Show Me The Money. Please.

If my brain and my heart finally overcame their differences and finally decided to give that long-awaited relationship a go then it’s probable that I’d blog about unpaid acting work every single day. I realise it’s and it’s the thought of you all (you, the one person that reads this) going “OH BLOODY GET OVER IT AND TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE” that stops me from constantly mentioning it. But sadly the problem isn’t going away. I’ve tried ignoring it and it’s still there, like the child’s pants that have suspiciously been lying just two feet from our front door for over a year now. They won’t go away unless someone does something about it and it’s the same with unpaid work too.

I saw a casting today for an interesting sounding new play. I glanced at the payment details and saw, lo and bloody behold, that it was paid. Well, they’re paying £100 a week. Which at first I thought was alright. It’s an inoffensive figure that I’m pretty sure I can live on. But then I saw the rehearsal hours. 10am-5pm, Monday to Friday for three whole weeks. That’s £20 a day. Or, for those of you who like to work in hours, that’s £2.85 an hour. 75p less than the National Minimum Wage when it was introduced in 1999. It’s less than half the National Minimum Wage today. 

And the option to stop myself from having to live in a shoe box on one lentil a day via the medium of part-time work is hardly there either. If you’re stuck in rehearsals until 5pm every day, there are very few jobs that you can then go on to straight after. Most evening jobs require you to start at 5 or, if you’re lucky, 6. You’re then there until 10 or 11 meaning that you’re unlikely to get home much before midnight. And, if you’re only working 4 or 5 hours an evening, it’s unlikely you’re going to making much more than £30 a night anyway. Hardly enough to keep bailiffs away. So instead you have to take on a weekend job instead which means you’re finding yourself working a 7 day week. I know us artists are supposed to do whatever we can to make our dreams come true but when you’re too exhausted after working a 50 hour week for little more than £200 then those dreams very quickly turn into nightmares.

Now I realise no one is forcing us to take on these jobs. Thankfully, these casting calls don’t come with a 1950s gangster holding a gun to our heads telling us that we have to do these jobs or else. But what it does mean that these roles are then only open to those who can afford to take them on. Suddenly talent means nothing and time instead has to go into finding yourself a wealthy long lost aunt who has a tendency to fall downstairs and a penchant for broke actors. 

The National Minimum Wage and Living Wage both increased recently but neither of these apply t actors. Because, of course, we don’t need to worry about how we’re going to live. The cost of living apparently doesn’t apply to us because we’re busy living up on Cloud Acting. On Cloud Acting, a DVD copy of a student film you did back in 2004 will buy you a loaf of bread and a battered copy of The Stage which briefly mentions you in a review is considered legal tender by all reputable landlords. Of course, I realise that those living on Rainbow NMW or those in the relative luxury of Treehouse Living Wage aren’t having much of a better time but at least they’re supported by laws and a few calculated pennies being thrown their way. 

And here endeth the monthly unpaid whinge.