Green Room Gossip

As a theatre nut, I couldn't help prick up my ears at this heady news, just in from Digital Spy:

"Coronation Street stars David Neilson and Chris Gascoyne like to rehearse high-brow plays together behind the scenes.

                                                                                  

"The two enjoy acting out the work of Nobel Prize-winning Samuel Beckett in the show's green room, The Sun reports."

Wow.  I admit, that's my kind of gossip!

Better still, they sometimes get their castmates to join in the guilty pleasure:

"[David and Chris] are particularly interested in one of his plays and one day they would love to put on a production together.

"When they need a hand with any of the scenes they get Sylvia [Stephanie Cole] and Malcolm [Hebden] to help.  It really is quite a strange sight and not one you'd expect to find backstage at Corrie."

I don't know why it would be strange to see actors acting in their free time, but Digital Spy probably means soap actors spending their down-time with hoity-toity Nobel Prize-winning litratchah... Except that Samuel Beckett's characters come from the same unassuming, working class roots as Coronation Street, with a twist of Irish and an extra shot of the Absurd.

I immediately got down to imagining Roy, Peter, Norris, and Sylvia cast as characters in a Beckett play.  Which play would it be?  And who would play which part?

Based on the actors mentioned, my guess is Endgame.  Hamm, blind and wheel-chair bound, is stuck in a dysfunctional relationship with his helper, Clov.  Against a post-apocalyptic backdrop, they doggedly carry on the little rituals of daily life, which include feeding and changing the litter for Hamm's ancient 'progenitors', Nagg and Nell, condemned to living out the end of their lives in side-by-side dustbins.  (Comedy gold!)

                                                           

Nell and Nagg:  The old folks at home!

       

Hamm:  The old folks at home!  No decency left!  Guzzle, guzzle, that's all they think of...

Nagg:  Me pap!

Hamm (to Clov):  Give him his pap.

Clov: There's no more pap.

Hamm (to Nagg): Do you hear that? There's no more pap.  You'll never get any more pap.

Nagg:  I want me pap!

Hamm (to Clov):  Give him a biscuit.  (To Nagg):  Accursed fornicator!

Personally, I would cast Peter as Hamm, Roy as Clov, Norris as Nagg, and Sylvia as Nell.  Try reading the dialogue above with their voices in mind :)

What would be your fantasy play for Corrie actors to rehearse in the Green Room and what roles would they play?  Hamlet anyone? The Scottish play? (I call Carla as Lady Macbeth!!!)


                                                Endgame photo property of The Torontoist.