N.B. EC was playing Amber in The Girlfriend Experience by Alecky Blythe at the time of the interview.

Transcription

1 Esther Coles interviewed by Lib Taylor 12 August 2009 N.B. EC was playing Amber in The Girlfriend Experience by Alecky Blythe at the time of the interview. EC...I think in the TV world the whole reality thing is cheap, isn t it? It s just about being cheap and nobody s got any money and I think even Things on television, you know, they ve got like a storyline to follow almost, so that they don t have to pay the writer to think of the ideas. It s already there and then they ve got [to] fill in the story almost. So do you think there was a risk taken in doing The Girlfriend Experience? In what way do you mean? Well, you said earlier that you thought that working with factual[ly] based stuff means that you don t take such a risk.. but it seems to me there might be a risk in doing this kind of work. Well, obviously with this it s I mean the same as if you Because prostitution in itself is, you know, a risky business, isn t it? So I suppose if it was a documentary about prostitution on the TV you d be taking a risk Although I think you don t know what you re gonna get with real people. You don t know what s going to happen or whatever. So I think Alecky must have taken a risk, yes, to do this. Or she did take a risk and I think, you know, good things come out of taking a risk in acting, in all sorts of arts. But you must have thought to some extent that you were taking a risk in taking on something like this because the technique of doing it is so different? Yeah. I mean there is an expectation that you have to be exactly as the character. So you know, when we went to the audition we got the CD and we listened to the voice and then we went in and then we had to do the technique and do the voice in the audition. So, you know, I just thought, Well, I ve got to be exactly as the character. And then it was interesting because I don t know whether you know but we did actually go down to the brothel and meet the prostitutes. My character, because she s got a husband and she was really worried about him finding out that it s gonna be in a play and all that, so she didn t want anything to do with Alecky. And really didn t want anything to do with this whole play thing, so I didn t actually meet my character. You ve never met her? 1

2 No, I didn t meet mine but I ve heard a lot about her from the other women. And I said, Oh, you know, what does she wear? and they said, Oh, she wears a G-string and her boobs are always falling out of her bra. And I just thought to myself, Oh! bloody ell! I cringed you know, because if I d gone to the audition and they d said, Oh, you ll be in a G-string knickers with your tits hanging out, I would have been like, Oh dear, I don t know if I want to do that. So that came a bit later, what she was like. And I knew that they wanted us to be as, you know, as much in appearance as well, you know to So going right back to the beginning what, how did you audition for a play like this? Yes, so they sent us the Well, first of all the process is that you get a call from your agent and you go to the audition Well, in this case they sent, because there was no script, they sent the CD. And they ask you to listen to it on headphones, that s all they wanted us to do. So I spent the weekend listening to it over and over again. And then when I got to the audition they said, What you have to do is listen to it and then just as they start speaking you start speaking. Just to see whether I could do the technique. And then that was, that was it. And how did you find doing the technique? You I mean I actually found it OK. I mean, I know some people actually couldn t do it at all, and I think, I know, that that s what Alecky said, you know. I found it, you know, OK. I think also I suppose because I m interested in people and I like listening to what people have got to say, and I do like people s voices and I like mimicking people, and that sort of thing so in a way I found that, you know, interesting. And you do feel you re mimicking, do you? Yeah. I mean it is mimicking in a way because you Well, it is mimicking because you re trying to repeat exactly the same ways the character talks. I mean my character actually is, everybody sort of makes a joke, because I think it s probably that I ve got the hardest stretch to go. Because, you know, I m Midlands and I m I sound a lot younger in my voice and my character, and on the tape my character s voice changes so extremely. And I think it s because she s such a heavy smoker. So I think she s actually smoking the whole time she s on the tape so when you hear her it s almost like you re talking like that [imitates], you know. But you can t actually do that on the stage because people wouldn t be able to hear you, you know what I mean? And like that, you know so that is the one thing I ve found hard and there s been a couple of times where I ve done it like that but it just doesn t really fit. So I try my best and I m still doing the patterns and everything but I don t think it would read as good as perhaps the other characters who aren t smoking all the time, you know? Yeah, it s interesting. I m very interested in this idea that what you are doing is speaking a beat after but you re also listening to the next. That must be incredibly difficult. 2

