EVITA! EVITA! EVITA!

Oh my lord, I have just returned home from seeing Evita at the London Palladium starring Rachel Zegler. I had everything crossed that Rachel would be on as, although I do not have a problem with seeing understudies, I missed out on Amber Riley in Dreamgirls, my main reason for booking, as she was ill the night I went and I am a HUGE Rachel Zegler fan since seeing West Side Story and the Hunger Games prequel thing she did (I have not seen Snow White, at the time of writing, as I have heard nothing but bad things about the film as a whole and I am, therefore, scared to watch it) so really hoped I wouldn't miss out this time. Thankfully she and all other principals were on this afternoon and not one of them disappointed.

I will get to the cast in due course but my first bout of praise must go to the musical director, the orchestra and the sound department. Andrew Lloyd Webber has NEVER sounded so good. The orchestrations were electric. Not a single note was out of place, tempos were perfect, it was neither too loud nor too quiet it was quite simply perfection. Bravi a tutti!

As it was a Jamie Lloyd production, sets and costumes were minimalistic but this gave the lighting department the opportunity to throw the kitchen sink in all it's glory at the lighting design. Stunning is all I have to say about that.

So this brings us onto the cast. I apologise that this post is just a load of gushing but I don't have a bad word to say about anyone. Diego Andres Rodriguez was the Che. This was his West End Debut and only the second professional credit in his biography. It was perfect casting and although I am a great believer in actors earning their stripes, it would have been a travesty if this fabulous actor had been overlooked due to lack of experience. He is going places for sure. It's a tricky part really as Che Guevara's inclusion in the story of Eva Peron is contentious, to say the least, as historically they never met, but at least his name is recognisable and he was as prominent in South America as Peron but don't worry this is not a history lesson as I really know nowt. James Olivas was Juan Peron and boy oh boy what a beautiful voice. There was also great work from Aaron Lee Lambert as Magaldi and Bella Brown as the mistress.

So Rachel Zegler, is she worthy of the hype? In a word, YES! Firstly her voice is SO beautiful and she paces the performance brilliantly. She sings with total ease. If I were to have one tiny criticism it might be that it was, vocally, too safe but I went on a Thursday matinee so she is probably very aware that she would have another show to do in the evening so I forgive her. She is not as natural a dancer as those in the ensemble but she holds her own and makes up for it with astonishing energy and commitment to the role. At the beginning of Act 2 a screen is brought in and we watched her sing on the balcony overlooking Argyll Street and I was not prepared for how hard this ingenious bit of staging would hit. When the camera pans across the gathered crowd on the street below it feels like we are watching the crowd that could have gathered to listen to Evita back in the day (albeit with mobile phones held aloft to record this extraordinary moment) and when she finishes the iconic "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" we in the theatre hear the crowd cheering for Eva outside. It is quite spine-tingling. Whoever came up with this is a blooming genius.

Last but by no means least I have to give the ensemble the final word. Back in 2003/4 I was in the ensemble of Jerry Springer: The Opera and we won a collective Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical, if there is any justice in this world this ensemble should also win a similar accolade. They rarely left the stage and were quite simply dazzling both vocally and physically. Buenos Aries and A New Argentina will live rent-free in my head for the rest of my days. 

Although it is probably unlikely, I would love there to be a cast recording of this production of Evita as it was breath-taking, astonishing, glorious and somewhat life-changing. The whole trip has left me inspired and, just putting it out there, if they do end up recording this cast and need an extra soprano I would be happy to step in!

Blowing my own trumpet....not my favourite thing to do!

I must apologise for not posting as regularly as I had promised. A lot has happened over the last few weeks. I went back to the teaching day job, the Queen passed and I got Covid so it was all a bit much and I didn't feel like doing anything. Of course some of you will be thrilled to not be bothered by me for so long, unfortunately for you I am back to be my normal bothersome self again!

Having said that, I can't seem to shake my tiredness. I am writing this on my day off and it is all I can do to keep my eyes open at 1.30 in the afternoon! A nanna nap might be the ticket right now but not until I've finished this!

I think I mentioned this in a previous post, for the past 11 weeks I have been taking part in a challenge set by The Sing Space. Every week they choose a musical genre and give us 2 songs to choose from. We then record and upload one song to the challenge Facebook group. It's a way of updating your repertoire folder with specially cut versions of songs you could use whatever genre of musical/show/audition is required. There are 12 videos in total. Next week is the final week, Disney villains! I'm hoping for a bit of Ursula but we'll see.

I decided to take part because I have very few places or opportunities to sing for myself anymore. I have posted the videos to my Instagram @incompetentsoprano and I am also in the process of adding them to my YouTube channel. If you'd like to follow my YouTube channel just click here and subscribe.

In the meantime here is the first of my 16 Bar Challenge videos for your perusal. They aren't in the order I recorded them but thought I'd start with one of my faves, Before The Parade Passes By from Hello Dolly. Enjoy and come and follow me on Instagram and YouTube!

To renew or not to renew, that is the question!

Short post today that I am hoping will help me make a decision so any thoughts are gratefully received. Leave a comment below or get in touch.

So, I have reached yet another crossroads in life. Do I renew my Spotlight membership or not? Spotlight, for those who don't know, is like a big online directory of actors. I have not had an audition (through choice) in over a year and I don't see myself wanting to put myself back out there for another year or two (if ever). However, if I cancel now it could feel like that's the end and the incentive to try again disappears or it could just feel like the break it's supposed to be.

Lord knows I could do without spending the £154 it will cost to remain a member but is it worth spending it so as to hold on to the possibility of returning to performing in the future? Thing is, I know me (sort of), I know if I give myself an out like this and remove myself from Spotlight the complacent part will not attempt to try again.

The other side of this is perhaps I'm not meant to try again. Perhaps I am meant to teach and run my choir and be happy with my lot. I'm certainly not unhappy right now. I have perked up since the last couple of posts but was I happier when I was auditioning and putting myself out there?

Right now I feel (and look) old and my energy level doesn't seem high enough to put myself through dance calls with 23 year old graduates again. I quite like teaching 16-18yr olds, who are full of enthusiasm and dreams, knowing what I know, helping them and living vicariously through them. Is that enough? Question is, should I cancel my membership, save my £154 and put it towards a new iPad instead?

Fight or flight?...given the choice it would always be flight.

