Free Year of the Queen: The Making of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - The Musical by Jeremy Stanford Page A

myself with booze. I turn to Tony and grimace to him. At least he now knows what he’s in for. He has his swing. It takes him three goes to break it, with similar consequences. Then Daniel has his turn. This is a boy who watches and learns. Avoiding the humiliation Tony and I endured, he makes his swing hard and it breaks first time.
    Then we gather in front of the bus and with the drags behind us, we pose camply for the cameras. It’s then I notice my hand is covered in blood. There’s so much that I can’t tell where the cut is. I show Tony, who looks down in horror to his own hand to see that he’s dripping blood too. We show Daniel. To his surprise, he opens his hand to reveal he’s also bleeding. We all laugh, completely bewildered. How could this happen? It suddenly becomes the story amongst the press. Cameras click madly. Photographers want shots of the three of us nursing our bleeding hands.
    Clare rushes up with tissues to wipe off the blood. I look over to Daniel and see him posing for a photo, looking down at his bleeding hand in mock horror.
    Tony, Daniel and I are grabbed for a quick TV interview, and I make a special effort to be better than I was this morning. By the time we finish the interview, the press has thinned. The producers invite us to lunch. I deviously drill them for information about the auditions, the cast, but they remain infuriatingly professional and tight lipped. The only gossip I get is that we’ve already sold 300 tickets, unheard of before the official release.
    After lunch I’m to be measured for costumes, shoes, and wigs. An army of tailors, seamstresses and wig people are at the ready and every inch of my anatomy is measured. Even the corn on my foot is factored into the calculations for my high heels.
    When I’m measured for my wig, someone covers my head in glad wrap and then wraps it tightly with packaging tape until my whole head is a strange glossy ball. I look like Pine Gap. They draw hieroglyphics onto it and then ease the tape helmet off. I’m finally dismissed.
    Next up is a Party Bookers shmooze. This is crucial for kicking off ticket sales. All the influential group bookers are invited, and are plied with booze and finger food as we pitch the show to them. Some of these bookers launches can be enormous, up to 500 people, but our producers have gone small and influential with this lot.
    The first group is a bunch from the travel industry. Garry has drawn the short straw and does the introduction speech, something he’s clearly not comfortable with. The content is on the money, but he speaks softly and nervously. Then he introduces Simon. I sense the producers haven’t seen a Simon Phillips speech before. They need to strap themselves in. His speeches are infamous and something to behold. He hits the stage with almost drunken enthusiasm, thanking Garry, saying that he’s sure it was a fabulous speech but nobody could hear a fucking word of it. The crowd laughs and the producers shuffle nervously. Then he turns his attention to Lizzy and Tim.
    “Oh look over here,” he quips. “We’ve got Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner, both looking incredibly self-consciously ‘dressed down’ for the occasion. Ladies and gentlemen, these two have won an Oscar for their incredible costume designs for this show, but they’ve come dressed as street people. We’ve all bothered dressing up, why couldn’t they?”
    Tim and Lizzy’s embarrassment becomes the crowd’s delight. They all cack themselves laughing.
    “And here’s John Frost, another of our producers, with an amazing track record, including a Tony Award for The King and I . Ladies and gentlemen, he’s kindly agreed to play a koala in the show.” (Frosty has a large, cuddly physique).
    The banter climaxes with him saying: “The cast and crew have committed to giving their all to the show, now it’s your turn to go away and sell some fucking tickets!!”
    The producer’s anxiety peaks, but with little cause. Simon