They say just before you die your life flashes before you.
Who says that? The people who would know that to be true are dead for feck sake! Well I had me life flash before me eyes but it wasn't just before I died (I hope you'll be glad to know), it was during a play reading at the Royal National Theatre Studio. Confused? You will be.
But first a history lesson. Back in 2002 I had just been on tour for 8 months with Pirates and needed to get a flat and what do ya know me and my fine friend Mr. Richard (Dickie) Hardwick fell on our feet and got ourselves a flat in the Waterloo area of the London. Now this was a bit of a coup as Waterloo is well central and especially brilliant if you're a starving actor. It meant feck all money on travel as you mostly walked everywhere and then you could fall home after a mental sesúin in Shutts, also the money we were paying for the rent was peanuts compared to what it should be in that area because the landlord was buying it off the council and subletting it to us. Deadly. Theatre wise the Old Vic was around the corner, the Royal National Theatre is up the road and you're 15 minutes swift walk into the middle of the West End. We were on some winner here. It would have been an even bigger winner if either of us had've had a job in the West End, but alas no. Looking back on those mental Waterloo days there's one thing that always sticks out in me and Richard's minds. The Duke of Sussex. This was the pub to end all pubs, exactly what you expect a London pub to look and be like including, and most especially, the perfect landlord; 'Honest Dave'. Now here was a man you didn't mess with and yet had a heart of gold. The first day we walked into the pub, not knowing anyone, I asked for two pints of cider.
'Would you like a nice, refreshing slice of orange in your cider?' he asked.
What was this man on? Orange in me hallowed cider. Not a sign boy!
'No, listen, you WANT a slice of orange in your cider master.'
At that moment I knew he wasn't a man to be messed with, not because he was rough but merely because he was right, me cider tasted lovely. A new local had been found!! And a few weeks after that we had the session to end all sessions which installed us both as permanent fixtures of this establishment. Honest Dave loved his music and you would find karaoke on in there most nights and every Thursday night he had a live piano player. That fateful Thursday night I came in just before closing to meet Richard and a few of the lads, I had just rolled out of work at the London Eye, I thought I'd just be in time for the last one. No way boy! 11.30 and the doors were shut and we were all looking at each other with the same thought in our heads; LOCK IN! Too right! That old piano player, Cliff Hall, was still tinkling the ivories and suddenly Honest Dave was bringing out tambourines from the back of the pub. Before I could realise what was going on I was up the top of the pub mic in one hand tambourine in the other and hollering Mustang Sally. By 1am I had me guitar in the room being played by me mate Gav and I was on the feckin piano (I must have been well pissed so) and Honest Dave was proclaiming;
'If the police come knockin' you know what to tell 'em lads. We're 'avin' choir practice! You lucky people!'
We certainly were, the beer had been free from the minute we opened our mouths to sing. At one stage we ran out of popular songs that we knew so we started singing our audition songs. 3 in the morning and we were still hopping. Honest Dave didn't care. This man was a bona fide legend.
'Would I lie to you, I mean would I lie to you?'
' 'ere I've got a great tip on on 'orse runnin' tomorrow.'
'Bosh!'
He had his fingers in many pies, he was a mason, he used to be a champion amateur boxer and I could go on and on, because in fairness he did go on and on, he was some man for a story. And he loved his music; Sinatra, Deano all the greats he'd sing at his own karaoke. Richard eventually ended up hosting the karaoke there every weekend (although try as he might he could never get me to do a night on the piano). And so we spent the best part of a year frequently frequenting Honest Dave's and many a mad lock in was had all under the hospitality of a character so rich you could nearly write a play about him.
Funny I should mention that.
Lets fast forward over the adverts to the present day then. I'm working the shitty jobs waiting for Much Ado to kick off and Richard is just back from a 14 month tour of Grease. Now for a period when we were in the Waterloo flat Richard considered giving up acting and becoming a writer and he did a couple of courses and wrote a couple of small bits but nothing really substantial. We always joked about doing a play about all the shit that went on in the Duke of Sussex. I jokingly said he should call it 'Karaoke Kings'. When I said that he had a mad glint in his eye which I just ignored because in fairness he's nuts anyway. Nearly two years later when he's telling me that he's been working on some writing while on tour I similarly put it down to slight mental illness. When he finishes the tour he then says that he's going to give up the acting to be a writer at which point I know he's lost his marbles. Then the phone goes and its not the agent for I have two jobs lined up, but it is Richard;
'Hey, I've just had an interview at the Royal National Theatre Studio and they're giving me a four week placement in one of their writer's spaces. They really liked the idea for Karaoke Kings. They're paying me to go in and write every day.'