So, at 3.50 on Thursday not so long ago I was supposed to have the second part of, what should have been, a two part audition. At 11.15 there was a movement call and for reasons, partly, beyond my control I was late. By late, I mean a matter of minutes. Maybe 7. Going back a few steps I should probably furnish you with reasons for my tardiness.

There were the usual train troubles but I thought I had allowed for that. Although, had the trains been on time and had the first train that turned up not been a useless 4 car type that, approximately, 841 people were trying to cram themselves onto (I didn't even try, there was an 8 car train due 2 minutes later) I would have got into London around 10.15 and had plenty of time to get to the famous dance studios named after an exotic fruit. As it was, I disembarked at 10.35. On almost any other day this still would have been enough time to get there. Unfortunately, I made the catastrophic decision to get a bus and by 10.50 I was only at Westminster Abbey. At this point disaster struck and the traffic came to a standstill. I think they were opening the Field of Remembrance outside the Abbey and, although it was the 10th of November not the 11th, 2 minutes silence was to be observed at 11am. I had not factored this into my journey, it had not even occurred to me.

I decided to get off the bus. I know I will walk/run, I thought, I still could make it. The next important, nay, embarrassing thing to note at this juncture is that, because I had 4 pairs of footwear with me (including the ones I was wearing) I had decided to be one of those people that rock up to auditions with a little case on wheels. So there I was, pulling my case past the throngs of people gathered outside the Abbey, as the chimes of Big Ben rang out to mark 11am. Everything went silent, everything except the sound of my little case thundering through the ether as I dragged it over some cobblestones. I had decided to keep walking, thinking solemn thoughts to make up for the horrendous, disrespectful sound coming from my suitcase. In the end I picked up my little case and said a silent apology to the fallen and promised to do 4 minutes silence the following morning to make up for it. I really meant no disrespect, I was just horrendously flustered.

Incredibly, I walked through the dance studios doors at 11.20. A very tall, beautiful girl was in front of me and was sent to the same studio as me, which I thought a little odd but not unthinkable. However, I followed her and she joined a small group of equally tall, leggy, beautiful girls waiting outside the studio. One of the waiting girls said to the girl I was following (not in a stalkery way) that we were to wait outside until called so I thought a) that's not what I had expected and b) ooh good I can nip in the changing rooms and sort myself out. By the time I re-emerged it was 11.22. Something was not right about the whole situation so I plucked up the courage to ask one of the tall, leggy beautiful girls what they were auditioning for. Turns out they were there for a shoe commercial. "Thank goodness" I said to the tall, leggy beautiful girl, " I didn't think I would ever be auditioning for the same thing as you beautiful lot". "No" she replied, with a chuckle. Alright love, don't rub it in.

Turns out my audition was in the studio next door to the shoe commercial so I crept in only to be presented with a whole new set of tall, leggy, beautiful girls who all seemed to know the majority of the dance combination we were there to learn. My eyes also met the eyes of the choreographer who, quite rightly, looked annoyed that I had walked in late. I watched the girls going through their paces for about 30 seconds and thought, "Fight or Flight?"

Well, for the first time in my career, not in life, I chose flight. I could not catch up with these beautiful dancer types, the choreographer already loathed me and I would just have been in the way. Under the circumstances I think, although many people I have told the tale to disagree and think I was crazy to leave, I made the right choice for me. I am not a bad mover but I am not a dancer. My flustered, singer's brain would not have allowed me to take the information in (especially at my age). Catching up just would not have been possible even though I was only 7 or 8 minutes late.

All was not lost, however. Following a very sheepish, apologetic phone call to my agent it transpired that the casting people still wanted to see me in the afternoon to sing. I did not get the job, funnily enough, but at least I made up, in a small way, for all that had happened that morning. It also meant I got to wear one of the pairs of shoes that had meant I had to degrade myself dragging that silly wheelie case around London Town.

Do you have any Mozart?....ooh it's a while since anyone's asked me that.

I have not written for a while. I apologise. Take the apology whichever way you like. Am I apologising for not posting in such a long time or am I apologising for finally infecting your eyeballs once again with my musings? As that man on Big Brother says "You decide!"

It's not that I have had nothing to say recently, it's more that I have been so stupidly busy that my brain is frazzled and I have had trouble stringing sentences together in conversations with real, live human beings so trying to write anything coherent or vaguely interesting for you lot has been nigh on impossible. Anyway, despite still being ridiculously tired and my brain being permanently shrivelled to the size of a satsuma I now find myself in Costa in Hayes (first trip to this Costa - exciting), waiting for my friend so we can go for dinner. I have an hour to spare so I thought I would attempt a new post.

Much has happened over the past few months of radio silence. I have done innumerable auditions. One of many actually paid off and I have a short gig at the seaside coming up in the summer. About time too I hear you cry. It is a nice little job that I will tell you about either just before, during or after it happens but not now. Truth is I have been getting very close to getting many jobs over the past year but falling at the, literal, final hurdle (by that I mean I keep getting to the final audition in the process I don't mean I have been literally hurdling, I can't jump that high). I tend to come across as a likeable sort in the auditions but something stops people actually giving me the job. That said I am handling rejection like a trouper these days. No balling and wailing or tearing of clothes. I try to do an audition and then let it go until I hear (or don't) that they want to see me for a recall.

It is very easy to get carried away when auditioning. The more auditions you do for a specific job the more you plan how the job will fit into your life so by the time you find out you have not got the job you have worked out what you will do with your flat whilst you are on tour or what you are going to do with the spoils from that West End job you might get a contract on. I try really hard not to do this, sometimes unsuccessfully, and just think about crossing bridges once I get to them rather than thinking too far ahead.

So what has Mozart got to do with all of this I hear you bellow? Well this pertains to the day I had yesterday. For the second time in my career I did two auditions in one day and they could not have been more different. The first of the day involved me going to a lovely building near Paddington belonging to a man with the same initials as Burger King (only those in the "biz" need to know, or rather would be interested, in this little tidbit). The audition involved some very low singing and a bit of belting plus a smidgeon of very fabulous script. This was followed by my being asked to go to my second audition of the day and sing a Mozart aria! The situation was not ideal but I thought, hey I'll know if I can switch singing heads successfully in the space of 3 hours should the need arise again. If only I were akin to Worzel Gummedge with a different head for each singing style. Now that would be handy, if a little freaky too.

