Actors: Know Your Place.
When you work in theatre, the Front of House staff sometimes like to keep you in your place.
I have a lot of examples seared into my memory. They're my personal Vietnam, without the flashbacks. Take, for instance, the time I was on tour with Buddy Holly and the Cricketers, playing a venue in deepest, darkest Ireland, and one of the ushers came up to me in the green room mid-interval, jabbed a finger in my chest and said, 'Well, I couldn't hear you'.
She seemed to labour under the misapprehension that, as well as playing Buddy, I was also in charge of the sound mix, and had given myself insufficient level as some kind of personal affront. The dressing down wasn't over yet. With her accusatory digit still extended, she proceeded to go around the rest of the room.
First the bassist. 'I could hear you.'
Then the rhythm guitarist. 'I could hear you.'
Then the sax player. 'I could hear you.'
Then the drummer. 'I could hear you.'
Then finally back to me. 'But I couldn't hear you.'
Another memorable incident took place in the bar of the Theatre in Hunstanton, when an elderly volunteer told me she hadn't been able to see my face in the show because it was obscured by my microphone. I didn't know my head was that small.
'You needed to stand further away', she said.
'But then you wouldn't hear me', I replied.
She shook her head like she was an expert in mic technique.
To be fair, she obviously had issues with distance: her drawn-on eyebrows were at least three centimetres too high up her face.
My best / worst example happened in the bar of the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, post show. Every Summer and Christmas they stage a sixties-themed comedy, of which I used to a regular cast member. On this particular occasion I was chatting to one of the ushers, who’d seen me in a lot of stuff in the past.
‘So what do you do work-wise for the rest of the year?’, he asked.
‘Bits and bobs’, I replied. ‘In my job, you're always jumping from one thing to the next’.
‘It must be hard’, he replied. Then came the bombshell: ‘It'd be even worse if you were an actor.’
He’d just watching me acting for the past two hours. Fuck’s sake.
I have a lot of examples seared into my memory. They're my personal Vietnam, without the flashbacks. Take, for instance, the time I was on tour with Buddy Holly and the Cricketers, playing a venue in deepest, darkest Ireland, and one of the ushers came up to me in the green room mid-interval, jabbed a finger in my chest and said, 'Well, I couldn't hear you'.
She seemed to labour under the misapprehension that, as well as playing Buddy, I was also in charge of the sound mix, and had given myself insufficient level as some kind of personal affront. The dressing down wasn't over yet. With her accusatory digit still extended, she proceeded to go around the rest of the room.
First the bassist. 'I could hear you.'
Then the rhythm guitarist. 'I could hear you.'
Then the sax player. 'I could hear you.'
Then the drummer. 'I could hear you.'
Then finally back to me. 'But I couldn't hear you.'
Another memorable incident took place in the bar of the Theatre in Hunstanton, when an elderly volunteer told me she hadn't been able to see my face in the show because it was obscured by my microphone. I didn't know my head was that small.
'You needed to stand further away', she said.
'But then you wouldn't hear me', I replied.
She shook her head like she was an expert in mic technique.
To be fair, she obviously had issues with distance: her drawn-on eyebrows were at least three centimetres too high up her face.
My best / worst example happened in the bar of the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, post show. Every Summer and Christmas they stage a sixties-themed comedy, of which I used to a regular cast member. On this particular occasion I was chatting to one of the ushers, who’d seen me in a lot of stuff in the past.
‘So what do you do work-wise for the rest of the year?’, he asked.
‘Bits and bobs’, I replied. ‘In my job, you're always jumping from one thing to the next’.
‘It must be hard’, he replied. Then came the bombshell: ‘It'd be even worse if you were an actor.’
He’d just watching me acting for the past two hours. Fuck’s sake.
