FOURTEEN

Number Four Hundred and Eighty–Four

West Preston Manor days passed quickly. I played many more roles in school plays – Saint Joan of course, Oscar Wilde’s Salome, Coward, Shakespeare. I even played a few men, including Edmund in King Lear, with a moustache, and solid Brutus, not charismatic Mark Antony, in Julius Caesar; they both walked like a flat-footed, rolling hipped, enormous-bosomed girl.

Miss Boykett and my parents wanted me to go to university but I ardently put the case for drama school. Although my father knew of my passion and he felt we had already made a deal, RADA was the only college my parents had heard of, so it was decided I’d audition there and if I got in (I was the only one with confidence that I might), they would not go back on their word and they would support me. Not financially, though. They were unable to do that, so it was imperative that I should get a grant from West Sussex County Council.

Before I went for the big audition at RADA, I had to audition for three men, local officials in navy blue suits, in a dark room in Chichester. They sat behind a long table and asked me why I wanted to be an actress. I found it much more difficult to explain this to them than I had to my father; I said something idiotic, like I felt it was God’s plan for me. To their credit, they didn’t blink and asked me to do a couple of speeches. I felt self-conscious and nervous and a bit humiliated that these elderly men should decide my future. What if I got a place at RADA but failed to get a grant? I remembered to smile and say thank you before I closed the door on their deliberations. I went over my speeches every day when I was alone, but I didn’t really know how to prepare them. I relied on the emotion, the feeling coming to me, and some days it didn’t. I felt dry and detached. Other days I overacted and had to stop myself and start again. I knew the lines backwards and could have said them in my sleep.

I had my drama “elocution” lesson every week with Miss Pocock and she gave me notes. In those days a list was sent out from RADA for you to choose from three Shakespeare pieces, three modern pieces, and you could have one piece of your own choosing. What on earth made me choose that poem? Why not St. Joan, Salome, Nina?

Now I sit on the auditioning panel at RADA and I know how frightening the audition experience can be. What I hope it will never be is a humiliating one. The applicants come with a spring in their step and hope in their beating hearts as they embrace the day they pray will change their lives. It is surprising how few people who come to audition have got that special something that makes you sit up, the thing that you know could move, uplift, or make an audience laugh. Sometimes they are too moved or amused by themselves to include us, the audience; sometimes they are too afraid, or too schooled and coached. Only rarely do you think, “Yes” – and a green pencil marks their application paper. At this stage it is usually unanimous amongst the panel.

Recently on an “auditions day”, applicants trudged through the snow to make the appointment that would last just a few minutes. Your heart breaks for them. The ladies’ loo had an aroma of nervous tummies, perfume for confidence, mouthwash and hairspray. Some of them were lined up in the corridor, pretending nonchalance and cool when in fact you knew their pulses were racing, their palms sweating and their insides were in a churn. One girl came in barefoot thinking, I daresay, that she was being bohemian – just as I had when I was at RADA, with my black fishnet tights and a ridiculous rubber elephant tucked under my arm. I wanted to hug her and smooth her hair and tell her everything would be well, but of course it wasn’t. She wasn’t very good.

All of them are full of dreams, as I had been, and ambition and the desire to act. How those same hearts would sink when the letter with the RADA logo came through the letter box with the R for rejection. What they should know is that most of them WANT to act which is different from NEEDING to act. Of course, we, on the auditioning panel, are sometimes mistaken in our judgement; sometimes we are very, very wrong.

When I auditioned for RADA there were about 800 people auditioning for 40 places – now it is just under 4,000 for 28 places, so one has to be quite strict even to allow them in to the next round. There are four auditions to get through at RADA, each one leading to a more expansive one until a whole day is spent work–shopping with other hopeful candidates and several members of staff. But at least you want the applicants to have a pleasant experience auditioning, so we try very hard to be friendly, we chat, they do their pieces, and we chat some more. My heart aches for them, as I know how I felt that hot June day waiting for my future to be decided by anonymous strangers sitting in the dark of the little theatre.

