Lucky Break

 

 

‘Freud's page-turner follows the triumphs and failures of a group of self-obsessed actors in their quest for stardom'
 
Sunday Times
Summer Reads

 

‘
Lucky Break's
truth are quietly and elegantly told … Freud mixes in abundance of subtle comedy' Lisa Gee
, Independent

 

‘Wonderfully entertaining, with a vivid cast of characters, all of whom are utterly believable, darling ...
Lucky Break
succeeds as both comedy and romantic drama. Freud's prose is as fresh and light as ever but here, as never before, she shows herself to be a wickedly funny writer' Sebastian Shakespeare,
Tatler
 

 

‘
Lucky Break
is steadfast in its good humour, and very kind. Satire is spurned and the novel instead becomes the gentlest kind of cautionary tale … a warm, sharp read'
Guardian

 

‘A compelling pleasure'
 
Woman and Home

 

‘A tale of limelight, dreams and heartbreak that glints with theatrical passion'
 
Marie Claire

 

‘Freud is terrific on the young actors' existential conundrum of trying to discover who one is at the very moment when one is trying get a job pretending to be anyone else'
 
Spectator

 

‘Intelligence, compassion and readability'
 
Daily Telegraph

 

‘Hugely Enjoyable'
 
The Lady

 

‘[Freud's] most breezily charming and typically shrewd [novel], and comes with a new satirical edge … beautifully observed'  
New York Times Book Review

 

‘Freud handles her characters tenderly and with humour …  a fun read with memorable flashes of glamour, inspiration and melancholy' Viv Groskop,
The Times 

 

‘Completely authentic and enthralling' Michael Holroyd

 

‘Regardless if we have nothing in common with these actors, Freud immerses us so fully in their exclusive world that we, too, feel emotionally undone after a bombed audition.
Lucky Break
pierces the superficial surface of acting to reveal the enthralling, authentic drama at the heart of the business'
Newsweek Daily Beast

 

‘Freud, a former actor herself, sheds sympathetic light on humiliating casting calls, horny American film directors, and the transient romance offered by cast mates. Still, the tone overall is bubbly, buoyant – her characters' zingy dialogue zips along like something out of a Preston Sturges film – and just great fun'
Boston Globe

 

‘Esther Freud's light touch and eye for telling details — as well as her prior acting experience — make
Lucky Break
an enlightening peek behind the curtain'
Baltimore Sun

 

‘Freud captures both the hilarious self-seriousness and the pie-eyed romanticism of young actors preparing to be fed into the meat grinder of the entertainment industry. In doing so, she has written a sharp, emotionally astute novel about what it feels like to let one's idealism die a slow, quiet death in the pursuit of worldly success, which is just another way of saying she has written a very good novel about what it feels like to grow up'
The Millions

Lucky Break

 

Esther Freud

 

 

For my friend Kitty Aldridge,

who was there on the first day.

Hamlet
'
s advice to the players.

 

‘Speak the speech I pray you, as I pronounced it to you trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it as many of our players do, I had as life the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus. But use all gently. For the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Temagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray avoid it.'

 

William Shakespeare

 

Advice to a young actor starting out.

 

‘It's not fair, and don't be late.'

 

Michael Simkins

Contents

Part One

The Chosen

The Oracle

The Lesson

The Rehearsal

The Festival

The Interview

Hamlet

 

Part Two

The Call

Big Heat

Who's Your Agent?

Location Wars

Slow in Summer

The Tour

The Dream

 

Part Three

The Other Girl

Rice Cakes and Starbucks

The Reiki Master

Nightfall

Royal Protocol

 

Acknowledgements

A Note on the Author

By the Same Author

Copyright page

Part One

1992–1994

The Chosen

Nell dressed in the same clothes she'd worn to the audition. A large blue, cotton-knit top over faded jeans, with her hair tied high, so that when she turned her head the pale ends of it swished against her face. Yes, she thought, as she checked herself in the mirror, smudging a line of black under each terrified eye, that's good, and she held tight to the thought that however plump and freckled, she was the same girl who, six months before, had stood before the board of Drama Arts and performed a Shakespeare monologue and a modern.

‘You off?' It was her landlord, leaning over the banister from his rooms above. Nell forced herself to smile up at him, unshaven, a mug of coffee in his hand. It embarrassed her, this unexpected involvement in her life. ‘First day,' she told him, and heaving her bag on to her shoulder, she swung out through the door.

