Jumpers for Goalposts

Jumpers for Goalposts is a heartwarming and hilarious new comedy by playwright Tom Wells. Which first premiered at Watford in 2013. The theatre company for which I am member of, did this play recently for which I starred in as one of the five characters.

I knew a little bit of background knowledge of the play before going into it. All I knew about it was there was a five a side, gay/lesbian football team in Hull and that the comedy lies in them being rubbish at football. I had never heard of Tom Wells or anything to do with his plays prior to this. 

The process for this started in March 2016. Usually when a new play is holding auditions for casting, they send out something which is called a 'casting notice' this notice is placed up on their website and other various means of social media as a way to attract attention. The auditions are open auditions which means anyone can audition, from what I remember, there were only two audition dates. 

What happens at these auditions is you come along and meet the director and whoever else is auditioning, the director will give you a brief synopsis of the play, what its about, the characters, what   will happen in the audition etc. and they have a sheet of paper which you write down your name, what character your auditioning for and your contact details. The director then picks a section of the play to be read and you read for the character you've noted down to audition for, and you read it out loud in character with the other people in the scene. Auditions usually last no longer than 45 minutes - 1 hour. 

It all depends on who auditions, and I got quite a few call backs to audition again, until finally I got offered a part. The feeling of being offered the part, I can remember not being able to sit still, I was so happy and excited and all I wanted to do was do dance a little jig around the room and go "Yay! I got it!" because I really wanted it. I was very nervous that I wasn't going to get it, but low and behold I managed to secure myself a part in the cast. 

To comment on the part of my character when I got it. When I read it, I realised that I couldn't go for Viv, and I was too young to go for Joe. The parts I could go for were Geoff, Danny and Luke. When I read it, I saw Geoff and Danny being the more interesting characters out of the three. Not that Luke wasn't interesting, I just felt I could establish more character out of Danny or Geoff. Being offered Luke, I thought slightly optimistic about his character, and clueless. I say clueless because I didn't really know what to do with him. He first came across to me as being quite a boring character, but it was better than nothing and it was such a good script and I liked the on/off love story between him and Danny, and I just thought that I could be good. 

Rehearsals started around mid April. We rehearsed in the club room on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. The way rehearsals worked in the early stages was we would read through each scene and then act it out and then in the next rehearsal we would recap on what we had done previously before moving on to the next scene. It all worked rather smoothly in terms of blocking the play together, and gradually we did one scene after the other until we had a full play. 

Unfortunately in the early stages of rehearsals, a member of the cast had to drop out. This meant that we had to find someone to replace him and quickly. Thankfully we managed to find someone who seemed very suited to the part, and rehearsals carried on with him in the role instead.

We didn't get into the studio until May. The studio was the space in which we would rehearse and perform the play in. I like the studio, though it is a smaller and more claustrophobic space than the main stage, I like it's intimacy and it really was perfect for a show such as this in terms of what the director wanted to do. She wanted the audience to feel like they were in the changing room with us, whilst watching the play. 

Me with my fellow cast members, Melanie Wall, (Viv)  top left, Gavin Mathers (Beardy Geoff) top right, Me (Luke) bottom left, Michael Llaniog (Joe) centre left and Paul Spruce (Danny) bottom right.

Now, rehearsing Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday for 2 - 4 hours can get very tiring, exhausting and very dull, very quickly and this had an effect on me during rehearsals, probably because I got ahead of everyone in terms of learning my lines and ques and knew what to do, where as other cast members were slower with learning their words and of course, to do all that plus being able to master a yorkshire accent at the same time, it was tricky so they have my sympathies. I may not have personally found that hard, but I know that some of the others did.  

At times, I would get bored or frustrated in rehearsals as they just seemed to go on forever. Going over what is called revolving runs of the play - what that means is we run through the play as much as we can and then pick up from where we left off at the end of the last rehearsal and just keep going. It's good for the brain cells, but exhausted my enjoyment out of it in places. 

As part of the publicity, leading up to it. I got approached by Jenny Ford who is the producer of the Out and About Show on Radio Verulam. She asked me if I would like to come on the show and talk about Jumpers for Goalposts. To which I had no hesitation in replying "Yes! Absolutely! That sounds fantastic, I can't wait to do it!" I went along to the radio station and had the interview and it was a lot of fun indeed. The woman interviewing me was very enthusiastic and liked me a lot. It was good to actually be invited on to a proper radio show as I hadn't done a radio show before, so it was a nice experience to take out of my day. I did the interview on the day of my opening night. 