3 Well it s not now, it s easy because it s second nature, you know, but it was to start with. Getting into the rhythm of it, of the scene and trying to sort of keep up and everything, it was difficult, because then, of course What we re doing now as well, because we ve got the hang of it, we re listening to the tape then we re listening to the other actress say her bit, then we re listening to our reply, and then we re replying. You know, there s quite a few things going on, whereas when we first start you are just repeating, you re just trying to repeat what you hear. You can t really do anything else, and then suddenly the other layers come as it goes on. Yes, I expect you have to concentrate really hard to start with just to get or you can t always know when it s your line that s I mean, can you always distinguish between your.? You can t to start with because some of it you think, Oh, is that me speaking, is that my character? Because, you know, these women have spent a long time with each other and they do finish each other s sentences that sort of thing. And, you know, they re all sort of from a similar region and, you know, you sometimes can t tell which one it is. But you can eventually when you listen through, you can, yeah. But it must be very difficult, I mean gradually I suppose it s like any rehearsal process that to start with you re just trying to get to grips with your character and then the layers are developed and your relationship with other people is developed? It s just that it s happening in a different kind of way? It s really different to It s just so different to working, you know, with a text and playing sub-text, and listening to the other person s respons,e and how does that make you fee,l and then you making the decision how to reply, you know. You don t do that with this, you reply in the way that you hear the person speaking so.. You do it a little bit because you re thinking, Well, why are they replying like that? you know. But you don t make your own decision about how you would change your voice. You know, if we hadn t listened, if we weren t listening to the tape, if we d just learnt it and learnt it verbatim, I think by now it would be a different show. You know, it would have different pauses, we d be playing we d be changing things. We could play it in any way that we chose to play it but we can t do that, we are listening to the tape. So that ties you to So that ties you to, yeah, to to the real person. To the real person. So then, you know, it was really weird because in rehearsal I remember thinking, when we got to the technical rehearsal, I just thought, Oh for God s sake, why can t we just throw the headphones off now and learn it! You know, we want to go, we want to go with it. And it was really frustrating for about two days or something, and then it just was like Whooo! You just have to keep listening. And, in a way, it s sort of 3

4 almost like a meditation or something. It s just you just it s like a safety You just hear the voice and you repeat it, so there s no stress about forgetting your lines or anything like that, you just Do you ever I mean, do do you know the lines? Well, we have actually like, messed about in the warm up and stuff and we do know a lot of the lines now, yeah. But we we don t, well I certainly don t, we ve got into a few sticky situations where we ve spoke at the same time as the character on the tape. And it never works. If that happens you think, Oh God! and everybody says backstage I was so on top of the lines. And it s a disaster, you know, if you re on top of your character, it s much better if you wait and then listen. Do you think that because you re waiting and listening that is creating a different kind of performance than if it s, if you like, a naturalist performance? Ooh definitely, yeah. Because you re bound you know, you re just bound to what s on the tape. You know it sounds so, that s what it is, you re bound to the tape, you re bound to your voice and your character. And so you think, well, it is it s like it s your friend and you just copy what they say. Does that make you one step away, does that distance you further from the audience or take you closer to the audience? Or is that not an appropriate question even? Umm, you know, you re demonstrating something, you know you re, you know it s just so, it is different to a normal performance. It s just... I can t really It s interesting because I m sure you re right, that you re that sort of demonstration comes into it but at the same time the text is a very realistic text. It s got a lot of kind of phrasing and vocabulary that you would use in the everyday, it s kind of a very It s not a normal domestic space but it s very clearly a domestic space in which people are speaking. They re just kind of speaking in an everyday kind of way, and yet you re kind of distanced from that as actors Yeah. in some way, so that, I think it s a I m just intrigued actually as to how that works for you really. Because on the one hand there s this kind of banter going on that s clearly working between all of you, but at the same time actually that banter is being filtered through the voices that you re hearing on the tape Do you think you listen to the tape or do you think it kind of runs through your body? I don t know if that question makes any sense? We do listen to the tape, we have to listen because if you don t listen to it you It just goes wrong. If you re not listening you can guarantee that something will go wrong, you know, and I think everybody would agree that, you know, if you, sort of If you re just not 4