I have not sung an operatic aria in an audition in about 5 years so this was a shock to the system. Luckily I had been toying with a bit of opera while practicing over the past couple of weeks, weirdly, as there was no reason to think I would EVER sing opera again, but more weirdly the bit of opera I had been toying with was the Queen of the Night. Whilst at college I had messed about with this role but the high Fs had almost always eluded me (except when I had a cold, then I could sing it no problem) but during my warm ups whilst practicing recently I had been consistently hitting F#s so I thought let's give this dame another try. Lo and behold it worked - sometimes.

Anyway the reason I tell you this is I went to the audition armed with my non-Q of the N aria only to find that they were looking for a soprano and a mezzo and the soprano would need to sing Queen of the Night. Unfortunately, after the day of auditioning I had had there was NO WAY I was going to attempt to sing high Fs so I had to come clean and say I would not be able to promise to consistently hit those notes every night. This was not the time to lie and say I could do something and go away and learn how to do it. If they had wanted me to ride a horse I might have said "sure no problem" and immediately signed up for riding lessons. I have never ridden a horse in my life but I could learn. I can't, however, make my voice do something it does not want to do.

Fortunately all was not lost. What I actually elected to sing for the audition was Fiordiligi's "Come Scoglio" from Cosi fan tutte. I surprised myself when I opened my mouth to sing (there were no warm up facilities, which is fine, I am totally used to that now, so had no idea what was going to be emitted). The tone was so dark and creamy and didn't really sound like me. I liked it! I still hit all the notes, the coloratura was fast and even and I was strong to the end. I played Fiordiligi in 2002 in my final year at Guildhall and having not sung that aria for about 10 years I think I can honestly say I sang it better yesterday than ever before. So much so that it has made me think twice about the whole opera thing. Should I explore what I have now got and see if it is a horse I could get back on (metaphorical, we now know I can't ride a horse) or do I stick with my plan for world domination in the 40 something musical theatre character category?

Of course I have never been one for putting myself in a pigeon hole so I doubt I will start now and it was an interesting and very enjoyable day of auditions because of the diversity (not the dancing group that beat SuBo on BGT all those years ago). Long may the auditions continue and hopefully one of these fabulous auditions will lead to a fabulous job following my seaside jaunt this summer. Fingers crossed everybody!

"If I could've been, I would've been. And that's show business".....Hmm that's a scary thought right now.

So, this diary entry was to have been more on the travesty of "cross over" artists but, to be honest, I bore myself even thinking about it. It is was it is. If people enjoy listening to some sub standard soprano killing "O mio babbino caro" on the radio (or on The Voice) who am I to set them straight. A few years ago I would have had the arrogance to tell all those people who enjoy the work of the likes of Katherine Jenkins that they were fools but now I think each to their own. I am past caring. My days of getting angry and up in arms about how ordinary folk are being duped are at an end. As far as I am concerned if you like something who am I to try and tell you you are wrong. That is my final word on the subject (for now).


So on to something far more worthy of my time. "Gypsy" and, particularly, Imelda Staunton. Not wanting to go into too much personal detail (another singing blogger saw fit to describe his vasectomy in his latest blog post!) it is no secret that I am going through a period of change (not THE change I should point out). I am not sure what I should be doing with my life and am finding motivation difficult to muster. I decided recently I should at least try to sort myself, specifically my head, out and decided a few trips to the theatre might be in order. And boy did I pick a humdinger to start with.


Last night I attended the opening preview of "Gypsy" at the Savoy Theatre. "Gypsy", in my humble opinion, is the perfect musical. Perfect in the fact that you forget it is a musical, even when they are singing. It was a strange thing. I knew music was happening, I could hear it but it comes from nowhere. There are no big set ups no "cues for a song". The songs just happen and their inclusion always makes sense. It is not short, coming in at around 2 hours 50 but it never feels long. Of course this is the first production of "Gypsy" I have seen so it could be that it was the perfect musical along with the perfect cast, perfect director, perfect choreographer, perfect band. Whatever the case it was perfect.


The reason I decided to see this particular show was because of Imelda Staunton. I missed her Mrs Lovett and decided there was no way I was missing her Momma Rose hence I booked for the first preview. She is a phenomenon. She is undoubtedly the star of the show but she doesn't overshadow the rest of the cast. She is so utterly generous to her fellow cast mates and enables them to match her but, try as you might, you can't take your eyes off her when she is on stage. I now understand the meaning of the word mesmerising.


I have had 3 experiences at the theatre that have felt "life changing". The first was seeing Angela Gheorghiu in "Romeo and Juliet" at the Royal Opera House, the second, Karita Mattila in "The Queen of Spades", again, at the Royal Opera House but last night was another level. Last nights performance by Imelda Staunton was one of those life changing experiences that was so incredibly awe inspiring but also makes you contemplate giving up because you know you could never be as good as she is.


The moment that will stick with me was near the end just after "Rose's Turn" (a master class in commanding the stage) when Louise says to Rose, something along the lines of, "You could've been great" to which Rose replies "If I could've been, I would've been. And that's show business". At this point in my life that is a sobering thought. Do I stop now because I have little self belief or do I keep trying in the hope that, eventually, I will make it and I won't ever have to think about what could've been? I am not sure at this exact moment in time what is the best course of action for me but last night's experience has left me with this bubbling excitement and a feeling that I do still want to get out there and do something.


I teach, a lot, at the moment and, although I enjoy it (sort of) I am not certain that it is my calling. A small part of me knows that I am a performer and thankfully that part of me tends to shout louder than the bit of me that thinks I should give up. I always thought I would come into my own when I was older. The thing I find difficult right now is getting back on the merry-go-round. Once you get off it is REALLY hard finding a way back on. It is also difficult going back to that uncertain life of a performer when you have been given the opportunity to make a decent wage in a "normal" job. The thing is I have never been normal so, really, I was never cut out for a normal job.

So, apparently, life has begun.

I wrote a post about two weeks ago that I chose not to post as, although I stated within it it was not a "woe is me" post, it was. I put my feelings of, what I can only describe as, displacement down to the fact that I was on the brink of a big birthday (I know you all know it was 40 as I have not stopped going on about it for the past year). Well I have now smashed my way through to a new decade and, I have to say, it is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

Don't worry this is not just a narcissistic post about my own ageing process. In the rejected post I had planned to discuss how I was thinking of giving up performing to concentrate on teaching. However my whole outlook has changed, literally overnight. I still have no gigs lined up but I actually do have the desire to try and rectify that and start working on my yodelling again.

Part of the original post is still relevant though. I wrote about how our moods affect our ability to sing. This idea (obviously not my idea, the thought is nothing new) came from a throwaway comment by someone on the Opera Talk page on Facebook about Maria Callas. The post addressed how it is possible that a broken heart was partly responsible for the decline of her voice. 

