"Don't forget your champagne" Quoth Sir Michael.
"That's why I'm here boy" Quoth I. You can't bring me anywhere.
But ye know that by now.
normal service will resume shortly.
Monday, September 27, 2004
It's The Truth I Tell's Ya!
To prove that I'm not just telling shaggy dog stories. Here's a pic;
"Don't forget your champagne" Quoth Sir Michael.
"That's why I'm here boy" Quoth I. You can't bring me anywhere.
But ye know that by now.
normal service will resume shortly.
"Don't forget your champagne" Quoth Sir Michael.
"That's why I'm here boy" Quoth I. You can't bring me anywhere.
But ye know that by now.
normal service will resume shortly.
Sunday, September 05, 2004
15. DIGS HELL
Touring.
I know a thing or two about touring let me tell ya. As I've said before my first job was an 8 month tour around the UK. 8 months boy. I could have had a baby in that time. The best part of touring? That's easy. The craic, getting to check out lots of different towns and cities, getting to perform in loadsa different venues, and did I mention the craic? The worst part of touring? Even easier;
Digs.
When you tour to anywhere in England you have to sort out your own 'digs'. No hotels for the jobbing actors my good man. Whether its a tour wherein you are in a different venue each week or you are in situ for a couple of months you're sent a 'Digs list' to trawl through to try and find a place that's going to be home for you for the time you are in that place. And they vary in quality wildly! Big time! digs Lists are full of listings like this;
- Spacious double room with exquisite view available in nice, relaxed household. Use of all facilities. Tv and Kettle in room. Only 10 mins from theatre. Visitors by arrangement. No children but friendly dog and cat in house. £50 pw Phone Betty on 01983 93093
What that generally means is a tiny room with a double bed squashed into it so there's feck all room for anything especially the ancient black and white telly thats sitting on a dusty chest of drawers at the end of the bed. The household is anything but relaxed as poor auld Betty is only recently widowed or divorced and you're her only contact with the outside world since her Jack went and sure the kids never visit or so you're told every day. Facilities you can use are the bathroom and the kitchen but the living room is her private place and so's the kitchen when she's in there. She'll probably wait up for you at night to see how your day went and god help you if you fall in late at night off your face drunk. The bloody dog and cat have free reign of the house including your room so your stuff is destroyed in hairs and friendly they most certainly are not. Visitors are not welcome and that's the arrangement so you better be single! The £50 price tag is 5 years old at this stage and it's actually £80. And that 10 minutes to the theatre is by fecking taxi! The view is indeed exquisite, mind you, but who gives a shit.
That's not an exaggeration by any means. I could tell you horror stories about digs. One landlady I had was a crazy auld chick called Miss Pink (I kid you not.) who sat in the sitting room all day smoking what must have been dope and changing the television channel with a snooker cue and called me an alcoholic when I told her my reason for leaving was that the buses didn't run late enough to her part of Bristol and it was too far to walk. Another woman I stayed with was heavily pregnant by a previous lodging actor who had run off (on tour again no doubt). Subsequently she had a pathological dislike of actors. I told her I was a musician. I could go on and on to be honest and not just with my own tales of woe. Every actor and stage manager in the land has there own litany. Now that's not to say there's no nice digs in England. There are. I've stayed in a few and they were fine and dandy for the week I was there. But that's just it, It was only for a week. Well not even that, more often than not it was 5 nights and back to the London for a Seisúin in Shuttleworths (the seediest actors club in London but we thought it great at the time!). So staying in digs digs wasn't too bad. But I was about to work in York for 7 weeks and lovely old lady digs would just not do. No way boy!
All the drama about which job I was going to do had happened in the last week of Willows and it couldn't have come at a better time. I was now able to sort out exactly what was happening over the next few months and the plan was thus; get over the hangover after the last show of Willows (twas a doozy indeed! The show finished at 1pm and the drinking stopped at 2am. How bad. But it would get worse than that.), then chill in the London for two weeks to sort out the fecking digs for York, go to the big end of season party at Regent's Park (always a lethal night!) then head back to the fair Waterford my home for nearly 5 weeks (what a treat!) and then of course head to York to begin my deadly new job and move into my digs. Ah yes. The digs. Well the first thing I did when I accepted 'Beauty Queen' was ring the theatre and get them to send me a digs list straight away. Normally the list will come with a copy of your contract and script but there was no way I was waiting a few weeks for that to be sorted out all the good stuff would be gone. The digs list arrived a couple of days later.