5 concentrating on the tape then something else might come out your mouth or, you know, you have to listen to it to make it really go well. The best performance is when we re all really listening well, because obviously we do We have been doing it a long time now and I think one of the dangers is, of this technique, is that you know what happens when the actors learn it, you know. Then do the headphones just become an annoyance, you know, because we want to sort of break free from the tape and then start to do something else with the performance, you know. And I think, you know, I do think that now we do know it more I think there is a borderline whether that is happening or whether it s teetering on the edge of that. [ ] Would you like to break out at times and? Well, you know, I think, especially here in this space and especially because we are knowing it, it would be interesting to see what would happen if we did it now without the headphones. And if it was just a normal verbatim piece, you know, that people are I mean that s so popular now, verbatim, you know I think it wouldn t be as good. I don t think it would Because I think that once we start to And specially the danger would be because we re talking to the audience, I think the danger would be we d just milk it really badly. Because we re just talking direct to the audience, so we d just, we d do all sorts of things. Yes, you can see, because they re very colourful characters, so there would be a temptation, wouldn t there, to? I bet you it would be another twenty minutes longer. It really would. So, you know, you have to stay true to the tape. And, you know, something happens with the voice and, you know, it s like by osmosis, almost, that you become the character It s very interesting because you re going into your going directly from your earphones into your ear. It s almost as if it is a kind of indoctrination process, isn t it? You know, it s interesting because I remember in rehearsal I did this I have to listen to my character over there, but I, when we first started, you know, I d heard more I mean I m only in it for a short time, as you know, but I ve heard lots of my character say other things as well that aren t actually in the show. Because, you know, we moulded it, in the previews we ve changed it but also Alecky had some text that she just interviewed my character on her own so I could listen, just listen to her a bit more And I really picked something up from her voice that I It was almost like you can really find something in somebody s voice, you know, if you just keep listening to it over and over again. You know, like the fragility and something You might be completely wrong but there s almost like I sort felt like it s not as. With her husband, because my character s got a husband, it s like when she talks about him on this other bit of tape, you know, she says, well, she was a district nurse before. And then she d discussed it with her husband he was, he was off on sick and she wanted to help him out more and they talked about working in this parlour. And she 5

6 started off as a Madam and then she ended up becoming a prostitute. Well, you know, it s a bit weird but she says it in a very matter of fact way. But when you really listen to it over and over again there s there s something a bit more sort of sinister or something, you can just feel it, you know. And it was interesting because of course there s nothing to say that on the tape, you know, there s nothing that says that. Whereas if you were in a play you might be able to discover that and say Do you know what I mean? Make that up or something, I don t know. But you can t really make it up because it s not on there, it s not, it s not But it was interesting because when the prostitutes came, two of them have been to see it, and they said, Oh yeah, there s something weird going off with her husband. And it was really weird, I felt like something just by listening to her voice. That s really interesting, isn t it, because what this play does in many ways is privilege the voice. I mean it means that your way into the character is through the voice. Yeah. Yeah. And as you say, often when people start to develop characters in more fictional kinds of theatre or even more verbatim kinds of theatre, they start with what people look like. You know, how did they stand or where are their feet or. Yeah. Well, they might do, yeah. I mean, I don t work like that, I work right from the inside, you know. I ve got a friend who can t do the character unless she s got the shoes, you know. Yes, I ve heard that before. Yeah. But you know, I always try and start some start right from the inside and trying to find out, well, if they ve got a feeling that they re trying to express. Find something in my life that makes me feel like that, you know, or something. So I suppose I always try and work from the inside out. And you felt you got that inside in listening to the voice. Yeah, I mean, I didn t do any method acting for this or anything but in a way Well, we did in a way, went to the brothel and, you know, you tap into that sort of part in yourself that you might feel, you know, very sort of vulnerable and fragile. And in a way being an actress, you know, you are really giving yourself, when you go to an audition you just give it all out there.you hand it over and people can do what they like with you in way. Yes, yes. Do you know what I mean? So it s Do you know, it s very interesting the whole sort of thing, you know. Well, I mean we re not getting The people paying here aren t having sex with us but in a way we 6

