It’s the day after Soho Pride, another day-long London Gay festival thing, when I get the call from my agent telling me I’ve got the job. I turn to the man on my bed, who I picked up at around three in the morning, and tell him I just got a job.
“Doing what?” he asks. He’s actually interested. I note this and award him an extra point.
“As one of the heterosexual dads in the world tour of Mamma Mia,” I tell him.
“That’s great. Isn’t it?”
I am somewhat underwhelmed, as it means I will be unable to pick up stray men in Soho for at least a year. But the money is bloody ace.
“Yeh. I s’pose.” My last job was on the West End so I’m a little up myself and hoping for another one of those. A world tour seems a bit like being kicked out of the big glass domes in 'Logan’s Run'. A year of queuing in airports and not being around to audition for West End shows. I’m normally a glass-half-full person but I just can’t get excited about what is, let’s face it, a bonza gig. And I have to get rid of this naked dude without seeming like a complete arsehole.
“Dear man, I’m going to kick you out.” I find prefacing f*** off with 'dear man' seems to soften the blow. Especially if delivered with a gormless Australian smile. I smile gormlessly.
That was several weeks ago. I love Soho Pride. There’s also London Pride and something-else Pride. I get the Pride thing, I do, and yet I won’t deny it seems a bit cumbersome in 2008. I mean, we don’t have
Ginger Pride (Proud to Have an Uncommon Hair Colour!) or
Left-hander Pride (Proud to Sometimes Find Implements a Bit Awkward!). I feel I should probably be marching with a poster stating “I’m Proud To Have Sex With Other Men!”. Whereas it should probably read “I’m Very Comfortable About Having Sex With Other Men and How Are You?” But
Soho Comfortable doesn’t scan as well. And no-one carries posters as far as I know. We all just stand around the blocked-off streets of Soho and drink and flirt. Or maybe I get up too late.
I always find myself leaving my favourite bar,
Barcode, around three in the morning, patting my pockets and saying to myself “Hmm…wallet, sunnies, mobile phone, keys, indiscriminate homosexual…”. This is not my usual behaviour, except when I’m drunk and clearly a bit proud.
Anyhoo…
I was necking a few social pints of Guinness in Yorkshire last weekend when my mate Tom suggested I should keep a blog of this tour. This year. This bloody long gig. I raised an eyebrow and immediately wondered if I could sell such a thing. Fiscal musings aside, I have ten fingers and I own a laptop. A marriage made in limbo. Could I slide it into blog heaven? As you’re now reading this, we must assume I’ve made the effort.
So…recent history… (apologies to those who've read this in an email...)
I keep telling my agent I don't really want to do musicals and lord knows I smoke the night before the audition. This time I didn't even brush my longish hair or shave my vagabond stubble. Little did I know that the character breakdown reads "longish hair with vagabond stubble - possibly hungover". Bloody bullseye.
I sang my song, my bastard voice decided to show up, and I was told they would like to see me again next week. My heart sank. I had to learn another song so they could hear some higher notes, so I dragged out the one I used in the late 80s.
King Herod’s Song from
Jesus Christ Superstar. It was too high for me these days, but again my bastard voice decided to channel my 28-year-old larynx and a third audition was mine.
Every actor will tell you that you always get the auditions you don’t care about. Your whole bearing is more open, more at ease. This is an attractive quality in an audition. This carefree I-don’t-really-care-if-you-give-me-this-job-or-not attitude had got me thus far. But now I cared. If you’ve ever watched
Australian Idol or the talent section in a Miss Tits-and-Teeth pageant, I now felt like I was in the final ten. Only I knew it was probably more like the final three. You get a feel for these things after twenty years. Turned out it was more like the final five, but as the role I was going for was Australian and as I was the only Australian there, I began to feel a little more confident.
So guess who's off to Sweden in about 3 weeks? We start in Malmö and then, because it's right next door, we pop in to Kuala Lumpur. Then, a quick skip to Vienna (who's organising this junket? and have they ever done geography up to or including a school certificate level?), after which we settle into a Euro-centric tour before finishing ONE YEAR LATER in New Zealand. My carbon footprint will be the envy of all.
Hasta Manana 'til we meet again...
