20. 'TWAS THE RUN UP TO CHRISTMAS....

...and all around the London not an audition was to be found. Well that's not strictly true.

I had three.

I'm greedy boy. December is always a lethal month when it comes to auditions. Most things for the new year have been cast by the end of November and most of actordom is off doing panto. I learned this to great cost early on in me career. The November after I finished drama school I was offered a Christmas schools play with Red Kettle. I turned it down because 'I was worried that I would miss auditions in London'. My next audition after uttering those faithful words was on the 4th of march the following year! What a pleb! Dark days they were. Last year however I had that fateful audition for Calico on the 4th of December. Which goes to prove that there is an exception to every rule. I'm talking shite now so I'll just move on quietly.

The Jitter I had in York had come true and I had to get a Normal job (which ye all know the gory details of) and the prospect of a dull December was looking very real. I reckoned without the hard work of my agent. Going beyond the call of duty as always she had gotten me an audition for a touring production of Chekov's 'The Seagull'. Now did I want to tour again so soon after being away for ages? To play Konstantin in 'The Seagull' I'd tour to feckin Kilmacow! As the wise Withnail once said;

'Understudy Konstantin!? I'm not going to understudy Konstantin, why can't I play the part? This is ridiculous.........Bastard asked me to understudy Konstantin in The Seagull. I'm not going to understudy anyone, especially that little pimp.'

Well anyway its a top role that's widely respected and seemingly the company doing it are pretty good, so I head in to meet the casting director and the director. The casting lady has seen me in a few things and I've met her once before as well so that's cool. The director I don't know at all but I like him straight away when he says;

'You're name came up in conversation the other day. I was chatting to Liam Doona and he had very good things to say about you.'

Excellent! Liam Doona was the designer on Beauty Queen and was to be the designer on this too, nice coincidence. The audition is even nicer as we plow through a couple of scenes. They're using a different translation to the one I was looking at but that's not too much hassle and after a bit of a chat I hit the road well pleased with meself. I'm even more pleased with meself when the agent calls to say I have a recall. Hey hey! This could work out grand! I get a copy of the proper translation and I sit back and wait for the day to go back in. But I can't sit down for long. The familiar ringtone is heard;

'You have an audition for a workshop of a new Irish musical called 'Seagull's Dance''

Now that stops me in me tracks for a minute. You see back in 2003 I was offered a part in 'Seagull's Dance' when it was going to be on at the Helix theatre in Dublin. That production was subsequently cancelled. But here it is again and I have to audition for it? Well I had heard they got a new director so I suppose that's why I had to go in. The musical director for the Dublin production was to have been the maestro himself Mr. David Hayes so I pop off a little text to him. He replies saying he should be able to make this one work out, probably referring to what happened with the panto in Dublin. What happened with the panto in Dublin? I don't know either boy. Anyway it was good to have someone rooting for you on the production team. This audition could go well, but hold that thought because the phone tinkles again;

'You have audition for a new Irish musical called 'The Wiremen''

Oh? And when would that be pray tell?

'Its on the same day as the 'Seagull's Dance' audition.'

Now there's a coincidence! That's grand! And what's handy is that I have to sing 2 Irish songs for each of them and for 'The Wiremen' one of them has to be Danny Boy. Great! What's not handy is that I don't have any sheet music for the 1 and a half Irish songs I do know and I don't know the words to Danny Boy. To be honest I'm quite embarrassed to admit my lack of knowledge as regards to Irish songs. It should be in me blood and in me bones! But alas, not a hope. I could sing you the complete works of Stephen Sondheim but hardly a come-all-ye! Its a situation I mean to redress. Well I'll have to do that quick, the feckin auditions are three days away! So I make me way to the mecca of musical sheets; Chappells of Bond Street, and I spend the best part of an hour leafing through every Irish songbook there. And there's a lot of them let me tell ya! What I was looking for was a book that had all of the Irish songs that I kind've knew so I could get to know them better in the long run. And there was one song that none of the fecking things had and of course that was the one song I wanted to sing -The Water is Wide(I knew that because I had to learn it for a play a while ago). I grab a book which has Danny Boy in it and also has the Irish Rover, a good uptempo song that should be fairly easy to learn by the auditions. In the end I just type out the words and the chords of The Water is Wide and hope that that will do them. It better!

The day of the ballads arrives and I'm pretty solid on Danny Boy and I should be able to get away with the Irish Rover if I can remember which verse comes after which. And I head into the wonderful West End...at 11am!! Now as I've said, I'm well crap at singing in the morning. Only melodjeon! So this is a great start. I calm down a bit though when I walk into the the theatre and bump into two great friends of mine; Sharon Clancy and Noella Brennan a pair of the finest Yellowbellys around! They've just been in and they said it was grand. So in I go and I get a pleasant surprise straight away. The casting director is a good friend of Tessa Worsley (of 'Beauty Queen' fame) and one of the first things she says to me is;

'Well I've just been reading your reviews from York.'

