I recently decided we needed to do a spring-themed Easter photo shoot for Wam Bam. Its always good to be fresh and exciting with new photos for the website.

I wanted white picket fences; ample bunches of daffodils and lederhosen. Well why not?! My shoot, my vision – until someone pointed out the Germanic overtones of lederhosen made it more ‘Springtime for Hitler’ than ‘Springtime for Wam Bam’. To soften things up a bit, I decided to bring in some livestock. A sprinkling of rabbits here, a lamb and a chick there, it would be perfect. Rachael, my trusty sidekick, suggested going to an animal agency as they come with handler which take care of animal discipline and hopefully animal droppings, which really aren’t my area of expertise. So I started researching animal agencies online.

Well this opened up a whole new world for me dear reader, one I had not delved into before. The animal actor! Yes, they call them actors! Well as a trained actor myself I wanted proof of them strutting the boards, doing endless breathing exercises and relentless Shakespeare….To bee or not to bee!

So I went to a few agency sites and sure enough there are individual animals listed with their own personal biogs. I don’t know why this surprised me but it did. Maybe I was expecting to click on pig and be asked “how many?” But no, I had to actually cast them, and play god with their dreams.

First stop was the rabbit section as you can’t have an Easter photo shoot without a bunny. It was there I happened upon Rufus. Now Rufus (the rabbit) was two years old, liked carrots and had appeared in an episode of Taggart! Well, who hasn’t, darling? Suddenly this information which was all too surprising a moment earlier now wasn’t enough. I was intrigued and found myself wanting to know more about Rufus. Had he strayed to the dark side and done family entertainment? Was he whoring his celebrity out to reality TV yet? Had he worked with Paul Daniels and, if so, why didn’t he bite him?

It was during this insane casting session I was warned by Rachael of the dangers of falling into animal porn.

What??!! Just that!

If we were to have a photo shoot with myself and the glamorous ladies of Cabaret Rouge (my resident dance troupe) all partially clad. It only takes Jackson the goat, who has a particular proclivity for chewing on tassels, and we have a porn shoot. Darn these animals, they can destroy your career in a single bite. That certainly rules out goats who chew on anything that is dangled in front of them. So, what about a young baby lamb?

The problem there is that spring lambs only really appear in the spring, so they’re always relatively new to the game, and prone to rather amateur performances. They haven’t had the time for training or years at animal RADA, and get forced to perform by pushy showbiz mother ewes, thrusting their offspring into the spotlight to enjoy the fame they never had and always dreamed of.

I know well enough the trusted performer mantra to never work with animals or children, so animal children were, I decided, too much of a risk. That ruled out lambs and newly hatched chicks, so instead I opted for teenage chicks. This, I felt, was a safer bet. As for my Easter bunny well, Rufus the rabbit was otherwise engaged on CBBC so that left me with a couple of floppy eared bunnies from a breeding program at the local zoo. I was told they might enjoy some downtime, so to speak.

Sadly, dear reader, the space between frisky rabbit unions can be measured in heartbeats, and it took several forceful interventions from the handler to dampen their ardor. We tried to physically separate them by putting the male in my top hat, which he shat in repeatedly. The chicks arrived in a cardboard box tweeting sweetly. But, horror of horrors, when we opened the box we discovered that teenage chick are not booked for photo shoots often because the are butt ugly. To be frank, horrific. All bald skin and random smattering of feathers. Imagine a naked Mr Magoo having a pillow fight in a glue factory.

The true stars of the day were my Cabaret Rouge ladies who braved the ugly chicks and frisky rabbits and looked radiant in the bunny ears and bob tails we’d brought along as back up. It was only when it was over I realised that in all the excitement, I’d forgotten all about the lederhosen. Oh well there is always next year.

xx