07:02am...
07:02am?!
What?!! No, it can't be!
I glanced across the table at my phone confirming the digitised number on my alarm clock
No!! not today!
I was in a panic, a real panic, I flung myself out of bed and immediately tripped over the slippers I had laid out in front of my bed the night before, Whack! I hit the floor, hard
Because of the sheer amount of adrenalin rushing through me I barely had time to feel the pain in my knee, I picked myself up and rushed into the bathroom taking a towel with me. I ran the water whilst using the loo and washed my face at the same time as brushing my teeth, I've never been able to do two things a once so each time I brushed my teeth I had to stop and scrub my face
This is taking too long!
I abandoned the bathroom and raced to my wardrobe and pulled out the first pair of jeans and t-shirt i could find, I then grabbed my jacket and shoes after pulling on my socks and bolted out the door, I was still half way down the street when I managed to get my left shoe on, I ran round the corner onto he man road and hailed a taxi
07:13am
"Paddington train station as quick as possible please"
"No problem guv'nor" came the reply
We speeded round corners and down roads until eventually Paddington came into sight
"at'll be £8.50 please mate"
I paid the driver and steamed out of the taxi, i was running so fast it hurt, each breath causing more and more pain, my lungs not able to keep up
07:25am
I was at the self service ticket machine where the e-mail had told me to pick up my pre-paid tickets from patiently pressing the touch screen button and entering the required information
Come on Come on!!
Finally two tickets successfully appeared and after grabbing them and I sprinted over to the barriers and almost threw them at the machine, a small smile came over my face just as I walked forward but something wasn't right, the barrier wouldn't open,
I tried again,
nothing,
come on what's wrong?!
I could see the train in front of me the steam taunting me as if it was about to leave
I glanced down at the tickets and immediately saw my problem. I had picked up two receipts printed on the same type of card as a ticket! my tickets were still in the machine!
07:27am
without think I bolted towards the ticket vendor and saw that my two tickets were still waiting for me, I lunged at them and sprinted back, I put them in the machine, the barriers swung open and I leaped into the doors
07:29am
one minute later the automated train doors closed and ever so slowly the train started upon it's journey to Bristol.
I slumped down into my chair and reflected on what had just come to pass, I came to the conclusion that at some point during the course of the evening I had very casually turned over in my sleep and switched my alarm off, I have been known to do it, especially on an early morning, mainly because I detest mornings but I couldn't think about that now, I couldn't really think of much as my body was still half asleep, I had an hour and a half to wake up.
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School has such a fantastic reputation and I had never auditioned there before. After researching the course and looking at what the school had to offer I thought I'd give it a bloody good go which is what I was doing sitting on that train.
The school itself is situated just outside of Temple Meads train station, about 10 minutes in a taxi costing around £10.00 or I would imagine 30 - 40 minutes on a bus, which I do not recommend unless you know the area. You want as little stress as possible on an audition day, your going to be nervous enough as it is without having to find bus routes etc.
I arrived at the campus feeling fairly nervous and was surprised as how much it looks just like an ordinary house from the outside. I was early so I decided to have a look around, it's in a really nice place, not city like and more residential than anything, I rounded the corner and found a group of students doing, what appeared to be, a warm up. They were in a glass shaped square attached to the back of the school raised above the ground. It looked really nice, especially as the sun was out.
Right, no more putting things off, the time had come. It's not particularly well marked where to go as there are two buildings so I just picked one and walked up to the door, before I had a chance to knock a lady answered the door
"you must be Alex"
"oh...erm....yes I am" wow how did she know that?
"your the 10:00am slot is that correct?"
Ah, thats how
"Yes thats correct"
"Right well, this is the waiting area, you'll be called up shortly, would you like anything to drink at all?"
"oh...er..."
"no? ok not to worry, the bathrooms are just threw there and I am going to give you this piece of text which the panel will ask you to sight read, have you ever sight read before?"
Wait, what? there was no mention of sight reading in the requirements letter
"oh...ok...well yes i've sight read before" I said gingerly
"great, please do not worry about it too much, it will not have any effect in the decision the panel make about you, it's just for them to see how you do"
Well thats bullshit
"right...ok, thank you"
"good luck"
"thank...." but she had already left
I sat down and glanced at the piece of text in my hand, I could immediately tell it was an extract from the classic Charles Dickens novel 'A Christmas Carol' but it was more than a paragraph and a little less than a page. I immediately started to read through it to get familiar with the wording so I could read from if needed.