7 are on stage in our underwear and it s a thin line I think with acting. And in the old days of course, you know, actresses were often called prostitutes weren t they? Yes And the audience is sitting here watching and it s quite a voyeuristic activity, isn t it? And that s not, you know, that As you say, that relationship between the actress who is giving their all and the audience who is kind of absorbing, it s, it s There are similarities, I think. Oh, yes, I think there is, yes. So you can sort of, in a way you can use that. I mean, you feel when you think, Oh God, we re going out in our underwear! And, you know, and it s pretty You do feel vulnerable to start with. Of course, now we don t because we re used to it, you know, and we have to think, Well, everybody s our friends here, you know. So it s, it s quite, it s very, it s been very interesting, yeah, but it s interesting to think that we are playing prostitutes but also there s a I don t know quite how to explain it but it is, it s fascinating really. What about the rehearsal process? I mean in a more traditional kind of rehearsal process you would, not always but generally speaking, have a text in front of you, somebody would be able to say, Oh no, let s start that again, let s go from that point How do you do that when you ve got to take a tape back all the time to a particular position? Or presumably you re using the computer with a time line of a? Yeah. I mean, in the rehearsal we had the headphones the whole time but where we took each block and we listened to it. And then we really went through it very, very slowly and talked about, you know, as you would in a lot of plays. I suppose we just analysed each line and, you know, we were sort of Well some of us were shocked by its You know, we were thinking, Oh we ve got They can t You know, it s like we were working in a supermarket, for Christ s sake! You know, we thought, Well, did she really mean that? We just really broke it down to what we actually really thought they might be saying. So, of course, as I said before there s no sort of, it s not like subtext, are we really looking for the subtext of what we re saying? And then we yeah we did some improvisation and. Without the headphones? Without the headphones. You know, maybe we did things like We d like do a 24 hour clock of what our character might be doing at home, or if she was off work You know, we talked about, about that sort of thing So in a way actually it probably was like doing a normal play But the text, we didn t have to read it, we just had to listen to it and then we broke it down like that. And you never listened to the text over Never, no a loudspeaker or anything? 7

8 Never, not once. Always straight into your ear? Yeah, yeah. So it becomes a very intimate relationship between you and your character. And you and the other characters. Well, you can t do it if it s You can t really do it if it s on the loud[speaker] I don t think. I don t know what I mean it said in a memo we all got, Do not listen to [the tape] on speakers. And I thought, Oh my God I won t do that. I don t think I ever really I never have. Yeah, interesting. So in rehearsal you always had to have a technician with you who could take you back Yes, so the the deputy stage manager would always be there and go through and stop and start and, that s Natasha there. So she would be there and go through It s looking a bit like a piano player doing a dance isn t it Yeah, yeah. got to be ready to start at the right moment. That s it and yes, so we could stop and start and really think about what we were saying and Was there any point when you were either rehearsing or even now when you re performing when you think you would like to take a little bit more time? For example, over a line, because you d get a better laugh if you could take more time, but you can t because your character is or your tape is keeping you to a particular time? I mean, that doesn t happen with me because,you know, my character doesn t say anything particularly [funny] But I know with the other girls that certainly has happened because the audience are really laughing and then they re straight on to the next bit. So I think well, we have stretched a few of the pauses slightly But, you know, in a way that s only the same as editing the text because of course these scenes are made up into scenes but a lot of the material was over a whole year. So it s, you know, it s shaped, really, but it is what they said but it might not all be on the same day, you know. Some of it was mixed and matched and So although you re saying exactly what s on the tape, the tape itself has been edited, as you say shaped, defined into scenes? 8

