York: Week 7

York: Week 7

Rhubarb Crumble:

A strange heading, you say? Not to me or anyone familiar with Original Theatre's last offering at The Theatre Royal, York. Well, actually. It might be…. When we toured 'The Private Ear, The Public Eye' last autumn our final track was 'Concrete and Clay' by… Area 51? Something like that. Where I'm going with this (and I promise you that I am going somewhere with it) is that there was a line about 'feet begin to crumble', which Paul Bouchier, our CSM, changed to 'I want a rhubarb crumble'. Hilarious, I know. Anyway, I mention it because I had it in my head all day during the York fit up. I'd managed to get down to Devon on the Sunday to see my mum for a pre-Mother's Day, Mother's Day and had a really nice day out, but it did mean that I had to tackle the 5 hour drive to York (normally only 4 - bloody M5 road works. You have forsaken me…) very early on the Monday morning and I was in a singing mood having belted out a few numbers on the drive up. We were only in York in November so it felt like we hadn't been gone too long and it was great to see al the guys, particularly the wonderful QOS Nick who was my sound guy for the day, Zanna on lighting (who replaced Liam who moved to Birmingham Rep - remember from last week?) and one of my favourite stage door keepers, Brian. 

History Lesson:

I don't know it you've ever been to York, but it's an old Roman City (a bit like Exeter where I hail from), however, there is evidence that it dates back much further than that. See, this is where I am in danger of becoming a bit (more?) boring. I didn't always work in theatre. My degree is actually in Archaeology (from Exeter, over 10 years ago, so you can look forward to me regaling you with stories about my mad University days when we're there in May) - well, Russian and History first and then Archaeology…. As you can see, I am putting my University studies to good use… Actually, I did make up some labels for Russian vodka bottles for a farce in 2005 and wrote and taught an actor how to read the back of a Russian tin of tuna once. But I (as usual) digress. We're not talking about me, we're talking about York. So, although it may bore some of you I am going to tell you a bit about York (please feel free to skip to section four if you wish). 

York: Founded by the Roman 9th Legion in cAD 71, who came across it whilst on their way north from Lincoln and named it Eboracum, York was the site of government for the whole of the Roman Empire on two occasions (the governing city being wherever the Emperor was). Most famously it was residence for a time for Constantine The Great, who 'created Christmas' (in its current form - I'm sure you know about it originally being a pagan festival) - he was actually the first real 'Christian' emperor and responsible for the unification of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Roman York thrived for a time, but by AD 400 as the the Romans fled Britain, it was all but abandoned. 

James and Simon in The Shambles

I'm going to try to keep this brief - I've gone on enough already and I haven't forgotten that this is a theatre blog not a history one! After what is known as the 'sub-Roman' period, York became known as Eoforwic in the Anglo-Saxon period and, along with London and Ipswich, was one of the main centres for commercial production in the country. Then the Vikings came in AD 866 on All Saints Day, took control of the city and it became known as Jorvik and was not, by all accounts, a particularly pleasant place to live. Imagine scenes similar to those we think of when picturing the cholera outbreak in London in the 19th Century. Squalid living conditions, waste in the streets, unhygienic food and water, it certainly would bear no resemblance to the beautiful city that we were in. I'm going to stop now. I've (badly) covered two of the most famous periods of York's history (and I do apologise to anyone who has a much better and deeper knowledge of its history than me - I know I've just sketched), but if you do want to learn a bit more about York and its history, please go to www.visityork.org.uk or www.historyofyork.org.uk (excellent site - thanks for confirming dates), or better yet, try to visit if you ever find yourself in the area. It's beautiful, the old walls still survive and you can take a historical walk around them (as did Sinead and Lucy and Alastair and Simon) seeing all the buildings that still stand. I went out in search of a well known stationary shop/newsagents/book store that isn't Woolworths (MISS IT!) and got promptly lost. I'm ok around the theatre location wise, but as soon as I set foot in The Shambles (York's rambling cobbled maze of lanes with a variety of shops inside leaning and creaking Medieval and Tudor buildings) I get completely lost. 

York's walls

Simon wondering if it's safe...

Cuckoo and Bear Scale York's Walls:

I don't think this needs any further explanation. Let's say that Bear's (Simon's) attempt was a little more successful than Cuckoo's (Alastair's):

Back in Theatreland:

Right. Welcome back if you've skipped straight to this section. We've taken a short trawl through bits of York's history and I'm trusting that those who didn't skip are still awake? 

So. The Theatre Royal is a beautiful building parts of the old walls are still visible backstage (our stage right props table was actually a sort of workbench in a alcove of the the old wall). York is another producing house, similar to Salisbury, and so the in-house team were busy working on their owns shows as well as ours. As usual Jude, their head of productions, was there to greet the whole company and give us a health and safety briefing, as well as letting us know how best to get about the building, what codes we needed to know and (most importantly) what discounts were available from the marvellous cafe front of house (excellent brownies by the way). 