A big smile started to creep across me face. Now that's a good thing! But don't worry I'm still not going to bore you with how good they were. That's a brilliant start to be honest and I do The Water is Wide and just one verse of The Irish Rover (thank god!) and while I'm not in the best of voice, its not too bad and they seem keen. The only problem is that the director is sick so there's definitely going to be callbacks and they don't tell me whether I've gotten one or not. Not to worry I still have another audition to slow air for at 3pm. My plan of action for 'The Wiremen' was Danny Boy (obviously) and The Irish Rover (I had been practicing it all day). In I go to find a guy I know waiting to go in before me. I won't name the guy because he went in to do one of the worst auditions I've ever heard in me life. I never knew he was a singer and with good reason. He murders Danny Boy to within an inch of his life and then is asked for his second song and what does he give them? The Irish Rover!!! Crap, I wanted to do that. He commits a serious war crime on that song, forgetting the words all over the shop;

'We'd an elegant craft she was rigged fore and aft,
and something that I can't reme - e - e - ember!'

Well that's going to impress them big time. Its chronic to listen to and what's more my confidence in the words of the song is shot to shit after listening to him! There's no way I'm going to sing that song now. How would I follow that! And then to rub salt into the wound he comes out of the room all smiles and says;

'Well that didn't go too bad seeing as I'm not really a singer.'

Don't give up the day job buddy! My turn next. As I wait to be called the hallway is now full of Irish fellas all humming the Derry Air and some have the words written on the back of their hands and all of them are saying how they're not singers. Well I can knock out a note and in I go to do so. The writer and director are in the room.

'Where are you from Jamie?' Quoth the writer.

'Waterford.' proudly quoth I, chest swelling.

'Well that's your problem.' Sarcastically quoth he. Come on! Witty retort! Come on!

'I know.' Quoth I.

Whaaaaaaat? Jesus that would not be one of my finer moments! But he laughs as its all a bit of a joke anyway (let him try it again though!!) and I whack into Danny Boy. And my pipes are indeed calling, the voce is in great shape by this time of the day and they certainly like it. Second song please, and it has to be Water is Wide again as I don't trust the Irish Rover any more. Its as good as the first song. They like it. I'm asked to wait outside while they have a chat. This is to see whether I'm going to be asked to stay and read, which seems pretty likely at this stage. I go outside and the boys outside waiting are all looking despondent and one them goes;

'Jesus I hope they don't expect us all to be able to sing like that.'

Sorry chaps you caught me on a good day. And I sit there for what seems to be a long while and the casting lady finally comes out. Of course I'm almost out of my seat ready to give me best Dub accent when she says;

'Thanks Jamie that's all we need to hear today, you're free to go.'

Aw Jaysus! Ah well, off to me 'Proper' job so. Crap! The irony of it all, of course, is that I get a recall for 'Seagull's Dance' the one I didn't sing so well for. Go figure.

Not to worry, I still had the recall for 'The Seagull' to get through. And get through it quite well I did. In I go to meet the usual suspects again and we whack through the couple of scenes we did before and they get me to sight read another scene. No hassle. And then they ask me to do it in RP. Ok...well that's not really a problem but of course when you're asked to do it on the hop it takes a few minutes to adjust and get it right and of course the those cringey few minutes can be deadly! But, no it seems ok. The banter is good and he seems to like my ideas about the character and I leave pretty positive to be honest. This could be a goer. When I leave the audition there's a message from the agent saying that the recall for Seagull's dance had been postponed until after Christmas. Ok, that's cool I was all Seagulled out to be honest and just wanted to chill for the last few days before I headed back to Ireland for a deadly Déise Christmas. I'm off home again.

How bad.

I guess its a given at the end of a year to be reflective about the year gone by and in all fairness it was a pretty good year. Not as madcap busy as the year before perhaps but that said the class of work and the parts I played probably went up a notch. Although at the same time in 2003 I was playing one of the leads in the Wizard of Oz and about to start rehearsals for a new West End play, as 2004 hit the road I found myself out of work with nothing on the horizon. Well there was still 'The Seagull' maybe? Or not as it turns out. I come home one day after a stroll around Red and City Square and there's a message on me phone. Alas 'tis the agent;

'Not good news Jamie. They've offered the part in the Seagull to someone else, but they were adamant that I passed on their thanks for doing such a great audition. They really liked you.'

