A phrase that I often hear around this time of year is ‘Christmas is for children’ which is a sentence that I thoroughly disagree with as a twenty-something. Granted this is because I (and all the members of my immediate family) am fairly childish and excitable is some ways, however I am still an adult and thus, Christmas is absolutely for me. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to talk to you about my second favourite Christmas. I say second favourite because my actual favourite was Christmas Day 1999 because that was the day that my younger sister (who I am very close to) was born and came home. I don’t remember much of the actual day as I was three at the time, but it was the Christmas that gave me her, so it counts. My second favourite Christmas was 2008 when I was cast in my first Christmas play.
Now when I say ‘my first Christmas play’ I suppose that is technically untrue as there are photos of me playing ‘the blue wise man’ in my year two nativity play but I’m talking about my first proper Christmas play. The Rose Theatre in Kingston had opened in January that year but now it was casting for its first Christmas show, ‘A Christmas Carol’ which was going to be directed by Stephen Unwin. Now since Bob Cratchit and his wife have a large brood of children (six in the book, four in this adaptation) plus young Ebenezer and his sister, Fan, an open casting call went out looking for children between the ages of eleven and fifteen to fill these roles. After meeting the assistant director, Jamie Harper, who would be primarily working with the kids and the music director, Eamonn O’Dwyer (who still writes the music for the Rose’s Christmas plays and youth theatre I believe) we were split into pairs and given a scene to do. This made feel very grown up as it was one of the adult scenes from the play (probably because the Cratchits tend to come as a package deal so there weren’t any easily usable scenes). After we had done our scene, we went to the keyboard to sing ‘Away in a Manger’ both in a pair and as individuals. I was recalled (which followed the same general structure) and a few days later they called my mum, who immediately passed the phone to me when she realised it was good news, and I was offered the role of Belinda Cratchit which I would be sharing with a friend from a previous show.
Rehearsals were in the evenings after school and for the first few weeks was just the Cratchit kids from both casts with someone from the mirroring cast filling in for the adults who would join us in the third week. It was during this time that the directors realised two things:
1. I was tiny and thus very easy for older members of the cast to pick up and swing around (something that only happened in my cast as other Belinda was too tall)
2. I was tiny…. even tinier than both Tiny Tims
While the first was cute, fun and excellent for the overall feel of the play, the second was a little problematic as it made it seem like skinny, pale Belinda who looked more nine than twelve was more likely to kick the bucket than tall, rosy cheeked and generally healthy-looking Tiny Tim. It was fine of the Fezziwig party scene (oh yes, the Fezziwigs also procreated like rabbits) and general running around crowd moments, however it did introduce the number one rule in the Cratchit household – under no circumstances are Belinda and Tim allowed to be standing next to each other! He could sit and I could stand or crouch next to him but standing together was forbidden! It’s funny looking back as I doubt very much that would have been a problem six months later.
After a month of rehearsals (for the kids, I’m pretty sure the adults had longer), it was time to go on stage. Splitting significant dates between the children’s casts was actually pretty fair – we got opening night and Christmas Eve, they got closing night and New Years Eve. I think they also may have had press night but as kids we didn’t particularly care about that since the most we were likely to get from that was a ‘charming’. I could tell you about my opening night nerves and a truly awful head chaperone (the rest were wonderful). I could tell you about costume blunders and knowing all of act two by heart. However, I think I’ll tell you about ‘the chocolate incident’.
We’re about a week into the run, everything is going well and we’re in a routine. The girls’ dressing room also still had enough opening night chocolate to sink a ship. During the interval of show one of a two-show day, while the two older girls in the dressing room were gossiping or watching a movie with the chaperone, I was lying on my stomach reading ‘Goodnight Mr Tom’ with an open box of Maltesers or Celebrations or something which my hand was constantly in. I would at this point like to clarify that these were my own chocolates as I would never finish one of the other girls’ boxes. And I did finish that box of whatever brand of chocolate it was. This, as you can probably imagine, made me rather…sparky which everyone only noticed when it was too late. I would like to reiterate that this had happened in the interval. After the energetic Cratchit Christmas Day scene but just in time for the graveside of dead little brother scene. I remember the actress playing my mother holding me especially close and tight that day. Oh, and remember how I mentioned that it was a two-show day? My sugar crash hit just at the beginning of act one of the second show. After that, all of my chocolate was put in the boys’ dressing room with the instruction of ‘two pieces per show’.
The experience still makes me feel warm and fuzzy when I think about it and I know without question that if I had a time machine and I was allowed to go back and relive one period of my life, it would be the period when I was in ‘A Christmas Carol’.
I will be taking a break this month to fully enjoy the festive season so I will see you all again in January when a casting call for ‘Thick as Thieves’ will be out. Until then, I’m off to watch ‘Nativity’ on Netflix. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!
Comments