The bus was packed. Nell squeezed on and spiralled up the stairs, and pushing her way towards the back, she clung to a pole as slowly, haltingly, the bus moved forward along Holloway Road. Beside her a man jammed an elbow into her side as he wrestled with a newspaper, and a woman on a nearby seat struggled with a small boy. ‘Shh,' the woman said, ‘stay still, why don't you,' and she tried to slide the slippery weight of him up on to her knee. No one knows, Nell thought as she looked down on the hurrying heads of the people below. No one knows that I've been chosen. And she almost flew forward as the bus came to a stop. The doors swished open, passengers streamed off, and one girl clattered up the stairs, breezy and beautiful, a silk scarf wound round her neck. Nell's heart clamped tight. What if she'd been chosen, too? Nell knew it was crazy, but this was exactly the kind of girl that should be starting drama school, and she imagined them arriving together and being told, sorry, we're over-subscribed, only one of you can stay.

The bus swung into the middle lane, and turned right by the prison. Nell watched the open plains of the triple-width road as the engine heaved and churned, and gathering speed, thundered up the hill. Large houses lined the way, flaking, dirty, with makeshift curtains, a sign for bed and breakfast beside one yellow door. Her parents had lived on this road once, right here, at the top of Camden, and then, when Nell was a baby they'd moved to Wiltshire, to a tidy, leaf-green village, where, after only a year, her father had declared that he was stifled. Nell began to count the roads, marking them off on her fingers, straining for the junction with York Way when the bus would slide under a bridge. She glanced at the girl, her face turned into sunlight, and pressed the bell. She didn't move, didn't even look round. And flooded with relief, Nell squeezed past her, and ran down the stairs.

The Oracle

Dan wasn't sure why he packed the letter, but at the last minute, along with black tights, white socks and a pair of flattened, size-eleven ballet shoes, he slipped it into his bag. Maybe he'd need it as a pass to gain entry to the college, maybe he'd be asked to present proof. He imagined a cloaked figure – a highwayman with a scarf over his mouth, leaping out to bar the way. ‘Who goes there?' ‘It's me,' Dan would protest and he'd point to the signatures of the directors of the school. But no one apprehended him. No one tried to keep him from his destiny as he made his way north along the busy road, shortcutting through an estate of flats with narrow, olive-green front doors, into a Victorian terrace, and up the wide, shallow steps of Drama Arts.

The building had originally been a hospital, although now there was nothing left but the façade, and the foyer – with its domed ceiling and stone-tiled floor – still held an air of urgency and panic. Students whispered as they milled about, some watchful of the door as it swung open, while others stood staring in silence at the noticeboard on which was pinned a list of names. Dan scanned the list until he found his own name, and reassured, wandered into the narrow corridor of the canteen where a hectic woman in an apron, grey hair trailing from a bun, was slicing mushrooms for a soup. ‘I'll be open at first break,' she told him. ‘Best to have breakfast before you come, I can't open any earlier, it's just not . . .'

‘No, it's fine . . .' Dan retreated, and catching sight of a girl in a lace dress pulling open another door, he followed her and found himself in a large, oval hall. There was a circle of chairs arranged in the centre, with several people already sitting at odd intervals, alone. Dan and the girl looked at each other, and, shrugging, they sat down.

‘Hi,' she said. She had dark gold curling hair, and her legs under her dress were bare. ‘I'm Jemma.'

‘Dan.' He put out his hand, and instantly regretted it. Clumsily their fingers touched. ‘Actually,' he admitted, ‘I've no idea what I'm doing here.'

Jemma smiled, and a dimple dented her cheek. ‘At my audition they asked me to imagine I was a snowman and I was melting, slowly. I nearly didn't come.'

Dan sank lower in his chair and watched as, one by one, the seats filled up. There was a tall red-headed girl biting her nails, and a boy with unnaturally green eyes. Dan could see, even from across the room, that his face was smeared with beige foundation, ridged in grooves around his nose. He turned to Jemma, hoping to share a smirk, but she was watching a group of long-legged blondes already chatting in a row. He let his eyes linger for a moment on her creamy skin, visible beneath the stretched wool of the dress, but when she turned to him he looked away.