On West End cattle calls

Monday kicked off with an open dance call for Wicked, a musical I've never seen but have auditioned for twice already, which is surely an advanced form of self-harm. I put my Killer Black Boots on over my dance tights and cycled through Clapham to the hall in Brixton where the chattering hordes were already assembled. The waiting room was a swamp of young, scantily clad hopefuls; 200 girls, all bronzed and rouged and buzzing with caffeine. The things people do while waiting their turn in front of the Powers That Be warrants comment in itself - people do sit-ups and Facebook on their iPhones and scream across the room as they recognise each other from last year's cruise job and iron their hair and try to act calm. Divine madness. I read and try to hear my ipod through the cacophony. But once up there, facing the mirror and a table of people trying to be pleasant and patient in the face of repeated displays of fear-driven idiocy, well, you're beyond the help of even the most uplifting of playlists. I particularly love the drummer's glazed expression as he bashes out the same counts of 8 all day... But amongst the under-trained adolescents and the over-confident old-hands, there was a Woman Of A Certain Age. I still don't know precisely what that age is, but this woman was no stranger to forty. Or possibly even fifty. Nowadays, you never can tell. And she carried herself with a bashfulness, aware that she was older than anyone else in the room by a decade. But she was there; could I have the balls to do that? And when she was called to the floor for her turn with the other four girls in her group, she didn't dance well enough but yet she danced. Was she wasting everyone's time? Or showing the new generation that you can do whatever you dream, and there is no such thing as too late? I'm not sure. But what is sure is this: after auditioning for that show three times and not making the cut, I've ascertained that I'm not what they're after! Perhaps I'm not green enough...