My mother and Fiona came with me. I sat by the side of the stage where “Sergeant” said he would announce me as my turn came. I felt a bit light headed. Just before me a tousled man of about 26 with a rich sonorous voice was doing something that sounded Welsh. It was by Dylan Thomas. His voice cast a spell; it was poetic but muscular – the speaker was Anthony Hopkins.

I was suddenly aware of my silly print dress, my too short hair, my knee socks in sensible shoes and being only sixteen. Sergeant announced me: “Number 486.”

I think the people in the dark were having tea, because tea cups clattered and there was much whispering. Mr Hopkins had caused a stir. I did my Shakespeare piece and came to “The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold ...“ I spoke with passion, but was aware of what a dreadful choice Miss Pocock and I had made. It seemed so babyish and dum-de-dum, not like Dylan Thomas at all.

I was still blushing with humiliation, frustration and disappointment as I sat on the steps of RADA in Gower Street, waiting for my Mother and Fiona to collect me. I’d blown it, my one chance and I’d blown it. I was inconsolable, because it had been up to me and I had muffed the moment. It was hot as we trudged back to the train and I was disagreeable and monosyllabic and refused to be cheered by the notion that I couldn’t be sure, maybe it was better than I thought. It wasn’t. My chances and my dreams were shattered.

I had no other idea for my future. I was going to be an actress, but how could I without training? I was sixteen and I had dreamed only one dream since I was six, since I’d sat in the dark at Drury Lane theatre and listened to “I Hate Men”.

In my last term at West Preston, I had been boarded out to stay with the vicar, Father Fincham, and his wife in the vicarage about a hundred yards from the school. I loved it. I had a room of my own, the first time I had not shared a room with Fiona or several other girls. The curtains were flowery and chintzy, as was the bedspread and in the early summer mornings, the light gently touched the pink and blue flowers on the curtains, as the soft breeze wafted them in and out. It was soothing. At night, I would walk back from school through the fading July light avoiding little puffs of midges and seeing the evening star appear and wishing on it. I would come into the vicarage at bedtime and Mrs Fincham had said I was allowed to make myself cocoa and have a biscuit and maybe I would listen to Radio Luxembourg on my transistor radio. I felt independent and grown up, as if I was holding my breath waiting for my life to begin.

But what was my life to be without being able to train to be an actress? Could one become an actress without training? Had Jean Simmons or Debbie Reynolds trained? I could write to all the repertory theatre companies, all the theatre agents. I couldn’t possibly give up so easily. What was I made of? Sterner stuff than this, surely. How could I let myself be so easily defeated, let my dream drift away? I contemplated the notion of trying to write, learn journalism, but that meant going on a typing course and a typing course would lead me, not into journalism, but to being a secretary and...STOP. Could I train to be a florist? My parents and I had chatted about Constance Spry’s Flower School, but it seemed very expensive and although I loved flowers, I didn’t want to be a florist. I wanted to be an actress.

One Saturday morning we were about to get into the little mini-van to journey over to Farlington School in Horsham, for yet another tennis match our school would probably lose – we usually lost. I was couple three with my partner, Juliet Palmer. We piled into the van with our tennis racquets, little white dresses and shoes, when someone came running out of the front door, down the steps, “Isla! Isla! A phone call for you.” My heart lurched; I perceived that phone calls usually heralded bad news. I took the receiver into my trembling hand. It was my mother; she was gabbling.

“Isla, we’ve had a letter from RADA; you’ve been accepted. You start there on September 20th. There is a list of things you have to get, tights, practice skirt, character shoes ...”

Her voice became distant. I had got into RADA, I had been accepted. I was good enough to get into RADA. I was a DRAMA student! The day was already bright with sunshine, now it was dazzling. I was radiant, I was walking on air. Now everything was in place, I had a future; I was going to RADA to train to be an actress. My name was already in lights ... I even got the West Sussex County Council grant, which would pay for my fees and give me £5 a week living allowance.

One of the best things was hearing the most important news of my life thus far from my mother. She told me, “We’ll celebrate when you come out for the day next weekend, darling. We’ll have your favourite lunch and we will open that bottle of Mateus Rose Aunt Bet gave us for Christmas. You clever, clever girl – Daddy and I are so proud of you!” It was a novel feeling to hear her pride, because she was here to voice it.