Overture and Beginners by Emma Harding

“Ten minutes, ladies.” calls a voice from outside. “Just ten minutes to curtain up.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” Mandy yells, directing an exaggerated, heavily mascaraed false-eyelashed wink towards Chloe. 

Chloe smiles back then returns to the delicate procedure of applying eyeliner to her own eyes without the constant jostling from Sarah on one side and Barry on the other causing her an injury.

“La, la, la, la, la. Me, me, me, me, me. Da, da, da, da, da.” As always, Dorothy’s strenuous vocal exercises kick in at the ten minute call. 

“Where’s the bloody rouge?” cries Sarah, rummaging through the assorted detritus on the table. In amongst the lipsticks, pots of greasepaint, eyebrow tweezers, scissors, a needle and thread and a few loose buttons, a powder puff that belongs with a powder compact that’s long since disappeared, hairbrushes, hairgrips and a light dusting, everywhere, of talcum powder, she eventually roots out the little tub of coral-red unction and smears a fingerful liberally over her cheeks. “This place is like the black hole of Calcutta or something,” she says.

“It’s just too small in here. It’s simply impossible.” Dorothy says, pausing between doe, doe, does. “When I was at the Pally …” (cue groans from Mandy, Sarah and Barry, who’ve heard this refrain a few too many times) “… we had dressing rooms three times the size of this, shared between two girls.” 

It’s not quite what Chloe had been expecting either. Not that she’d remotely imagined having a dressing room all to herself, with one of those mirrors that are surrounded by lightbulbs, like you see in the movies. Nor would she expect to have received a bouquet of white roses from an secret admirer, or have hundreds of well-wishers waiting outside the stage door, hoping to catch a glimpse, maybe even an autograph after the performance. 

No. She’d always known her first proper, paid, acting gig would be somewhere unglamorous, some repertory theatre or touring company where you have to supply your own makeup and wear hand-me-down costumes. She didn’t care about that. She just wanted to act. OK, obviously she hoped that someday there might be a TV part or maybe even, possibly, hopefully, a film role. Maybe. But no, it was silly to expect too much. Right now, she needed to put in the graft, learn her trade, work her way up. 

But having said all that, never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that her first proper, paid, acting gig would be on, of all things, a narrowboat. A 70ft narrowboat. In Huddersfield, of all places. 

Pulling on a blond wig, she takes in, once more, the space they laughingly call (amid much eye-rolling) the dressing room. It is, in reality, the kitchen - should that be galley? And the dining room. And the lounge. Right now, five people are squashed round the collapsible table, attempting to create the magic of theatre in three shaving mirrors and a couple of compacts. Their costumes are hung, unceremoniously, on the back of the door that leads out to the cockpit, where Stuart, their ‘captain’, director and Oberon is no doubt enjoying his last cigarette before the performance. 

“And who thought Dream would be a good idea? It’s bloody April for a start!” Sarah grimaces, but Chloe knows they all love it really. And she does too. Not just the acting - she knew she’d love that, but being on the canal too. That’s been something of a revelation. Despite her urban origins, Chloe has discovered a strange pleasure in the slow pace of (performance nights aside) narrowboat life. Her favourite place, on a dry day, is sitting out on deck, ostensibly learning her lines but more often than not, just watching the world go by. Slowly. Really slowly. Interrupted, of course, by the sudden flurry of activity as they approach a lock. Then it’s, literally, all hands on deck. With Stuart at the tiller and one of them at the front, guiding him in, the rest of the cast leap off the boat and take their positions at the lock side. Their glee is palpable - like they’ve been let off the leash and they sing sea-shanties as they push back against the balance beams, hi-fiving when the boat is through. For the first lock of the day at any rate. By the time they’re on their fourth or fifth lock, singing has been replaced by moaning, and hi-fiving by short-straw-pulling for the chance to be the one to remain on the boat. 

Tonight, despite the complaints, spirits are high. Their (creatively-interpreted) Dream seems to be going down well with audiences so far this season.

“Overture and beginners please,” calls Stuart, and they clamber out of the cabin and take their places on the ‘stage’ (the grassy verge that leads down from the Rat and Whistle to the canal) in front of a small crowd. 

“Overture, indeed,” Dorothy mutters. “It’s only Barry on his fiddle!”

Inspired by an article in the Huddersfield Examiner (12th January 2016) about the Marsden-based theatre company Mikron, currently recruiting actors to join them on their narrowboat. I hasten to add that the portrayal above is entirely fictional and not intended to bear any resemblance to the reality, of which I know nothing. To find out about the real thing, visit www.mikron.org.uk