There’s no getting away from it, I am now of a ‘certain age’. My life is multi-faceted. I have more than one finger in every pie. I am a juggler of many balls; a wearer of a multitude of hats and my bow has several strings. The aforementioned make for a life which is full. It’s never dull; I’m never bored….but where is the bright eyed hopeful who got into RADA in her late teens and was going to show the world what she was made of? If truth be told, she’s still there. The sparkle in her eye is now more of a knowing glint. A wry smile has replaced its beaming, optimistic predecessor. She grew up. Innit.
It’s twenty cough-and-splutter years since I arrived in London, armed with a curly perm and a hundred quid from me Grandad, to enter the hallowed space that is the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. I spent the money on day one. My haul consisted of a black and white portable and a red radio cassette player from Gultronics on Tottenham Court Road. It’s still there. I lived in two attic rooms, neither of which boasted a toilet (that was two floors down) in a house just doors away from Sylvia Plath’s blue plaque. The third attic room was occupied by Stan, an old soul from Tin Pan Alley who used to write tunes for Max Miller. I’d arrived. I was the poor, starving artist living in a Fitzrovia garret.
The reality was somewhat different. True enough, I was poor. The full grant given by my Local Authority (and I was lucky to get it. It wouldn’t happen now) did not even cover my rent. The electric meter was set to give me 20 pence worth of power for my 50 pence. As for the ‘starving’ bit – well, I don’t remember ever eating very much at all. I do, however, remember long evenings in The Marlborough Arms. Maybe it was down to loneliness and cheap lager that I stacked on the weight. This didn’t do much for my confidence. Understatement. I was sensitive, skint and desperately homesick. I got an early morning cleaning job in the pub I’d vacated just a few hours earlier and was made up to find the odd pound coin or 50 pence piece for the meter. Then – joy of joys – RADA awarded me a bursary; a bequest from the actress Pamela Brown, who had trained at RADA in the thirties and whose first job had been playing Juliet in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1936. The difference this made to my life was immense and me Grandad always said that if is boat came in he’d pay back the Pamela Brown Fund. It never did.
I worked hard; took it dead seriously. I got to play Juliet 50 years after Pamela Brown, albeit in a drama school production. I graduated in the days of the ‘you need an Equity card to get a job and a job to get an Equity card’ catch 22 situation but I got a job: the French maid in 'Private Lives' at Derby Playhouse. I’ve done loads over the years. I’ve loved it. I’ve even fallen in love with a leading man and, Reader, I married him. He’s a builder now. We have two kids.
I still get the odd job; usually an ODD job; being ‘prostheticised’ to age up to 70 by the man who does the Doctor Who monsters is up there with the oddest. I do not let the acting skills, so carefully honed during my RADA years, go to waste. I work as a ‘Simulated Patient’ in various London Hospitals, pretending to medical students that I have ailments ranging from dry cough to dry vagina. I’m great at pretending to be on the phone whilst waiting at the school gates in order to avoid unwanted conversation and I’m extremely accomplished when it comes to pretending to my kids that I am calm and in control. It wasn’t wasted.
I sometimes wish I could go to RADA now. Well, not NOW, I’m in my forties so would look a right arse. I mean go there knowing what I know now; go there being wiser and a couple of stone lighter. Hindsight and all that.
The other day, I was Hoovering round and keeping up to date with the news on Twitter as to who’d be next to take the helm as new Artistic Director at the National Theatre. An old RADA compadre of mine got the job! I tweeted my congrats, finished the Hoovering and got on with my day and, it being Tuesday, in the evening I went to my tap class. I must add ‘Tap’ as a skill on my CV when I send it to the National. You never know, they might be planning a revival of 'Stepping Out'. I’d be up for that. I’m just about at that age.
Joy Blakeman, follow Joy's odd jobs and acting adventures @allmanneroflife
Pictured: Joy Blakeman, Photo Credit: Rankin
