Stage Mum

by Lisa Gee

  I was, it turned out, a lot more anxious than I had anticipated being. And, despite my expectations to the contrary, I really really wanted Dora to come out with an even broader grin than she went in with… and a letter. An unfamiliar urge was bubbling up in my stomach, provoking vague nausea enhanced by a wishy-washy sense of righton liberal shame. I was silently willing Dora to open her throat and wow ’em. I don’t consider myself either highly competitive or a particularly ambitious-for-my-child mother (well, not very). But every now and then – and this was one of those occasions – a petite and slightly passive-aggressive dragon uneggs itself inside me, mewling quietly for victory. Naturally, I try to conceal it under an ‘I-couldn’t-be-more-delighted-for-your-success’ kind of smile, but I strongly suspect that it’s still visible, pulsing away underneath. If Dora did get any further, could I rein in this obnoxious part of me?

  It’s not even as if I ever wanted to go on the stage myself. As a geeky pre-teen I’d been forced into attending a local drama training institution for after-school lessons. The Studio School was run by Miss Jones – a distinctly colour-boosted redhead with terrifying diction and no-nonsense eyeliner – and Miss Hudson, a gentler, quieter soul and a hazier, greyer presence in my memory. It was in my own best interests: I was so mumbly as to be borderline inaudible, and my parents decided that elocution and acting lessons would cure me. I hated it. It was, I felt, hard enough figuring out how to be myself, without having to pretend to be other people, however fictional, and even if for only a couple of hours a week. Nikki, younger than me by three years, much more outgoing, cheeky and tiny for her age, loved performing and had real talent. She was spotted by an agent during one of the Studio School’s annual shows and earned a lot of money (for a nine-year-old) bouncing across a Birds Eye advert, dressed as a giant fish finger.

  My father was also a good actor. In his teens he won a place at RADA’s preparatory academy. He turned it down, choosing to study civil engineering instead: it was, apparently, just as much fun, and meant his National Service was deferred (though he was disappointed when it was, ultimately, cancelled as he’d been looking forward to travelling abroad and playing lots of table tennis). And Dad could still exercise his dramatic flair by miming, dressed in a conservative suit and a less conservative curly brown wig, to Shirley Bassey doing ‘Hey Big Spender’ at company Christmas parties.

  And although Dora had no previous acting experience, my father’s suggestion that she might like to try out for The Sound of Music wasn’t completely random. After their (very happy) time in daycare, Dora and her two best friends were each about to start a different school. To ease the pain of separation and ensure that they could still get to hang out regularly, we parents got together and enrolled them into the littlies ballet class at Adele’s Dance School. I was ambivalent. I knew Dora would have fun dancing with her friends and hoped (rather optimistically) the discipline might calm her down a tad. But it was already perfectly clear that with her three-year-old proto-warrior physique and habit of barrelling into people head-first for ferocious, spine-shattering cuddles, she was never going to mature into the kind of quietly bendy, baby-pink stick insect that gives good ballet, and I felt that it was important to protect her from thinking that she should. There’s more than enough pressure on young girls to starve themselves unnaturally thin, without over-exposing them to the extremes of that particular part of the dance world. But given that she and her friends were only three, and this was local, inexpensive, conveniently timed ballet-for-fun, where the teacher welcomed children of all shapes, sizes and abilities, I decided that my worries were, if not excessive, at least previous. If, at some point, doing ballet did start having a negative impact on Dora’s sense of self, I’d just have to divert her into tap or Kathak instead.