9 in something that is acceptable to a performance? Yes, yeah I mean, I ve got a copy that s written down as a book but then I ve got a copy that looks like a real script. Yes, yes, and that isn t what we re doing here, no. Because I think that when I first saw it, I think it actually says something, or there s an inset or something which said, you know, this play has been cut considerably since it was printed or something. Yeah, yes. By about half an hour I think, yeah. That s a lot to take out. Yes it was. It was very exciting when the when they chopped it all out, but you know a lot of new work, and especially at the Royal Court because it is a writer s theatre, you know, it s really That s their chance to really get it right and I think, you know, that s what the previews are for. And it was a shock for the actors but you know we re there to serve the writer I think with new work that s really important, that you ve got to, you have to just give up what you re doing, you know, it is a writers theatre the Royal Court... I think it works well, I don t Obviously I ve only ever seen it without an interval, but I think it works well without an interval because it s very intimate and very intense. Yes, I think much better yes. Because, you know, you re right here through the whole story. I think absolutely it s much better without an interval, yeah. And when you re listening, going back to the listening thing again, presumably you re also kind of listening to a tune, of their voice? so you re thinking about pitch and pace and emphasis, colour, tone? as well as the words themselves? Uh huh, yes. And you follow all that through as much as you can? Oh yes, exactly, yes. I mean that is also It s the thing that you sort of aim to try your best to do, that. Because actually then you ve really You are doing it for the truth if 9

10 you can get every single thing right. I mean, you know, that s the joy of it. It s like a challenge, you know, every night to think can you get it to be just like that. And although with my character, like I said because, you know I think a lot of the time she is in-taking smoke. So, you know, her voice does change a bit into a bit of a strange thing, you know. I m still trying my best to get the sort of pace and the, you know, everything else even if I can t, if I sound like I m an electronic person, you know. But nobody ever does sound like an electronic person, nobody sounds, when you re watching the play, as if they are repeating what somebody else is saying to them. No. It doesn t sound It sounds as if it is an organic piece of work springing from you. Partly because you ve become, or you ve absorbed, the character so much. Yes, and you are, you know, repeating what you can hear which is very naturalistic. I mean, they re so relaxed in the brothel and so, you know, they re doing their own mini performances with the punters and stuff. So that, you know, there s that chance to have a little bit of a performance within the performance almost. So would you say that there was I know you ve covered some of this, but would you say that there were really significant differences between the rehearsing of a play like this or even the performing of a play like this and in more, I know there are all kinds of different other plays, but shall we say a more naturalistic play? Or would you say that actually when it comes to it it s not that different? I think you know, like we said before, we re not looking at a text but we are listening, we are breaking the text down bit by bit and we are analysing the text So, in a way, you know it s probably the same but it s with a different It s just the only difference there is, is that you have to be true to the listening. Whereas if you were doing this, if this wasn t If we didn t have to listen and we just had the text, then we d be doing all sorts of different things which in a normal play you get the freedom to do. So you are more creative in another process. Does the listening mean, does the process of listening mean that it actually limits what else you can use your energy for? Um, yes, in a way because you haven t got the time to be flamboyant with your creativity, but if you You have to manage it better somehow. I don t whether that makes sense No, that makes, no, that makes perfect sense. 10

