Birmingham: Week 6

Birmingham: Week 6

Back to the old ways:

You'll be relieved to know that I didn't really like the day by day format of last week's blog. It made it very long (even longer than usual!) and almost a week on it's difficult to remember exactly what you did on a day to day basis. So, I am reverting to the old format. Which is quite apt really as that's a bit like what going to Birmingham was like for me. 

I know Birmingham very well. I sort of lived there for a time (well, as much as you can live anywhere really when you're touring constantly), but I didn't know Birmingham Rep before this week. I know some of the other theatres, The Alexandra(very well), The Hippodrome and even The Old Rep a little. All these theatres are down near New Street Station in what I liked to call Theatre Land. Birmingham has/had a lot of theatres, some have been demolished, others are still in use. If you go to http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Birmingham.htm (an excellent theatrical history site) you can see exactly how many and what has happened to them.

Birmingham Rep

The Rep is on the slightly more fashionable Broad Street (home to a wealth of bars and clubs, it gets pretty manic at the weekend) and in 2013 celebrated its 100th year - although the building isn't that old. The Rep company was originally down at what is now The Old Rep and moved to the Broad Street building in the 70s (sorry - I'm giving you a bit of a history lesson here…..) which was closed for 2 years between 2011 and 2013 for massive refurbishment and development. No one in the company had seen the new layout yet and so it was a new one for everyone this week. 

And there was another old face to greet me there. My good friend Chris, who I spent 3 very happy years doing panto with, is on the lighting team there and we realised that it had been over 4 years since we'd last seen each other. I was so glad to see him, not least because he came to meet me at stage door and guided me around the maze of the huge backstage area. Everything is white and clean and modern and we were all given special individual swipe cards to get around which also worked for our dressing rooms. Unsurprisingly, Alastair promptly lost his. 

The Space, The Space, The Space!!!!!!

Now, Durham backstage is far from tiny. It's a good size and we had more than enough room to get around, but Birmingham Rep is vast. Like Plymouth and Nottingham where we toured to last year we were left with a great deal of room both upstage and in the wings. It was mooted that perhaps we could set up a nine square (remember that from rehearsals?) court upstage, but I soon put a stop to that. Later on in the blog you'll see a bit of a video that I took which shows you exactly the space we had. The auditorium is big too.

Alastair shows us how big the auditorium is

 And very different to what our company has been used to so far. It goes straight back and is curved so it fans out around the stage a bit and there are no different levels like in other theatres we've been to. The main auditorium seats 824 and The Door studio seats 140.

Scary Parents:

Now, despite being in Week 6 of the tour,we hadn't had a national press night yet. Again, that does exactly what it says on the tin; it's a night where all the national papers are invited to come and review a show. Ours was to be in Birmingham as it is a good location for the reviewers to get to and our producers were also going to be throwing a party for us all afterwards. It also meant that 'The Scary Parents' would be coming. By scary parents, I mean that some of the creatives and producers would be coming to watch the show (and attend the party) and makes sure that Roger, myself, GMoss and Sinead all maintain the standard of their work while the show is away on tour. Actually there isn't anything really that scary about Sebastian, Rachel, Jon, Anne-Marie, Jack, Dom, Alex and Charlotte (except maybe that they are all scarily talented - sucking up, I know, I know!), but let's just say that it's not always the actors that can get a little nervous on an opening night. But, it all went fabulously well and soon we were taxi-ing off to a lovely bar by the BT Tower (the closest I've ever actually been to it, despite having spent so much time in Birmingham) where we were suitably re-hydrated with bottles of prosecco and beer.

Glad Rags:

The other great thing about press nights (apart from free beer and nibbles) is that everyone gets a little bit dressed up. This time there seemed to be a bit of an obsession about shoes - and not just from the girls. The boys had scrubbed up pretty well, GMoss was wearing his legendary jacket he bought in Dublin last year (the one that saw him surrounded by 3 Spanish beauties for a couple of hours one night), Simon was doing a nice line in smart/casual with a tie and trainer look and George was showing off his new very lean figure in a smart suit. For some reason, we started to have a bit of a 'who has the best shoes' competition which took up a portion of the evening along with a fair bit of film in the camera...

James is not really interested in how much Simon's shoes cost…..