Another 'no, but they liked you'. Me career is full of them at the moment it seems. There was a time in the past year when I was on an absolute career high. I was in my dressing room in the west end and we were rehearsing and my phone went and I was told that I had just been nominated for the Ian Charleson award. At that moment I thought 'This is it, this is my career taking off' and essentially that's why I started this little diary, to regale all with amazing tales of my meteoric rise through the acting firmament. It didn't exactly happen like that now did it? But to be honest I think the journey has been far more interesting for that. If everything went according to plan it might get boring and samey. The struggle is half the fun, I keep having to tell myself. And while there's a lot of shit in this shitty business we call show the one thing that keeps me going is the possibilities. Tomorrow your life can change and that's all so much sweeter if you've worked for it. And I'm working for it buddy. Big time.

Instant celebrity is bollox.

I'm doing it the old fashioned way.

Bring on 2005 boy!

19. WHY DON'T YOU GET YOURSELF A PROPER JOB?

The fateful hour had come. The thing that I had been dreading since March 2003 had finally come to pass and while there were times since then when it seemed like it was just around the corner and I could almost see it rearing its ugly head, there was always a phone call with the word 'Offer' somewhere in it to scare it back to the shadows from whence it came. Not this time though. No last minute reprieve, no 'Deus Ex machina', no hope.

I had to get a NORMAL JOB!!!

Feck sake!

I had returned to the London after my triumphant visit to the northern regions rich in experience but not in pocket. I was feckin' skint! Big time! A combination of pricey digs and really pricey train journeys as well as a few expensive nights out and a sneaky holiday beforehand had left a big auld hole in me wallet. That's the tricky thing about touring. Sometimes you can save quite a bit on the job, but there are times when it actually costs you money. This was one of those times. Shite. And I still had three weeks left in the London before I went back to the Déise for Christmas. This was not a good situation to be in let me tell ya. The minute you set foot in London the money just pisses out of your pocket. You go into the West End for a little walk around with no intention of buying anything and you come home 20 quid the poorer and you still haven't bought anything. It's a weird phenomenon and a costly one and being in the fiscal situation I was I couldn't just sit on me arse and wait for the next gig to come along. So I had to do it. Jesus help me but it had to be done. I needed money to pay the rent and have a couple of quid left over so I didn't have to make me own Christmas presents. Now Like I said before when an actor looks for a proper job they have to find one which is flexible around their acting career, where its cool to have time off for auditions and the like and you can leave at the drop of a hat when that all important movie comes along......or maybe a last minute TIE (Theatre In Education - worse than any normal job). So obviously the options are very limited. There are a number of jobs where you'll always find actors, for we are possibly the only ones desperate or stupid enough to do them;

- Face to face fundraising - In other words being one of those people who stand on the street all day with coloured overalls and ask you if you've got five minutes when you obviously haven't. There was no way I could bring meself to do that job. I get enough rejection in the acting profession as it is, to have it happen to you about 50 times a day would surely drive you over the edge. Also it's winter, it's cold and wet so there's health reasons to consider. But still people do it. Christ knows why!

- Telesales - This is an obvious one and a lot of actors do it because the companies feel that actors are supposed to have good voices and a lot of balls so they can just cold call people and try their best to sell them something that they more than likely don't need. I hate it when I get phone calls like that so I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if i decided to do that. Feck that so, I ain't doing telesales.

- Front of House - Ahh the perennial favourite. Being an usher at a west end theatre, maybe working on the bar or tearing tickets on the door or selling ice creams at the interval. Now while that might not sound so bad, its also not the best. I should know, I spent 9 months working front of house at the Lyceum theatre when I first left drama school and seemingly had theatrical plague because I couldn't get a gig to save me life! 9 months of wearing a burgundy waistcoat and putting up with ignorant and rude audience members. 9 months of the Lion King and Hakuna fucking Mutata!!!! No no. I had since done a West End play and had decided that I will never do front of house again.

So I had hit a brick wall with a number of the possibilities. I turned to that great organ of the showbiz world: The Stage newspaper, and sandwiched at the back of the paper in between ads for lookalikes, table dancers and TIE you will find a litany of crap jobs. As you turn each page they just get crappier and crappier until you start seeing adverts for adult chatline operators. Hmmm, I'm not there just yet I think. Well I hope! But hang on what's this jumping out from the page at me?

DELTA FORCE!

DO YOU WANT A GREAT JOB?
WORK WITH GREAT PEOPLE?
TRAVEL THE COUNTRY AND STAY
IN GREAT ACCOMODATION?
THEN COME AND WORK FOR THE
UK'S PREMIER PAINTBALL COMPANY.