The jammy bastard! I'm still on the phones and he's getting paid to do what I do in this diary for free; write about his life. The question now was would Richard actually sit down and write karaoke kings or would he just sit messing on the internet every day? Nope, he wrote. He wrote lots. The mad fecker only finished the play in 4 weeks. I have to say I was deeply impressed. I'm not saying that I had me doubts ..... but I had me doubts. Richard you see is a man of many mad ideas, they roll out of him at an alarming rate, but I have trouble remembering many that he's seen through to completion. But he actually wrote a full two act play!
And it was great.
As he was writing it he was emailing and giving it to me scene by scene and the more I was reading it the more I was enjoying it, of course the mad thing is that I was kind of reading about an era in my life. There was a bit of artistic license and some of the details were changed (he had me working front of house at the National Theatre rather than the London Eye and I was rehearsing a fringe play called 'The Incredible Hunk' which came straight from his warped imagination) but the two main stories, Dave's continuing estrangement with his son and Dickie's battles with the regular karaoke host had more than a passing semblance to the truth. It was mad, while I was reading it I could see it really clearly, it was a terrific reconstruction of how things worked in the Duke of Sussex but as well as that is was just a good feckin story. And he got Dave spot on. All the catchphrases, the storytelling, the fun, but also this underlying sorrow and regret that you know is there. As I read it it was clear that this is a part that any actor of a certain age would give their left bollock to play. The way he envisioned the play was that there would only be three actors; One playing Honest Dave and the other two playing everyone else. This I thought was a great Idea, I mean it worked brilliantly with Stones in his Pockets and most of all it would mean two big show off roles for me and Richard. Oh yes that was our plan for West End domination. Now that might sound like him doing all the work and me reaping all the benefits but please remember that I did give him the title for the play and that's extremely important. As one casting director once told me;
'Do you know why I think Calico failed? Because of its name. Its too vague. I mean who would be interested in seeing a play called Calico? Not many obviously.'
Strange sentiments but there you go. Anyway Richard had written this great play (with a genius title) but what are a load of lines on a page if no one gets to read them. It was lucky so that part of the deal of his placement was a rehearsed reading at the end. The director that was reading the play while he was writing it was of the opinion that, seeing as the possibility was there, they should use different actors for each part for the reading rather than just two. Ah shite, that was a pity but I didn't mind too much as long as I was part of it in some way. And I would be part of it of course, wouldn't I Richard? Wouldn't I? Richard? RICHARD? Not a worry boy, that buachaill is a buddy for a reason and indeed he hired me to come in to read the small but crucial role of Jamie in the play.
I had some little experience in playing such a role.
On the day of the reading I strolled down to the National Theatre Studio which is ironically only a 2 minute walk from Honest Dave's pub and went in to find myself as part of a troupe of actors, most of whom were currently playing at the 'Nash' themselves. These guys and girls were heavyweights and when we sat down to read the play it fucking hopped off the page. I mean I thought it was good when I read it but now, hearing it out loud, it was on a whole new level all of a sudden. It was so weird as well because I really thought Honest Dave was in the room, the actor playing him (Keith Bartlett) got him so spot on it was scary.
'Bosh! You lucky people.'
And the guy playing the rival karaoke host was unreal. James Corden, who you'd know straight away as a 'me man off the telly' got the sad sack, dickheaded nature of (name withheld for fear of legal action) bang on, and there was even a role in the play which I urged Richard to cut or change that suddenly worked for me when I heard it read aloud by the actor in the room.
And I played meself.
Dave: Drink Jamie?
Jamie: Cheers. Cider please Dave.