But joins in eventually

Left to Right: Lizzie, Rachel, Charlotte, Sinead (below Charlotte), Me and GMoss 

Shoe competition

Old Faces:

There was another familiar face there on Tuesday night in Birmingham. Liam McCormick, who played Arthur Shaw on last year's tour was with us for the week as he and Alastair were to be running education workshops (more about those in a bit). Liam was particularly pleased to see that the tradition of Shaw making stage management tea in the interval was being upheld by Simon (we have them soooo well trained on Birdsong!). And then on Thursday, Tim Speechley (our 2013 CSM) and Charlie G Hawkins (2013 Tipper/Gregoire) came to watch the matinee (Tim made some notes for Alastair……) and joined some of us for dinner afterwards.

Arthur Shaws old and new: Liam McCormick
and Simon Lloyd

A Good Education:

As mentioned above, Alastair and Liam were running education workshops throughout the week and I've asked Alastair to write us a short explanation of what happens and why we do them:

As part of the production we have been awarded a small sum of money from The Arts Council to run an education programme at certain venues offering workshops to schools for reduced prices. They are run by former cast member (Liam The Goose) and sometimes even director Alastair- Birmingham was the first of the venues supporting the workshops and so Liam returned to the fold and ran no less than 5 workshops during the week. Mainly working with 15-18 year olds who have seen or about to see the show he explores all manner of things from the process of adapting, to exploring memories to staging memories and everything in between. Liam and Alastair delivered about 25 sessions during the last tour and so were very excited to be reunited. Although Alastair did forget his CRB check form and ID for the Friday workshop and only managed to get in by showing the receptionist a Birdsong flyer with his face on it. Liam was very pleased that one of the schools provided him with a bottle of wine on Saturday and also sent us their prize winning review of the show which incorporated some the things discussed in the workshop: 

‘Birdsong’ at The Birmingham Repertory Theatre – 

Commemorating the centenary of the First World War

On Saturday 22^nd March, 29 pupils from Year 10 and 11 had a wonderful opportunity to see Sebastian Faulks’ novel ‘Birdsong’ at The Rep Theatre in Birmingham. This was a wonderful opportunity for pupils to be part of the human emotions experienced by ordinary people who served to save our country for four long years. 

Below is a reflective commentary of the play, written by a Year 11 pupil:

Watching ‘Birdsong’ live on stage was an exhilarating experience in itself which left many scenes engraved in my mind. However, the one scene which I believe will never be eradicated from my memory was the scene in which the soldiers were writing letters to their loved ones. “Dear mum… Dear Annie… Dear Margaret… Dear Isabelle…” Those were the words which began every letter and each name was a personal connection that each soldier had in a world where no war existed. A world called home. Listening to the men impart the words of their hearts onto a piece of paper just minutes before they fought in the Battle of the Somme, gave me a sudden realisation. Behind every soldier who held a gun close to his chest, there was a man who had given up his family, given up a chance to be with the one he loved and for what? To salvage the lives of those who belonged to their country. Only at that moment was I thrown into a moment of self-assessment and asked myself: would I give up a life where I would never see my sister’s smile again? Would I give up my life to never feel my parents’ love again? With each question only one answer resonated throughout my mind. No. I would never have the strength let alone the bravery to give up all the things I held close to my heart in order to save millions of lives. At that moment, those men were on the precipice of death, yet their bravery and strong will enable them to gamble their lives. Just for the sake of others. 

Liam at a workshop

Poignant lines from the novel:

“Some crime against nature is about to be committed. I feel it in my veins. These men and boys are grocers and clerks, gardeners and fathers - fathers of small children. A country cannot bear to lose them.” - Birdsong

“His own men, those who would attack in the morning, knelt on the earth, faces hidden behind one hand, in an agonizing tunnel of their own, a darkness where there was no time but where they tried to look on death.” - Birdsong

It's A Small World:

Birmingham's Canals

I've mentioned this before, but theatre is a very small world sometimes. I've already said in this blog that my old friend Chris was working at The Rep, but here's another example of just how small it can seem: In every venue we have at least two in-house staff working on the show. One operating the lighting board and one doing the flys, both cued by me. Sometimes we have a separate duty stage manager, but other times the duty stage manager will be the flyman as well. During the course of a week these people can change depending the theatre's staff rotation or we can have the same people all week. In Birmingham we had the same two people all week. Liam (a different one to the one spoken about above!) who operated the lights and Laurel, who was duty stage and flywoman. Liam used to be at York Theatre Royal where we were going the next week and Zanna who I know there was his replacement when he left and came to Birmingham. Zanna used to be at Tunbridge Wells where we were a few weeks ago. Laurel also works at The Lyceum in Crewe, where I spent a very happy panto season in 2006 (before she worked there) and her boyfriend is an old mate of mine from that panto. Also, mid-week we found familiar faces in the studio show. One actor had worked for Alastair on 'Our Country's Good' and another had worked on 'The Crucible' with James. Strange how things work out sometimes……

