The Bill is being filmed in Ham at the minute. There's a specially built vandalised bus stop and several police cars with their windscreens smashed lying about outside Tesco. It's made our peaceful little estate look like Beirut at the worst of times. The first morning I cycled through I thought something dreadful had happened. I locked the bike up and went over to see if I could find out what was going on. It was only when I overheard two policemen eating bacon sandwiches and talking about a disastrous casting for Eastenders that I realised what was going on.
Poor Patsy and Ben, who've only just moved in to their new flat above the shops have been woken every morning at 4am by searching arc lights and the noisy sounds of the location caterers whirring their generators into life. They hadn't even had time to put their curtains up! The big worry is of course that as they unpack and arrange their furniture in the front room any sense of continuity will be broken. The temptation to lean out the window and shout must be huge!
It's as busy as ever. Yelina, the director for the Kingston International Youth Festival came in to talk to the students about taking part in next summer's programme - either as participants or organisers. It's taking these kind of opportunities that really count. As a department we've only got the time and resources to offer a basic training and it's so important for students to pitch their work up to the public. It may succeed, it may fail gloriously... either way you learn so much more about yourself as a artist.
Late on Monsay, who graduated last summer, sent a text to remind me that she's on Holby City tomorrow night. She was called for casting by a producer who saw her in Yard Gal which started as a Uni show two years ago and went on to win Best London fringe performance last year when it transferred to The Oval. It's the first of two parts she's been given by the BBC. She's got another chunky roll in a one off drama AWOL, which will screen in the new year.
She's living proof that a bit of talent and a lot of determination can take you pretty far, pretty quickly
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1 comment:
Thankfully The Bill have now ended their filming. Although it was a very interesting insight into the layout of filming a show such as this one. The actors, although not great performers, have such stamina, shooting the same scene again and again.
We were woken at God awful hours by clattering. But at least we didn't stand at the fake bus stop wwaiting for the bus, as one man did, and we watched for over 20 minutes.
We could have told him, but I wanted to see how it unravelled!
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