The Case Of The Invisible Corpse

Tuesday 29 April 

As first nights go, it wasn’t so bad. Audience was around the 10 mark, but appreciative. The problem with serious stuff is that you get very little feedback during the performance. In comedies, they hopefully laugh. Sometimes they even laugh at the bits you expect them to.

But give them credit, because they didn’t laugh at what appeared to be quite a farcical final scene. I was waiting to go on, listening through the door for my cue. Just as it was supposed to be coming, a taxi driver came marching up the back steps telling the theatre staff that he had a lady in a wheelchair to drop off for the one-night-only Joe Longthorne concert in the main theatre, which had been pounding through the dressing room walls all night (she was late). This meant I couldn’t hear my cue. So an adlib was made up which meant someone came off stage to fetch me. But I was listening at the door. WHAM.

Once on stage, all went well. But I have a tip – if there is a dead body lying in state on the black-painted stage, don’t cover it with a black cloth. This will render it invisible, and increase exponentially the chances of an unwitting cast member tripping over it and thus undermining the solemnity of the occasion.

Onwards and upwards! 1 show down, five hundred million to go. Actually 12.