Recalls

As we walked around Sainsbury's this evening, we kept stumbling upon a little old Chinese lady, who was walking around, singing softly to herself in a beautiful soprano voice. It was so lovely to hear. She was probably 80 years old, and moving incredibly slowly, but she was out and about, choosing something nice for her supper, and plainly really happy about the fact. I get a little teary when I see a happy-looking person, particularly if they seem happy even though the odds are plainly stacked up against them... You can multiply my reaction by ten if I'm tired. When I'm tired, I'm completely unable to control any of my emotions!

We did our first day of recalls for Brass today. Utterly exhausting. Utterly exhilarating. Uncle Bill came to give me her support, and Nathan was also there. All in all, I felt we were a wonderfully well-oiled machine. By the end of each session I felt we'd got a very good sense of the capabilities of the kids who were there and hope that none of them felt over-looked. At one point, we split into four groups, working with twelve recallees, each one of us focussing on acting, singing or dancing. By the end we had a true sense of all the kids and their abilities across the full range of performance disciplines.

And some of them were truly outstanding. Genuinely. Based on today, I've no idea who is going to get the role of Eliza. There are at least two outstanding candidates. Hilary summed it up rather succinctly when she said, "it depends if you want the role to be played by a goddess or a woman..." We all knew exactly what she meant. One of the girls was statuesque and slightly other-worldly, the other was deliciously down-to-earth. Both were extraordinary singers. One edged it on the dance. The other edged it on the acting. Grr! Heaven knows what will happen if two more excellent Elizas throw their hats into the ring tomorrow!

What I WILL say is that I would feel proud to have any number of those kids in Brass. And I'm not just saying that.