2007-01-07 - 8:52 p.m.

This has been the most public of my many humiliations.

As I finished up, she said, “Well done, sweetheart.”

What she meant, of course, was, “Well done, sweetheart, for getting through that without actually ingesting your own spinal column in sheer, burn-cheeked embarrassment, even though it did look like you were imagining it for the last hour.”

What she meant, of course, was, “Well done, sweetheart, for not showing me completely up, but never do anything like that again.”

This is G, the director, who I know, being kind to be cruel.

So this is what auditions are REALLY like – none of that community-minded we’re all in it together social operatics like last time, this was hands-off-cocks, on-with-socks and lets see your acting skillzzzzz, bitches.

I don’t have any, I should probably mention.

Eight of us in there – 7 twenty year olds fresh out of drama school, previous productions coming out of their wazoos…and me. The warm up, as usual, involves remedial amounts of gayness, but nothing I can’t handle.

Oh, I should also mention that I thought I was auditioning for a nondescript singing part in the chorus, so you can imagine my surprise when we’re thrust headlong into ‘improvisation’.

Of course, this is bread and butter for the rest. It’s all they’ve been doing all day every day for the last four years, in between rolling cigarettes and sexual experimentation. Oh yeah, they’re fucking LOVING this. They LIVE for this. Me, I live to actively avoid improvisation of any kind in any aspect of my life.

OK, so…a minute on how I got married in Iceland to an Inuit last year? No problem! Coming RIGHT UP everyone in the room that’s staring at me. Oh, start NOW? OK…so I got married in Iceland last year to an Inuit…er…yeah…married…(is that a minute yet?). I have no idea what I said, I was too busy trying not to soil myself.

Then we were paired up – and I saw the fear in the eyes of the young lady who drew the short straw, her hopes dashed on the cliffs of my dramatic ineptitude – to ‘read’ a ‘scene’ from the ‘script’. I chose from my vast array of accents (one and a half) and went for ultra-northern. This did nothing for her fear, but it made me look at least like I was making the effort. The old switcheroo with enthusiasm for professionalism doesn’t really cut it in acting, surprisingly.

Then came the showtunes, which I nailed like a bastard. That bit was alright. Give me a catchy couple of verses – KEY CHANGE INVOLVED, MIGHT I ADD – and I’m happy as a pig in shit. But it was a bit of a posthumous swipe at talent. More like semi-digested bacon in shit, then.

By the time we got to our solo pieces – for the record, I did Ten Sec0nds to Midn1ght by the D1vine Comedy averagely well – I just wanted to be back home, not improvising on my couch. Though I did fulfil a personal ambition of walking into a room with a pianist and people at a desk and them saying “And what have you got for us today?” That was cool. Or it would have been if I’d felt like anything more than a hollowed–out shell with no accent repertoire.

2 mins 5 seconds later…

“…ooooooone..wet..suuuun-daaay…”

“Well done, sweetheart.”

What she meant, of course, was “Well done, sweetheart, on now going back to your old normal life where you don’t try and do things like this any more.”

It was a good point.

Apart from working 23 hours a day and not going out, that’s my 2007 so far. Great times.