Of course I may have got the gist wrong, I read it very quickly and now can't remember exactly where I saw it so can't check it, but the idea makes for an interesting discussion. I realise this might come as a surprise to some but I never really thought about how our moods affect us physically. This could be because my life has not really been anything less than OK. However, I started having some pretty major vocal issues during my last long term singing job. I put it down to the way the soprano line of the music I was being asked to sing 8 times a week had been written but perhaps the problem lay deeper than this.

Those of you who know me and, more importantly, my singing will know I have/had a pretty robust voice. I am not precious, I always give 100% and, although I get sick from time to time, I have never ever had vocal problems. So it came as a bit of a surprise, about 3 venues into the tour I was on, that I had developed a ridiculous wobble at the top of my voice. It got worse and worse and nothing I did could put it right. I went to see my singing teacher but there was nothing she could do to fix the problem in the one lesson I could fit in. Logistically getting back to where she was was impossible while I was still on tour. So I was left to my own devices.

I accepted it and just got on with my job but got more and more embarrassed by this awful hole at the top of my voice. When I completed the tour I thought, if I took a few weeks off singing, my voice would recover and all would be hunky dory. This was not the case. The wobble was still there and it seemed there was not a lot I could do about it. So having read that throwaway comment about Maria Callas's broken heart it occurred to me that this might actually be part of my problem.

Hearts can be broken for many reasons (my "broken heart" was nothing to do with my love life). I am not going to go into specifics here but elements of that last job, as early on as the rehearsals, knocked my confidence and left me, I believe, a little broken hearted. I could not see a way back from this feeling for quite a long time. Whereas in most instances like this I would pick myself up and prove myself to the people I needed to prove myself to, this time it felt like my career was not going to get any better and I should just be happy with my lot. I could only summon the energy to make do and get on with it. I had lost the will to fight. In many ways I had given up before the show even started. Yes, I was really lucky to be in a job but that thought could not change the way I felt at the time. And that was the problem, psychologically I could not shake the feeling that I was not good enough.

The last four paragraphs were written when I was feeling very low and I felt like time was running out and I had to make a decision about how he rest of my life was going to pan out. You may, or may not, be pleased to know my voice is starting to behave the more settled I become and I am feeling like I want to sing again. I saw my birthday approaching and felt that, in order to make my life worthwhile, if I had to put my house in order and make huge decisions, ones that there might have been no going back on, before it happened. This is all total and utter bollocks (language, sorry).

What the last few weeks have taught me is, essentially, never make a decision when you are feeling low but also never make a decision when you are deliriously happy either. The first could see you give up on things you have striven for your whole life and the second can see you agreeing to things you would never agree to if you were in a, let's say, neutral state of mind. 

At the moment I am quite content thank you very much, the perfect state of mind to evaluate things. I will continue to build my teaching practice (or should it be practise? I am never sure) but not to the detriment of my own singing. After all it is what I have wanted to do, and what I have done, since I was 9 years old so it would be foolish to give up on it just as life has begun.

Amazing what a positive attitude can do.....or is it just coincidence?

Just a short diary entry for you today. Although it has been quite a long time since my last post so really it should be a mammoth entry. Of course, I say it is going to be short but if the muse takes me it may turn into the next War and Peace. Perhaps you should go and make a cup of tea, just in case.

Anyway, moving on. The last entry was written with a modicum of anger, or rather frustration at how people treat we singing teachers (actually any one-to-one type teachers). I was feeling a little annoyed by some of my students not giving me enough notice that they weren't coming for their lesson or just simply not turning up and not bothering to tell me. This led to my threatening them with a cancellation fee. I do not want (or really intend) to charge anyone for a missed lesson but I hope that the introduction of this policy will make the people who come to me think about how they go about cancelling a lesson. I should point out my students are wonderful human beings and I love teaching all of them the new policy introduction was just something I had to do for my own sanity. But this post is not really about this. As far as I am concerned the matter has been dealt with and we will say no more about it.

What I wanted to discuss was how things appear to have turned around a bit for me (not on the performing front, that is still as dry as ever, unlike the weather which is ridiculous). Last week I had 12 students booked in for lessons. This has never happened before. The most I have had is 8 (I think). People just suddenly started calling and asking to come for lessons. In the end 9 of the 12 turned up but that will do for me. This week I have 10 booked in and I have my fingers crossed that that will become 11 as I taught an extremely promising girl last week who I think I could work wonders with. My patience is finally starting to pay off (I really I hope I haven't just jinxed things by saying that).

I put this down, in some small part, to a self help book I have been reading over the past couple of weeks. Now I am exceedingly sceptical when it comes to any kind of self help nonsense but now and again I read something that strikes a chord or hits a nerve (I was actually about to write "strikes a nerve" but realised I was mixing my whatchamacallits). The book I am reading is "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. I am pretty sure most of you will have heard of it and, indeed, given it a go. I bought this book about 14 years ago and it has been on my bookshelf, gathering dust for about 13 years, 11 months and 29 days. I was, obviously, not ready for it then.

I am now! I am into the third chapter and some of the things this woman says are like she is in my head and writing down my every thought. So many good things have happened over the past two weeks. I thought them all to be coincidences until I read the section that told me I was going to think all the good things happening to me right now were coincidences. At this point I thought about burning the book as this was surely witchcraft at work. Thankfully I did not and have embraced these "coincidences". 

I am not saying I need therapy but I have always thought myself far too rational and logical to try therapy. Why would I bother going to someone else for help, I already know what they are going to say so what is the point? As it turns out I seem to have conditioned myself into an extremely irrational and illogical state (it is not as bad as it sounds, bear with me). I put obstacles in my own way to stop me doing the things I dream about doing. This book is addressing exactly what I have been feeling for years without realising.

I know I have had a pretty good performing career up until now but I still daydream about singing in big (actually small would do) opera houses or being in a West End musical. I then remind myself I have already done both those things so there is no reason for me not to do them again. I always imagine that the reality would never live up to the dream when in fact I know, categorically, that it would. It did! The reality was far, far better than the dream ever was. My brain just chooses to forget the good things and only remember the bad.

