For most of the
morning, I couldn’t fathom out why today's date seemed familiar. Then it came to
me: I started drama school sixteen years ago to the day.
That sounds and feels like
a long time ago. If my training were a child, it could get married with its
parents' consent. It could also do rude stuff. If I were using the same time-frame to chart the distance between my birthdate and the events that preceded it, The
Beatles would have just released ‘Help!’, and Winston Churchill, his last breath. I
could have worded that better. What I’m saying is, my first day as a
full-time drama student is further in the past than it should be.
I can remember walking into Hertfordshire Theatre School to meet my year for the
first time clearly. As I climbed the rickety staircase from the students’ entrance
to the Studio, I was fully aware that I was about to come face to face with the
people I’d spend the next three years with. What I wasn’t prepared for was the
fact that I’d be the only boy. If I’d known this, it would either have been
more intimidated, or felt the need to drag up.
(...like an excuse was ever necessary.)
I very nearly
didn’t go that day. My plan, up to a few weeks before the 4th of October 1999, was
to take a year out to focus on my band. I’d been offered the position of junior
manager at Argos in Letchworth, which would have tided me over financially, while
destroying my soul in the process. I was in the bath when I had the epiphany. A
voice came unto me and said “David, that would be horrendous”.
(My God, was he /
she / it right.)
To think my first day
was sixteen years ago is both surprising and unsurprising in equal measure. So
much has happened to me since. I have a wife, a cat and some semblance of a
career. My drama school, however, is now somebody’s house. Make of that what you
will.