Bring the funny

Whilst having lunch with my husband today, I made the mistake that no aspiring comic actors should ever make. Or anybody who doesn't want their sunny nature sucked out by a God-sized Henry the hoover. (Because I think that the modern God would have a much larger vacuum cleaner than the humble human-being. And it would be a Henry, the smallest one there is. I also think that God deals with the universe very much like how I play Sim City on my phone, but that's irrelevant).

Anyway, whilst we were eating outside on a beautiful day, I decided to pitch up and ask the question.

"Do you think I'm funny?"

Now, those of you who know Alex, might be wincing already. Those of you who know me are berating my stupidity. I know, I am too.

For those of you who don't know either of us, sorry about that. That's a tough burden to carry.

Alex is from Liverpool, therefore by association, he's difficult to impress, has a Titanic sized bullshit radar and is as blunt as a broken arrow. He will also always ALWAYS speak the truth. As many of my girlfriends on a night out will testify to. This is great when you're walking down the aisle to the guy, but terrible if you're hoping to bask in some comfort and niceness in a bout of uncertainty.

I on the other hand, asides from being stupid, am currently performing in my first "comic" role in a play called 'Unreachable' at the Royal Court. I'm also a glutton for punishment and one of those annoying people who always has to seek perfection and never takes a compliment for what it is. "I'm being nice to you. Just smile and enjoy it you ungrateful cow."

Yep. I could definitely write a good tinder ad.

Whilst copulating in my current bout of self-pity, I also woke up on Saturday morning and my hearing aid had decided to die on me. I wear two, so there was still some lopsided hearing, but with a matinee and an evening performance that day, the faithful spaniel-like hearing aid that had borne with me sweating on it, sitting on it and even pissing on it (once and by accident) for three years, had decided to up sticks and join God with his ginormous Henry the hoover.

Unfortunately my audiologist on Harley Street doesn't work on Saturdays and no degree of urgency or appeal of self-importance was going to change that. But on Monday, I went in and presented my bastard hearing aid in a box with some tissue, and asked them (tearfully) if there was anything they could do. Soberly, they tried everything from CPR to putting another battery in it (those patronising arseholes), before announcing that they would have to send it to Switzerland for intensive care (AKA the Phonak Factory).

I parted with my hearing aid woefully, reaching for my ear muffs which would prevent my ear from feeling lonely and exposed to the environment, even if it was the hottest day of the year. I would not let my ear feel ABANDONED by the world. (I am slightly exaggerating here).

A few minutes later, they kindly provided me with a replacement - a dozen years older than my current one, but still nonetheless one that would provide me with a degree of hearing on both sides of my head. Useful when you have the audience laughing in one ear and the actors speaking in the other. Unfortunately, because the hearing aid is slightly different looking, I'm vain enough to now worry about whether I look a bit of a nob.

The Terminator 

I have named my replacement hearing aid "The Terminator". I hope I don't need to explain myself to you.

Going back to the conversation that I had with Alex earlier today, where I asked him whether he thought I was a funny person, I now understand that (according to him) I as Genevieve Barr am not funny. However, what has been written for my character is. Which took my mind down the path of how much we live at the mercy of what writers give us to say on stage.

If the lines are funny, maybe you could just deliver the lines and all would be ok. In a natural performance - if the language is right, then you shouldn't need to do anything to milk the audience for a laugh. That can be kind of scary for an actor who likes to measure how hard they are working by the amount of nuance they try to portray or the range of their emotional journey.

As someone who hasn't been to drama school, also, I have that constant nagging doubt rapping at my brain like a woodpecker, or a hangover, am I doing enough? Does the fount of knowledge that three years of training gives you make you that much better or prepared for the roles you take on? I certainly think that being accepted into drama school (not that I even tried) gives you enough impetus to think that you're good enough.

If you read anything about acting or comedy, you will be led to believe that there is a huge amount of craft in creating successful comic characters. Everything needs to be said in the right tone, with the right pitch, the right mannerisms and most importantly, at the right time. Right? It requires a strong commitment to character. And a strong awareness of the differences between who you are and who your character is.

