Bentwater Roads: Blogging Out

The very last day of Bentwater Roads and I raised myself from my earthy grave that I had dug out for myself in the confederate tent (a make shift changing room for the girls constructed by Roger with an enormous confederate flag waving in the wind attached to the back flap). I cleared the picnic area of broken glass, half empty bottles and rubbish and then went to work cleaning the kitchen as the perculator began to brew it's dark, life giving, potion.

Max and Silki appeared soon afterwards, Silki finding the only thing I hadn't cleared from the picnic area - a beautiful green cashmere john lewis jumper - I felt irrationally under-appreciated by the gods for my efforts at cleaning.

Feeling not too great we waited for the other stayer-ons to join us for the convoy down to the reservoir. Diving into the water beside the small red brick bridge I could have killed Silki. ‘It's lovely' she had said ‘It's warmer than last time' she had reassured, ‘Bollocks' I had screamed as I resurfaced from water so cold my skin felt on fire.

Refreshing it was - so, still tired but no longer sleepy we headed into Woodbridge for Breakfast. The town was teaming with people for the Regatta and we had a 45 minute wait for our full English Breakfasts of varying sizes.

Back to base and Penny's excited voice talking about the tour of the base made me realised I had forgotten about the organized special cast and crew tour of the base that Jon and Bob Hale had organized for us, I was disappointed, annoyed and jealous all at once until Penny recommended I joined the audiences tour that was leaving at 2pm.

Jon gave me a free ticket - I guess in exchange for the bar duties last night and I was on the bus, seeing the secured areas for the nuclear weapon storage, the barracks, nuclear bomb shelters, former runways, a glimpse of a spitfire in one of the hangars and a graveyard of JAGs/jet planes that looked like fish skeletons with their large engines torn out and their wings clipped.

The afternoon show is a blur - which makes no sense at all since the lighting went astray and we were left in a permanent state of darkness at the back of the stage and bright light concentrated on the carpeted area representing the lounge in Rose Cottage (Charlie's childhood home).

Max had solved the problem by the interval, always the life saver and ever ready and professional, well done once again buddy for saving the day. Jon apologised to the audience in the interval and most feedback was that they hadn't realized.

I had never really completely understood what an amazing difference Fiona's lighting design made to the production. Her plots set an immediate and different atmosphere for each of the time periods and even suggested the mood and underlying tensions in the scene. A horrible panic for Max but an amazing lesson learnt by an unwittingly under-appreciative actor.

In the break I took the chance to devour one last burger from the great grill bar.

The final show was full of energy, vibrant and bouncy and people taking their final opportunity to try out every nuance of their character and every point of laughter or gravitas the play had to offer.

Sad goodbyes were said, sorry Jon and Steve that I missed saying goodbye to you, was amazing working with you both and with everyone at Eastern Angles. As I sit at the station waiting for my train back to London, surrounded by Latitude-goers in their collage of purchased icons of mass produced individualism, I can only think that I have had an amazingly fortunate experience and summer in 2010, scorching weather, a part in a massively acclaimed show (top 5 must see shows of 2010 in The Independent), engulfed in a theatre company which is more of large, happy, loving family than a commercialized entertainment machine and the honour of working in such an eccentric space with so many talented individuals, technicians, designers, directors and actors.

Thank you, Ivan, for choosing me all that time back in London to be the Pilot and the Mason - it has been amazing.

Thank you to all of you, who have read or will read this blog - hopefully this is not goodbye for good but goodbye for now, as I would love to come back to Suffolk and back to Eastern Angles - fingers crossed, eh?

Much Love - Alex