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to put together a one-woman show but I would always tell myself that I am not creative enough to do this or that nobody would want to see anything I cobble together. I would tell myself I will do it when I have enough money/more security/have got a job/have more time but none of these things will ever really come to fruition. I will never have enough money, the life I have chosen will never allow me to feel secure, when I have a job I don't feel the need to work on other projects and there will never, ever be enough time. They will remain obstacles. However, this book, this almost magical book, has made me rethink my attitude to doing the things I want to do and just get on and do them. I am not in a huge hurry to do another big musical or opera (don't tell my agent I said that) but I do want to perform something. Something for me.

So today I made a real start on putting together my show. It is in the embryonic stage right now but I think I know what path it will take I just need to organise my thoughts (much, much easier said than done) and try it out. If it doesn't work at least I will have done it. I don't know if it is because I am getting older but I am very driven by the thought that I don't want to get to the stage where I say I wish I had done this or that. I already have enough "what if's" floating around in my head I certainly do not need, or want, anymore.

I believe the children are our future....goes without saying really.

So, the muse of inspiration has been decidedly absent recently. But then inspiration is a bit like buses for me. There will be a couple of weeks where I can not think of a thing to write about and then I get two or three ideas at once. I will not incorporate all the ideas into one Diary Entry as that would be foolish. I will save some stuff to talk about for future entries. What I will say about what is coming, hopefully next week, is one will concern the first choral/oratorio gig I have had in 5 years (by the way if anyone out there needs a soprano soloist I am pretty free on Saturdays and I do a mean Messiah!). Yes, on the 23rd of November I will be singing the 2nd Soprano part in a Kodaly "Missa Brevis" (a cough and a spit really but hey, a job's a job). I will tell you all about it when it is done and dusted.

So what shall I waffle on about today I hear you ask. Well, I thought we might discuss children. Don't groan. As Whitney Houston and George Benson told us, they are our future. They then go on to say "teach them well and let them lead the way" and that is what I want to talk about today. 

As you probably know, if you follow this Diary religiously, I do quite a bit of singing teaching at the moment. About 50% of my students are under 16 and have varying degrees of interest. They all enjoy my company but don't always want to sing. One little girl I teach didn't really want to sing during one lesson we had and when I asked what was wrong she said "I don't want to sing today I just want to talk to you". Very flattering that a seven year old finds me so interesting but I don't think her mum would be very happy if we just chatted for half an hour. A lot of compromising and bartering was done that lesson I can tell you. The deal was, for every song she sang she could ask me a question. It worked out pretty well actually. This particular girl is a bit of a prodigy in my eyes. I started teaching her about two and a half years ago and she has the most astonishing memory. She literally hears a song once and can sing it back correctly. Always in tune and with a really sweet tone. This is one of the many reasons I love teaching. The undiscovered talent out there is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, the girl I speak of is, now, only 8 years old so I am not trying to push her into a life of showbiz but she makes me smile every time I see her with her incredible ability.

The thing about kids these days, though, is they have such busy social lives and have so many interests. Therefore, who knows if any of the young students I teach will ever choose singing as a career. This really doesn't matter. As we all know, singing is good for the soul but, for many of us, life gets in the way and some of those things we did for fun as children fall by the wayside in adulthood. I really love it when I get a student who just wants to come for singing lessons because they want to sing again. One student used to come so she could sing with more confidence at church. One wanted to sing something at a friend's wedding but hadn't sung since school and wanted to ensure she still could sing. That is the thing about music lessons, not just singing lessons, they are not just for people who want to sing/perform professionally they can be simply for fun.
So what did you do as a child that you miss? Why not take it up again? It could be something like chess or netball (if you loved torturing insects or rolling around in mud then maybe you shouldn't). It is so easy to find a club to join. I think it is so important to hold onto those feelings of joy we had as children. For example I am thinking of starting an adult choir in my area at the moment. The thought terrifies me a little as it is not something I know a lot about but I think there should be as many opportunities for us adults to regress a little and remember the things we loved in the past and, for a lot of people, that is singing. If I do it I will let you know and, if you can get to South Croydon, you can come and join in.

Now, I realise I am forever going on about how I don't know if I want to be a performer anymore and whether or not I should concentrate on my teaching. I must say at the moment teaching is winning. I really, really love it. My agent called on Wednesday with an audition and I said no (to be fair it was profit share and the character was Irish, an accent I have yet to master so the job was never going to end up mine anyway). I am not saying that I will say no to every audition that comes my way anymore but I think the point is, at my age and at this stage in my career, I don't have to say yes to everything. I can afford to be choosy because I have something I enjoy doing equally. I no longer feel like I am just waiting for the phone to ring and that is a fabulous feeling.

Just to reinforce the subject of this Diary Entry please click on the link below to see my favourite YouTube clip of the moment. This little girl/boy (not sure which) is definitely the future!

Delightful Singing Toddler. Click and enjoy!

Just how beneficial is a singer's website? Akin to a chocolate teapot or slightly more use?

I have had a website since 2009. The site I use allowed me to set up a free website and it remained free (my choice, why pay when you don't have to?) until 2011 when I decided to buy a domain name and also pay not to have adverts placed upon my website. I decided this after a friend told me they had been on my website and there was an advert for a "dating" service that was riddled with scantily clad ladies. Not really the game I am in (although if I don't get work soon, my threat to give being a dominatrix a go may become more than a pipe dream).

So for the past few years I have been paying Webs.com to host (I think that is the right technical term) my website, and I am very happy with it. But is it any use, really? Before we address that I must tell you a rather spooky story. My first intention was to buy the domain www.claireplatt.com as I thought this was the smartest name. Unfortunately someone had snapped it up. Now, some of you out there will know I have started another blog "Queen of the Knit". This is dedicated to my love of knitting and crochet (don't judge me). Guess what the other Claire Platt's website is for? That's right, knitting (and sewing). What are the chances! Have a look, it's a lovely blog.

Anyway, I digress. The way my site is set up, if I look at how many people have visited my site I can only find out the number of people who have visited in the last month. I can tell you (and don't mind telling you) I had 67 visitors in the last 31 days. That might not seem like many to you and in comparison to this diary which had 1356 page views last month it isn't a lot but up until I started writing this diary I would sometimes be lucky if my website reached 10 hits a month (be aware I do not mean that 1356 people looked at my blog, my posts were looked at that many times.....I think. Anyway, a darn sight more people looked at this diary than looked at my website). I don't mean this to sound like showing off, starting this blog and linking it to my website proves that sometimes you have to think outside the box in order to get people to notice your online presence.

