WEST END YEARS

West End Years

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Standing on a West End stage never stopped feeling significant.

The lights would rise, the orchestra would begin, and for a few hours everything was precise. Marks were hit. Cues followed. Voices blended. Applause arrived where it should. There was structure, order, and purpose. You knew exactly where to stand and exactly what to say.

Onstage, I felt capable. Positioned. Certain.

Offstage was different.

Once the curtain came down and the dressing room quietened, the certainty thinned out. Makeup wiped away. Costume off. Street clothes back on. The walk out of the stage door into night air always felt like crossing a threshold.

Inside the theatre, I had a defined role. Outside, I was simply myself.

The routine of West End shows was disciplined. Eight performances a week. Vocal care. Physical care. Guarding energy. Consistency wasn’t optional. Hundreds of people relied on you showing up in exactly the same shape every night.

There was reassurance in that.

But life beyond the stage didn’t come with cues or choreography. Relationships didn’t rehearse themselves. Conversations didn’t get a second preview before opening. There was no lighting shift to signal what came next.

I remember walking through London after shows, the city still alive, tourists outside stage doors, colleagues heading somewhere louder. People assumed it was glamorous. Sometimes it felt that way.

Other nights, it didn’t.

The applause ended at the curtain call. What remained was whatever was happening privately — and that had no script to follow.

The West End years were proof that I reached what I set out to reach.

What happened beyond the stage was another story entirely.

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