-•✦--✦--✦•-
Sunday, May 9th, 1999 — Durham City, Durham County
"You just sleep now," Father had said.
So I did — and woke up in Durham. I wished I could always do that: fall asleep in one bed and wake up wherever I needed to be.
"You slept like the dead, sunshine," Dad said.
"I feel like the dead, old man," I replied, tasting my breath and rolling my neck until it complained.
"Can't a man call his son sunshine without being heckled in this country? Would you prefer loin fruit?"
"Ew." I shuddered, trying to shake both the image and the knot in my shoulder.
"That one's straight from the Bible, mind," Dad chuckled. "Here — we can get breakfast in here."
"It's Sunday," I said, squinting at the clock.
"Are you telling a labourer where to find a meal? I'll find food wherever food can be found."
We were parked outside a service station, which explained it. Nothing else would be open at that hour — Sundays started late, and we'd spent most of it driving.
"Where are we?"
"Just outside Durham. Think we'll have to ask someone for directions. You've got the number, aye?"
"Course I've got the number," I muttered, still half-asleep.
"Whoa, sunshine — best sort that grump out or I'll leave you here," Dad said far too cheerfully.
"You wouldn't," I said coolly. "Next time you see me I'll be unrecognisable. Full Geordie an' all."
"You wouldn't," he replied, scandalised.
"I would. Just so Mum beats you up proper."
"There's the loin fruit I know," Dad laughed.
I tried to come back with something sharper, but he was already out of the car. I followed, still rubbing my neck.
"What d'you want?" he asked, gesturing at a sad display of meat sticks, cling-wrapped sandwiches, and freezer meals.
"These don't look healthy."
"You sound like your mum."
"Thanks. It's because she's right."
"Well, it's this or you go hungry."
"There's bread…" I said, scanning the shelves. "I've got an idea."
By the time we were back on the road, we'd found a rhythm. Bread, chicken slices, salami, cheese, pre-packed salad — mixed and matched into as many combinations as I could manage. Every time I finished one, Dad wolfed it down immediately. I took my time with mine, enjoying the way he hovered while I made the next and made him wait.
By then I felt human again. The ache in my shoulder had dulled, my stomach was full, and the fog in my head had lifted.
"I reckon it's here," Dad said, turning down a street that could've been anywhere in England.
"That's the one," I said, pointing.
"Well then," he smiled. "Give her a ring."
Five minutes later, a red-haired woman came out, dressed up to the nines. I put on the false face in an effort to learn and steal the dialect from a local. We were a not far away at all from Newcastle to really allow for much calibration but it would do well to put all the time I've had into useful tasks.
"She looks nothing like your Mum," Dad said flatly.
"She doesn't have to…" I said, just before the ball of energy hit us.
"Wey aye, you must be Wilf. You look a fair bit better than you sounded on the phone — and who's this canny-looking fella then?" Marge said giggling.
"That's me dad, Ollie Price. And he's happily married — aren't you?" I said, eyeing him.
"Course I am. Very much so," Dad said, coughing.
Marge kept looking at me till I realised she was waiting to be introduced.
"This is Margaret Thilby. She's a drama teacher in Durham — she'll be playing me mam," I said.
"I'm an actress too — 'Durham City, one-oh-five point two, where the music lives,'" she said, putting on a posher North East accent. "I've been on telly an' all — 'Teddy Tenders, best chicken'." She even sang the jingle.
Her hands popped up beside her face like she was still shifting the stuff. Shame there was no green screen or owt to show the product.
Nowt meant nothing, owt meant anything — the words weren't strange to me, being a proper northerner, but even so, nobody in Chester used them half as much as the Geordie lot did.
"I'm getting peckish already," Dad said with a chuckle. "Nice to meet you — want us to take that?"
"Oh, that's dead nice, that." Margaret laughed a twinkling thing. "We could do with a few more like you in Durham."
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't flirt with me dad." I said coolly,
"Flirt? Me? I'd never dream of it, pet," Margaret said, winking at Dad.
"Ha," Dad laughed, awkward as owt.
"Come on then, let's get seated — don't want to be late for the audition." I cut their fun.
"Aye! The audition!" She finally got into the back, and Dad took the wheel.
"I've prepped proper for the role, mind. I've a full backstory. I'm Nancy Price — single mam, not even sure who the dad of this talented bairn is. I've had me share of dalliances. I work as a fitness instructor for the stars. All I want is to give my wayward lad everything I never managed meself. That's why the makeup's slapped on quick, an' there's always worry in me eyes. See?" she said, pulling a face in the rear-view mirror.
