Madame Galina's Doings Diary

The Thomas Gibson Whitehead File.

What a likeable and self-effacing man he is; and how well he deserves the success he's having in the Matthew Bourne Swan Lake.

We had our interview today at Eat And Two Veg in Marylebone High Street. Galina was supposed to ask the questions, but she came very late and then only wanted to talk wedding plans with her husband to be.

She rang very early this morning to tell me I had to meet Tom at three and that she would arrive later.

"What time?" I asked.

"When the door to the establishment swings open and there am I bewitching and demure upon the threshold will be the time."

"And what's that in "when the big hand's on the..." speak?"

"We have a saying in Russia. There is more than one way to flick ash at a polar bear. If you don't want to stand in for the interview, I can always ask someone who does."

I agreed to do it.

"And don't forget", Galina went on, "if you or Tom have Coca Cola or Fanta, you are to put a sugar cube in it to take the fizz out of it in case the bubbles bring on your asthma, either or both of you. I don't want to get there and there is sound in the booth like Cossack corpses being dragged over sand."

"That's a bit macabre and oblique isn't it?"

"We have saying in Russia. There is always one who turns up to spoil celebration smelling of baby dear's piss. Don't always let that have to be you, Iestyn."

I was in a bit of a bad mood, I have to admit. It's next door again, sorry. They've moved in. And the children are all "musical".

I went round late last night to ask if the strumming that had been going on and on for hours could stop now, please?

I met the wife this time. I've only dealt with the husband before. She appeared at the top of the stairs while he jogged up to pull the plug on the strummer. Think Morticia Adams reflected three times as wide as tall in a funfair Hall Of Mirrors. She was putting on a pink dressing-gown. Perhaps she's a blancmange tribute act in her spare time. She morphed to the front door and said, "Surely you didn't want to meet us in this way?"

She spoke as though she were visiting me in hospital and was gathering herself to tell me that my illness was fatal.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, here we are and all you've done is complain."

"That's because there's been an unacceptable amount of disturbance for an unacceptable amount of time."

She jerked her head back over her right shoulder as though somebody had shouted at her. Very Giselle's Mad Scene.

"These children have to practise", she said.

"They're not practising."

More Mad Scene. "What do you mean: they're not practising?"

"Practise is making exercises out of a specific technical difficulty in a piece of music so you can get round it safely in performance."

"Perhaps what they're doing is simply more creative than that. And perhaps that's what's sorely needed in this street: more creativity."

"I wouldn't have thought so", I said. "Just next door to you is me, for example. I'm the son of a Country and Western singer and of a stage psychic mother who was banned from theatres up and down the country for passing on messages from the other side that she shouldn't. Last November I auditioned by accident to entertain troops in Iraq with my character Madame Galina, a modern take on the White Face Clown, sent on tour by the Russian Mafia partly to fleece the Arts Council and Lotto of funding and partly to give Mrs. Putin time to cool her heels. Vlad isn't called Put-In for nothing, nudge nudge, wink wink..."

Her husband was back with us now. He asked me to point out which room I was in next door, and what time did I get up and go to bed?

"That's irrelevant", I said. "Why should I be made to listen to your sons jamming at any time? And what about everyone else in my house? There's a family below me with a two-year-old. When's he supposed to sleep? And can I flag up: when he doesn't get enough sleep he gets fractious and sounds like Donald Duck on Ketamine."

"Are you his father?" she asked.

"No."

"Then why is it your problem?"

"Is it a problem to think about other people? I perform for a living, but I don't think it's on to disturb anyone else with my trilling or gargouillading or bellowing in a fake Russian accent about my Beauty always coming in the back door..."

I had them aghast. And it clicked who they reminded me of and what was off about them. My college landlords, the Wootons. The same Jack Spratt physical pairing, the same no restraints for our children imposed by us or anyone outlook. And, I have no proof of this, but I bet next door are into Food For Free (Vegan, of course), plucked in Highgate Cemetery infusions and knitting with nettles. To Camden '07 they're bringing the Muswell Hill of '87.

"Look", he said, "it's too cold to be having this discussion. I've stopped him playing for now. Let's talk about this in the next few days."

"Fine", I said, turning to leave.

"You know", she said, "you're terribly lucky to have such beautiful boys living next door to you."

Whoa, lady. What are you? Their mother...

...or their pimp?

