You’re on! The understudies who saved Christmas as Omicron raged
As Covid hit casts, understudies suddenly found themselves needed everywhere – with little warning. We meet these unsung heroes, including a Beanstalk Jack who took on three other last-minute roles
‘My initial reaction,” says Greg Arundell, with a laugh, “was no.” The actor had been playing Jacob Marley, the deceased partner of Ebenezer Scrooge, in a production of A Christmas Carol at Beaulieu Abbey. Then several of the cast, including Scrooge himself, came down with Covid. Director Abbey Wright pulled Arundell aside and asked him to step up and play the great festive miser.
In preparation for anything going wrong, the entire cast already had roles they were ready to cover. But Scrooge was not one of Arundell’s. “I hadn’t learned it!” he says. “It wasn’t on my understudy plan.” However, persuaded to try out some scenes, he realised he didn’t need to look at the script very much. “Because I’d watched the show so many times, it had made its way into my brain.”
Read the original article at The Guardian