Angry, moi!?

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Bitter and Twisted

My agent dumped me.
Great. I mean I was going to get rid of him anyway, he had proved to be an utter waste of space on more than one occasion, but I talked to the Spotlight recently to remove another agency who had since become a casting director from my profile, and was told by them on this occasion that I now had no other representation. I was really surprised, then rang my agent to confront him with this for me so sudden news.
Him and I had only recently had a meeting which seemed to be going well. He appeared enthusiastic about my prospects and positive he would get me some work in the future.

He had only sent me to some really crappy castings in the 2 years I was on their "books", and one was even for a total joke of a reality show PILOT (not a C4 drama like he'd told me).
The plot was basically that a pretty girl (me) would entice some poor mug of a guy who had a girlfriend, to follow her into an appartment where sex would be on the cards. This of course would be a hidden-camera set-up designed to catch out his cheating heart and hard-on!
Upon having lured this poor moron into "my" appartment I would have to encourage him to get naked whilst I would go next door to change or whatever. Only the pretty girl would then fail to return, in her place some angry old couple would show up and laugh at the sad, naked git.
The footage would then be revealed to his horrified girlfriend, who would presumable have a miscarriage from the shock.

What a moronic idea!
Seriously, TV people get PAID for thinking up crap like that, and then they try to find enthusiastic dumb actors under the pretense of casting for a c4 comedy drama. Comedy? Drama? My arse!
Needless to say I flunked the "audition" and never got the "part"- Oh no!

So anyway, my agent was all happy to finally meet me, but told me I needed new pictures taken. I had planned this anyway but wasn't sure what hair colour I would chose to stick with.

I also asked him about his rather sketchy phone system and hoped he'd sort this out. Basically, if a casting director rings him they don't want to get an engaged signal, or wait ages for a very unprofessional-sounding answerphone (Hello, there's noone in to take your call, leave a message after the tone...) to click on, or some lady to just go: "Hello!?"...
Call Waiting and a basic ansaphone costs like one pound a month, surely this would sound better to casting professionals and actors?

Apparently for all his positive comments he didn't like me after all, because when I phoned him he told me my picture looked nothing like me and it was 10 years old. What a cheek! And coward! He could have told me straightaway it wasn't going to work out with us, but I bet he didn't like the fact I rumbled him. He suggested artists give him 50 quid for inclusion in a few more websites besides Spotlight, and I asked for the URLs so I could check them out before mailing a cheque. Glad I did now! What an arse...


EDINBURGH

Friday, August 19, 2005

Hey, is that a Haggis in your bag or are you just pleased to see me!?

I have been keeping myself busy with going to various random shows at the Fringe, especially the ones I can see for free with my pass, i.e. at the Underbelly and Baby Belly.
So yesterday I went off to see “Carey Marx-Marry Me”, a stand-up comedian whose mission it is to find a wife by the end of August.
I thought- why not, after all I am single and quite fancied the ring in the poster- but before I went I had to get some food down my rumbling belly, so I ran to the local chippie for a fried Haggis and chips- as you do. Bad Idea!
I mean I like Haggis, but the thing they put on top of my chips literally was the size of a sheep’s stomach and there was just no dignified way to eat the thing. Maybe you have to be born here or do a degree in St Andrew’s!?
The ketchup they put on top was an even more artificial colour than the stage blood I pour down my face every day, but it tasted nice. Still, I had to give up the endeavour before the start of the show, so I put the thing in my bag and went up to the theatre.
The show was just starting, and the guy was talking about the fact that he had been on over 170 dates this year, so I shouted out: “So what’s wrong with you then?” but it became fairly obvious from the rather ironic letters he’d been writing to his potential dates- well he is a comedian after all and people had to have something to laugh about in his show! It really was very funny. Unfortunately I didn’t fancy him; I mean he was short, not that attractive and still lives in a flatshare at the age of 39 for God’s sake!
I am just glad he didn’t shake my hand or I would have had to find some sort of creative excuse for the fact that my hand looked like I had had to assist a constipated cow…

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Today I saw the play “Stirring” which I quite enjoyed, followed by an atrocious excuse for a performance called “Me and Hitler”. I had gone in the hope of being able to laugh about Hitler, but the guy should have just cancelled the show if he was that ill, instead of trying to plough through with a brain filled with cotton wool and relying on the audience to provide the entertainment.
I suppose it was quite funny, but in a cynical American kinda way; the audience made funnier remarks than him and he didn’t even have a Jewish sense of humour despite claiming to be a “New Yoik Jew” at least five times!
He then realised it was the end of the show before he ever got to his point (if there was one!?), not without telling his German tech girl that the Allies had done some "nice re-decorating" in her home town of Dresden, which they then replaced with some atrocities of their own (charming!), and decided to sing a song in a croaky, flue-y voice, finishing off with "Deutschland, Deutschland...". I mean I have a sense of humour and irony, but there is a fine line between being funny and offensive, even stooping so low as to sing lyrics of a song which are banned in its country of origin!

