The World Is Your Peanutbutter Sandwich: Sweet Charity

So, I haven't written on this for months. Mainly because I have been very busy and important having mumps and straining ligaments.

So I'm going to cheat a bit and post posts that I wrote over the last few months for a different website. So I have another passion apart from travelling and that is musical theatre. I was recently in a production of Sweet Charity.

Ignore the weird white background to this, website has gone haywire!

Here is the post I wrote post-show...

If They Could See Me Now…

Saturday night. I put a (only just acceptable) purple sparkly dress and a very large pair of showpants and made my debut as Helene in Sweet Charity.

There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This…

Rewind 18 months. Life was rubbish. I was at the end of my tether. I typed in ‘musical theatre’ to Google. City Academy popped up. I rang and they asked me to audition the very next day. I was terrified. I had done quite a few shows over the last few years at the Bloomsbury Theatre when I was at UCL, but the thought of auditioning for a proper show made me feel sick. You see, the problem is, whilst I tootle along fine on the old singing and acting front (I was sent to Speech and Drama from an early age by my mother to prevent the onset of a Mancunian accent), I am a veteran of the vertical school of dance (ie jumping up and down on the spot) and was unsure that I would be able to keep up. The wonderful Vikki Stone called me in to audition and I sang my classic audition piece from South Pacific ‘I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair’. I remember when she said I had made it and was in the Company, she said “Just so you know, this group is full of big personalities”. She was not wrong.

I could see you were a (wo)man of distinction..

First Impressions. And so it began. I walked in on a group of people who were very loud and had already established friendship groups, so it was pretty daunting. We were doing Rent and I was to play Mark’s Mom. I later learned that Justin (Oscar in Sweet Charity) thought that I was “very RADA” and that he imagined that I probably walked around the room reciting poetry or Shakespeare, and Jen (costume mistress extraordinaire and Fandango girl) thought that I was one of those types who got up at 5am to make sure my hair was that messy. She has since learnt that my hair is just genuinely that messy.

The Minute You Walked in the Joint…

Fast-forward a year. 40 people sat in a circle. The tables had turned. I was one of those really loud ones and put together with more loud, dramatic people it can be pretty intimidating. But we played a game and soon everyone relaxed. The great thing about City Academy is that people are from all walks of life: laywers, doctors, make-up artists, animators, students, creative directors, publicists, the list goes on. Some people have trained professionally, some have dabbled and some people have taken the Beginners and Improvers courses at City Academy. Everyone just loves performing.

So let me get right to the point…

It took 6 months of epic rehearsing, sourcing props, learning harmonies (in about seven parts in Rhythm of Life), building walls, shortening dresses as high as was acceptable in indecent society and a dollop of good old-fashioned enthusiasm and Sweet Charity was ready to rumble.

Pippa O'Brien and Rebecca Wicking (our wonderful director and choreographer) had double cast the show so Charity, Nickie and Helene in each show were to be played by different people and we could interpret the characters as differently to each other as we wanted. They were both so supportive and encouraging of every single member of the group and we have all learnt so much over the last six months under their tuition.

Team Matinee was Emma Slater (Charity), Laura Hayes (Nickie) and Natalie Duarte(Helene). Emma, usually an investigative journalist, shone as quirky lovestruck Charity and ever the professional in the face of adversity (namely when a wardrobe fell on top of her mid-show), Emma carried on as though nothing had happened.

Team Evening was Anna Bosanko (Charity), Joanna Reyes (Nickie) and Me (Helene). It’s hard to believe Anna only started Musical Theatre a year ago with a taster class at City Academy – her performance was outstanding. But shows aren’t proper shows without a little glitch and ours came a few minutes in when we couldn’t find the middle of the curtain to leave the stage. Some very, shall we say, ‘colourful’ and ‘in character’ acting from me sorted that one out a treat and after much laughter from the audience, we did a stride of pride to the bar for Big Spender. Working with the multi-talented Jo was an incredible experience and I just wish we could do it all again tomorrow.

Oscar, Charity’s nervous, twitchy love interest was played by Justin Jeffreys, one of the original members of City Academy’s Musical Theatre Company. Justin’s talent was spotted at a young age when he made blink and you’ll miss it appearances in Grange Hill and Saving Private Ryan. His scene in the lift with Charity had us all crying with laughter. Justin truly excels in every performance he gives, even (especially) as the creepy old man in the park scene at the beginning of the show (although perhaps that wasn’t acting). The beautiful Kim Cimino and charming Cyril Michelet played the gorgeous couple Ursula and Vittorio Vidal and newcomer Dom Conte made his City Academy debut in the role of Daddy Brubeck.

The ensemble was just incredible and so professional. The tight, polished dancing was absolute perfection. When I have looked at photos and videos of the show since, I am just awestruck at how uniform the routines were and yet everybody had a character: a back story and personality. Aaliyah Johnson wow-ed us once again with her Fosse dancing as part of the Frug: a dance of epic proportions. The quick costume changes, the number of roles, not to mention the time it took to find the stage through the maze of corridors: the teamwork was flawless.

Helene was a challenging character to play. She isn’t quirky like Charity or as ballsy and authoritative as Nickie. She can be funny but she is often sarcastic and perhaps slightly world weary. I think she had a pretty rough past and has hardened herself to life as a result. Before Helene, I have always been cast in exceptionally funny roles or a role where really straight serious acting is required (although worryingly, I have often been cast as a prostitute..). I feel so lucky to have been given the opportunity to play a more complex mixed up character like Helene and strange as it sounds, I have missed having her around this week.

Being part of the Fandango Girls was like being like part of a huge gaggle of (slutty) sisters. We all really looked out for each other. The thing about spending so much time with the same group of people is that you become really close.

It was the same with the whole company. A big fat family. We laughed like a family, we argued like a family; some people had diva tantrums, others looked on disparagingly; some people mothered us, bought us food, clothed us, did our hair, others fought for attention. No matter what we did though, we had each other’s backs. And the result was that we produced a pretty damned amazing show.

I can’t even begin to describe the buzz of being on stage. They always talk about having butterflies in your tummy when you are nervous. I get twitchy leg syndrome which always appears to prompt the question ‘do you need to go to the toilet?’. When stage manager Cynthia Schwartz gave us the 5 minute call, the adrenalin was pumping through my veins at lightning speed and my leg was near to detaching itself and careering off my body, but it seems the moment I step on stage, I’m just no longer me. It’s like a wave of calm washes over me. I’m in my element. Nothing else matters. I don’t even really realise the audience are there. I’m just caught up in the world we have created over the last six months and I love every single moment of it. I don’t think anything really matches the feeling I get when I am performing or when the audience begins to clap and cheer.

I start to sniff, please let me use your handkerchief

The last few days have been about moping.

I woke up on Sunday in denial.

On Monday, my colleagues told me I had never looked so awful.

By Tuesday, reality had set in.

Justin asked me if he would ever smile again and Anna asked me if she was maybe actually depressed.

Nobody panic.

We are plotting ways to take Sweet Charity on tour.

We may commandeer a stage.

We may take an iPod and dock to Clapham Common and bust out the show to passers-by.

Or we may just sit tight and wait for the Panto rehearsals to begin.

That should be good because apparently the Prince always holds one of his balls at Christmas. And from what I’ve heard, the Prince’s balls are massive.

Hmm, we’ll need to start thinking about what to wear. Jerkin on or Jerkin…?

Oh no I didn’t.

(Oh yes (unfortunately) I did.)