Personal News (30/05/10)

I missed the whole personal post last week because I was - wait fot it - working!

I know, utter shock.

Basically following the rather unsuccessful visit to the 24/7 festival Big Gathering (no men needed it seems) I collected an awful lot of flyers and put my name against just about everything on offer. One of those was the Queer Up North's 18th Birthday Bash, where comedian Chris Green (who is most famous for the Tina C character) was unvailing his latest comic persona: stage hypnotist Derek Diamond.

They needed some volunteers to improvise around the themes of characters and to interact with the audience as they arrived. For the night I was Quentin Bullington, Radio 4 presenter. It was a lot of fun, even if I didn't quite manage to have the confidence to manipulate the audience in the way Chris described prior to the event (sorry about that, Chris). What I will say is that all of the main events were absolutely excellent, with Jess Love's skipping performance being particularily hilarious.

I also met some great people and this is always a great opportunity to build up contacts.

One of the people I met who might just be a good contact for work in the longer term (who I won't name as this is hardly the right forum for that) I bumped into the following day as I attended Scriptworks at the Contact theatre. Scriptworks is a forum for new writers to try out their pieces with actors reading their works sight unseen. There's then a chance of feedback from all the other attendees. If you are a North West based new writer then I really suggest coming along as there's a great opportunity for feedback on your work.

I confess that I know about as much about writing as I know about the internal combustion engine (I understand the priciples but wouldn't know where to start when presented with the real thing), but it is great to go along and help. So far, after two weeks of attending, I've heard some excellent pieces. I'm still a newbie there so I'm getting a bit too much attention due to my slightly posh voice. But I think in a couple of weeks I'll be known enough to just turn up, sit at the back and chime in when I agree or disagree with a particular point.

On Thursday I attended an audition for Theatre&, the Learning & Development company. I think it mus have gone reasonably well, if not stellar, as I have received an e-mail saying they've added me to the database for any upcoming jobs. That's obviously a good thing, but on the other hand it means they've not signed me up for a full-time contract.

For those of you waiting patiently for the results of the Normal Heart second audition, the bad news is that it still hasn't happened. We came tantalisingly close on Friday, but then the actor(s) the director wanted me to audition with couldn't make it so an alternative date needs to be announced. I've decided to start to grow an 80's moustache to help. (After all I've no other work getting in the way right now, may as well go all out.)