This is not to say that having a website is all about how many people visit, it really isn't. It is more about who visits your website. The most important thing is that you have one in order to keep an online record of what you have to offer as a performer. In these high-tech driven days people don't want to wait to receive a CV/resume through the post any more (actually there are still a few casting directors that do like this - if this is you I salute you) they want the information at their finger tips there and then. So you might be on Spotlight or Casting Call Pro or your agent's website and, yes, in theory everything they need to know should be there but what if your prospective employer thinks "ooh if only I could hear that person singing something else or see other photos of that person"? This is where it would be handy to have a website (in my humble opinion).

I do not pretend to be an expert in this sort of thing at all. I am just thinking out loud and justifying my own website really. Also, I bloomin' love tinkering with them. In fact a few days ago I was at a friend's house helping her develop her first website (albeit not entirely successfully) and I was totally in my element. All that said, you may not feel the need for a website and that is absolutely fine. It is in no way the be all and end all. The entertainment industry managed to survive before the Internet so I am pretty sure you will still get work without one.

It is kind of scary how important the Internet has become over a relatively short space of time and it scares me (melodramatic) how much I don't know about all these technical bits and bobs. So should I carry on about my business in blissful ignorance or do I try to make my very small brain box understand all the ins and outs? Do you know what, I think I will attempt to learn summat and try and cram as much information into my already full noggin in order to give myself a proper, fighting chance of getting somewhere in this business we call show. Of course if I asked my 6 year old niece to help me out she would probably come up with a far more professional website than I could ever put together. Now that is scary!

Stop moaning and do something...anything....no, don't watch another episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Actually, I don't watch "Grey's Anatomy" but a large proportion of my friends do so it seemed the obvious choice for the tilte. However, I digress (already). I feel like I may have been a bit moany (not a real word, I know) recently so I decided it was time for a good old slab of optimism. Life is good at the moment for a variety of reasons (still not financially, unfortunately). However things have only felt really great over the past couple of days.

Since writing the last diary entry (To be or not to be?...What?...To be or not to be what?) I realised that I had been, perhaps, looking for an easy way out. I like to know where my next pay packet is coming from, it makes me feel safe and cosy and, for the first time in my life I don't have that particular security in my life. Therefore, I thought if I just built up my list of singing students and concentrated on helping other people do the thing I have always wanted to do I would be happy, content and, ultimately, financially secure. But a performer's life does not work like that. This insecurity is what we signed up for. We knew it would not be easy and there would be fallow periods. It is important, however, to make those times between jobs count. By this point in my life you would think I would be used to the insecurity that comes from going from job to job. Finishing one job and not having the prospect of another on the horizon is, for me and others like me, normal.

The thing to do is embrace your free time (I covered this, sort of, in Up and at 'em Platt!.....Let's have a coffee first though)What I have had a tendency to do over the past couple of weeks is stress about having no auditions to go to or not enough teaching work to pay the rent that I ended up doing absolutely nothing but think about doing nothing. I can spend hours, nay, days doing this and achieving precisely nowt! So what has changed, I hear you yell? Well, for one, I have joined a gym. Those of you who are familiar with my physical being will attest, I am never going to be a thin woman (I have no desire to be so either. I embraced my curves a long time ago) but I could easily rein in those curves a little with a modicum of work. There is more to going to the gym than just getting skinny. I find if I do nothing then I want to do exactly that, nothing. However, if I get out of the house and do a bit of exercise I then find I want to do other things with the rest of my day other than sit around stressing about having nothing to do. 

The second thing I have done recently is to join a kind of meditation programme. My brain is full of thoughts. So many thoughts that I can not hold on to one thought for more than a couple of seconds before another thought invades the space and shoves the first thought out of the way. I have always had too much going on in my head. I have a ridiculous imagination that runs away with itself at the drop of a hat (this was part of the reason I started doing this Diary so you can blame my imagination for the bombardment of drivel). Unfortunately my imagination is not the sort of useful imagination that allows me to write stories and stuff (I wish it was), it just gets in the way to be quite frank. Anyway, the meditation idea (I know, it sounds a bit spiritual for a girl like me) is a way of quieting all these thoughts so that they can form an orderly queue. That way I can get to each one in turn instead them feeling like a tangled ball of wool that I can never untangle (ooh metaphor - that's new).

In addition to these two potential improvements I have made I have also been inspired by two other things. The first being a friend who has started blogging.  Her first offering (probably without meaning to be) has been quite inspirational. A great advocate of the "don't sweat the small stuff" camp (visit her blog via this handy link: http://paperlantern55.wordpress.com/). She was also the instigator of the meditation thing so blame her if I turn into a zoned-out hippy. The other inspiration was an online magazine article, shared by a friend on Facebook, about actors who have made their own work. Some of the people mentioned are women who have had trouble getting the sorts of roles they wanted so created their own characters, wrote their own screenplays and put themselves out there. It is so easy to sit around and wait for work to drop into your lap, Lord knows I am guilty of that, but I vow not to do this anymore. I had an idea for a one-woman-show-type-thing and, by the power of Grayskull, I am going to make it happen. (See the article here: http://www.frostmagazine.com/2013/09/actors-who-make-their-own-work/)

So there you have it. I promise from now on to be more productive, more upbeat, more vivacious, slightly less voluptuous and a lot less desperate (in all aspects of life). If I had ever been a Brownie or a Guide I would pledge allegiance to the Queen or summat like that. Unfortunately I wasn't so I pledge to serve Doris Day and work my ass off for the foreseeable future.

To be or not to be?...What?......To be or not to be what?

That is definitely the question at present. I am in a state of, let's call it, crisis at the moment (always good to start with a bit of melodrama). Just between you and me, I am wondering whether performing is where my heart truly lies. Let me say before we get into this in more depth, this is not a fishing expedition. I don't need anyone to validate me or my ability to perform, that is not what this is about. This is about my happiness. Just because you are good at something does not mean that that thing must be the thing that defines you (or summat like that).

We performers are a sensitive lot, it is true. Most of us don't need to be praised constantly but, now and again, we do find that someone telling us we are doing an OK job to be just the ticket to get us out of a slump (this is not what I am looking for either). I know I go through the "is it time to give up and open a tea shop" feeling several times a year (sometimes when I actually have an acting job) but most of the time it lasts a few days, at most, and then I pull myself together and rock up to the next audition. Performers do not have the monopoly on this feeling, I imagine we all crave change in our lives from time to time. Postmen, builders, shop assistants even civil servants at some point will all think the grass is greener. Don't misunderstand me, I realise that for some people the grass really is greener and I know I am extremely lucky to have been doing something I love for so long. For me, it is the time between jobs that gets harder. Waiting for the next thing to come along can leave you in a state of limbo and, just like that, 6 months of your life have disappeared and you did nothing with it except wait (and watch Pointless - which in itself is not Pointless at all, e.g. My knowledge of the Glasgow underground system has grown exponentially because of this gem of a show). The incessant waiting is what I can't cope with this time.

