Way back when, when my long grey socks touched my knees and my stiff grey shorts had a seam down the front, my straight-jacket like black Bata shoes were tougher than the skin on Willie Nelson's neck never softening to allow my feet to bend, and I bawled my eyes out every time my dad dropped me at the creaking gates of school, i was chosen, albeit as part of a desk top study, to be in the foreground of the primary school play.
During this period of my life my hobbies included gardening, alone; playing mechano, alone; baking crumpets, alone, and gaming 'single player' tv games, ofcourse, alone.
With a gaping hole where my 2 front teeth used to park, and long helmet-like shaggy-rug hair akin to David Bowie in Starman, I was no 'looker', and to add injury to insult, I had the confidence of a deflated whoopee cushion, but for some strange reason, there i was row 1 column A on the teacher's Excel spreadsheet.
Rehearsal took place in the school hall, on stage, beneath a giant spot light.
We were geared in blue jeans and red tee's, and our hair was greased up in hair gel stiffening it like a debutant rodeo rider.
I was part of the scene where about eight of us did a dance to Bananarama's, 'I'm your Venus'. In this scene, we'd have a comb in our sock and we'd brush our hair like Elvis. We'd be the glistening stars of the show. But for the life of me I couldn't co-ordinate the actions with the lyrics.
Seeing as i was co-ordinated as Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot, i was gently slowly replaced moved towards the blurry edges of the background into deep dark deserted theatre anonymity. My star receded, dissolving like a dunked disprin, eventually becoming an inanimate extra in a scene from an Italian restaurant, never to step foot on a stage ever, ever again, ever.
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