Me, and my limited voices

Had my second rehearsal tonight for 'Cat Food' since I accidentally ended up playing what is probably the biggest part in it. I'm still terrified - I'm not an actor, end of, but I'm slightly more comfortable now that we've distinguished the different characters I'm playing a little more. For the local MP, Gregory, it's all very easy - the blurb I wrote for the role originally was simply 'lazy and smelly', both of which I have the ability to be on a regular basis, you could argue, but for the old man, Michael, our director Gytha seemed keen on a Cornish accent, especially so as Heather Yeadon - who plays the role of Esther (my 'wife' in the piece) does one really well. I can't do one - I tried, and whilst there was glimmers of it, the bits that weren't glimmers were shocking. So tonight, accepting defeat on my lack of cornishness, even though I was born in Somerset which isn't far off, we tried different voices for me in that character that didn't clash with the smooth-talking, lazy, arrogant Gregory character. I tried seedy, I tried manic Rigsby-esque, and then, as almost by default because I was getting frustrated, I just went and shouted the whole thing. It works, I'm going to shout - and just act really angry, and apparently that's comedy. With that covered, I just need to learn all the many lines by next Thursday's opening performance. I've never had to learn lines before, I have no idea where to start. But I have to - the show has to happen next week, there's no way out of this, we have a poster and everything (see above, it's a lovely design by Gytha's partner, Ollie). I just hope the audience are kind.

After that I drove over to Histon to rehearse with Rich Conway, whom I'm playing a gig with tomorrow night - Rich and his partner treated me well, with pizza and Red Bull, which is always the best recipe for a good performance. I'm looking forward to the gig with him tomorrow, a weird but arguably inspired choice of songs, any set that has 'Blue Chair' by Costello in it should be worthwhile.

Also got told today my play 'An Ambulance Stuck In Traffic' is being performed for 3 nights in a row in London (Waterloo, to be precise) by First Draft theatre company at the end of the month. I'm amazed how this play is still out there, I'm not even trying to promote it anymore, it just seems to be striking a chord or two with the right people. That particular chord being the one about stalking, and death, then.