Filed under: An Anti-Hibernation Diary
AN ACTOR – ME!?
I had forgot, in my haste to get a roof over my head, that I had agreed to be in the Theatre Royals little play. Well I say little play, but it turns out that they are mounting a musical extravaganza, complete with tornados, firecrackers and dancing monkeys.
I had assumed I was to play a minor role. A cough here, a spit there and a good amount of time enjoying a herbal soak in the spa-bath back in my dressing room. It seems I was wrong.
Some bearded man, caller ‘The Director‘, shoved a script at me on my first visit to the theatre and told me to get learning all the Lion’s lines. He then spent the rest of the day standing on a chair shouting instructions at me and all the other performers. Honestly, he was a right Napoleon, all he needed was a horse and a three cornered hat!
When we were eventually allowed a tea break I finally got to introduce myself to the other actors. It turned out that they were all in the same boat as me. All of us had been recruited after an encounter first with that tipsy Glinda and then with Mrs. High-Karate and her Ninja Workout Office.
Two of the cast (a Scarecrow and a Tin Man) looked very familiar. It was only when the Scarecrow put his script into a Eric Bana Butch Pink Man-Bag that I realized they were both from my neck of the woods. Honestly, it is a small world.
The Scarecrow is a very funny chap really. I can’t think why I have been so frightened of him back at home. He is right clumsy and dead forgetful and always tells the silliest jokes. He must have a massive stock of Christmas crackers in his room where he gets his material from.
The Tin Man is a big soppy at heart but we have to keep an eye on him otherwise he will start weeping whenever anyone starts singing a sad song and then he seizes up and it takes all the theatre’s stagehands to get him lubricated and moving again. When you are made of tin, rust is the enemy it seems. Like baldness for us Lions, it is to be avoided at all costs.
The Leading Lady of the play is called Dorothy. She is very pretty and charming but speaks in a very peculiar accent – she is from somewhere called Kansas. She is also very fond of dancing. Nothing stops her from grabbing a partner and having a good hoe-down in the rehearsal room. I’ve even caught her teaching the Scarecrow and the Gate Keeper the electric boogaloo while waiting to go onstage and sing. She would be a 100% cert to win Strictly Come Dancing as I am sure she could rumba with anyone.
We also have two Witches in the show. That Glinda is one of them. She keeps on appearing out of a great big puff of smoke whenever she wants our attention. I have yet to find where she hides her booze stash backstage but I know it must be somewhere as she spends a lot of time hanging around with the stagehands and some of them have quite obviously become over familiar with strong spirits. The Stage Manageress is a case in point. Yesterday she forgot that the tannoy was still on and I distinctly heard her say that white wine was like a soft drink to her. That explains why she never moves from that stool in the corner.
The other Witch is completely different to Glinda. She wears nothing but black, is as green as a Leprechaun’s waistcoat and is a self-confessed heavy metal, health food junkie. She never drinks, eats nothing but fresh fruit and yoghurt and whenever she can plays the lead guitar part to Stairway to Heaven on her broom. Seeing is believing, I can tell you. I have never seen a woman’s fingers move so fast.
I spend most of the play hiding behind the other performers as it is a pretty terrifying story and I keep on getting involved in some of the more frightening bits. At one point the stage is filled with hundreds of dancers while the Gate Keeper is chanting some strange incantation in a very ‘Club Singer’ manner (Is it me or does he have a look of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Great Uncle?) He then performs a number of very nifty and highly dangerous dance moves at lightening speed. Talk about fearless, high wire acts have nothing on that Gate Keeper.
Anyway, I can’t write much more as I am waiting in my broom cupboard of a dressing room (no room for a soap dish, dear, let alone a spa-bath) for the start of the show. I have just had Napoleon and his troops in giving me notes. Once they had got him up on his chair he was actually quite nice to me. I just have to let the Natural Lion in me, out apparently, and all will be well. Easy for him to say as he is not the one with an aggravated nervous condition brought on by over-exposure to lights, crowds and loud noises.
There is only one thing for it – I am just going to have to be BRAVE.
Blimey, I hope I can manage it.
So Dear Diary, I will sign off here.
Keep everything crossed and think of me.
Lots of Love
Lion xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Filed under: An Anti-Hibernation Diary
WINCHESTER!