But why now? Maybe it is something to do with turning 40 in April but I don't think it is that. I have no fear of this landmark age at all. It is just a number. It is, however, a milestone so maybe, subconsciously it is the thing that is fuelling this need to do something useful and positive with the rest of my life.

There is a video going around on YouTube at the moment of a concert Kristen Chenoweth did at the Hollywood Bowl (Elaine Paige also mentioned it on her radio show on Sunday) in which she invited a member of the audience on to the stage to sing "For Good" from Wicked with her. The woman, Sarah Horn, who went up happened to be a singing teacher (and a pretty darn good singer in her own right) and Kristen described her as "the real hero" and after they had sung she also said "that voice [Sarah's] is teaching our young people", and it got me thinking. There are worse things I could do with the rest of my life than help other people work out how best to use their voices. But is this selling myself short? Have I still got a few shows left in me?

The very fact I have to ask these questions suggests I do. No one wants to get to the end and wonder "what if?" I know I don't. Yes, life is easy right now (apart from the being brassic thing). I enjoy teaching the few people who come to me for help. I am totally free of stress for the first time in my life. But, and it is a huge but, is this what I really want for the next few years? I don't know, and while there is a shred of doubt I owe it to myself to keep trying until I honestly don't want to try anymore. I may well come to the conclusion a month from now, a year from now or ten years from now that moving on to something else is what I need but, as I am sufficiently unsure right now I can't quite bring myself to cut the proverbial strings. 

Not to be preachy, but, I know there are some of you out there who are in the same boat as me and we have to do a lot of soul-searching to find the answers we need, not necessarily the answers we want. What we want and what we need are two totally different things. Don't jump into (or out of) something you might live to regret without giving it plenty of thought (and then more thought on top of that thought). For some of you, moving on to pastures new is the right thing to do. However, if there is even a morsel of uncertainty that you are not ready to let go, you owe it to yourself to keep trying. I am pretty sure you, like me, don't want to end up at a point many, many years down the line thinking "what if?". Anyway here endeth the sermon. I apologise, I have got ever so serious recently. I will work on it!

I finally took someone's advice....and hey, it was my own advice.

So, today I did an audition. It was a fairly last minute affair. I found out about it at about 2pm yesterday and the audition time was 12.10 today. All they wanted was a song in the style of Rogers and Hammerstein. OK, I thought, this is doable. 

What have I got in my rep folder (remember that one from the last blog? There will be a quiz later)? Unbelievably nothing by R&H (apart from "Climb Every Mountain" but that isn't what they are looking for. I know! Second guessing, but the part I was up for required a belt voice - think Ethel Merman if you are not sure what I mean). There wasn't a huge amount of notice but just enough that the niggling voice in my head piped up to say,

"Learn summat new Claire. You know you want to". 

OK, Voice in My Head, what do you suggest? 

"Well you always wanted to learn "Johnny One Note" that would be great". 

Hmm, I thought, and walked towards my bookcase full of music. NOOOOO! Voice in My Head, not this time. I will not do that to myself. I will sing summat I know well and that I know I can sing under pressure. You are not going to dupe me into making an arse of myself this time!

So, I chose the piece that had gone well at the last audition (not the one I stopped twice in). A piece I know inside out and backwards and know will always work for me, but not in the style asked for. In my opinion, particularly with one days notice, (the penny has finally dropped) they just need to know I can sing. Not that I can learn (and probably mess up) a song in 24 hours.

I arrived at the audition venue with not much time to spare but they were running late anyway. I was given some script to look over, which I did. All fairly straight forward and I felt great. Not particularly nervous, just that excited nervous feeling you get when you know you are fully capable of doing something, well, good! I was so relaxed I even had a bit of a laugh and a joke with two guys waiting to go in and had that overwhelming feeling we all crave. The feeling that everything is going to be alright. And I have to say, it really was. I got in the room. Sang my song, no, smashed my song (in my head at least. I even mentally punched the air on the finally chord). I sat down and had a chat with the director and then went through the scene. Rushed it a bit but did not stumble over any lines. For a bit of sight reading it was not half bad. Then, that was that. It was over and I left, satisfied I had done my absolute best and that "messing up" was not going to be the reason I didn't get the job.

For your information, I am pretty sure I did not get the job. As I left I passed two other women in for the same part and they were, probably, around 15 years older than me (but looked fabulous, I hasten to add) so chances are they were looking for older. And that is fine. It would have been a great to do the show and may, or may not, have been life changing. However, the fact that I did a good audition, did not make an arse of myself, did not wave at the panel as I left the room or have my skirt tucked in my knickers means the audition experience was a little life changing in itself and that will do for me (for now!).

A pop song in the style of Britney Spears?....will "Climb Every Mountain" do?

So, having written about the fright I feel when going into auditions, I thought I should perhaps address the difficulties faced when choosing what material to take to an audition. To many people reading, this is the single most important thing to be addressed when going to an audition. I say, not so!

I have done A LOT of auditions in my time. Some have caused me to leave the building and punch the air victoriously (these can be counted on one hand) others have left me weeping uncontrollably having made the biggest arse (language, sorry) of myself in the audition room (as in the last diary entry I will be using my hands and feet AND someone else's hands to count these). Like so many of you out there, at times we go to an audition (I refer to musical theatre and opera auditions here) and take our absolute best song/aria and show the panel how truly talented we are. Ah, but then there are those auditions where we try to second guess what the panel will want to hear and learn something brand new to present. 

Often the audition is the very first time this brand spanking new piece has been sung for anyone other than your cat or dog and, more than likely, the first time you have done it with a pianist. But that is fine. You know it inside out. You can recite the words in your head without stumbling. You have worked out when you are going to move so you are not standing, boringly, in the same place/position throughout. You are totally ready to do this! So, you get in the room, give your music to the pianist, tell everyone what you are going to sing, stand on your mark and get ready. The pianist starts to play. "Hang on" you think. "This doesn't sound the same as SuBo's recording". "This isn't how it goes" You think, "oh well, I best sing summat and hope for the best". You somehow get to the end but it wasn't pretty. The panel look confused and thank you for taking the time to come in. You thank them back and leave, smiling hopefully in their general direction waiting for the moment when you are far enough away and you can cry/scream/laugh/ring someone.

