Mid-week Memory

Aside

This was a photo taken of the play ‘A day in the Death of Joe Egg.’ - Peter Nichol’s black comedy about a couple and their daughter, who was severely brain damaged at birth. The play is a mixture of black comedy and heart break. The author himself had a very handicapped child.

I played the mother – the chap playing the father was a born comedian which was right for the play and made the sadness even more poignant. The school girl who played my daughter had to remain mute throughout, and was a sweetie.

There is quite bit of talking to the audience and I decide to do one piece, whilst putting lipstick on at the same time. We were very well rehearsed and normally the prompt was totally reliable but I’m happy to see we rarely, if ever, needed her. However one night she lost concentration and prompted me on a pause I had made to apply lip-stick – as we had rehearsed fifty million times. One of my friends in the audience said my face didn’t move a muscle - but my eyes flashed. I was quite cross!