Miss L: "I Hadn't Left The House For 3 Days."

You may remember a couple of weeks ago we interviewed Miss L on her life as an actor. Well, since then, questions have come flooding in (we think someone asked us in the pub the other night anyway) about how she is such a successful rester. So, we’re meeting Miss L again in the hope that she can pass on some pearls of wisdom without passing on the persistent cough she’s picked up from her damp-ridden house…

We ask if we can meet Miss L at 9am. She goes silent for a few minutes. We check if she’s ok. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” she admits. “Is 9am a bar?” We tell her not to worry and that we’ll come to her again. “Bring crisps,” she orders us. Again.

So we’re back in Miss L’s abode, so humble it does actually smell of pie. “They were on offer,” she explains, “Two pies for a pound. I bought ten.” Today, Miss L is resplendent in her dressing gown. She spots that we’ve noticed. “Tammy Girl,” she announces, proudly.

We settle down on her sofa. A few out-dated copies of The Stage litter her coffee table. So, how did Miss L get started in the world of resting? “Well it began when I realised I hadn’t left the house for 3 days yet I was still OK. That’s when I really knew. I’d managed to put together a meal from broken bits of pasta, a tin of olives and an orange I found behind the microwave. I thought, if I can do this then why don’t I try doing this professionally?”

Did she experience any difficulty when she was first starting out in the world of resting? “Oh definitely. There’s a lot of competition out there, especially from university students. So I had to work really hard at first to really make sure I was at the top of my game.” She takes a gulp of cold tea from a cracked Doctor Who mug, “I lost a lot of friends in the first year because I was dedicating so much time to it. Of course they understood but it was a really tough. I made myself go for a week just living off onions, chickpeas and value vodka and only read the stage section of The Guardian. That’s the closest I came to giving up.”

But now at the top of her game, does Miss L still struggle to remain professional at all times? “You have no idea,” she laughs, changing her slippers from formal to novelty. “There are times when I get to say 1 or 2pm and I’ll get an urge to do some work. That can be really difficult. I usually try and distract myself by watching Man vs Food or, if it’s really bad, then I’ll go up to the shop and get a Kit Kat Chunky. Usually by 3pm, the need to be productive has gone. I’m very lucky that I’ve learnt how to deal with it. I know others who still have real problems with this and have applied for up to three jobs in one single day. I feel for them. I really do.”

And what of Miss L’s hopes for the future? “If I can maintain the level I’m at now then I’m happy. There are still a lot of issues I have to deal with on a daily basis and unfortunately the need to leave the house will always be there. I try to make sure the only times I go outside are to go to a soul-destroying job or to go and watch other actors be far more successful than I am. Those things really help me focus on my goals and encourage me to strive for resting perfection.” She pauses for a moment and smiles fondly, “The postman told me the other day how impressed he was that I’m always in during the day. That was such a proud moment as I realised my resting is having a positive impact on other people’s lives. That’s all I could really ask for.”

Miss L’s top tips on how to be a perfect rester:

1.  Comfy pyjamas. You’ll never be a true rester without them. Being comfortable on the sofa means you’re comfortable with who you are.

2. Be open-minded about what you consider a meal. If you won’t accept frozen peas and banana as a suitable breakfast then you need to seriously consider whether the world of resting is really for you.

3. Tea. You will never be able to rest without it. If you don’t like tea then diet Coke or coffee are the only other acceptable substitutes.

4. If you must earn money then make sure it’s at the worst place possible. You need to go somewhere that makes you want to tear your soul into tiny pieces so that you can truly appreciate the joy of resting. Call centres and promo work are particularly good for this.

5. Let others know what you’re doing. Not everyone understands how resting works so make sure you explain to everyone around you why you’re doing this. This will help stop them from trying to ruin things for you by attempting to find you acting work.

Black or White

Let’s start with the fact that a playwright has actually had to ask for people to boycott theatres that allow the use of ‘blacking up.’ Let’s begin there. No, no, get out of your time machine. We’re not going back to the 1920s. In fact, you don’t even have to turn your calendar back to last week. Oh no. This is happening right now. At this very moment, theatres are getting the greasepaint out and waving it in front of actors’ faces like with a cheeky grin like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

But what’s worse is that people seem to agree.  A poll run by The Stage today has shown that 29% of respondents agreed that the use of ‘blackface’ in the theatre was completely acceptable. According to these people, it’s perfectly fine to ask a white actor to play a black role by applying black paint to their face. Apparently there’s nothing wrong with this. Apparently it’s not offensive. Apparently we’re supposed to be totally OK with all of this.

It seems that the people who allow this to happen don’t see just how insulting this is. By getting a white actor to ‘black up’ you’re basically saying to all black actors that they’re not good enough. You’d far rather get someone to PAINT THEIR FACE BLACK than find a suitable actor from the vast wealth of black actors out there. And I’m sorry but even if the amount of black actors in Germany (where this story originated) is so low that you’re finding it almost impossible to cast then I suggest you choose a different play.  And the issue isn’t just reserved to this particular piece of miscasting. It’s happening all over the bloody place. Look at the cross-gender casting at the RSC at the moment. I’ve ranted and raved about this in several blogs already so I don’t want to cover intensely well-trodden ground. However, this type of casting is just as insulting. I know that the RSC are doing it as they want to put on plays how they used to be staged but instead it’s just a big ol’ Shakespearean slap in the face to us ladyfolk. Female roles are hard enough to come by as it is so when box office smashing blokes are cast in those scant parts, it’s pretty damning. Despite what the RSC says it just feels like they’re telling us women that we’re not good enough to sell tickets or play female roles on stage.

