Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Olly
‘Right, let’s get ready to take it from the top in five minutes,’ shouts Elaine on our last morning in the rehearsal room.
In every corner there are rowdy preparations for our first stagger through of all the numbers and medleys in the first half of tomorrow’s performance.
Elaine has her game face on, and Marty has so many piles of sheet music next to him it’s impossible to understand how he has the brain capacity to play it all.
I’m doing vocal warm-ups at the side of the studio with Zeb and Jas, making a list of everything I want to do perfectly in our upcoming run.
I keep losing count though, drifting off to how comforting it was when Tarun held my hand last night.
We went straight to sleep once we were back at the hotel, so we haven’t unpacked it.
He was being utterly kind in holding my hand when I was thinking about Mum, but is it crazy to hope there was a spark of a romantic gesture as well?
How often does someone hold your hand for literally minutes?
‘Earth to Oliver?! Are you with us, dear?’ Zeb asks, 180waving in my face and bringing me crashing away from my thoughts.
‘Sorry!’
‘You need to stay focused. Jas was asking if there are any potential winners in our group.’
Jas looks at me expectantly, and I say, ‘Well, Gabby obviously…’
‘I mean, we thought the same last year, and then she just … wasn’t included in the top six,’ says Zeb.
We’d all assigned one of the final spots to Gabby as soon we heard her sing last year.
She’s that good. It was a bit of a scandal when Fiona Miller, the amazing girl who won with ‘The Worst Pies in London’, got in the top six rather than Gabby.
Normally, comedy songs are beaten out by the highest-belting, most-dramatic person. But not last year.
‘How about in your group?’ I ask. ‘Aside from you, obviously.’
‘Pfft!’ Jasmine says, dropping into a deep lunge as part of her warm-up. ‘My chances were blown as soon as they made me do “I Get a Kick Out of You” rather than one of Reno’s big tap numbers, darling.’
‘It’s ridiculous,’ Gabby adds, coming up to us practising fouetté turns. ‘Jas has shown me the video of her slaying “Blow, Gabriel Blow”, but Marty is apparently keen to derail good song choices this year.’181
Gabby’s jaw tenses, and I’m surprised to hear her calling out Marty so directly. We were both calling him a ‘musical wizard’ last year.
Before I can probe her further, Zeb grabs me by the arm and pulls me into a corner. We pass Tarun (adorably) practising stepping and clicking with such intense focus you’d think he was about to perform open-heart surgery.
‘Are you going to tell me what happened with your song? There’s not long to change it back…’
‘Zeb! I’ve made my choice. It’s … too big a risk to do a song nobody’s heard in the final.’
He folds his arms. ‘You’re well aware the musical theatre luvvies crave a deep cut. What you’re not saying is you think it’s too big a risk to sing something gay…’
‘I’m just playing the game a bit, that’s all.’
‘The game?’ he asks, eyes narrowed.
‘You know what I mean! Doing what’s right for our mission objectives: making sure I showcase myself in the best light for the judges! I have to rival Evil Eyes as the best leading man in the final.’
He opens his mouth to launch into a tirade but, luckily, he’s interrupted by Lauren, our Deputy Stage Manager.
She’s joined us in rehearsals to prepare for tomorrow, which so far mostly seems to involve bossing Nate around, who’s currently ferrying props across the room.
She shouts, ‘Okay! Positions for the opening number, please!’182
‘I’m not going to stop asking you questions about this, Ol,’ Zeb says, and I nod. It’s time to stop avoiding his attempts to find out what’s going on and make him see it the way I do. How important it is.
‘Okay. Let’s chat properly at lunch.’
He relaxes his shoulders, and nods. ‘Great. Have a good stagger.’
‘You too.’ I smile, dashing off to my starting position for the top of the show.
Tarun
The (what they keep calling a) ‘stagger through’, though I’m not sure how it’s different from a ‘run through’, goes well. By which I mean, I don’t trip over myself, which is my personal measure of success.
‘Tarun?’ Elaine calls out to me in the middle of her post-run notes session. ‘Very good today. We’re getting there, but I still think the stakes can be higher.’
I take her note, although I’m a little disappointed. I thought I’d done better. Not up to the standards of everyone else, but it felt like I meant it. Apparently not.
There’s a dancing note as well. I clicked to the right instead of the left like everyone else in ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’, so I’ll focus hard on that when we’re next running 183the song. I don’t want to show myself up. I definitely don’t want to spoil the number for everyone else.
There are notes for everyone, and then we’re sent for lunch. Today’s much more exciting than our usual sandwiches and salads. To celebrate saying goodbye to the rehearsal rooms and heading to the theatre this afternoon, we’re being treated to a fancy meal at a restaurant.
