CENTRE STAGE Chris Jaeger of Worcester Live
9:23am Friday 16th May 2008
At the time of writing, we have just had a beautiful warm and sunny weekend. Sadly, I didn't see much of it as I was auditioning Babes' for the Swan pantomime in December. Seventy nine girls were seen, eight-and-a-half hours on Saturday and eight hours on Sunday. We need three teams of two for the panto, so it was always going to be difficult because six girls were going to be successful and 73 not.
The studio at the Swan gets very warm in the afternoons when the sun is shining. It was boiling! If I'd been a dog, the RSPCA would have broken the window and got me out. To make matters worse, on Sunday afternoon they were racing on Pitchcroft so I had to close all the doors and windows because of the noise of the tannoy.
We saw some fantastic talent, and had no problem at all casting the six girls, all at a very high standard. What amazed me was some of the children who turned up - I can only put it down to pushy mums. A few were painfully shy, almost impossible to hear, and had no experience of performance. What would make their mums think that they would be suitable to go on stage? Beware the pushy mum, I say!
Chris Jaeger is chief executive of Worcester Live.