It’s Saturday Night

Mike is drinking with Cyril. Actors like Mike because he buys rounds and can drink even more than they can.Mike likes drinking with actors. He only gets chance to do it once a year but he nearly always manages to get a walk on part in the castle show carrying something onstage – a spear, a chair, a couple of ducks. This year it hasn’t worked, the show goes up tomorrow and Mike has not been invited to carry anything. So he’s working hard on Cyril, in the mistaken belief that Cyril could get him a part.

Cyril shouldn’t really be drinking and he can’t really understand what Mike is saying.

Eleanor is in her bedroom listening  to The Beastie Boys, ‘Fight For Your Right To Party’ on her walkman. She is feeling too ill to fight or party and probably should be listening to something quieter to stop her head hurting. Mark hasn’t called.

Mark is in a tent in Dorset with Andrew and Nick. They are drinking bottles of Diamond White and singing Meat is Murder having just cooked sausages on their Milletts camping stove.

Dean is hanging around outside the Angel hoping to chat to the actors. He’s just been refused a drink in The Rose and Crown. He made the mistake of saying I’m nearly 18. Dean has just had his A Level results – only a C in Theatre Studies but it doesn’t matter – he’s already got a place at the Welsh College of Music and Drama and is already on stage at the Shakepeare in the castle. So he’s sorted. Except for being able to get a drink.

Mrs Griffiths from the bakers is watching Bob’s Full House. Her daughter Joanne, the hairdresser, is at the Starline Club being chatted up by Dave the butcher. He has tried to cover up the smell of meat with too much aftershave. Joanne is too nice to let him know that he is wasting his time, that really she likes Phil who works at the estate agents across the road.

Phil is also in the Starline Club trying not to look at that bloody Dave with his meaty hands all over that Jo from the hairdressers. He wishes he had the courage to go over there and buy her a drink. He goes to the bar and buys himself a drink.
Mike falls off his chair. Cyril falls well and truly off the wagon.

Eleanor has an early night

Eleanor has taken herself off to bed. She can’t stop shivering, she can’t stop sweating. Her summer cold has turned bad. It’s still light outside. She can hear fun happening in a garden somewhere over the road. She feels like an 8 year old again when she could hear all the kids with irresponsible parents playing on the street outside while she had to go to bed. They are running around in the rain and she can hear Aha drifting in and out on the rain. Who is it, having fun, while she’s in this state? It better not be Mark. If it is she should have been invited. She tries to listen to the laughter and the occasional recognisable voice to work out whose house it is and who is there but the shivering rattles her brain around so that the only thing she can think about is the stab stab stabbing pain inn the top of her head. She hears her Mum laugh at some crap on the telly downstairs. ‘Shut up Mum, you’re laughing is torturing me’ she thinks but is too tired o shout.

Mike

Mike is drunk and can’t find his way home. Adam is helping him but he is drunk too and doesn’t know where Mike lives.

Dress rehearsal for Cyril

Tonight was the dress rehearsal for Twelfth Night and Cyril had a torrid time. The dresser lost the yellow ribbons for his tights, it rained, he forgot his lines, it rained and there were a load of students in from the local schools and college. One of them kept shouting “speak up” at him everytime he said his lines or forgot his lines. Maragaret, the show’s director, was very sympathetic – she has to be – Cyril (following his Sunday night TV appearances as a handsome but chaotic country doctor) is the big name designed to draw the crowds in, so she gushes about his performance all the time, regardless of its quality, to keep him happy. It doesn’t actually make him happy but Cyril doesn’t let this show in order to keep Margaret happy. Because of Margarets fawning he knew that for the first few days of rehearsal in London all the other actors thought he was a tosser, (apart form Cliff and Janet who he has worked with on many occasions before) It took a lot of and of day beer buying in the pub on the Commercial Road to convince them that he wasn’t. In fact all the cast seem to like him (except Bernard). Despite this surprising cast harmony Cyril is beginning to wonder why he is doing this job; not just this job in particular really but acting in general. It’s not a mid life crisis, he had that 5 years ago – went off the rails with a range of actors he was working with, of a range of genders on a range of jobs over a period of nineteen months. This still causes friction with Bernard.

So tonight Cyril just has one pint of Parish Bitter, bids his comrades goodnight and climbs up the creaking stairs of the Angel, to his room at the top. He looks over his lines but the more he looks the less he recognises them and so decides that sleep will help to cement them into his mind.

Cyril (John)

Cyril is staying at The Angel Hotel, the one at the top of Mill Street. He is Malvolio in the outdoor Shakespeare in the castle. He hates it. He hates the play. He hates the hotel. He hates actors. He is one of course and that makes it worse. Cyril isn’t his real name it’s John but no-one much knows him as that. Except his Mum and Dad and pre 1960 friends. To them he’s still John but he tells them he’s Cyril. Now they don’t really know what to call him. He certainly doesn’t look like a Cyril to his Mum, otherwise she might have christened him that. There’s not even anyone called Cyril in the family. Even after 26 years his Mum still isn’t reconciled to Cyril. He’ll always be John to her. To everyone else though he is Cyril. He changed his name 26 years ago when he joined Equity because there was already a John Rogers. So now he’s Cyril Rogers. His agent recommended Cyril. It was his name too, he said it would keep things simple, said people could always just ask for Cyril. That agent actor relationship didn’t last long, not as long as the name Cyril. John’s stuck with it now. He’s thought about changing it to something else but Cyril Rogers is quite famous now, or famous enough to get sort of leading roles in provincial, pissing rain Shakespeares. If he changed it he’d have to start all over again. He’s checked with Equity and there’s still another John Rogers registered. God knows what he does because John has never seen him in anything, not even heard him on the radio. John has always worried that the other John Rogers is bloody awful and giving him a bad reputation with people he knew 20 odd years ago.

Eleanor’s Cold

It’s Friday and Eleanor is working in the bakery in the square, her summer job, not that it’s been much of a summer. It’s been raining all week and she’s got a cold. She normally has hay fever so this is a welcome change. She’s sneezing over the fancy cakes and using her sleeve to wipe her nose before she makes bespoke cheese and onion rolls. The customers in her queue are starting to look a bit wary. Some of them are trying to sneak away through the door without being noticed others are trying to veer effortlessly into Mrs Griffiths’ queue. Mrs Griffiths shoots Eleanor a hard stare but it’s lunchtime and busy so she can’t risk taking her off the shop floor for long. She produces a tea towel and sends Eleanor round the back to clear her passages.