  One Tuesday afternoon, a year after the three of them had skipped into their first lesson, wearing their favourite 100% polyester fairy dress-up costumes, I arrived late, someone else having delivered Dora for me. Unlike many dance schools, at Adele’s, parents and carers are encouraged to stay and watch. This is sometimes cute, sometimes hilarious and sometimes tortuously boring – especially as you get told off for chatting. To my dismay, I discovered everyone except my daughter standing in line, swaying along to the opening strains of ‘Do-Re-Mi’. Dora was fidgeting off to one side, watching. Adele’s Dance School is determinedly and cheerfully inclusive. What terrible sin, I wondered, could Dora possibly have committed to get herself excluded from the line-up? It didn’t look like anyone was bleeding …

  She hadn’t, it transpired, done anything wrong. The class was starting to rehearse its contribution to the school’s annual show. Earlier in the lesson, her hand had shot up and she’d volunteered – possibly without knowing what one was – to sing a solo. She was merely waiting on her cue. Striding out purposefully in front of the other little girls, she took her place and sang loudly, clearly, confidently and with evident gusto. Afterwards, Adele’s pianist Carl – who, in addition to accompanying little girls’ dance lessons, has also posed as Liberace for the entertainment of guests at Matt Lucas’s wedding party – took me aside. ‘Where did she get that voice?’ he asked. ‘She’s like Shirley Bassey.’

  Er … From her grandpa?

  A few of the kids trickled back in. It looked like there was a higher concentration of letters in this group. Adrianna was waving one. ‘That’s brilliant. Well done!’ I said, with as much enthusiasm as I could muster – which was, fortunately, quite a lot – while her parents cuddled and praised her. I looked anxiously towards the door. Dora was nowhere to be seen. Then, suddenly, there she was, leaping into my lap and shoving a piece of paper into my face. ‘I’ve got a recall,’ she announced proudly.

  I gave her a big hug and told her she’d done fantastically, especially as this was her first time, and that it was completely brilliant to have got a recall, and asked lots of questions. Did they sing together or by themselves? Did they have to do anything else? Was it scary or fun? And I reminded her that she had only got through the first stage and that it didn’t mean that she’d get a part, which she still definitely wouldn’t.

  It was almost a month and only one anxious email (I exercised impressive restraint) from me to Jo Hawes before details of the next audition plopped into our messy hallway. The two-page letter from Jo explained that there would, most likely, be several more rounds of auditions, which would be quite spread out, ‘with final casting not taking place until well into August’. She explained that they were looking for three Friedrichs, Louisas, Kurts, Brigittas and Martas, four or five Gretls ‘since she is such a young child’, and no Liesls: the role of the oldest von Trapp child would be played by a grown-up, sourced elsewhere. We were also urged to ‘make sure you understand the commitment involved with a show like this’, and to check with the children’s schools that they’d be happy for them to take part. ‘Rehearsals,’ she continued, ‘will be arduous and require time away from school although the statutory 15 hours’ schooling a week will be applied. Either this will take place at your own school or we will hire a tutor.’ Also, ‘Please note that no holidays will be permitted during the contract which will be from the start of rehearsals until March/April 07.’ The schedule would not be changed to accommodate anyone’s special occasions ‘or to allow time off for any reason during rehearsal and performances apart from illness – we require 100% commitment’.

  I avoided taking much notice of any of this: mostly because Laurie likes holidays, and I was nervous of raising the possibility of a six-month ban on them in the run-up to our wedding. Especially as, unlike me, he thought Dora had a good chance of winning a part. There were already more than enough, mostly catering-related (if we were refusing vol-au-vents, then surely we had to have mini-latkes) disputes to manage. Family members on both sides were muttering that we simply weren’t competent to organise the event ourselves: they seemed particularly worried about insufficiently padded seating, plates with the wrong patterns on, and no bridge rolls.

/>   Also I was slightly hazy about exactly what – should it come to pass – ‘100% commitment’ might involve. Would I need to look after Dora while she was rehearsing and performing? If so, would I be paid? How much? Did ‘no holidays’ mean we were confined to London for six months, or did it just mean no long trips to exotic locations? Anyway, I didn’t waste too much time thinking about it too deeply. She’d only got through one audition. All that meant was that she could sing in tune and was under five foot tall. There were still hundreds of children in the running. Watching The Sound of Music on video for approximately the millionth time (we did actually wear it out), I did, however, notice that she looked like Kym Karath, who played Gretl, nearly drowned during the boating scene and about whom Christopher Plummer reputedly exclaimed, ‘I’m not carrying that bloody fat little kid up that mountain’ (after which they stuffed a skinny local into Kym’s costume and filmed the scene with her instead).