After saying all this he was a charming guy who was endearingly concerned about the roundness of his belly as mentioned in one reviewer's blog (HE got reviewed, and he was SHITE!), but the show if you want to call it that was unstructured, unfunny, and impossible to walk out of as he sat amongst the audience and chatted to people individually, blocking all routes of escape.

Or maybe I just missed the point!?

Anyway, this made it very easy for me to flog my flyers to the disappointed and bewildered members of the public who walked out, undoubtedly wondering why they had just wasted their money on some guy's beer belly extension, when they could have been watching something poignant with guaranteed laughs and decent harmonies!

I then caught the last few minutes of "Priorites a Gauche" (?) which seemed to have been a riot I was sorry to have missed, and flyered their audience too as they were leaving. I am really hoping to break our own Edinburgh record of 18 people in the audience (apparently the average is 7, but I guess I am spoilt from playing to 200 people last year with this show) before Saturday. Even if two of them were only there because I had flirted with them...

Now I am off to bed so my battered immune system doesn't catch the cold the comedian was passing around! Just glad he didn't "snuuurgh" me as he threatened to do...
;-)

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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

The Canary Pie and random Antipodean Girls

omigod- Edinburgh is crazier than Cannes, who would have thought that was possible!?
So I arrived on Sunday, after enjoying a few days of Jazz at the Nairn international Jazz festival, hanging with Milgrew Miller, Jon-Erik Kellso, Richie Goods and Rodney Green (my own personal contemporary Jazz gods!)- and found myself nearly homeless.
E- (my co-star/director/acupuncturist/Scottish connection) had managed to blag us accommodation in a lovely flat belonging to a Nairn patron's son, however we were shown only one room to share- and I only met J, the other actor on Wednesday, so that was a bit of a no-no... Despite being a lovely and talented bloke he also smokes and I don't like him enough to be sharing a bed with him... ;-)
So I ended up on the floor of the room an Australien chick named Kim was being put up in, but when she still hadn't returned home at 6am I decided to crash in the comfy double bed, only for her to join me there 30 minutes later...
Next night, same thing and then we were turfed out as Steven's sister plus kids were arriving- still it was a lovely stay, and they didn't even object to me eating half a chicken off one of their plates despite being strict veggies. Wonderful flat, too with views of the castle and the sea... Dream...
Anyhoo, then E was at his wits end regarding places to sleep, as it literally is a CIRCUS here during the festival! People kipping everywhere, and we were only invited to come here in May... this being the town where people plan accommodatrion a year in advance we were clearly at a disadvantage!
waffle waffle, gotta get on with it as it's getting late...

So, I found myself on yet another floor, belonging to my flatmate's ex- school exchange "sister" and her boyfriend- which was shared by a Kiwi girl called Helen-she had the air bed, I had bits of sofa cushions, still vv comfy and a better alternative than staying in the building site of a house now occupied by E and J... ;-)
Hey, I am not complaining only it's a far cry from the 4* hotels they put us up in during our tour last year!

Now to the show itself:
It fits with great difficulty in a slot between an energetic pirate story with songs for kids and the allegedly most disgustingly brilliant version of "Ubu" (I have yet to see it but they patrol the streets with a humongous pile of poo on a silver tray). Our show is 90 minutes long and has had to be shortened to 1.10 hours, now even an hour and five. The get-in and -out don't take long which redeems the show's length somewhat, but we have been told off by the venue twice... So no more audience participation anymore! :-(
Which leads us onto our next problem, audience figures. I mean they all have very nice figures, if only there were more of them!
We had about 8 in both days, which is pathetic compared to crowds of 200 plus during the tour last year, and 100 at the May venue...
In a bid to get some mention in the papers, we went out leafleting in costume today, so even if audience numbers don't pick up I can console myself with the fact that I am gracing loads of random Japanese people's photo albums in a 1930's dress with blood streaming down my face, holding flyers!
My other cunning ploy was to take the reviewers of "The Scotsman" a canary pie, as they mentined in their review section that pies were their favourite bribes. I bought some pork pies, a donut (in order to get a box from Gregg's the tight basta-urgh sorry baker's) and black writing paper, then walked another half hour to find one of Edinburgh's elusive petshops to get some canary feathers, only to be faced with the cleanest birdcages in Europe without a single lose feather!
The pet shop boy ;-) took pity on me however and went into the back (to pluck a bird? I will never know) and returned with some lovely fluffy yellow feathers, which I promptly stuck into my pie.
I will add a picture here as soon as I can, it was truly a work of art- resting on a flyer, with another leaflet stuck on the box I presented Andrew from the Scotsman (yet another 30 minute walk) with a tiny pie decorated with yellow feathers and a nasty black swastika!
Well if that isn't worth a mention in the papers or a review (in the culinary section?) I do not know what is!!!
;-)
Yawn, off to my air bed (Kiwi girl flew off to New York) where I will rest in peace until 7am when my hosts get up...
p.s. I saw "Terrorist! The Musical" yesterday and it was brilliant!
Also "Go Go Burlesco" today, fantorgasmic! I wish I had such a great voice or would find a huge diamond in my fanny!