STUDENT SHOW (2001)

 

Prologue

 

On September 2000, I matriculated at Robert Gordon's University (RGU).  I had taken a degree in Publishing Studies and this was to last four years of my life.  I had given in to my parent's idea to go to university before attempting an acting career.  Although university studies would take up a lot of my time, I was not going to forget about my theatre in a hurry.

 

In the intervening years since Theatre School in 1996, I had acted with many amateur theatre companies in Aberdeen.  On most occasions, I got good quality leads or supporting roles and was good at playing comedy or, even better, villains.  However I had a weakness with lighter roles or spontaneity, as judged by a poor effort at playing the Comic during a season of panto.  My AS (which I was to find out about this year) played up on the social side of acting.  I was caught stripping on video camera at a party during one production and in panto, an onrunning rivalry with the actor playing the Dame saw me pull the Dame's wig off during a musical number.  It took a certain self-awareness before I could put an end to that kind of immaturity and I was to gain some of that self-awareness this year.

 

I had stayed good on my plan to follow my friend Scott Christie into Student Show after seeing him do it in 1997.  Scott by now had moved to London to further pursue his acting career.  Student Show was actually based at Aberdeen University, yet it was open to students from around Aberdeen.

 

This year was to be Student Show's 80th anniversary production.  Student Show had begun at the University in 1921 and was a part of the Aberdeen Student's Charities Campaign.  They staged one show every year at His Majesty's Theatre (HMT) and it sold out routinely.  It was the only show of it's kind in the UK and the only one in that really worked like a professional theatre company, with twelve-hour long rehearsal days over an intense three-week period leading up to the show.

 

It was also a well-established part of the Aberdeen amateur theatre community.  It had two associate companies also based at Aberdeen University, Treading the Boards and Gilbert and Sullivan, that both did musicals.  Quite a few people who did Student Show could be found in either of the other two groups.  All these groups held open auditions and were always welcome to new members.

 

The way Aberdeen theatre worked was that there were several big companies like Attic Theatre and Student Show who held open auditions and had large casts.  Current or former members from these bigger groups would sometimes band together and break away to put on their own shows.  Such smaller companies existed all over Aberdeen.  Among the splinter groups started through Student Show were Harlequin (now defunct), which did musicals, and Offside, which did straight plays.

 

Student Show was also the launching pad for "Scotland the What", an Aberdeen comedy trio in the Seventies and Eighties, who used the same combination of music and topical humour found in Student Show.  "Scotland the What" retired in 1995, but a successor group started up shortly after this - "Flying Pig Productions" and they've since become very popular.

 

I was aware of all this when I signed on to audition for "The Codfaither", the Student Show's 80th anniversary production.  By now, I had known a few of the people involved in Student Show and was determined to make a good impression on them.  I had conceived of Student Show preparing me for a professional career and the same way it had Scott Christie.  I thought successful run in Student Show and I could perhaps join one of their splinter groups and work with some really top people and this would be good preparation for whatever lay in store after university. 

 

I thought I was a good enough actor to make all of this happen, that my acting limitations and social faux pas (these had not gone unnoticed) didn't count, and it was with this mixture of naivete and arrogance that I went along to auditions.

 

They were held in Elphinstone Hall on Aberdeen University campus in April 2001.  I thought I did OK during the first round of auditions but alarm bells started ringing when I wasn't recalled and I sat stunned at the end of the auditions as the director read out the cast list and my name was not among the principal roles.

 

I walked away, winded.  Nevertheless, I decided to join some of the cast and the crew in the pub nearby for a pub quiz.  I tried to conceal my disappointment.  It wasn't really too harsh as I was still in the show as chorus.  Yet my self-esteem had taken a set-back although I wouldn't really feel the effects of this until a few weeks later when the show was over.

 

I had taken on a gamble with my studies getting involved in Student Show.  As it was based at Aberdeen University, rehearsals were scheduled in line with their student timetables.  The timetables were not the same as RGU where I was studying, so by getting involved I was taking three weeks off classes.  My tutors advised me against this, yet my studies, fortunately, were not overly affected.

 

Each Student Show was put together a year in advance of the production.  An administration team was assembled to bring the show together, and they chose the production team.  People who made up the production team had usually worked on Student Show in the past in other capacities, and the admin team was made up of current students, a number of whom took part in the show itself.

 

Over the preceding summer, current or ex-Student Show members would gather to make up the plot or storyline of the following year's show.  The completed plot was handed to the Script Editor.  The Script Editor then put out an open call for volunteer writers to join the script team.  On joining the script team, the writers were handed a character list and a scene-by-scene breakdown of the show's story.  In the months leading up to the show, the writers would work on a draft of a scene then read it out to the others at a weekly script team meeting.  All scene drafts were then submitted to the Editor, who drew material from each of them to make up the completed scenes.