Now this could be interesting! My answer would really be no to all of the above questions as what I really want is a nice little telly job but, seeing as BBC comedy are still not baytin' down me door, this could be an option. You see I have previous experience in the world of paintball as I used to be a marshall at the much missed 'Wacky Warriors' paintball arena which used to be on Summer Hill in Waterford. Its been turned into flats since, but I remember the time I spent there ordering people about, tending to rifles and cleaning up paint. Ah what halcyon days. But seriously it was a good craic. And with a history in paintball warfare like mine this job sounded like a distinct possibility. I went in for an interview the next day and got an unpleasant shock. Sitting in a small room full of Australian and South African backpackers I listened with unfolding horror at the job description. It had shag all to do with paintball! They wanted you to go out on the streets and try and sell people a sheet of vouchers which entitled them to a days paintballing for eight people. What the fuck? The sheet cost £50 out of which you would get £48 for selling it. Ooh that's not bad, well maybe..but if you don't sell any on the day you nothing..Naaahh! Jesus! I didn't want to go out onto the streets annoying people and trying to sell them something they didn't want! Its like the bastard child of face to face fundraising and telesales. No way boy, not for me I'm afraid.

'Now is there anyone here who thinks that this isn't for them?'

'Yeah, It's not for me buddy, sorry.'

'That's cool, if you don't want to earn maybe 500 to 800 pounds a week, that's fine.'

Piss off! So I exit stage left quicker than it takes John Mullane to floor a Cork Hurler, well annoyed at this dickhead wasting an hour of my life. I didn't need this I just needed a job! Big time! I was ready to kill someone. Maybe I was just being too picky and I should swallow my pride and go back to front of house. It was getting towards the end of the week when my great friend (and the little Japanese chick out of Gorillaz) Haruka Kuroda suggested I email a company called 'Turns' . Their proviso is to find shit jobs for actors. Now the difference between them and a shit agent is that they just inform you of normal jobs. Ok lets give it a go. I email them straight away from me mobile phone being the swish bastard I am (geek!) and fair enough to them they ring me back within half an hour to tell me they can get me a job at a market research call centre in the City. Ok not too bad. MR isn't half as bad as telesales, you're not trying to get people to buy things you just want them to answer questionnaires. £6.50 an hour, not great but I've had worse. And there's training the next day. Bring it on! I needed something straight away and I wasn't going to get any better offers. My sister would get her bottle of vodka for Christmas! I accept and breath deeply as if I've signed away me soul. Training first. Shouldn't be too bad.

I nearly slit me wrists boy!

In I go at 10am (ouch!) and I'm left sitting waiting with other plebs like me until this chick whose supposed to be training us walks in at 10.45! Jesus! As we're waiting the plebs start chatting and indeed most of them are actors. Now to be honest I'm not into this chat because all it turns into is questions about what you have done in the past and I don't fancy repeating me CV to every fecker in the building. So when they ask I tell them I'm a musician. Now that's not completely a lie so I don't feel so bad. Actually I don't really give a shit. The training, when it finally starts, consists of this chick mumbling her way through a guide book on market research as we read along with her. Every know and then she asks some inane question to make sure we're following along;

'So why do we have to be patient and speak more clearly when we are talking to people in an older age bracket? Anyone?' boringly mumbleth she.

'Because they're old?' Sarcastically quoth I.

And this continues until 5pm. Oh my god! I'm nodding off by the end. I'm an actor, get me out of here!!! Feeling well and truly trained up in asking willing people boring shite, I head in for my first day and its a questionnaire on washing up liquid. Aw no. And so for the rest of my time at the call centre I spend my time chatting to middle aged to old ladies about fecking Persil and Bold. Oh joy! It seems that the world's supply of washing detergent is defined by about 3 old ladies from Stoke on Trent. I could tell you all about what's good and bad about Bold Lavender and Camomile should you ever need to know. At one stage during my first week I get an assessment (where they listen into one of your interviews and mark your technique!) and I score 9 out of 10. For a few seconds I feel a bit of pride in being told I'm good at my new job. It doesn't last long though as I snap back to reality, realising that what I'm good at is a heap of shite. One guy answers the phone and half way through my opening spiel about why I'm calling he butts in and shouts;

'Look don't call again! Stop calling! And if you do call again next time get someone who can speak English to call!'

What a bastard! Jesus I had the rage after that. So I called him back a few times and hung up straight away to piss him off. Racist Fucker! I don't need to do this. Put up with this shite. But I need a few pound so its not a shit Christmas. So I grin and bear it for the couple of weeks. Thoughts of heading back to the Déise for a load of festive craic kept me going. Also one of the plebs that started the same day as me was a nice young chick who had just finished drama school in the summer and all she had done was a shitty tour in Scotland for £150 a week. She wasn't getting many auditions and was feeling really down about the whole acting thing. She told me all this because she thought I was a musician, she would never have admitted it to another actor. Listening to her, and looking at how lucky I'd been over the past 2 years, I had feck all reason to moan. Just get on with the necessary evil. And get on with it I did.

But is it all doom and gloom? Will the end of 2004 just be filled with old ladies, ignorant people and talk of soap? Did I not have any auditions before Christmas?

'Course I did.