Just how many chairs do you think you can emergency stop?

So here I am, sitting somewhere in the North of England thinking to myself I just have to tell someone about this. Everyone, anyone, somebody or nobody? It really doesn't matter!

I spent four years training at drama school to do what I do, blood, sweat, tears and tea went into my degree - cheating, so sadly apparent in our universities if the discussion on 5 Live the other day was to be believed, was not an option for me!

Don't get me wrong - this blog is not a way to vent my angst at the world as to why I haven't been invited to collect my award at the BAFTAs yet, or even the TV Choice Favourite Soap Special Dinner. Quite simply life is funny!

How many of you can say that they went to a meeting today and were asked - in all seriousness - to emergency stop a perfectly ordinary chair?

This audition was my first in a while (I've changed my agent in the last few months and she's very cheerful). I proceeded up the stairs out of the rain, so glad that I'd spent time straightening my hair, and filled in the casting form: smiling all the time at the other candidates whilst trying both to look confident and smaller than my actual height (a difficult feat to master). Then there's the obligatory photo against the blandest wall in the room, which of course looks really bad. Why do casters still use Polaroids? Actors spend hundreds of pounds a year on quality pics only to dress up, go to a casting and be confronted with a blurred reproduction of how they look "at that moment". At this point I am usually bending my knees and normally blinking!

Well, after hanging around for an hour or so (castings always run late) it was my turn to win the caster and client over. I walk in the room, smiling, make eye contact - being direct only to be confronted with a plastic chair and a scenario on how to emergency stop it. I did not make it seem natural! I tried all the actor's process, the Stanislavski, even the Peter Brook but I just couldn't seem to make it serious enough - probably not helped by the giggles I was trying to suppress.

You see I might be £250.00 plus repeats poorer but no amount of money can buy the smile that stayed on my face for a whole day!