Bye, bye Birmingham:

It had been a pretty hectic, tiring, emotional and eventful few days already and the rest of the week flew by in a haze of understudy line runs, socialising, a post-show discussion and an excellent review in 'The Times'. It was Selma's birthday on Friday and she had two celebration nights, one on Thursday at Malmaison and another on the Friday, also at Malmaison….. I had a much needed catch-up with my friend, Chris and a nice lunch with staunch rep supporter, Josie (who still makes the fortnightly trip for 3 months in the summer from Stourbridge to Sidmouth in Devon to see every single weekly rep play in the summer season there). 

But soon it was time to leave and start thinking about York and what might be in store for us there when we would celebrate our 50th performance on this 2014 tour. It was time to sign their memories book and also the wall in the green room where I left a little Birdsong reminder.

Memories Wall

But, before I leave Birmingham completely, I will add this backstage tour video I took on the Saturday. I have to apologise as I can be pretty useless sometimes when it comes to my new (I actually got it in July but still can't work it out) iPhone and I didn't realise until halfway through that I had my finger over the microphone button…..(Yes, yes. I know. And I have to put the sound in on Birdsong too…..) but I hope you find it vaguely interesting. You do at least get to meet GMoss, Laurel and Liam and listen to my (muted) dulcet tones……

A massive thank you to all of those at Birmingham Rep who made the week so fantastic. The lovely people on stage door who took care of us all week, the quick and efficient stage crew (particularly to Liam, Laurel and Dan, their sound guy who I had a laugh with on the get-in) and the friendly FOH staff. Also, big thanks to our producers for the press night party. Will be seeing you soon, in Worthing!

Durham: Week 5

Durham: Week 5

Don't like change:

Most people who know me will know that one of my favourite sayings is 'Don't like change'. It's true, I can be a bit stubborn and set in my ways (I am just one year away from a pipe - I already have the slippers), so it may be a bit of a surprise to know that I am going to change the format of my blog this week. Rather than wittily (I wish)) titled sections, I am going to do it on a day by day basis. Since I arrived on the Sunday rather than my usual Monday, I shall start from there.

Sunday:

View from mine and Peter's patio in Durham

Making a reasonable time of 5 and a half hours driving time from Eastbourne, I arrived in Durham at about 8:30pm. And promptly mounted my car on a bit of wall sticking out of the multi-park car park….. I've had Ernie the car (long story) since 2007 and haven't had one prang in him so I was a bit miffed to say the least, but the damage isn't too much. Just need to glue a bit of trim back on and polish up a bit. Peter had booked us a gorgeous luxury flat right in the centre of Durham with a beautiful view of the castle. In order to get as many parking spaces as possible, whoever designed the flats had also come up with an ingenious mini multi-storey car park. Basically you have to drive you car onto a little platform in a garage then get out and shut the garage door. It then swallows your car downwards and stores it underground.
Apparently they have 10 cars stored like that. One on top of another. It was the weirdest thing and it would take about 6 or 7 minutes to get your car back, but at least I didn't have to look at the damage for the week……

After settling in, it was about 9pm, so I did the only thing one can do. Opened a beer and put the telly on.

Monday:

Have to admit it was nice not having to drive on a Monday morning and arrive at the venue and go straight to work. After a beautiful walk to the theatre through Durham city centre I arrived to find the get-in well under way. Durham is another venue I've done before, but not since 2008 so I couldn't remember much about it, but the moment I arrived it all came flooding back. The wonderfully warm and welcoming stage door team, the coded dressing room doors and the clean and modern feel. Most of the crew at Durham are casuals and not employed full time, but they are one of the friendliest and most hard-working I've met. I think it was my quickest sound get-in to date, it sounded fantastic in the venue and Tom, the guy helping me, was a good laugh as well - which always helps on a get-in day! Our cast all arrived about 4pm either fresh from the upgrade to a first-class train ticket or a bit bedraggled from a long car journey. And the show was a great success again. This was the furthest north in England Birdsong has ever done, so it was interesting to see how the show would be received there. It was a slightly different reaction to the one received in Salisbury the week before, but still a very positive one. After a quick drink in the bar, it was time for everyone to collect their heavy suitcases and head to their digs for the week. This week was a bit boys vs girls digs wise. Most of the lads in the company were staying out at Piercebridge, near Darlington, at an amazing manor house called Cliffe Hall which looks a bit like the Bennet's house from Pride and Prejudice (more photos of that to follow).

