[ Act V ]Personalities · Casting notes

Personalities: twelve casting notes kept beside the call sheet

The desk works from one call sheet, and these twelve pages are the notes pencilled down its margin. Her colour this season, the frame she carries through a lobby, the stage of life she speaks from. Three plain entries, taken in the room where her pass was printed, not one of them a score, and nobody is pinned to a note who is missing from the company.

Opening one changes which names you read first and nothing beneath them. Sixty minutes is £250 wherever the circuit reaches, two hours £500, curtain down to breakfast £1,800, with travel and cancellation terms printed on the rail.

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// Cast by colour

Cast by colour

4 on this readingBlondesThe shortest note the desk keeps. Four women, four different shades worn long, and, entirely by accident, four completely different ideas of what an evening in this quarter is actually for. Set...15 on this readingBrunettesThe longest note the board carries, and the one most in need of sorting. Fifteen women in every shade between sandy balayage and espresso, which on its own tells you very little. So the desk casts...6 on this readingRaven hairedSix women who share a colour and remarkably little else. Black worn long, from a sharp straight cut to a fall that reaches the waist, over heights between 168 cm and 178 cm and tempers running...3 on this readingAuburn and redThe rarest colouring the house carries, and the only note you can hold in your head all at once. Three women in three distinct shades: soft auburn worn in waves, a dark auburn red that reads...

// Cast by figure

Cast by figure

7 on this readingPetiteSeven women, the shortest of them 158 cm and the tallest on this note 169 cm. Petite is filed here from bearing as much as from the measurement: a light step, a small frame carried without effort,...9 on this readingStatuesqueNine women of 172 cm and upward, measured standing in ordinary shoes rather than claimed in a message. Six centimetres separate the tallest from the shortest here, which is less than it sounds and...10 on this readingCurvaceousTen women on this note, filed from frame and carried with some confidence: tailoring cut to follow the figure, good coats, colour worn without hesitation. It is the second longest note the board...10 on this readingSlim and slenderTen women on this note, long lines and clean tailoring, heights between 163 cm and 178 cm. Frame is the only thing being filed, and it is filed without comparing anybody to anybody.5 on this readingToned and athleticFive women whose frames came from doing something rather than from a machine, and the shortest route into all five is the morning each one keeps. What somebody does at eight tends to explain how...

// Cast by age band

Cast by age band

10 on this readingEarly twentiesAges on this sheet are read off a document held across a table rather than typed into a form, and they are printed because people ask, not because anybody should be chasing a number. Ten names...14 on this readingLate twentiesThe longest band the board carries, fourteen names between 25 and 29, and the one where a suggestion arrives before you have finished asking for one. Tastes here are settled without having hardened.4 on this readingThirties and beyondThe shortest note the board keeps: four women between 30 and 32, each entirely settled in how she wants an evening to go. It is the note the desk puts up when somebody writes that they would...

01 Scene

What a note records

Colour as she wears it this month, frame as the desk would describe it to somebody who has not seen a photograph, and an age band read off a document across a table. A changed colour is redrawn the same month. It carries no ranking and no availability, which belongs to one week only and is written on her own page.

02 Scene

The three questions behind the twelve

Colour first, because it is the quickest thing to type. Blondes holds four names, brunettes fifteen, raven haired six and auburn and red three, which is everyone the sheet carries. Frame second, described rather than scored: petite seven, statuesque nine, curvaceous ten, slim and slender ten, toned and athletic five. Stage of life last, a note about manner rather than a number worth chasing: early twenties at ten, late twenties at fourteen, and the four on thirties and beyond.

03 Scene

Two notes read together, never one read twice

Nearly everybody sits on three notes at once, and the overlap is where a shortlist starts being useful. One note hands you ten names and no way of choosing. Two read across each other hand you two, which the desk can answer inside the quarter hour.

04 Scene

None of this moves the rail

Every note is priced the same, because the figure belongs to the sheet rather than to any one woman on it. An ordinary night and an overnight are confirmed in exactly the same way, as booking sets out.

05 Scene

From a note to a name on tonight's sheet

Send the note you landed on, the building and the hour, by WhatsApp or by Telegram. The reply carries a name, a figure and an arrival time. A plain call to your room is the shortest way through the stage door, and most of these evenings happen inside WC2. The figure buys time and company, nothing else, and everybody pinned to a note is 18 or over.

// Five minutes to curtain

Call the stage door

One message names the evening you want and the desk answers inside a quarter of an hour, at any point on the clock. Tell us the day, the hour, how long you would like and where she should come, and the rest is written down for you.

WhatsApp the stage door Telegram

Running order

Half hour
Beginners
YouCurtain up
Interval
Final bow