For three decades, Anna-Jane Casey has been a West End leading lady. But her new role is a good deal less glamorous.Casey is working as a delivery driver, earning £1 per parcel, after the shutdown of the arts left her – like thousands of others in the industry – unable to do the job she loves.
Since June, Casey has been working for a courier company with her husband and fellow actor, Graham MacDuff.
It is a far cry from Casey’s West End career, which has included playing Velma Kelly in Chicago, Anita in West Side Story and Mrs Wilkinson in Billy Elliot.“I’ve been acting since I was 10 years old, I’ve paid tax for all that time. And yet you’re telling me that my industry isn’t viable, and that I should probably retrain and do something else? Well, that’s not what I’m going to do,” Casey said. “But I have a mortgage and two kids, so I need a job right now.”
Given that acting has survived a couple of thousand years as a profession so far I don’t think it’s going to entirely closedown. It might well change of course.
As to other jobs while resting, that’s hardly unusual now, is it?
I have always wanted to be the guy who rubs down the LA Lakers cheerleaders. But somehow I have never been able to make a living of it.[1]
I demand that the government pay me a living wage in lieu of.
[1] f**king restraining orders
Has the lady criticised the government for not adopting the Swedish approach?
Good on Anna-Jane and Hubbie in the words of Bugsy Malone “You don’t have to sit around complainin bout the way your life has wound up…..sure you’ve hit the bottom but remember you’ll be building from the ground up”
I can never remember which thespian is which, so I don’t know whether delivering parcels is a bigger benefit to society than her acting.
But I still think that if the government forcibly stops people from working, government ought to pay for the losses. Might make them think a bit first.
“I’ve been acting since I was 10 years old, I’ve paid tax for all that time. And yet you’re telling me that my industry isn’t viable, and that I should probably retrain and do something else? Well, that’s not what I’m going to do,” Casey said. “But I have a mortgage and two kids, so I need a job right now.””
Has anyone explained how long this could last? If people aren’t going to the cinema because they’re scared, that’s not going to get solved until there’s a well vaccinated population, and that’s years away. Even if the vaccine is ready, we simply don’t have the global manufacturing to get the job done quickly.
I’m not saying don’t go and do the Hermes driving thing, but do some courses, try and apply what you’re good at to something. You and your husband are musical theatre actors: can’t you do something on YouTube?
I’m rich enough to pay taxes DO WHAT I DEMAND!!!11!!!!
Rearrange the following letters: off fcuk.
“But I have a mortgage and two kids, so I need a job right now.”
But she’s got a job right now.
off fcuk.
“But she’s got a job right now.”
Yeah, she should drive faster if she wants more money.
Shouldn’t West End leading ladies save some money? West End leading ladies live paycheck to paycheck?
A lot of middle class Marxist luvvie garbage might well have to see some sense and how others live.
Also BOM4–millions like me wont be taking their shite vax-poison over a damp squib flu anyway.
Won’t make them think for an instant. In any case, government won’t be paying – us tax slaves will.
If we do want to make them think, then this campaign for performance related (to GDP) pay for MPs might make them take notice: https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/consultation_on_mps_pay
(And if anyone knows anyone at TPA, tell them their web site search tool is shit: I had to go back to the weekly email I had from them to find that link)
A popular choice for resting actors is supply teaching. I remember that we had some geezer who used to come in and teach us English Lit. He was a strange cove, but his classes were always a laugh. Anyway to our delight he once appeared in an episode of The Cleopatras, as Second Priest who gets Killed at the End.
Actually I think she has a point – why should a lot of actors be unemployed because one epidemiologist says that it should happens, whilst other epidemiologists say it shouldn’t?
David, I would agree to the point that government has authority to place restrictions on the dangerously ill. They have no such authority over the healthy. So it should be up to the theaters whether they operate, and how.