A Visit From The Mail: Petronella Wyatt Versus West End Witch

Oh dear. I was afraid of this...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1220716/Holy-fishnets-My-night-naughty-nun-Sister-Act.html

A few weeks ago, the cast was rounded up after warm-up to be informed that Petronella Wyatt from the Daily Mail would be at the theatre the following day. In a stunt organised by our keen-witted publicity department, she was to come and do a "Day in the Life" piece about Sister Act. Alarm bells were already ringing, but we were assured it would be a sympathetic report designed to promote the show. Any publicity, and all that.

Now, I'm all for a bit of artistic license. Where's a good story, without a bit of embellishment? Heaven knows I'm always tarting up reality for the sake of a cheap laugh. But what I read this morning was so far removed from the truth that I simply couldn't resist setting a few facts straight...

Everything is just how I imagined it. Someone is plonking at a piano and two girls in hotpants, who are auditioning to be nuns, are hoofing on the stage.
Choreographer Ben Clare tells them: 'Great. Thanks. You can join in two weeks.' Talk about fast-tracking holy vows.

Who are these mysterious hotpant-ed girls? Why are they the only people in the whole of showbiz to turn up? And how have they managed to bag a top West End gig without so much as a second audition? Witch herself had to endure six auditions for Sister Act, including a hideous two-and-a-half hour dance call involving improvisation (shudder) and a terrifying singing final onstage at the Shaftsbury in front of Alan Menken and fifty equally scary people. Far be it from me to cast aspersions on our dance captain Ben, but I'm not sure he has all the hire-and-fire power she is suggesting...

Emma introduces me to the gathering by saying: 'As you know, this is Petronella from the Daily Mail who will be in the show tonight.'
There follows the sort of silence that there used to be in court rooms before
hanging judges would pronounce sentence.

If my memory serves me correctly, we all welcomed her warmly whilst she stared blankly around the stage, saying nothing.

We rehearse the scenes in which I appear, including the finale of Act One.

We rehearse the scenes in which Petronella appears, not including the finale of Act One, which took us six weeks to learn and perfect and would be impossible for even the most accomplished performer to grasp in twenty minutes.

We sing Raise Your Voice and Take Me To Heaven.

We sing Raise Your Voice and Take Me To Heaven; Petronella does not.

Time's winged chariot hurries by. Suddenly I am a nun eating dinner with the other nuns as the set becomes the convent. Then Deloris is teaching us how to sing and, as if only five minutes have passed, the first act is over.

I don't know what show Petronella was doing that night, but it certainly wasn't the one I was doing. She comes onstage twice — sitting at a bar in the background of the first scene, and revolving on with the nuns to sing a few out-of-tune lines of Latin for about thirty seconds.

Behind the slider, I say to her, "Are you alright? Excited?" Petronella stares at me vacantly and says nothing. Another nun jokes, "Have you learnt your lines?" Petronella stares at her vacantly and says nothing.

The thing I find so unbelievable irritating about all of this (aside from the fact that none of it actually happened), is the way in which she has made it all sound such a breeze. Any soggy old journalist with theatrical aspirations can just walk into a theatre, have half a day's rehearsal and perfectly execute what in actual fact takes months of hard graft, sweat and injury.

As for all the costumes being from "Primark or the cast's own", well... yes, you've got me there, Petronella. Fortunately all seventeen nuns happened to have identical white-sequined habits lurking in their wardrobes at home and the black ones were bought job lot from Oxford Street.

I can't comment on Sheila Hancock's "basilisk stare" because I wasn't there, but I can only assume it was:

a. Deserved

or

b. Imagined.

All too soon we reach the finale. We wave and laugh and sing Spread The Love Around. Suddenly, I have a lump in my throat.
The curtain goes down and the audience roars. Even if I have not, the audience has performed beautifully. Behind the curtain, my fellow nuns and I embrace. Tears spring to my eyes as the audience claps wildly.

When Act II arives, we are informed that Petronella has a prior engagement and will not be appearing in her other rehearsed scene. In fact, she has already left the building.

