Matt Whistler acts his socks off and gets the part!
Matt received this week’s challenge via a conversation in a newsagents, which led to inner city Chinese whispers and a visit from a homing pigeon before it was revealed in a metal detector on the seafront.
The metal detector told him to go to a phone box at 2pm on Tuesday (21 June) afternoon and wait for a call that Matt remembers being both alarming and confusing: “The phone rang at once and a voice said I that may be recorded for quality and training purposes and that I was being watched,” Matt recalled.
He quickly established that it was Sascha Cooper on the other end after she asked where his famous red hat came from. But after looking around, Matt found Sascha was nowhere to be seen.
The call continued: SC: Are you really Matt Whistler?
MW: “Yes.”
SC: “Can you say red-lorry-yellow-lorry?”
MW “Yes.”
SC “Well what’s holding you back?”
MW: “Red-lorry-yellow-lorry-red-lorry yellow-lorry.”
SC: “Faster!”
MW: Red-yolli-rel-norry-yell-lorrer-ned-nolly.”
SC: “Sounds like you need help; stay on the line.”
Dan Aherne: “Hi, my name’s Dan. I can’t explain now, just wait for us at this location and don’t bring any friends or the red Umbro bag gets it.”
Come 3pm, Sascha and Dan arrived and took Matt to a small oddly shaped prayer room with a lawn mower masquerading as an industrial vacuum cleaner and a sink area for cleaning feet.
Having also spotted a plastic Holy washing basket Matt instantly assumed that he was about to be auditioned for a human mousetrap advert.
“I thought I was about to be asked to ride on the industrial vacuum cleaner while one of my assailants tried to slam the Holy washing basket on my bonce,” he said, “but how wrong could I have been.”
The director of the Crimson Horse Theatre plonked a script in Matt’s hands and rather than live Mouse Trap he found he’d be auditioning for a role in Franz Kafka’s dark comedy, The Trial.
In fact, Matt wasn’t just auditioning for one role, he was being cast as three characters by director, Daniel, who has adapted Kafka’s obscure classic.
Matt nailed his script read, and said: “At the point where I shouted ‘He’s dismissing the lawyer. He’s going to dismiss the lawyer!’, a security guard opened the door to enquire if everything was okay.”
Having completed this challenge, Matt now faces an even greater one as he prepares to tread the boards at Iambic Theatre on Gardener Street for the show running 12–17 July.
He said: “This play is right up my strata. Its wallow in bureaucratic baloney reminds me of those phone calls where you get to know everyone in the company before realising that three days have passed.”
Watch Matt undertake his theatre challenge at Iambic Arts Theatre, 38 Gardener Street, BN1 1UN with tickets available at www.iambicarts.com or suggest his next challenge at www.facebook.com/latest7 or www.facebook.com/mattwhistlerbrighton
