Hello blog readers! I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and New Year. It’s 2012!
Apologies for being quiet, I’ve been a bit busy! But here, just for you is what I’ve been up to. Starting with an audition with the always amazing Starlight Dance!
*I had to sign a contract as part of this audition so some names have been changed to avoid me getting killed!
So, on Sunday 11th December 2011, a coach full of dancers made their way to Birmingham’s NEC for an audition for a British talent show not shown on the BBC created by someone whose surname rhymes with ‘towel’ and is presented by those two blokes who used to be PJ and Duncan in Byker Grove!
It felt like a hideously early start, we had to arrive at the dance studio at 8am for last minute rehearsals before we boarded the bus at 9.30 to head to Birmingham. I had to leave the house at 7.15 to pick up Crotty (hey Crotty, you got a mention!) in plenty of time so that she could go and get herself a McDonalds breakfast! Nice healthy start before a day of dancing! I was dragged along to the golden arches, and as we approached the counter, a couple of men started talking to us. It was clear that they were still enjoying the effects of their previous nights activities! But we had a lovely chat whilst Georgie got her greasy snacks, and we headed back to the studio ready for action.
Everyone seemed rather perky upon arrival. I wasn’t! I was feeling the effects of rehearsals and had quite fancied staying in bed all day, but I soon got caught up in the excitement and was running around like a loon with the rest of them! We got cracking on with rehearsing in front of the mirrors and it was looking great, so that meant one thing, it was time to board the fun bus!
I ended up sitting by myself on the bus, no-one wanted to be my seat buddy, but that was fine, I got to stretch out and be lazy, and didn’t have to share my snacks with anyone! I always think that journeys are going to take far longer than they do, so I had packed enough food for a month. But we were at the NEC in about an hour and a half, and that had included a service station stop.
Happily fed and slightly nervous, we arrived at our destination. As a natural born worrier, I was slightly concerned that I couldn’t see many other vehicles in the car park and that we had got the wrong date. But we parked up, and made our way down to the building. As soon as I had stepped off the coach, the biggest wave of nerves washed over me and I felt sick. It took me right back to the day of my university London showcase when I was so nervous that I was crying! I get a slight nervousness when I do a show but things like this were completely different. This was our shot to show people what we could do and potentially end up on national television! I had the big moment at the end of the routine to pop a balloon at a certain point to end the whole thing and I had worked myself up into thinking that either I’d miss the balloon, it wouldn’t pop, or some other tragedy relating to the moment would happen, and I was terrified! I didn’t want to ruin it for my friends, the pressure was immense!
We walked down to the entrance and suddenly my nervousness was replaced by excitement as big banners and signs were everywhere with the shows logo on it. This was it. We were actually auditioning to be on the television. It was real! Everyone excitedly got their cameras out and were snapping themselves in front of the sign outside, then we all had a big group shot with our Starlight banner before we went inside.
Our big group made our way to the door where we were confronted by a man who gave us strict instructions that all of our mobile phones had to be turned completely off, and that photography inside the building was strictly forbidden. Suddenly everything seemed very serious. After we had all fumbled around in our bags and turned off our devices we were allowed inside. There was a large queue forming leading up to registration desks. I don’t know where these people had parked, maybe they had all walked! We gazed down the corridor and there were people as far as you could see. As we were such a large group, we were told to move to the side of the walkway and wait there. We didn’t know it then but we should have made ourselves very comfortable there, we’d be there for a while. The time now was 11.15. We had been told that our audition was at 1pm. That gave us plenty of time to get dressed, put our face paint on and relax before we had to go anywhere.
We sat around for a while as Jacc went to confirm our attendance and hand over the contracts to our souls. We were called over a few at a time to take over our identification to prove we were actual humans and who we said we were, and then it was back to waiting in our spot in the corridor. As we sat, we watched people walking past in various costumes and carrying props and played guessing games as to what their talent might have been. We saw quite a few dance troupes but none looking like they had something like our routine. They seemed to be the usual style of people that are seen on the programme, street dancing, body popping, or just gyrating wearing extremely little. We got changed and put our face paint on , and in turn, became the ones that everyone else were looking at.
It was now around 12, an hour to our scheduled audition. I had bought a can of the energy drink Relentless, and thought that now would be the best time to drink it as it would have an hour to kick in and I’d be buzzing by the time we went in. I pretty much necked it in one and sat and waited for the effect to take hold. Not long after this, we were told we would be doing some filming. We were moved down to the ‘holding area’ and put on the dance floor, which was barely big enough to hold all of our group. We were told to rehearse on the floor, or watch other people rehearsing, clap along or just generally look as if we were having the time of our lives. Easy enough. We started dancing, I watched a few other people, done. And then we had to do it again. And again. And again. And again and again and again. After about 15 minutes they had decided that they had enough of that, so we were told to go back to our spot in the corridor.