I suppose all that reading and at the root of it, a lack of conviction, is what led me to ask Alex today whether he thought I was funny. Because I thought if I understood how I, Genevieve, bring the funny, I could decide how much of that to put into my character on stage. Let me be clear right now, Alex didn't say what he said to be cruel or because I, Genevieve, am not funny; he said it (I think) because there is an artifice in a lot of comedy roles and not many people are actually naturally comic - they are just smart with words.

I think I can write funny. Sometimes. You'll have to tell me whether you laughed in this blog. Maybe I was trying too hard to earn your amusement - I don't know. But I know if you ask me to tell a funny story, I will freeze up or reel off a diatribe reminiscent of monosyllabic and monotonic diarrhoea. So dead in the water. Ha! And I don't think I have the face of a contortionist that makes you want to giggle. So everything Alex said was fair.

But I'm still left a bit stuck and I'm on stage in a couple of hours. I would like to know that by the end of this run of 'Unreachable', I've given it all the funny I've got. Without looking like I'm trying to be funny. So will it be the path of the least resistance - react as I would react or will I try and bring more specific comic characterisation to the stage? Undecided. But you're at the Royal Court and in an Anthony Neilson play? That's pretty special. Enjoy every moment.

Panache

"I hope we can deliver the same panache this time."

"Panache?"

I repeated this word to Amit, our director, as we scanned over a newspaper article in the Plymouth Herald by which he sets out his new ambitions for 'The Solid Life of Sugar Water' ahead of the formidable tour we have ahead of us.

The word he has chosen to describe his visions for the show is panache.

Just so I'm clear, it wasn't the pronunciation that confused me. Panash? Pan-ache? PanaCHE? It ought to since it derives from the French and the French language is not particularly friendly to deaf people. (Rendezvous being such an example).

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines panache as: "flamboyant confidence and nerve". It also describes it as "a tuft or plume of feathers especially on a headdress".

I think it's pretty clear which one Amit meant. But you never know.

'The Solid Life of Sugar Water' indisputably has a lot of panache. It graphically spells out a difficult story on stage and leaves you hanging there unapologetically. It's incredibly brave - it takes a lot of confidence for artists and a production team to take such a fragile subject and deliver it to the masses. Jack Thorne's intricate writing and Amit Sharma's tender direction have provided the creative input that breathe life into what's such a stark and unspoken subject: stillbirth. I'm so proud to be a part of this.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I might have spoken a little disparagingly to Amit when the Plymouth Herald unveiled his 'masterplan of panache' during technical rehearsals at the Theatre Royal earlier this week. Because it is a word that helps encapsulate 'The Solid Life of Sugar Water'.

This week has seen the official start of tour with audiences returning to the Theatre Royal Plymouth. We've had such a welcome, it's been amazing. I've been pretty nervous - not in the dressing room like I was at Edinburgh, of forgetting my words or doing the show a disservice. I've been getting nervous in the middle of performances when I suddenly want to know if the audience are with us. The nature of the play is that we talk directly to the audience - Arthur as Phil and myself as Alice - two intimate monologues that weave themselves over 90 minutes on the stage. And as an artist, you want to feel reassured that the audience are with you - they understand what you are trying to tell them. Sometimes we don't feel so brave about the subject we're talking about.

Next week we go onto Birmingham, then Manchester and onto other places. That's a new journey, because who knows what we can expect there. Right now, I'm loving the dusk of Plymouth when I walk down from the Hoe, through the Drum's stage door and get into my pyjamas. Before I know it, it's time to get onto the bed and captivate a new audience with the panache of 'The Solid Life of Sugar Water'. I hope it lives up to everyone's expectations.

Granny Piano - an epitaph on a tyrant

"'I am not an angel," she asserted, "and I'll not be one until I die. I am myself."

