Birdsong Rehearsals

Rehearsals

Ok. So, I have offered to take up the mantle of Birdsong blogger this year. I hope I can live up to the great work done by Polly Hughes on the 2013 tour and also hope I don't end up boring everybody by writing lots of endless waffle. If I do, please shout loudly at your laptop, phone, tablet, whatever (it may make you feel better) and I'll try my best to ignore you.....!

I do have to start off with an apology about this first blog. It's going to be rather long. I'm going to attempt to sandwich 3 weeks of rehearsals into one session and I promise I'll try to make it as interesting as possible (you may find it useful to engage the shouting loudly therapy I suggested above if not). Right then. Here we go!

First Day of School:

I always end up comparing the first day of rehearsals to that first day in September when you used to go back to school. Everyone's just a little bit nervous and anxious to make a good impression, wondering how they'll fit in and what everyone else is going to be like. So, with sandwiches packed and forgetting my PE kit, I set off to OneKX in King's Cross for the meet and greet for this year's Birdsong tour.

Now, I was in a better position than some. I worked on the tour last year and already knew a large number of the company. I wont give you a complete run down of the cast and creatives, as you can go to www.birdsongthetour.com where you can see a compete list with biogs and headshots, but in addition to the cast and creatives there's also Gareth Moss, our Technical Stage Manager, Sinead Francis, our Costume supervisor and Wardrobe Mistress on tour and me, the Deputy Stage Manager. We all worked together in the same positions last year and are now joined by a new Company Stage Manager, Roger Richardson and Lucy Grattan, our new Assistant Stage Manager and who also plays Marguerite. It was great to see some old faces who I hadn't seen since last August as well as meeting all of the new ones. After a short Meet and Greet (where, to continue with the school analogy, a few of us more naughty ones sat at the back guzzling biscuits and gossiping), model box presentation (to any of you not familiar with what that is, it is basically a tiny scale model of the set in a box) and lunch (more biscuits and gossiping), we were straight into rehearsals.

Having done the show last year, and with only one returning cast member this year (the marvellous Malcolm James as Azaire/Gray) it was really interesting to see how the new cast approached their roles. Alastair Whatley is great at letting the cast find the roles themselves and is not a director who pushes an actor into a particular direction (no pun intended) with a character. He allows them to find it at their own pace, with occasional gentle nudges here and there.

However, Alastair also likes ball games........

Balls to it:

Yes. Those of you who know me well know how much I love the ball games.

I don't.....

But our Associate Director, Charlotte Peters, reported to me in the afternoon that her first mission that morning had been to buy several tennis balls as well as some larger softer balls, I feared the return of the bench ball game that Polly wrote about last year.

Now, I cannot deny that these games are team building and help with co-ordination and mental awareness. However, I also cannot deny that when these games are played too close to props tables and bits of delicate period french furniture, painstakingly sourced by our producer, Anne-Marie, something gets broken. I am not looking at anyone in particular here. At all.... Tim T and Tim K.

But, I don't want you to get the impression that our days are frittered away play ball games. Absolutely not. We had a shorter rehearsal period this year and the hard work had to start straight away.

Off we go:

Rehearsing the bar scene

Naturally, to anyone familiar with the book, play or series, you would assume that the hardest part is the role of Stephen. You would be semi-correct. Stephen is a mammoth task for any actor and one that George Banks threw himself into from the start, but Birdsong the play is always approached as an ensemble piece and during the show every single cast member is almost constantly busy with costume and scene changes as well as balancing several parts. This is also true of rehearsals. Whilst Alastair may be rehearsing scenes with certain cast members in the main room, Charlotte could be working on characterisation in the cafe upstairs, accent coaching with Tim Charrington will be happening in another room, Tony Green may be working with the infantry men in the hall on drills and the correct way to put on webbing or handle guns whilst Sinead is doing costume fittings in the changing rooms and Tim Van Eyken and Sam Martin will be somewhere rehearsing the violin pieces and the letters song and we were often lucky enough to be joined by Rachel Wagstaff for any script changes or explanation as well as help with characterisation. In addition to this, throughout the 3 weeks we also had to arrange sessions with Lucie and Tim Klotz on movement and fight work.

It's a lot to take in and a lot to fit into the 17 days that we were in King's Cross. But we progressed well. By the end of the first week we were able to run a lot of the Act 1 scenes that we had done so far. By the end of the second we had completed a run of Act 1 and by the Thursday of the final week we had done a full stagger through (which is exactly what it says – you stagger through the whole play, stopping if needs be) which went so well that it was really more of a run. On the last Friday morning we were due to do a full run in the rehearsal room, which

would be open to any of the creative team who wished to attend as well as for

Sebastian and Rachel.

A tidy rehearsal room ready for the run

Completely prepared for the run, I arrived at the rehearsal room to find that there had been a massive problem with the trains at Gatwick which was affecting some of our company's commute (this had also been the week of the tube strikes...).

In the meantime Tim Van Eyken started running a warm-up with the company who were there when the fire alarms went off. And so it was an evacuation out into the street for about 10 minutes whilst the fire engines turned up. When we were allowed back into the rehearsal room and all of our company had managed to get there, we were able to start the run. About an hour in to the run........

The fire alarms went off again.

So, it was back out into the street to wait for the fire department (and can I just say how impressed we all were with the response time. They were there within 5 minutes of the alarm going off). When we got back inside we could continue with the run. The cast coped with this disruption brilliantly, particularly Carolin and George who had been in the middle of a very tender and emotional scene between Isabelle and Stephen, and the rest of the run was undisturbed. We were all in hight spirits after the success of the last two days of rehearsals and now everyone was keen to get on the set and get into costumes to start teching. Our next full run of the play would be the dress rehearsal in Eastbourne, only hours before the audience would begin to arrive for opening night.....

Play time:

It wasn't all hard work and no play in the rehearsal period. Tony Green took Jonny Clarke, Peter Duncan and Simon Lloyd on a special team building mission across London, involving two of them having to help a 'wounded' comrade back to base:

Simon, Jonny (with special 'blackout glasses' and Peter on their special mission

Alastair had also celebrated his 30^th birthday just prior to the start of rehearsals and after the first week we were joined by some of the previous Birdsong cast to hep him celebrate:

  Alastair with Tippers 2013 & 2014

Jonny Clarke and Charlie G Hawkins

And throughout the rehearsal period other former cast also dropped by:

Alastair and Emily Stride 2013's Marguertie/Lucille