funny old game, isn't it?
there i am, on my other blog, taking the mickey out of the fearsome doris.
then i get a part in a play as a gentle, hen pecked bloke.
and the woman playing my loud wife is the absolute picture of how i imagined doris to be!

in the accrington pals, she's called annie.

i'm going to have to be careful i don't call her doris on stage, though.

Here are my opening lines!!!!

Salmonella: Ooh! I was just talking to that nice new milkman.

Listeria: This is my sister, Salmonella. You can easily tell us apart, she's the ugly one.

Salmonella: Poor milkman. He's so shy. I can't think why he ran away like that.

Silence.
Presently we hear the knocker-up approaching, tapping on the windows with a pole to wake the mill girls.

ARTHUR (off)     Rise and shine Elsie James ... quarter to six.

ARTHUR BOGGIS enters. He is in uniform with a gas cape. He taps at a window.

ARTHUR            Are you there Mrs Bloor and Brenda? Quarter to six. Rise and shine.

MAY                   What are you doing, knocking up, Arthur?

ARTHUR           Morning May ... Tom.  Jack's got the sciatica and as I was to be up early for the great day, I said I'd do this end of the street while his son does the other.

i am now furiously reverting to my roots to rediscover my authentic lancashire accent, as well as marvelling at the idea of me as a knocker-upper!

we start rehearsals for accrington pals tomorrow.
i have a small, but perfectly formed, part in it.
the dominant characters are female, or teenage lads, and i got the only part i could have got bearing in mind i am not in the first flush of youth.
it's one of those character roles i will much enjoy playing - arthur ... a nice, christian man, keeps racing pigeons to compensate for domineering wife, etc etc

have you read it or seen it performed?

the play is by peter whelan, and is about the eager departure of accrington men to sign up, their massacre at the somme, and about the problems and pressures faced by the women they left behind.

it's had mixed reviews so i'd be interested to hear from you if you have an opinion.

i'm going to do a final edit of act one of our play this weekend and will post it here for everyone to see - no doubt including theatre agents and graham norton.

then we start all over again, and anyone can join in - the job will be to write act two and we'll need ideas for a storyline so we can come up with a brilliant and gobsmacking ending ... act two.

interested?

if you haven't already contributed, let me know if you want to take part in blog history, and who knows...we may even find a way to stage it somewhere!!

thanks to you if you've already written stuff, thanks also for being patient, and watch this space...

Hi

I love going to the theatre and i'm poised to get my tickets for Hamlet showing in London. David Tennent is to play Hamlet and my favourite shakespeare actor Pactrick Stewart is to play Claudius. I'm very excited about this. I saw Patrick Stewart perform a one man show of A Christmas Carol in Dec 2005 and he was amazing. I think he's a great actor. I'm pretty sure Tennent will do a good job too.

http://www.rsc.org.uk/WhatsOn/5723.aspx