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History ensemble member Nick Asbury on how you can have too much fake blood sometimes...
Buckets of blood
Towards the end of Henry VI Part II last night, as The Duke of Somerset, I try and arrest Clive as the Duke of York for treason.
 His sons come on and I'm left there standing helpless as Clive picks out my dagger and slowly puts it up my nose and then slits my nostril. I get to think I'm Jack Nicholson in Chinatown and, if we do it right, the audience get to wince a bit. Over the last few weeks I've never got the blood quite right. I have a little blood bag in my left hand and when Clive pulls back the knife I give it a squeeze and hey presto there's blood all over my nose and the left side of my face. More often than not though, I give the blood bag a squeeze and the damn stuff shoots off at right angles and, on a couple of occasions, has artfully decorated the dresses of some of the audience in the front row.
Last night, however, I'd worked out a little routine where I was sure it wasn't going to go wrong. I followed it to the letter. It went well. Too well. As I squeezed, the entire contents shot towards my nose, indeed, so good was my aim it went straight up it. At the same time, I was busy acting away and snorted in through my nose rather than out.
I hit the deck as I usually do, this time snorting outwards like a flu victim. I could feel it all travelling about my head, tingling and burbling. I got up gingerly and luckily didn't have to say anything else in the rest of the scene apart from stand there all moodily - except this time I was standing there with tears streaming down my face looking like a bulldog sucking a wasp. Then, joy of joys, it empties from my sinuses and starts descending to the back of my throat - whereupon I start gagging and wretching involuntarily. I just about make it to the end of the scene. I run off and at the back of the audience downstage right, grab a basketful of wet towels, throw them out, and start vomiting and wretching up fake blood. I tried to time it with the drums on stage, but it must have been faintly disturbing to hear from the other side of the wood when you're trying to watch a show.
Katy, who trained as a paramedic once, nearly started going into emergency action as she came off stage and saw me hard it, doubled over emitting blood. Then I had to run round to stage left, put on my leather breastplate. Fran, who by this time had been alerted by Jenny from Wigs (who must've been warily eyeing the towel tray I'd just hoicked into), brought me a glass of water, god bless her, and then I had to put another huge blood bag in my mouth and go and fight with Slinger as the young Richard where I get killed. I was in quite a rush to get off, so apparently he lifted my right leg and I lifted my left leg for him to drag me off, which is always nice of a dead body, I feel.
I was coughing up blood all last night every now and then, and it must've dribbled out of my nose during the night, because my pillow looked like a pizza when I woke up. And my landlady, was looking askance at me later on. Such are the joys of The Histories. There's always a price to pay for thinking you're Jack Nicholson, if only for a second.
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About blogger Nick
Likes: Cricket and music. Fields and dark pubs with no music
Dislikes: Lager, crowded streets and light bars with music |
