I believe it's St. Anthony for things lost. I only know this because I was in a play once where I was a nun who had lost her pliers - yes, pliers, don't bother asking - and it was St. Anthony she prayed to to find them for her. Yes - some people go very peculiar in the half hour before a play. It's best not to enquire what they are doing and let them get on with it.I have specific routines that only apply to the specific play and that seem to develop from one night to the next and provide a certain reassurance e.g. doing a costume change and always putting the same item on at exactly the same point in the script as I hear it over the tannoy backstage. I can't hear "Grandma's Feather Bed" now without picturing exactly which bit of "Ugly Sister Boudoir Costume" I was putting on during each verse. But that does have some practical value, too. At least you know then that unless they suddenly miss several chunks of text out by mistake (which, let's say, has been known to happen), you are going to get back in time to go on again.

Funnily enough, despite performing all kinds of backstage peculiarities during plays, I've never thought about, or felt a need for any kind of rituals before singing to an audience.

Hope this isn't too much off at a tangent, but there was a lad at Birmingham University who, at age 22, wore his much-too-small school blazer to sit all the exams - for good luck. He would now be nearing 50: wonder if he still does it ?

- Jeanie