I hadn't seen Richard for a long time. Last time I remembered seeing him was just before he left New Zealand, singing in the Wellington Anglican Cathedral Choir. I went along one evensong to hear Benjamin Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb. I didn't go to hear Richard particularly, it was more that I really liked the piece of music, and Richard happened to be singing the tenor solo. To be honest I wasn't all that fond of Richard's voice. Like a lot of Cathedral-schooled tenors he sounded a bit nasal and he mangled his vowels, but I wasn't going to risk spoiling our reunion by bringing that up now.
"Oh yeah, I remember singing that, God I haven't sung for years. Speaking of lamb, that's the thing I really miss over here; you can't get decent lamb in restaurants. You know, you go out somewhere like this for a Rogan Josh or something and the sauce is alright but the lamb is all gristly and...", Richard breaks off as a sniffling, rotund Indian man arrives with a couple of steaming copper dishes. "I guess old Benjamin wasn't rejoicing in British lamb eh?"
I ask Richard why he left Wellington. He waits for me to repeat the question with my hands and eyebrows and he says, "OK, well I might as well give you the long story."
He taps the table with the butt end of his fork and I listen to him draw breath between his teeth.
"I came over here to be an actor. I'd done a few shows back in New Zealand and I thought that if I didn't get out there and do it properly I might never know, you know? Pursue the dream and all that. So anyhow, I went to London thinking it would all fall into place but it didn't. I was out there looking for work for a couple of months and I started to think that there was no way those guys down there were going to give a Kiwi a job; so I figured I'd start faking a Scottish accent."
He demonstrates, and actually it isn't too bad.
"I mean no-one knows you here so you can get away with that kind of thing, it's great. Anyhow, I got myself a couple of bit parts, nothing much, just little parts in Eastenders, that sort of thing. Do you watch Eastenders? Do you remember Dougal? Nah, you guys won't have seen it yet being two years behind over there. Anyhow, it wasn't that great but at least I was earning some pounds."
"Now this Scottish accent works just great for a month or so until one day I turn up to audition for one of the BBC's new comedies, I think it was The Vicar of Dibley or something. So I turn up and do my lines and then this director goes that's fine but can you do any accents? We were thinking of making this character antipodean, and I go well yeah I can do Australian or New Zealander, and he goes great, how about you read your lines again with a New Zealand accent. No problem I thought, this is it, this is the break I need. Anyhow, so I read my lines through again, just in my normal voice and this guy turns around and says, well that's not bad but I'm afraid it's not quite authentic enough, thanks for your time today Richard, we'll be in touch. So that was that, I ended up getting into IT and that's what I do now."
