Sicken and So Die Read Free Page A

there.
    As an even greater concession, the Trustees had allowed the accompanying press conference to be conducted in the Chailey Ferrars dining hall. The magnitude of this honour was continuously emphasised, though, since Asphodel were being forced to pay well over the odds for the Chailey Ferrars in-house catering services, the Trustees’ attitude did seem a little hypocritical.
    Still, Charles Paris wasn’t that worried. A photocall and a press conference had to mean a few free drinks.
    He had been unperturbed by the prospect of a visit to Great Wensham, though many of the other company members had made a big fuss about it. Gavin Scholes objected to losing a day’s rehearsal, even though his presence at the press conference was written into the contract between Asphodel and the Great Wensham Festival. His wardrobe mistress resented the demand for costumes to be worn at the photocall; she grumbled that it was only local press, anyway, surely they could be fobbed off with rehearsal stills. But again a fully dressed on-site photocall was written into the contract.
    These complaints, however, were as nothing to those raised by the cast. Few of the principals wanted to drag out to Great Wensham for some bloody photocall; they regarded a day without rehearsals as a day off, and at the beginning of several months’ intensive work they weren’t going to miss out on that.
    Russ Lavery was particularly vehement in his refusal when Gavin Scholes tried to cajole him into being part of the outing. Up until that point he had been very meek and unstarry at rehearsal – except for one violent blow-up with the wardrobe mistress who’d wanted to give Viola’s and Sebastian’s costumes shorter sleeves than Russ Lavery thought appropriate. Needless to say, the star had won; the sleeves were lengthened.
    But the press conference prompted another tantrum. Russ’s agent had set up a meeting for that day with a Hollywood director who’d got a project he might be interested in. When Gavin rather tentatively pointed out that ‘availability for promotion of the production’ was written into Russ’s contract, he was nearly blown out of the water.
    â€˜I don’t have to make myself available for bloody local hacks!’ the star of
Air-Sea Rescue
stormed. ‘My publicist and I spend most of our time
avoiding
publicity, not courting it.’
    â€˜It’s not going to be just local coverage,’ Gavin asserted. ‘The festival press officer I spoke to said they’ve invited all the nationals as well.’
    â€˜I don’t care if they’ve invited the Pope, Barbra Streisand and Nelson Mandela,’ said Russ Lavery. ‘
I
won’t be there.’
    So the party who actually did attend the photocall and press conference were the amenable ones who tended not to make a fuss, like Charles Paris and Tottie Roundwood, the actress who was playing Maria; and those who were desperate for publicity in whatever form it came – Vasile Bogdan, who played Fabian, Sally Luther, the production’s Viola, and Talya Northcott, whose first professional job this was.
    Talya had been cast in the non-speaking role of Olivia’s Handmaiden, with the additional responsibility of understudying all three female parts. For someone so new to the profession, just working in the theatre was profoundly exciting. And any newspaper picture of her in costume would be religiously snipped out and scrapbooked by the worshipping ‘Mummy’ to whom her conversation frequently reverted.
    Vasile Bogdan, a gloweringly handsome dark-haired actor in his twenties, may have had an obscure European name, but spoke without any trace of an accent. He was fiercely ambitious, and his own opinion of his talents manifested itself in a slight contempt for the rest of the company. His
Twelfth Night
casting in the ungrateful role of Fabian was a stage which he considered himself to be passing through only