The following blogs will be a series of memoirs on three theatre shows I did in Aberdeen.  The shows, while not among my best work, have great personal significance for me.  

 

Although I am now also a performance poet theatre has been and will remain an important part of my life.  There are times when I rail against ever having gotten involved in it, and I regret sometimes not taking other more profitable paths in life.  I also fear failure and disillusion, like a lot of actors.  These instant fame shows like "Britain's Got Talent" are an absolute joke to my mind, and the supposed glamour that surrounds what we do disguises the banal reality of our business. 

 

And yet, for all it's flaws and mine, I don't think I'd be happier doing anything else.

 

Please note that these memoirs will be an exploration of the creation of the shows themselves, as well as any issues (Asperger's Syndrome-related) I had in connection to them.  They are not vehicles for gossip or slander against any groups or individuals and everybody I came into contact with will be represented as accuratedly and as truthfully as possible.  Discussion on individuals will be kept to a minimum.  I have to make this clear so no misunderstandings ensue.   

 

The three shows looked at will be the following:

 

Texaco Theatre School "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - it was this show that got me into doing theatre virtually full-time.

 

Aberdeen Student Show "The Codfaither" - this was the show after which I first learned I had Asperger's Syndrome.

 

GRW Enterprises "The Glory of Gothenburg" - I got my Equity Card off the back of this show.

 

TEXACO THEATRE SCHOOL (1996)

 

Prologue

 

I first came to do theatre via the Aberdeen Gang Show after I saw a poster on the wall with an advert for the show entitled:

 

Aberdeen Gang Show

This year's theme will be:

MOVIES

 

It was 1992 and I was ten years old.  My social life at this point didn't consist of much beyond sitting at home watching films.  I didn't have many close friends at school and found it hard to adapt to the social mores and habits so easily adopted by my peers.  I was quite often ridiculed and alienated by my fellow schoolmates on the odd occasion I dared to venture out.  Doing Gang Show was my first step towards changing this.  

 

I did the Gang Show for a couple of years and, although my social difficulties remained, I really enjoyed it and returned the following year.  In 1994, I won my first trophy for doing a theatre show and this was the Scout Achievement Award.  In 1995, my mother enlisted us in a speech and drama school, where I learned up poetry and dramatic pieces and sat exams on them.  The school's advisor was an gentle old lady called Annie Inglis and she helped school me in my poetry-reading and helped prepare my pieces.  I sat an exam that year.  Unfortunately I didn't do as well as I had hoped and I stormed away in a huff.  My mother persuaded me to return the following year.  On walking through the door, Annie greeted me with "Oh it's you, dear.  We've missed you."  Not long after I returned, Annie invited me to take part in this show she was doing with a summer school called Texaco Theatre School.  The show was the William Shakespeare play "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

 

"A Midsummer Night's Dream"

 

I arrived at Linksfield Academy with my parents for the school's induction.  Linksfield Academy was a concrete, modern school building off Aberdeen's King Street over the road from Aberdeen University campus.  My dad drove me into the car park and we met Annie in the lobby sitting in a table beside the canteen.  She took my name and registered me and passed me over to her assistant.  He led me through the school to the multi-purpose hall, where a number of other kids were going over a musical number.

 

There were to be two shows done by the summer school that year: one was "The Dream", as Annie called the Shakespeare play, and the other was a musical called "The Boyfriend".  In the hall, I spotted a small older girl with short black hair and a tracksuit on a piano and a number of the other kids surrounded the piano and the older girl was teaching them how to sing a song from "The Boyfriend".  This threw me a little bit, along with my usual fear of new circumstances, and I hung around the doorway to the hall.  I was interested in my new environment but terrified of it, even though the situation was not unfamiliar.

 

The girl on the piano spotted me lingering.  "Are you alright?" she asked. "Yeah," I said "I think I'm meant to be in the other show." By that, I meant "The Dream", but I didn't say as much at the time.  The girl just said "Oh alright, then" and carried on playing the piano.  I eventually settled in and set down, but I didn't say much. 

 

So that was my induction into Texaco Theatre School.  Mixing and integrating with the kids there took a little bit of time.  I was cast in the role of Demetrius, one of the lovers in the play.  It was a straight role with a little comedy thrown in and it was good to learn.  Unlike some of the others in "The Dream", I did not take part in "The Boyfriend".  

 

Annie directed "A Midsummer Night's Dream" but left "The Boyfriend" to other people.  In the process of rehearsals, she introduced me to Scott Christie, her right-hand man and assistant director.  I didn't know this at the time, but at some point early on, Annie pulled Scott aside and asked him to keep an eye on me.  When Scott asked the reason, Annie simply told him "It's medical".  Although Scott never treated me different from the rest of the cast, he was always on hand to provide some strong moral support when I needed it and I gleaned much from this, as well as his acute sense of theatre discipline. 

 

Annie had drilled her supporting staff well, and they had absorbed her strong attention to detail when directing scenes.  On one occasion, I learned that the emphasis of a line can dramatically change it's meaning.  One of my lines in the show was "I love thee not, therefore pursue me not".  I originally said this "I love thee NOT, therefore pursue me NOT".  This was clumsy and did not not quite communicate what Demetrius was trying to say.  Another way was suggested "I LOVE thee not, therefore PURSUE me not" and this was much better. 

