Woodgrange Park station, on the London Overground.  The Barking to Gospel Oak line.  An odd mix of investment and neglect.  Shiny new station waiting rooms, an excellent and quite new PA system that can actually be understood - but trains that run rather infrequently, and that are only two cars long when they arrive - but with, so far as I can tell, a train staff of three people!

I arrive at the station at 18:43.
The display screen says the next train is the 19:05, and describes it as "on time."  I wonder what happened to the 18:50 listed on the timetable.
A couple of minutes pass, and the PA pipes up, advising that the 18:50 is delayed by 21 minutes.
A couple more minutes pass, and we're advised the 18:50 is now 24 minutes late.
I have a failure of temper and patience, and march back up the platform, intending to head for the street and seek a bus.
I glance at the display screen as I pass.  It advises the next train is now the 18:50, which it reckons is "on time".
I pause.
The PA announces the arrival of the 18:50, which glides into the platform.  All two coaches of it.
As we pull out of the station, the PA is busily announcing that the 18:50 is now delayed by 26 minutes.

This seems rather familiar.

Long term readers will know that I have a bit of a tendency towards gloom, with more than a smattering of self-pity.  I've tried quite hard of late to keep such matters off the blog, because in retrospect they're often embarrassing, and they certainly rarely achieve their rather misguided aim, of acquiring the sympathy of others.

Today, however, I find myself in the pleasant position of posting an article of entirely the opposite colour.

When I first started my attempt at professional acting, I adopted a mantra, "if in doubt, do the scary thing."  Where it came from, in those exact words, I'm not sure - it may have been my own, or it may have been borrowed from one of my very wise and dear friends.  Either way, it's proved an excellent rule of thumb for life.

Well.  A week ago, I had a message out of the blue on CastingCall from the writer and director of a show being produced throughout August, inviting me to audition.  Good for the ego in itself.  I was slightly surprised, as it was a musical comedy, set in New Orleans, and my singing and dancing skills are not something I make much of on my CV (for very good reasons!) - nor do I list an American accent among my skills.  However, I've usually made it a rule that, if someone actually invites me to audition, I will usually go, even if I don't think the show is really "me."
So on Tuesday I went.  Had a very nice chatty time with Sarah, whose show it is, did my monologue, sang Poisoning Pigeons - not awfully well, I fear, but tolerably.  Felt pleased with myself for having done it, but came away fairly comfortably certain that I wouldn't hear anything.

On Thursday evening, I had the call.  I was cast if I wanted the part.  Never has there been a more instant and complete panic.  Flattered to be cast (immensely flattered), balancing that against the knowledge that the company were already a week into rehearsals, so for me to be cast this late had certain... implications...  terror at the thought of diving into musical theatre, with only "adequate" singing and dancing skills; desperate worry at whether I could/should even consider two weeks of rehearsal instead of earning money, when I'm already teetering on the brink of financial ruin; above all awareness that the opening night would be on my Mother's 80th birthday, and that I would therefore inevitably be spending far less time with her that week than I would have liked to.  But...  I'd been complaining for ages about needing more stage work; the company seemed very strong on marketing and promotion, and there was much mention made of inviting casting directors and agents, etc.

I asked Sarah if I could have a little think, and let her know in the morning.  She very kindly agreed.  I didn't sleep much that night, being full of terror and panic and worry.  Dragged myself into work.  It was really only during the last few minutes of my walk to work, that anything started to click.  Maybe it was the sunshine that shifted my mood, but I had a moment where it suddenly seemed possible to make a choice, rather than just immersing myself in panic.
So I chose the scary thing. 
Texted Sarah before I could change my mind.

That was yesterday.  I spent last night doing my first work on the script, preparing a small monologue on the character's background.  That little ritual of sitting with a script in front of me, a fresh, sharp pencil in my hand, a pack of brand new highlighters on the desk, scribbling notes about a fictional stranger's life, gave me an amazing clarity of mind, that I haven't had for months.  Wonderful.
Today was my first rehearsal.  The scary thing has paid off.  A lovely, lovely bunch of people, this cast.  I haven't laughed as much since (as the old saying goes) Granny got her left tit caught in the mangle.  Much work to be done - my American accent is still woeful, and the testing times of the singing and dancing are still ahead of me, but, on the whole,  an object lesson.  I came away from rehearsal in a lovely warm euphoric glow.

Happy.

This is the show, by the way.  Doesn't sound like my sort of thing, does it?  I didn't think so either.  I was wrong about that, too :)

Bernard Levin.  Growing up in the household that I did, where such gentle televisual pleasures as Face The Music were regular viewing, and where my parents would often refer in warm, vaguely nostalgic terms to the likes of That Was The Week That Was, it was inevitable that I'd be familiar with the man's name, appearance, and reputation as an acidic and unforgiving critic of the arts, and as one of that first wave of blunter, more direct, political interviewers who refused to kowtow to those in authority.  He was not, looking back, somebody I warmed to very much.  He seemed to my youthful self to be somewhat charmless, possessing a face that appeared to show no signs of ever having broken into a smile. 
Beyond the notorious TW3 incident where Desmond Leslie attempted to punch his lights out on live television, I knew little of him. After all, he was a critic - even as a teenager I was aware that critics were not likely to be people I was going to feel much fondness towards.

Well.  Forward a few decades, and my sister gives me, for Christmas, a copy of "Conducted Tour", Mr. Levin's 1982 travelogue of the world's great international opera festivals.  To my shame, that was Christmas 2008, and I've only just now, over a year and a half later, got around to reading it (sorry, Jane, if you're reading this!)

The Bernard Levin who emerges from the pages is a very different sort of chap to the one I'd imagined.  Of course, anybody perhaps ten years my senior, with a knowledge of the arts will probably know this already, but for me it was quite a shock.  Far from the sullen, misanthropic aesthete I'd been expecting, I find I'm reading the joyful experiences of a genuine bon viveur, a lover of fine wines, particularly vintage champagne, of wonderful food; a man capable of raptures of delight at acquiring a new dinner jacket in black velvet.  These are things calculated to please me as a reader.
Time and again, during this ramble through the festival capitals of the world (Edinburgh, Bayreuth, Glyndebourne, Aldeburgh and so on), there are references to performances preceded or followed (or both!) by excellent meals; to intervals (of which long operas, perforce, may have several) spent knocking back copious bubbly; to a life thoroughly enjoyed with many friends.

In short, a book calculated to lift the spirits.  I'm regularly reminded throughout just how much Dad would have enjoyed it, though no opera-buff he.  It would just have been "his sort of a book". 

As a postscript, it occurs to me, thinking about the chapter on Bayreuth (where the festival is entirely centred upon the operas of Richard Wagner), and prompted by Stephen Fry's programme on the subject, repeated last night, wherein he visits Bayreuth, that I should probably acquaint myself better with Wagner.  I can recognise some of the tunes, as can most of us, I guess:  Bits of Lohengrin, the Death of Siegfried, Rde of the Valkyries, etc., but I'd be hard pressed to tell you very much of the plot, and I've certainly never actually watched, or listened to, a whole Wagnerian opera. 

I probably should.