Lads party night

The boys there were Simon, Alastair, Jonny, GMoss and George and that night they all went back, had a few glasses and a bit of a lads party.
The girls, Carolin, Lizzie and Selma were all staying together a little way out of Durham, whilst Lucy, Sinead, James, Sam and Malcolm stayed in Durham.

Tuesday:

This in touring theatre is what is generally known as a 'lazy day'. If you're on the crew then you're generally a bit knackered from the previous day's get-in and (after a few beers the night before), a long lie in is definitely in order. It's not unusual for a few cast to be called in a bit earlier the next day to run any bits that may have caused problems the night before - which can be an issue depending on a venue's size or how different it is to the previous week, but normally everyone will be on 'show call' which means that we just come in to do the show.

Breakfast at Cliffe Hall

Out at Cliffe Hall, after a leisurely breakfast, GMoss and Jonny decided to use their spare time wisely at their country estate by exploring the grounds and learning a spot of fly fishing…..

Jonny learns how to cast off (or whatever it's called)

  

'What do you mean I'm not doing it right?!'

While Simon decided to spend his day broadening his knowledge of the outside world:

Wednesday:

This was matinee day. It's not all sitting about reading high quality toilet paper when you're on tour, you know. Although we do get a few days a week where we don't have to work until about 6pm, we more than make up for this on get-in days, matinee days and on Saturdays. On a matinee day, we'll usually be in from about 1pm although Sinead is generally in much earlier, between 10 and 11am in fact, to make sure all the costumes are freshly laundered and ready for the cast to wear. We then work through until about 10:30pm with about an hour's dinner break. It was on this dinner break that I had my first ever experience of Nando's - I'm vegetarian so haven't really felt the need to go all out on a chicken restaurant, but Sam took me and some others along (George had in fact once worked in a Nando's - fun fact of the day 1.) and I found that they do quite a nice line in grilled halloumi. We did the show twice to very nice audiences and then went out for pre-Sam's birthday, birthday drinks. It was actually to be his birthday on the Friday, but as we had two shows and then a get-out on the Saturday it was decided to go out on the Wednesday so people could have a lie-in the next day. Sam found a nice bar where it was only £3 per cocktail and a late night was had by some (some of us older and more decrepit ones went home a bit earlier to get our beauty sleep). Jonny and George paid an extortionate amount of money (...cough, £70) for a cab back to Cliffe Hall and then couldn't get in the door so woke Alastair at 4am. Alastair was to have his revenge on George the following day though…...

Thursday:

Thursday would see another bit of free time in the day for some, for others of us we will be doing an understudy rehearsal in the afternoon. I'm not sure if I've mentioned understudies on my blog yet, but basically on this tour we have a system called 'moving up'. This is quite common on tours of this size. If a cast member in a certain part is off sick, then the person on the next part down will move up into that role. For example, if Carolin, who plays Isabelle was to be off, then Selma, who plays Lisette would move up into her part and Lucy, who plays Marguerite would move up to play Lisette. Marguerite would then become a butler and be played by Roger, our CSM.
Are you with me?
Yes?
Good.
So, other understudies on this tour are Sam (who plays Evans, understudies Arthur Shaw and Tipper), Simon (who plays Arthur Shaw, understudies Berard and if James who plays Berard were to be off, Simon would have the enviable task of play both Shaw and Berard - this is to minimise the chance of having Sam not playing Evans as he is our musician and singer in that part too), as mentioned before, Selma understudies Isabelle, Lucy understudies both Lisette and Jeanne, Jonny would cover Levi if Alastair was to be off for playing one of his understudy parts and Alastair….. are you ready for this? Ok…. Alastair understudies…. Deep breath:
Stephen, Firebrace, Evans, Azaire, Gray, Barclay, Orderly, Turner, Adams and Wheeler (!). I don't think I've missed one.
Anyway, we have weekly understudy rehearsals which usually last about 3 hours where we make sure everyone who is covering knows where to stand, move and what to do both on and off stage (as they have to cover all of their character's scene and costume changes too) as well as knowing their lines.
So that's how some of us spent our Thursday afternoon and then after an hour's dinner break it was back in to do the show. Which brings me to a small sub-heading:

A very nice man:

I don't think that well known breakdown service use that phrase in their adverts anymore (are we still on the John Cleese in a sleeping bag ones or have we moved on from them?) and I'm probably showing my age by quoting it, but there we go. You should by now know what I'm talking about and so you can guess what might have happened.
Anyone who has worked with Alastair will have experienced, in some way, his cars. I say cars in the plural as there have been several. All called Omm. I remember Omm 3. Omm 3 caused Charlie (who played Tipper/Gregoire on the 2013 tour) a lot of problems last year in Basingstoke and we never really saw it again after about February and no one is really sure what happened to it. Omm 4 appeared some time in the spring and has been with us ever since. So, Alastair was driving himself and George back to the country estate in Darlington when he realised there was a problem. The clutch had gone and Omm 4 stopped. And wouldn't restart.
And so it was time to call 'the very nice man' and get rescued. But the trouble was that 'the very nice man' took quite a while getting there and while Alastair seemed able to keep his spirits up, after about 2 hours, and bearing in mind that he had just spend the last 2 and a half hours on stage in a physically and mentally exhausting role, I think that maybe, just maybe, George had stopped seeing the funny side…..

Having just broken down, George was in good spirits whilst Alastair worked on his pout

Poor Omm 4

A Very Nice Man….

George is no longer amused, although Alastair seems to have decided
to improve his maniacal grin for future castings 

Alastair is still cheery and the 'nice man' is getting in on the action

All turned out good in the end……..

Friday: 

Sam's birthday Uke - brilliantly thought up by
George Banks

Friday was pretty much a recovery day from the night before. Alastair got together a recuse team (basically all the boys at Cliffe Hall) to go and tow Omm 4 to a garage where it could be repaired. GMoss has the most beautifully kept Jag you have ever seen, but as he was the only one with a tow bar, he had the job of towing the more unattractive Omm 4. He wisely didn't let Alastair steer behind him, but Simon did instead.
Otherwise we all got up to our own things and had a peaceful day looking around the beautiful city of Durham (our Associate Director, Charlotte Peters was a student here - fun fact of the day 2.). When we got to the theatre that evening, it was time to present Sam with his birthday presents. A ukelele signed by the whole company and an air hockey game. Later it was just a couple of birthday drinks in order due to the two shows the next day.
It was also time to celebrate the addition of another Alastair Whatley nickname. So far we have: Cuckoo, Bear, Goat, Betty Boop and Walrus (have you guessed who's who yet?). The previous evening Selma and I had given Alastair inspiration for the nickname 'The Woolf'. Answers on a postcard please, I'm not telling just yet!


Saturday:

Birthday Meal for Sam in between shows

Most of us were staying over in Durham on the Saturday night, which in itself is quite an unusual occurrence as most people (myself included) like to get home on a Saturday whenever possible, but with us being so far north, it wasn't really possible. A few people did brave the journey in a (hired and brand new) Fiat 500 Estate that Alastair had suddenly found that he needed (wonder why?) and apparently made quite good time. For all of us staying, Peter had had the quite brilliant idea of hosting a late night dinner party at our flat. Sinead and I joined after we had finished our parts of the get-out and got in to find Peter cooking up a storm of pasta, all with lashings of red and white wine. This was a really nice thing to do and I think as we look to venues like Dundee, Cork and Belfast, something we will find ourselves doing again. We still managed to have an early night though as some people had 8am trains the next day which would take them back to London and Kent. I, however, was going straight on to Birmingham, which leads me to my final heading….

Sunday:

I love a road trip and it was a beautiful day when I drove to Cliffe Hall to pick up Jonny for our journey to the West Midlands. As I drove up the drive to the main house, I really couldn't believe my eyes. I had heard that the house and grounds were nice, but this was something else entirely:

Imagine staying here for a week. Amazing. Well found Alastair Whatley

 Jonny was off to slightly less attractive digs (Aston University Halls of Residence), as was I (Bull Ring Travelodge), but we made our merry way and Jonny had the added bonus that on the journey down we were able to listen to Liverpool thrash Man United at the football.

So, off to Birmingham and official press night……….

Must just add:

Two things here that I really must mention and neither of them really have anything to do with Birdsong, I'm afraid.