Out of everything I could've said, I just sat there, stunned.
"You'll do fine, I'm sure," Dad said with a charming smile.
I shot him a glare — he only winked back. Right, he was only taking the piss. That settled my nerves more than the idea of him actually flirting. Mam and Dad splitting up would've done my head in. Eyeing the odd drama teacher, her rough make up and energy, I started to understand her.
"I bet you've been lazing about and only got ready at the last minute." I accused lightly.
"That's a wild accusation." She clicked her tongue before changing the topic. "I've even written a few lines here — d'you want a look?" Margaret said, shoving her notebook towards me.
I pushed it back to her gently.
"Erm — sorry to burst your bubble, Margaret, but I don't want you playing a character. Truth is, I don't want you lying at all."
That stopped her dead. Probably because I was starting to call her out on her lies and that.
"Mr Baldini said I was to play the mam of a talented child actor, and that I could interpret the role meself," she said, pushing back.
"Mr Baldini isn't your boss. I am," I said, sitting up straight. "This is serious. You'll need to improvise, but you don't need to play this Nancy Price. Mostly, I just need you to nod and let me do the talking for the both of us."
Margaret scoffed straight away. "That's not what I agreed with Mr Baldini. This is bang out of order. I'll walk out on this, I will."
"It's two hundred quid for the day — and there's a chance of more if we get a callback."
"Best get moving then. Can't be late for our audition," Margaret said, all business.
"Glad we're on the same page," I said with a smile. "Hold up, dad. I'll jump in the back too."
—✦—
As Dad drove us through to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I talked Margaret through how it all needed to work.
"Main thing — never lie," I said again. "One lie just leads to another, an' before you know it, you're tangled up in the web and I'm out of a job."
"So how am I meant to act like your mam then?"
"Dead simple. All the paperwork's got my details. Me dad'll be there, his contacts and mine cover everything. When they ask for you, you just nod and smile."
"That's not how folk behave. It'll look even dodgier than lying — I'm an actor and you're paying me to act." Margaret said.
"Like I said, I've got notes an' all. When they call my name — or if it's a group audition or owt like that — we go up together…" I started laying out the plan.
My father was impressed and slightly disturbed in equal measures with my game plan. Not that my plan was particularly evil or anything but after trying to lie about Billy Elliot's details to Sally and other entertainment facts, songs and celebrities to various people, I'd realised the key to a good lie. One did not need any elaborately weaved lies nor long rehearsed scripts with a flowchart for all possible events.
No, the key was to lie by omission. Let people see what they wanted to see, give them the shape of the objective lie and let their mind fill in the blank.
My plan hinged entirely on meeting the expectations of the other party and the key was to just be ourselves. Piece of piss, really.
—✦—
The Assembly Rooms was an event venue that had once stood as sort of a town centre for the wealthy people of Newcastle. But somewhere in the last decade or more, it had been set to be demolished right up until a man had bought the place and repaired it. Capitalism had saved another historic building from being demolished, funny how that works.
The fairly large parking space was filled to the brim and we had to park a distance away. Margaret was all nerves and I doubted that she'd had an acting job in the last year or two.
Children and their parents were pouring into the place in droves. I thought that the casting process had been closed off but clearly they'd generated enough interest from their flyers and contacts with agents. Dad and Margaret followed after me. I couldn't help but notice how this casting was a lot different than most I'd attended.
First, it was a semi-open casting call owing to the focus on local hires and particularly difficult requirements for Billy. But what made it different was the age requirement portion. Everything I auditioned for were for children who hadn't hit puberty yet, no one who'd broken their voice or had grown hair on their body. Since the age range was ten to fourteen, boys were vastly different looking from one another. There was a kid who was almost six feet tall, gangly and awkward. There were children fat and tall, some who looked tiny, some who were Asian and African in background. This was an audition of diversity because the requirements had almost nothing to do with looks and everything to do with skill.
"That lad can't be fourteen." Dad muttered and I couldn't help but agree.
I felt intimidated by this new dynamic in an audition. Most auditions I went to had a certain look for a certain role going and because of my age it meant that everyone basically looked the same but puberty had introduced chaos and growth in uneven measures and suddenly I'd gone from being one of the taller children in an audition hall into being one of the tiniest in the room.
It felt wrong to even call them children, some of these boys had a moustache growing, some looked like they shook down a boy named Billy for their lunch money. I was coming close to an age where even if I was better than everyone, I might not get the role just because of the looks necessary. Puberty would throw a wrench into everything and my worries about my voice break and how I would sound were thrown away for the worry of how I would look. Half these children were going through an awkward phase and were riddled with zits and freckles.