11 So you just manage your flamboyance and your time into the correct timing of the thing. So you can t milk it, you can t milk it. But, you know, you might try your best but you can t, you just can t milk it because there s no time. Of course like Natasha, you know, can um like give you, if the audience [is] really laughing she can actually give you a bit of a bigger pause, you know if really necessary. And that does happen, does it? Yes, I mean that has happened, yes. [ ] up but [If]. somebody s slightly behind, the temptation is to pause so that they can catch [ ] That s interesting, isn t it, because that means that apart from if some, if there s the gloves business, apart from that, that text functions as a kind of blueprint, doesn t it? And that s not going to change. Or a little bit like a musical score, that you ve got to keep up Yeah, you have to keep up with I mean the only time when, when in the previews when the audience really laugh then they made the pauses a bit longer, didn t you? [addressing the stage manager] And you knew when they were going to be, you could anticipate that. Stage manager: Well there were sort of some places that were funnier lines and then...the laughs have been so big that we thought..but again that was quite carefully done so that if For example, there was one night when the audience were very quiet it wouldn t have, it wouldn t sort of leave you guys high and dry waiting for the next The ideology, I guess, behind it was to do so if there was in fact a sort of big laugh in the middle of a sentence but there s a change of three quarters of the way through we d put the gap in there...you guys were just completely repeating the text, there is a bit of space for you to kind of It is almost like jazz. There s the score, the music, but then you are sort of playing with it a bit as well, do you know what I mean? There is space for. It s very interesting that you talk about it like music. SM: Well, I think everyone thinks of it like music because you have got Well, I think I think of it like music because I ve got the sound track going through on ears. Then coming through the stage, and I m giving cues. So you either cue from lines or you cue from music or movements. So you do sort of start thinking, it s more like cueing. I m sure, because it becomes a score to which everybody is linked. SM:.but I think the major change in terms of that from the Court has got a lot more cues, so at the Court it was much longer chunks of audio that just sort of We sort of 11

12 changed the logic behind the cues here, so that actually I take a cue, the audio s much more chopped up. So like the control is back with you guys. And also people will walk in the front door, cue the audio and then they open the front door, so what some chunks of audio are actually kind of 10 seconds long because they re linked to actions. So if there s a lot of action without much speech you are taking your cue from the actors? SM: Sometimes, but not always. But, yes, that s much more in this version than when we were at the Court. Is that because the The space is bigger here as well, isn t it? SM: Yes, I think there was some kind of conversation with Joe about it and he just felt that it was something that there wasn t time to do at the Court because it changed so radically. But sort of by the end of it they just went, Why on earth didn t you make all of the audio-based or visual cues from the actor? You know. why? It s just one of those process things that you just go Of course. Tech:. But yes, there was some moments where it is kind of...you hear the audio sort of going and you guys have to [work] in time to the audio, but I think we try to remove as many of those as we could so, that it wasn t just that you were sort of following and listening and having to get, you know from A to B. Tech: Yes, from A to B, you actually had a bit more [ ].what I mean it gives more [time], if you want to.in the corridor, sort your bra out, and then go and sort your hair out You can do that so there are sort of spaces for you to. Before we d be like rushing to get to the door in time for the audio to start, yeah. I can understand that. The timing, yeah, its changed And you would be able to In the Court version you would have been able to absolutely to the second say the length of the play. Whereas here it, it s not going to be a lot of difference but there could be a second or two difference between 12

