On Primark bikinis

Today I have a casting. Except when my agent said (with way too much nonchalance) that it was a bikini casting for a beer commercial, I went into frantic panic mode. We have only just arrived at the end of a long dark winter, after all. The moment 5:30 rolled around, I raced from my office in the East End to Oxford street. First stop: Boots, to stock up on Clarins self-tan, which the girl behind the counter swore would not turn me orange. Next, a singing lesson to get my voice up and running for my Dirty Dancing call back this afternoon. And then to Mecca; ie Primark, to plunder the bikini section. I wanted red, but came up with a cute Fifties arrangement bursting with frills and cherries. Presumably all the fripperies are meant to distract from the lingering remnants of mince pies and the damage done by best friend Amber's transformation into Kiwi Baking Goddess... I did an extra 200 sit-ups, but suspected that the effects would be purely psychological. Then I cracked open the bottle and began to lather myself in expensive brown gunk. Its a strange thing, to go to bed smelling of dog biscuits, which no self-tan manufacturer seems able to do anything about.

This morning dawned glorious and I dawned orange. Apparently, the tan 'develops' far darker on my pale skin than I had been told. I look like a Las Vegas stripper, if you stand back and squint.

Happily, in the chaotic waiting room at the casting studio in Covent Garden, I found myself amongst friends, where every shade of orange was represented by the gossiping throng. I got chatting to the boy seated next to me, an actor named Alex, about his first attempt at running a marathon this weekend. I haven't thought seriously about running London thus far, but now I think I will do it next year. It just seems silly not to. I have started training for Chicester in mid-June, and just did a 16km training run around London in the Springy sunshine. I found a wonderful branch that has moulded itself into a swing in St James' Park, and its smooth worn bark bears testament to the many bottoms beside mine that have tested it out.

After the casting was done, I had a few hours to spend in my favourite little Italian place in Mayfair, called The Lucky Spot, where the coffee is delicious and the quiet wooden booths lend themselves to line-learning, before I had to head to Danceworks for my Dirty Dancing audition. Ballet class was in full swing, and the waltzes tinkled up the staircase as I waited for the boy ahead of me to finish butchering I've Had The Time Of My Life, which he did several times. When I went in to meet the panel, I found three people in a sunny studio, and the MD asked me to come over to the piano and sing through the simple songs I'd been asked to prepare from the show. It was very informal, just singing with him at the piano in the warm light while the other two watched. And then they said thank you, and I was done. They didn't ask me to read any of the character's scenes. This I'm taking to mean that I was terrible. But I jumped on my bicycle and soared off into the Spring evening and didn't much care either way. I like the rollercoaster ride that this life is.

Incidentally, I was emailed a link the other day to a dancing blog that I'm featured on. For some reason, I look extremely serious. Apparently I was too danced-out to smile... http://www.dancerstyle.co.uk/

Doing the Dirty

There is a skewed logic I have developed regarding auditions; it seems to be a general rule that the worse I think it went, the higher the chance that the phone will ring in a few days with my agent brimming with good news at the other end. It strikes me as a cruel joke that the light is always to be found at the end of the longest, darkest tunnels. And I've been scampering down a fair few of them in recent weeks. I remember the lonely days when first I washed up on the shores of London; every rare audition shone out like a ray of hope across the wasteland of my diary. But in the past ten days, since my last show of Permanence played on March 20th, I have been hurtling across London with a head full of scripts and a bag bursting with shoes apposite for each character. I've auditioned for student films and low-budget features and West End musicals and I can't even remember what else! And all with chronic toothache, a raging head cold and attempting to placate my boss... The anti-glamour of it all sometimes still makes me laugh, and the thrill I get from living the life I craved as a little girl with crazy dreams hasn't ever gone away. But it was the audition for Dirty Dancing on Friday that finally got me down. I was trying out for the part of Vivian Pressman, and I had had to tell my boss that I was meeting a client in Knightsbridge in order to get to Pineapple studios for my 4:15 slot. I did the usual vocal exercises to warm up the voice while hurtling on my bicycle through Oxford Circus. This caused a raised eyebrow or two from the first flush of tourists arriving from Italy and Japan to taste the joys of Spring shopping. (The H&M girls floating past on double deckers are boasting juicy florals and boho blouses - again -for the new season but I never tire of the sight.) At Pineapple, I was shown into Studio 7, with its expanse of sweat-polished floor, and asked to dance with myself while delivering my lines. This is a bizarre thing to do, and when auditioning for Dirty Dancing it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect them to provide someone to dance with...but there I was, attempting to tango on my own and feeling like a perfect idiot. The panel, led by a diminutive Asian-American girl, watched with poker faces. Next, they wanted me to sing a snippet of the song from the show, and I went over to the piano with a sinking heart. This is always my highest hurdle. But the pianist, unlike the accompanist provided for my previous audition who was still attempting to master Chopsticks, was cheerful and laid back and I found myself soothed into singing the song with escalating confidence. Suddenly, the energy in the room swung round and I realised I was watching them as I sang; I was no longer the specimen on the slab. They were simply four people sitting behind a table on a Friday afternoon. And that was a tiny, lovely breakthrough. Swiftly overtaken by the horrible doubt, sadly, and the tradition of the walk to the door with the awkward silence hovering in the air as they wait for you to be gone so they can discuss the pros and cons of you in forensic detail - if you merit such attention. I went back down Pineapple's staircase (surely a cosmic joke as the most treacherous staircase in London) in black gloom and swearing I would never put myself through the humiliation of a musical audition ever again. But they are words I am forced to eat because my agent has rung with the surprising message that they want to see me for a call back in two weeks. And so the rollercoaster lurches again. In the words of one of my favourite songs: "It goes to show you never can tell."