4653/17312
Though I have unsurprisingly heard nothing from my damp audition from Monday, I got to do some acting today in a short film called Mosquito, in which I played (without giving too much away) a man who regularly uses escorts. You can imagine my delight at being offered this part without audition. Sleazy middle-aged man? Give it to Herring. I mean, fair enough. I was very good at it. Even though I have never paid for sex, apart from in fragments of my broken heart and fistfuls of my immortal soul.
But in all seriousness I am happy to exploit my essential quality of seediness as I do enjoy the occasional bit of acting and today I was only going to be doing two scenes and be done in five hours. Acting can be very boring. There’s an awful lot of repetition and hanging around eating biscuits. By the fourth take of the second scene I was starting to feel a bit restless. So I don’t think I could cut this as my full-time job. But the small cast and crew were delightful and professional and I managed to do a bit of work in the bits where I wasn’t working. And I ate loads of biscuits. So it was a good day.
There’s always the fear that I will ruin something by being rubbish, but I felt like I did OK today. I was leery when required, but also captured the thousand-yard stare of a man who has just done something that he didn’t think he intended to do. It’s a neat idea and a funny script and hopefully I have spoiled it with my stupid gurning face. In one scene I had to pat the bottom of one of the escorts in what my character imagined was a flirtatious fashion. Once upon a time men did that sort of thing a lot, but nowadays it correctly seems like an appalling violation. I did it in a camera rehearsal and it felt quite weird and wrong, so in the next rehearsal I just mimed it. The actor said, “You missed me,†but I told her that it seemed wrong to do it when it wasn’t being filmed (though if you think about it, it seems weird to insist that you only do that kind of thing if it is recorded). My shyness evaporated as we began filming, or maybe I just got into character. And it was nice to know that the man I was playing would get his comeuppance for his nastiness in the next scene (which given the way these things worked we had already filmed).
So much of my work is solo these days that it was great to be part of a team and this film is beautifully shot, with a weird and witty script, so looking forward to seeing the finished product.
And I had an encouraging preview tonight where I did a potted 45 minute version of Headmaster’s Son and then 40 minutes of Happy Now? I was totally exhausted but somehow I was found some playfulness and managed to adlib some really funny stuff for the new show. Of course I had forgotten to record it and was too tired to recall anything that I’d said afterwards. But it’s been a while since I’ve even attempted Happy Now? and with just over two weeks to go to the first show it was nice to know that I at least had something to say. I think a lot will change with this show before it goes on tour, but for now I am just aiming to get a solid hour of new material together. Like most of the 12 Shows challenge that feels like an impossible thing to do (and there’s still every chance that this will all come crashing down around my ears - very likely this weekend), but it’s exciting and I am motivated by fear and the threat of embarrassment, so hopefully I can find my way through this minefield.
