Ordition

I'm in a converted warehouse wearing nothing but a one piece lycra body suit covered in silver balls. I'm surrounded by dwarves bitching about panto, adverts and a fellow colleague of height deficiency they've all taken exception to. I talk to a rather pretty and deeply amusing australian-asian girl as I wait to physicalise a dragon. Let me explain that last bit before I get arrested. In Starbucks one fine Thursday morning I get a call for an audition in Oxford, something about a tv show with a dragon in it; they've recorded the voices and need actors to provide the appropriate movements. Visions of Barney sway me and I agree to go. And so it is that I find myself at nine in the morning naked apart from my lycra skin, with the taste of two breakfast bananas still lingering in my mouth. As the director explains his vision, I shiver and pimple, looking nervously at a huge video screen where a large green dragon mimics my every motion. The dwarf I'm working with is scouse, exceptionally friendly, and happily explaining that the last advert he shot will make him a millionaire. I can't quite get over the fact that dwarves are possibly the only exploited minority who have agents. Action is called, the soundtrack started and I act out the movements to this clown of a dragon, ruffling the hair of my fluffy little dwarf friend. Take after take we do, as the temperature drops and the embarrassment soars. The computers aren't working, and every time I turn my head, on the screen the dragon's head falls off. After two hours they let me go, reimburse my travel expenses and I'm on a train home praying for rejection. Three weeks later I bump into the girl in Leicester Square who informs me they recast the lead dragon as a dwarf as well, so now she spends weeks on end surrounded by the little people, unwittingly submerged in a subculture she has a distinct phobia for.