 

The shows were double-cast with two performers taking a role each.  I was one of the few performers in only one show, and I was the only one playing my part.  As a rule, I always learned my lines as soon as I got the script.  It made taking direction easier, and it was quicker to adapt to cuts and changes if you didn't have your head in the book.  So under Annie's direction, I started to enjoy playing the role of Demetrius and knew my part inside-out by the time we hit the stage.

However, Theatre School was called Theatre School for a reason, so as well as the shows the school ran classes on all aspects of theatre including voice production, assertiveness and stage management.  Linksfield Academy was abuzz with activity as we hopped between floors on the way to and from class.  

 

My AS (though I'd no idea what that was then) still got in the way a lot of the time socialising.  I found it hard to maintain conversations and friendships.  I could be naive, stuck-up and rude.  This, along my other AS traits like meltdowns and talking to myself, naturally left me open to ridicule.  I also had a lot unreciprocated attraction to members of the opposite sex.  My foolish over-forwardness with girls is something that still bothers me today.  Their message to me seemed to be "I LOVE thee not, therefore PURSUE me not."  When I talked about this to Annie, she simply told me "You're just trying too hard, dear."  And yet despite my problems, I found a deep connection and sense of belonging with the others that I had never really felt before.

There were students in Theatre School from all across Aberdeen and we all had our own difficulties and idiosyncracies.  Yet the one thing we all shared in common was an intense sensitivity that came from being creative and talented.  There being so many such young people together in one place created at times a warm atmosphere that I felt really at home in.  At times, I could just be among them, not say much, and still enjoy their company.

 

The reason we all managed to work together so well was because of Annie.  Annie was a very firm but also understanding woman who knew how to get the best from her charges.  In rehearsals, she could hone in on a person's particular strengths, and she'd know to bring them out.  She found a way to do this without being demonstrative.

 

Theatre School when we did it took place in the days before all these talent shows took off on television, but I tell you not once was Theatre School thought of as a Fame school.  There were people like myself who wanted to act professionally and went on to do so, but Annie was clear to all of us about the realities of the profession and the difficulties in finding employment.  For Annie and the rest of us, Theatre School was all about the work and the joys of doing theatre.

     
In this, Theatre School could be hard sometimes and invariably tempers got frayed and people went at loggerheads with each other from time to time.  But nevertheless, these were still happy times for me and most of us who went there.

 

When "The Boyfriend" went onstage, I remember walking into the Aberdeen Arts Centre to watch a performance.  I had done the Gang Show in the Arts Centre and my last show in there had been three years before Theatre School.  I struck by how much the place had shrunk.  When I did the Gang Show, the auditorium was massive.  Not anymore.

 

When "The Dream" came to the stage, we were hit with a number of problems caused by the stresses on some performers from doing two shows.  One or two of them playing principal characters in both shows didn't know their lines for "The Dream".  It made things slightly unsteady, especially during big scenes where there was a lot of dialogue.  One of the actors playing Lysander (Demetrius' rival) lost the thread during the lover's fight scene and we all stood there silent for a few moments as none of us knew how to carry on the scene.  Eventually the audience sussed what was happening and started laughing at us.  Then Lysander walked off the stage, got his cue from the stagehands, then stormed back on again spouting his lines, getting a massive round of applause.

 

Despite these hitches, though, it was still a good show and the atmosphere and camaraderie between the cast was unsullied.  We finished the show on a high, taking each others and promising to keep in touch. 

 

Sometime after finishing Theatre School, I heard Belinda Carlisle singing

 

"Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth?

 Ooh, heaven is a place on earth"

 

I know that's sickly, but for me that song had nailed it.  I had found where I belonged in life, as well as something I could do and something that uniquely appealed to me.  There was a discipline and structure to theatrical life, but within that you could be what you were on-stage and no-one would judge you for it.  This was to be the start of a long journey. 

  

AFTERMATH

 

Once Theatre School was over, I knocked in my last Gang Show and then a school pantomime.  I got involved with many other theatre companies around Aberdeen: Giz-Giz, AYMT, Attic Theatre, often doing four or five shows a year.  My biggest influence on me, though, was something I saw only a year after.

 

At His Majesty's Theatre in April 2007, my parents and I went to see a show called "Scaffie Society" by Aberdeen Student Show.  Scott Christie, Annie's assistant, was in the show.  The show was a mix of topical and local humour, as well as send-ups of popular songs.  The performance we saw was on the day after the 1997 General Election.  I remember, 'cos there were gags about it in the show.

 

Although even then I was set on doing drama as a career, my parents had counselled me to get a degree "to have something to fall back on".  Very well, I thought, if I'm gonna do university, I'm gonna do Student Show.  Scott had used his experiences in Student Show, where he was an assistant director and principal actor, as preparation for his own professional acting career.  I conceived of following in his footsteps and doing the same thing.

 

Student Show did indeed prepare me for a professional acting career, though not in a way I had desired or expected...

 

Next up: "The Codfaither" (2001)