Rehearsals. Day 1.
We met in a room somewhere in Hackney. I got lost and turned up thirty minutes late. Max, the director, bawled me out and made sure everybody knew who I was, even if I didn’t know who they were. I chucked my bag on the floor and tried to make myself invisible.
It was an old church hall with arched windows looking onto the high street and a wooden floor worn smooth by years of feet. Max sat at a long table with people I didn’t know. Neither did I know the rest of the cast, who stood or leant against dirty cream-tiled walls. We were silent. Nervous. Not knowing what the thing we had fought so hard to get would entail.
Max laid down his three rules: promptness — I’d already failed the first — dedication and professionalism. Then he told us that we were going to be family for the next twelve months, whether we liked it or not.
I looked around. There were about twenty of us. Everyone nodded in agreement and smiled at their neighbours; people they had never met.
The one person I might have recognised wasn’t there.
Rehearsals. Day 7.
The same dingy room that now feels like home. The same monotonous dance routines.
The leads started a week after us and were holed up next door learning their vocal parts. We rarely saw them.
Except that today, I saw him for the first time.
Nobody else appeared to notice.
After lunch, he leant against the doorframe and stayed for a few minutes while we rehearsed. I watched him out of the corner of my eye and mistimed my move. I crashed into another boy and we both ended up on the floor.
I got bawled out by Maria, the choreographer, who told me to concentrate.
We started the routine again.
He smirked and went back next door.
This time I got it right.
Afterwards, dripping in sweat and smelling awful, we grabbed our belongings and piled downstairs into the street. Bonds had been formed. Outside, we laughed and joked and made plans for the evening.
Rehearsals. Day 10.
Now comes the difficult part. The part I dread.
Dancing is key, but most of us have forgotten that we must sing too. Joey, the musical director, sits us in a circle and reads through each song. I have never understood the reason for doing this. Why not sing them the first time? Most of us know the songs already.
But dancers hate to sing.
My fears are unfounded because Joey turns out to be a shortcut man. Instead of getting us to sing individually, we go through each song as a chorus while he tiptoes amongst us, making sure we’re giving our all. He stops us once or twice and gives advice.
At least there isn’t the piano that often gets rolled into the rehearsal space. I’ve grown to hate the sound of a solitary piano.
Joey is hi-tech, preferring to have someone play the scores through a laptop and big speaker.
After the first run-through, we high-five each other and feel pleased with ourselves.
None of us had noticed that Max had slipped into the room with a big frown on his face.
He tells us that we sound like a piece of shit.
Rehearsals. Day 14.
The point at which everyone is fed up to the back teeth with the musical.
We tell each other that we will never audition for this show again.
Endless hours spent matching the choreography to the singing, or, as Maria puts it, matching the singing to the choreography.
It is also the point where some of us break the monotony by daring to add little flourishes here and there. A turn of the head in another direction. A twist of a wrist. An extra wriggle of the body.
This means that the overall spectacle becomes a bit of a shambles.
Maria is ready for this and makes us sit down while she rattles off an age-worn speech about synchronisation and togetherness. She finishes by saying that Max will spot anything that shouldn’t be there.
She would hate us to upset Max.
Rehearsals. Day 21.
Them and us.
The leads and the ensemble.
We came together for the first time.
Max stood in the middle of the room and said that it was time we put things together. The leads were quietly discussing the script in a corner. We hung onto every word Max said because if we got it wrong, we were easily dispensable.
He wanted to start with the opening dance number that sets the scene for the musical.
The leads stopped talking.
We found our starting positions while Maria fired up the music on a laptop.
It went well until one of the girls slipped and ended up in a heap.
We improvised our moves to allow her to rejoin the routine.
Maria let it pass, but Max called a halt and screamed that it was fucking shit.
Start again.
In the corner, the leads exchanged knowing glances.
The girl apologised and we told her not to worry. It happens to all of us.
But Max was having none of it.
He told her not to make the same mistake because next time she’d be out.
It put pressure on all of us.
None of us had worked with a director like this before.
We began again and this time it went without a hitch.
But Max called us sloppy.
At lunchtime, we sat outside drinking lots of water.
Everybody called Max a cunt.
The way he speaks to people. They understand that everything needs to be perfect, but he demands it by spreading fear amongst us.
Then one of the boys pointed out that he doesn’t talk to the leads like that. Even though they have repeatedly fluffed their lines, he has let it ride.
We are aggrieved conspirators and have taken against them.
Rehearsals. Day 28.
The last day in the rehearsal space.
We’ve been here eight hours a day, six days a week, for a month. We’ve been through every scene a hundred times and danced until our feet hurt. I have blisters on my feet and have had to buy a new pair of trainers that are more comfortable.
Max tells us that if we thought it had been tough so far, then the next two weeks are going to be tougher.
The audience will expect a spectacular dance, he tells us.
And even though we are shit, he will make sure that is what they get.
He has fired two dancers, including the girl who slipped the week before.
The animosity with the leads has got worse.
Simon is the big name and they take their venom out on him most. He forgets his lines. Keeps referring to the script. Finds himself in the wrong place.
He is a has-been.
This is never to his face, of course, but within the confines of our group.
I try to remain positive and make excuses for him. At least he has been a has-been, I tell them.
One of the boys calls him a camp old queen and everybody laughs.
We rehearse the closing scenes in the afternoon.
