Beige

When was it decided that everything should be beige? or magenta? or any of those colours that are the equivalent of retiring and watching those Michael Parkinson adverts while slowly shrivelling up until you look like a giant walnut with slippers on. They should have colour charts that describe these colours more accurately. So instead of Barley; Death By Deal Or No Deal. No more Harvest Moon. Replace it with Hell On Tea. Get rid of Autumn Sunset, lets call it Midsummer Murdered. When approached by the sales guy in the carpet shop I was in last week, after being asked ‘if I was looking for anything particular’… ‘yes I was looking for a Tuba but you don’t seem to have any in stock IN A CARPET SHOP’. He proceeded to take me through the seven stages of beige, each one being more dusty and boring than the one before. All the while I am being slowly brainwashed by inhaling the evil carpet dust and having the sudden urge to buy the daily mail and eat a nice bit of sponge cake when I get home. No! I refuse to comply to the beige army. I want carpets made from the same material as Joseph’s Technicolour Dreamcoat but fluffier. I want carpets that are the result of a loom being connected to Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland played at full volume. I want my stairs to look like a waterfall from a Salvador dali painting so that everytime I walk up and downstairs I feel like I am in the Yellow Submarine. What I don’t want is BEIGE.

Reading out loud in a big room with people watching

Ok so after rehearsing infront of my two cats for a few hours in the morning (one walked out and one fell asleep, tough crowd) I made my way to the LPAC and to have a look at the stage. Although it wasn’t the 02 Arena it was much bigger and lit better, than my living room. Although funnily enough I was less nervous now than when I had been practicing infront of the cats, and better lit.
After a few minutes a couple of the other performers (Abigail, Michael and Jodie) arrived and after being shown to our dressing room (complete with complimentary biscuits, yes that’s right COMPLIMENTARY BISCUITS) we hastily made our way to the café to calm down by drinking coffee and prepare our voices by eating sandwiches and crisps.
What became clear very quickly is how well we got on in such a short space time. Before the show I had visions of half a dozen people all sat in corners practising their acts whilst listening to relaxing music on their ipods and not really saying much to each other.
It was the complete opposite, just a few friends hanging out on a Saturday night, having a laugh and relaxing (I refuse to use the word chillaxing. Unless someone gives me the power to destroy words by saying them really loud, which doesn’t seem likely before Saturday at least).
Then the very man himself; Robert Llewellyn arrived. We all went quiet and waited to see how he would be……
Well we needn’t have worried, he was down to earth, funny, told some brilliant stories and quickly became part of the “friends hanging out on a Saturday night” gang. So after all that fun, we were reminded we had a show to do.
Rather like a strange showbiz Doctors waiting room we were called out one by one, hearing the applause from the acts on stage made us feel good, but also we wanted to make sure we lived up to the previous act!
After collecting the last lines of each of our scripts, which lead to a great conversation with the singer/songwriter Michael:
“so how will we know when you have finished”
“I will have stopped singing”
And then again with Jodie;
“What the last line of your act?”
“The End”
“Er ok maybe the one before that one then….”
I made my way to the side of the stage to listen to Mike and prepare to go on afterwards…
After some words of encouragement from a couple of the others I confidently strolled on stage. By “confidently” I mean “nervously” and by “strolled” I mean “shuffled”.
Initially it was a bit of a blur but after a few minutes I began to settle as people began to laugh in the right places. After a few minutes I even started to enjoy myself which was a pleasant surprise and then it was over, people were still laughing and I left the stage to enjoy the rest of a wonderful show. Then a few drinks afterwards to celebrate what had a been a pretty extraordinary night!
NOW I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN.