Soaping Up

Day One of the Introduction to Acting Course at the Actors' Centre. A motley crew of three men and nine women. One of the men appears older than me; the third is in an archetypal musclebound hunk in his late twenties who probably turns on more gay men than straight women. None of the women appear over thirty-five; five are foreign (two Russian; Polish; Mexican; Brazilian); there are several models, including Lloyd the Hunk and the Polish woman who can only be seen sideways if you squint. The foreign accents range from impenetrable to unnoticeable - plus the Liverpudlian whose accent is so thick and quick that even we natives cannot always follow her.

We gather in the basement of the Actors Centre with tutor John Melainey, who teaches us more about acting in a day than I learnt in a week at the Poor School. Alone, in pairs and as a group, we go through a series of clearly-explained exercises that first connect us to Status and Emotion and then enable us to develop short scenes out of nothing at all. We learn what moves a scene forward and what deflates it, how to give information and how to respond to it and generally how to hold and build the audience's attention.

It is soon obvious that two of the women have real talent and two of the foreigners are severely hampered by lack of English; the others and the men, may develop in time. It also soon obvious that - despite the fact that tomorrow's class is to be given over to Shakespeare - this course teaches only one subject in depth: Soap.

It is not just that the scripts we will work from later in the course are from East Enders and Hollyoaks, but in today's class every suggestion for action, plot or character, from tutor John or fellow students, involves a soap cliché. So we have long-lost Dad meeting daughter at bus-stop, two women accusing each other of stealing their boyfriend and so on; there's crime and hysteria and blame in abundance. And of course, we're hooked; with every revelation we want to know more.

Nadine, our Liverpudlian, is perfect for these roles, screeching out accusations left, right and centre with never a pause for breath. Two or three of the others are not bad, and I wonder how much their acting is based on East Enders and how much is a reflection of their own lives. I even find myself getting into it; after being called up short in a scene where no-one recognised my character's repressed anger, I let it all hang out and berated my daughter - whom I accused of living with a young criminal, thief and possibly murderer - in quiet reasonable tones reminiscent of Phil Mitchell. By the next scene, where wife Shona and I were berating each other for losing an important Document (no, we never discovered what the Document was about), we were both in Full On Mode, circling each other in frustration and anger, I was fully enjoying myself and annoyed that I had to leave early for an audition. About which I will write in my next post...