Bristol Old Vic: Ah, Bristol. What a lovely city. My cousins
live there – it’s always fun when I get to visit. Nice hills, clean air, great
views.
Shame about the drama school…
Maybe it’s because I got
rejected when I thought I did well and I’m bitter about it, but I think it’s
more than that. I was told the place felt very homely, that everybody was
lovely there and that it was just like one big family. And it sort of was. But
I think that was the problem with it, really… It has probably the worst
applicant-to-place ratio for its 3-year course out of all the drama schools in
the country, or at least it can’t be far off, as it only takes twelve people on
its course. It sucks you in and raises your hopes by being really nice to you
and then lets you down with a jolt. What’s more, the people there seemed to
have been brainwashed into conforming to the “lovely family” idea that
permeates the place, but in such a way that it sort of felt like a front, put
on because they had been made to do so, rather than doing it out of any genuine
sentiment. I’m sounding pretty bitter here, but my abiding memories really are
of the receptionist having a slightly overly-wide smile, and the auditioners
complimenting me on what I did only to then reject me. But I’ll get to that in
a moment.
My audition went decently, I
think. This was November 2010 and I had reworked my Shakespeare speech (thank
God), though for some absurd reason I clung to the notion that I should keep
the same speech as opposed to finding and learning a different one, purely
because I was a fan of the speech itself, even though when performed by me it
must have seemed a bit strange, as it was completely inappropriate for somebody
of my age. But I did it, and better than at Guildhall (I think), and the modern
speech went fairly well again I think, relatively speaking. But then I got to
the bit I had feared for months: the song. Singing. SINGING?!? The mere mention
of the word sends shivers down my spine, bouncing off my coccyx and juddering
back upwards into my brain until they melt it into a gloopy mush. I am a
confident person, in terms of performing, I think. I’m fairly comfortable
playing embarrassing or ridiculous parts on-stage. But singing is hard for me.
I think the difference between acting and singing for me, in terms of my
self-confidence, is that acting can be a bit different every time you do it –
you may deliver a line one way one night, then do it completely differently
another night, and either way could work fine. But with singing, there is only
one option. Yes, I know there are various ways of singing a song, but in terms
of the actual musical notes, you have
got to hit them, without fail. Now that,
I find tricky. Maybe that’s another reason why I didn’t like it very much –
they’re really keen on their musical theatre at Bristol…
But anyway, my song actually,
somewhat surprisingly, came out all right, in the sense that I didn’t majorly
screw up the actual notes. They even said to me, “Well done for acting the
song”, which was nice to hear. As if my confidence hadn’t been boosted enough,
they then gave me an excerpt of ‘A Christmas Carol’ to read to them. HALLELUJAH!!! My prayers had
been answered! READING!!! I LOVE READING!!! I was that guy in English lessons
who always read word-perfectly, with proper characterisation in the dialogue
and everything. My reading was great! I was sure I had been great! I left the room, and, being the nosy
little shit I am, I even stood round the corner out of sight for a few seconds
to hear if they made any comments to each other about me, and they did! And
they said I was good! I practically bounded down the stairs like a slinky on
illegal steroids. In fact I think I bounded all the way back to London.
Guildhall had been a blip, of course. A taster, dipping my feet in the water,
if you like. Even though I wasn’t a massive fan of the place on my first visit,
I was still sure to get a recall at Bristol, they even told me I was good!
But alas, no. A few days later,
an email. A rejection. My relentless optimism had once again let me down, and
my selective memory had joined in on the act, choosing to omit some rather
questionable details of my actual performance and focusing rather more than was
necessary on a quick comment by one of the auditioners and my Stephen Fry-esque
delivery of “A Christmas Carol”. And here I found myself, in mid-November, with
one-third of all my auditions already under my belt, all of which had resulted
in total failure. I had a 100% failure rate. Pure, unadultered, anti-success.
That’s worse than my catch rate as a fielder in cricket matches, and believe
me: I’m terrible at cricket. But then again, two auditions were hardly enough
to base statistics around, especially as they were my first two. I mean, surely
I’d do better at LAMDA, wouldn’t I? We’re practically neighbours, after all...
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