These days people are always banging on about GLAMOUR. Everyone strives to achieve it, wants to feel it but nobody really understands it, except those who employ glamour on a daily basis to very good effect: for example actors in the spotlight. Accepted, English is an ever evolving language and the word used these days may be far from its archaic roots. Or is it? Originally, according to the Oxford dictionary, the word ‘glamour’ was a version of the word ‘grammar’ which in olden times was associated with learning and education – a strange a magical process available only to an exalted few. It became commonly used by the Scots, and perhaps changed by accent to the word glamour, to mean a magical spell, something that creates an illusion, that turns the ordinary into something magically alluring, hides the drabness and grime of everyday and projects a vision of beauty, excitement and power.
As actors we are well aware of the amount of hard work that goes into any production: stage or screen. What is projected as the result of all that is a magical spell that doesn’t show the grime of backstage, the endless boredom of waiting around between takes, the freezing location shoots at ridiculously anti-social hours
and the sometimes very uncomfortable, (not to say dangerous), situations various scripts put us into as part of our jobs.
Perhaps there isn’t that much difference between the archaic version of the word and the modern usage after all. If you are aglow with excitement at the end of a performance or seeing the celebs walk the red carpet, (fairly sure they’re looking great but thinking, “What’s my next job”), then the spell has been cast successfully and you are in its web, wilfully, happily submitting to its’ allure. We’ve got ya!
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