All the good stuff was gone.
Most actors don't like to talk about money but I don't give a crap (because I'm in it for the art. Ha ha!) I was on £350 for 'Beauty Queen' and on top of that you get £105 which is supposed to be for your rent and your food and general living expenses. It's not that much money when you take into account that you have to put money away for tax and pay your agent etc. etc. So you have to be frugal about the digs you chose. The minute I get the List i go straight to the self catering accommodation ie. flats. For an extra bit of money I don't mind paying a bit more for my own place. But how expensive could it be? It's York for feck sake! Well the cheapest on the list was £80 for a single bedsit!! Jesus!! And it got worse. I ring the £80 guy and not a sign, its already gone. Shit. There's a crowd doing them for £90 a week but they're full as well, me man says he'll ring me back in a couple of days though because something may well come up. He never rang back. Just like a casting director. There's one advertised and it says to ring for rates as they vary out of season. Sounds promising. The woman on the other end of the line tells me that there's no way she could leave the flat go for anything less than £200 a week! Are you off your chump lady!!?! Do you know how much we get for living in York? No? Well I'll tell ya! She doesn't budge on the price.
'So you'd prefer to leave the flat go idle than to bring the price down to help this poor starving actor out?'
'Yes' .................. the phone went straight down at that stage. That stupid bitch. I mean, what the fuck is she doing on the digs list? What actor can afford that kinda money. The kind of actor that isn't working in York! Things were not going well at all and it was looking like I may have to move to the front of the list and start looking at the old lady digs because there was nothing else aaaaagh! I rang the last place on the self catering page, this guy who owned a hotel had flats as well and he said that they were from £120 a week but was willing to do deals out of season (heard that one before). I get to talk to a receptionist at the hotel and she tells me that one of the actors there at the moment was paying £140 and there was little chance of the owner going below that. Fuck that. But I ask to speak to the owner and he says that the best he can do is £120, I give him the sob story though and he says he'll think about and give me a ring back in a couple of days. I'm grasping at straws now. I really can't afford any of these places so I should start brushing up on my old widow conversation. I mean I still had a flat in London to be paying for didn't I?
Well no as it turned out.
I live in a deadly flat in county Kilburn in the London and the guy I share with (Gary O'Sullivan who's a mate from drama school) also owns the place so that's pretty chilled. He's off on tour himself in September and has let out his room to an Aussie chick and he suggests I do the same. Genius! Sure I'm going to be away from September to the very end of November, a good three months. So on to this thing called the internet I go and post my own ad for digs. Ah the irony. I get loads of emails about it and the first guy that contacts me comes over the following evening. He's an affable Aussie chap who's working in IT in the city and has just bust up with his girlfriend and needs a place until he can move into the flat he just bought which will take about 3 months. Perfect boy! He gets the flat, I see no one else. Nice one! Well that's a huge weight off of me wallet. But York digs? What's the story boy? I get a message on me phone from the receptionist which says I can have a studio flat for £110. Possible now that I've no rent to pay in London. But its a fiver over me subsistence and now it's a matter of principle. I ring the owner the next day and he seems to have forgotten the quote he gave;
'How much do they give you for expenses again?' asketh he.
'Just £105 pounds kind sir.' Replieth my poor mouth.
'Ok, I'll sort you out a studio for that then.'
Sold! Its not Ideal and its certainly not cheap but feck it! I'm sorted and I'm happy. So happy that I'm not too pissed off when the agent phones (you knew she had to didn't you.);
'I've just got a phone call from Working Title and they're interested in you for this new romantic comedy they're doing. But it's filming in October and November.'
Not a hope girl. That's exactly when I'm doing 'Beauty Queen'. Ah well. At this stage I'm thinking that I'm never going to be on screen other than me 3 lines on Judge John Deed. I have a great face for radio though. (I just hope Kiera Knightley wasn't in this one as well, I couldn't handle that.) At least I can now enjoy me last few days in London. And enjoy it indeed I do. The Regent's Park party is a beauty. Tons of free beer, I win an award (It's only a piss take award for best one liner.... 'Aha!'....the word was only in the script once but i used it throughout the show to cover time while I tried to remember my lines. The ginger Gielgud Mr. Keith Dunphy won an award for lifetime achievement beating the leading lady's 9 month old baby. Like I said. Piss take!) I'm off me face in a big way. I try to open a bottle off a wall at one stage and the neck just breaks off, I still drank it though. I was just careful of the broken glass against me lips.We all end up drinking on the bandstand in the park until 7 in the morning. Ahhh knacker drinking in the park. It brought me back to my youth in the Déise. And soon there was something else that would bring me back to the Déise.
