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    The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 307 - Fri 25th Mar 2005
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    Please visit my election website - donations gratefully received!
    VoteGordonBryan.com

    Hi There,

    I hope Friday finds you well.
    I'm feeling so gay today.
    Not in the Elton John sense you understand, but in the frivolous
    light and cheery sense.
    It's a feeling still lingering from my trip to see Mary Poppins on
    Wednesday.
    In fact I'm feeling...
    Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
    (Um-diddle-iddle-iddle-um-diddle-i, (key change) Um-diddle
    -iddle-iddle-um-diddle-i)

    What a show, and what a lead performance by Laura Michelle
    Kelly.

    Whenever I see a show like that, I always get plenty of mixed
    feelings to go along with the non Elton John gay ones.

    Here's why...

    On the way to the theatre, and when I get there, I always think
    of the actors, what time they have to arrive, what they've done
    during the day, etc.
    During the show, I can't help but focus on the actors again,
    looking at them concentrate, thinking about the chaos that goes
    on backstage.
    After the show, I think about the buzz they got from the
    audience.

    I can relate to all of those things, because I've done them.
    Not in the West End obviously, but the feelings are the same.

    I miss it, and I get pangs, that something is missing in my life
    without it.

    Here's the thing though...
    After the show, my brother and I sloped around to the stage
    door, and said hello to Laura when she came out.
    She smiled and chatted, and maybe it was just me, but I'm sure
    she thrusted her huge wedding ring in my face.
    After that, in the same way that the rest of the cast had, she
    walked off and became part of the general throng (ooh, good
    word) of London, unrecognised without her Mary Poppins brolley.

    This come down from the high of the show can be dangerous
    territory, and I've been there too.

    Laura has been working in the West End for 7 years, and came
    to prominence when she took over as Eliza Doolittle in 'My Fair
    Lady', from a soap actress called Martine McCutcheon, who had
    drawn huge criticism with her frequent time out of the show ill.

    Before Mary Poppins, Laura was playing a daughter in 'Fiddler On
    The Roof' on Broadway, and she's been in loads of other shows,
    putting her right at the top of the tree.

    It's no walk in the park doing a show like Mary Poppins, (apart
    from the scene where they go for a walk in the park).
    The show is 3 hours long, and for those 3 hours, you have to
    sing, dance and act at the highest level of quality, giving each
    audience a performance as good as any, because they only see
    it once!
    You get one day off a week, and on 2 days, you do 2 shows!
    That is gruelling, and when it goes on for months and months,
    you have to be at the peak of fitness - in fact your whole life has
    to be geared around those 3 hours on stage.

    The dedication needed is total, and of course that's after all the
    years of training and sacrifice!

    I could go back into the performing tomorrow if I wanted.
    As it happens, I'm not prepared at the moment to shoulder all
    the downsides of the business, so I take responsibility for that
    decision.

    When the show tickets arrived, they came with the expected
    leaflets for other shows, a classic marketing technique.
    One of the leaflets was for 'Chicago', and a big sellng point was
    that one of the parts was being played by Donna Haselton, who
    had been a winner on a 'find-a-musical-star' reality show.

    Previously a box office assistant, she has reached her dream,
    and is now going beyond it, by playing in the regular show!
    Good for her, and it shows another way of getting to the same
    goal.

    I mentioned Martine McCutcheon earlier.
    She was a really big soap opera star, and landed the Eliza
    Dooliitle role on the back of it, but was found wanting in the
    crucial stamina needed for a long run.

    Laura Michelle Kelly got the role in 'Fiddler on The Roof' after the
    producers has seen 20 others before her, and it was the
    choreographer who said 'well I worked with this girl from Britain...'
    A phone call and plane ticket later, she was on her way to the
    audition, so her life had to be set up to be ready to take those
    chances.

    Look at all those thoughts I got from a trip to the theatre!
    Goal achievement, different methods to get the same goal, the
    sacrifice needed if you *really* want to get there, the highs of
    following your passion, a good look at my own life. and so on.

    I love it, it really pushes my buttons, but you can probably tell
    that!

    Ok, that's it for today, have a great Easter if you celebrate it,
    have a good weekend if you don't, and here's the thought - what
    pushes *your* buttons?

    'Til Monday,
    Health and Happiness,
    Gordon
    email me at gordon@gordonbryan.com - you'll have to copy and paste
    thanks to the idiot online spammers!



    
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