A while later they were ready to film us again. We were all herded down to the far end of the corridor and everyone was lined up and organised into a big crowd ready for some ‘whooping’ shots, rather like you see the crowds shouting on Towels’s other singing reality show. Thankfully we didn’t have to shout “Birmingham’s got the z factor”, we just had to grin insanely and scream and cheer and whoop continuously for another 10 minutes while they pointed various different cameras at us. I think it was about 2pm that this was happening and I was hungry and bored. I hope to the lord that they didn’t get me on camera as I gave up cheering about half way through and stood at the back with my face telling exactly how I felt!
After the whooping section, they moved their cameras before we had to do a walking shot! We all had to move in convoy down the corridor towards the cameras with our arms in the air, smiling and cheering again. This took forever too, we were one of the first groups to be lined up so we were right at the back and had to wait for everyone else to move before we could set off. I still had my bored face on all the way down the corridor until I saw the cameras and I suddenly got caught up in the madness of it all and started going mental. I think I might have even given a camera a cheeky wink! I don’t know what took over me!!
About half an hour after that, people were starting to get moved around and we were officially upgraded to a proper holding area. I got a bit excited then, we were in the holding area waiting to be called into our audition! Eeeee! While we were in the holding area we were told to rehearse again. The dance floor had a mirror on one side with lights surrounding it and a camera on a bar on the floor so it could get us from a different angle. Everyone took turns to rehearse in front of the mirror camera but we didn’t do much rehearsing as we were all getting a bit bored by now and we seemed to have hogged the dance floor for quite a while and had lots of camera time already.
We sat down and I found myself sat next to a group of people with musical instruments who turned out to be a family band who started singing a few songs to keep people entertained. I really enjoyed them, I hope they got through! I was also impressed by a couple of men who were doing acrobatic tricks in a comedy style in bizarre costumes. I’d like them to get through too!
After an eternity in the holding room, we were called to move along to another area. This turned out to be another hidden holding area with more cameras in it that was rammed full of people too. We were in for an even longer wait. There were so many people there that we couldn’t all sit together so the room had small groups of clowns everywhere! I was missing the familiarity of my phone at this point but there were staff everywhere so I couldn’t sneak it out. Filming time rolled around again but this time all we were instructed to do was sit where we were and sit in absolute silence for 3 minutes. I have no idea what they’ll be doing with that but I was so bored by that point that I put my ipod on and blocked everything out. If any of me gets on television I’m sure it’ll only be shots of me asleep or looking daggers at people because I’m kranky!
People were disappearing from this room in small groups to go into their auditions so I was pleased to know that this was the final holding area. When we were finally called up to go out, I got nervous again but I shouldn’t have bothered, we still had about another 45 minutes to wait before we could go in.
But before I knew it, we were queuing up outside the door and my nerves were back. We were finally going in. It was 6.30pm. As soon as we walked through the door, my nerves just disappeared. I was here to get myself on television with my friends. I meant business. After a small chat with the lady (producer?), we took our places and the music began. I felt worried immediately, the music was just so quiet! I was terrified that we would get out of time. It was just like the time we auditioned for channel 5’s failure of a show, ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, the music was barely audible then too!
We got half way through the routine and I relaxed, we were all in time and things were going well. Then we neared the end of the routine and everyone fell to the floor revealing me and Isobel, and my big balloon-popping moment and I stopped breathing. The music was so quiet and then everyone else started groaning on the floor, as part of the routine, but I couldn’t hear the music at all anymore. Was I going to miss my cue? Could I ruin it for everyone because of the music? I took a deep breath and hoped for the best. I’d heard the song so many times before that I sang it in my head and prayed that I was in the right place, and then it happened. I popped the balloon and everyone stopped. I had done it, bang on time! Such relief!!
Everyone stood up and waited for any kind of response, we got a thank you and that was it. Done. Audition over. It all happened so quickly that it was a bit of an anticlimax. We grabbed our bags from the final holding room and got back on the bus. The journey home seemed to fly by and I was back at home and in bed ready to get back to rehearsals the next morning before I knew it.
It had been a very long day, but one that I won’t forget in a hurry, and I’m so glad that I spent it with such wonderful friends. And did we make it through to the judges? We don’t know yet. We should find out in the next few weeks. But even if we didn’t get through, I still might get my grumpy face on tv and I’ll be chuffed with that!
Nxxx
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