Acting – Page 2 – whatleydude.com

Middle Performances

Right – its gone midnight and I’m shattered.

Tonight was the first of the two ‘middle performances’ and if I dont mind saying so myself – it went brilliantly. Remember how I said the first night was hard because we got all that laughter? Well tonight we were ready for it..

BUT – in doing that – I became very aware of how funny some of the lines actually are.. and TWICE I very nearly corpsed.. I didnt.. but I nearly did.

So yeah – Jim and I got the lion’s share of the laughs tonight – we’re really nailing it timing wise now.. Hehehe..

Ooo… Let me explain ‘middle performances’ – basically:

On the First Night: Everyone’s excited and nervous, the energy is high and everyone want so to get it right. Everryone wants to succeed! So they turn that nervous energy into passion and they blitz it. Wonderful.

On the Last Night: Everyone’s excited and thrilled because ITS THE LAST NIGHT! ..and everyone wants to make it the best ever and the excitement and the energy are almost unbearable.. but the same thing happens – the energy gets used on stage and you end up with some smashing performances.

BUT – the nights in between.. the “Middle Nights” – they’re always tough.

You’ve done it once, it went well.. you’re confident.. you can do it again.. you’ll be fine. Complacency sneaks in through the back door and the next thing you know you’re fluffing lines left right and centre and the whole thing falls apart..

FORTUNATELY! That didnt happen tonight – everyone was so nervous BECAUSE it was a ‘middle night’ – that they didnt get over confident and they didnt get complacent and it all went spectacularly well!

So yeah.. there you go – Tomorrow I’m doing the ‘middle performance’ of Alone and then Friday is the final Mum’s Legs.. Saturday is the final Alone and then after THAT – I think we’re all going for a big Curry!

Which should be interesting considering I’m detoxing at the moment! Ah well…

On that note actually I’d like to mention that today I used the next hole along in my belt!

Wooo! The weight is just falling off!

I really must hit the sack now because I am knackered.

Night all – chat tomorrow no doubt.

( less than a week to go til Thailand! )

First Night Two!

First Night (Take Two)

Today was tough at work – started at 7am and had to have my work complete by 2pm.

DAMMIT!

BUT – I did manage to get out of work ON time and I made it to The Cornerhouse in time for tonight’s premiere of ‘Alone’.

It went really really well, my mate Louisa came to see it and she said it was cool… and that’s all I’m gonna say really –

Basically I got a LOT of compliments tonight about my play and also my range..

Alone is a completely different style of play than Mums Legs and everyone was really impressed.. but as I said – I’m NOT going to go on about it!

I’m taking my vidjo camera with me tomorrow and hopefully get some good footage that I might post on YouTube or something.. So yeah!

I’ll let you know!

Ooo.. one more thing:

ONE WEEK ‘TIL THAILAND BABY YEAH!

First Night!

Well – first night all done!

(and I’m STILL detoxing! I had some Almonds earlier – NICE )

Anywhooo…!

Mum’s Legs had its Premiere this evening at the Cornerhouse in Surbiton.

It went down very well indeed! We (Jim and I) easily got the most laughs of the evening!

In fact – it actually threw us at one point! We werent expecting them – I mean we knew we’d get them at some point but not straight off the bat and also – y’know, you dont get that in rehearsal.. so yeah – when the first laugh came – I nearly cracked myself!

Thank God I didnt.. but I nearly did.. I felt it y’know? But then – once we’d settled into the rhythm of the piece we managed to milk it a bit more.. trying to keep the whole thing as deadpan as possible y’know? ..and some of it really worked!

The writer of the piece was there tonight too – he was very complimentary. .. Our Director was chuffed with it too.

So yeah – it wasn’t perfect – I think it’ll be better on Wednesday night and then fantastic on Friday night.

But! Mustn’t think about that now! I’ve got to open Alone tomorrow night! Oooer! Should be good – I’m quite lookin forward to it actually.. its a bit bleak and nowhere near as funny.. but its still equally as challenging as an actor.. y’know? So yeah – got that to come..

OO ooo! While I remember –

So I’m standing there chatting away to the Director and this woman comes up to me and says –

“Where did you get the legs?” (we have to prosthetic legs on stage with us the whole time)

I begin to explain and then Andy (the Director), butts in, carries on the story and then says:

“Yeah.. they belong to a bloke called Dave, he’s coming on Wednesday night and he’s bringing some friend from his amputee group…”

WHAT?!

Brilliant.. Got THAT to look forward to! Hopefully they won’t be offended by any of it!

____

Anyway – must get to bed now – gotta be at work bright and early to keep things sweet with the boss. We had words today.. I think we understand each other – things are just a bit tender between us at the moment y’know?

So yeah – must dash – need bed.

Speak soon.