It’s well known that, as actors, when we meet someone,
they’ll almost definitely ask if you’ve been in anything they might’ve
seen. This may come as a surprise to
some people but we don’t actually just sit outside your living room window,
keeping track of all the programmes you watch, entering it into a central
database so we can all cross-reference our CVs with your viewing habits. Once
that line of conversation goes nowhere, we’ll go down the, ‘Got any work coming
up?’ route, a similarly short and futile pathway to head down. It’s at this
point that I’m most often asked what the best acting job is that I’ve ever
done.
Now, this is a question I often struggle to answer. Is it
the painful months of touring schools playing an 8-year-old? Was it the play that
was held in a venue that was so poorly protected from the elements that we went
in one day to find actual snow drifts on stage? Was it the summer season that
paid so poorly that I was forced to live off tinned soup for a month and the
height of luxury was value gin mixed with cheap sparkling water and the tiniest
drop of cassis?
Of course, I’ve had some amazing jobs too. I’ve starred in
adverts alongside comedy heroes, I’ve put on my own show in Edinburgh and
graced the stage with proper legends, I’ve even got to wear an Aldi warehouse
jacket, but I realised this morning what the actual best acting role is that
I’ve ever played. It’s none of the jobs
I previously mentioned. It’s not a job
that involved loved celebrities or endless supplies of pizza or even my own
trailer. It’s not even the job that warranted my own police escort. And, if you’ve
read my essay in The Good Immigrant, it wasn’t even the time I got to play Jack
Frost. No, it was the time I got a line in the local pantomime.
‘So what did you do in Munchkinland Mr Scarecrow?’
That was it. I’ve
battled for so much more, lamented over a lack of lines and the unfairness of
it all. I’ve dreamt of starring roles
and endless heartfelt monologues but nothing has made me happier than that one
line.
I remember being taken to one side and being told that I
would be getting this line. For a quiet
but confident 8-year-old child, this was quite the responsibility and I treated
it as such. Looking back now, I realise
this part wasn’t given to me for any particular acting ability that I had, I
was just a sensible girl with a loud voice who could be trusted with such a
thing. If I was told to be somewhere,
that’s where I would be. I’m very much
the same now but sadly acting roles don’t seem to be handed out on your scale
of dependability.
I treasured that line like I would a tiny kitten. Those words were precious and demanded my
full attention. I’m embarrassed to say
that in my professional career I’ve had thousands of words, acres of dialogue,
hours of verse, and I’ve treated none of them with the respect that I held for
that one pretty inconsequential phrase.
‘So what did you do in Munchkinland Mr Scarecrow?’
It was a line that probably didn’t even need to exist but
I’ve never felt so important. I remember
I got to stand in the wings with the man who played the scarecrow and I
basically felt 12 feet tall. I mean, I was a tall child for my age anyway but
this made me feel practically Amazonian.
A line.
A precious line.
A line that had been given to me and no one else.
I treated that role like I was Olivier going on at the
Globe. I wasn’t being paid, only getting a few snacks in between the matinee and
evening performance, but I felt like an A-lister.
That’s the level of pride I want to feel for everything that
I do now on. 8-year-old me has set a high standard, but if it was good enough
for her then it’s good enough for me a quarter of a century on. If she had been
asked if she was up to anything at the moment, she wouldn’t have coyly muttered
that she only had a line in the local panto, she would have summoned a fanfare
and boomed it from the rooftops.
So, when I next catch myself belittling an achievement,
trying to talk down something just because I think it’s insignificant, I’ll
remember her and be proud, as proud as an 8-year-old with a line that’s spoken
in front of 50 people in a dusty school hall.
