The itch...

Reader, it's been just over two weeks since I last did a show. Two of the longest weeks in my life. It feels like it's been months and months since I last did some acting, even though in those two weeks I've had a voice job. So technically it's been a week and a half since I did an acting job.

The thing is Reader, I have an awful itch. For the past four months I've been acting every single week (or at the very least anticipating acting) and now I'm not, the weeks seem to stretch into aeons. And everything is terribly grim and depressing. My bank balance is woefully low. The English summer has yet to show signs of actually existing. I am overweight (for me anyway) from too much eating out on tour and too much comfort baking the week I got back. I am working at the call centre every single day of the week. The agencies I applied for have been more silent than the grave. I've spent loads of cash on fillings, travel cards and phone bills. I've finished reading The Hunger Games. I'm developing fine lines and wrinkles. My hair is really really boring...

Maybe that's it Reader. Maybe I need a drastic new haircut. Something like....a fringe. That's it. I need a fringe to make me feel all youthful and exuberant again! Where are my scissors...No....must refrain from cutting hair at 2.30 in morning whilst doleful and tired and (let's face it) a bit podgy round the face. I would definitely have forgotten about it by the morning and then be too tired to deal with the complex emotions that come with waking up to a wonky fringe. Still, couldn't be worse than last time. I asked my friend Claire to do it for me. In my defence she said she'd cut people's hair before...she gave me what can only be described as half a bowl-cut. The fringe was cut so far round my head I looked like a Beatle attempting to look like Yoko Ono from behind. Next time I'll trust my own hand more. Or possibly go to the hair salon. My best ever fringe was done by a girl called Vicky I lived with for a year in Canterbury. We'd just watched The Devil Wears Prada and I was young and excitable and made her do an Anne Hathaway fringe. She was remarkably good at it. She probably wouldn't appreciate a call at nearly three am saying 'Hey Vicky! Yeah, I know I haven't seen you in nearly four years, and you live in Essex now, but fancy coming to North London and cutting me a fringe in again?' Shame that.

Of course, there's also a whisper in my ear that says 'you'll be offered a period audition for something the second you cut it in' but then, by the time filming/the actual play came about, I'd have been able to grow it out surely? My hair grows really stupidly fast after all...or I could wear a wig. And besides, I'm getting old fast! I won't be able to do crap like this in a few years time! I'm already getting a bit too old for my playsuits!

So essentially, either I get cast in something sharpish (here or in america, really not fussy...or somewhere hot hot hot!) or I cut an Anne Hathaway fringe in. Or both. Reader, I think I need a spiritual advisor to make these decisions for me....

On that hairy note (my puns are getting worse...)
Ash
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It's all happened rather quickly...

Reader, in two weeks time, my tour will be over. OVER. DONE. FINITO. I am, quite frankly, terrified. Ok, so it had to come to an end eventually. But given that I've spent more time with this group of people over the last four months than I have with my family, it's going to be a serious adjustment not hanging out with them at every given opportunity. It's been a bit like working with the famous five, only with vodka instead of ginger beer, a minibus instead of bicycles and Little Chef lunches instead of Aunt Fanny's picnics. And there's also the point that I have nothing lined up for after the tour, apart from a film I did last year being shown at the East End Film Festival in London and a few possible auditions. Being self employed is bloody scary sometimes. Being on tour is great, because when you tell people you're an actress and they ask if you're up to anything, you've always got an answer. In mid June, I will only be able to reply with 'Erm, well, I'm working at a call centre, but hopefully something will come up soon...' Time to get back to letter writing and appealing to casting directors I think.

At least when the tour's done I'll have more free time. I've been a social hermit since it started, and I'm despo to see my old uni friends again! And catch up with my drama school mates, who are all doing mad and interesting things! And bake more often...

Maybe I'll take up knitting. Or I'll start working 6 days a week. More money would defo come in useful since I am currently outrageously skint and in need of a holiday (which I haven't had in three years). Or I'll get an acting project in a hot climate with another group of really fun people? Yes please...

To be fair, it's probably about time the tour ended, my poor liver is as shrivelled as pot pourri with all the booze I've been chucking back, and nightly cheese sarnies have made my scales screech in horror. Salad and tofu with a side order of jogging for the month after I finish I reckon. And maybe the odd solero. Because it's summer, and a life without ice cream at summer is no life at all. And maybe the odd glass of pimms...or pitcher....oh dear....

Enjoy your fab lollies Reader!
Ash
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