Me at Radio Verulam, at the Out and About Show. 10th June 2016.


When it came to finally performing it, I was very optimistic. I hadn't performed in front of a live audience for a very long time. There was every chance that anyone of us could cock up or buckle under the pressure and I found it very difficult performing in front of small audiences because they are not as motivated, as larger numbers. I felt that the opening night where were we performed to the public was a brilliant response, I got such a buzz off of it and it was really good indeed, Sunday matinee was good too, but say the first Saturday of the run and a Thursday show, they weren't so good in terms of numbers but that doesn't matter so much because our director says "an audience of 3 people deserves just as good a performance as a cast of 300". So I didn't have a problem with the fact that it was small numbers, I did have a problem with their lack of motivation, it's a comedy and they are not laughing us much. Makes you question, why aren't they laughing? or why aren't they getting into this. Am I doing anything wrong? 

When it came to the night my family were in the audience, I was shaking like a leaf. I was so nervous and scared to the extent that I refused to go. I didn't want to do the show. I told my mum I couldn't do the show. Never the less, me being rebellious to the idea of going along and doing it, I did go and a fellow cast member could see that I was having my difficulties and she showed her kind support towards me and sort of helped me get through it. I was fine until, I messed up part of the set to which I felt really upset by. I am someone who doesn't like making mistakes, and to make a few noticeable mistakes that were noticeable to me, I just got so upset by that. And I just shut myself off totally because I just couldn't face it. I didn't want to face it. Over all I got through it, but that was one of the hardest things that I ever had to do. 


As well that the events of the day before hadn't set me in good sted. Performing in a show where you felt that you hadn't done your best, and as well as that not getting a comment mentioned about you and an opinion of your performance for your first play that you're starring in and have worked bloody hard doing for months, not to get mentioned at all, I think is very rude and it shows that I am basically ignored. I was pissed off and upset that I was ignored. I am only mentioned once throughout the whole thing. That did get me down. 


There was apart of me which felt I don't want this to end, I mean this play has been my life for the last 2 and half months. I have grown so used to seeing my fellow cast members three or four times a week, you spend so much time with them on and off stage, you become so close in such a small space of time. On the other hand, I was so tired and exhausted that I just wanted to get on with it and be done with it. So it was an equal measure of feeling sad that it was ending but at the same time feeling relieved for it all to be over and to move on to other things. I had a feeling of mixed emotions on the last night.

Overall, final thoughts were I am glad that I had the opportunities presented to me, I feel I seized them with hard work and dedication and gave everything a good go to the best of my ability. I don't see the point in doing a job, if you don't try and do it well. I'm sure one actor to another you would want to do the best job you can other wise there is no point in doing it. 

I feel as a team, we were a group of unknown people coming together, working to interpret characters in collaboration in order to create and emotional and hopefully unforgettable experience, we were all f*cking good. We knew that and we knew that no matter how good or bad the audiences reactions were, we had each other. 

I liked the idea that the play was set in a changing room, and that the set was very basic and we actually provided our own costumes for it. Apart from the red shirts which we had manufactured for us, everything else we wear in the play is our own clothes. It's nice to have something that is so modern and so current to the every day life. It creates a contrast to Twelfth Night, The Shakespeare play that was on before us and Under Milk Wood, the play that is going to be on after us. It creates such a diverse, nice contrast that I think theatre does so well. It's about the mix and different types of play you can bring together. 

I liked how this brought awareness to gay people and how we should be more accepting of gay and lesbians, people are who they are and we shouldn't shy away from it. I liked that underlined message that it had and how it cleverly portrays its politics through comedy and good heartfelt drama.  

It has been a bit of a rocky road, but I am pleased that I went through with it and that I was able to show everyone what I can do. I had wonderful feedback about my character and that people really enjoyed it. Could possibly mean more high ups for the future, who knows? 

We had a fantastic, dedicated, hard working crew, Stage Managers and ASM's and sound and lighting, props and wardrobe whom without their support we would not have a show. It was so so good. 

I am very thankful that I got to do all of it. 

Thank you to everyone.