3^rd Green Room Gossip
By (Sir) C.E.S.S. Poole
Your honorary knighted Thespian.

Toe Jam

Sound advice is something everybody seeks. As I mentioned in last month's column we jobbing-actors are no different. Last night sipping from my "Toddie" in the solitude of my garret I remembered the words uttered by my movement teacher at the Royal Academy.

The first time I met her was on a cold February morning in 1965. A small boned diminutive looking lady of Russian descent with, as I and my fellow students discovered as the class progressed, the stature of a colossus and balls of steel. We were lined up like a group of national service conscripts facing a mirror that stretched the length of the room. "Start with your feet!!!" she roared.

The line of fledgling actors neatly clad in brand new black leotards and tights dutifully lowered our eyes and glanced down at our appendages to which she was referring. Seamus William Hamilton a wiry Marty Feldman look-alike from Belfast, who standing next to me quickly noticed that four of us in the line, were standing barefooted. We were incorrectly dressed but then we were the "scholarship lads" and our meagre allowances were insufficient to purchase the expensive ballet pumps that were part of the compulsory dress code.

Mr. Hamilton was typically Irish and was graced with an overly large inert gift, which the Irish have claimed as their God-given talent - A touch of the Blarney. He whispered into my ear, "Would she be inspecting us for toe-jam?" Unfortunately William and I had just spent our previous class with a voice teacher who had spent a solid hour and a half instructing us in the correct way to deliver a stage whisper. His advice had certainly been assimilated by Mr. Hamilton and the whole line of students burst into laughter.

Madame Fedro was not amused. "I vill have the comic and Mr. Poole, his straight-man here, please!!" as she pointed her short baton to a spot in the middle of the floor. William and I quickly moved to the designated area and faced our fellow students, some of whom were still trying desperately to wipe smiles from their faces.

"You will understand your feet," she continued while pointing her baton dangerously close to William's big toe. "If ze feet is not rooted to ze ground you vill be walking on ze air! Zen ze character you is playing vill be in ze thin air! And ze audience vill not be seeing you!"  William and I felt we were on solid ground, as our toe-jam mixed with the sweat trickling down our thighs, had us glued to the floor.

At the time blue screens and chromo-key filming were still at the experimental stage and computer graphic trickery was still in the distant future. So the thought of floating Keanu Reeves-like through a matrix brick wall did not appeal to us aspiring Thespians.

It was many years later when I was working with another Irish Thespian Mr. Richard Harris filming the adaptation of Alan Paton's book "Cry the Beloved Country", that I was reminded of Madam Fedro's advice.

I was playing the small part of a British colonial policeman who had to inform Mr. Harris of the untimely death of his son. Following a doctor's advice I was taking an enforced break from my usual poison in my "Toddie" and was suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Richard was also going through a similar period in his life.

It was late in the afternoon when the assistant director called us onto the set and an ominous mass of dark cloud was gathering on the African skyline. To gain the required lighting effect a large scrim had been placed over our heads. The stands it was mounted on seemed securely weighed down with sandbags and everything was in order.

As the director shouted action a huge gust of wind, which often precedes an African thunderstorm, lashed across the set. The scrim arose majestically and was carried sixty metres away. I uttered my opening line, "How are you Sir?" Mr. Harris replied laconically, "Well rooted to spot, like you my boy!"

"Cut!" the director screamed. Richard and I were escorted back to his trailer where we both partook in a small glass of iced herbal tea from my "Toddie" and discussed the merits of toe-jam till the storm had abated.

Till we meet again, don't know where, don't know when...........

(Sir) Cecil Edward Steven Simon Poole signing off till next month.

Ron Smerczak

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Name	Comment	Date
Mandy	Haven't heard of toe jam for years! My mother always used to tell me I had to wash my feet properly otherwise I didn't want to make toe jam... Love your sense of humour	2007-10-11