History Was Made

The first section of the Voiceover Course concluded yesterday. I will blog about it, but only when the whole process is over. More importantly, at least as far as my ego is concerned, was my first audition, in a room in Ealing Studios.

One young woman and two young men asked me to read through parts of an 11-page script. A policeman interviewing the friend of a rape victim. A couple of read-throughs with one of the men in the woman’s role, the first time with my copper cynical, the second time sympathetic. Was I any good? I thought so. The non-verbal cues from my hosts appeared positive. Discussion of character motivation revealed that more was going on than appeared in the current version of the script. Then the casting director – a slightly older woman with a more distant attitude – was brought in. Could I read the script with her? Of course I could. And then it was “thank you very much” and out I went, no more than 10 minutes after I arrived.

I haven’t heard since. I would have been surprised if I had. That doesn’t matter. I actually enjoyed the experience. I went in with the mental attitude that I didn’t care if I got the (unpaid) work and I came across as friendly and professional. I was comfortable with the readings  I gave, and if they go with an actor who has more hair and youth and sex appeal then I wish them well. It will free up my weekend to do other work or relax. One day I may get more cynical about crossing London to audition for unpaid parts that I will not get, but at this early stage in my career, it's still fun.

I walked out as dark was falling and headed back through the centre of Ealing – a dismal, anonymous place – to get the tube back to London and another pub reunion with my July acting course. It was only this morning that it struck me that the anonymous buildings I had walked past yesterday were history. Opened in 1902, Ealing Studios is the oldest continuously working film studio in the world, the home to the Ealing Comedies of the 1940s and 50s and, more recently, The Importance of Being Earnest and Shaun of the Dead. If I had remembered last night I would have walked more carefully and looked out for the ghosts of Alec Guinness (pictured, Kind Hearts and Coronets), John Mills, Margaret Rutherford and many more who brought light and laughter and thrills and spills to a generation of Brits in the years after the Second World War.