Onstage Mishaps...!

there we go Adam Hatton thank you for teaching me that poking out your tongue trick so the camera focuses thing works really works hello and welcome to my kitchen this is the part of the house that is most complete in the world of theater things don't often go right and I am one of those people who lives for things going wrong when things go wrong on stage I love it it's my favorite thing because when you're in a contract that's a year long and you're doing the same thing every night I like to find my groove and then I kind of stay in my groove and life as a performer becomes quite repetitive you're singing the same songs every night we're saying these same lines you're working with the same people it's always really interesting when a cover goes on because they'll always play it differently because they'll have their own take on a character so that's always really exciting when you get someone new to play with onstage every now and again something goes wrong and I love it it's my favorite and with the nature of live theatre things often go wrong most of the time you wouldn't know about it most of the time the audience wouldn't have a clue that something is slightly awry from our usual routine but we know so I'm going to let you in on a few of the times where things have gone wrong on stage for me I've got a story for each role that I've played maybe you were in the audience that night who knows number one is Eponine and I'm really hoping my friend Matthew hoy doesn't get crossed me for telling this story I don't think you will the old version of Lane is used to have a revolving stage there was someone sat on stage right every night who had to like turn a key and press a button and manually turn the revolve and line up with these little glow-in-the-dark stickers that were on the stage every night it was such a hard task I my eyesight I could never see those stickers so I was always sort of in awe of whoever was working their roles that night and that point was new to the Queens Theatre and he'd been working there for a few weeks and it was his turn to work for a model but it was his first night on revolve duty so we're in the beginning of act 2 and I deliver a letter to bow John this was one of playing Eponine I deliver the letter to bow John Marius has written for Cosette he sings go careful now stay out of sight there's danger in the streets tonight and then he closes the gate and I go to the back of the stage he'd be at the front of the stage reading the letter and then the music would change into the beginning of on my own sagal the audience and I'm in the back of the stage hearing and this is the revolve the revolve move against me like towards me so I would walk against it and like fight the revolve coming underneath my feet but it didn't on this particular night it's not moving away from me so I started walking with it and was moving really fast and I was like I have a mark to hit for the spotlights and all the right seemed to work so if I keep walking with the robot moving with me I'm just gonna end up I began at the back of the stage so I started walking and I'm say no turn around and start walking the wrong way and my favorite thing about when things go wrong is that you can hear everyone noticed that something has gone wrong all of a sudden that was like 10 people in the wings all going everyone panicking and everyone rushed around the revolve desk and they're all pressing buttons and all try to make it stop and luckily it stops for me to sing and now I'm all alone again nowhere to turn I want to go to and I've got a good like three lines that open without a friend without a place to say for those who and now the night is near know I can make believe he's here and all the work here it would start moving again and luckily it started moving the right way and I'm just remember my heart going oh my god how do I fix it how about fix this what do i do what do I do and in the moment my head when just walk backwards just don't the other way just walk towards the back of the stage always in the audience and bless him Matthew hoy who is working the revolve that night bought me a box of chocolates to say sorry but little did he know he gave me one of my favourite theatre stories ever so thanks Matt number 2 was when I was playing truly scrumptious on the UK tour of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang this was quite a tech-heavy show when you've got a piece of set that is a car that's meant to float and fly a lot of that was controlled by me and Lee Mead blew me to his plane karateka spots there were lots of buttons to push in the car that we had to control and discreetly pull for the wings to come the doors to come up him first and then the winds to come out and for the doors to open different doors to open and then the floatation device to inflate under the car there was lots to think about when we were sat in that car but there was one thing every night that I never had to worry about and that was my motorbike truly scrumptious rode a motorbike in this version of the show which I loved I thought it was brilliant I had the best time on this motorbike and it was a really old-fashioned motorbike a real one that had been renovated to be part of the show so it was just on a track someone would just press a button and I would sit on the bike and it would just whizz across the stage and then when it got to the other side it would be taken off of its track turned around and we'd go back the other way and this was something I didn't control someone else in the wings just had to push a button and I would move back and forth and it always worked it always went really smoothly and I never worried about it there was this month this planet show where the scene in which I was on this motorbike just when it was wrong as it could have gone everyone forgot their lines and the scene ended up being about five minutes shorter that usually is so the Mersenne the wings opposite me who's waiting to press the button wasn't ready because they haven't heard the cue line because no one had said it because someone's forgotten it so I got the bike and my final line was good day sir but I was saying it like five four or five minutes to early so I just went good day sir put on my goggles and pretended to you know that was the motion that I was told would work the bike so I did that nothing