They say it will be alright on the night, however...

‘I feel like Birnam Wood’, I mutter to K.

We exchange a glance.

We’re getting towards the end of Act 1 and I have just been asked to be a tree. So far, I have given the (thankfully empty) auditorium my Lucy Locket, and my Lady Brute, but surely this has to be the pinnacle, for there I am, standing on the stage of the Georgian Theatre, holding a green painted flat.

Through a combination of circumstances, I haven’t managed to get to either of the earlier rehearsals, so this is my only chance to go through it before we perform to the paying public. As it’s a rehearsed reading, thankfully we’re still on the book.

It’s getting on for 2.00pm, and we’re still in the first Act. When we get to Act 2, we don’t even manage a full run, and so no one has an accurate timing for the piece. This is to prove just a bit of a problem.

Once the performance begins, it feels like it’s actually going pretty well. Our excerpt from the Beggar’s Opera gets a round of applause, and the audience seem to be laughing in the right places. After the interval, I begin Act 2 sitting in the pit, and chatting to the audience before we start, they seem to be enjoying it.

During the interval, K has reminded the director that she has to leave at 5 to catch a train. No one is worried, as we’re sure to be finished by then.

By 10 to 5, however, we’re only about two thirds of the way through Act 2. K’s biggest scene is coming up. She’s playing Dora Jordan, famous 18th century actress, and as she goes through the scene where Dora auditions for the actor-manager, the director leans across to me, and whispers ‘will you take over the part of ‘Fanny’, so that K can get away’. I look a little blank as I was supposed to play opposite K in this scene. I read down the page, and realise that it’s supposed to be ‘Dora Jordan as ‘Fanny’’.

About a minute later, Dora No1 leaves the stage, and Dora No2 (me) moves forward. This clearly confuses the actor playing opposite me, who no one has been able to explain this to, but we carry on.

I continue to skim down the page, through a piece that we hadn’t gone over earlier, and I reach the point where it says ‘Dora sings’.
‘Oh S**t!’

As I neither know the song, nor have much of a singing voice, I have to improvise with a few trills and ‘la la la’s’. Thankfully at that point there’s supposed to be jeers and hissing from the other actors! Somehow, we carry on to the end of the play.

Afterwards the audience are very kind, even complementary, but I can’t believe that they didn’t wonder what the heck was going on!