Glorious Twelfth

12 August was a Sunday this year. It was glorious. A friend of mine got married on Sunday. The venue is well known to me. CoombeLodge was often used as a venue for a roleplay job I do. I don’t think it’s used by that client any more. Almost every time I worked there, I would comment with colleagues that it would make a wonderful venue for a wedding. It has changed hands since I was last there and has been lovingly refurbished. It is a beautiful venue for a wedding.

One actress/friend I worked with there used to say it would make a great location for a promenade production of ‘Rebecca’ and I would be an ideal Mrs Danvers.  I am lucky that I have played some excellent characters – Cathy Earnshaw and Catherine Linton in ‘Wuthering Heights’ was a dream job; Lady Macbeth should have been a dream but the company made it a bit of a nightmare; I have had several one-woman plays written especially for me and I’m thinking of restaging one later this year. But to be Mrs Danvers in ‘Rebecca’.

I have always liked the 1940 film. If you haven’t read Du Maurier’s book, do so. It is excellent. I haven’t seen a stage adaptation of ‘Rebecca’ but would like to – from onstage of course and Mrs Danvers is the role for me. Yes, that would be good.

Meanwhile back to 12 August. The Glorious Twelfth has long marked the opening of the hunting season in England. Specifically hunting by shooting grouse. Now I hunt most days/weeks. That is I hunt for jobs. I’m freelance/self employed so I rarely know where or when the next job will be, let alone what it will be. I hunt by chasing leads, scouring casting websites, ‘networking’.

Every social gathering is supposed to be a networking opportunity but when I am at a good friend’s wedding I don’t really think that way. Even though I had to deliver a reading (it went very well).

This year 12 August was a Sunday and it is an offence to shoot grouse on a Sunday in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. So the Glorious Twelfth had to start on 13^th - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-19226263 On 13th I was mostly recovering from the wedding and ‘performing’ the previous day in Birmingham at a friend’s special lunch. On 14^th, I went to London to do a demo recording for a big corporate voice job. On Wednesday, I had a phone interview for a short film job. (Today I was told I’d got the gig but I have turned it down – it’s low paid and in York, sometimes sensible me overrides driven job hunter me.)

Now I’m preparing for performing this evening. Just three more nights of a show I’m in once a week throughout June, July and August. We have been receiving excellent audience responses and great reviews.

This nearly makes up for receiving a less than enthusiastic response to my new showreel from a film company: “we would say that your showreel's production really fails to highlight your obvious strengths as an actress that has an impressive CV and is currently employed.” I disagree with this assessment of the showreel. But then, of course, I would. However, I will confine my disagreement. I’m not a grouse. I do want to be shot. Shot in a film. It would be glorious.