Might as well repost my reply to last week's qotw
www.b3ta.com/questions/shame/post44316/

Feel I should also regale you with a tale of drama class in year 9. Now, no-one else in the class was particularly interested in it, s they spent the whole time mucking about, much to my chagrin (much like music and art classes, come to think of it). A few weeks before Christmas, we were given the task of performing our own version of a pantomime, and put into groups of about six. Sods law dictated I got put into a group with four of the worst blokes in the class, but thankfully also with my mate Julie. We decided on Cinderella, with Julie playing the lead, reworking the story so that she was picked on because she was Scottish (the best bit of typecasting ever).

I spent the next week feverishly writing and re-writing the script, and printed out copies for each character, with their lines and cues highlighted in different colours. I cast myself as one of the ugly sisters, which again was somewhat inspired on account of my being more than a little overweight at the time and not exactly the most sought after girl in school - it also gave me the opportunity to camp it up to the extreme, and I must confess I did give myself some of the best lines. I tried to make the rest of the script as easy as possible for the others to learn. That's all they had to do. Learn the script. I provided props, costumes, did their make-up and such (the other ugly sister looked very nice in his bright red lipstick and eyeliner beauty spot)

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, only Julie learnt her lines, and the rest of them stood there while I whispered cues at them. We just about managed to hold it together until this one scene where myself and the other ugly sister were sitting there bitching about Cinders, while filing our nails and so on. I was on stage alone. I gestured to the other ugly sister in the wings, who stood there and stared gormlessly at me. I ad-libbed the whole thing by myself, playing it for all the laughs I could get, and held the thing together as best I could.

I could feel my stomach churning as the teacher scribbled in her mark book and questioned us. "Who wrote the script?", "I did, miss". "Whose idea was the bit about...", "Mine, miss". She sat there in silence for what seemed like an eternity while she decided our grades. "I really hope you're taking drama at GCSE next year". I got an A. I was dead chuffed.

Of course, I still never got into the college productions on account of my not being able to carry a tune in a wheelbarrow. After that I got the confidence up to go and audition for Tallulah in Bugsy Malone, and was so bad they wouldn't even put me in the chorus.

Bloody hell, that was long. Sorry!
( useful_idiot, Fri 2 Dec 2005, 14:35, Reply)