A Question of Talent

Today

Coming back from the gym today, I listened with great pleasure to a performance of the overture to "The Bartered Bride". What a joyous piece it is. I was reminded of an equally joyous WNO production many years ago, which opened with a harvest scene filled with golden light, looking liked a Millet painting. I thought about how the set designer would have researched to find the right ambience and collaborated with the lighting designer to produce that autumnal warmth.

In My Day

I don't know what it was that made me decide that I should pursue a career in theatre design. Perhaps doing a couple of school plays to some acclaim inspired me. Or maybe I just thought it sounded cool.

I was offered a place to do a City & Guilds at the West Sussex College of Design in Worthing (not a very cool place, I know). I joined a fairly motley group who had a variety of skills, from the strictly practical, woodworking category to the solidly artistic.

I turned out to be a fairly competent carpenter and could knock up "flats" for stage sets quite easily. I even learned how to make mortise and tenon joints, although I've now forgotten the knack.

I wasn't bad at making costumes and produced fairly convincing corsets. And once I produced a model of the interior of Chichester Cathedral for a performance of "everyman".

But I wasn't particularly talented. My designs were mediocre and my drawing only so-so. I used to gaze, enchanted, at the stylish and original designs produced by my classmates. What had I been thinking? It was in this spirit that I applied to train to teach art in secondary schools, an only slightly less deranged decision than the one to study theatre design.

After our final exams we were all given work placements. Mine was an assistant in the ladies' ballet wardrobe at Covent Garden. My main duties, it seemed, were to replace the feathers on Margot Fonteyn's Swan Lake costume, daily, and to hold pins while ballerinas were fitted into their costumes. I found the atmosphere stifling, both physically and socially and was very glad when my placement was over. I never thought of asking for an extended stay or a placement elsewhere (I might have been given the men's ballet wardrobe) and was simply relieved to be shot of it.

I don't know whether any of my colleagues from Worthing ever entered the world of theatre but have a sinking feeling that even those who did remained bottom of the heap.

My experiences have certainly caused me to question the ability of eighteen-year-olds to make realistic judgements as to their futures, and made me glad that I had the sense to cut and run.