And I appreciate the work that other companies are doing by either getting casts who are all female or all black or all Asian or all who prefer tea to coffee. But I'm not entirely convinced that it's really helping the problem. The issue should be encouraging more people from ethnic minorities to enter the profession (apart from youngish Middle Eastern actresses, that area is FULL…) and also into supporting new writing that is far more representative of the real world out there. This silly little planet of ours is far more diverse than all women playing mothers or prostitutes, all black men playing criminals and all Asian women playing those in arranged marriages. However, if you lived your life just believing everything that the world of acting tells you then, 1) get outside you fool and 2) you'd believe that those stereotypes make up this Daily Mail-esque apocalyptic world.

The German theatre in question has since denied any intentions to use the archaic technique of blacking up, saying they had learnt from previous productions that this is now unacceptable. Whether or not this is true, we may never know. However, it doesn’t excuse the fact that people out there still think it’s OK to do it. Oh how we like to think in 2012 that we are thoroughly modern and forward-thinking but, unfortunately, it seems like we’re being desperately held back too.

No Pay, No Way

Casting call: "“Unfortunately we’re not able to offer a fee on this occasion.”

Unfortunately this is casting call that we're all to used to seeing. A good 75% of casting calls probably contain this line or a variation on it (such as the incredibly inventive 'This is a no-pay experience!') However, what we're not used to seeing is this kind of casting call from an established company. And they're not just any old established company, they're the company behind shows such as Have I Got News For You, Outnumbered and Episodes and whether you're a fan of these shows or not, you have to admit that it's pretty shocking behaviour. As companies go, they're probably one of the biggest so why the heck are they advertising unpaid acting roles?


Now, I saw this casting call a few weeks ago and was utterly outraged and it has now been reported on in the stage here after Equity got involved and rightly questioned what on earth they were playing at. (Whether you want to praise me for being way ahead of the news is entirely up to you but I am currently accepting cash rewards and/or a Nobel Peace Prize for my work.) But I think we're all in agreement that this isn't on. There is no freaking way a company such as this should be allowed to get away with hiring actors for nothing. That, my friends, is the job of university students and unscrupulous directors. If actors can't be paid for a role on a show which will almost undoubtedly be a primetime show and will probably be slated on Twitter then when can they?

But it's the backtracking that this company has done which is even more worrying. It's the kind of awkward backtracking you do when you've been caught talking about someone behind their back. 'Oh no, not you. I meant the other Hugo Smith.' When questioned on why they're trying to get actors to work for free, they have now claimed they will not be using professional performers and will instead be using members of the public and friends and family of the production team. Is this what's going to happen now? Have we now got to the point where companies are so reluctant to pay professionals, they'd rather rope in their mates to work for free? Other people's mates are rarely funny. Other people's mates are the type of people you get cornered by at a party and then have to listen to them talk about their tedious jobs and boring lives. Other people's mates think drinking twenty bottles of WKD and then running around Derby city centre with a traffic cone on their head is the definition of 'quality.' Other people's mates should not be allowed anywhere near a television unless they happen to know a clever way of filtering out annoying adverts... Has our profession become so lowly-regarded that we can easily be replaced by the director's second cousin? And it's worrying that one of the biggest TV production companies has started this trend. Surely it's only a matter of time before smaller companies follow suit and our TVs will become awash with casts made up of the make-up artist's university mates and the man in Muswell Hill who wanders the streets asking everyone for 20p. Irritating and baffling people do not maketh the good television programmes. Actors are being pushed out of TV at an alarming rate with shows such as TOWIE and Made In Chelsea gaining far more viewers than well-made dramas and comedies so what hope have we got now?

And what's even more worrying is that yet again, actors are going to be forced into unpaid work just to hold on to to a career that's more slippery than a greasy seal. Companies are again holding us to ransom where we can either accept their terms and work for free or spend a lifetime waiting for one precious job to come our way. It's unfair, it's unethical and it's ridiculously frustrating. Plus it's extremely worrying that high profile companies are choosing cheap labour over high-quality programming. If production companies are more worried about making low-rent television than supporting the industry then what's the point?

I would love the opportunity to gain the exposure that a primetime TV show would bring but not at my own expense and certainly not just so a very wealthy production company can save a few pennies. I refuse to forego a well-deserved wage just so an exec can continue to fund their lavish lifestyle. Why should they get to go on fancy holidays while I sit at home wondering how to make a tin of chopped tomatoes and a bag of Scampi & Lemon Nik Naks last me until the end of the week. It's exploitation at it's lowest, meanest level and until we all make a stand against these companies, all we're doing is encouraging them to turn our already fragile industry into a laughing stock.