National Minimum Rage

As sure as night follows day, unpaid work will always hang around actors. It's part of the job. At drama school you're always taught to have a monologue ready and have a headshot that supposedly resembles you at any given moment despite the fact that you spent 3 weeks barely eating and 8 hours on hair and make up. However, what they don't teach you is how to not tear your soul on the walls after seeing yet another casting call that offers sandwiches, tea but no money.

So, seeing the news this week that five actors had won an employment tribunal to be paid national minimum wage should've had me dancing around in my practice skirt. But it didn't. I mean, for maybe one minute, I cheered quietly. Hearing that actors are being paid is always good news. The world likes to think that we live off thin air and slices of pizza so cheap and doughy, you could use them to plug the gaping holes in your tragic CV but we need money too. It may seem a tad unfair but the world works the same for actors as it does for everyone else and we have bills to pay and food to eat.

I want actors to be paid properly. I want to think that I can do a job I can actually make a living from rather than feeling that I'm trying to make a career out of a hobby. Saying you're an actor should make you feel as awesome as the kid who says they want to be a dinosaur when they grow up. But, most of the time, it makes you feel as ridiculous as the kid who says they're going to be a dinosaur when they grow up. But, because there's actually very little legislation in the world of acting (yes, there's some but it's sadly not as a far-reaching as I'd like it to be) anyone with a camera phone and a vague idea can cast a film and, because there are more actors than there are half used jars of oregano in my cupboard, there will always be actors happy to work for free.

I could waffle on for hours about whether actors should work for nothing but hey, we've all got damp-ridden homes to go to. But, what is important is to look at the implications of this ruling. Yes, it means that more actors might get paid in the future and that's a great thing but it could also mean that theatre companies will have to charge insane amounts for tickets to make sure they can pay everyone. Maybe productions shouldn't be put on if there isn't money to pay people but, if actors have a problem with working for free then they shouldn't apply for profit-share work. I've done profit-share before in the past and there's always the chance that you'll come away with nothing. Or, you put your heart and soul into a show for three months and come away with £30. It hurts but if you've agreed to it already then it's really up to you to deal with it.

If companies decide not to put on productions because they don't have the money then there will be even less work for actors than there is now. So, if they do put on shows they'll have to charge so much for tickets that audience figures will drop and actors, although finally able to pay their rent, will be playing to half-filled rooms that only contain the cast's parents. Every theatre company will then be forced to seek assistance from bigger companies a la Spacey and American Airlines and you won't be able to see anything without a corporate logo beaming down at you and you're director appearing in yet another TV advert.

But, on the other hand, maybe we'll live in a world where actors are guaranteed national minimum wage and we can have a shred of dignity back. It might make the few unscrupulous companies out there who think actors and crew don't need paying that maybe some of the money should be shared around a bit. And that'd be nice, wouldn't it?