The play's the thing!

Sorry I haven't written here for a little while. It's not that nothing's happened, in fact, quite the reverse. I'm thesping all next week - Lady Marchmain, no less, in Brideshead Revisited. It's the 60th anniversary of the founding of St John's Players.

I've always loved this hi-fallutin' name - so pompous, so resonant of Elizabethan troupes of actors, so fitting for the 20s prefab that is our Village Hall..

(Ooo, I forgot, it's all been revamped recently - we now have a bar, a monster telly for the sports fiends, and carpet. And let's not forget, the dressing room facilities - once a musty room with holey lino over what I think was little more than bare earth. Now - a musty room with bare concrete floor - it's the cleaning cupboard...)

Anyway, I've been learning my lines, and I'm feeling rather pleased with myself - I know all my words! Just not necessarily in the right order ... I've developed such a clipped, 20s upper clarss, eccent. And instead of sitting hunched like a little gnome over the laptop, I've straightened my shoulders, gaining a full extra 1/4" in height. Lady M is a rather foolish old woman, living in her own little world of religious fantasy. Hmm, not typecasting yet again, minus the religion, eh?

Wish me luck for next week, will you? By that time, I'm going to have to walk, talk and avoid the myriad of chairs that litter the stage. My final bow and acceptance of rapturous applause is my best bit - eyes and teeth, darlings, eyes and teeth. And ja-azz hands! Yeah!!