Funny Habits

What is it about wearing a habit that makes normal, everyday actions suddenly hilarious? Anything from using a cellphone to eating sandwiches was sending people into fits of laughter on Saturday, as we all donned our wimples for the first time to film what essentially was a "nun pop video".

Hmmn... Less Rock the Casbah and more Rock the Cassock.

I noticed that the general rule seemed to be the more nuns, the funnier. The second a couple of nuns discovered the comedy potential of the habit, it was inevitable that the silly walks and showgirl dancing would kick off (literally), followed by headbanging and air-guitar as the entire group joined in.

Instant comedy. I prescribe it for any struggling stand-ups out there. Get yourself a habit. No, not a coke habit. I mean a full-length, heavy black cloth robe, complete with headdress, white collar and rosary belt. Although you'll have a job finding one. You can't buy a habit, apparently. Nuns make their own as part of their training.

Anyway, it was a lovely day, but more on that tomorrow, chickens - Witch has got to go home and ice the bits that hurt (I've hired the freezer department at Tesco to go sit in for a couple of hours) - but in the meantime, here are a couple of pics for you from Saturday's filming sesh at Hospital...













The first one is "Does this habit bring out the colour of my eyes?" - nun fashion tips. The second photo is less obvious, but there's clearly one nun who doesn't trust the cameramen and is intent on filming the action herself. Check her out in the corner. My personal fave...

Habit Forming

Got fitted for my habit yesterday. I didn't try the wimple thing on, but the dress was enough to bring me out in cold sweats.

I can't believe that women choose to wear these things. I suggested to the costume supervisor that mine could do with a few pearls and a lower neckline, but she wasn't having it.

"The idea of the habit is that it strips you of everything other than your bare self; leaving you free to devote your soul to serving God," she said, clearly amused at my panic.
"I know, but a few sequins wouldn't go amiss," I said. "God wouldn't mind that, would he?"

I cheered up a little when they added the collar. Better light reflection on the jawline. And I've got a rosary belt, so at least I can cinch it in a little bit on the sly.

I didn't realise how vain I was.

A Question of Faith...

Right. This is a tough one. Witch has been asked, as part of her Sister Act homework, to formulate a couple of questions to be forwarded to real life nuns. Hmmn.....

Thanks, by the way, for all your lovely Tweety suggestions - notably from Claire, who suggested asking if there's such a thing as standard issue nun underwear. Silly, maybe, but no less valid. Got me thinking. Where do nuns buy their knickers from? I can't quite picture Sister Mary-So-and-So cruising down the aisles of Marks and Spencer, or furtively fingering frillies at the back of La Senza.

Maybe there's a nun catalogue. Habits Direct, or similar. Although I can't imagine there would be much choice.  Available from sizes 6-20 in all shades of black.

Anyway, spurred on by bra-and-panty curiosity (every hue and shade of wrong, I agree), I began to think of questions I would like to ask a nun. It got off to a feeble start. After ten minutes, I had a paltry list of gimcrack ideas, all show and little substance. It was as if I was trying to ingratiate myself with or somehow impress these women; women I had never met, had nothing in common with and would almost certainly never identify with.

And then it struck me. Clean and quick, like the thunderbolt to the sinner. Hence my first question:

Why?

What makes someone become a nun?

It all just seems a bit, well... a bit silly, really. Why the hell (pardon the pun) would you give up your home, family, worldly possessions et al - to go and live a life of seclusion with a bunch of people you had never met? It's an issue of faith, sure, but is it really that helpful? I'd genuinely be interested to know.

I know they call it "the calling", but it would have to be a call louder than Streisand through a megaphone to get me anywhere near a convent. The idea seems utterly alien to me. I'd be pushed to get by without even my GHDs, let alone all my back catalogue of beauty products... Dr. Haushka... Clinique... Immac...

Speaking of Immac, I wonder what the church's official stance is on nun hair removal? Hang on, I think I've got my next question.