13 SM: it sort of goes from an hour thirty one last night to an hour thirty four. three minutes [difference] SM: That s quite a lot, really, isn t it? Which no one believes Oh, God, I didn t actually I didn t even know really, I suppose because I m only in one scene you know. I didn t really know about that, about all that because I thought to meself when I m walking down to the corridor, I think I m always sort of rushing to get there for the line. But obviously you would, it wouldn t happen anyway, would it? SM: How do you mean? You know, like you were saying, we ve got time, a longer time in the corridor. But we haven t, not in every bit [ ] But you wouldn t For somebody like me who saw it at the Court, and I m going to see it again tonight, I wouldn t notice a difference? SM: You d notice a difference in that it s a bigger set, so it takes you longer to walk up the corridor. But apart from that, I don t You would notice a difference in terms of, you know, there s been no I mean, I didn t work on the Court [show?], but I don t think there s been any sort of major changes. There s maybe been a few lines added or chopped off? Yes, there s been a few lines added, and we ve explored more the sort of What we ve explored in this version, is more We ve looked again at the sort of darkness of Tessa s story in a way that, we did look at it before, but sort of going back on it again. It s a wonderful opportunity because, you know, you really get the chance to sort of have another think about the characters. And so, although she s saying it in the same way, you know, she s thought more about the darkness of it so then maybe when she listens she can hear the darkness of it. And that s something else, I mean, I heard something that I never heard my character say. I mean I haven t got much to say, my character often when she does say things she doesn t ever finish the sentence fully when she s talking to the other women. I mean, you know, but she says, I m going I m not being, forget what she says now She says, Oh, I m not going, I m going on the NH I m not going NHS next time, I m going private. And then there s something, and I kept hearing it, I m not being treated like a.., and then it was like second-class citizen[?] Something like that, but you could just hear it, so although she doesn t say the whole thing this time, you know I have to listen to it all those times. And then suddenly you can hear something else. So you do hear new things all the time? In fact I haven t spoken to Alecky but I heard a smoker,s cough, one cough and it s got to be my character because everyone else is talking. And I m thinking, I haven t 13

14 added it. But I wanted to say to Alecky, Is that?, you know, to check with her. But it is a cough that wasn t there before. I heard it, I heard it one night. Do you do things, are there any exercises that you do to make yourself listen to it afresh or do you just force yourself to listen to it? yeah. You have to force yourself to listen to it afresh because if you don t it will go wrong, But there s nothing you can do to help you do that? No, you can just say to yourself, Right, I m really going to listen to it tonight. Because, like I said to you before, there s a couple of times, and we ve all been guilty of it, there s a couple of times when you re not listening properly and then anything can come out of your mouth. It s incredible, it s really weird. And when you re, when you re performing, you re listening to the others, do you listen to their character on tape, sorry the real person on tape? Or do you listen to the actors saying the lines? I try to listen to the actor saying the lines, yeah Yeah, that s what I listen to, yeah. Because they re the people who are. Yeah.because if you listen to the person after you ve spoken, if you listen to person on the tape, which you sometimes do, you get caught in it, you might respond to them. And you know, so sometimes, you know, like for instance when she s, Oh, and he s, you know, had lovely eyes. He has a lovely smile. And you hear and, you know, you think you want to go before she s said it, you heard it already on the tape and you want to go, Ooh!, you know what I mean? You want to respond to the character on the tape but you have to stop yourself and then wait. Yes, because they re always behind. It s very complicated. That is sometimes if you re not really concentrating you can respond to the character on the tape rather than the character on stage. Can I ask did you Would you do something like this again? Yeah. I mean, I really was amazed by the whole thing, by the whole technique and absolutely, really enjoyed it, you know. I ve really enjoyed it and like I said to you before I the other run when we went off to Plymouth and, you know, you just don t get bored with listening to the voice. Well, I don t, I love listening to my character s voice. And I only hear a 14

15 few words, you know, but I just feel sort of, in a way privileged to know that I am trying to be a real person, you know, it s really powerful. It must be a responsibility. Well, yes, it is, you know, but it s like a real sort of, you re just trying your best to be truthful to that person on the tape. Has anybody told you whether you re like her or not? Yeah, it s interesting because the girls came to see it and there was another prostitute who came who has, who knows all the characters. And she said to me, You, God, there was something sooo, you were so like Amber. You know, You re so like her, but you know you don t look anything like her. Because out of all of us I know I really don t look like my character. But she said, You had something, you know, that was sooo like her. And I thought, Ooh! because I know she looks, you know, she s very thin and very, very small. And, you know, I don t know why, because everybody else is cast to type and I m not, so I don t know what happened there, I don t know why but, you know It s interesting because it just demonstrates though, doesn t it, that through the voice, through listening to the voice, you can get such a strong sense of the character? Umm, you can. That you can portray them in such a realistic way? Yes, and it s, you know, well, it s interesting what Nat just said and you were saying yourself about Because my partner s a musician, and, you know there s that thing when you listen to a lot of music or a lot of stuff without visuals, you know, you do really get really sucked in by people s voices. And in music as well, don t you?...you listen to the I don t know what I m trying to say, but I think it is as well like a song, you know? An old favourite song that you sort of listen to and you want to sing along to or something. It s really interesting, I love it, I d love to do it again and it was great for me because I ve done, over the years I went to RADA and I left, I did loads of theatre and all sorts of things and then I had two children. My oldest is nearly ten and so over these last ten years I haven t really done Well, I ve done one little show and I ve done like performance pieces down the Southbank and little performance arts stuff and TV. So I was a bit scared, to be honest, I thought, Bloody hell! I haven t done any theatre for years, like a whole run. What if I forget my lines? I just want a small part in the theatre, and then I got a small part in the theatre, and I didn t have to learn my lines, and I was like, Yes! So, you know, from that point of view Mind you, saying that you can be really nervous and then miss one of your Actually when you re nervous as well you re hearing can be, everything can be affected. Your senses, you know, so things can still go wrong... And presumably things have gone wrong? 15

