Definitely Definite

On Wednesday afternoon I'm walking along the canal with the Other Half, when I get a phone call from Bruce. Good news. He's got the other actor and now has the 2 bodyguards / executioners / keepers he needs for The Duchess of Malfi. My role is confirmed. Of course I'm pleased. A four-week stint at the Greenwich Playhouse, even if my lines are minimal, is an opportunity to be seen, an opportunity to become embedded in an acting company and a valuable addition to my credits.

Bruce starts to give me more details about the script he has sent me - since amended. I realise, not for the first time, that the strong silent type that he appeared at my first audition is only one of his personas. There are times when, like my mother, he likes to talk. I tell him that I'm not in a place where I have either the script or the facilities to take notes and the conversation comes to an end - only to resume an hour later for reasons I have already forgotten.

My cock is definitely a-hoop - and I mean that in the most non-sexual sense - so when I return home and find an email from a fellow cast member in As You Like It, with a copy of an email that has apparently been circulating among the acting fellowship for the last few days, that Bruce is Desperately Seeking Two Actors, I'm more amused than annoyed to realise that he was apparently still looking for a couple, when he already had one of a pair in me. Well, he might have got twins who looked better together in which case he could have chucked me overboard (wrong play, I'm thinking of The Tempest: see below). Anyway, we've had one more phone call - again I've forgotten what about - and that email has sunk into cyber-oblivion. The important thing is I have secured the best role so far in my short career - and the Other Half has accepted my b*gg*ring up our holiday with good grace.

Finally.... Four of us from As You Like It went to see The Tempest at the White Bear (where we will be performing in a fortnight) last night. An amateur production, with a confused overview (what was going on with the make-up and costumes?), three good performances, several mediocre, and one so bad that it must have come from The Art of Coarse Acting. Of course, I should not be too critical. It's quite possible that we will give the same impression in our turn...