1. When Original Theatre stayed at Cliff's Hall with 'Three Men in a Boat', they made a film called 'Three Men Go Downton', a take on Downton Abbey. It's quite hysterical, so please do take a look at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4DEqPlFx2E

2. You may have seen the hype over the 'First Kiss' video that's been in the media. I haven't actually seen it, but know it's about what happens when people who've never met before are asked to kiss for the first time. Well, where I'm going with this, it that our 2013 Birdsong Tour's Jack Firebrace, Tim Treloar, has made a parody of it. And it's funny. Very funny. And Patrick Stewart apparently tweeted about it. So have a look at this too. Let's get him to 10,000 views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Fig7IQ4o9wA&app=desktop

Ta.

Salisbury: Week 4

Salisbury: Week Four

It's a new one on me:

I've never played Salisbury Playhouse before so I was quite interested to see what it was going to be like. It's not only a receiving house but also produces a lot of its own theatre and therefore has a full time in-house production team who were in the middle of rehearsing shows of their own. When I arrived I did see a familiar face though, Christine Hollinshead who I've worked alongside for Jordan Productions on their pantomime seasons and is CSM of Fareham panto, is employed there as one of the stage management team and was busy working away on the in-house shows. That's the thing about theatre it really can seem like a really small world at times. Sinead, our wardrobe supervisor has worked for Salisbury before and so she knew all of the ropes and who was who. And can I just say that everyone in the building remembered her and was delighted to see her (which shows what a gem she really is!).

As with Tunbridge Wells the previous week, Salisbury presented us with a bit of a challenge when it came to putting the set in. It has a large thrust stage (which means that the front of the stage 'thrusts' past the traditional boundaries of the stage and into the audience) and means that the cast would be a lot further back from the audience than usual. 

Roger, our CSM, putting the set up and then realising the
crew had taken the stairs down again

Now for me it was completely different. I usually am at whats called a 'prompt desk' (traditionally in the downstage left wing area) where I operate the sound and cue the lighting and fly cues and also use cue-lights to cue the actors or stage management for a scene change. Now, I promise you when I tell you this that I am telling the absolute truth: A prompt desk in the stage right wing is officially called a 'bastard prompt' - honestly, it's true. Look it up if you don't believe me. Done? Good. At Salisbury I was not only bastard prompt, but I was actually in a recessed area (which I named my grotto) which runs alongside the left side of the auditorium and above the audience. It also has a little window which I could open to see the show out front. This was great for me as I've never properly seen the show from out front with all the lighting and costume.  It took a bit of jiggling to get the sound control system into the grotto but Mark (my sound guy for the day) and his lads were great and managed to squeeze it in by taking bits off the door and floor.

 When I arrived, GMoss and Roger had most of the set up already, except that Roger had gone up onto the raised section of the set and the crew had cheekily taken the stairs away again…..

Mark squeezing the sound control into the grotto

My 'Grotto'

The Prompt desk
(and all important sweets)

Peter coming to say hello - to his left was the
downstage right arch entrance

Simon and Peter as viewed (and zoomed in)
from my window

View of the company warm-up

Whatley's Return: 

Alastair fixes bayonets in rehearsal alongside Lucy and Elizabeth

Now, I have already spoken about Alastair's acting roles in the production, and this week was was to see him gain another. In addition to Turnwright (The Sapper), The Military Policeman (who has no name) and Levi (The German Soldier), this week was to see the return of Brennan (The Irish Infantryman). Yes folks. We were about to send our Director over the top. It's a pretty crucial part of the production and if you haven't yet seen it (why?) then I won't spoil it by going into too much detail, but suffice to say it's a pretty moving scene. The very first time we did this in the technical rehearsal last year, I was floored. The lighting, sound and incredible yet subtle acting in this short scene is incredibly powerful and an image that can't be forgotten easily. As I'm operating and cueing everything during this scene it can also be a bit scary for me as I constantly worry that one night I might mess it up. It was horrible those first few weeks last year, as it is so realistic that I almost felt as if I really was sending them to their deaths (I know that might sound dramatic, but the silence from the audience and then tumultuous applause that follows speaks for itself). Anyway, I once again, digress. Basically, we were about to kill our director. No, not really, but it was still something that needed a bit of extra rehearsal to make sure that we got it right. But Alastair was brilliant and coped with fixing his bayonet brilliantly as well as being suitably terrified (acting wise, I mean!).

