On Saturday activities

I had an audition this afternoon, for a family-oriented show called Bink And The Hairy Fairy (Chekov it sure ain't). Auditions are strange beasts. Like first dates with stage fright thrown in. The more you do, the better you get, or so the adage goes. But I've been auditioning since I was 13 and I'm still wondering when I'll be able to pass myself as a rational, cognizant human being when faced with an audition panel. I become a bundle of stress and fluff for hours beforehand, and manage to convince myself that ironing the contents of the washing basket is a task of vital importance over, say, running through my monologues, or warming up my voice. I could turn procrastination into an Olympic sport. But once there, the audition went better than I feared. The top notes came out clear, and the monologue I've recently added to my repertoire went alright, even if it still needs a lot of polishing. (A piece from a lovely play called My Mother Said I Never Should by Charlotte Keatley, incidentally; well worth a read.) Then I jumped on the train for London again and went to a dance class at Pineapple. I had missed my favourite class, a high energy jazz class by Andrew, but I was in time for body-conditioning with the biddy brigade. This is a class of ladies of advanced years who gather for their weekly tune up. I took my place at the barre behind a stern matron who was kind enough to holler the routines at me. Such devotion to the precise swing of a head or curve of a finger, and I had to suppress a smile more than once... But the best part is the leaps. Before I broke my foot (onstage in a pantomime in 2006), I was a reluctant jumper on a good day. And when I returned to dancing, the bare floor terrified me. I simply couldn't face the grand allegro. But recently that's begun to change. Perhaps it was realising that the worst that can happen is you might break something-which will heal in time. Or perhaps its all the running and cycling, which have given me formidable thigh muscles... Whatever the cause, I am beginning to love flinging myself into empty space, and I'm trying to leap longer and further and higher than ever before. Gelsey Kirkland's phrase The Shape of Love comes to mind. Sweaty and happy, I cycled home along the teeming South Bank, which was thronged with Londoners and tourists in Saturday war paint. I marvel at how humanity in great numbers ebbs and flows like water, each individual pulled by an invisible force spun by need. And then I arrived home to a grumpy husband, who had disappointed himself in his cycle race and was on the sofa in a funk. Luckily, we live within range of a great Italian place and a grocery store that stocks the complete range of Green and Black's chocolate!