Doncaster: Week 15

Doncaster: Week 15

Bank Holiday charm:

When you work in theatre you don't often get Bank Holidays off. Quite often you don't even get a proper day off a week, especially if you're on tour as Sunday can be a travel day. Getting up at 8am to get on a packed sweaty train to arrive in a new city at lunchtime and find that you can't check into your digs until 4pm, and it's raining. Does that sound like a day off? If you're lucky enough to work in a subsidised repertory house (for example, Theatre By the Lake or Pitlochry) then you find that you probably will get bank holidays off, as the overtime for them will cost the theatre a lot of money. And if you don't get the time off? Well that's ok, because you get a nice payment for doing it. Generally in theatre though, particularly if you are a technician or a stage manager, you have to work on these days probably with no extra. 

Taking all this into account, you can probably see why we were pretty excited about Doncaster's tuesday opening and everyone had planned something nice for the time off. I hadn't realised at first that we did have the monday off and so had booked and paid for my Saturday night accommodation in Hull (normally I would head off either home or somewhere after I'd done the sound get-out) and as Doncaster was so close there didn't seem a lot of point in heading to Eastbourne or Devon. I decided to find somewhere really nice for the weekend and perhaps even the week. 

Sorry chaps, I'm going to do a bit of a plug here. I found a truly AMAZING place to stay for the week, about 12 miles outside of Doncaster, near a town called Bawtry is a place called Home Farm and Lodge. I won't go on too much about it, but it really is one of the nicest places I've stayed at on tour (and even on holiday!) and a very reasonable price. I had my own little studio type cottage set in the countryside (but handily also next door to the local pub), all beautiful, light and airy, but at the same time with traditional cottage features of beams and textured walls. The owners were really accommodating, even giving me a bottle of their homemade wine (delicious and moreish, but you had to go slow with it as it is quite strong)! I met up with a newly found friend at the local pub soon after I arrived and managed to do what most normal people get to do on bank holidays: have good food and a few beers with friends. If you ever are in the area and fancy staying at Home Farm and Lodge, then check it out at www.booking.com/hotel/gb/home-farm.en-us.html?sid=ad4a7b78e5eb2215735851bd69185f9a;dcid=2

A Whole New World:

As I mentioned in the last blog, Cast at Doncaster is a brand new venue and only opened in the autumn of last year. GMoss must have been one of the first people to work in it after it opened when he was touring with another show last year, but apart from him no one else in the company had worked there before. It is so new that you can practically still smell the wet paint!

Now, if you kept up with Polly's Birdsong blog, last year, you may remember my guest spot in Nottingham where I spoke (at some length, I know, I know) about what makes a great receiving venue. If you don't remember or didn't read it (huff) then here's the link to it again http://pollyhughesbirdsongthetour.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/nottingham-lauren-our-dsm-takes-you.html

I mention it because it's interesting to see how a brand new venue might measure up to this. A lot of older venues have little quirks and features that might be a hinderance in the modern day but cannot be changed, either for structural or heritage reasons. But a brand new venue has hundreds of years of theatre experience to draw on and so there for should be practically 'perfect'. Actually, that'd be setting standards pretty high and nothing can ever really be perfect, but it can come quite close. So how did Cast fair? 

Well, the load in is a big tick in the yes column. The truck can park right up to the dock, which is raised to exactly the right level so things can pretty much wheeled straight off. Next to the dock is a car park for all Cast members of staff and incoming companies. Tick number two.

Wing space is good and there's a separate storage area for flight cases etc. Plenty of dressing room space too, with some dressing rooms downstairs and some upstairs. A slight lack of downstairs toilets if you're dressing room is not down there, but you can manage! Swipe cards open pretty much every door to get in ad out of the building, so if you're a smoker you can get outside from backstage pretty easily. We were looked after by Dave on the stage side and Liam on the technical who, along with their friendly and hard working crew, got everything up and ready for the cast to arrive on the Tuesday all refreshed from their time off!

All in all Cast ticks a lot of the yes boxes on my 'what makes a great venue' list, and they're improving and changing bits all the time to make sure that it's the bestow can be. For example, there was a slightly strange thing going on with their in-house sound, which meant that it was great for their own in-house shows, but meant that certain parts of the system couldn't be split to be controlled by an incoming company. Callum, who works on sound, tried to split their surround system in the auditorium so I could tie into that, but unfortunately it couldn't be done how we needed it, but this is something that it getting worked on and improved. It's impossible really to plan out everything about a new venue before it has opened, somethings you won't find out until a show comes in so things are getting improved on all the time. There's a cafe/bar front of house which does a good cup of coffee and light food and accessibility is, as you would imagine from a new build, is excellent. As you may remember from Tunbridge Wells I am very keen on making theatre accessible to all and in Doncaster we had both a signed performance and an audio described on, with a touch tour beforehand (where visually impaired or blind can come onstage and tour the set, feeling all the props and costume). 