16 Ooh, yeah, all sorts of things have gone wrong, yeah. But, you know you just have to get back to the tape as quickly as possible. And you ve never lost the tape, that s never happened? No. I mean we ve had like, you know, a pause when a pause is, a cue s gone wrong and we ve lost it for a couple of lines. But we don t, what we ve agreed is that we don t, when we can t hear it we don t speak. And then we d make a sign to Nat and But we haven t, we did lose it and tried to carry on but it was a bit It was only for two lines but it was so funny. But you start the play, don t you, with a kind of sense of telling the audience in a way that it s the tapes that are running it all. Yes, yeah. There is that sense in which we all know what s going on. And anyway you re wearing headphones. Yeah. Well, some people even say, Are those headphones? Have you really got something coming in your ear? People still say it, you know, and you think, Yes, we have, we re not just wearing them for a laugh. And can I just ask you out of You said you d not done any other factual based theatre but you did say you ve trained at RADA. Yeah. Do you think that your training prepared you in any way for this kind of work or did you do anything in your training that prepared you for other kinds of presenting of real people? I mean, I think there s a fundamental thing about, you know, portraying anybody as an actor, is that you have to do your research. And we did that in this play, you know, we researched the characters, we went to the brothel, we researched prostitution, we looked into every aspect, you know, of the whole thing. So we did all our research, which we would have done for anybody, you know, whether it were real or just the knowledge that we had in the play. So, you know, I think the technique is either you can do it or you can t do it, you know. You mean the technique of listening to people speak. But the research and that kind of thing would be very similar to what you would do for anything else. 16

17 Do you enjoy doing research? Yeah, and I think that, you know, if you re gonna represent, you know, like prostitutes, you ve got to know about it. You ve got to know what are they actually doing, you know. I mean, of course you know it because you see it in this play, but we looked into it, we know what, you know, what hard sports are, we know what an Arab strap is. I mean, I didn t have a bloody clue. So you know now! Yeah, we know everything there is to know about it, yeah. I remember I was so judgemental when I first heard the tape. I was like, For God s sake what are they doing with their lives?, you know. But actually it s been a wondrous education [ ] doing this and, you know, and it s so I ve learnt a lot and I ve realised, you know, that maybe I was judgemental on some certain I mean me Mum said I ve seen.. you know, crack addicts, prostitutes, and I ve seen those Madams in, you know, who go out with politicians. But, ooh, I didn t know there was women like this. And I think, you know, it s great to be educated in anything isn t it? And so I feel really privileged that that s what s happened. Because, you know, this is a profession that s been going on since time began and so to understand it, and in a deep way, you know, it s really It s so sad but it is something, it s sooo primitive this need, you know, that men have got. And, you know, that obviously certain women feel that they can give that, you know, it s just It s amazing to be part of it really. Well, thanks very much, you ve told me an awful lot, that was great. Thank you. You ve not told me what an Arab strap was. Oh well you ll find out tonight! 17