The Other Lansbury #5

"Single white female WLTM jazz musician for casual sax." She wrote...

Jim Beam me up Scottie

I went through a copy of The Stage recently and booked ‘Gandalph the Wizard’ for my nephew Tristram’s 8th birthday party, and look who rolled up! Since they stopped writing ‘Star Trek’ Patrick Stewart’s been on his uppers evidently. He was drunk as a Lord and the stench of piss followed him all round the marquee. Fortunaltely Tristram and his chums thought it was some mystical vapour trail and they followed him expectantly hoping for some act of magic. Well, magic he was not my friends, although three cans of Newky Brown did mysteriously disappear from my brother-in-law’s fridge. Honestly, I gave him the benefit of the doubt when all he could produce from his top hat was a week old Ginsters pastie, but when he then went rummaging around in his overcoat for stardust and popped his todge out I had to escort him off the premises. “I’ll be speaking to your agent Pat” says I; “Make it sho” slurs he.

What's on your iPod #7

Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve heard it. Myself I have nothing but admiration for a man that respects the use of the apostrophe on his album cover and can also rhyme “She’s certain” with “Beef curtains”. Outstanding.

Fruit de Nightmare

I took my life in my hands this morning when I nipped into Pat Maggs’s café for me breakfast. She begged me to try her latest invention the ‘Ocean Churn Bap’, and with the menopause in full flight, the lady is not to be trifled with. Words can barely describe the experience of that first bite. Under the stern gaze of Pat Maggs, whose henna’d hair and wildly misguided make-up are making her look like a cross between Rita Fairclough and Heath Ledger’s ‘Joker’, I chomped my way through everything the sea has to offer and the fishmonger rightly rejects. Rank crustacean carcasses and pods of foul smelling, viscous liquids were mashed together in my gob. My brain refused to let any of this matter down towards my stomach, so there it remained in my mouth, being hurled around and around like some hideous, medieval Tombola. As you know I’m a trained actor with years of experience disguising my own feelings, but even I could not disguise the sheer dread at having to swallow this crime against gastronomy. I was sweating profusely, I could feel myself growing green and I was retching hard at the mere prospect of forcing it down. I absolutely had to vomit. And Pat’s feelings were not my main concern as I did so all down her ‘Be nice to me I’m having a hard day’ apron. I caught a glimpse of her as I stumbled towards the door like a child in a play pen; the ageing photos on the café wall suggest she was a stunner in her day. How I wanted to cry.

Wish you were here?

Sorry not to have posted for a while, but I got a last minute flight to somewhere in Eastern Europe (still not sure where) for 50p on Sleazyjet and headed off for a summer break. I’ll give you a full lowdown on the holiday once I’ve sufficiently recovered, but suffice to say my luck did not improve with the change of scenery. An example of this is what happened to me at the airport when I got back. There was the usual rugby scrum for the baggage carousel and I was all prepared to wait another hour for my Royal National Theatre holdall (a throwback to 1986 when I understudied all the comedians in ‘Comedians’ and never got on) to be last on the merry-go-round. Much to my surprise though, my bag was first out! This is it, I thought to myself, my luck is finally changing. Stick with it Harrison and good fortune is sure to come. ‘Coming through!’ I announced in my clearest projection and scooped up the bag with all the finesse of a certificate holding contemporary dance student (second class), only to watch in horror as the ageing zip finally gave way sending a plume of soiled undies, jazz mags and stolen shower caps into the air. Needless to say, I was last to leave the carousel, after my personals had been round and round and round for all to see. The kindly janitor asked me to turn out the lights as I left. I wonder if Judith Charmers ever felt this way?

I'm gonna live forever?

Now I'm well confused. I thought Mr Shorovsky had died years ago, and here he is being tried for war crimes. Right here is where you start paying Star Maker.

Up, up and away!

To try and gain some perspective on my atrophying acting career, I took a hot air balloon trip this week. I brought my Tom Tom SatNav system along just to see what it made of it. It started off as being quite amusing, just a blue screen with a lost looking chevron in the middle, but when you’ve been told to “Turn around where possible” for the two hundredth time, the fun starts to wear off. Things got very exciting though when the thermal we’d been riding suddenly evaporated and we began to loose altitude at an alarming rate. Peter the pilot insisted we jettison anything weighing more than two pounds, so I lost me donkey jacket and bottle of Pernod straight off. We were still losing height though so over too went the script I’d been working on for a stage musical about the 90’s European Union Treaty called ‘Maastrichtly Ballroom.’ That was to have been my way back into the business, and as I watched the pages of the only copy in existence float to earth like oversized and poorly typed snowflakes, I took it as a sign that perhaps I’d been trying too hard and should instead return to theatreland with the fresh faced exuberance of a RADA graduate. I was on my way back.
The final irony came when we eventually crash landed on the roof of the ‘Don’t Temp Me’ temping agency offices and a polite, electronic voice announced “You have reached your destination.”

Fie-diddle-de-dee!

In a bid to keep the wolf from both our doors my agent, Bernie Shimshelwitz, scored me a corporate role playing gig at the HQ of a major food manufacturing company a week ago. My job was to take on the part of a Senior Executive bringing his management team into line with some up to the minute inter-personal managerial techniques. I was mentor to the company’s Sales Director, Baz, a high flyer who hung off my every word. He shook my hand at the end of proceedings, looked me straight in the eye and said “Thank you Harrison. You have changed my life today.” Imagine my horror then when one week later (yesterday) I’m in town to audition for a new coconut flavoured dog food commercial and in an unholy coincidence Baz is there representing the company and taking a non-speaking role in the scene. The 21 year-old sloaney casting girl had me on all fours barking the tune of ‘I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts’ whilst nuzzling Baz’s leg and pointing him towards my food bowl with my hind quarters. For twenty minutes this went on. By the end of it Baz and I were both sobbing silently and never daring to make eye contact. I’m slowly now trying to rebuild my life. Not easy though, I cannot get shot of the taste of coconuts.