Thesp

Last time I was on stage, it was about 1979, I was eleven, and I was a singing urchin in a cut-down one-act version of the musical Oliver. "O wooden it be luvverleeeeeeeee"  - that one. You know. It was part of an evening of music-hall style entertainment, chiefly featuring a melodrama called Fanny's Revenge. I remember I invited my 70-year-old Sunday School teacher Sister Annunciata to come along, and mum was horrified.

Fast forward (as we said in pre-digital times) to 2011. Today I was asked to be an extra in a film we are co-producing called First Fagin - about the real convict who was the basis for the character in Dickens' Oliver Twist. You could even draw a long bow and say that I would be playing (in a non-speaking low key way) the grown-up that that very urchin became!!!!! (!)

I was to front up for make-up and muttonchop whiskers at 6.15am tomorrow, but just got the word that it's been postponed. Or maybe cancelled. The circle of urchin life may never be complete. Oh well - the fact is that extras are mostly employed to stand in front of the espresso machine in the pub or the parking meter in the street - they are cheaper than taking out the anachronisms in After Effects.