happened and I just stayed still it how's that Oh God so I just did a bit of like sort of acting like all this blasted bike oh I don't like this bike sort of acting did it again nothing I looked into the wings Oly Oly eliten not my Olly Olly Everton who was the gun who's meant to press the button and I just looked at him I remember him so Chyna somebody looks me and went panicked it was like his headphones back on he was pressing the button and finally it started working but it was that moment where I was like and I just gonna have to abandon the motorbike on stage and just walk off in a house is that what's gonna have to happen here and luckily just as I was about to plan B and get off the bike it started moving her gives me the sweats thinking about it number three was when I was in the Addams Family playing Wednesday Addams at two was very prop heavy for me I had a stuff a necklace with an engagement ring on it a backpack a doll in the backpack there was sort of a quiver on the backpack that had one singular arrow in it and a crossbow it was a lot to think about and it was a lot to remember to put on at the beginning of act 2 and there was this one day where I was really ill I had some kind of stomach bug before the show and there's sort of a cutoff point where you can say I'm not well and I can't do the show and it's usually around 4:30 before an evening performance didn't realize how ill I was until the half-hour call which is half an hour 35 minutes before the show begins and I was sick that I threw up before the show and I was like I can't go off now because it's not giving the understudy enough time to get ready and this would have been the first time that she'd have gone on in the tour so it would have been really throwing her in the deep end and throwing her on but if I know I've been sick now I feel better I feel better than I did I'm okay I'm gonna do it got through the first half and I was alright but I was just feeling really sort of drained I'm really tired and I was in the opening scene of act 2 and I got through that and then I had about 10 minutes to sit down on my dressing room and sort of compose myself and usually I would leave the backpack on because I was always scared that I was gonna forget it but on this particular day I just wasn't feeling myself and I took the backpack off and I laid down so when I got back up to go to the stage I forgot to put back on and it was only until about 10 seconds before I was about to walk on stage I was like I don't my backpack and I just turned to the nearest crew member I was like it's in my dressing room it's on the sofa in my dressing room please give you down someone and then just walked on stage but at the end of the scene that I was walking on for I had to get the doll out of the backpack and I didn't have it and the arrow I would mean for the scene after that and I didn't leave the stage before I needed all these props there was no way for me to get them so halfway through this next scene which was solo song that Gomez would sing blesser one of our team Katy just appeared in the wing next me and luckily I was really close to the edge of the stage sat on a big tomb and she just appeared with it and I was like I saw it and I just really slowly because everyone's focusing on gomez on the other side of the stage singing a song just really carefully just reached and just discreetly put it on it syncing the definition of a game awful never happen again though number four was in heathers luckily nothing really went that wrong in heathers something I will tell you about Heather's though I have maybe one of the most terrifying performances of my career in heathers we were seven weeks in to our eighth week run of the other palace and a pull to one side on the Monday of our seventh week I'm told that a new song has been written for me and the mic amazing I've never had a summer informant before in a musical that's epic now I can't it's seven it's going into the show on Friday and I just remember sort of that echoing in my ears Friday Friday private day right and basically they sent it to me on the Monday they've recorded a demo in California so they sent me this demo and the lyrics and I had to learn this song we rehearsed it on the Thursday and it went into the show on the Friday and I've never been so terrified in my life because the fans of Heather's are hardcore and they know all the songs they know all the lines they know what characters they know the beats of the show they know what happens where so the fact that I was debuting this new song at a really crucial point in Veronica Sawyer's story it was amazing and so exciting that I was just so nervous because I know how huge the reaction was going to be and the song before I say no is lifeboat which is a song that one of the Heather sings Heather McNamara who was played by Sophie Isaac's and I'm in the background and usually I'd be linked arms with JD Jaimie Moscato and we'd be stood in the background like always at this sad isn't this a really sad moment for McNamara and I was just concentrating I was just going through the lyrics in my head I was just thinking about the next ten minutes of my life and I just remembered Jaimie whispering in my ear saying I've not heard you breathe in a really long time you need to calm down but it's funny how the most pressure for moments often result in the most wonderful moments no pressure no diamonds and that was one of those moments for me number five was when I was playing Beth for the second time in the War of the Worlds which was the end of 2018 shortly after I left Heather's immediately after I left Heather's I ended Heather's on the 24th and I started Tech on the 25th I think it was our second to last performance of the War of the Worlds and I had this really elaborate blue costume that was made up of several different parts but the skirt was just simply poppers and a hook down the back and when the course it went on and sucked my waist in say this is like the the hook of the skirt when it cinched my waist in it's sort of like undid the hook there's this moment where we were on the floor together and as we went to stand up Jason Donovan who was playing my husband stood on the front of my skirt and I just heard all of the poppers go I was like ah this could be a problem and as I stood up my skirt did not my skirt did not gun with me so I managed to sort