'Jane Eyre', Charles Dickens

These words could easily epitomise my Granny Piano, though I suspect she would vehemently deny she was anything but the paradigm of goodness if any of us were present. After all, she was terribly stubborn - a trait which has filtered down from child to grandchild and I suspect that all of us possess it to some degree now.

It has been a few days since we learnt of Granny Piano's passing and I have been resisting the temptation to plagiarise W.H. Auden and gently name this 'Epitaph on a Tyrant."

That would be cruel and otherwise inappropriate. And typical of me, if I'm honest. (I can see her looking at me horrified, but I would just wink from the bottom of the stairs and she would not be able to resist a small smile.) That was our relationship.

It's a funny thing being an adult grandchild. You hold onto the memories past. Because there is a moment when you are growing up, in my case the later teens, when the penny drops and lo behold you realise that your grandparents and your parents and all adults in fact are people all on their own and actually possess (dare I say it) personalities. You blink in horror and rub at your eyes to double check. They have pasts and presents and futures. And not necessarily ones you want to know about.
Your parents and grandparents actually exist...beyond their direct relevance and usefulness to you.

With some relations that's a marvellous thing - having an adult relationship with your mum when you are so hoping she will buy you those high heels you've been dying to get or give you permission to get into the nightclub that all your friends are allowed to go to... (Your ulterior motives don't always change after this momentous discovery). Or what about that mysterious uncle who never said very much to you growing up but gave you terribly nice presents. All of a sudden, you're propped up on a bar drinking a glass of wine and talking about the last play he'd seen at the theatre.

Sometimes it's ghastly, like when your dad tells an inappropriate joke and one part of you is like I can't believe we're talking about the "s word"like grownups and the other part is like ewww, don't ever say that to me again!

But for me, thinking about Granny Piano and in spite having had that stark discovery of "she has a past and a present too", I can't see her in any other way other than when I was six years old and a very young child. And those are some of the best and most vivid memories I have.

Her kitchen in Boston Spa where our art took focal point on her walls. Those wonky calendars we had made out of paper plates and string when we were very little. There were always pictures everywhere of her family - and her favourite stories were always when her grandchildren or her boys had been extremely naughty. These were our favourite stories too. She would retell these to us whilst we were tucked up in her waterbed, toasty warm from the electric blanket and hugging Marcipaloni. (Marcipaloni was this old wrinkly teddybear that had a very exotic history - how much of it invented, I'll now never know). Maripaloni's bed of tissues was always right next to us under the bedside light. I remember jam jars of rose petals and running naked under the hose pipe in her garden. Jam jars of water and squiggles of paint covering both paper and tablecloth. The raspberries and sweets and cream by the bucketload that were always just there in her fridge as if magically she knew we were dropping by. Swinging on the garden seat and how soft and squidgy she was to cuddle - not only her cashmere, but the powder on her cheeks and the handcream she swore by. She would stroke the inside of your wrist very gently. I remember watching her play the piano when there was still room for both of us to squeeze on the velvet stool. The hours of playing Happy Families - (the irony I could only appreciate later) - and Wimbledon and poor Uncle John.

Those are the things I remember. If I'm honest, that's how I want to remember her - and having been so lucky to have had her in my life for thirty years, I have the luxury to choose where she sits in my memories and where she sits in my heart. So I think I'll be six.

I might also cheat and add a few snippets from when I was older - it would be unforgivable not to laugh over her startling black eyebrows or her bizarre fashion for wearing sunglasses indoors.

Sometimes I wish I could have asked all the questions I wanted to ask and tell her all the things I had to say, but life doesn't work that way. We never manage to quite do our goodbyes (saying it is so hard after all) and even if I had asked all the questions I wanted to ask and told her all the things I had to say, I probably wouldn't understand any more than now. She was a mystery in many ways. The stubbornest of us all.

As an adult, I can't like all of the things I know about her now, but she was a truly special grandmother. I loved her with a huge piece of my heart. She left me enraptured and charmed, pampered and loved. And I feel very lucky for having had her.

I hope she's at peace now. And I will feel her absence sorely.