn’t finished there! I was off out! No rest for the talented! I drove home in a very jolly mood, with thoughts of murder floating around my head. But don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare do it for real! I’m too nice... and I’m scared of prison!

And that was that. Another job in the bag and another credit on the cv. Lovely!

I’ve got a panto audition tomorrow, oh yes I have! I wonder what stories I’ll have to tell after that...

 

Nxxx

The worst audition of 2011?

Auditions suck. Fact. Two weeks ago I had the worst one of the year. I still haven’t got over it. But let’s rewind to the day before. It was a Tuesday. Tuesday 20^th July 2011. I awoke fairly early as I had to return the company van to Crewe as the bosses were away in Blackpool for a jolly weekend on our final day. That didn’t bother me, it meant I didn’t have to haul my suitcase and other luggage across various train stations late on a Friday night.

The sun hit my face as my alarm went off and I grabbed my phone to turn off the hideous racket and saw the symbol that informs me that I have a new email. How exciting! It came through one of the casting websites that I am on, and those type of emails signify one of two things- either you have an audition, or it’s a ‘sorry, but you were rubbish’. But on this occasion it was the former! It was for a job I had applied for about a month before, my online profile/CV had been viewed by the company 4 times but I had heard nothing. Not even a sniff of an audition. Grrr. But it turned out that the actor playing the part that I had applied for had dropped out, one of the cast had suggested me, and was I still interested? Yes please! I emailed straight back to say I was, climbed in the van, and off I went to Crewe. That was a fairly pleasant journey; I listened to a Torchwood audio book and sang along to the cheesiest of Glee songs and thought about the happy times I would be having over the summer not being in a van!

Van delivered and I sat at Crewe train station for an hour waiting for the transport home again. My BlackBerry made the familiar ‘bong’ sound that meant another email had arrived. Success, I had an audition. Tomorrow. In Wolverhampton at 2pm. Two Shakespeare monologues required. Easy. I’d just done 2 Shakespeare plays on tour. The role I was going for I had played twice already, I knew it inside out. Surely this was in the bag!

And so came Wednesday. Despite my audition not being til 2pm, and the fact that it took an hour and a half to drive to Wolverhampton, I didn’t trust my car to get me there and so hopped back on a train. At 10.30am. The train would get me to Wolves at just before 1pm, giving me an hour to make the 10 minute drive (according to Google directions) to the venue. I’d planned my bus route, I just needed to find where to get off the bus. Simple.

My first train got me to Leicester on time, ready to change for the train to Birmingham New Street. I sat on the platform minding my own business when a very loud young woman was pacing up and down in front of me talking in an unidentifiable accent down her phone looking lost. She finally got the man next to me to understand her and she snapped her mobile shut and a quiet lull drifted over the platform once more. Our train arrived, on I hopped, and who should be sitting on the row behind me opposite? Loud lady! All I wanted was to go over my speeches in my head, prepare myself for any questions that might be thrown my way or that I might want to ask, but all I got was the weird accent bellowing all through the carriage. I couldn’t even swap seats because it would look too obvious due to the lack of passengers! The ticket inspector’s arrival came as a relief until he took one look at foreign loud lady, clearly fancying her and stopped to chat to her for about 15 minutes. Obviously for character observations I listened in, not that they were being quiet about it! It turned out she was going to Birmingham to present some sort of music video chart thingy for MTV and she was very late. I also discovered that I couldn’t place her accent because she was half Northern Irish and half Portuguese! After he had flirted shamelessly with her and ‘helped’ her, he was off and we were in Birmingham. I quickly exited the train to find the next platform I needed for Wolverhampton when a flash of blue streaked past me and the ticket inspector from our train had dashed to carry Irish/Portuguese lady’s suitcase up the stairs! It was only tiny! Creep! I boarded my final train and ended up opposite some boys with very loud music. It seemed I would not be going over my speeches in peace on this journey either. I finally saw familiar surroundings and realised I was in Wolverhampton. My body shuddered at the remembrance of the hideous times I had had here before. The tour that nearly made me go insane two years ago, and only a couple of months ago, the hideous Travelodge room that myself and Adam had to encounter one fateful night. I pushed the memories to one side and tried to focus on the excitement that might lie ahead!

I had received instructions of which bus to get, which would take me to Wightwick Manor, the location of the audition. I had done my research, and pulled up a map of Wolverhampton town centre on Google so that I could locate the appropriate bus stop. I had carefully written down instructions to get me there, followed them well, and before I knew it, I was at the bus stop with the bus just pulling in. Time: 1.05pm. Perfect.

As I stepped on the bus I double-checked with the bus driver that this was the bus I needed to get to Wightwick Manor, and that I needed to get off at the Mermaid pub. All correct. Unfortunately the bus drivers would be swapping over at the next stop but he assured me that he would tell the next driver where I was going and that he would inform me of where to get off the bus. So far, so good. Wolverhampton was redeeming itself! Maybe it realised how upset it had made me in the past and was trying to do better!

