COCHRANE THEATRE

When I was at drama school we never had a theatre per se. What we had was a space known ominously as ‘ROOM 1’. Its walls were the colour of Miss Havisham’s wedding cake. Its toilet cubicles morphed miraculously into dressing rooms. Its windows were held up with ballet bars where we would rond de jambe to the scuttling of script-fed rodentia. ROOM 1, of course, was much beloved.

But lately our graduates have had to perform in an actual theatre: The Cochrane. You’ll know the Cochrane by its portly window swelling out into the converging mayhems of Holborn. And my, it is a plucky little theatre, encircled by the commercial testosterone of the West End big boys. It boasts a gallery and an orchestra pit fit for 20 musicians. Peter Brook opened his Theatre of Cruelty there in 1964 and Joe Orton premiered Loot there. It’s won awards for its children’s shows and produced the applauded Laramie Project. So what’s happening there today?

A trip down memory lane, my friends, that will send a shiver up the spine of any actor without soap-opera-deadened nerves. A little event we call the ‘Agent Showcase’.

Unfortunately, this tends to be the unspoken lodestone of any acting training. You slog your guts out for two years and then, after all the inspirational teachings and explicit pacts of integrity, you discover it’s just a business like anything else. That you may be the next Fanny Kemble, but if you can’t fork out £300 for a decent photograph then you will vanish quicker than a bad review from the green room notice-board. So each actor chooses a scene, the administration dutifully lays out two dozen copies of their CVs, the agents turn up to scribble ‘Big Teeth’ or ‘ Weird Accent’ on photo-cards and then afterwards the actors frantically count said CVs to see how many have been taken (discounting mothers/landladies/1st year-admirers who will take four CVs apiece).

And so an agent showcase is unlike anything you’ll ever see. In many ways, it’s the best acting you’ll ever see. These youngsters have been living, breathing and excreting theatre non-stop for two years, and they’re chomping at the bit to show you what they’re made of. They’ll each be playing to their strengths, be that Glaswegian misanthrope or South African pig-hunter. The only catch is that you may need to pretend to be Sam Mendes to actually get in to see it.

A word to the wise, however. Agents are a talented bunch in general (many being former actors), but some can only recognise talent through audience reaction. And when you have an auditorium full of agents, all attempting to observe each other observing the actors to figure out who’s going to make them the most money…it sometimes gets a little quiet.

So when you do pop along to the Cochrane for Much Ado About Nothing and The Winter’s Tale this March, please don’t be stingy with the belly laughs. Then watch those CVs fly.