 

Student Show had two primary elements: the local dialect and the topical humour.  The local dialect in Aberdeen was called the Doric, spoken by most native Aberdonians.  Popular phrases like "Fit like?" (How are you?) "Ah dinna ken" (I don't know) and "aul wifie" (old lady) popped up constantly in the dialogue.  The second element was the topical humour, which included riffs on recent events in Aberdeen, as well as local figures and celebrities.  Popular targets included Aberdeen City Council, Grampian Police and broadcaster Robbie Shepherd.  The riffs on Robbie Shepherd, in both Student Show and Flying Pig shows, later inspired me to do a university project on the real thing, including an interview with the man himself on RGU campus.

 

The script was revised throughout rehearsals to keep it as up-to-date as possible.  Riffs on popular films, plays and television shows were also thrown into the script.  The title itself is proof of that: "The Codfaither", a take on the Francis Ford Coppola movie.  The story for "The Codfaither" saw the EU, on a misunderstanding, ban 'battered fish' in the North East of Scotland.  A local gangster takes advantage, and starts selling battered fish and chips under the noses of Grampian Police force.   

 

The songs we had to sing in the show were parodies of well-known pop and theatre songs.  The music was the same but the lyrics were rewritten with an Aberdeen flavour and were connected with the characters and plot of the show.  Diana Ross, the musical "Bugsy Malone", and the song "Eye of the Tiger" were among what went under the Student Show hammer.

 

The skill in both writing and performing Student Show, was to take the two elements of the language and the humour and use it to create characters and from that the show itself.  It was a skill not easily mastered and I found, sadly, I did not have a natural instinct for it.

 

It was fascinating to work with, yet it was also the reason why I didn't properly fit into Student Show, at least to the extent that I had desired going into it.  If I'd given proper consideration to my actual stage skills, I probably would not have done Student Show or at the very most done just one, as opposed to the three I did do.

 

It took me a while to accept all this, but as rehearsals took off, I wasn't giving it much thought. 

 

Student Show was very intensive.  As well as the long rehearsals, cast members cruised the city's granite streets during the day flyering the public.  On weekends we hit the city's bars on pub crawls, which involved not just flyering the public but talking to them about the show.  Indeed, the people in charge of ticket sales came down hard on cast members to promote the show wherever they went.  At other points during the week, students were busloaded out to OAP residences all over Aberdeen for a quiet hour of comedy and sing-song with the city's senior citizens.  There were photo shoots for the Show's programme (called the Souvie)  at the sites of Student Show's sponsors, and in them we'd be wearing hoodies or T-shirts from the show.   

 

Rehearsals were done in Marischal College, which is a massive granite palace in the centre of the city on the Upper Kirkgate.  We worked in Mitchell Hall, the same place Aberdeen University used for it's graduation ceremonies, with a stage and dominating stained-glass window on the back-wall.  It was in here the production team drilled us daily in the song and dance routines.  The dancing was very frenetic and fast, and really exhausting, but it definitely made you fitter. 

 

At nights after rehearsals, we would head to a cast member's residence for a coffee party (or on Friday a drink's party) and a party game.  This would last a couple of hours each night.  Now I worked at my old high school, Harlaw Academy, as a cleaner during the day and I had started working early mornings to allow me to do Student Show.  This meant during weekdays, I was getting up at 5 in the morning and working from 6 til 8.  Two hours later I'd be in rehearsals and with the coffee parties I didn't get to bed until 1 in the morning.  I could handle this just fine, but then one morning I had to move tables and chairs out of classrooms for spring break.  I got into rehearsal, my limbs totally knackered, only to be told "Today you're doing a dance rehearsal".

 

The Harlaw connection came in handy.  I arranged for the cleaners to lend some mops to Student Show for use by the cast for the show's opening number and I met with the supplies manager at the school early one morning and he shipped them to Marischal College.

 

Writing about Student Show now brings back the sheer exhilaration of doing it.  Mostly, I managed to ignore my usual difficulties and get on with it.  I was connecting OK with the cast, although my usual sense of alienation and not being quite with it never really went away.  

 

After three weeks of being put through our paces, the show finally landed at His Majesty's Theatre.  As I settled down into my dressing room, I was buzzing.  This was my first time on-stage in the biggest theatre in town.  It just didn't get any better than this.

 

Before our tech and dress rehearsals, the cast were given a tour of the theatre.  His Majesty's Theatre had been going for nearly a century, and was two years shy of getting a complete refit and extension (this happened in 2003).  A stagehand showed us the upper balcony, the lighting rigs and also the back-stage areas.  He told us an interesting story: His Majesty's had a resident ghost. 

 

Jake, a stagehand working in the theatre decades ago, had a fatal accident working on-stage where a piece of rigging collapsed on him, taking his head off.  His head rolled off-stage and down the stairwell behind it and it was said Jake could be seen and sometimes heard in this stairwell.  The tale was believable to us superstitious actors and whenever we went down that stairwell, we all said "Hello Jake", to keep him happy.

 

Opening night was fantastic.  I remember queuing in anticaption in the wings, just before we went on and hearing the audience gathered in the auditorium. The scent of stage make-up and perfume, the nervy whispers as we got into position, and the curtain was raised and off we went.

