Comedian Sharyn Hayden's Experience of TV Presentation with Bill Hughes (Week 9)

Monday, July 1st, 2013 at 11:06 am | Part Time Courses

I’ve been bad, I’ve been very very bad. I have now missed the last two weeks of the TV Presenting course at the GSA. The first absence was down to needing to skip off to Leeds to see my new nephew Finlay.  Actually, that wasn’t just me. My entire family flew over to Harrogate in Leeds to see the four week old babba – can you imagine having just given birth and all of The Hayden Bunch descend upon you? Thankfully, my sister-in-law Claire is pretty easy going. To be fair to our over-excited selves, we stayed nearby at The Lodge – part hotel, part convalescent home, part-secret society headquarters for The Royal Order of Buffalo. The place is amazing. It’s like being inside a Dan Brown novel, only without having to watch Tom Hanks ‘act’.
Everywhere you turn, there is something else creepy to see: enormous stained glass windows depicting all the signs of the zodiac, doors leading to secret quarters upstairs with ‘Keep Out!’ written on them, in what I can only assume is a virgin’s blood. This is, of course, not to mention the stuffed buffalo head in the room we broke into. I mean, it was adjacent to ours, we just leaned in against the adjoining door in a casual yet forceful manner until it opened. Worryingly, Ass Monkey seemed to be extremely comfortable sitting at the top podium, and continued to call himself ‘Grand Primo’ for the rest of the weekend. Rest assured, no one else did.

 
 
 

Monday’s class was missed because ‘Grand Primo’ is now back on solid ground and couldn’t get home from work on time for me. Therein lies the downsides of running our own business and having a toddler – sometimes you just can not get out of the jaysus house.  And as cute as Jacob is, I’m pretty sure he would not have been a welcome addition to the class, interrupting my classmates in the middle of a moment of intense concentration with something like… a fart. The whole room would stop and stare, incredulous at this infantile indiscretion, as Jacob points to his nappy clad arse and says, gently: ‘Pop?’ Is it weird that I find his recent awareness of bodily functions adorable? ‘Pop?’ Poopy? Weeeee weeeeeeees!!!’ Don’t answer that.

So I have now missed both introducing our own show to camera and interviewing skills, both of which I obviously need. The last class I took two weeks ago was brilliant, as we learned how to use Auto-cue like a pro. Anne and her very handsome auto-cue friend brought in all the camera equipment we needed and gave us each plenty of time to practice. I will never again scrutinise and judge our nation’s talent as ‘cross-eyed lunatics!’, but henceforth understand that they have one eye on the auto-cue and one eye on the auto-cue operator.
I am extremely peeved about missing the interviewing skills class, as I do like a good interrogation. Despite being unable to make it, I continued to be a good (lick arse) girl, and e-mailed my ‘homework’ to Bill Hughes, enlisting my ‘bucket list’ of interview subjects. They included Comedian Tim Minchin, for obvious ginger-loving reasons, and the guy with the mustache from the Go Compare! ads. I don’t really have an explanation for that one. Two weeks on and Bill has yet to respond, and so not that I have given this shunning much thought (every day, obsessively, sometimes waking Ass Monkey up in the middle of the night to hypothesise), I can now deduce that this means one of the following:

1. As much as I will continue to force this notion on people, I actually am NOT White Oprah.
2. My plan to become best friends with Bill and have him over for Xmas dinner is not reciprocated in any way. (He can also stay over on Xmas eve night and open his presents with us in the morning if he likes. Just saying).
3. My e-mail address has been blocked. I hear it’s an occupational hazard for most stalkers.

For more information on The Gaiety School of Acting and the TV Presenting course, please visit: https://gaietyschool.com