The 1 O'clock flight from Luton that Saturday.
Thank god for Aer Arann!
Bring on the blaas and Bulmers!
And the Festival!
I know a thing or two about touring let me tell ya. As I've said before my first job was an 8 month tour around the UK. 8 months boy. I could have had a baby in that time. The best part of touring? That's easy. The craic, getting to check out lots of different towns and cities, getting to perform in loadsa different venues, and did I mention the craic? The worst part of touring? Even easier;
Digs.
When you tour to anywhere in England you have to sort out your own 'digs'. No hotels for the jobbing actors my good man. Whether its a tour wherein you are in a different venue each week or you are in situ for a couple of months you're sent a 'Digs list' to trawl through to try and find a place that's going to be home for you for the time you are in that place. And they vary in quality wildly! Big time! digs Lists are full of listings like this;
- Spacious double room with exquisite view available in nice, relaxed household. Use of all facilities. Tv and Kettle in room. Only 10 mins from theatre. Visitors by arrangement. No children but friendly dog and cat in house. £50 pw Phone Betty on 01983 93093
What that generally means is a tiny room with a double bed squashed into it so there's feck all room for anything especially the ancient black and white telly thats sitting on a dusty chest of drawers at the end of the bed. The household is anything but relaxed as poor auld Betty is only recently widowed or divorced and you're her only contact with the outside world since her Jack went and sure the kids never visit or so you're told every day. Facilities you can use are the bathroom and the kitchen but the living room is her private place and so's the kitchen when she's in there. She'll probably wait up for you at night to see how your day went and god help you if you fall in late at night off your face drunk. The bloody dog and cat have free reign of the house including your room so your stuff is destroyed in hairs and friendly they most certainly are not. Visitors are not welcome and that's the arrangement so you better be single! The £50 price tag is 5 years old at this stage and it's actually £80. And that 10 minutes to the theatre is by fecking taxi! The view is indeed exquisite, mind you, but who gives a shit.
That's not an exaggeration by any means. I could tell you horror stories about digs. One landlady I had was a crazy auld chick called Miss Pink (I kid you not.) who sat in the sitting room all day smoking what must have been dope and changing the television channel with a snooker cue and called me an alcoholic when I told her my reason for leaving was that the buses didn't run late enough to her part of Bristol and it was too far to walk. Another woman I stayed with was heavily pregnant by a previous lodging actor who had run off (on tour again no doubt). Subsequently she had a pathological dislike of actors. I told her I was a musician. I could go on and on to be honest and not just with my own tales of woe. Every actor and stage manager in the land has there own litany. Now that's not to say there's no nice digs in England. There are. I've stayed in a few and they were fine and dandy for the week I was there. But that's just it, It was only for a week. Well not even that, more often than not it was 5 nights and back to the London for a Seisúin in Shuttleworths (the seediest actors club in London but we thought it great at the time!). So staying in digs digs wasn't too bad. But I was about to work in York for 7 weeks and lovely old lady digs would just not do. No way boy!
All the drama about which job I was going to do had happened in the last week of Willows and it couldn't have come at a better time. I was now able to sort out exactly what was happening over the next few months and the plan was thus; get over the hangover after the last show of Willows (twas a doozy indeed! The show finished at 1pm and the drinking stopped at 2am. How bad. But it would get worse than that.), then chill in the London for two weeks to sort out the fecking digs for York, go to the big end of season party at Regent's Park (always a lethal night!) then head back to the fair Waterford my home for nearly 5 weeks (what a treat!) and then of course head to York to begin my deadly new job and move into my digs. Ah yes. The digs. Well the first thing I did when I accepted 'Beauty Queen' was ring the theatre and get them to send me a digs list straight away. Normally the list will come with a copy of your contract and script but there was no way I was waiting a few weeks for that to be sorted out all the good stuff would be gone. The digs list arrived a couple of days later.
All the good stuff was gone.
