Not really back yet, but doing a bit of bragging: Your Humble Blogger will be playing Selsdon Mowbray in Noises Off! this February here in the central Connecticut region. There will be further updates as time passes.
It will be an odd experience for me, as I played Selsdon back in my college days. I was twenty years old then. I am forty-four years old now.
Perhaps I will play the part again, in another twenty-three years; I will at that time be around the same age that Douglas Seale was when he originated the part in 1982, and around the same age Karl Johnson was last year in the revival at the Old Vic.
Or perhaps I will play the part a fourth time twenty-three years after that, in the year 2059. After all, while Selsdon is described as in his seventies, the playbill for Nothing On (the play within the play) describes his service in the Artists Rifles in the Great War. I suppose he might conceivably have joined up at fifteen—although I suspect it would be more difficult for a boy lying about his age to join the Artists Rifles than another regiment—which would have made him born in, at the latest, 1903, yes? And thus seventy-nine in 1982, when Noises Off opened. At the absolute youngest. Much more likely to have been nearly ninety.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Congratulations! and what fun! and funny that it is the same part, rather than some other one (though among the available male roles, Lloyd seems like the only other clear fit for you, although it would be interesting to see what you could do with Freddy or Tim.)
How much of Selsden’s part do yo still have (more or less) memorized? Of course, for farce, memorizing the words is much the easier bit (especially when the lines are the same in each act), and the stage business will be largely new. I hope you will be inspired to post frequently about this endeavor.