  More of my attention was absorbed by the three pages of sheet music attached to the back of Jo’s letter. Dora needed to learn all three parts of an a cappella harmony extract from the title song, plus fifteen bars of ‘The Lonely Goatherd’. I couldn’t help her with that, nor could Laurie: we didn’t have a piano and I hadn’t tried to read music for over twenty-five years. Not since I’d failed my Grade 5 trumpet exam for the second time.

  A little over a month before our wedding, there was still a lot to organise. I wasn’t terribly bothered about things like clothes and flowers. Actually, I was so not bothered by flowers that it hadn’t occurred to me that we might need or want some. Clothes were slightly more of a concern. The feeling of sartorial inadequacy that thrums constantly at the edge of my consciousness was gradually gaining volume and would, I knew, at some point – probably when it was too late to do anything about it – erupt into full-blown neurosis. But I was way behind Lilli, who was threatening to spontaneously combust over Laurie’s reluctance to invest in a new outfit. She had a point: his attachment to the three pairs of well-worn Clark’s lace-ups that comprised his entire shoe collection did seem slightly unnatural, and his trouser-knees were universally shiny. ‘I’m an ascetic,’ he lamented. ‘Or I used to be. All I ever needed was one pair of yoga pants and a prayer mat.’ Which was true. Before becoming a children’s entertainer (how we met), my husband-to-be used to travel the world practising and teaching Sufi meditation, dance and Middle Eastern drumming.

  I was more concerned that we hadn’t yet sent out the invitations, or even decided exactly who we were going to invite. What was the point of ordering 250 smoked salmon bagels if there was no one to eat them? After a bit of toing and froing between Laurie and me, my dad and Lilli – Dora had already invited about ten of her closest friends (including a couple of boys) to be bridesmaids – we settled on a guest list long enough to include everyone who had to be invited and most of the people we wanted to be there. We just about managed to keep it short enough to ensure that none of the older generation would be trampled in the post-ceremony scramble for a cup of tea (and, obviously, a bagel).

  On that guest list was the solution to our audition music problem: Ruth Franks, jazz-singer-turned-children’s-music-teacher – a lifelong family friend of Laurie’s.

  Two weeks before her recall – four before our wedding – we dropped Dora off at Ruth’s flat with sheet music, my minidisc recorder complete with blank disc and some garbled instructions on how to use it and what to use it for. Handily, Ruth lives just round the corner from the rabbi who was going to officiate at our wedding. We took the opportunity to visit his house with a packet of kosher biscuits, so we could chat about the service and discuss those delicate matters that needed raising and, more critically, avoiding in his speech.

  An hour and a half later, marginally wiser and only slightly confused (did we get the things that needed raising and avoiding the right way round?), we were back at Ruth’s. Dora had had a fantastic time, and Ruth had recorded the melodies she needed to learn. ‘How did she do?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s pitch-perfect,’ said Ruth. ‘She might be exactly what they’re looking for.’

  ‘But she’s got no experience, and with all those stage school kids out there …’

  ‘They’re probably not looking for stage school kids.’

  I thought she was wrong. I was certain they’d be after stage school moppets, old pros by the age of seven, who could cry convincingly on cue like Shirley Temple, sing like Cyndi Lauper, dance like very small versions of Ginger Rogers and all of whom would have been genetically modified using DNA carefully extracted from Jenny Agutter.

  I copied each of Dora’s four tunes three times on to a cassette tape, and left her to practise, only interfering occasionally. Or, to be more accurate, only when I couldn’t help myself, which was quite often. When I wasn’t annoying her, she worked hard to learn the songs, and by a couple of days before the audition had mastered all but the bottom part of ‘The Sound of Music’. I figured this didn’t matter too much – surely that was what the boys would be for? She’d probably be singing the top or middle parts. But I made her do a bit of extra work on it anyway, despite Laurie’s very sensible advice that she’d be better off concentrating on the parts she knew well. On the up side, she took to belting out ’The Lonely Goatherd’ like she was born to yodel. Unfortunately, so did I, and I wasn’t. Worse than that, the song wormed itself into my brain. I spent the best part of a year humming it to myself, and occasionally bursting into off-key song, sometimes in deeply inappropriate situations.