The boys take off their vests to try deliberately to distract Simon. It is a wave of sweaty flesh, lean muscular bodies and eroticism.
Simon is all eyes and not much else.
He stumbles over his words and Max attempts to cover up for him by screaming at us instead.
Rehearsals. Day 35.
We have spent a week doing technical and dress rehearsals in a purpose-built space at Hammersmith.
But we miss the church hall.
In between rehearsals, we are fitted for costumes. We must practise fifteen quick changes.
We aren’t quick enough.
Max screams again.
Then we have to stop rehearsals so that they can tweak the lighting and sound. And then the recorded music is replaced by a sixteen-piece orchestra; eight of whom will travel with us, the other eight sourced locally at each place on the tour.
One girl suggests that we are now spending as much time waiting as we are rehearsing.
Everybody is tired by the end of the day, but Max insists that we stay behind because he wants to make changes to the big number that opens the second act.
The leads tut amongst themselves and mention Equity rules, but he flannels them until they can see the benefits of staying an extra hour.
We are the ones who must find extra bursts of energy, but none of us gets a say in the matter.
Disaster strikes.
One of the boys lands awkwardly and injures his foot.
At first everybody thinks it is a bad sprain, but a first aider, who none of us knew existed until now, insists that he goes to hospital, where it later turns out to be a broken ankle.
Max swears at us.
We are already two dancers down and the boy in question has an important role in the opening sequence.
It throws everything into turmoil and I am unfortunate enough to be standing close to Max when he makes a snap decision.
He clicks his fingers and points at me.
He calls me the wrong name and says that I must take over from the indisposed boy.
We abandon the planned rehearsal and instead improvise with the opening number.
My steps must change and it feels like a completely new dance routine.
Whereas I previously ended stage right, I must now finish dead centre.
It takes ten attempts to get it right.
And then I must stand and wait for Simon to come up from behind, put his arms around my waist and say, Hard work is how you succeed in life.
And then I must give a big smile and shout, Gee, Mr Dilalio, I think I’ve got it now.
But it is the first time I have ever spoken onstage and Max bawls me out for not being loud enough.
I point out that I will be miked up during performances.
Big mistake.
He comes right up to my face and whispers that he will turn the fucking mike off.
We go through the moves again and my voice is hoarse after shouting Gee, Mr Dilalio, I think I’ve got it now for the hundredth time.
Rehearsals. Day 38.
It feels strange.
My ranking amongst the ensemble has risen.
They like it that Max constantly screams at me.
I can do no right.
He criticises my dancing, maintains that I don’t project my voice enough, and now I am not smiling correctly.
I point out to Max that Mrs Brown from Bradford won’t care a toss if I smile correctly or not. She won’t have a clue, will she?
Max throws his mobile phone on the floor and storms over to me.
I couldn’t give a fuck about Mrs Brown from Bradford, he bellows.
My colleagues think I am deliberately winding Max up and therefore I’ve become a bad-boy hero and simply wonderful.
But my body aches. I’m tired and extremely short-tempered after two days of tech and dress rehearsals. I’ve never known a production have so many of them, and each time I get bawled out.
Something else has also happened.
That opening sequence where Simon comes up behind me and says, Hard work is how you succeed in life, has become noticeably weird.
At first, I was too pumped up to realise, but Simon’s hands didn’t rest on my hips anymore. They had moved a few inches higher until his hands grabbed both my sweaty flanks.
Then he started to squeeze them.
And with each rehearsal the squeezing got harder and harder until my sides were so sore that I winced when he grabbed me.
I got bawled out for that too.
At the point where the audience were expected to clap as we made a quick stage exit, Simon pinched the cheeks of my arse.
It was so fleeting that nobody noticed except me.
But it happened every time.
Late in the day, one of the girls slips me a cigarette during the break. She suggests that I go around the back and chill out for a bit.
I hadn’t smoked for months but gratefully accepted her offer and slipped outside.
Simon was smoking a miniature cigar.
We nodded at each other.
Then he spoke and I looked around to see who it was he was talking to.
It seemed that I was his only audience.
Have you heard the phrase That Was Then, This Is Now? he asks.
I shake my head.
It comes from S. E. Hinton’s 1971 coming-of-age novel. That specific line — The difference is that was then, this is now — is spoken by the main character, Bryon Douglas. It is also the name of a 1983 song by pop band ABC.
That Was Then, This Is Now.
How poignant a reminder that is, he continues.
I know that everybody thinks I’m a washed-up old actor. They’re probably right. I didn’t want to do this tour. But we hang onto the dream that our star might rise again.
It never does, he sighs.
I’m not sure how to reply.
I’ve made over fifty movies, he tells me, and have been top billing in the West End and Broadway. Now I’m consigned to entertaining Mrs Brown from Bradford, as you eloquently put it.
So, he says with an air of finality, please don’t begrudge me pinching your backside when I get the chance.
It is the only pleasure I have left.
The door opens and Max walks out.
Simon walks inside.
There you are, Max says to me.
He is about to address the company and I am the only one missing.
I throw away the cigarette and quickly follow him.
But Max stops and grabs my arm.
Before I do, he says, I want to tell you that you have done very well.
We’ll make a star out of you yet.
Instead of walking back into the hall, I float on air.
Max shouts for everyone to gather around because he has something important to say.
First, he tells us that tomorrow we have a day off.
Then he tells us that we are about to start the tour and that he is proud of us.
That we are the best company he has ever worked with.