Now that's a lot harder than you think. You kind of have to stop acting in a way, but then you can't really do that because what's happening is in the action of the play and not real life so there must be a separate quality to it. Fuck it I haven't clue what I did really, it was such a surreal experience to see (or at least hear) this part of me life (with artistic embellishment) acted out by other people. Me life flashing before me eyes in a play. How feckin showbiz! We read over it in the morning (you could see that the actors really liked it) and then whacked into it properly in the afternoon with a small few people from the National watching, and it was the business. I was pissing meself anew at stuff I had read weeks previous. The people that were watching seemed to really enjoy it. And every so often I catch Richard's eye as he's watching and he's over the feckin moon, he can't believe his luck. Jesus I can't believe his luck, by the end he's pounced upon by the director of the studio and the literary manager of the theatre. They're well impressed and they're giving him some pointers as to what he should look at that when writing his second draft. Second draft? Oh yes! They must be interested if they want to see a second draft. This is just unreal for him. And I was well proud of him. His first full play, written in four weeks, given a reading at the Royal National Theatre studio with some really top actors (and me thrown in for luck). How bad is that! Some of us went for a celebratory drink afterwards to the now famous pub in question but alas we didn't bump into the real star of the show: Honest Dave himself, he was off having his daily late afternoon 'siesta'. So as he slept little did he realise that over the road there was a group of actors reading a play about him. I've told Richard about me worries about that. You see he hasn't told Honest Dave anything about Karaoke Kings and I'm not sure how Dave's going to take it when he finds out.
Surely he wouldn't be pissed off if there was a play on in the West End all about him.
No, and I certainly wouldn't be pissed off either.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
27. FAME AT LEAST!
Why be an actor she said? Is it for the fame and fortune?
Ha ha! Excuse me while I keel over creased with knowing laughter. There's not a lot of that around now is there, but you never know. The fortune thing is pretty tricky in the theatre biz (telly's another matter entirely) but fame? Well i'd Prefer someone recognising me on the street, giving me a knowing nod which said well done on the show last night I had lovely seats in the stalls, than being mobbed by a load of geeks because I had just been in the last Xmen movie. To be honest at this stage of me career both fame and fortune seem a fair ways down the road. But three things happened recently that showed I was maybe set to be a legend in me own lunchtime. Either that or my anonymity is even worse than I expected. Sure we'll see;
1 - Don't I know you from somewhere?
The shitty call centre job was still as shitty as it always was. Jesus! It was hell and getting worse week by week. At this stage I was having to work about 48 hours a week to make any kind of liveable money. So that was in at 9 every morning and two days a week I had to work 9am - 9pm. IT WAS SHIT!!! Seriously though I could feel my brain atrophying slowly as I asked another American about the sweeteners they buy for their sweet company. Oh my god! One of the things I had held on to while I was there was the lie that I wasn't an actor, if anyone asked I was a musician. As I said before this was so I didn't have to go through me CV with every fecker in the building or hear about a million sob stories. I'm out of work and I have me own issues to deal with, I don't need to hear anyone else's woes. This lie was working great and I was generally left alone and I could switch on to autopilot and get through the day. I knew one day I'd get found out. I was sitting in the canteen one day eating some well dodgy, but well cheap, sandwich out of Benjys and I got an uneasy feeling, and it wasn't from the sandwich. It was the feeling that someone was watching me. There was. I looked over me shoulder to see this guy staring at me. Shit, what's up with me man? I turn back to me sandwich hoping that if I ignore him he'll go away and phone some old women. He didn't. He kept on staring. The only thing I could think of was that he was looking for his go. Well he certainly wasn't going to get it off of the Cowardly Lion here. I was looking for an exit stage left when he got out of his chair and made his way over to me. Right this is it so. He tapped me on the shoulder, I turned to face him and he said;
'Sorry mate, weren't you in The Fair Maid of the West a couple of years ago?'
That's the cover story blown so.
It wasn't that he was talking loud it was just that it was a small canteen, and you could always hear the shop talk going on. The Fair Maid of the West was a show I did about a year and a half ago and while it was a grand job, no one went to see it. Seriously it literally had the worst houses I've ever played to. Playing to 10 people a night in a 300 seat theatre is not my idea of a good time. We almost cancelled more shows than we played. So in the four weeks of its run a handful of people saw the thing and unlucky for me one of those was our call centre friend here. Shite! So he launches into the exact conversation I was trying to avoid having; how shit it is that we had to work there and how there's no jobs about at the moment and how our agents were ripping us off. Speak for yourself buddy, personally I have a very busy summer ahead. That was that though, I was found out and of course from there on in I had the same conversation with 30 different people. Does wonders for the soul y'know. When I started telling me little white lie at the call centre it was said to me 'what if someone recognises you?'. Of course I laughed at the thought, who the hell would recognise me? Well it happened. It wouldn't be as mad if he had seen me in Calico or Willows maybe but Fair Maid? The show less than no one saw?
Now that's irony.
2 - Me second telly.
