Sharon Small In The 24 Hour Plays Celebrity Gala
Sunday 11 November 2007
Sharon fan Virginia Garvin was lucky enough to see Sharon on stage on 11 November, 2007, and has given me kind permission to share her report of the evening with all of Sharon's fans here on the website. Thank you, Virginia!
I'm still going a three hundred miles an hour out of excitement! Sharon was amazing on stage. But let's start from the beginning.
I entered the theatre and, as I expected, alongside the champagne they gave us the booklets with the programme for the evening. I was very surprised to see that Sharon only took part in one play and that she was one of 25 actors! So no actor had more than one character.
Sharon's play was called "An Act of Love." There was a very small picture of her standing with every single other member of the 24 hour play production team with a big smile on her face. In a section of the booklet called "Biographies," rather than having any personal information about the actors, there was a comment made by all of them the night before. This is what Sharon said: "I'm sure this seemed a good idea at the time; I want my mummy."
When the actors arrived at 10 pm on Saturday, they had to bring a costume or a prop to inspire the writers. Well, I'm assuming that Sharon's props were a Noddy wheelie bag that obviously belongs to her baby, and a jack in the box. I say I'm assuming both props belonged to her, because the other actress had brought a pink night gown. It only make sense to bring a prop like that being a new and proud mother.
The actors in "An Act of Love" were (as shown in the programme):
Drew - Tom Hollander
Louise (Lou) - Sharon Small
Catherine - Doon Mackichan
Ben - Obi Abili
The plot was basically about a husband and wife (Sharon and Tom Hollander) arriving at Lou's sister's house. They are talking about how Lou would like him to impregnate her sister who is single and has no kids, but naturally, rather than through artificial insemination. Obviously Drew is not very convinced about the whole idea and Lou tries to persuade him. Of course I can't remember exact dialogue, but one of Sharon's best lines was, "You are telling me you fancy my sister?," after Drew agreed to go ahead with it. This line brought a lot of laughter from the audience.
After a few lines of back and forth of this, the sister appears on stage wearing the pink nightgown and looking quite sexy. Louise tells them that she will wait in the kitchen whilst they make love but before she left, she stood behind Drew (who was sitting on a sofa), kissed his head and caressed him. Sharon did it in such a funny way that this brought another big funny reaction from the audience.
As Louise is away in the kitchen, Drew and Catherine start making out very awkwardly. Drew takes his clothes off and stays wearing just his underwear. All this was done in a very appropriate way by Tom Hollander and Doon Mackichan and mostly brought laughter because of the awkwardness of the situation. When they are both sitting down to start making love, Catherine's lodger appears on stage (Ben). Drew jumps from the sofa in embarrassment and puts the little Noddy suitcase in front of him to cover his privates. Very funny moment! Ben asks if they were doing a swap act and if he could go to the kitchen to be with Lou then.
As Catherine and Drew try to explain and the dialogue gets very confusing and amusing, Lou comes back from the kitchen asking what on earth is going on there, in a pretty angry manner. Catherine manages to convince Ben to go to bed and to leave them alone and he does. However, Lou decides that she better stay there with them so she can watch. She sits down in an arm chair as her husband and sister get prepared to go back to action. The play finishes as Lou is winding up the jack in the box and looking at them and there's blackout and you get to hear when the jack in the box opens. The whole theatre exploded in big applause and laughter. The play was short but very very funny.
Sharon was wearing a low cut cotton black dress with a pretty short skirt, black tights and knee high dark gray boots. She is blonde now, and she has cut her hair a bit lower than shoulder length. She looked very pretty.
An Act of Love was the third play of the night and the one before the interval. When we came back to our seats, as the performance was about to start again, I saw that Sharon and some other actors were sitting down to my left! They sneaked in after the lights were off. I only noticed she was there because I saw her blonde hair among everybody's heads (remember, the theatre is dark and the next play is about to start, so it's not that I could stand up and greet her - but believe me, that's what I wanted to do.) She was sitting 11 seats away from me.
My idea was to go and greet her and the end of the play, but suddenly all of them left through a side door because they needed to be back on stage. Actually, all the actresses were standing in the back at the end of the last play but were not really part of the plot. That's why Sharon disappeared to the stage again. When it finished, I went quickly to see if I could see the actors one more time before they were off to the party which took place at the Plaza on the River hotel.
I have to admit that as excited and grateful as I am for being there that night, I am disappointed that I couldn't at least briefly talk to her and tell her about your great website.
