'Train In Vain'

Day 4

 

Arnos Grove

 

Well, the best laid plans, and all that...

 

Having given myself a severe talking to yesterday, and promising to try harder in the future, I get tricked by fate into making the same mistake two days running.

 

As I was walking home from the station yesterday I got a phone call from my agent (did I mention I'm an actor? Yes, I'm sure I did - any excuse for a bit of self-promotion). It seemed I'd been called for an audition in town the following morning at 11.30 - which was a bit of a problem as I had a dentist's appointment at 11.45, back in Ealing.

 

My very nice agent was soon back on the phone to the Casting Director who was happy to shift my audition to the first slot at 10am. This was great news as it now meant I had plenty of time to get back to Ealing by 11.45.

 

Plenty of time, plenty of time...

 

Dangerous words for someone who only needs two stations to complete the 'set'. Just two stations (which happen to be on the same line, in the same part of town, only six stops apart...) and I'll have visited every station that begins with the letter 'A'. I hesitate, but not for very long...

 

***

 

The audition is for a TV commercial, which (for the purposes of the excursion I now plan to make before my dentist's appointment) is even better news.

 

To explain, and to digress for a moment from the usual pith and marrow of this blog, there are three types of audition a professional actor might be called upon to attend:

 

Stage Auditions - which are basically for plays and musicals. At these you are normally sent a few pages of script, and are told to 'look at' (by which they mean learn - although they always claim it's fine if you don't) one or more character's lines. You then turn up on the day and are given the opportunity to perform the scene in the way you think best, usually with another actor who has been roped in to read all the other parts. The director might ask you to do it a slightly different way, which is their way of seeing how well you respond to direction, and then you are thanked for coming, hands are shook, and you go home about twenty minutes later.

 

TV Auditions - for dramas, sitcoms, soaps and so on. These are reasonably similar to stage auditions, in that you might be sent a few pages of script to look at (and here it is absolutely essential to learn them in advance, as you need to be able to look up from the script in the audition - there will be a camera pointing at you and you want your face to be seen, not the top of your head). The Casting Director (who is the middle-man - or more usually, woman - between you and the actual director)  normally reads in the other parts - but don't expect any acting from them. There's a bit more brusqueness about TV auditions, I presume because there's normally a much tighter control of the budget, and time is money. On the other hand, there normally is some money involved, which cannot always be said for stage work.

 

And then there are the TV Commercial auditions.

 

These things are a law unto themselves, and I hesitate to generalise, but there are certain recurring themes. Firstly, (and most relevant to the journey I'm currently chronicling) you'll be in and out in less than ten minutes, possibly no more than five. There's no hanging about - you go in, you say hello, you're told where to stand and to look into the camera that's pointing at you. Then you say your name and your agent's name, turn to show them your two profiles, hold up your hands and show them the front and back (in case they need to do a close up of you holding their 'product') and then you start the acting bit. They may or may not have sent you a script in advance, but in any case, once you're in the room this will have no bearing on what you get asked to do. The Casting Director will say something like, "Ok, you're an ordinary guy who's just got in from work and wants a sandwich. Can we see you buttering the bread - and you really love this butter, it's your favourite thing about making sandwiches, ok? Great". And off you go.

 

There have recently been a series of "idents" (those little mini-commercials either side of the ad-break which feature the sponsors of whichever programme you're watching) on TV which, are an uncannily accurate portrayal of what happens in a TV Commercial audition - and most viewers will probably assume they're too ridiculous to be true. If personal experience is anything to go by, I'm pretty confident they were all based on actual auditions.

 

Which is all fine and dandy, but the main point is that Commercial castings are over very, very quickly, and I should therefore have plenty of time (there are those words again...) afterwards to do a bit of travelling.

 

***

 

Which is, of course, what I decide to do.

 

I dash back to Oxford Circus station, which was the nearest to the Casting Studios, and take the Victoria Line to Finsbury Park. Here, they've very conveniently put the Piccadilly Line platform a matter of mere yards from the Victoria Line, so in just a few minutes I'm boarding a train that - as fate would have it, will take me as far as, but no further than, Arnos Grove, where it terminates.

 

The only trouble is, the further north we get, the slower things seem to move. We are held a couple of times at red signals or for platforms to become free, and when I finally get to Arnos Grove, It's very nearly 10.45am - which was the absolute latest time I had allowed myself to leave this part of town and start heading back towards Ealing.

 

Since I'm here though, I can't just stay in the station and do a U-turn without at least having a look up top.

 

I had forgotten, but am instantly reminded when I see it, that this station had been designed by our old friend Charles Holden - obviously in his "Round Period".

 

Compared with the rectangular blocks of Acton Town and Sudbury Town stations, I find myself quite taken with the cylindrical structure here. I suppose we're so used to seeing rectangular or square buildings - houses, flats, offices, warehouses, even churches - that there's still something eye-catching and novel about anything shaped differently. Despite being opened in 1932, there's something vaguely futuristic about the red brick drum, which seems to rise out of the ground as if pushed from below, like a giant cork from a bottle. Or, yes - that's it - it's like an enormous button waiting to be pushed down. Perhaps an aerial view will reveal a giant sign saying "Press Here".

 

(I check on Google Earth later - sadly, not)

 

But I can't hang around here all day analogising - I glance up and down the road, and seeing nothing new in the way of shops or housing, I take my photo and leave.

 

Arnos Grove - talk about Brief Encounter

It is, of course, too late now to stop at Arsenal and still make it back to Ealing in time for the dentist, so reluctantly I resign myself to yet another trip out this way before I can complete my set of 'A's.

 

As if to rub it in, I pass through Arsenal on my way back, and gaze wistfully at the decorative mural on the platform wall.

 

As I near Ealing however, it's becoming clear that even with a taxi from the station, I'm going to be late for the dentist. I'll have to call and warn them.

 

And it is then that I find out that my appointment was actually for 10.45, not 11.45 and they've been trying to reach me since about 11am. Oops.

 

All I can do is apologise and reschedule the appointment, although I take some comfort in the fact that I would have had to rearrange it anyway, as there was no way I could have done the audition (whichever time it was) and a 10.45am dentist's appointment on the same day.

 

Of course - had I rearranged it, I might have had time to see Arsenal as well.

 

Bugger.