It's a long drive from Stamford to Swindon, made slightly longer by having no music in the car. This is my only grumble about our tour waggon, a huge silver 1999 Mondeo, but other than that it's been stoical and reliable transport. In the Republic of Ireland, when things did go awry, it had the good sense to break down on a day off rather than abandoning us, say, in heavy snow (which we saw later in Enniskillen) or during a monsoon (Cookstown). And as we sat broken down outside Listowel, about a dozen of Kerry's finest sons stopped to offer us help (although several admitted later that without Alice, Amy and Anna in the car, Jamie and I would've been left to our fates).
The pressure of opening night in Swindon is doubly exacerbated by a visit from our producer/director Michael (who often watches when we open in a new venue) and the presence of my family, some of whom haven't seen me on stage since school (many would say my best work, actually). At curtain up I walk on feeling odd, and every gesture and word seems preposterously exaggerated for the first few minutes. This inital clumsiness I feel soon gives way to a cracking show, however, and the audience seems to grasp nuances which normally go unnoticed. It's a big theatre, though, and some interesting details between the characters are always lost in very large spaces.
No Travelodge for me tonight - much as I love them. Instead, the ample bosom of my family acts as a pillow for my vagabond's head.
No comments:
Post a Comment