On Channel Four recently they had a series called 'H Side Story' which followed the fortunes of the former murderer of pop music; H from Steps. He had swapped ABBA for Andrew Lloyd Webber and was training in musical theatre at the Royal Academy of Music in the London (looking now to become a murderer of show music it seems) and the cameras were following his progress every week. This was essential viewing for every twirly who ever went to drama school. There are things that happen at drama school that are so embarrassing that they should be left behind the closed doors of that dance studio, but in this program it was all laid bare to the world. Every cringy lesson, every poncey tantrum and all following a guy who really cannot do the job. This fella is not good enough full stop! Now you might say that's why he's gone to drama school to learn how to do it. Look, the RAM course is only a year long and this poor fecker would need to do it 5 times over to be half as good as some of the musical theatre people in the West End. Now I might sound a bit bitchy but fuck it I call a spade a spade and he'll be grand anyway because he'll walk out into the business and get a show within a day because of who he is. Mark my words. The people I felt sorry for were his classmates, the tortures of drama school are bad enough without a C4 documentary team in the class as well. Two Irish girls there as well. Good luck to them. All that said though I do have to thank H from Steps for many a Sunday morning pissing meself watching that program. It was always on as the hangover bit of telly and cheered us all up straight away boy. Thanks H you're some man. Now what has this to do with me......... oh yeah! Meself and a couple of the boys were sitting in the auld flat one Sunday creased with laughter and cringe at the antics and so called singing of the man with one letter for a name when I nearly fell off the settee with fright. Let me set the scene; H is about to return to college after the Christmas break and his head of course has called him in to have a chat about what he needs to do in the new term. The camera settles on the two of them in her office and between them is a notice board. And on that notice board is what seems to be a card. And on that card there was a man, no ..... wait ...... not a man ....... A Toad!
It was only fuckin me!!!!!!!
I fell off the settee and leapt at the TV screaming 'That's me! That's me!'. At this stage the lads are looking at me like I had two heads. Well I think they thought I was pointing at H when I said it so no wonder. I very quickly explain. The picture on the card on the wall was a publicity shot of me as Toad that I did for Wind in the Willows last year. How the feck did a picture of me in full green suit and make up jumping in the air end up on a noticeboard in RAM and then on telly in front of millions? It turns out that it was the Christmas card that Regent's Park sent out that year. Which is lovely only for the fact that I didn't get one! they used my visage but never bothered sending me one, well that's gas. Not to worry sure, because of that I appeared on that (bound to be) cult series H Side Story and who knows where else that card was sent to. And although meself and the lads were in convulsions laughing I was well pleased. Me second telly appearance.
On a noticeboard.
Well you've got to start somewhere.
3 - Fame; As Gaeilge.
Doing the leaving Cert. in Ireland is painful enough at the best of times but probably the most painful part has to be the Irish Oral. Rather than being a series of jolly Irish porn films, the Irish oral is, for the non-paddy among ye, 15 minutes of chatting with an examiner in the Irish language. Most of ye will remember the agonizing wait outside the room before you go in and you spend most of the time saying 'Gabh mo leithscéal?' ('excuse me?') to every feckin question this chick from the arse end of Kerry asks. You go in having prepared topics to chat about such as the football or the weather and of course they ask you about the current state of Irish Politics. Em ..... 'Níl fhios agam' ('I don't know' - another favourite). Déise tenor Raymond Collins was very prepared for his Irish oral in 1994, his plan was to go into the room say hello (which he knew) and then proceed to sing the Irish national anthem, the examiner would then be so blown away with his voice she would just give him an A there and then. Lets just say it didn't work out like that (meaning he never got to sing. Maybe if he had, who knows? He's a fine tenor). But I digress. Hopefully I've painted a bleak enough picture to those who don't know of the onerous task that is the Irish oral. You do get a practice go at it though in the pre - leaving exams, and it was into this situation in the Mercy Convent Waterford walked Caroline Stone, lack of that lord of lighting Flex Browne. Now here's a girl who would have no fear of the Irish Oral whatsoever being near fluent in the native tongue that none of us know. This flame haired Cailín sailed through the first bit, stunning the examiner with her quick wit and conversational tone and all as Gaeilge. And then the examiner asked;
'An maith leat scannán?' - 'Do you like movies?'
'Oh Sea.' - 'Oh yes.'
'Agus cé hé an t-aisteoir is fearr leat?' - 'And who's your favourite actor?'
