Gareth Fordred is a founding member of the faction theatre co. In the 2012 Rep Season he is playing Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Leicester in Mary Stuart and a reveller in Miss Julie.

Uncovering The Faction #6: The Green Room

‘‘eyes rolling like a rabid equine’

People with nine-til-fives asking yet again for a reasonable amount of contact with them to maintain normal friendship relations.

You can hear the mental process grinding.

Quite reasonably your loved ones think “but you don’t get paid like a normal job” (ergo you don’t work as hard as I do in my ‘normal’ job).

Here is my apologia:

8:00 - SIMULTANEOUSLY: boil eggs, check emails, chop fruit, toast bread, scan headlines on bbc website

9:00 - TUBE - post-festive grace period is over and under-filled carriages are a thing of the past. I have no choice but to run my lines pressed right next to a man’s face who thinks I’m either mad or coming onto him. Neither outcome is good.

10:00 - arrive at theatre. Straight into tech-ing the yellow stockings. Will the stockings fit over a leg calliper? Let’s find out.

11:00 - miso soup from pret.

11:05 - 21:24 = a total blank, have tried but to no avail.

This is the time gap of madness. I have little idea what passed here - probably lots of rehearsal and last minute panic.

Time Unknown: blathering absolute insanity, erupting from the stage into the green room, eyes rolling like a rabid equine, grabbing the first castmate you see by the lapels and demanding: “WHAT’S NEXT? WHAT’S NEXT!”

21:25 - In the full flow of our first preview in between “yellow stockings” and “dark house”. Feet up with a biscuit and a cuppa.

- GF

The Faction’s Rep Season opens @ The New Diorama Theatre, NW1 3BF

Jan 6^th – Feb 18^th a cast of 11 perform Twelfth Night, Mary Stuart and Miss Julie

Visit www.thefaction.org.uk for times and tickets