The Curse of the Chipbelly

Witch has another illness to add to the list, having suffered profusely at its menacing hands on Saturday...

Chipbelly.



Well, I'll call it Chipbelly, but it's really a blanket term for having eaten too much before a show. It's most common on a matinee day, but can occur at any time.

The conditions have to be right, of course. At Grease or Mamma Mia for example, with their strict back-to-back regimes, it just wouldn't happen. The turn around between performances is so quick that after the matinee you find yourself getting out of costume to the tune of Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your half-hour call...

Harsh.

And no time to stuff anything more down than a couple of biscuits.

Another contending factor is the choreography. Attempting a Chipbelly in a piece by Rob Ashford or Gillian Lynn would be foolhardy. You'd simply be sick. Trust me, I've tried it.

The final hurdle is your costume. A major hindrance to the cultivation of the perfect Chipbelly. Anything involving whalebone is a no-no, as are hooks and eyes or any sort of corsetry. Lycra is definitely out.

No, what you need is a show with not too much choreography, with nicely loose-fitting costumes and about an hour in between the matinee and evening...

In other words, Sister Act.

On Saturday, the girls in my dressing room and I decided to go for fish and chips. We had been planning it since Wednesday and were really looking forward to it. Oddly, half of the building seemed to have the same idea, and the queue outside the chippy looked like the turnout for an open audition at Pineapple.

We thought we'd be conservative, sharing chips and ordering small portions. No need to overdo it. We still had another show to do, after all. Best not be greedy...

By five to seven not a chip was left, no morsel of batter could be seen and five pots of mushy peas had been licked clean. We looked at each other nervously.

"I feel alright," said Jennie cautiously, as if she couldn't believe it.

"Me too," said Helen, a little over-confidently. There was an air of doom hanging over us. We sat in silence for five minutes, hoping to escape the inevitable...

And then it came.

The half was called. I tried to move, but it was as if Derren Brown himself had bound me to the chair with the power of his mind. Nothing happened. I tried again, managing to unseat only my left buttock as my right one remained rooted to the chair. I heard a little whimper from the other side of the room.

"Oh...God..." said Helen. "Spoke...too...soon."

Gradually, with much sighing and grunting, we started to get ready for the second show. Poppers and zips were groaning under the weight of our stomachs. Mutterings of "Never again" and "Whose idea was it to get fish and chips" floated around the dressing room. This did not bode well.

It seemed we were not alone. I passed Tom Goodridge in the corridor, clearly anything but ready to go onstage, his eyes rolling back into his lolling head as he grasped the wall.

"Two...jumbo...sausages..." was all he could muster by way of explanation.

It appeared that most people had succumbed to the lure of Chipbelly. At any given point during the show I could virtually guarantee there would be a nun, somewhere on the stage, taking advantage of a moment facing the back to blow her cheeks out exhaustedly and try to gain momentum again. The dance numbers felt as if we were wading through curry sauce. Getting a big enough breath to sing was a chore. Even bending over to put a pair of tights on was a struggle.

Suffice to say, tomorrow I'll be having a sandwich...