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REAK A LEG is the oldest andmost well-known saying of themall, but just where did it comefrom? The general consensus isthat it’s bad luck to say ‘good

luck’, so telling someone to ‘break a leg’tempts fate to make something good happen.However, Blue Tomato has discovered thatthere may be more to it than just this:

Breaking a leg has connections withtaking a bow. The greater and lower an actorbows represents the quality of hisperformance. If you’re breaking a leg in orderto bow to the audience, then you’ve been agreat success.

In Elizabethan times the audience wouldstamp their chairs as a means of applause. Ifthe applause was wild enough then chair legswould break.

Breaking a leg symbolises making agreat effort. Therefore, an actor who breaks aleg endeavours to give a noteworthy andimpressive performance.

The side curtains of a stage are referredto as legs. Therefore, if an actor is called backonto stage after a performance then they‘break the legs’ as they walk back through thecurtains.

I’d rather have broken a leg...The West End production of The Lord of

the Rings was put on hold after an actor gotcaught in part of the massive hydraulically-powered stage. He was left screaming in painas his leg became trapped. The curtain camedown and the show was temporarilyabandoned.

Bonnie Langford’s stage debut (at justseven years old) was met by Noel Coward’scallous comment: “they ought to cut thesecond act...and the child’s throat”.

While in Edinburgh the production ofTwelve Angry Men was halted after a lady inthe audience tripped forwards, fell andsmashed her face on stage.

Just after he sang the words “too badyou can only live so long”, Richard Versalle, a63 year old tenor with New York’sMetropolitan Opera fell to the floor and died,reportedly of a heart attack.

While performing at Vienna’sBurgtheater, Daniel Hoevels ended up slittinghis own throat after the prop knife intendedfor the on-stage suicide turned out to be a realone. Daniel miraculously survived.

After the 1865 assassination of AbrahamLincoln, the actor turned assassin - JohnWilkes Booth - leapt onto the stage of Ford’sTheatre and surprise, surprise... broke his leg.

BThespians, they’re a funnylot. Wish them good luckbefore a show and they mightjust rip your head off. Tellthem to break a limb andthey’re surprisingly gracious.Welcome to the world ofperforming arts, whereentertaining superstition isjust as important asentertaining the audience.

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