Stand tall.

And so the final week of shooting dawns and I have banjaxed my back. If I stand in a natural pose I am bent from the waist at a 45-degree angle. I cannot straighten my knees, my bottom is sticking out in a most unsightly fashion and as my main view is the ground I now see how horribly filthy my kitchen floor is. I have to be on set at 11.00am so need a very quick fix.

AnneMarie the producer organises for me to see an osteopath. I arrive at his rooms at 8am and drag my way hunched like your man from Notre Dame up two flights of stairs. The osteopath is Australian and very chirpy. I am always amazed at how people who move here from the southern hemisphere can ever be happy but he assures me that the constant rain does not bother him. I conclude that he is either in the first flushes of a love affair or on heavy doses of mind-altering drugs. I shake his hand and try not to appear that I am staring at his crotch but as that is the level my head is currently pitched at, it’s hard not to. For the next hour he gently pokes and prods me and soothes me with his silvery voice. I emerge cured yet feeling slightly odd – the sort of odd I imagine you might feel if you ate a load of those ‘funny’ mushrooms that students enthusiastically forage for in forests across the land during weekends in September. 

I manage to drive myself to the set and arrive in a state of what can only be described as - stoned out of my bin. The Osteopath did mention that after all the manipulation and whatever else he did to me I might feel a little woozy. So that’s what they call it down there in Melbourne or Katoomba or wherever the good drugs come from. Everyone is very concerned when they see me and ply me with sympathy and offers of comfy chairs. I respond with a dreamy grin and a couple of peace signs.

Thank Goodness I am working with Mary Murray (Rachel) and Sam Corry (Tom) today as they are veterans of the screen and know exactly what they are doing as I am no use whatsoever and spend the next four hours either staring at the ceiling, humming nursery rhymes or smiling benignly at all who pass and wondering if anyone notices that I am acting strange. Nobody mentions it if they do and before I know it we’re half way through the day and lunch is called.

By the time our work resumes I have somewhat been restored to my old self and even begin to say clever things like ‘Action’ and ‘Cut.’ We are doing several scenes where Sam Corry is wearing nothing but his underpants. I have, with the enthusiastic blessing of the costume designer, chosen the most hideous pair of y-fronts and Clodagh has dyed them a lovely grey colour – the sort of colour that all sparkly white underwear goes after it has been washed with that elusive black sock that is never apparent when you put the wash in the machine but is top of the pile when you take it out. Socks can snigger – I’ve heard it myself.

Sam has offered up his own ideas for the underwear in a vague hope that our minds will be changed but his stuff looks too trendy – boxer shorts and the like and as I ignore his notions completely and shove him and the y-fronts into the loo to change I suggest that he should regard himself very lucky that I have not insisted he wear a leopard skin thong.

The authority I exert is so empowering and makes me feel so good that once again I reach my full and impressive stature of five foot three.