Jonny Clarke was completely floored by Alastair's acting

Alastair in performance as viewed through
my window

Tedworth House:

On the Tuesday, our company was privileged enough to be invited to visit Tedworth House, one of four recovery centres run by Help for Heroes which aids and speeds the recovery of those of our armed forces who have been wounded or suffered illness. Not just open to serving members, it also caters for our veterans as well on either a residential or  day care basis. Once here, residents or day visitors can receive a range of treatments, therapies and courses to either help them to a position where they are able to return to duty or allow them to integrate back into civilian life. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the visit, but Alastair, Roger and some of our cast spent a morning there being shown around the facilities (which includes an indoor ski simulator!) by members of the Help for Heroes team. You may already know that Birdsong is a supporter of Help for Heroes and we regularly have bucket collections as the end of our show. If you wish to learn more about the work done by Tedworth House, please follow this link

http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/how-we-help/recovery-centres/tidworth-wiltshire/

Some of our company at Tedworth House

                                   

Thank you Salisbury:

I feel that there are so many things I could say about Salisbury and what a great week we had, but I am afraid I have to keep this blog reduce to just highlights otherwise I would run the risk of making this blog even longer than I'm sure it is already. Here's a few more things that happened during the week:

1. Carolin, the digs booking queen: Carolin managed to find the most incredible digs for us for the week at Bridge Farm where we each had amazing en-suite bedrooms in a rambling old farm house complete with Jane Austen style portraits on the stairs, a piano and a wonderful farmhouse style kitchen (watch out Simon, you could be overtaken here as the digs master……)

2. I promised I would mention the wonderful Sam Martin and his (much appreciated) regard and respect for his radio mic - leaving it beautifully coiled for me each night once he was done with it. 

 3. My car passed its M.O.T - but unfortunately Durham has despoiled it (more about that next week).
Seriously - I know you're not really interested in this, I am just being…..annoying.

4.We really got to meet a great bunch of people at Salisbury Playhouse and a big thanks must go to all of them for their hard work and support throughout the week. Such a welcoming theatre, it would be difficult to name them all, but thank you to Mark, Peter, Ricky, Fiona, Christine and Phil particularly.

5. Sebastian came to visit us and see the show and was, as always, charming and supportive and it was lovely to see him.

6. Peter went for a walk in The New Forest and came across a wild pony which he then followed. It led him to a clearing where other wild ponies were and he was able to get really close to them. He's got some great pictures and video footage of this, but here's just one:

A few of us have remarked at how fast the weeks are going now. Before we know it it will be July! I leave you with this final photo - and perhaps the first glimpse some of you will actually have had of me:

Me in my Grotto

Toodle pip!

Tunbridge Wells: Week 3

Tunbridge Wells

Sunny Tunny:

Ah. Tunbridge Wells. Its been a while. In fact, I was trying to remember whether it was 2009 or 2010 when I last was last there.
That's the odd thing about touring. Some venues you can remember exactly, from the names of all the crew down to what dressing room you had. I spent about 4 years touring pretty much solidly from 2007 to 2011, with the odd break for Panto or a weekly rep season, so some venues on this tour I have been to several times before. I think that I'm going to go with 2010 being the last time I was there with 2008 being the first.
Tunbridge Wells itself is a great town for me. As mentioned before, it's commutable from Eastbourne and so I get to sleep in my own bed (actually, my own bed is currently a futon in my lounge but that's a story for a later date) and I had some company for the commute this time. GMoss was also staying in Eastbourne (and that is another story that I'll come to later in this blog). It's a nice town with a good shopping centre and plenty of pubs and restaurants to keep members of the company who are staying there busy.

Challenge Anneka:

So, hands up who remembers that show? I used to love it ( I remember it being quite similar to another show that had some Blue Peter bloke in it…….!) and so I do actually quite like it when a theatre venue is a bit of a challenge. The Assembly Hall, Tunbridge Wells is big. Very big. It's a bit like a hall with moveable seats rather than a traditional theatre and the auditorium seems to go back for miles:

Assembly Hall Auditorium with me sound checking and GMoss doing something.
Remember the tallescope, it will come up again in future weeks and THERE WILL BE A TEST……
(Picture taken by Simon Lloyd - don't want him moaning about not getting a credit…..)

As it's not a traditional venue, certain adjustments have to be made to the set and the lighting and sound. At the very back of the auditorium, for example, there is no speaker coverage at all, so it may sound fantastic from down the front, but we have to make sure that we sound check from the back as well to make sure that any audience there can get the same experience. 

