A life on stage under the glittering lights of showbusiness can look like the most glamorous of careers. But beneath the beaming smiles and colourful energy, there’s hard graft, gruelling schedules and months of anxiety and financial instability between jobs. For every plum job you land, you have to endure countless knockbacks and rejection, but it’s worth it when you’re on tour in a top show or in the West End and able to finally unpack your suitcase. HANNAH MARSH spoke to Lewis Griffiths, one of those one of making a living in the West End

 

FROM touring the country playing opposite Claire Sweeney and Liz McClarnon to losing cash out of his own pocket after a production folded, Lewis Griffiths knows all about the joys and pitfalls of working in show business.

Although he’s landed roles in the West End, taking to the stage in shows including Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and toured in the hit production of Legally Blonde where he played muscle-bound hunk Kyle the UPS delivery man, he’s had his fair share of frustrations too.

Last Christmas he was drafted in to play Prince Charming in a panto in Liverpool – but despite forking out for his own digs, transport and expenses, the production company folded and the run was cancelled after just two weeks.

The actors went home empty handed. “I got a rehearsal wage of a couple of hundred quid,” says Lewis, 27, who grew up in Benfleet.

“But I had to pay rent for the place where I was staying in Liverpool. I was there for three weeks, and then there’s the travel. Also it was Christmas, so I was buying presents for friends and family, living, eating, keeping socialising to a minimum, but it all added up.

“I thought I was going to get it all back. You spend out on expenses knowing the contract will level itself out, but the contract was cancelled. There’s a creditors’ meeting taking place this week. As you can imagine, there was a substantial amount of money invested and paying the cast is a long way down the line.”

For Lewis, who went to King John School in Thundersley, it’s just one of the unlucky moments that comes with working in the business, which is notoriously fickle and can snap you up and put you on tour as quickly as it can drop you in it.

But although it’s a constant battle for jobs – Lewis says there’s always someone younger, willing to work for less, better suited for a part or just plain better than you hot on your heels for any part – when he’s in a job with a steady salary, he loves what he does.

He says: “To be honest, I’m sat at home 90 per cent of the time unemployed going, ‘I hate my job, I hate my life, I’ve got no money’. But all my friends hate their jobs, my mum hates her job, and they all say, ‘At least you love what you do’, which is true.”

The changeable lifestyle and the insecurity of being between jobs can put a strain on things that those in steadier lines of work take for granted, such as relationships.

And though it may break some fans’ hearts to hear it, Lewis says actors tend to date others in the industry, who understand the pressures and challenges their other half is facing.

He met his girlfriend, Sinead Long, on tour in Legally Blonde and in line with the ups and downs of the rest of the business, after several months in each other’s pockets on tour, they have a long distance relationship with Sinead living in Birmingham.

“You’ve got to find the happy balance between your life and your work life,” Lewis says. “When you’re at a party and you do the shmoozing and socialising and networking, if you were to have a girlfriend or boyfriend who didn’t appreciate you sometimes have to concentrate on your career and that it’s not about you or them, it’s about how you can get on to that next rung in your career it can be hard.”

Life on tour is constant whirl of getting to your digs, into the venue, rehearsing, getting made up, wigged up and into costume.

Then there’s the performance itself and the wind down afterwards – often in the form of a big night out, catching up and sometimes balancing all that with travelling to auditions for what is hoped will be the next job.

It can take its toll and Lewis has found himself on the point of collapse and forced to take a night off and missing out on a recall for a top job because of the strain. But it’s the complete opposite when you’re out of work.