Resting. Again.

As April becomes more in fashion on the calendar, I find myself once again at a loose end after my one man show was cancelled owing to having more people on the stage than in the audience. But every cloud as they say has a silver lining, and this event has given me some much needed time to catch up on my reading of The Stage.

For those who don't know, the Stage is the newspaper of my trade. Reviews, who is doing what, who has won what and who is reduced to hawking their wares in the small ads. Not that there is any shame in that; many an artist has resorted in desperate times to placing ads selling a collection of wigs or offering to read a script or host a childrens' party dressed as an Ewok.

I once saw an ad for a certain celebrity who I won't name, offering to mend peoples fridges and freezers. People wouldn't expect the former host of a sports programme to be mending white goods, but he must have got some work because I saw him hosting Countdown a little later. Although he did vanish from there again, I am assuming because of the success of his repair business and not because some people were after him brandishing spoiled food.

It is the one thing you learn in this tough, tough business; to have a second fiddle. A trade or skill by which you can earn when parts run thin. Christopher Biggins is a talented man, but no one knows he makes small cuddly toys for Goldfish. Derek Griffiths spends much of his spare time claiming things from lost property, Todd Carty makes sea lion noises at Brighton Marine World, Helen Mirren is a wrestler and lovely Richard Hammond can identify no less than sixteen different types of paving slab. Skills are essential.

They also bring you in touch with that most precious thing, your audience. It is important you never look down on them, simply because you are a successful performer and they have to pay to see you work, whereas in their world you simply turn up and look through a window and as long as you are on public land they can't do a thing about it. I know the law. The important thing is to treat them as equals. They are not of course, but as a performer you use all your guile and skill to make them feel as good as you. To be convincing in life is as important if not more so than being convincing on stage, if only for avoiding a pummelling by an unconvinced co-worker.

I sometimes employ little psychological tricks to 'get them on side'. In the canteen I will make it plain that I am not a celebrity and don't want any special treatment. I will say this loud and, if needs be, thump the table. I have been known to spill soup, such is my gusto. I will add I am just an ordinary man I will say. With ordinary needs and wants. I get up. I go to the toilet. I sing songs to my rubber duck in the bath. Completely normal. This elicits a kind of quiet in them, as the realisation sinks in that I am one of the crew. And, having digested this truth, they turn back to their own table and carry on their respective meals.