I went north down South Villas to avoid passing their house on the way to meet Tom.

The first thing I wanted to talk about was his asthma. I'm getting old, you see, and like to talk about medication with people who suffer from the same ailments as I do. When I started touring my double bill in 2001, I had dope in my overnight bag, and condoms in case I got lucky. Now I have Vicks Vaporub and sachets of Ovaltine. Anyway, here we go.

Q: Tom, tell me about your asthma?
A: It's gone now.
Q: Mine went. Until I was in my early thirties and then it came back.
A: Badly?
Q: Yep. I thought I was going to die on the sea wall in Aldeburgh. My peak was flowing backwards.
A: Oh, God. I hope mine won't.
Q: There are breathing exercises you can do. So, you had it when you were a child?
A: Allergies, too. And I was hyperactive. I used to do impressions of Shakin' Stevens. That's why the doctor recommended dance classes.
Q: And this is where you were brought up?
A: Yes. Bingley.
Q: As in Bradford and Bingley?
A: Aye, lad.

(At least, I think that's what he said. It got terribly Joseph in Wuthering Heights for two syllables.)

Q: How old were you when you started dance classes?
A: Nine. And I hated it. I stuck it out for two weeks. Gordon Wilson took the classes above a surgical appliance shop with legs for sale in the window. I stopped because Street Hawks was on TV. And I don't know why I started again, but this time I went to Andie Nydza, starting on tap and modern and going on to ballet. Never wanted to go back to her classes either, after the first one. I told my mother and she said, "Well, tell her after the next class that you won't be going back", and I said I would tell her, but never did. I can remember making the decision at thirteen that being a dancer was what I wanted to do. I saw it as a way of not getting stuck in Bradford. I also made the decision then that I didn't want to go to White Lodge. I needed to get my schooling out of the way. So, I went on with the classes and auditioned aged fifteen for Arts Ed and the Royal Ballet School. I got accepted by both, but wanted to be Cosmo Brown in Singin' In The Rain, so turned down the Royal. Then at a seminar, I got asked again to go to the Royal Ballet School. I explained that I'd already turned them down and surely that mattered, but they said it didn't, so off I went. I had to start again with the first year (which I'd already done at Arts Ed) and got stuck with academic work again. I thought taking Dance Studies and Politics would be a nice, easy option.
Q: And how were your asthma and allergies by now?
A: Totally gone. I shared a place with Robert Parker and our landlord was a barmy ex-sergeant major. He had one knife that he used for everything. Scratching his head, scraping his tattoos, stabbing our hands if we tried to eat anything. For my grad show, I was a brown boy in Concerto, and I got offered a contract with ENB. It was all in that programme The Boss - I'll lend you the video if I can find it - about Derek Deane being in charge of ENB. He says on camera that I was the only boy auditioning that he wanted for his company. Then we got filmed in his office, and he's offering me a contract. And then I seem to remember he spoke to Merle on the phone and she was saying that the Royal wanted me...
Q: What did you do?
A: The school secretary told me if I went to ENB, and Derek was really that keen on me as a dancer, it would be a case of big fish in a small pond. So I thought the Royal contract would be more of a challenge.
Q: And do you think it has been?
A: Well, for one thing, you can't beat the Royal for its rep. It's been amazing being away and going back to watch stuff. They're looking so slick.
Q: You really got stuff to do when Ross Stretton was in charge...
A: Yes. And he promoted me, too.
Q: So, he was a fan?
A: I'd not say that, necessarily. Sian (Tom's girlfriend in real-life) sent Ross a Christmas Card - she's very good at sending Christmas Cards - signed from her and me. Ross went up to Tom Sapsford and thanked him for it. Tom told him he never sent it, and it must have been the other Tom. "Which other Tom?", asked Ross. But what he did do, was let the visiting choreographers see us as though in open class and make their choice.

Which is when Tom got cast in Romanzo and as Don Jose, in which he had quite a splash: great press, and the highest praise from his leading lady, Tamara Rojo.

A: I was having a treatment today from a Japanese friend of the family. Hot stones, which is a change from the usual sports massage where they try and drill holes in your hip joints, and she had a magazine, in Japanese. There were spreads from two Swan Lakes. And she pointed out Tamara and said: "This lady says really nice things about you." I wish I knew what she'd said, but it was in Japanese.
Q: Why didn't you ask the...er...Japanese lady, who...er...had the magazine in her hands right there showing you?

