Entry for April 7, 2007

I have just been watching “Any Dream Will Do”, the BBC’s latest excuse for an entertaining reality TV programme. Here, we are treated to a number of potential Josephs auditioning for the lead role in “Joseph and His Technicolour Dreamcoat”.
I have never seen a sorrier group of wimpy saps. What we get are 40 grown men bursting into tears every three minutes. They cry if they get through to the next round; they cry if they don’t get through to the next round; they cry if Andrew Llloyd Webber appears unexpectedly when they’re having their elevenses.
Ohhhh boo hoo bloody hoo. You didn’t make it to Joseph School. Wait a minute boys. There’s forty of you, and this is an audition for – let’s think about it – yes, one part. Most of you are not going to get the part. That is what an audition is. Toughen up. People your age and younger are getting blown up in car bombs in Iraq just now. That’s worth crying for. Losing your chance to get bummed in the dressing room of the Garrick by a choreographer called Maurice is not a justified cause for misery.
I was interviewing for staff recently; I do not think that the person who was the fortieth best in line for the job had any right to leave the office in floods of tears saying “I was this close. I nearly had it.” NOOOOO! You didn’t nearly have it. You were thirty nine places behind the guy who’s right for the role. That’s rubbish. That means you sucked. Or perhaps in the world of the theatre it might be correct that you didn’t suck, but you get the picture.
I am pitching my own idea to ITV. It’s called “Any Kick in the Sack Will Do” where any potential Joseph who sheds a stray tear gets a swift Doc Martin to his nether regions.