Faces would change, height would differ, genetics would come into play. Production would add more weight to the physical characters moving forward and I might be rejected from even more auditions.
"Here's us." Dad said, kneeling down to apply a sticker to my chest. "Have you got your tap boots?"
I eyed the sticker, it read out my name in a blue marker on white.
"Yes. I'll put it on when it's needed."
"You don't want me to follow but know that I'm out here cheering for you, sunshine. You got this."
Swallowing in my sudden nausea and nervousness, I nodded seriously.
Assistants for the production helped point us towards a door where two women stood guard. When Margaret and I stepped up, they handed us a copy of the sides. This was a blind audition, a cold read.
"Thirty minutes grace period for the lines. We'll call out when your batch starts."
I pretended to not know my father as he stood alone like a creep. Hopefully he won't catch too many glares and won't be too mad at me for it. The doors opened to a skinny hall made skinnier with the children and their parents sitting wall to wall. The main hall was a madhouse while this hall had a method to the madness. Children big and small sat facing their parents, going over their sides. Cold read audition halls were always loud but none sounded as this hall did.
"…I don't want your stupid fuckin' audition." "Ye've fucked up me life!" "Fuck off!"
Margaret was taken aback by all the swearing kicking off around us. She looked like she was wondering what kind of bairns had mouths like that.
"What in the hell is going on in here?" she demanded, her funny accent slipping into full teacher mode.
I doubted she had such language spoken at her drama classes.
"Shush. We should sit down an' get ready," I said, tugging at her elbow.
"What's with all the swearing?" she asked once more when we'd taken our seats.
A lad to our right was having the time of his life screaming abuse at his mam, all in the name of practising lines. Bairns these days.
"Read the sides," I said, then did just that meself.
It was only one scene — and about the boldest way I'd ever seen an audition test set up. Actors always had to make choices when playing a scene. A script could suggest a lot, but the action beats were often bare as owt. Characters were a bit like the idea of the lie I'd worked out — a good script gave you strong dialogue, but only the outline of a person, bones to stick the meat on. It was the actor's job to put it all together.
An emotionally charged scene like this would weed out anyone who wouldn't let their bairn swear — or kids who couldn't make the hard, risky choices needed to portray Billy.
"This film won't even get shown in cinemas. They'll pull it off the listings, if it makes it that far…" Margaret muttered.
"You'll read with me, aye? This is right up your street is it not? Drama teacher an' all."
"Alreet, howay then. Gan."
That was Geordie encouragement — go on, in English.
"Highlighters." I passed her a yellow one and marked my own page.
Even though I had the film playing clear as day in my head, and the lines were nearly burned into me already, I let the words settle as I read.
"You ready?"
"Howay."
—✦—
I read with Margaret but most of my thirty minutes was spent in quiet contemplation as I tried to layer the skins in my acting. The doubts plagued my mind as I started to question the collapse method of acting that I'd invented. Having to delude myself into believing something made me question if my method had any merit after all. It was really the nerves and the difficulty of the task, I could play it straight while wearing Billy's skin but it wouldn't do me any good to be discovered as the fraudster that I was.
Another thirty minutes passed by until everyone in the room except a few handful were swapped in by a new group. These auditions were going by quickly but there were still too many children or bairns as they called it out in the toon.
"Wilfred Price."
"That's us, Wilf," Margaret said, still trying out me nickname and doing her best mam act. "Come on — you're sweating like a pig."
She pulled out a hanky and dabbed at me face. Me nose wrinkled at the cheek on her — and being compared to a pig — but then I clocked that it was probably for the best. Getting wound up over silly little things wouldn't help when the role of a lifetime was on the line.
I took a deep breath and pulled on the skin — the first layer.
Wilfred Price of Durham City was only half-baked. Five days of dialect graft wasn't enough to fully nail a dialect, even with me sharp ears. Still, practice was practice, and time waited for nobody — not even Durham's own Wilfred.
Normally, prepping for a character meant weeks of rehearsals and careful study of the script. Those roles were built from text, shaped by research and sprinkled with an active imagination. Durham-Wilf — Dilf, if you like — was different. He was built off me, my own experience and memories. Half of it as was a lie but if there was ever a skin that'd fit just right, it was this one.
"Let's gan."
Tall double doors opened into a function room big enough for a decently big dance class, but most of it was cut off by a long table where seven people were sat. This was the council — the ones deciding me fate. Instant stardom, or back to grafting for credits like before. Slow way was the sure way, folks said.