All shiny and new. Cast, Doncaster. 

Birthday Badger:

It was George's birthday (to continue with the birthday festival month that we seemed to be having!) and so, of course, more celebrations were in order. 

A night out at the karaoke was planned, which George insistent that everyone would have a go. This, naturally meant that Alastair would be giving some sort of Ronan Keating song in an Irish accent, but I have managed to get him away from singing that bloody Billy Joel song he likes to do that goes on forever. Last year, in Cardiff, I suggested to him that he gave Neil Diamond 'Sweet Caroline' a go and he does that beautifully and it seems to have replaced 'Piano Man' in his repertoire. (I feel that I should point out here that I really do like Billy Joel, particularly 'The Longest Time', but I'm sorry, 'Piano Man' is far, far, far too long for karaoke) But it was Sinead who was the dark horse of the evening, giving a brilliant rendition of Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights' that was the talk of the company for some weeks afterwards. 

A few of the more hardened souls continued to celebrate with our leading man into the wee hours and everyone had a great time. But it was Jonny who had the best time and I know he'll always have a special place in his heart for Doncaster….

Carolin and Simon duet at karaoke

Underpants:

The day after George's birthday we had an understudy speed run. This basically meant that we ran the whole play, but at speed and on a relatively bare stage, not doing the scene changes. We had a guest at the rehearsal as well; Anne-Marie, our producer, has family in the area and had come up to see them and us. It was pretty amusing watching everyone trying to dash about doing all their parts. Alastair had the hardest job as he tried to do Stephen, Firebrace, Azaire, Gray, Evans, Barclay, Adams, The Chaplain and even Marguerite (who will be given a male name in the event that Lucy is ever off)! This meant a lot of dashing about the stage and having conversations with himself, having to swing in accents from RP to Cockney, from Welsh to French and then to Scottish. Simon had the easy job, just doing Berard and even then managed to miss his only line and entrance in Act 2!

(Note: The heading for this is underpants simple because that's a name a friend of mine gave to understudy rehearsals many years ago and its stuck. Its not because they're pants or rubbish to do or anything like that. I promise you it was really funny at the time!)

Time to go:

It's odd, but there's something about opening on a Tuesday that makes a week seem really short. I don't know why. It's only a day less. But once you've done the get-in, had a matinee, then an understudy rehearsal and then possibly a morning and afternoon off and then another matinee, it feels like you haven't been somewhere for very long at all. 

I was very sad to say goodbye to my lovely Bawtry digs. I had been really cosy there for the week. I would have liked to have stayed for a few more days, but we had to move on to Colchester. The crew at Cast had a busy couple of days as there was a dance show going on in their other space and our female company were sharing the top floor of dressing rooms with youth dance groups. This meant some of the crew were working the dance show alongside our show and then having to come across to us and do the get-out. There was also an incoming show on Sunday morning, which meant that some of the crew couldn't work the Saturday or the get-out, so we didn't get to see everyone before we left, but thanks to all at Cast for looking after us so well. 

It was time to get to Colchester, somewhere I hadn't been since 2009 and I was keen to see if it had changed at all. It was also time for me to go back to Eastbourne for the first time in a month and see if my flat was still in one piece (it was), whether I had any post (bills) and see if my ex had remembered to water my plants (he had. Be nice when you split up with a partner boys and girls. You never know when you might need them….!)

An addition to Hull:

James the joker. James Staddon, owner of Bramley the beauty dog, player of Berard, Adams and Barclay, and joker extraordinaire. It had only recently come to my attention that he likes to prank about backstage, particularly when it comes to using any item that he might find in a theatre and using it to hilarious advantage. They'll be more about this in coming weeks. One night in Hull I had to pop off cans for a minute during the reunion scene and when I came back, I find James in position at my desk pretending to call the show and operate the sound!

Colchester:

Check back in a couple of days when Alastair will be writing a guest blog on our week in Colchester. Ever wondered what it's direct, produce and act in your own show? He'll be telling you more about what that's like. 

See you soon!