h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

People in my Society (particularly new members) often look through old programmes to get an idea what is expected. Some eschew the personal details, such as where they work or thanks to partners and children for putting up with their absence at rehearsals, concentrating on their previous roles that someone might (by some great coincidence) remember them from. If there have been a large number of roles they usually just mention how long they have been a member of the society, their favourite show, or one that they have won an award for.

Those suggestions aside, light-hearted and avoiding pomposity is the way I normally approach the task. In Scrooge my biog included something like "in his last principal role in Sweeney Todd [Pimms] attempted the tenor part of the Beadle and was justifiably murdered. Following on from this he now appears as someone already dead."

That's great. I have come up with the following, which isn't quite as much fun:

An all-singing, all-dancing librarian and Sunday School teacher, David is a newcomer to Canterbury Operatic Society, but no stranger to the theatre. Bitten by the acting bug during his Sixth Form years, he played the roles of Torvald in 'A Doll's House', Roger in 'Grease' and Herr Schultz in 'Cabaret' in quick succession and also had a brush with TV fame when his left-hand side appeared on the Channel 4 News. Since coming to Canterbury in 1997, he has performed in the chorus of various operas and musicals at the Gulbenkian, Marlowe and Stag theatres before joining Canterbury Operatic Society in 2005.

That reads well. Are you not going to mention your part in M&MG at all? "David has found learning to tap dance in this show an enjoyable challenge, but the hardest part has been keeping his monocle in for longer than a minute."

Sounds good to me

As an aside, our landlord is the assistant organist at Canterbury Cathedral!

You're obviously an old hand at this, Pimms...

Nice blurb!

Good biography, David. I'm glad you mentioned that you're a librarian. That sort of helps to dispel our stuffy image.

We're all making a concerted effort not to say 'X is delighted to be playing the role of Y in Z', so I didn't mention M&MG. I'll find some way to mention the monocle if I ever get to play a principal role in the future (and hence write another biog).

Hyp, mentioning the librarian thing was non-negotiable, precisely due to the stereotype-dispelling thing.

Fair enough, some programmes are full of that self-referential blurb.

I too shy away from the cringeworthy messages seen in programmes such as "x hopes you enjoy the show"

Friday 3rd February and Tuesday 7th February

More dancing mostly, which started with a moment that made me want to a little bit. 'The Sun Hs Got His Hat On' is being completely re-choreographed, due to apparently looking too busy and crowded from the front. The many hours (literally) that I spent practising at home were for naught. We re-did the first half of the number on the Friday, and most of my silly skipping is gone. There's also a segment where they just said "Do a silly dance". I have to make the silly dance up! I think I've worked out a sequence of hops and skips etc. that I can manage to do while singing the bit of the song that has no lyrics (i.e. I have to scat, which currently goes something like "Rub a dub a dub doop dah dum, skiddly-a-da-da-daa dee dum, zub-a-diddle doo-dah ha! ha! ha!, bee boo bee doo boo boo!"). The best bit is that I get to do that with a croquet mallet in hand, so I can have an Astaire-esque moment (no top hat, but I will probably have a deerstalker on).

Today the principals went through act one. The assistant director says that my projection is coming along nicely, so the audience ought to be able to hear my dialogue (phew) and my monocle is staying in place for quite a long time now. Not quite long enough in one scene, but I have time to practice! We then set the 'Family Solicitor' number, the one that we have such fun singing in harmony... It seems that all my skipping from 'Sun' has ended up in this number. It's terribly silly, and we pretty much did it all correctly by the end of the hour allotted for it. Well, we did all the movement correctly. I don't think the musical director was overly thrilled with the singing aspect, though...

This Friday should be the first time that we start running the first act with principals and chorus together. Should be interesting. I wonder how the chorus will react to our scenes and songs. Hopefully with much and and .

So your practise wasn't wasted - you still get to skip. I can imagine the Astaire moment with mallet and deerstalker I read that Conan Doyle never mentioned Holmes wearing a deerstalker in his stories, it was an invention of the illustrator, Sydney Paget > A2773415. An interesting fact to throw in when next wearing the apparel

Didn't realise there was any doubt about your projective ability. It was remarked on during Scrooge that many of the younger performers had no experience of projecting their voices. Since I've never had any difficulty I wouldn't know any tips on how to improve projection.

I was once very good at it, but it's such a long time since I've really needed to project (no speaking parts for nine years), and my character is generally a quiet one, so it has been a struggle.

I do still get to skip, but the tap dance practice may have been wasted.

There must be exercises for that sort of thing. David, you must be terribly conflicted about this. Do you shush yourself when you project?

Ok, getting my coat.

I like both your bio's, Pimms and David's. And that sounds terribly frustrating, for them to have torn apart the SHGHHO number after you'd spent so much time practising. Isn't this where you used the knee pads?

Ouch - that change of choreography is even more annoying than the one I had to endure the other week! I wish choreographers would realise that in order to get to a decent standard we normal people have to practice quite a lot - we can't just pick it up and change it day to day like professional dancers.

And I know what you mean about projection - when I did the Mikado I'd spent eight years performing in a small, 90-seat theatre. Suddenly I was expected to reach the back of a 400-seat theatre! I had to make my acting 'bigger' too, which was a little odd but not too much of a problem as the characters were all quite exaggerated anyway.

The knee pads are for a different number ('Thinking of No-One But Me'), thankfully - I'd have been a bit cross if I'd bought them unnecessarily! The choreographer was very nice about it. She hadn't really wanted to change the number, but it had become apparent that it had to be changed. And she's well aware of how much I need to practice compared to all the twirly people in the show.

I can practice my projection skills when it gets noisy in the silent study areas - it's much more efficient to project one shush than do lots of individual shushes.

I did lots of practice for the 'Family Solicitor' number last night, getting my bobs and skips and so in in the right place while remembering to sing silly harmony lines. Thank goodness my housemate was out!

The weekend's rehearsals were for act one, involving the whole company (though, as always, some people were missing, some of which seem to be missing an awful lot). It was scary and exciting doing all the scenes with an audience for the first time, and my character was certainly appreciated by all. I was complimented on my 'perfect over-acting'. Thankfully, Gerald is supposed to be larger than life and it was a compliment. I think. Possibly.

Lots and lots of time spent on the blasted 'Lambeth Walk' yet again. If I know the routine now, surely everyone else should, given that I am one of the least dancy people in the company? Oh, well.

The funniest thing was the leading man saying that he should have auditioned for Gerald. He has finally realised what I've known all along - I get many of the 'laugh lines', and I can spend much of the show relaxing/stressing in the dressing room, whereas he has to work so very much harder. The joys of being a character actor, rather than a romantic lead...

I was recently co-opted onto the group's committee to cover for two people who had to drop out due to sickness (co-opted is another word for 'bullied') I think. In that capacity, I had to attend an audition for two new members after one of the rehearsals (they wouldn't be joining the show, as it's a little late for that, but they would be joining the group). One was great, one was . It was difficult to keep smiling and nodding politely, but I managed it.

I like watching auditions - though I get a bit nervous if it's someone I know!

I liked watching the good one, but the bad one was really, really bad. Worse than anything I've ever seen - even on these search for a star TV shows. Indescribable.

Never had to sit on an auditioning panel. Power responsibility