Either way, they would decide and I could only do my best.
Stephen Daldry was easiest to spot. More grey than dark in his hair, and he wasn't even forty yet. Directing must've been stressful if his head was anything to go by.
"Hello — hi. Hi!" Margaret bustled over, handing in me CV or résumé as Americans like to call it. Just like I'd told her to.
"Very good, thank you," one of the casting assistants said. "I'll read with you. Do you want to do the physical actions?"
Though none of the council deigned to take a look at my CV. Baldini had gan above and beyond, it was freshly updated and had a very cute picture of me at the top corner.
"You're not going to slap him, are you?" Margaret asked, sounding worried for the upcoming scene.
That wasn't in our little script, but at least she wasn't calling me her son.
"No, nothing like that," the woman said. "We'll stand apart and mime the action. He can hug me if he wants — this canny lad." She laughed.
"Chloe," the table said together, desperate to get it gannin' along.
"Please take a seat to the side," Chloe said to Margaret.
Closing my eyes once again, I tried to put on the second layer. It was hard because it was a new thing. Many times I'd pretended to be something that I wasn't but not many times had I done it in layers. The collapse method didn't take kindly to applying two different characters on top of each other.
In the end, it was only a mental block. I wasn't some supernatural being or a robot that had different programs that I could insert and eject at will. It was simply my method providing a framework for me to act within even though I liked to think it was more of the former than the truth.
The next I opened my eyes, Durham-Wilf was gone. Billy stood in my place.
I didn't ask for permission to start, I simply did. Stepping forward, I held up my arms in the third position of ballet and did a simple chaîné turn, once, twice before falling over meekly.
"Miss, I can't do it." I said through gritted teeth.
My hands held up my torso but my fingers clawed at the floor in frustration. If there ever was an emotion that was easy to grasp, it was the failures of my own ballet lessons. Judgement from Gilles, pain of sore muscles. Not all of my body language was so targeted or required any thinking. My body remembered the pain of learning to spot.
"That's because you're not concentrating!" Chloe pointed out, her voice was harsh and loud.
"I am concentrating." I was quick to defend myself.
"You're not even trying." Chloe said angrily.
"I am, Miss." Frustration at myself switched to frustration at Miss Wilkinson the character Chloe was reading for.
"Do it again." Chloe demanded, this time she was the one gritting her teeth.
The script went in another direction from the film at this point, so I portrayed fear by utilising the drop. Sides demanded that I fear the mad teacher and so my face went ashen. The fear left my face as quickly as it appeared. In its place arrived anger.
Emotion was a flux. It was a colour wheel with complimentary colours at the opposite end. Fear could be kept away with anger and angrier I was the more fearless I'd be.
"I can't." I screamed.
The red anger coursed through me. The next emotion was right there because emotions were music theory. A minor third would be followed by a perfect fourth and then a perfect fifth. The only way to keep the flow of routine was to increase the anger to shield me from the shame.
The shame of failure, the shame of me family and the broken husk that it was after mam's passing. Shame of being looked down on by a woman who was as broken as the world around me.
"Now!" Chloe demanded.
I was the workhorse and she would work me unto death.
I couldn't take it anymore. Betrayal, judgement, fear, anger, way too many emotions fought inside for domination. Deep below the emotions, my mind reveled at how snapshot was working perfectly. Almost too perfectly considering that I had a double skin on.
Part of it came from the revelations. I did not need to imagine it all, a vague world that the character lived in. No, I could easily imagine Jamie in my place, screaming at Julie Walters. But more than that, I could imagine the scene in relation to the mood, temperature and aesthetics of the set. My snapshot was evolving even as I played out the scene, acting out a scene from a revelation had a power that I couldn't fully grasp in the middle of my audition.
My eyes might have told all those emotions or none. All the same, I stood up and walked off, when I'd made it to the door of the audition room, I was running.
Turning back, I called the end to the scene by tearing away Billy to reveal Durham-Wilf. Only it was very difficult.
"Second scene?" Chloe asked behind me.
At the urging, I threw away Billy's character to slip into Durham-Wilfred.
The council sat silent and I nodded to Chloe. I turned sideways and away from her, side profile towards the council.
I let the skin fall over me again.
Except, it felt odd. Way too easy compared to the last time I'd donned two layers. I couldn't dwell on it for I was under pressure.
Snapshot worked to put me into the correct scene and timeline. It was easy because the scene followed the last one. This time I couldn't make use of the images from the revelation as the sides had a different location for the emotional scene. It wasn't the dressing rooms, frames of the house was different but timber went where timber went.
