Is this a dagger (to my heart) before me?

What Kati Did Next

AN advert. Abi Titmuss will be performing the part of Lady Macbeth at The Seagull Theatre in Lowestoft from November 18, 2009.

Not that far from Oldhamm, if you fancy a laugh.

Sorry, I’m being cruel and she, Abi, doesn’t deserve it. But I tell you who does deserve it: the producers of this debacle.

Why on earth have the producers of this particular “Macbeth” decided that Miss Titmus should be cast in the most formidable of roles in the acting profession?

These producers, or so called, deserve this show to crumble to the floor in a heap of first night nerves. This is celebrity casting gone mad.

There are two very different sides to this argument.

One, what happened to all the other actors out there, including me, who are desperate to work and have been “training by treading the boards,” as she puts it, for nigh on 20 years?

These actors deserve a chance don’t they? Just because they weren’t invloved in a high-profile court case, eeking money out of the red tops for her story, posing half naked on the cover of many lads mags and selling enormous amounts of calenders, doesn’t mean that they don’t have the right to “pay the mortgage”, as she puts it.

And two, the side that says, give her a chance, why be a glamour model all your life, she was a straight A student, doesn’t she deserve a chance.

Well, which side are you on? I know where I stand.

Most actors don’t work in television or film. They aren’t papped leaving their house after a scandal has broken and they don’t earn thousands of pounds.

Most working actors struggle everyday to do a job they feel they have to do, because let me tell you, it’s not for the money.

Actors in the theatre are among the lowest paid members of society, only just covering minimum wage.

We work long hours — check out the showtimes for Oldham Coliseum’s pantomime — and Abi walks into the best part the theatre has to offer.

I dream of playing that part and one day I may be lucky enough to do it, but I know I will have worked hard to get there. Can she say the same?