UHOH..

This is not good. This is not good at all. So here’s the story morning glory…

Last week, I went to a casting for The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde’s witty and wonderful comedy about mistaken identity. I have performed in this play before as Cecily Cardew (Cesspit, as I lovingly nicknamed her) but am always more than willing to return to a part as one’s choices and decisions on character alter with age. Age being the operative word.

I pulled out all of my best moves (they mainly include a wry smile and a wink) and acted my socks off. Literally. I walked home bare foot.

I spent the next few days twiddling my thumbs and trying (as always) to forget the fact that I’d had an audition and trying (as always) to ignore the fact that I would quite like the job.

I finally buckled on the third day, (other famous third days include God creating light and the giving of three French hens) and rang ye olde agent to ask them to ring the theatre company for feedback.

By now, I had figured that I hadn’t gotten the job; however, I just wanted to check that it wasn’t because my acting was as bad as Keanu Reeves’ in The Day The Earth Stood Still (WORST FILM EVER) or because I had tucked my skirt into my knickers. It has happened before.

Apparently, there is an actor out there in the mists of time or the ether or any other spectrum of time/place/being, who actually, deliberately goes into auditions with his flies down to ensure that he’s remembered.

I don’t know whether to shake his hand or simply buy him a pair of jogging bottoms sans flies to put an end to this mental act of exhibitionist desperation which is on par with Princess Beatrice’s hat at the Royal Wedding.

ANYWAY back to the story (I wish it was a story. And not the cold hard truth. Which it is.) My agent phoned the company and (THANK GOD) they gave lovely feedback, cracking speech, good choices, great clarity and purpose but (THERE’S ALWAYS A BUT) she looks too old.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!?!?! Ever since I came out of my mother’s womb I have been told that I look too young. I have the round moonish face that some would want to call cherubic but I like to call circular. Circle Head. Baby face. Call it what you will. I got ID’d the other day buying a lottery ticket for which you have to be sixteen. SIXTEEN. And now I look too old to play an eighteen year old ingénue… WHAT IN MAGGIE SMITH’S NAME HAS HAPPENED TO THE WORLD?!

Something has gone very wrong. I instantly looked down to check the sagometer on my boobs- not doing too badly; I then pulled at the bags under my eyes- also not doing too badly, a mere Louis Vuitton handbag rather than a Primark wheely suitcase. But something has changed and apparently I am in massive denial (a thing that surprisingly does not surprise me) and I am getting older.

But that's okay. The best people get older: Judi Dench, my Gran, Edd the Duck. (Actually Edd the Duck never got old. He just disappeared. What in Daffy's name happened to EDD THE DUCK?!?! Nobody knows.)

I digress. My solution to this aging malarkey: to cast all my girlish vanity and pride aside and accept it. Because the sooner I can hit some kids with sticks the better.

I obviously mean in a crazy Gran type way. Not in a mentalist way. Maybe.

So until next time... BRING ON THE SAG, BRING ON THE GREY and dare I say it... BRING ON CHRISTMAS!!!!!