Long before Simon Cowell bought himself a pair of high-waisted jeans,
perfected his permatan poker face and was handed an inexhaustible list of
epigrammatic put-downs, the drama schools of England were mastering the
alchemical art of auditioning. But in a cruelly ironic twist of TV-induced
fate, the tried and tested machine by which a panel of experts examines the
youth of England for signs of nascent stardom is currently threatening to
crack.
The number of people now applying for a place on a three-year acting degree
course has reached unprecedented levels. And yet, according to Geoff Colman,
the head of acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama, thanks to
audition-based TV shows, finding quality students has never been so
difficult.
“This year, we received more than 4,000 applications for a place on our degree
course,” Colman says, “and that figure is going up every year. But we're
finding that fewer and fewer of those applicants will have ever set foot in
a theatre, understood what it means to train for three years to be an
artist, or have any idea of the professional world they're signing up to.
“Audition-based shows have made it look quick and easy to attain a kind of
celebrity-based stardom,” Colman says. “You have only to work on your voice
for about three weeks and, bam, you'll be good enough for the West End or
No1 in the US charts. Whereas what we're saying is that it takes three years
to train a voice. Young people are increasingly coming in with this idea
that talent is an instant right that should be ‘spotted'. They aren't coming
in with a real commitment to the work required to become an actor.”
More than this, though, what reality audition shows such as I'd Do Anything
have overwhelmingly done, according to Colman “is to completely demystify
the process of the audition itself”. On every channel, in every season, the
audition has become iconic, brazen, brutal televisual fare. Three or four
panellists, as many minutes, and a chance for either a sardonic heckle or an
actual stab at stardom. Anyone can do it. And, increasingly it seems,
everyone does. The Conference of Drama Schools published a report last year
that revealed that more than 25,000 applications were made to the 22
accredited drama schools in England and Wales for the 2005-06 academic year.
Which means that they are now twice as difficult to get into as Oxbridge.
“I think those shows do give more people the courage to audition,” Edward
Kemp, the newly appointed artistic director of RADA agrees. “And that can
only be a good thing.” As with higher education in general, most people
applying to drama school are still white and middle class, and about 70 per
cent of them are women.
“But if it helps them to apply, it won't help them to get in,” Kemp continues.
“What we want to see is not the commercially lucrative finished product of
the TV audition show but unformed raw material that we can mould. That is a
totally different auditioning experience, for a quality that is much more
difficult to spot. You'd need to spend time in an audition room to grasp it.”
So I spent a day in the heated surroundings of a final recalls day at Central.
The auditioning process that I witnessed felt on occasion depressingly
familiar.
Real names and audition details have been changed to protect the innocent, but
19-year-old Ruby was loudly confident that her audition was a winner. Having
watched it, I found her optimism hard to explain.
She sang a song from High School Musical. She sang it very well. But it was
nevertheless a song from High School Musical, which is a Disney made-for-TV
film rather than an actual musical. She chose a monologue about hanging up
the washing, in what was intended to be a Cockney accent, as her
contemporary piece.
“That was an interesting choice,” one of the four-strong audition panel said,
interrupting her mid-croak. “What drew you to it?” “My teacher suggested it”
she answered. A pause. “And do you like it?” Another pause. “It is very
interesting; and also I did it before.” Had there been a buzzer, I would
have pressed it.
“You never can tell,” Ruby trilled afterwards, “but, yep, I think I'm in.” To
me she sounded delusional, but it was true. In a drama school audition it's
often weirdly difficult to tell.
Enter Amy, 20, a little posh, a little portly. She turned in a highly
intelligent Portia for her classical speech, and delivered a quirky early
Gershwin number like an unrepentant show girl. She didn't get a nod from the
panel. Not even a discussion.
Eighteen-year-old Kate stared glumly at a fixed spot in the middle distance
for the duration of a grim “gallop apace” speech. She was asked to redo her
stolid contemporary piece as though she was in an urgent hurry. She could
pretend to pack a suitcase if she liked. She mimed stuffing a bin-liner, but
vocally it was precisely the same the second time around. Right down to the
pauses.