  We were due at the Really Useful Group’s head office in Covent Garden at 3.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 30 May, half-term, so no need to ask Mrs Kendall for time off. As usual we arrived ludicrously early. As usual, Dora was hungry and demanded food, so first of all, we popped round the corner to a café, where I bought her an apple and a bottle of water, promising something unhealthy after the audition. As we were now slightly less ludicrously early, we wandered back to Really Useful’s HQ. A few kids and parents were leaving. ‘How did it go?’ I asked one father. He shrugged, smiling, and told me that this time they weren’t letting the children know immediately whether they would be recalled. Round the side of the building, a mother was critiquing her son’s rendition of the top part of ‘The Sound of Music’. I thought it sounded better than Dora’s rendition of the bottom part. But then he was much older.

  I pressed the buzzer, and the door released. To our left was a curved dark wood reception desk, behind which sat a smiley young woman. Rather unnecessarily, given that I was attached to a small, grinning girl, I explained what we were there for. She directed us into the boardroom, which, with its thick carpet, comfy sofas, huge oval dining table and big plasma telly, looked like it wanted to be a lounge when it grew up. There was a grand piano (covered) in the corner and a sideboard with half-empty bottles of water, cartons of orange juice, jugs of tea and coffee and nothing clean left to pour them into. And lots and lots and lots of people. One family of older girls and boys were huddled in a corner practising perfect three-part-harmony singing. Others were bunched together trying to peek through the closed white Venetian blinds into what was obviously the audition room. Groups of children were chatting excitedly amongst them selves. As new people arrived, there were the occasional shrieks of recognition, followed by excited hugs, as children met up with old friends. The adults also seemed to know each other. I didn’t recognise anyone. It crossed my mind that this was what our wedding might feel like.

  Dora tugged at my sleeve. ‘I need the toilet,’ she whispered. So did I. But we found a woman with a clipboard first, so Dora could be ticked off the list and stickered. She was wearing tracksuit pants and bunchies again, as these had done the trick last time, and I was very proud that her hairdo was marginally more even. Although I hadn’t exactly achieved the Roman road of all partings, I’d managed to get one or two sections of it quite straight.

  There was a short queue for the loo, followed by a long wait for the audition. We’d managed to grab one of the
chairs around the big table. Dora sat on my lap and I read to her, whilst trying to listen to the singing that wafted out of the audition room whenever the chatter in the waiting area died down slightly.

  Eventually her name was called, and after a few minutes of trying to concentrate on reading a novel, and smiling friendlily at some other parents, I joined the huddle at the Venetian blind. It was almost closed, but if you squinted at the right angle, you could just catch the odd slice of feet, ankles and table legs. If you focused hard, it was possible to hear muffled instructions being issued, although impossible to work out what was being said. These would be followed by short snatches of singing (audible and uplifting), more muffled talking and then laughter. Once or twice I thought I spotted Dora’s Scooby-Doo trainers. But strain as I might, I couldn’t identify her voice. This made me feel slightly inadequate: surely as a concerned parent, I ought to be able to distinguish my own daughter’s singing, even when it was parsed through a double-glazed window and a mostly closed blind.

  I wandered back to the table. Someone else had taken my seat, so I picked up my book, found a spare bit of floor to sit on and leaned against the wall. Judging from the laughter – it sounded genuine – the children seemed to be having lots of fun. I wasn’t, but for some reason I was less nervy this time. I knew we wouldn’t find out whether she’d got through that day, so there’d be no immediate consequences to cope with. And we weren’t far enough into the process for a part to feel like it might be a nail-bitingly real possibility. I felt that having got through the first round, Dora had, in some small way, proved herself. Neither of us would be remotely disappointed if this was as far as it went. We would, on the other hand, be quite excited if she got further, even though I was starting to realise exactly how ferrying my little darling to auditions might gobble up large chunks of time and money.