York Theatre Royal Warm-up

Simon warms up…. Do you see how high the stage is? Look at his leg!!!

Ever wondered how backstage/lighting/sound etc know when to start a show? Ever sat in an auditorium and seen people turning back to glare at the lighting box or the sound position looking grumpy because they can see that the auditorium doors are shut but the show hasn't started? (Please don't ever do that by the way. It is very rarely the fault of the technician in the box or at the sound desk's fault that it's late starting. It's far more likely to be that an actor has locked him or herself out whilst having a cigarette or there's been some sort of prop malfunction backstage. There is nothing anyone out front can do to make it start more quickly….) Anyway, for the uninitiated, we have this thing in theatre land called 'clearance'. This will usually be given by the front of house or duty manager to the DSM (me) either via the in-house stage manager or the lighting box by radio, by phone or in person. For example, I'm writing this in Worthing. Here it is radioed to Martin in the lighting box and he tells me over cans (headset with mic). In Birmingham the front of house manager came backstage. In York, it is given by…. 'BAT PHONE!' There's a phone backstage and a blue light on the prompt desk which flashes instead of the phone ringing and then I pick it up and speak to front of house. When I was in York last Halloween I was so impressed with this bat phone that I made a bat sign on it so it flashed like the bat signal (it can get cold and boring on tour in the dark months….) and I was delighted to see that this was still in situ. It was my intention to turn it into a Birdsong phone, but I'm afraid that I didn't get round to it…

BAT PHONE!!!!!!

FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!!:

So much happened in York and I am, once again, in danger of this blog becoming longer than my dissertation (on the Rosetta stone, if anyone's interested I can probably find a copy somewhere…), but I do have to tell you a couple of bits that happened on the social side.
The boys had their boy house in Durham, so we girls had our girl house in York. Lucy had found the bargain this time and had even managed to get the price knocked down a bit more for her, myself, Selma, Lizzie and Carolin. We were had our own townhouse about a 10 minute walk from the theatre, with a little garden, a (very) small parking space for Ernie, big airy rooms and a nice kitchen which became the hub of the house. We had a great time and on more than one occasion stayed up quite late having a good gossip. One night I went for a drink with the lads as the girls said that they were going home for  sober night to watch 'The Little Mermaid'. Were they heck as like. I came back after about an hour to find them in the kitchen drinking wine and vodka, eating crisps and chatting away. So, I did the only thing possible and joined in. Two particular girlies (who will remain nameless) had a very late night indeed, but still managed to be bright and bushy the next….afternoon! 
It wasn't just our house though, Sinead was with a few of the lads and they had a pool table and a jukebox in their basement, so there was a bit of a boys evening over there one night and more than a few beers were drunk.

York is also amazing for having so many secret pubs hidden away and Sam found a fantastic one: On Wednesday night, as I was leaving the theatre I received the following text from Alastair:

'The House of Trembling Madness. Go to evil eye. Keep walking down 3 or 4 doors. There's an off license. Go in there and upstairs…'

Weirdly that made perfect sense. The Evil Eye was a pub that the guys had been to before. There they had an amazing assortment of spirit bottles and George found a shot glass pourer shaped like a tommy gun…. So, I went past The Evil Eye and lo and behold a few doors down was an off licence. In I went and asked 'Is this the house of the trembling madness…?' Yep. I was in the right place. Up the stairs I went and there was a real gem of a pub. If you're not keen on stuffed animal heads then it may not be the place for you, but otherwise it's a cosy little upstairs pub with original beams, a selection of real ales and extremely generous servings of wine……

George and The Evil Eye's spirit collection

Tommy Gun Shot Glass Pourer

House of Trembling Madness

Alastair and  Jonny with stuffed heads behind them

Malcolm with the 'generous' serving of wine

After the trembling madness a few of us more hardy souls decided that we wanted an extra 'snifter' or two and so Alastair, Selma, myself and George went off in search of a bar that we had found back in October. Yeah. Right. We couldn't find it, of course, and so settled for a random bar that seemed to be still open. Can't remember the name, but they did two for one cocktails and they are somewhere in York and open late…. We had a good laugh and I even got chatted up (and I know this will amaze you to know, but this is not something that happens that often) by a very nice rugby playing chap called Nick. Is it this it, you ask? Is this the week when we shall FINALLY get the stories of sexual intrigue and debauchery???

No.
Sorry.
I sent him on his merry way - after drinking one of his cocktails (priorities).
But I do have some nudity for you later on in the blog…..

So, that was Wednesday and Thursday nights. The next night some people needed a bit more of a quiet one. Some of the boys went for a curry and then George joined Sinead and I for…….
A SHOW BAR!