This, you will agree, is not in anyway ideal and the sort of experience we really should avoid. Of course, at times, you may have been asked to bring something specific (these types of auditions are not included) or you may have been asked to bring something in a particular style. Even in this situation you probably have something that would "do" in your rep folder (repertoire folder - a folder including all the songs you are happy to do in an audition, just in case I am blinding you with science here) and don't HAVE to learn a new piece from scratch for the audition TWO DAYS LATER. I am ashamed to admit that, because I am lazy, I have never really had a rep folder overflowing with songs in every style I am likely to be asked for and have never had the get up and go required to rectify this. It is unacceptable really. A woman of my age and experience should have addressed this years ago and done something about it. On a more positive note I am of the school that is more likely to take something I know, no matter how inappropriate, rather than learn something totally new but it is still lazy. I am telling you all this in the hope that you can learn from my terrible errors.

I had a friend I did a show with years ago who, once our show had had it's notice and, therefore, scheduled to close two weeks later, found herself with no less than four auditions the following week. I swear, she learned a different song for each. No amount of cajoling could persuade her that this was counter productive. She got none of the jobs (she did get panto though so she had work for Christmas. Oh and she is not a Facebook friend or a Twitter follower so chances are she isn't reading this). Not only does this sort of behaviour mean you are likely to get a panel's back up for being unprepared but you put unnecessary pressure on yourselves. We worry so much about what an audition panel want to hear from us that we forget that, fundamentally, they want to know you can sing and that you can tell a story through that song. 

This is not earth shattering wisdom I am imparting here but we are prone to forget it in an effort to please people. As performers it is ingrained in us to constantly want approval from the people who hold our futures in their hands. What we all need to realise is, although we need work in order to pay the bills and, well, survive, we need to be proud of ourselves and gain our own approval (if that is possible). The more we go into auditions thoroughly prepared the easier they get because you lose the one element of auditioning that gets us into more trouble than anything else. Self-doubt.

So please, please, please go to your folder now. Look through it and see where the holes are. Do you have a 1960s pop song, an up-beat, contemporary musical theatre piece, do you have an aria in English? Fill one of those gaps today, well before you need it. I am a firm believer that in the end it is more important that we finish an audition able to say "yes, that went well, I couldn't have done it better" than leave the audition ruing the day someone told us we had a smidgen of talent. 

Some of you out there probably think I am saying nothing new and you know all of this. To you I say that is wonderful. However, if my writing this means that just one reader heeds my words and can leave an audition wanting to punch the air rather than weep then my work here is done.

Stage-Fright?.......Shhh don't tell anyone.

Actually that title is a little mis-leading. This is more about pre-stage-fright (if you can get your head around that made up concept). We performers go through a lot before we actually get a job and the chance to do what we trained to do. So, yesterday I had an audition. Auditions are like gold dust at the moment and it has been a while since the last one so I relished the opportunity to get back on the horse and do one. Or so I thought.

I have never enjoyed auditioning. Who does? (Actually there are probably a few of you out there who positively love it but that makes you weird in my book.) I just don't think I am any good at it. Put me in front of an audience to do something I have rehearsed to within an inch of it's life and I am a happy girl. Put me in a room with 2 or 3 people scrutinising my every move and I turn into a nervous wreck. My leg shakes, my voice gets all quivery and you can forget support, I left that at the door when I walked in the room (I was told by my sister, sorry, editor to explain myself here. If you are unsure about what I mean by support it is, basically, how we singers control and help the breath maintain an even flow, and consequently keep pitch and volume steady. I hope that makes sense). Add to all of that the idiotic, involuntary things I am prone to do in auditions:

1) Waving at the panel as I walk in or out of the room (I do that a lot).

2) Stopping mid song because my mind has blanked and I can think of nothing whatsoever to sing in it's place.

3) Giggling uncontrollably because everything is so ridiculous.

4) One time I did an entire audition with my skirt caught in my tights only realising when I was 5 minutes down the road after leaving the audition.

And then there was yesterday's debacle;

5) Having stopped mid song twice (yes that's right, twice) I proceeded to tell the panel that the stopping was due to the stress I had endured trying to pay for the parking for my car. I must have been about 30 seconds into telling them how the machine was broken and I had to phone up but my credit card had expired before the voice in my head screamed SHUT THE F**K UP!!! (3 exclamation marks are justified I think but sorry for the language.) 

I kid you not, all these things have happened to me.

Sometimes these odd little happenings work in my favour. I remember doing an audition in a ground floor room with a gargantuan window thrown wide open to the street. I was singing "Brimstone and Treacle" from "Mary Poppins" and had just got to the big finish. As I hit my high A (possibly A flat, I can't remember but will check before I sing it again) with full force a cyclist went past the window and promptly fell off. We laughed for days and I got that job.

However, I digress. Auditioning is a necessary evil but something that I have never been adept at and, if I am honest, as I get older, I am getting worse at. I have never been an arrogant performer and have little self belief (although I do believe wholeheartedly I am supposed to be a singer). I rarely believe I should be offered any job. I do know when I am right for something but, unfortunately, the panel hardly ever agrees with me. I can count on one hand the jobs I have got that I knew I was right for but it would take both hands, both feet plus someone else's hands to count the jobs I didn't get but knew I was right for. It often comes as a surprise to people when we start rehearsing that I am as good as I am (that isn't meant to sound arrogant btw, especially having just told you I am anything but). This is because I constantly apologise for my existence when in an audition. Not literally (although yesterday I think I did).

I know I am not alone in feeling this way which is why I am telling you all my thoroughly shameful audition stories. So many of you have probably been overlooked because an audition did not go to plan. For us performers stage-fright is tantamount to a disability (this is not meant to be flippant). Stage-fright renders me unable to get a job (sometimes) and that is a problem. Is it worth putting myself through it anymore? I don't know. I still have the will to go on trying and have not started making inane excuses not to go to auditions so, for the time being, I will fight the fright and hopefully, eventually, get another job (which will probably encourage the inevitable "Wow you are actually good. Who would have thought" type statement on the first day of rehearsals. As long as I get the job they can say what they like!).

P.S. If anyone out there feels like sharing any of their own embarrassing/funny/heartwarming/terrifying audition stories please, please, please comment below. I, for one, would love to hear them.