Billy had run away crying. Tears came easily to my face. Five seconds passed and Chloe didn't make a move, ten and she seemed to get the message and started the scene for us.
"I'm sorry, Billy." She said softly.
"It's alright for you. It's not you who has to do it." Anger replied even as I rubbed at my eyes to hide away the tears.
"I know." Chloe said sadly.
Her acceptance made me madder than her having another go at me.
"You don't know anything. What do you know in your posh house with your husband who pisses himself. You're the same as everybody else. All you want is to tell me what to do." Anger tinged with jealousy.
Her family was multiple shades of posh above me own.
"Look, I know what it's like, Billy. My dad was a miner too."
Her father being a miner had nowt to do with anything. She didn't get it, not one bit. I whipped around to unload the anger that had won through from all the other emotions.
"Look, I don't want to do your stupid fuckin' audition. You only want me to do it for your own benefit." I said, hate and spite flowing in my heart.
I wanted to hurt her just as much as it hurt for me to lose me mam.
"Billy —" Chloe tried.
"Because you're a failure!" I jabbed a finger towards her.
"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" Chloe warned.
I wanted to inflict the pain on her, to bring her down, to have her suffer as my family was suffering. She didn't know anything, she didn't know my troubles.
"You haven't even got a proper dancing school." I said with venom, taking a step towards her. "You're stuck in some crummy school gym."
I took another step, the words kept spilling out of my mouth, the truth would hurt the most and children heard more truth than adults ever knew. I was in her face as I screamed it out.
"Don't pick on me just cos you've fucked up your life!"
Chloe mimed a slap towards me, it was more of a clap really but I'd done stacking and had an action scene to my name.
I whirled away, rubbing at my cheek and recoiled back to stare at her. She'd slapped the hellfire out of me, so now I could only seethe in cold anger. My eyes still and hard as me heart.
Chloe stepped towards me, I stood frozen. Who knew that once the fire had gone out, I would have nothing left to move with.
She said nowt but took another step, I could smell the stale cigarette on her.
My hard heart couldn't keep its shape. A charcoal left from the fire was as brittle as the anger that shielded me.
Hedgehogs can't keep their quills up forever and so the anger couldn't overshadow the sadness. When that layer of crust had gone, all the other emotions came back. Men hid their tears, their feelings. I'd tried. I really did.
Hot tears bubbled out of me, a second later I was bawling, another moment and I was ugly crying. These emotions and the character of Billy sat much too close to me and all the anger and other emotions had welled up for me just as it did for Billy.
As lost as I was in the character, I took the final step to hug Chloe as if she was a buoy and I, the drowning man. Tears kept on as I sobbed into her sweater, leaving a mark. Taking hold of my emotions, I sniffled and wiped at my eyes before pulling away from her.
"Shall we go back in?" I asked, eyes avoiding Chloe's.
Shells were back on even though it was now thinner than ever. I was an Elliot and it wouldn't do to be a girl who cried over everything.
That was all that the sides had demanded of me. This audition was so important to me that I'd given a performance so full of emotions of my own worries. I felt wrung out. Actors sometimes delivered their best ever performance because a role was tailor made for them and they could relate so completely with the character. Billy was that for me. I was Billy.
As a safety, I pulled back and tried hard to peel off the second layer — Durham-Wilf — to throw it away and turn into a boy who didn't feel quite so raw and hollow. The skin wouldn't come free. Not on the first try. Not on the second. Then it hit me: there was nothing underneath. To my horror, I'd lost the inner layer without ever meaning to. I scrambled through my memory, trying to pinpoint the moment it happened.
If it had slipped away during the emotional beat, then this whole technique was worthless. If I couldn't dive deep and still hold the nested layers, there was nothing remarkable about any of it. The good news was that I hadn't lost myself without noticing. The bad news was worse — I'd never been wearing double layers at all. I'd only convinced myself I had, when in truth I'd merely been switching between skins.
I suppose this nested acting business was far harder than I'd imagined and the collapse method finally displayed the doubled edged dagger it held. I let out a quiet breath and opened my eyes, finding myself back in the audition room, surrounded by blank faces and a thick, suffocating silence. The council sat motionless, like figures carved from stone. Judging.
There were only two reasons a room ever went this quiet.
In my mind, I heard it — the imagined metallic chink of a coin spinning high above us, turning and turning, suspended between outcomes.
I stayed perfectly still, waiting for the collapse of the superposition. Waiting for the coin to fall and decide my fate.