There I was, its Wednesday night and its been 3 days since the Leeds show and only 2 days till the next one in Birmingham, Chatting as usual on the hutch when all of a sudden in comes Emma from the Dr Scott's Extra Forks Cast, and said that I'm just the person she wants to see!!! She wants to see me??? I'm just a mere audience member and a Southern person at that. As it turns out she wanted me to play Eddie at the Birminham Screening (woooo hooooo) due to a Cast change for the weekend. But asked if I could keep it quiet. Well all the others were curious about what was being whispered, they had guessed right but I tried my best to put them off the scent.

Thursday appeared and off to Leicester to find some more stuff to embellish my costume. But no real luck there. So then Friday appeared, and due to mild panic setting in about trying to learn Eddies moves due to me not playing very close attention to his moves before. I went to put on the DVD for intensive cramming session, but the poxy DVD decided that this was gonna be the day it wasn't gonna play ball, so mild panic turned into fairly major panic. It was really hard that night in the Hutch not to let on what was happening but the 'forks were keeping quiet so I thought I'd better too.

So the Big day appeared and my DVD decided to play ball, so I had enough time for a coupla run throughs. But not quite the same as my worst bits were the Columbia dances and all I had were a pillow to practise with, and that doesn't work as well as a living person. But I set off regardless, and got to Birmingham with no problems until I met up with Little Frank (Alex) at the traffic lights in the centre of town. When my bike died completely and didn't want to restart so I just parked it there and walked with Alex to find our digs for the night, after a walk round until check in time. We went back, booked in and found the first of our gang Emma had booked in already. Then we went to the coach station to pick up another team member Nikki. After meeting Amy and Ed in the Bar for random chattage, we then went back to the rooms for pre show preparations and make-up rituals.

Then came the time to venture out into the high st in full costume. With-in 2 mins we had our first comment of 'you must be going to Rocky Horror' no faeces Sherlock!!!!, we always dress like this at weekends!!!!! (well not every weekend anyway). We got to the cinema which was less than 1/4 mile away with just one more bemused look from an Old couple, And found we were the first audience peeps there, and it was just us and the forks. I found Marty and discussed the plan for the evening and to pick up his helmet, which I was using, He also very kindly gave me a copy of Eddies catapult necklace as a thank you. I also had a word with Saffron who was also a stand-in for Columbia that night but who had played her many times before, I asked her if she could give me some cues in our dance routines together, we would have had a practise run through but she had the biggest wig I had ever seen so far (how soon that would change).

So there I was all ready to go as a supporting member of the forks (does that make me a spork???). The pre-show was over a lot quicker than last week with a very fine Space Magenta winning the costume comp and her newly wed husband with the prize for best virgin story, which involved being chained naked to the gates of Buckingham Palace. Then we got down to the serious work of covering the cinema and audience in an inch thick layer of rice and water. Particularly in my case a bloke that complained he got covered last time so I thought I'd make it even worse this time. We were there with all our usual lines and I managed to out-do last weeks 'its Princess Margaret' line with 'its Spike Milligan' this week when Riff opens the clock. All to soon it was the end of the Sword of Damocles and my cue to perform, no turning back now. The next few minuets flew by in a bit of a blur. I remember trying to do my sax solo on my comedy small Sax, then the dances went well in my opinion with Saffron giving me my cues and I didn't drop her on the throws either, I came down too early on the bike but done a circuit back up the aisle but as Eddie did it in the film too it looked like it was meant to happen. All too soon it came time for me to be picked to death and I managed to crawl out the door and sat there revelling in the glory of the past 3 and a half mins. I got back to my seat eventually with the biggest grin I've had for a long time and right then I knew why every one wanted to perform in a cast. Later on I was told I could do the 'globe spinning' bit at the end but I threw my-self to the ground in such a fantastic way I managed to bugger up my wrist, but it's a small price to pay for fame. Then it was time to take my bow and my dose of the clap, I noticed the front row on their feet in a standing ovation but then they were a bit biased!!!!!! And then after it was all over I had a lot of people coming up to me telling me how good I was, I wasn't sure if they were being polite or not but they seemed genuine enough.

As for the rest of the performance I wasn't involved in, it was up to the usual very high standards of the forks even with most of the cast playing different roles. If we didn't know better we would have said it was the original line-up. But the award for prop of the night had to go to Emma's Space Magenta wig, this thing was so big it had its own postcode and made Marge Simpson's 'do look like Columbia's.

Some of the others joined the forks afterwards for a curry but I wanted to go back to the room and maybe get some sleep. But as all plans change, we ended up watching Shock Treatment in Nikki's room and later the others joined us back in the room I eventually got to bed at 4am gone due to a busy day later visiting a chocolate factory (hmmmmmm choccy). Well the next day dawned almost immediately with the others only having about an hours kip each and it was time for us all to bid each other adieu.

My ego swollen head had shrunk enough to get my crash helmet back on and I went to leave with a heavy heart. It seemed though my bike had other ideas and wanted to stay too because it packed up within a hundred meters of my start. After a quick fuse check it seemed to want to go again after I promised it some new oil and a wash.

Well that was it my triumphant debut and it was over far too quickly, and still a long time till the next show in May.

So keep up with the leftwards jumping

Have Fun

Clive