The waiting

Spent the day in Northampton for the Stagestruck competition. Unfortunately us, non-participants weren't allowed backstage so no pictures from there, and with the competition performance itself being filmed I didn't want to do anything that might distract the cast. They, and the other three teams in action on the Saturday afternoon did a short scene from The Cherry Orchard. The four different companies did the piece in very different ways, arguably two more conventional and two more styleised. The first was minimal in the extreme and when one of the cast called for a prompt, twice, you had to assume that was their chance gone. Our guys were next, and did a very truthful version of the piece.  Although I'm biased I thought it was excellent. And the audience loved it. The guys came back on stage to clear up the last things off the stage and got a spontaneous round of applause from the big group at the front that spread through the theatre. Maybe that should have been the moment we knew it wasn't to be. Judges in theatre competitions never seem to like the audience leading them to their conclusions. Third up was the second of the more conventional versions. Their set and costumes were probably better, but their acting got more and more pantomime, and turned the characters into grotesques. Then the last group, with a few more props than the first, but still more styleised than groups two and three. The meaning of the blocks on stage wasn't entirely obvious in all cases. And strangely their text seemed different from the other three at the very start, and at the end. They chose to make the scene like a piece in its own right, rather than part of a longer play. Their lead woman seemed on the brink of tears throughout - was she very nervous or was that her interpretation of the role? They pulled one visual gag that raised a big laugh, but it was a cheap shot and surely wouldn't sway the judges? Apparently it did. The spokesman for the judges said group four had been a unanimous choice and the other place in the next round was between the other three. I think we all knew then that was the final nail in the coffin - group four were also Scottish (as the patronising spokesman-judge had made a big show of, confusing the two Scottish groups all through his remarks in SUCH an annoying way - either contrived or contemptuous) and although I'm sure they'll deny it until the cows come home, there was no way two Scottish groups were going through. This is the guys waiting to hear the ultimately bad news. But as I said beforehand, the most important thing was to do their best, put on the scene the way they wanted to. And they did. It zinged on stage, the audience loved it and I'm sure their celebrity mentor, Niamh Cusack, would have been very proud of them. Hopefully the production company will let her see the footage of the performance so she can see just how well they did. The programme will be on TV next year sometime, with two more rounds before the final winning group end up on the West End stage. Despite having been on stage herself for a matinee and preparing for an evening performance Niamh found time to phone and there was a lovely conversation with her on speaker phone in the hotel lobby. What a class act she is!
Some of the other groups competing on the Sunday were also there and for much of the evening they kept coming up and saying, 'you were the best' and 'we don't know why you didn't go through'. But much like the SCDA, entertaining the public counts for naught. And despite the outcome we had a great evening - a nice indian meal, followed by a 'few' drinks in the hotel.