The notes on Amy could be summed up in one word - dull. This indeed seemed to
translate as “a little posh, a little portly”. Whereas blue-eyed Kate's
notes boiled down inexplicably to - exciting.
Along with everyone else, Amy had coughed up her £42 to contribute to the
£84,000 that Central collects from auditionees annually (RADA, which
auditions every applicant, earns about £110,000 from the process). She had
scrubbed up her contemporary and classical speeches, chosen her tunes
carefully and practised them hard. But when asked how she thought it went,
she replied: “OK, but I'm not that fussed. Central is maybe my fourth
choice.” Central is Kate's first, in fact her only, choice.
Clearly, Central's panel could hear something that I couldn't: the dog whistle
of desire. And as the morning progressed, it became clear that good looks
don't earn you a place at drama school.
“It's a pretty weird process,” says the laconic Sara Kestleman, the “good cop”
panellist and a hugely experienced acting tutor. “It's a bit like speed
dating: either it clicks or it doesn't. When you see one no-no after
another, you do lose the will to live, but then someone totally exciting
comes along. And you learn so much about young people in an audition
process.”
You learn the topography of their bedrooms. Hamlets pace about the room in
weird, illogical patterns, until you realise that the massive rectangle that
they're repeatedly circumambulating is where the bed must be. You learn
what's on the GSCE and A-level syllabus for drama (John Godber and Steven
Berkoff, of whom even I got bored). You learn an excoriating number of songs
from Wicked, and that the all-time No1 auditions hit is the aptly named
Popular, from said musical.
Some things, it's not difficult to discover, are best avoided: John Godber,
for instance, and Steven Berkoff. The entire score of Wicked. Anything from
a Disney film.
But while competition for drama school places is likely to become ever more
fierce, with more and more students coming in with a worryingly vague idea
of why they are there and what it is appropriate to do, the secret of how to
nail the audition remains elusive. “What we are looking for,” Colman says,
“is authenticity, pliability, a core radiance. It's up to us to find that.
But my best advice is - be vulnerable. And, for God's sake, go to the
theatre.”
Come June 10 all 9,000 drama school applicants in the country will know their
fate. Either the joyous thud of a hefty A4 manila envelope on the doormat or
the ominous whisper of a thin white one. Kate will be doing her Cabaret
routine around the kitchen in glee. Amy will probably be going to Guildhall.
And Ruby, well, Ruby will doubtless be reapplying next year. Sometimes you
can just tell.
PERFECT FOR THE PART: ADVICE FROM THE PROFESSIONALS
Rufus Sewell
“Anyone who says that you have nothing to worry about in an audition, that
nobody is there to judge you, is lying. Everything rides on it, and that is
exactly what they're doing. My audition for Central was horrendous. I was
recalled three times, and then put on the waiting list. It doesn't get any
better in the professional world; you still have to audition, even when
you're being typecast. My advice? Avoid Noël Coward. It's hard to keep your
cigarette holder from juddering about.”
Lynda Bellingham
“Every important job I've ever got was through sheer bloody- mindedness. I
found out I was on the waiting list for Central, got on the train to London,
accosted the principal and wept copiously. When I got home they'd called to
say I had a place. Even if you're the worst actress in the world, they said,
you'll never be out of work because you're so pushy.”
Patrick Stewart
“Always remember that in an audition the people watching you are not your
enemy. They want you to be the best thing they've ever seen. You are in a
very privileged position in an audition room. It's a technique I developed
myself in order to deal with the nerves, and if you can remember that, it
gives you a completely different attitude to the situation.”
Imelda Staunton
“My trouble in auditions when I was younger was a kind of aggressive
underconfidence, which I'd strenuously advise against. Don't be an arse,
because unless you're supremely talented, it's not just a question of who's
the best actor, it's also a question of who they'll want to work with for
the next however many months.”
