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.

An Observation

Sometimes, in the rehearsal room, it can get a little bit...well, a bit dreary. Not that what I'm doing isn't completely, all-consumingly, exciting - or even challenging and involved - it's all of those things. Just occasionally, however, there can be a bit of hanging around. The director or choreographer may get ensconsed in something over the other side of the room - some fiddly piece of traffic, fixing an armline, or maybe even an internal conflict between creative departments.

It can be hard to stay focused fifteen minutes before lunch when you're starving and need the loo. Four o'clock is never a good time, either. If the cast was all pumped up and running scenes and numbers, it would be fine. But a few minutes' hiatus from the main action can be deadly. Even the cleverest of choreographers have fallen prey to the curse of the mid-afternoon lull.

The secret is simple: there's a maximum amount of time a group of performers can be left unattended before they lose interest, and once that point has been passed, there's very little chance of clawing back a return. It doesn't generate productivity.

What it does create, however, is the perfect opportunity for a tired turn to sneak a little sit-down. Of course, it's not without complications. There's an automatic check list to run through in one's head before taking action:

1. How guilty do I feel about not using the time productively? Would a little rest be more beneficial to me than running through that difficult bit of the routine I keep getting wrong?

Invariably rest wins over extra practice. Which brings us to:

2. How long is the choreographer's attention going to stay diverted? Seven minutes? Or a few seconds? Is it worth the bother? There's no point collapsing in a heap only to be called up again immediately.

3. Sussing out the best spot to sit. Usually, the only place is the floor. Occasionally there might be an unused chair onstage, or the edge of a flight case lurking near the sound desk, but these are only worth it if getting to them is inconspicuous. Moving away to find a seat will draw attention and could remind the choreographer to get everyone back to work. No. It needs to be subtle. The best way is to sink slowly to the floor without changing location.

It's amazing how quickly people will follow suit. I tried it today with the express purpose of seeing how long it took the rest of the cast to succumb to the luxury of a few moments' rest - even on a dirty floor.

I counted thirty seconds.

That's not long for the twelve or thirteen people in the rehearsal to be off their feet. (Lipstick says she can beat that with the same amount of people down in twenty-two seconds. We set each other little challenges sometimes.)

It's as predictable as well-placed dominoes, how quickly they all go down. There must be a subconscious comfort in knowing that someone else has already started the mutiny. The knowledge that by adding yourself to the growing number of sitters, you can only increase the safety.

As Lipstick always says,

"When one goes, they all go."