"Alex?" came a mans voice
"Yes"
"Hi, would you like to come up?"
Here goes, good luck buddy
I travelled up 2 flights of wooden stairs and entered a room not bigger than conference room. A woman was already sitting behind a table with a vacant chair next to her presumably for the man who had just called me up. They introduced themselves ad gestured me to sit down in the empty chair across from them
"So Alex, why do you want to come to Bristol?"
I am really bad at interviews, mainly because I get so caught up in what i think they WANT to hear and not infact the truth of why I actually do want to study at drama schools, this, unfortunately, was one of those instances.
After answering three questions, they directed me to the space behind me and asked me to not stand 'too far forward' and to use the space as much as possible. So I took a deep breath and went into my Shakespeare, Modern, song and sight reading.
It was pretty gruelling, as I expected it would be and my dreadful start to the day didn't help, in fact the second I finished singing, even before the sight reading I knew I hadn't got in, the energy was sucked from the room and I didn't enjoy any moment of it myself. I can safely say this was the worst audition ever taken part in.
"Alex, can I give you a bit of advice?"
"by all means"
"Your monologues do not contrast, there's just no humour or enjoyment in them. You are good, I can see you know everything that's happening in the scene but you didn't smile once, I'm sure you have a lovely smile but I just feel really disengaged because of the lack of energy in the room so you need to focus more on enjoying a piece, after all, you have paid to do this, please keep that in mind for your other auditions"
I would, it was such a great bit of advice and although I walked out of that room knowing that it was a solid 'no' I took everything she said in and actually completely agreed with what she had told me, I honestly didn't enjoy any bit of it
and I didn't smile,
I felt like an idiot, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life and I didn't even enjoy a moment of it, I was tired but thats no excuse, I would take what she had to say and apply it to every forthcoming audition, coming up and in the future.
Sure enough 3 days later I got the infamous e-mail 'we have enjoyed meeting you and thank you for attending the audition but regretfully we are unable to offer you a place at Bristol this year, we wish you luck and every success in the future'
Yes I was disappointed but I shook it off, picked myself up and looked forward to the next one.
I glanced across the table at my phone confirming the digitised number on my alarm clock
No!! not today!
I was in a panic, a real panic, I flung myself out of bed and immediately tripped over the slippers I had laid out in front of my bed the night before, Whack! I hit the floor, hard
Because of the sheer amount of adrenalin rushing through me I barely had time to feel the pain in my knee, I picked myself up and rushed into the bathroom taking a towel with me. I ran the water whilst using the loo and washed my face at the same time as brushing my teeth, I've never been able to do two things a once so each time I brushed my teeth I had to stop and scrub my face
This is taking too long!
I abandoned the bathroom and raced to my wardrobe and pulled out the first pair of jeans and t-shirt i could find, I then grabbed my jacket and shoes after pulling on my socks and bolted out the door, I was still half way down the street when I managed to get my left shoe on, I ran round the corner onto he man road and hailed a taxi
07:13am
"Paddington train station as quick as possible please"
"No problem guv'nor" came the reply
We speeded round corners and down roads until eventually Paddington came into sight
"at'll be £8.50 please mate"
I paid the driver and steamed out of the taxi, i was running so fast it hurt, each breath causing more and more pain, my lungs not able to keep up
07:25am
I was at the self service ticket machine where the e-mail had told me to pick up my pre-paid tickets from patiently pressing the touch screen button and entering the required information
Come on Come on!!
Finally two tickets successfully appeared and after grabbing them and I sprinted over to the barriers and almost threw them at the machine, a small smile came over my face just as I walked forward but something wasn't right, the barrier wouldn't open,
I tried again,
nothing,
come on what's wrong?!
I could see the train in front of me the steam taunting me as if it was about to leave
I glanced down at the tickets and immediately saw my problem. I had picked up two receipts printed on the same type of card as a ticket! my tickets were still in the machine!
07:27am
without think I bolted towards the ticket vendor and saw that my two tickets were still waiting for me, I lunged at them and sprinted back, I put them in the machine, the barriers swung open and I leaped into the doors
07:29am
one minute later the automated train doors closed and ever so slowly the train started upon it's journey to Bristol.