of put it up and deal with it for the next minute or so it's a very long number it's like a ten minute number and there's a point where Jason would go out into the audience in this big instrumental I've got any as in and the reason you wherein is is because in arenas that are so so huge it helps you hear the music much better than if you didn't have them in because it was just the music would echo and bounce off of all those really big walls so we can hear the music much much better but also in this moment it meant that I could be spoken to by the team backstage who luckily had seen what had happened they could see all of the monitors and I just had someone in my ear during this big instrumental bit where Jason's gone out into the audience and I'm just supposed to be stood there like praying because I'm a Parsons wife Carrie can you come back up the ramp so we can fix your wardrobe malfunction thank you very much see in a second cause I know I couldn't talk back but I think yep they're deep and just very carefully walked there very serene and calm just walked back up the ramp and there was like oh my god fix it please fix it lovely I was wearing pair bloomers so it's fine no one saw anything they shouldn't have seen but good job I remembered to wear the nut show okay and finally was very recently in Lemus again Sondheim theatre while I was playing Fantine but this didn't happen when I was Fantine this happened when I was Patrice the potato peeler on the barricades for those of you that don't know nearly everyone who plays a principal role in layers like Eponine Cosette mr. Chi madam T Fantine entourage Marius when they are not their principal role they are in the ensemble and I think I'm the only principal character who is their principal first and then goes into the ensemble I think everyone else is the other way around there there songul track and then they go into their principal character that's just the way that the time lines work out and latest so I am on the barricade as a barricade lady whom I have called Patrice for giggles and I am in charge of feeding the barricade either bucket potatoes and during little fall of rain I sit and peel with potatoes at the back of the stage my potato peeling is actually very short-lived I don't know huge amount of potato peeling it's solely through a little fall of rain and then I put the bucket long to the barricade and it stays there until I leave the stage after bring him home and I take the bucket with me so the bucket that I initially had that's filled with fake potatoes they're not real it was a proper old bucket it wasn't a prop it wasn't like you know made of plastic and painted to look old it was a proper antique bucket there's a reason telling you this I promise there's a bit where me and another barricade lady Jessie ha we climb through the barricade and as we both climb through the barricade one of us knocks the bucket into the barricade winners because the barricade is kind of like very intricate full of holes and you can climb in and out with it one of us knocked the bucket over into the barricade and we're in pitch black at this point and at the front of the stage of our Jean and Javert having their little second confrontation tall very tense so which one it be as quiet as we can and we're picking up these potatoes and putting them into the bucket I suddenly realize as I try to pick up the bucket at the bottom of the bucket has fallen out into the bucket and split perfectly into so there is no saving this bucket and there's about 30 potatoes 30 to 40 potatoes and they're all there very very well done these potatoes are very realistic there are something for some really small that can get into real useable places really good so something we have nowhere to put these potatoes because the back gets broken there's no put them in a bucket what do we do luckily there are these ammunition boxes that are supposed to be full of bullets but they're just empty and we just pretend to take the bullets out and hand them to people but neither myself or Jesse can get to these ammunition boxes because they are the other side of this little barricade we in the barricade they are outside the barricade so we have the whisper to Emma Emma Warren fine picking up potatoes are handing them to Jesse and Jesse his hand in the mouth try the barricade to Emma to put them into these ammunition boxes and suddenly when the lights come up and we are revealed and we're about to go in to drink with me suddenly realize just so many potatoes there are they're everywhere they're everywhere they are everywhere and at this point I'm the only one who stays with the potatoes Emma and Jessie have other stuff that they need to go and do they've got props that they need to move which is way more important than what I need to do there's nothing that I need to do that really impacts anybody else so during the entirety of drink with me I am sat on my ass at the back leaning backwards into the barricade trying to grab as many potatoes as I can even to my skirt which I have like rolled up and holding in my hand to create some kind of like kangaroo pouch to try and pick up all of these potatoes and put them into an ammunition box within the space of about two verses and a chorus I've got a new bucket now don't worry I've got a new really sturdy bucket don't fret I've got lots of stories about things that gone wrong on stage but a lot of them didn't happen to me so I don't feel like it's fair for me to tell those stories because I was simply present for them they didn't actually happen to me but these ones did so I hope you enjoy the magic of live theatre so if you ever go and see it and something goes wrong just knowing that you have just witnessed something that those axes will probably talk about and retell for the rest of their lives to special moment I loved even being in the audience when things go wrong because I know just how special that moment is to all in those actors on stage who have suddenly gone like that there is a pricked up and they're like this is the best so if anything else crops up I will let you know thanks for listening I will see you very soon

Channel: Carrie Hope Fletcher

Views: 163,643

Rating: 4.9848795 out of 5

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Id: 08-8feLmIoM

Length: 19min 42sec (1182 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 15 2020