With a big laugh, Tom said he didn't think of it. And he wouldn't, you see. Whereas some you could mention would have had it translated and exaggerated all over their CV while the stones for the hot-treatment were still cold under the antiseptic blanket.

Q: Tell me how being in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake came about?
A: I heard he was re-doing it, it was always an ambition of mine to play the part, so I wrote to Matthew and asked if I could audition. That was in August. And, do you know, I thought I'd walk in and there'd be lots of star boys in there, but there weren't. In the afternoon, we had to go back, and he told me then and there that he would like to offer me the part. I spent hours tracking down Monica Mason to Austria, and she said she needed three days to think about what it would mean to the company. When she rang back, she said she thought it was a great idea and that I could take leave of absence till the end of the season. I felt I was fated to do it. My last show at the Opera House was in Sinfonietta, which I'd danced before and loved, and I fell on my arse - the only time I've fallen down. But there's the bromide, isn't there?, that if you fall down on a stage you'll come back to it.
Q: What do you think you've got out of playing the Swan?
A: I've fallen back in love with dance. It's helped my confidence, my self-belief.

And talking of someone that's never lacked either, there shouting from the threshold for one or both of us to help us with her bags, was Galina. Thankfully, one of the waiters recognised her. If half an hour passes and she hasn't simpered, she gets mouth ulcers.

"Has he told you he was the original for Billy Elliot?" Galina asked me. "They all think they were, you know: him, Bennet, Daniel Jones, Philip Mosely...even Adam Cooper. He's from Norbury but said he was eligible as he once went to the Bronte Parsonage. Now, Thomas, tell me: have you changed Wedding List to John Lewis and away from Argos? So terribly amusing of your mother. How the children at her school must love her and cling to her Primark denim skirts and dread the bell for home-time..."

"Not yet. I was having treatment this afternoon, I told you."

"We have saying in Russia, he who likes to Toboggan must enjoy to push toboggan to top of hill..."

I thought it was time to make my excuses and leave.

I'd really enjoyed hanging out with Tom and hearing his stories.

As Fonteyn said, "There's a difference between taking one's work and oneself seriously. The first is imperative, the second disastrous."

Or as Tom himself said, "I'm just some knob-end who started dancing and it's gone okay."

May it always go okay for him.

Tom W.'s In The Offing

Here I am back safely from a second trip to Afghanistan, though not going to blog about it, because I want to sell the story to the press and stand more chance if it is as yet untold. Magnus Hastings, who took the beautiful photograph (below), put me in touch with Larissa, a free-lance journalist friend of his.

“She has a great track record”, he told me.

Larissa and I exchanged e-mails. Her first one said: “Magnus put me on to you. All sounds great. Details of you, where?”

And her second: “Excellent. Possible we do something before he goes away on 10th? Call me”.

I was a bit put off by the Janet and John style, I have to say. But that has never held Zoe Anderson back, has it? And perhaps it meant that Larissa was busy, and that could only be a good sign. Or better still, maybe it was the brusqueness of a spinster.

To the adage If You Want Something Done, Do It Yourself, might be added: Or Hire A Spinster. Of Either Sex. Hang fast, sorry: you have to watch the gay ones for drink. A few too many deadlines have been missed because Let’s Play Secretary Mary has passed out in the wardrobe being Joan Crawford in the no more wire hangers scene in Mommy, Dearest. But otherwise, spinsters rock. Because they don’t. They’ve never more than two-stepped. Or goose-stepped, in the case of my great aunt Mair, which is taking being in control that achtung too far. But otherwise, a spinster is to be trusted. Which is why I thought: Hoorah! Larissa’s one.

Her third e-mail said: “Sorry replies so brusque but suddenly dealing with potty training (1st day) and am frequently distracted by (faintly horrifying) accidents. Plus bloody au pair left front door key outside front door last night and only just thought to tell us. The utter joys of domestic life”.

Copyright Magnus Hastings. To cheer us after the above let down

So, the article is on hold. But not because there’s Napisan, sick or worse all over it, so let’s be thankful for small mercies. Especially as it means that a project dear to Madame Galina’s heart can be brought forward.

Her new sideline as an interviewer, natch. Thomas Whitehead will be her first subject, and is meeting her for lunch tomorrow. I shall be going along as referee. Until then, watch this space.