Blimey, what a time I have had since I arrived in this ancient town. Talk about rapid ups and downs – it’s a miracle I haven’t caught The Bends.
I got here really late as my train from the forest was re-routed via somewhere called Clapham Junction.
What a place!
I had to get all my fourteen pieces of luggage (the entire Mickey Rourke Wrestler Range) off the train, down some stairs, along a very damp and smelly tunnel, back up more stairs and onto another train all by my little self. Not a single porter in sight.
Needless to say I was a physical wreck for the rest of the journey and really needed to be looked after by the train staff – a herbal tea and a back rub would have helped for starters. But all I got was endless hassle. “No bags on the empty seats”, “Keep your dirty paws on the floor”, “Who let that big cat out of its cage”.
In the end I went and hid myself in the corridor as there was so much shouting and screaming in my carriage. You’d think people hadn’t seen a Lion on a train before. Well, I suppose they lead sheltered lives in the Home Counties.
So eventually we arrived at Winchester station but in the middle of an terrible storm. The wind and rain was whipping and lashing at me all the way through those cobbled streets. There were trees up-ending all over the shop and at one point I swear I saw a wooden shack crash land in one of the parks. Some people really need to keep better tabs on their out-houses.
When I did finally find the hotel, injury was added to insult, because the Night Porter wouldn’t let me in. I shouted my booking reference through the letter box and everything. After an hour of none-stop knocker work I gave up banging on the door and do you know the lazy so-and-so was hiding behind the Reception desk and making a lot of whimpering noises. I tell you customer service is a whole lot better where I come from.
So there was nothing for it, I just had to go into Safari-mode. All my animal instincts came into play and I used my luggage to fashion a crude hut-like structure within which I could comb out the knots in my windswept mane. Some of them knots were the size of golf balls and it took all of my King of the Jungle will-power to work on them in that confined space I can tell you. I had no strength left for my claws, so for once I went to sleep without a bedtime re-touch, polish-wise.
In the morning I had a wander round Winchester town centre and things really started to look up after I bumped into this very glamorous lady outside a popular department store. She was all decked out in a huge pink, hoop-skirt-type, dress and was waving a long sparkly rod, which nearly took my eye out. That’s how we got talking.
It turns out she was called Glinda. Her full title was The Good Witch of the North, or so she said. At first I just assumed she was half-cut and on her way home from a Fancy Dress Ball – there was a definite whiff of wine and strong spirits about her person. Then she started talking in odd rhymes and gobbledygook, waved her ‘wand’ over my head and told me not to worry everything would be fine now.
Well I thought nothing of it. Just the ravings of a harmless, sozzled, wannabe-fairy.
But it seems she was right.
Only five minutes later, I kid you not, I was stopped in the street by another woman. Well stopped is a little bit of an understatement. I was actually threatened. Not with weapons but with the prospect of lethal and swiftly executed Karate moves.
Well, that was the final straw that broke this Lion’s spirit and I passed out.
When I came too I was lying on a pile of crash mats in the corner of a vast office. The Karate woman was standing on an enormous desk up the other end practicing some very elaborate combinations of kicks and leaps while talking on her blue-toothed mobile.
It turns out she was in charge of the local theatre but was also an expert in Oriental Martial Arts. Apparently she had been bought a class in Jujitsu as a post-pantomime season, de-stressing present and she liked the white pyjama get up so much that she had burnt her entire wardrobe and given herself over to mastering the Secret Arts of a Ninja Warrior before the year was out.
She told me all of this over a Miso and Sushi lunch and then before you could say ‘wasabi and chips’ she offered me a job.
It seems that they needed a Lion for their next play and all the candidates they had seen were not sophisticated enough for the role. She had obviously been meeting with all those ‘wild’ types who you always see on the telly. You know, the one’s that roar and snarl and generally misbehave for the cameras. Such a bunch of prima donnas. They’ve all been on that Atkins protein diet for so long now that they have lost touch with reality. Everyone knows real lions eat quiche.
Part of the deal with the job is that the theatre would find me some suitable accommodation and as I could not risk another night without a pedicure and French Polish I decided to take up her kind offer.