Another example is the masking (basically making sure that the audience can't see anything other than what it intended on the set - we don't want them seeing all of the cast doing quick changes, or lighting equipment, etc). Roger and GMoss will spend time making sure that every area is covered so no one sees anything they shouldn't. Focusing the front of house lights as well is a challenge in itself. In a traditional theatre, most of the front of house lighting would be  accessible from either the auditorium, by being hung of the front of the dress circles, or from going into the roof, but as you can see from the above picture, that because the auditorium goes straight back with no levels above each other, the lights have to be focused in a particular way. This means getting the tallescope (which auto-correct keeps trying to change to telescope), which is usually just used to focus the on stage lights, into the auditorium from backstage.

But it's not just us backstagers who are affected by challenges in a venue. The cast all had to make adjustments too and they were delighted to find……that the door stoppers were back! Yes, we were on another raked stage, so after the ease of Cheltenham and not having to contend with the stopper, they then had to factor it back into scene changes. Now, on the face of it, this might seem like a small thing and it is really, when you consider the mammoth quick changes some of them have to do, but so many of the scene changes are timed to sound or music cues that it does mean the cast have to change the speed of which they're doing things or start slightly earlier to make sure that they still get it all done on time. 

Holiday?:

During the week we had something very unusual on a tour. A day off. 

Normally on weekly touring, you will run from either the Monday or the Tuesday until the Saturday with two matinees. So, in the world of touring, you quite often don't get a full day off if you open on a Monday as the Sunday is a travel day. This is probably harder for GMoss and Roger as they usually finish around 1- 1:30am on a Saturday night and then have to travel to the next venue on a Sunday ready to start at 8am on the Monday. Sinead and I usually finish around 11:30pm on a Saturday and arrive around 11-12 on the Monday so we do get a bit more time. However, this week there was another show booked in on the Thursday so we had an unexpected day off! We had a mini get-out to do on the Wednesday, to make sure that the incoming company had enough dressing rooms and space on stage, but after that we were free until 6pm on the Friday! (Note to Producers everywhere - this was really, REALLY good!!!)

Signed Performance:

Tunbridge Wells also saw us having our first signed performance. Please excuse me as I go off on a slight tangent about how important this work is to theatre audiences. Audio description (where partially sighted or blind patrons listen to description of the action through headsets) and signed performances are something that are not offered in every venue anymore. This is mainly due to budget cuts, plain and simple. I don't think I need to go on about the whys and hows these shows are important, it should be pretty obvious. When I worked in weekly rep, we used to have audio described performances every week, done by volunteers who would watch a show, then rehearse during another and then do the actual description towards the end of the week. That would be three days that would be given up out of their own time to offer this service. This was then stopped due to council budget cuts. This means that for a lot of shows, particularly the farces where there is almost constant action, our blind and partially sighted patrons couldn't experience the full show and things would make less sense to them. This is why it's so good to be able to offer audio described, signed or captioned (where there are screens with the dialogue on)shows wherever possible. The great thing with Birdsong is, that because it is so sound based with the explosions and gunfire, we can really get the auditorium vibrating with the effects which run alongside what the signer is doing in order to make everyone's experience as full as possible. Emma, our signer in Tunbridge Wells, did a fantastic job during the Tuesday show, and took a bow along with the cast. 

I didn't expect to give my mini rant about funding cuts, so I apologise and will move on to lighter things.

Entertainment:

Because of Tunbridge's location to London, a fair few of the company were commuting and so it wasn't our most social week but we did manage to get a few jars in at the local pub which is part of a well known chain whose name rhymes with Heather Loons. I mention it as it is actually in the old opera house and so you can enjoy your drink either in the stalls, the orchestra pit or on the stage. When I first went there in 2008, I thought it was the most depressing thing in the world, but I have to admit that I have completely come round to it now. Operas and shows are still staged there occasionally and actually it's much better that it is used in this capacity that shut down completely. So, nice one Heather Loons. 

On the Friday and Saturday nights I had a house guest in the form of GMoss, which was nice and we had a bit of a jam session on the Friday night with me on (drunken) piano and him on (drunken) guitar. Suffice to say that no music contracts were being offered the next day…….

Now, I know that all theatre companies are meant to be a hot-bed of drunken debauchery and sexual intrigue with us transporting well known celebrities at high speed on the motorway (well, that's what car insurance companies seem to think anyway) and you are probably terribly disappointed that I haven't told you about any of this yet. All I have to say to that is, be patient. It will come, my friends (probably) and I promise to divulge all (probably not) to you in good time……...

A special mention does have to go to the Assembly Halls press and marketing team. They really were excellent during the week and they kept twitter buzzing with news of the show and reviews, so thank you guys!