And a blank look came over Caroline. She could not for the life of her think of an actor. Jesus! Who was her favourite actor? Its one of the most simple questions whether in Irish or English. She wracked and wracked her brains. The pressure was mounting and seconds seemed like hours so she just blurted out the name of the first actor that came into her head;
'Is aoibhinn liom Jamie Beamish!' - 'I really like Jamie Beamish!'
Good girl.
She said that the examiner gave her a funny look, obviously thinking who the feck is she talking about? Caroline was well embarrassed telling me but I was delighted. Although strictly speaking she gave the wrong answer seeing as I've never done a film in me life.
Feck it though, you know you've made it if you get mentioned in the auld Irish Oral.
Ha ha! Excuse me while I keel over creased with knowing laughter. There's not a lot of that around now is there, but you never know. The fortune thing is pretty tricky in the theatre biz (telly's another matter entirely) but fame? Well i'd Prefer someone recognising me on the street, giving me a knowing nod which said well done on the show last night I had lovely seats in the stalls, than being mobbed by a load of geeks because I had just been in the last Xmen movie. To be honest at this stage of me career both fame and fortune seem a fair ways down the road. But three things happened recently that showed I was maybe set to be a legend in me own lunchtime. Either that or my anonymity is even worse than I expected. Sure we'll see;
1 - Don't I know you from somewhere?
The shitty call centre job was still as shitty as it always was. Jesus! It was hell and getting worse week by week. At this stage I was having to work about 48 hours a week to make any kind of liveable money. So that was in at 9 every morning and two days a week I had to work 9am - 9pm. IT WAS SHIT!!! Seriously though I could feel my brain atrophying slowly as I asked another American about the sweeteners they buy for their sweet company. Oh my god! One of the things I had held on to while I was there was the lie that I wasn't an actor, if anyone asked I was a musician. As I said before this was so I didn't have to go through me CV with every fecker in the building or hear about a million sob stories. I'm out of work and I have me own issues to deal with, I don't need to hear anyone else's woes. This lie was working great and I was generally left alone and I could switch on to autopilot and get through the day. I knew one day I'd get found out. I was sitting in the canteen one day eating some well dodgy, but well cheap, sandwich out of Benjys and I got an uneasy feeling, and it wasn't from the sandwich. It was the feeling that someone was watching me. There was. I looked over me shoulder to see this guy staring at me. Shit, what's up with me man? I turn back to me sandwich hoping that if I ignore him he'll go away and phone some old women. He didn't. He kept on staring. The only thing I could think of was that he was looking for his go. Well he certainly wasn't going to get it off of the Cowardly Lion here. I was looking for an exit stage left when he got out of his chair and made his way over to me. Right this is it so. He tapped me on the shoulder, I turned to face him and he said;
'Sorry mate, weren't you in The Fair Maid of the West a couple of years ago?'
That's the cover story blown so.
It wasn't that he was talking loud it was just that it was a small canteen, and you could always hear the shop talk going on. The Fair Maid of the West was a show I did about a year and a half ago and while it was a grand job, no one went to see it. Seriously it literally had the worst houses I've ever played to. Playing to 10 people a night in a 300 seat theatre is not my idea of a good time. We almost cancelled more shows than we played. So in the four weeks of its run a handful of people saw the thing and unlucky for me one of those was our call centre friend here. Shite! So he launches into the exact conversation I was trying to avoid having; how shit it is that we had to work there and how there's no jobs about at the moment and how our agents were ripping us off. Speak for yourself buddy, personally I have a very busy summer ahead. That was that though, I was found out and of course from there on in I had the same conversation with 30 different people. Does wonders for the soul y'know. When I started telling me little white lie at the call centre it was said to me 'what if someone recognises you?'. Of course I laughed at the thought, who the hell would recognise me? Well it happened. It wouldn't be as mad if he had seen me in Calico or Willows maybe but Fair Maid? The show less than no one saw?
Now that's irony.
2 - Me second telly.