Monroe's Show Bar

Nick, my sound guy for the get-in also works in a place called Monroe's, which is not too far from the theatre. On Fridays and Saturdays they have drag acts from about 10:30 - 12:30am and stay open until 2am. Nick invited us along and we had a great night. We were very good (and I didn't drink -this is part of the 'dry 45' which I'll tell you about at a later date) as we had two shows the next day and so didn't stay very late. But, we did see Marilyn, Liza (fabulous) and Cilla and even saw one audience member getting a make-over to 'Popular' from 'Wicked'. If you are in York then do go along as it's a good night. George suffered a bit of a war wound and got a bit of glass embedded in his hand, but was brilliantly looked after by the staff there. It had been a bit of a few weeks for war wounds. If you've seen the show, then you'll know that Alastair comes on at the end and he and George hug. One night in Durham the hook from the hook and eye in Alastair's jacket had become away from the material. When he hugged George, the hook somehow got up George's nose and when he pulled away from Alastair the hook ripped his nose! He had to do the whole of the last part of the play bleeding! 
Then, halfway through York week, a screw that holds the floor down had come loose during the tunnel scene. When Peter ran on for the last tunnel scene he put his hand right on it…. Owww. They really are brave boys on this tour and Peter carried on as normal despite a bleeding hand!

George and Sinead in Monroe's

While Sam and George had a curry…..

And were a bit tired the next day…...

But you can't have fun without a bit of work too. On the Tuesday morning Jonny and Alastair had a radio interview with Minster FM which was a great success.

Jonny and Alastair hard at work

And then, on the Saturday…. It was our 50th show! This meant that Malcolm, myself and GMoss had done 254 performances in total and Sinead 253! This was celebrated with a spot of 'who can balance on one leg on a crate/stool for the longest' competition. George won, but Peter was a close second with his crane pose. George then presented the company with a celebratory gift of giant cookies for all diets. Nice one George. 

There was also a new nickname. Carolin is now 'The Otter' and Alastair even found her a chocolate one that he thought looked like her. It lasted about an hour before it got eaten…...

George doles out the celebratory cookies

The balancing competition

It's down to the final two…. Peter and George take
it seriously

What do you think? Does it look like her?

Then, after the get-out, George and I set off for a late night road trip to Eastbourne (via Watford) - George challenged me to a variety of car games and won them all (rigged) whilst we navigated the stupid roadworks and diversions that seem to constitute the M1 at the moment…

And that was York.
A grand old week indeed.

It's such a brilliant theatre to work in and I'm sure all the company would join me in thanking everyone there for making it so easy and enjoyable. Hope to see you all again soon!

Worthing next. And I am at home! Yes!

Oh…. I promised you nudity, didn't I? 
Teenage girls of the world, you can now thank me. 
Who needs One Direction when you've got…..

JONNY!

Wha' ya lookin' at?

EXTRA! EXTRA! BIRMINGHAM EXTRA!!!

EXTRA! EXTRA! BIRMINGHAM EXTRA!!!

National Press Night Incident:

I do have to apologise, I completely forgot to mention in my last blog an incident which happened on the Tuesday in Birmingham (I apologise to Simon, in particular as he was most distressed to see that I hadn't mentioned it!).

If you've seen the show then you will know that Jonny Clarke, who plays Tipper/Gregoire throws a grenade in the first tunnelling scene which blows up some Germans who have broken through to the British tunnel. It may surprise you to know, as it is fairly dark in this scene and happens quite quickly, that he does actually throw something (although obviously not a grenade….). It's made of rubber and has a little nub on the end - it's pretty realistic, except for the fact that we keep it a bit of an orange colour so that it catches the light and shows up better. It's the same one that Charlie G Hawkins used last year and boasted that he would successfully throw exactly through the fairly narrow opening that leads in to the wings for every one of the 204 performances. He didn't. Although he was a fair way along the tour before he missed and 'hit the goalpost', as it were. 

So. We've had some fun with the grenade over the last year and a half. Its hit the door, the doorframe, Emily Stride (Marguerite and German soldier last year), Lucy Grattan (Marguerite and German soldier this year), it's gone into the hat of an already dead German soldier and into the auditorium a few times, it's hit me, GMoss, ricocheted off various pieces of furniture in the wings, even ended up in the fly cage and once in Malvern it (slightly terrifyingly) nearly hit the GO button on the sound desk…. But, it has never hit an audience member before. Until now. In Birmingham. On National Press Night…..

It was a beautiful throw as well by Jonny. It soared through the air in a beautiful arc, hit the door frame and bounced off an into the auditorium where it hit… the face of Matt Barningham who was happily enjoying the show with his friend Katy. 

Thankfully he was unharmed and completely saw the funny side (and the cast gave him and Katy some signed programmes - which contained all manner of references to the grenade). So, thank you Matt for being a good sport and also for returning the grenade at the end of the show! 

Here's one more glimpse of the culprit with the offending object . He has promised to continue to improve his aim…. (he hit me in the shoulder with it the other day!)

Jonny and the grenade……

York blog to follow soon!

Laters…..

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.