‘Oh hey,’ says Olly, as I sit next to him at the restaurant’s huge marble table.
‘Hi! It’s even fancier than The Dawlish in here.’
‘For sure!’
‘I thought you were saving me a seat, Ol?’ says Zeb, appearing behind our chairs. ‘We’re meant to be chatting?’
‘I’m sorry!’ I say, getting up to leave. ‘I’ll move.’
When I look around the table though, the only spare seat is next to Oisín. I’ve avoided him all morning. I freeze, and Olly must catch me, because he looks over at Oisín and twigs.
‘Do you mind, Zeb?’ says Olly, tilting his head to the vacant seat. ‘I’m not sure Tarun’s got an hour’s worth of niceties with Oisín up his sleeve after last night.’
Zeb looks, rolls his eyes and walks over to the other side of the table. ‘Only because I saw his face when I told him you weren’t coming back, Tarun. Saved once again, Oliver…’
‘Thank you!’ Olly says before turning to me. ‘You 184alright today? How did you think the run went this morning?’
‘It could have gone a lot worse, but I don’t know how to give Elaine the stakes she wants.’
‘Have you done the “finding something from your life to draw on” trick?’
‘Aye, but … I guess I haven’t found the right memory yet.’
‘Is there a big decision you’ve been torn about before?’
I rack my brain. ‘It’s hard because pretty much every small choice I make feels like a massive, life-altering one when you add in an anxious brain… I avoid decision making as much as I can.’
‘What would you like to order, gentlemen?’ asks a waitress with a notepad. I hadn’t noticed the menu in front of me while chatting with Olly.
‘Uhh, I’ll have the chicken pie, cheers,’ Olly orders, able to rapidly decide from a quick glance at the menu.
‘And I’ll get a veggie pie, please,’ I say. The waitress nods, moving onto Ella and Andrew next to me.
‘Was choosing to come to the Larrys a big decision?’ Olly asks.
‘I guess… It was so last minute, with me being on the reserve list, that the decision kind of got taken out of my hands. It was scary, but exciting. Plus, I thought it was my chance to reconnect with Oisín after our…’185
I don’t say ‘kiss’, wanting to forget about the whole situation.
‘So, you had reasons to pull you to come? A bit like Marius and his pull to fight for what’s right?’
I nod. ‘You’re not wrong.’
‘And it’s a good one, as it sounds like it wasn’t too traumatic a decision for you. Some memories aren’t worth mining for dramatic support. That can be dangerous. It’s not healthy to use anything that was really painful at the time.’
‘Noted. Are you this good an acting teacher to the kids you teach?’
‘Oh no, I’m significantly better!’ He laughs. ‘I’m not your teacher here. We’re equals. We help each other out.’
He’s wrong to think of us as being anywhere near comparable. But it feels good, him saying it’s not just him helping me. With each day that passes as roommates, he makes me feel … special. Worthy. But that’s just the kind of guy he is. He’s helpful and kind to everyone.
Olly
The musty smell of panicked quick changes and desperate understudies ready to trip the leads down the stairs hits me as soon as I walk through the stage door.
Even though 186the West End theatre backstage areas are as cramped, old and dusty as any theatre, it’s still like stepping through a portal into a world of theatre magic.
That’s the charm of a theatre that has decades of drama (both on and off stage) baked into the walls.
This building’s where four Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals premiered in the UK; the ghostly Man in Grey’s haunted the corridors since the eighteenth century; and where my dad was once asked to spend nearly a tenner for a tiny tub of interval ice cream, something he still gets angry about a decade later.
‘Sign in next to your name,’ says the stage-door keeper, a crusty old man named Jim, tapping the check-in sheet we have to use whenever we enter or exit the theatre.
I’m the first one to sign in, and to avoid a blockage in the stage-door entrance, I’m told to head to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane’s gargantuan stage.
For one perfect moment, I’m the only person on stage or in the auditorium.
The theatre is starkly imposing without the warm and encouraging mass of people who will be filling the seats tomorrow.
I turn in a full circle, taking in each perfect plush red velvet seat and dormant stage light hanging above me.
‘You look like I did when I first saw the Grand Canyon, mate!’ says Hugo, taking me by surprise as he walks onto stage with Zeb and Nate. ‘In bloody awe.’
‘He’s in his happy place,’ says Zeb.187
‘And yours,’ I reply, indicating up to the fly tower.
He half smiles in return. ‘For another day and a half…’
‘As if tomorrow’s your last ever performance, Zeb,’ adds Nate, pushing him playfully upstage to explore. ‘Going to miss it, aren’t you?’