Who was it who said never work with children or animals? Or, presumably, birds.

Someone reminded me recently of a performance in the old theatre at Wexford, when the roof also served as a roost. During that masterpiece of the exotic, Die Koenigin von Saba, a starling settled on my Crystal Tipps wig, only to find its claws irrevocably tangled in my magnificent nylon curls. Panic ensued. A larger bird might have pulled me off my perch, high up on my plywood ziggurat, but happily this one was small and only loosened my wig before collapsing exhausted on my head. I’m told all this looked particularly entertaining from the opposite side of the stage: something like a live-action hat for Royal Ascot. Eventually the bird freed itself and escaped. I wonder if anyone in the auditorium even noticed, although they might have clocked the heaving shoulders of my hysterical colleagues.

Birds have also appeared by design in my performing life: I have been a duck (complete with knitted mallard daemon on my head) in The Wind in the Willows, a woodpecker and a hen in Cunning Little Vixen (separately, rather than some bizarre laboratory hybrid). In Carmen at the Royal Opera I have had a Rhode Island Red as my personal prop (see above), earning me the title “Chicken Woman” from the director, who was unable to remember what I was actually called but wanted to remind me, “it’s not about YOU, it’s about the chicken!”

And it doesn’t stop with birds. Dogs, rabbits, foxes, hares, weasels, a dragon – I’m beginning to wonder whether the profession is trying to tell me something? Should I be doing some animal movement workshops to broaden my range still further and enhance my employability? How low and crawly would I be prepared to go in the name of Art (or cash?) Or might I just be getting a bit old for all this bouncing and slithering about? I have a certain envy of Grisabella just shuffling onstage in Cats and propping up a lamp-post to sing “Memory” rather than leaping about with all those Lycra-clad Jellicles.

I have to admit, playing a non-human role can offer a certain freedom to a performer and has even kept me quite physically fit. But sometimes I yearn to walk onto a stage and sing without interrupting myself to vault over the furniture or adjust my ears. Thank goodness someone has taken pity on me at Iford and cast me as Meg Page in this year’s Falstaff. Let’s hope the production isn’t set in Battersea Dog’s Home.

Photo: Johann Persson