Tall And True Short Reads

Taking a Bow

Episode 78 (31 August 2023)

I fell in love with live theatre when I saw my first London West End play as a newly-arrived backpacker in 1987. Over the next eight years, living in Brighton and Windsor, I attended countless professional and amateur productions. But I didn’t think in 1987 that one day I’d be up on stage, too, taking a bow.
READ SHOW NOTES

Follow Podcast

Taking a Bow

Show Notes

Season Three: Episode 78 (31 August 2023)

Taking a Bow is a memoir blog post from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read the post on Tall And True: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/blog/taking-a-bow

Podcast website: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com

Episode 77, My Dreams: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com/my-dreams/

Episode 40, My One Night Stand: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com/my-one-night-stand/

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

Episode Insight

I shared Taking a Bow on Tall and True in November 2022. Sorting through some papers, I found a bundle of old scripts and theatre programs from England. Among them was the program from my 1991 debut performance, La Môme Piaf. And inside this, I found a fax, still legible after all these years, with handwritten well-wishes from my family in Australia:

  • My Nan wrote: “All the best for your play. I hope your first night is real special.”
  • My Dad joked: “Hope the play goes well and the prompter doesn’t get worn out.”
  • And my brother quoted Shakespeare: “Remember, nothing will come of nothing. Bring the house down.”

While I didn’t include the fax in the blog post, along with the scripts, programs and cast photos, it inspired me to dig out my diary entries and draw on my memories to write Taking a Bow.

And keen podcast listeners may recognise the dreams in the post, where I’m on stage and haven’t learned my lines, and a fellow actor hisses at me, “Improvise.” I used this in Episode 77 of Tall And True Short Reads for the short story, My Dreams, with a few subtle changes:

Then there’s the dream of standing on stage in a packed auditorium, and I’ve forgotten my speech. “Just improvise,” the TEDx director hisses. 

As I admitted in the Story Insight for the My Dreams episode, I draw on elements of autofiction and true sentences for my fiction, and my actor’s anxiety dreams are an example of this.

There are links to the My Dreams episode and Episode 40, My One Night Stand, the story of my one-night as a stand-up comic, in the Show Notes.

I hope you enjoyed Taking a Bow with me. You can read the memoir post (and see my old cast photos) and all my short stories, blog posts and other writing at TallAndTrue.com. You can also buy my short story collections from the Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Kobo online bookstores — links are available in the show notes.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads, and the first for Season Four, will be released shortly. In the meantime, check your feed or the podcast website for earlier episodes from Seasons One, Two and Three. And follow or subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite app — doing so helps me share my storytelling.

You can support this podcast financially by making a small one-off or regular donation via the Acast Supporter Page.

Finally, please tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non-Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the traditional lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation.

Acast Podcast Supporter Page

Support this show: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.

View All Episodes

Contact Us