Do you know where the phrase ‘break a leg’ comes from? It does not, as I have almost witnessed, come from that moment in which everything goes awry and the actor slips from the chair they’re standing on, but rather from the concept that actors did not get paid unless they stepped onto stage, breaking the ‘leg’ line between wings and limelight. Of course, this does not mean to say that accidents don’t sometimes happen. It is amazing how many times theatres used to burn to the ground and despite the fact that we no longer light our actors with candles, things can still go horribly wrong.

As an actor I was always aware of those moments in which you know that you’ve gone wrong and yet must go on anyway. Let’s be cliché for a moment and reference the age old adage ‘the show must go on’. There is a sort of clarity during a performance where you know that you cannot simply stop and say ‘hang on audience, can we start that again? I forgot my line.’ However, one of the most famous actors to tread the boards of The Royal Theatre, Drury Lane did exactly that. It is reported that Charles Macklin never once forgot his lines, being known for prompting his fellow actors on stage (apologies to anyone I have ever done this to!), yet at the age of 93 he suddenly couldn’t recall his lines. Facing the audience, he resigned there and then walking from the stage never to return. It is sad to think about, isn’t it? An old man’s mind failing while working in the career of his passion. Allow me to alleviate some of your pity – the man was convicted of man slaughter in his younger days for stabbing an actor for a wig. Yes! You read that right. He killed someone in the green room because he wanted his wig! Nobody ever said creatives were sane.

While (to my knowledge) there have never been such drastic antics backstage in the Oxford student theatre community, it is safe to say that there have been plenty of disasters and off script dramas. In my role as reviewer, I have witnessed show stops, actors tripping on stage and plenty of cringe worthy moments. In fact, for me the thing that makes me most uncomfortable as an audience member is when something goes visibly wrong. Sure, every show has hiccups that go unnoticed – that spontaneous, one of a kind experience is the thing that is so magical about theatre after all – but there are some which you can’t help but notice. In an aim not to shame any shows that people will know, I will stick to a little bit of self criticism. I was reminded today that you have to have a certain amount of obnoxious confidence to be in theatre, so hopefully this will keep me humble! First of all, we may not have iron safety curtains that rust into place and fail to prevent fires, but why on earth doesn’t this city have a working projector? One particular opening night saw a very stressed tech team trying to coax a projector back into life, while the actor whose lines had been recorded stood tensely in the corner, script in hand, reiterating that he didn’t actually know the lines so it had better work. It was out of sync, but thankfully the ancient system pulled through every night of the run. Not so reliable was the disturbingly hot smelling lighting. Were they responsible for a mid scene fire alarm? Supposedly not, but that doesn’t mean a show stop for an imaginary fire is any less fun. In fairness, the actors and audience pulled through it admirably (and no that is not my bias!)

Of course, technical disasters are only horror stories at the time, soon becoming bonding experiences between cast and crew or entertaining party stories. Stories of wheels falling off sofas, metal arches that almost flatten audience members, rain at garden plays, actors so drunk they can barely stand let alone dance… But, more predictable than the disasters are the tears. Anyone who knows me will know that while I am an emotional being, tears are something I often don’t understand. A lesson I learnt young, though, is that people really do cry before they go on stage. And by young I mean as a teen, standing in the wings of the Wolverhampton Grand so wired with adrenaline that it was a bit of a shock to see the tears leaking down the face of the girl beside me. Granted, when you are near the end of the run or after the final performance, it is normal… intensity coupled with exhaustion makes for a messy time. That I am also familiar with, having even shed a few myself.

All of this makes theatre sound like one big disaster of stress, mistakes and technological failure, and yet every day more people discover the wonders of the stage. I am not just talking the suspended belief of being an audience member, but also the crew or cast roles that sweep you up in the journey. Is it strange that some of the strongest bonds of friendship I know of have been formed on a show? Not really. You rarely come across an industry where a group of people spend so much time in each others company, giving up sleep, all hope of a social life, their personal space and to some extent their personality. Perhaps the army, but I struggle to think of another example beyond that. We enter this world because of our individual interest, but through it we discover we are part of a community.