Most actors don't like to talk about money but I don't give a crap (because I'm in it for the art. Ha ha!) I was on £350 for 'Beauty Queen' and on top of that you get £105 which is supposed to be for your rent and your food and general living expenses. It's not that much money when you take into account that you have to put money away for tax and pay your agent etc. etc. So you have to be frugal about the digs you chose. The minute I get the List i go straight to the self catering accommodation ie. flats. For an extra bit of money I don't mind paying a bit more for my own place. But how expensive could it be? It's York for feck sake! Well the cheapest on the list was £80 for a single bedsit!! Jesus!! And it got worse. I ring the £80 guy and not a sign, its already gone. Shit. There's a crowd doing them for £90 a week but they're full as well, me man says he'll ring me back in a couple of days though because something may well come up. He never rang back. Just like a casting director. There's one advertised and it says to ring for rates as they vary out of season. Sounds promising. The woman on the other end of the line tells me that there's no way she could leave the flat go for anything less than £200 a week! Are you off your chump lady!!?! Do you know how much we get for living in York? No? Well I'll tell ya! She doesn't budge on the price.
'So you'd prefer to leave the flat go idle than to bring the price down to help this poor starving actor out?'
'Yes' .................. the phone went straight down at that stage. That stupid bitch. I mean, what the fuck is she doing on the digs list? What actor can afford that kinda money. The kind of actor that isn't working in York! Things were not going well at all and it was looking like I may have to move to the front of the list and start looking at the old lady digs because there was nothing else aaaaagh! I rang the last place on the self catering page, this guy who owned a hotel had flats as well and he said that they were from £120 a week but was willing to do deals out of season (heard that one before). I get to talk to a receptionist at the hotel and she tells me that one of the actors there at the moment was paying £140 and there was little chance of the owner going below that. Fuck that. But I ask to speak to the owner and he says that the best he can do is £120, I give him the sob story though and he says he'll think about and give me a ring back in a couple of days. I'm grasping at straws now. I really can't afford any of these places so I should start brushing up on my old widow conversation. I mean I still had a flat in London to be paying for didn't I?
Well no as it turned out.
I live in a deadly flat in county Kilburn in the London and the guy I share with (Gary O'Sullivan who's a mate from drama school) also owns the place so that's pretty chilled. He's off on tour himself in September and has let out his room to an Aussie chick and he suggests I do the same. Genius! Sure I'm going to be away from September to the very end of November, a good three months. So on to this thing called the internet I go and post my own ad for digs. Ah the irony. I get loads of emails about it and the first guy that contacts me comes over the following evening. He's an affable Aussie chap who's working in IT in the city and has just bust up with his girlfriend and needs a place until he can move into the flat he just bought which will take about 3 months. Perfect boy! He gets the flat, I see no one else. Nice one! Well that's a huge weight off of me wallet. But York digs? What's the story boy? I get a message on me phone from the receptionist which says I can have a studio flat for £110. Possible now that I've no rent to pay in London. But its a fiver over me subsistence and now it's a matter of principle. I ring the owner the next day and he seems to have forgotten the quote he gave;
'How much do they give you for expenses again?' asketh he.
'Just £105 pounds kind sir.' Replieth my poor mouth.
'Ok, I'll sort you out a studio for that then.'
Sold! Its not Ideal and its certainly not cheap but feck it! I'm sorted and I'm happy. So happy that I'm not too pissed off when the agent phones (you knew she had to didn't you.);
'I've just got a phone call from Working Title and they're interested in you for this new romantic comedy they're doing. But it's filming in October and November.'
Not a hope girl. That's exactly when I'm doing 'Beauty Queen'. Ah well. At this stage I'm thinking that I'm never going to be on screen other than me 3 lines on Judge John Deed. I have a great face for radio though. (I just hope Kiera Knightley wasn't in this one as well, I couldn't handle that.) At least I can now enjoy me last few days in London. And enjoy it indeed I do. The Regent's Park party is a beauty. Tons of free beer, I win an award (It's only a piss take award for best one liner.... 'Aha!'....the word was only in the script once but i used it throughout the show to cover time while I tried to remember my lines. The ginger Gielgud Mr. Keith Dunphy won an award for lifetime achievement beating the leading lady's 9 month old baby. Like I said. Piss take!) I'm off me face in a big way. I try to open a bottle off a wall at one stage and the neck just breaks off, I still drank it though. I was just careful of the broken glass against me lips.We all end up drinking on the bandstand in the park until 7 in the morning. Ahhh knacker drinking in the park. It brought me back to my youth in the Déise. And soon there was something else that would bring me back to the Déise.
The 1 O'clock flight from Luton that Saturday.
Thank god for Aer Arann!
Bring on the blaas and Bulmers!
And the Festival!
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