On Channel Four recently they had a series called 'H Side Story' which followed the fortunes of the former murderer of pop music; H from Steps. He had swapped ABBA for Andrew Lloyd Webber and was training in musical theatre at the Royal Academy of Music in the London (looking now to become a murderer of show music it seems) and the cameras were following his progress every week. This was essential viewing for every twirly who ever went to drama school. There are things that happen at drama school that are so embarrassing that they should be left behind the closed doors of that dance studio, but in this program it was all laid bare to the world. Every cringy lesson, every poncey tantrum and all following a guy who really cannot do the job. This fella is not good enough full stop! Now you might say that's why he's gone to drama school to learn how to do it. Look, the RAM course is only a year long and this poor fecker would need to do it 5 times over to be half as good as some of the musical theatre people in the West End. Now I might sound a bit bitchy but fuck it I call a spade a spade and he'll be grand anyway because he'll walk out into the business and get a show within a day because of who he is. Mark my words. The people I felt sorry for were his classmates, the tortures of drama school are bad enough without a C4 documentary team in the class as well. Two Irish girls there as well. Good luck to them. All that said though I do have to thank H from Steps for many a Sunday morning pissing meself watching that program. It was always on as the hangover bit of telly and cheered us all up straight away boy. Thanks H you're some man. Now what has this to do with me......... oh yeah! Meself and a couple of the boys were sitting in the auld flat one Sunday creased with laughter and cringe at the antics and so called singing of the man with one letter for a name when I nearly fell off the settee with fright. Let me set the scene; H is about to return to college after the Christmas break and his head of course has called him in to have a chat about what he needs to do in the new term. The camera settles on the two of them in her office and between them is a notice board. And on that notice board is what seems to be a card. And on that card there was a man, no ..... wait ...... not a man ....... A Toad!
It was only fuckin me!!!!!!!
I fell off the settee and leapt at the TV screaming 'That's me! That's me!'. At this stage the lads are looking at me like I had two heads. Well I think they thought I was pointing at H when I said it so no wonder. I very quickly explain. The picture on the card on the wall was a publicity shot of me as Toad that I did for Wind in the Willows last year. How the feck did a picture of me in full green suit and make up jumping in the air end up on a noticeboard in RAM and then on telly in front of millions? It turns out that it was the Christmas card that Regent's Park sent out that year. Which is lovely only for the fact that I didn't get one! they used my visage but never bothered sending me one, well that's gas. Not to worry sure, because of that I appeared on that (bound to be) cult series H Side Story and who knows where else that card was sent to. And although meself and the lads were in convulsions laughing I was well pleased. Me second telly appearance.
On a noticeboard.
Well you've got to start somewhere.
3 - Fame; As Gaeilge.
Doing the leaving Cert. in Ireland is painful enough at the best of times but probably the most painful part has to be the Irish Oral. Rather than being a series of jolly Irish porn films, the Irish oral is, for the non-paddy among ye, 15 minutes of chatting with an examiner in the Irish language. Most of ye will remember the agonizing wait outside the room before you go in and you spend most of the time saying 'Gabh mo leithscéal?' ('excuse me?') to every feckin question this chick from the arse end of Kerry asks. You go in having prepared topics to chat about such as the football or the weather and of course they ask you about the current state of Irish Politics. Em ..... 'Níl fhios agam' ('I don't know' - another favourite). Déise tenor Raymond Collins was very prepared for his Irish oral in 1994, his plan was to go into the room say hello (which he knew) and then proceed to sing the Irish national anthem, the examiner would then be so blown away with his voice she would just give him an A there and then. Lets just say it didn't work out like that (meaning he never got to sing. Maybe if he had, who knows? He's a fine tenor). But I digress. Hopefully I've painted a bleak enough picture to those who don't know of the onerous task that is the Irish oral. You do get a practice go at it though in the pre - leaving exams, and it was into this situation in the Mercy Convent Waterford walked Caroline Stone, lack of that lord of lighting Flex Browne. Now here's a girl who would have no fear of the Irish Oral whatsoever being near fluent in the native tongue that none of us know. This flame haired Cailín sailed through the first bit, stunning the examiner with her quick wit and conversational tone and all as Gaeilge. And then the examiner asked;
'An maith leat scannán?' - 'Do you like movies?'
'Oh Sea.' - 'Oh yes.'
'Agus cé hé an t-aisteoir is fearr leat?' - 'And who's your favourite actor?'
And a blank look came over Caroline. She could not for the life of her think of an actor. Jesus! Who was her favourite actor? Its one of the most simple questions whether in Irish or English. She wracked and wracked her brains. The pressure was mounting and seconds seemed like hours so she just blurted out the name of the first actor that came into her head;
'Is aoibhinn liom Jamie Beamish!' - 'I really like Jamie Beamish!'
Good girl.
She said that the examiner gave her a funny look, obviously thinking who the feck is she talking about? Caroline was well embarrassed telling me but I was delighted. Although strictly speaking she gave the wrong answer seeing as I've never done a film in me life.
Feck it though, you know you've made it if you get mentioned in the auld Irish Oral.
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