Rollercoaster of emotions

Three weeks of the show have gone by and we're now heading into the final week. I've flicked between extremes of feeling very low - feeling shameful and apologetic towards certain audiences - to feeling very contented, accepting the silliness of it all, finding moments of truth and learning a hell of a lot about the craft of being on stage.

After all my secret snootiness towards the show, I found myself gobbling a large piece of humble pie as I realised a couple of important things. Firstly, it's become apparent during the run that the other actors realise the script is heavily flawed, but that they have just been getting on with it. The defence mechanism of flippantly chanting "it's only acting, dahling" makes a little more sense now.

Secondly, I've realised with material as simple and crass as this, it's essential to play it openly, to let the audience see your face, and to revel in the ridiculousness of it all. For ages I was trying to play it all for truth, and also hiding from the audience a bit, never really letting them see my eyes, apologising for the material instead of sending it up, and sharing the cheap gags openly with them.

One of the actors told me a terrible but fascinating trick that I guess must be used by all veteran actors. He often takes a step upstage away from the audience so that he can still look at the other characters on stage but that the audience can still see his face. Upstaging at it's finest. Obviously to do this all the time would be awful but on important moments, it's really useful to know.

Let the audience see your face and stay completely in the moment (even on nights when the audience clearly detest the show) and they'll thank you for it, much more than if you make the whole thing more uncomfortable by apologising for it.