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Here I am at a tender age back in 1989 singing Enrico in a programme of excerpts from Lucia di Lammermoor. I'm afraid that the photo completely fails to reflect the true horror of this loathsome confection-of-a-costume, with a doublet made from the kind of material that you use to upholster furniture, and the rest from some old curtains, I suspect. Note also the scenery cunningly fashioned from bits of an old garden shed. |
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A narrow escape - I nearly had to wear this wig as Paris in La Belle Helene in 2002 until the director had a last-minute change of heart. Eeek! Fortunately this may be the only photo still in existence of me wearing it, so as long as it doesn't find its' way onto the internet then I think I'll be OK.... |
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In Kiss Me Kate, Fred spends several scenes wearing a dressing-gown. Alas for me it was decided that the beautiful way that this one shimmered under lights far outweighed the fact that it appeared to have been made with chilly Arctic conditions in mind and was heavy and hot, was prone to come unfastened at inopportune moments, was too long to dance properly in (as I was required to do), and to add insult to injury, had the uncanny ability to make a 12 stone man look 20 stone. |
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Kiss Me Kate again: Fred/Petruchio changes into this rather fine tatty-outfit for his wedding. It's not the easiest costume to get into, but a chorus routine allows about seven minutes in which to effect the transformation. An unsympathetic cut in the music, made at a late stage, suddenly left me with only three and a half minutes in which to get offstage, down to the dressing room, change, and be back on stage. I was only late getting back on stage once (when I got my arm caught up in the sleeve), the audience in the meantime were treated to some fine improvised dialogue from other cast members about how fine the weather was for a wedding. |
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Thirty minutes before the start of a concert in 2002, I was changing and discovered that I had packed the wrong shirt - this one had no buttons at all and required studs, which I hadn't brought. All I had were some paper-clips and a roll of sellotape. The resulting masterful improvisation, in use in the photo here, just lasted to the end of the concert. Shame about the tie though. |
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Me as Dr Daly; a fine example of my "Primitive Period" make-up, but it is the hat that we are interested in here. At the dress-rehearsal I thought that laryngitis had struck, so weird and muffled did I sound, and a panicky time ensued until I realised that the cause was the hat, which I was wearing for the first time, preventing me from hearing myself properly. Since then, if I find that I have to perform in a hat, especially one with a brim that goes over the ears, I try to get hold of it as early as possible and make sure I rehearse in it to get used to the new accoustic. |
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Another day, another hat - heavy, hot, and uncomfortable. As The Pirate King I had chosen this one over a smaller, lighter, and duller alternative because it looked so impressive with its' flamboyant black feathers, not realising that (even with the rim padded with newspaper to make it fit as tightly as possible) it would chaff badly. I had a red stripe across my forehead for a week. |
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more photos: photos 1 (roles in operas operettas and musicals) |
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