“Will Tessa come back out for the shirt bit? Or has she gone for the bin? She HAS to bring the bin or else the penultimate (nice word, eh?) scene will be impossible... She’s not here yet, must be struggling with the bin. I’ll do the dance bit -OK, there she is with the bin! James grabs my arm, in character as Ryan getting annoyed. We struggle for a few beats as brother and sister, while Mum rolls the bin on. Great. Should I go for the ‘peekaboo’ moment and shift the scene into the next part? 2 beats… She’s not back yet. Can’t wait much longer, I get ready behind Ryan -and she’s there, with the shirts. SECONDS before I was about to make my next move. Phew. We’re back on track.”

Making a mistake in a situation where you cannot try again, shy away, blame, or apologise, puts your reactivity and focus to the test. But, mostly, mistakes on stage are moments of powerful solidarity. Unless someone’s life is in danger, you HAVE to move forward, or in other words ‘the show must go on’ - (Queen’s anthem is not just an epic piece of music, it is straight up reality). And everyone else on the stage, backstage if they’re aware of the mishap, and the technician way up in his booth (Hi Paul!) pulls together to keep the unstoppable machine from plowing into a wall and to get it back on track in order keep the promise that has been made to you, the audience, to tell a story from A to Z.

The temporary reality that comes to life once the lights go out in the auditorium is extremely fragile. If something breaks (like my character Becky’s handbag strap in the nightclub), or someone forgets a line (like James does frequently in a scene with Khatera), or things get mixed up (like the night when Tessa came out with a plate of food for Ryan instead of bringing out the wheelie bin), we cannot point out the mistake, it would be pointless and destructive: we would be bursting the bubble and breaking the mutual agreement of suspended disbelief that we, actors and audience, have entered together.

We can’t ignore the mistake either. We deal with it. It’s there, it’s part of the story now, so let’s work with it (one night I bumped into the scenery as Khatera. Twice. I also fell flat on my bum. So on my last exit as Khatera, I deliberately rammed the scenery a third time, having decided that Khatera was just clumsy that night).

Along with being magical instance of team spirit, mistakes are wonderful chances to make new discoveries. Without mistakes and failures we wouldn’t have cereal, crackers, or fried mars bars... So next time something goes wrong, I suggest fully embracing it and seeing where it leads you!

We have 5 shows left. The last 5 opportunities to make to some beautiful mistakes. We hope to see you there.

Sophia Knox-Millar

Photo credit: Paul Milford