So me and my luggage are just about to move to a very desirable address in Hyde. Apparently the theatre housed some c-list, celebrity, glamour girl there last year and she and the girls at No.10 got on like a house on fire. All of them were haut couture obsessed and spent their evenings sewing day-glo sequins onto anything and everything.
Sound like it will be fun. I am a sucker for a little sewing. I hope they like using an embroidery hoop as much as I do.
Anyway, I must dash as the nice taxi man has nearly finished getting my luggage up onto his rack. He is one of those ‘strong and silent’ types so I am not expecting him to say much when I give him a nice big tip. I’m sure, secretly, he’ll be thrilled.
Will keep you posted on how my adventures progress.
Lion xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Filed under: An Anti-Hibernation Diary
Dear Diary,
BORED!
BORED!
BORED WITH BEING BORED!
I tell you, Winter is the DULLEST. Everyone who is remotely interesting disappears once the clocks go back.
Even those blessed bunnies, who are so keen on my alfresco karaoke in the summer months, high tail it down their warren at the first whiff of frost. I’m not sure what they get up to down there but there is always twice as many of them when they reappear in Spring. It’s a rabbit ‘Thing’ I expect.
Socially all I am left with at this time of year is the occasional appearance of the badgers. As ever they arrive at my den in the middle of the night demanding food in their highly aggressive manner – not a P or Q in sight with that lot.
And they are still sporting all that ludicrous black and white hair dye. The whole forest knows they do it to cover up their grey. We might be fooled if they thought about an all over dye job, but, oh no, they are too cheap for that.
It’s about as convincing as Bernard the Bald Eagles toupee. Funny how you never see him in a high wind.
At a pinch I can always fall back on Oswald the Wise Owl for some entertainment, so long as I can cope with the endless parade of his awesome knowledge. He makes me play University Challenge with him. I never win. He seems to know everything yet he never moves. Plus he is a terrible gossip. That’s what comes of having a head that can rotate the full 360 degrees. He is such a smarty pants and a little stuck up to boot.
For heavens sake I am the one with Royal ancestors. What right has he to be haughty. He was born in a barn. You know, the one over the way from that terrifying Scarecrow. I can’t for the life of me go near that straw creature.
Last spring I dropped my Eric Bana Butch Pink Man-Bag in his field and I am still trying to find the wherewithal to ask him for it back. Although I gotta say it does look great on his arm and it certainly kept the crows off the corn round harvest time.
Actually I think I’ll let him keep it. Butch Pink is a little ‘last year’ for me now. According to my Stars in the Jungle Edition of Paris Match, we Leo’s are all about red, gold and green at the moment. They will help calm our chameleons, apparently. I know my chameleon is always a little on the nervy side, so much so, that it has been known to affect my appetite.
Last time I had a flare-up I didn’t eat for hours and ended up so weak I couldn’t get the den door open. Thank goodness someone noticed I wasn’t out and about and asked a passing Tin Man to help. Those Tim men are so handy with their iron choppers. The door was matchwood in seconds. I am so glad I was too weak to remember the incident otherwise all that banging and cracking would have given me nightmares for months.
My den has a lovely lavender, light-weight, PVC door now. So it’s like I always say, every cloud has a silver-lame lining.
Actually, it’s the same with all this BOREDOM. Its made me come to a decision.
So my current silver-lame lining is that this year I am going to go away.
I am going to Winter somewhere exotic and vibrant. Somewhere filled with glamour, crammed with style, packed with sophistication and dripping in champers and diamantes.
So I got out my king-sized atlas (I nearly sprained myself hauling it down off the top shelf) and let Fate decide where I should go.
Fate wanted me to visit Monte Carlo coz that is where my index claw landed in the atlas. But my bank balance would not allow that so I am off to Winchester instead (a King Alfred always beats a Prince Albert hands down in my book)
So tomorrow I am off on my first ever Winter Jaunt. Just imagine!
I’ve booked a suite at one of the city centre hotels and packed all my most stylish manes. A Lion always needs a magenta and ribbon strewn mane when wanting to wow ‘em in far flung places. After all it is what is expected of one such as I. Given my Royal Past and all that whatnot.
Anyway, wish me luck. Let’s hope Winchester isn’t full of meanies who would mock a delicate lion like myself.
Paws and claws crossed.
Will keep you posted on my adventures.
Lion xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
