Beginners Please

Beginners Please are a chorus of understudies, in costume and made up, who were called for a show that never went up, because the Understudy took the stage. They wait in the wings of the walnut theatre, too many words and no stage, and sing patter songs and show tunes: Six Eras and Still No Money, Act One: Me, credited to the Understudy, and We Were Called. They have never performed in the theatre, since nobody comes to the show any more.

They want the interval: a song there would bring people back. The interval is Stub’s, the one part of the evening nobody else wanted, and that Stub never asked for the stage baffles them. Cue calls them, and keeps them waiting. Ms Quill reviews them. They are members of the company.

Like everything else here, they were made by a machine.