Live Theatre

LIVE THEATRE

Carol Ann Martin

(Contains reference to a road accidernt)

Failing to stop at the scene. Oh yes, there’ll be trouble about that, I daresay. Somebody will have taken my number, but I can’t help that just now. The police will turn up and they can sort it out with the truck driver. It was the merest bump and it was his fault anyway. I’ve got enough to think about tonight. I’ll think about it tomorrow.

In forty years I’ve never been late for a performance. Never. Anything so unprofessional is quite beyond me and tonight will be no exception.

Tonight being, of course, possibly the most important of my life, and what happens? My damned taxi doesn’t turn up and I have to drive myself to the theatre. Running late, yes. Foot a just little heavy on the pedal, maybe. But it was still the truck that clipped me and not vice versa. It was, wasn’t it?

For now it can’t matter. Focus, focus. Tonight is what matters. The media says so, everybody says so. Tonight Dame Diana Frost is reprising her role award-winning role as Martha in ‘Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ Can she still do it, they ask. Just watch me, darlings!

Ten years since I was in live theatre. Ten years of film and TV, plenty of that and it has served me well. But it’s the applause; the thunderous roar that tells you how brilliant you were. The roar that tells you how much they love you. It’s the pulsating, star-making, yes, yes, yes, that only live theatre can bring. I’ve missed it. But I can still conjure up that magic and I’m going to do it tonight!

I’m going to do it tonight! Me, Gemma Bridgewater: understudy, underpaid, under-valued and generally underfoot. Well, they didn’t think they’d ever need me, did they? Dame Diana never misses. Not until tonight. Tonight she’s not here, is she? Big panic, folks! Her phone’s dead as a dodo. Not a word, not to anybody. I still have to pinch myself to believe it. I shall go on as Martha tonight. I just heard Gavin say so, out loud to the audience. I actually heard the words.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is with deep regret that I have to tell you that due to circumstances beyond our control. Dame Diana Frost is unable to perform tonight. The part of Martha will be played by Gemma Bridgewater. We apologise for this late change, but trust you will still enjoy tonight’s premiere of “Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”’

I actually heard groans. Well, that’s to be expected, I suppose. Inward or outward groaning because they’ve got me instead of her. Gemma who? Well, they’re in for a surprise, aren’t they? I shall be bloody brilliant. I shall take this play and I shall make it my own. No second rate Diana, just pure, first rate Gemma.

I will be there. I will be there. Ten years ago I walked onto that stage and gave the performance of a lifetime. What they saw and heard that night, and every other night of that season, they will see and hear again tonight. Quite possibly even better. I can do it!

I can’t do it! I can’t! I’m scared. I can’t remember the words. My mouth won’t work. My legs won’t work. I’ll freeze. I’ll throw up! Gavin, I can’t do it.  Diana, where are you?

I’m here. I said I’d be here. When was I ever not? Ok, deep breaths, one, two, three, and we’re on!

‘It’s two o’clock in the morning. Oh, George!’

Oh my God! How often have I dreamed of a night like tonight? But even in my dreams it was never this … this unbelievable. That thunderous roar of applause. Row after row rising up into a standing ovation. The flowers! They threw flowers at my feet. Curtain call after curtain call. Tonight was my night. They’ll be at the stage door waiting, I know they will. There’ll be autographs, photographs, accolades. At supper, it’ll be champagne and roses and ‘Here’s to the next three months!’ I can’t believe it’s true.

I’m not the only one weeping with joy. There’s darling Gavin, clutching his phone, the tears streaming. Jeremy, Dominic, Susanna, all crying with me. Were there ever such floods of sheer emotion? And all for me.

THEATRE NOW

Geoffrey Blake.

What can I say about Saturday’s opening, and what turned out to be the closing, night of ‘Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ at the Royal?

What can I say about Gemma Bridgewater as Martha? We can, of course, recall Dame Diana Frost a decade ago in the same role at the same theatre. How can we not at this time?

To say that Gemma channelled Dame Diana would be an understatement. Gemma was Diana Frost. With every word, every line, every gesture, every nuance, every expression and every turn of the head, we were seeing Diana at her most brilliant. Jeremy Bennett as George, Dominic Creasy as Nick and Susannah Crane as Honey, as if fired by Gemma’s performance, were all at their best as they perfectly melded into the whole that was Toynbee’s play presented as perhaps never before.

Not only was Gemma Bridgewater’s performance peerless, it was utterly selfless. What she presented was a beautiful tribute to a much-loved and much-mourned grand dame of stage and screen. Today, of course, we know of the horrendous collision between her car and a semi-trailer that instantly took Dame Diana from us. Elsewhere in this paper you can read a written tribute by our chief editor, as well as as much as can be ascertained of the circumstances of Dame Diana’s death prior to the coroner’s report.

We know much of what happened, but what we do not know, and perhaps should not know, is how Gemma Bridgewater knew when she walked out onto that stage that Diana Frost had been dead for over two hours.

No, well you didn’t know, did you, sweetie? And neither did I.  Not until I somehow found myself back there, with all those flashing blue lights and roadblocks. Police, ambulance, fire brigade, not to mention an enthralled audience; it gave me quite a shock. But if they thought that being crushed to death in my little Fiat would make me miss my opening night, they don’t know Diana Frost.

I’m sorry about the cancellation of the rest of the season. But the truth is, darling Gemma, although you are an actress of sorts, as understudies go you’re just barely adequate, and that’s putting it kindly.  It became all too evident at the run through before the next performance. Sensible of Gavin to pull the pin. The audience would have demanded their money back anyway.

I could, of course, have used you in the same way every other night, but I decided not. On Saturday I was at my very best and I’d like to leave it that way. And besides, if I did, they couldn’t exactly call it live theatre, could they?

But, do you know what, darling? I’ve been thinking. Auditions for ‘Streetcar’ at the Majestic are coming up next month. I reckon we might be able to pull off Blanche between us, don’t you think?