Alternates, understudies, standbys, covers - I need stories!

And Andy Serkis was playing Iago at the Royal Exchange in Manchester when a back injury gained through playing Gollum flared up, leading the director Braham Murray to go on

And the time the male lead in the Commitments was ill, and both understudies were unavailable so they asked Andrew Linnie (who'd been in the cast for 2 years but never studied the part) to go on with about 5 hours' notice. I think he went on for 3 weeks then landed the role on the UK tour.

I remember Carousel nearly being cancelled one night (the Savoy run I think) as there was no one to do the dream ballet, until Adam Cooper charged across London by tube to do it, which must have been an amazing experience to see.

Them there's the story a couple of years ago from a regional theatre (Liverpool?) of no one being able to play The Witch when the actor was taken ill so someone in drama school who had just done it emailed the theatre to volunteer and ended going on for a good while.

I remember once watching an (uninitially) hilarious amdram version of love on the dole in Birmingham, where the older male lead kept dramatically pausing before saying his lines. Sadly, no one had told the prompt, who assumed he'd forgotten them and so prompted him. When this happened for the third time right near the interval, he screamed at her and was clearly very angry. Come the second act, the director appeared in his place, script in hand...

One weekend in Bochum . . .

During on performance of Starlight Express, Poppa was being played by the alternate and after the interval an announcement was made (but I don’t speak German). As the second act began, the main cast Poppa came on to play the role, to my surprise haha.

Another performance, one of the Rockies was missing in Act One, so all the engines were present. In Act Two Rocky Three appeared as the engine wasn’t so important.

Not as exciting but because I went to six performances in a row I noticed little things. From one day to the next, the actor playing Greaseball changed. There was also a cover playing Dinah (she had been playing Dinah the night before) and during Pumping Iron of the matinee, she almost didn’t land her flip over his knee (which she had done with the taller Greaseball the night before), so for the evening performance they had adapted the choreography so she landed on her knee instead. Worked fine.

Also at Grease at the Dominion I also saw Frenchie change after the interval but that’s not that interesting. As a child, I was disappointed because the Frenchie before the interval had completely different hair after the interval (not knowing the film that well and realising this was deliberate).

There’s that famous story where Idina Menzel fell down a flight of stairs during her last performing of WICKED on Broadway when there was only minutes to go before the show ended. She was taken to hospital and found she’d broken a rib. She came back to WICKED a few days later to resume the show from the final scene while only wearing a red jumpsuit and no green makeup. That was her final performance until she reprised the role in London.