I'm primed and will find my mark...

Mike said "you need a high waisted pencil skirt - grey if you can find it" so I did. I did it! Under duress from the amazingly talented designer for my new play DESIRE (13-31 July at The White Bear, London - box office: 020 7793 9193 - please come and see it or I will strike you from my FB!) I had to go to... Primark for the very first time.

I went early on Tuesday (they open at 8:30) before rehearsal. It was almost deserted, but even at this hour it had a few die hards getting in a bit of shopping therapy before going to work... Now, I don't usually go shopping for clothes. I'm like one of those poor souls on Gok's Fashion Fix. Shops scare and confuse me. They make my head spin. I walk in and get spat out again like someone who's put too much momentum going through revolving doors. I don't understand for the life of me how anyone can call it shopping therapy...

So imagine my surprise when I walked into Primark and made a bee line for their "tailored corner" and immediately found a rack with grey dresses, matching jackets, trousers and of course... the coveted high waisted pencil skirt... in grey! And I'll share something rather spooky with you: it looked exactly the way it did in my head. Imagine that! I'm on the same existential plane as Primark. I'll say that for Primark, their prices may be low but their designs are anything but cheap. They're very very good and in fashion parlance (gleaned from the rather shrieky but very funny blonde American designer on  Gok's Fashion Fix) "on trend".

But there's more... Wait for it...

I did not reach for the size 14 or even size 12... I am getting better, aren't I? I grabbed a size 10, and then almost as an afterthought spotted a lonely size 8 and grabbed that too, just in case. Off to the changing rooms.

The Primark changing rooms could teach the more expensive high street stores a thing or two. They are a thing of beauty: clean, spacious, with good mirrors and lighting.

And in the privacy of my Primark Tardis (you'll only get the reference if you saw my one woman show "There's Something in the Fridge..." - see, better book your tickets to my new play otherwise you'll miss out on all the witty references that I'll be peppering this blog with. Book now! 020 7793 9193.) I tried on size 10 - without any sense of apprehension. I am doing better! And it was too big! Not by much but definitely not fitted the way a pencil skirt should be. So I tried size 8: and bingo!!! It looked f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c.

So there you have it, my first amazing shopping experience - since that purple tartan mini-kilt I bought in Edinburgh - was sponsored by Primark! (there's another reference to the one woman show... if you're curious go and read my 2008 Edinburgh Fringe blog "Notes from the Fridge...")

Now, I could include a picture of me in the Primark grey pencil skirt (about £12) and the rest of my delightfully sexy and tight fitting costume but... I won't.  If you want to see it, you'll have to come and see the play. The details, one more time in case you weren't paying attention: DESIRE, 13-31 July, The White Bear Theatre, London, Box office: 020 7793 9193.

Filled with Desire!

Last Wednesday we had our first rehearsal for Desire, a play which will have its UK Premiere in London this summer. It's by a celebrated Catalunian (as in from Barcelona, Catalunia, Spain) playwright and scriptwriter called Josep Maria Benet i Jornet who has just being honoured with a life achievement award by his government.  It'll be on at the White Bear (Kennington, South London) from July 13th-31st, and you're all invited...

First rehearsals are always unnerving. Will I find the character? Will the Director like what I'm doing. How will I get on with the rest of the cast. Can I do it? Will I pull it off? Will I enjoy it? Will the audience enjoy it? Can we do the play justice?

I find characters fall broadly into two categories: the angels and the demons. The angels are the ones that fill me with positivity and who teach me new things and whose presence I try to hold on to after the production is finished. I can never tell an angel ahead of time, they've included a simple scullery maid, a paranoid schizophrenic, a provincial prostitute, and an overweight Midwestern matron. The demons are the ones who suck the life force out of me and who bring out my worst qualities and play off my weaknesses. They can take me several weeks to recover. They are often characters that I'm initially attracted to but who turn out to be rather demanding tenants. They include an adulteress who murders her husband, a young peasant who wants a child, an addict, a widow in mourning, and a City banker (no surprises there!)

Characters have a way of weaving themselves into me. Apparently my entire demeanor and behaviour shifts slightly when I work on a new piece. I become slightly "other". If the character is older than me, I find that my skin will dry up. If the character is unhappy, I find it hard to resist grazing on food all day. Some characters make me want to smoke, or to drink. Some make me sleep like a baby, others give me nightmares or nightsweats. Some make me want to dress up feminine, paint my mails, be sexy and playful. Others make me want to be alone. Some make me want to cry - constantly.

This new character I'm playing is called "The Woman". (None of the 4 characters have proper names.) I haven't made my mind up about her yet. She's a romantic, she's passionate, she's a bit of an obsessive... angel or demon?

Watch this space...

Move over Eve, it's all about Me!

I had my very first stage audition for a big play last Thursday, for a role of understudy. I love my agent! It was for a well known play, with an A list cast, in a big theatre in the West End (London's Broadway), for a proper 12 week run. The understudy role was to cover the two smallest female parts in the play and required a General American accent.

I had one and a half days to prepare for the audition...

I worked very hard... on character development, and my British accent still isn't completely back... but unfortunately, (whisper) I don't think that I got the gig.

Now. The Rule - as everyone will tell you - The Rule is that you prepare for the audition as best you can in the time you have, you do the audition as best you can, and then you forget all about it. If you hear back  - great! - it usually means you've got the part or at least a recall. If you don't hear back it usually means that you didn't get the part.

If you didn't get the part, everybody knows that you shouldn't take it to mean that you were bad or totally crap or just not as good as someone else because that is probably not the case. All manner of factors come into play when they make their choice: your size, colouring  and presence relative to the rest of the cast etc...

But the child in me thought:  it's an understudy role for the two smallest parts, and requires an American accent (to be judged by a British director/producer) so how many people could possibly be up for the part? Me and one other? That's a 50% chance of getting it! Me and two others? That's still 33.33% chance!

I don't know how many people they auditioned. Maybe 100. I thought I did ok (even though I started walking out half way through the audition because there was a lull and I thought I heard them say "we'll call you" but actually I'd misheard the assistant director's Welsh (I think) accent...) but the play opens in late May and surely they should be getting back to people soon?

I auditioned with the assistant producer and assistant director, both really nice and very friendly and future heavy hitters (it really is a huge production). They will need to run all their choices past the producer and the director and they were auditioning understudies for all the parts on Thursday, so maybe it's taking them a while to process things. And I've got a hunch that the smallest of the understudy parts was not at the top of their list. Or maybe (and this has just occurred to me) some key decision makers were stuck abroad because of the volcanic ash cloud and so the whole process has been delayed...

The truth is, I don't know. Anything. But with every day that goes by I'm more and more confident that I didn't get the gig.

Also, both parts are described by the playwright as "overweight/biggish women" and if that's what they were looking for, well that's just not me. Not even on a fat day. (Hey, there's always a silver lining!)

But let's not dwell on that (the not getting the part bit, not the part about not being overweight even on a fat day... I'm gonna dwell on that all day and use it as an excuse to have one of those delicious coconut macaroon from Apostrophe - or as I like to call it Apostrophee.)

The good news is that I'm going to be in a play in July at the White Bear in Kennington (South London). It's the UK premiere of Desire, a play by Josep Maria Benet I Jornet (an award winning Catalunian playwright who is about to receive a lifetime achievement award from his country- he's like Lorca, but alive) and it's a good meaty part and you can read all about it on my website: www.isabellegregson.com/desire.html

So onwards and upwards. It's not over until the fat girl sings!!