The bus went around the corner, and pulled into the next stop. There was no new driver waiting to hop on, so the current driver just got off the bus, shut the door and walked down the street! Interesting. A couple of minutes later, the new driver arrived and we set off. Of course I wasn’t going to just rely on the this new driver to tell me where to go, I was looking out of the window for myself too. The first driver had told me that that stop that I needed was the last stop of the route and that I couldn’t miss it. Well, we were driving along, I couldn’t see any sign of the Mermaid pub or Wightwick Manor, but the bus driver knew what he was doing, and was going to tell me!

Finally, after what seemed like forever, I saw something that I recognised, and realised too late that I was heading back towards Wolverhampton town centre! I grabbed my BlackBerry and after 11 months of having it, attempted to use the maps for the very first time. After a few manic minutes, I found my location and where I was supposed to be, and I was right, I was going the wrong way. The driver hadn’t said a word. I was sitting right behind him!!! He could see me in his mirror! I saw a bus stop just ahead, and thankfully there was a taxi rank opposite. I ran off the bus and over the road, narrowly missing the oncoming traffic, googled the postcode of the manor and told the driver to go! I explained my situation and he promised me that he would get me there on time. Time: 1.53. Time of audition; 2pm. Of course with me being in a rush, we were stuck behind every slow-moving vehicle and got trapped at every red traffic light on the way. Tears were rolling down my face at this time, I was highly emotional, late and I wasn’t sure how far I would actually get in the taxi due to the small amount of money that I had in my purse. I logged into my email account to try and find a phone number for the man who was to be auditioning me, but there wasn’t one on the emails! Typical! I knew someone in the cast who might have his number but I didn’t have a number for them! I turned to the only tool I could think of, Facebook. One swift message sent, and I was focussed on the road once more. Thankfully, I began to see signs for the manor and began to calm down. I grabbed handfuls of change from my purse and thrust them at the taxi driver. He was very sweet and offered to pick me up again after the audition but he had taken all of my money for the fare and I couldn’t afford that again! I ran up the ‘No Entry’ road to the house and found the hut where I was to meet the audition man. Time: 2.07pm. Arse.

I ran into the hut and breathlessly tried to ask who I was looking for, and was told that he was running over with the last auditionee. I was sent up to the house where someone would meet me and point me in the right direction. I don’t know who she was but I blurted out my story to her and she found me a nice table to sit on outside to compose myself while I waited. I think she thought I was mental! After a few minutes, I was greeted by the man and I was slightly shocked. I had been emailing someone called Tony, and had expected middle-aged, possibly greying man, but instead I got a very charming, young, handsome man! I stopped and stared at him for a moment, then realised what a fool I must look at, I probably had make-up down my face, my hair was definitely dishevelled, and my cheeks were bright red from running and stress! Not a good start.

We walked into the audition room and I tried to explain why I was in such a state. He was very understanding and lovely and my heart rate slowed down ever so slightly. I sat down, filled in some details on a form, and then it was speech time. Speech one went really well, I was confident, remembered everything, threw everything into it. Lovely. Then came speech two. I got about half way through and forgot my line. I started again and stopped in the same place. It was about this time that I started to wonder if I was in some sort of nightmare, but no, this was happening. I had both speeches written down in my notebook so had a quick look before having a third attempt. I stood up, took a deep breath in, and promptly one of my buttons fell off my shorts. We just both looked at it for a second before he said “Do you want to get that?”. I wanted to go home. After a third cock-up on the speech front, it was time to read for the part I was actually going for. And that part went really well! I was really pleased with myself, and thought I had redeemed myself. After that, I was asked to try my second speech one final time if I had calmed down enough, but yet again it was an epic fail, resulting in me practically reading the whole thing from my notebook. He walked with ,e back down to the meeting point for his next auditionee, we shook hands, and I began to walk in what I hoped was the right direction of a bus.

I seemed to be making my way down a country lane but I saw a few bus stops so I carried on in hope. After about half an hour I came upon some civilisation and saw two elderly gentlemen at a bus stop, so I asked if it was the right stop to get into town to get to the railway station. Thankfully it was, and one of the gentlemen was kind enough to give me very specific instructions of where to get off the bus and which roads to walk along to find the station. I sat with my face slumped against the window looking out at the town that I despised so much, and updated my Facebook status with a rant. Well, it made me feel better! I dragged my heels along the streets to the station, stopped in the shop and bought myself a bug chocolate muffin, a Twix and some pickled onion flavour Monster Munch. Well, if I was having a bad day, then I was going to stink out the train with my crisps and I didn’t care! Sadly I didn’t get the chance as the train was delayed so I had to eat them on the platform! I was heavy hearted as I’d set my sights on being in the play over the summer, for a split second thought about jumping on the tracks to cause a commotion in the horrid town, but the beautiful sounds of ‘DJ’ by H&Claire informed me that my phone was ringing. A huge smile burst over my face as I realised it was the lovely Adam who had seen my Facebook and wanted to see if I was ok. I was cheered up immensely from chatting with him, said goodbye as the train began to pull away, and stuffed my face with chocolate muffin as the immortal words “I’ll be in touch” were ringing in my ears.

Do you know what? Rehearsals began a few days ago... I still haven’t heard! Typical.

Nxxx