 

It was an excellent show run and we got some great responses from the audiences.  Student Show was an Aberdeen institution and there was never any shortage of bums on seats.  The sight of the audience beyond the footlights stacked up to the rafters filled me with joy.  In a dance number we did to close the first half, the cast quickly stepped onto one foot then leapt in the air.  For that brief second I felt like I was flying through space, and boy, it felt good.

 

However, I wasn't flying for long and at the end of the show I crashed down to reality, hard.  The set-up was the end of show party in Marischal College.  I had been told this would last into the early morning, and so I bought a lot of alcohol to carry my through the night.  My bag was bursting with bottles of booze, but this over-intake of alcopoison was to be my downfall.

 

The first part of the night was actually OK.  There were sing-songs and jokes at the expense of the production team and some of the cast, and I was presented with an award for "Most Energetic Dancer".  I also witnessed a handover as the show's Administrator named his successor for the following year's show.  So far so good.  However, as the night dragged on, my weaknesses started creeping in.  I tried to dance with a girl, and I could hear mocking, beery laughter as I made an absolute fool of myself doing so.  I tried to dance with another girl, but the guy she was already dancing with objected and we very nearly had a fight.  I backed down, and slunk away humiliated.  I was soon so blind drink I could barely hold a conversation with anyone.  As I staggered round the building, the reality of what was happening dawned me and I began to cry.  I ended up seated down in the toilets, bawling my eyes out in an orgy of self-pity.  This was just another in a long run of similar humiliations, and I had long hoped I would somehow mature and be able to escape them. 

 

Some cast members pulled me out of the toilets and sobered me up enough to the point where I was able to walk home.  By now it was about 6am and it had been a long night for all concerned.  I walked up the city's Union Street alone.  The streets were deserted and the sun was breaking out, and I have to say the city looked very beautiful.  Small consolation as I got home and crawled into bed.

 

I woke up a few hours later, with so much alcohol in my blood, I wasn't hungover, I was still drunk.  Yet I knew the previous night's melodrama was down to more than just the drink.  I cornered my mother in the kitchen and screamed at her: "What the hell is wrong with me?  Why the hell can't I click with people?".  My mother had hinted at, but never explained my condition for years.  But now she finally broke down and explained: "It's Asperger's."

 

I had been diagnosed with the condition when I was sixteen, and my psychologist had told my parents, who had kept my condition from me for fear of labelling myself.  Yet now the truth had come out, and it felt like something of a relief.

 

My parents had been given a load of literature explaining Asperger's and it's exact nature.  When I read it all, I identified immediately with it.  I wasn't angry at my folks, but I wish I'd been told sooner.

 

Asperger's Syndrome (AS) was named after the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, who discovered the condition in 1944.  Asperger's Syndrome is an autistic spectrum disorder and sufferers often have inhibited social skills, intense absorption in a special interest and poor posture or prosody.  I had all of these characteristics so the name fitted me like a glove.

 

My problems didn't vanish overnight, but knowing I had a medical condition now meant I didn't try so hard in social situations and found it a lot easier to go along and be myself.  That party wasn't the last time I got drunk, but it meant the drunken humiliations which had been a habit up until then were stopped.

 

I rejoined the Students the following week for Torcher Parade and spent the rest of the year catching up with my studies.

 

AFTERMATH

 

Although I now knew had a condition, disclosing it to others was difficult and it would be a few years before I was able to talk about it with others and or seek out other people with the condition.  I deeply regret not telling my university about it, as they could have offered some career support after I graduated. 

 

An Asperger group I did find in Aberdeen were based in the Grampian Autistic Society (GAS).  They met at Pillar every once a week and after I left university I was a regular at these meetings before I came to London.

 

I talked to Annie Inglis and Scott Christie about both Student Show and my condition.  Annie said the show was good but "they could have used you more."  Scott disgreed, telling me "You had no divine right to a part and remember Student Show is a skill and maybe your skills didn't fit Student Show."  I think he had a point there.  Scott was aware I had gone into Student Show in an attempt to emulate him and when I came to London he cautioned me against doing the same thing there - "Make your own way", he insisted.   

 

I learned both of them were aware of my condition.  Annie had spotted it immediately in Theatre School and had advised Scott about it so he could watch out for us. 

 

The year after "Codfaither", I did shows with Treading the Boards and then Gilbert and Sullivan.  I knocked in two more Student Shows, on both chorus and the script team.  The second Show, "A Mid-Stocket Night's Scream",  was a lot of fun but I called it quits after my third, "An American in Powis".  I was tiring of the routine and I sensed I wasn't going to get any more of it than I had already gotten.  Combining it with studies was also becoming very demanding, and had started to do my head in.  More than that, I was wanting to do some more Shakespeare and straight theatre and develop my skills there.

 

I learned a lot from Student Show, apart from the fact I had Asperger's.  It toughened me up in a way it maybe wouldn't have done had things panned out the way I had expected.  The knowledge of my condition would serve me well in later years.  My aspiration become an actor remained undiminished. 

 

After I did my last Student Show and completed my third year at university, I was looking forward to a pretty barren summer.  Then, in May, a massive envelope dropped through my door. 

 

Inside was the script for a show: "Glory of Gothenburg".

 

Next up: "Glory of Gothenburg" (2003)