I slumped down into my chair and reflected on what had just come to pass, I came to the conclusion that at some point during the course of the evening I had very casually turned over in my sleep and switched my alarm off, I have been known to do it, especially on an early morning, mainly because I detest mornings but I couldn't think about that now, I couldn't really think of much as my body was still half asleep, I had an hour and a half to wake up.
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School has such a fantastic reputation and I had never auditioned there before. After researching the course and looking at what the school had to offer I thought I'd give it a bloody good go which is what I was doing sitting on that train.
The school itself is situated just outside of Temple Meads train station, about 10 minutes in a taxi costing around £10.00 or I would imagine 30 - 40 minutes on a bus, which I do not recommend unless you know the area. You want as little stress as possible on an audition day, your going to be nervous enough as it is without having to find bus routes etc.
I arrived at the campus feeling fairly nervous and was surprised as how much it looks just like an ordinary house from the outside. I was early so I decided to have a look around, it's in a really nice place, not city like and more residential than anything, I rounded the corner and found a group of students doing, what appeared to be, a warm up. They were in a glass shaped square attached to the back of the school raised above the ground. It looked really nice, especially as the sun was out.
Right, no more putting things off, the time had come. It's not particularly well marked where to go as there are two buildings so I just picked one and walked up to the door, before I had a chance to knock a lady answered the door
"you must be Alex"
"oh...erm....yes I am" wow how did she know that?
"your the 10:00am slot is that correct?"
Ah, thats how
"Yes thats correct"
"Right well, this is the waiting area, you'll be called up shortly, would you like anything to drink at all?"
"oh...er..."
"no? ok not to worry, the bathrooms are just threw there and I am going to give you this piece of text which the panel will ask you to sight read, have you ever sight read before?"
Wait, what? there was no mention of sight reading in the requirements letter
"oh...ok...well yes i've sight read before" I said gingerly
"great, please do not worry about it too much, it will not have any effect in the decision the panel make about you, it's just for them to see how you do"
Well thats bullshit
"right...ok, thank you"
"good luck"
"thank...." but she had already left
I sat down and glanced at the piece of text in my hand, I could immediately tell it was an extract from the classic Charles Dickens novel 'A Christmas Carol' but it was more than a paragraph and a little less than a page. I immediately started to read through it to get familiar with the wording so I could read from if needed.
"Alex?" came a mans voice
"Yes"
"Hi, would you like to come up?"
Here goes, good luck buddy
I travelled up 2 flights of wooden stairs and entered a room not bigger than conference room. A woman was already sitting behind a table with a vacant chair next to her presumably for the man who had just called me up. They introduced themselves ad gestured me to sit down in the empty chair across from them
"So Alex, why do you want to come to Bristol?"
I am really bad at interviews, mainly because I get so caught up in what i think they WANT to hear and not infact the truth of why I actually do want to study at drama schools, this, unfortunately, was one of those instances.
After answering three questions, they directed me to the space behind me and asked me to not stand 'too far forward' and to use the space as much as possible. So I took a deep breath and went into my Shakespeare, Modern, song and sight reading.
It was pretty gruelling, as I expected it would be and my dreadful start to the day didn't help, in fact the second I finished singing, even before the sight reading I knew I hadn't got in, the energy was sucked from the room and I didn't enjoy any moment of it myself. I can safely say this was the worst audition ever taken part in.
"Alex, can I give you a bit of advice?"
"by all means"
"Your monologues do not contrast, there's just no humour or enjoyment in them. You are good, I can see you know everything that's happening in the scene but you didn't smile once, I'm sure you have a lovely smile but I just feel really disengaged because of the lack of energy in the room so you need to focus more on enjoying a piece, after all, you have paid to do this, please keep that in mind for your other auditions"
I would, it was such a great bit of advice and although I walked out of that room knowing that it was a solid 'no' I took everything she said in and actually completely agreed with what she had told me, I honestly didn't enjoy any bit of it
and I didn't smile,
I felt like an idiot, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life and I didn't even enjoy a moment of it, I was tired but thats no excuse, I would take what she had to say and apply it to every forthcoming audition, coming up and in the future.
Sure enough 3 days later I got the infamous e-mail 'we have enjoyed meeting you and thank you for attending the audition but regretfully we are unable to offer you a place at Bristol this year, we wish you luck and every success in the future'
Yes I was disappointed but I shook it off, picked myself up and looked forward to the next one.
