And it's 4 steps forward, right turn, 2 steps, right turn, 6 steps, mark time to turn about, go back the way I came. This will just about give me time to repeat a goodly-length line, twice there and twice back. Unless of course, as at present, one's first line consists of merely "No". In which case it will be well hammered in by the time I return to my starting position! Some lines need one-way only; others take several kitchen runs before they're solidly lodged.

It's fascinating how the elements in this exercise programme slot neatly together. Over the years I must have covered miles in that kitchen/utility - especially last spring, when my part involved several pages of quick-fire, chunky paragraph-long responses. But for some reason it works. Oh, I'm not flummoxed as to the repetitions working - that's a law of physics set in stone. But why the link between brains and legs is so effective remains a mystery to me. There's also the phenomenon that my speed is constant. I never saunter. I never hurry. It's always a steady rhythm, but one that would leave a bobby on the beat comfortably behind. In fact I bet you could set a metronome to it. And when I'm interrupted and the mouth stops, the feet stop too.

You'd think it would take something more specific or peculiar to aid the memorising. Did I really say 'peculiar' then?! I use the word in its strictest, literal sense, of course. I mean something so unusual that you would associate the extraordinary action with the particular lines you were saying at that time. But how many such extraordinary actions would you be able to come up with to cover all of Acts I, II and III? For me, pacing works, and hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Of course, pacing is not the end of the line-learning process. Once I've reached the end-of-kitchen phase, it's on to the recorded-tape-phase, chanting along to the strange sound of my own voice. What wonderful inventions cassette recorder and amateur drama groups were! What a brilliant combo! How much more boring the process of learning a part when one had to guess the other cast member's lines, intonation, pauses etc. How much easier to devote one rehearsal to reading through the entire play in character, whilst this wonderful machine records every line… as well as every breath, giggle, pregnant pause and repetition. Personally I think the latter add character, especially of the persistent kind, when having to repeat a line correctly over your own stuttering that was too minor a hiccup to stop and re-start recording, but becomes most irritating in the long run. So far I've lived with kicking myself - I just turn my volume up enough to cover the flaw. And that works, too.

Of course, recording also has its little drawbacks and idiosyncrasies. Well I remember, in the early days after my initiation into the amdram world, learning a dirge to the recorded music the then musical director had kindly played into the microphone on her nifty electronic keyboard. In the following few weeks, all the members of the extras chorus did really well, getting the tune down to a tee - even if it was a miserable-sounding tee. Imagine our dismay and disgust at discovering not only that the musical director turned out to be far more creative than we mere underlings were, and for some reason insisted on playing every subsequent, live rendition in a different and quite unique manner, but that she then topped it when she proceeded to tell us off for "not once getting it right, for goodness' sake".

I think the one character aspect that has been developed during my now 13 years (yikes! Really? Thirteen? Panic!) of involvement with an 'amdram soc' (besides superstition, of course!) has been inventiveness, definitely. I've improvised like mad over those years, in various areas involved in bringing together a production. I think by now I've found my niche(s), but who knows… Might I one day find myself behind that recording table, discovering new skills in twiddling knobs and flicking switches…?

Naaaah! You can't pace, stuck behind a table…!

the Hart