Bentwater Roads: Eyes Front! It's The Costume Parade!

Today Peter (our replacement Tony) and Nadia went through the Mal and Charlie scenes until it was time for a costume parade in front of the designer Keith and our director Ivan. We came out in reverse chronological order of the timelines. The contemporary costumes fitted the characters perfectly, Nadia was excited by her dual length combat trousers and Mark will be wearing a brilliantly Jez-esque T- Shirt with the words ‘Sorry Girls, I only date Models" written on the front. I squeezed into my flight kit as the pilot and as Trina (my girlfriend) had requested I sent her a photo via my mobile.

The costume department have been so busy making all the pagan costumes and footwear, sourcing the different bits of contemporary costume, hiring the commander's and pilot's uniform and all the wonderful medieval garb as well as sewing the most amazing medieval gown for Sally as the widow Middleton. Not only have they been slaving away until their arms are stuck to the sides of their chest like penguins wings from sitting in front of the sewing machines, they have done a brilliant job. Very few changes were asked for and Cherilyn and Kelly happily pinned and made note of the needed adjustments. We are really lucky to have such a fabulous crew and they even spoiled us by bringing in doughnuts, mmm... doughnuts...

Afternoon rehearsals were the pilot/commander scene with Peter and me. Peter quickly got to grips with the scene and slipped into a ‘I love the smell of Napalm in the morning' style Texan accent. It's a great relief to see how able Peter is and he has a great attitude and earthed quality that has made us all confident that he'll manage to pull of this quite mammoth task of joining us so late in rehearsals.

As we rehearsed I was trying madly to keep the football out of my head. I was brought up in New Zealand and my father is Italian. I was hoping above hope for a miracle New Zealand win against Paraguay who were top of their group and a draw with Slovakia to Italy to get New Zealand through. Unfortunately I missed the games but not a miracle as the outcomes were more or less what I'd expected, though I do think New Zealand did well to draw with Paraguay, Enough football, as this is a rehearsal blog after all.

We did a run of the first act of the play in the late afternoon and everything fitted together really well. The Ram's Horn now is consistently sounding throughout the Pagan scenes. I think I managed to touch a bit more on the high energy needed for my American Pilot and Ivan jumped up and read in for Sally which was great fun to watch especially when Richard (the Pagan Priest) reached out and grabbed Ivan's manly arms and proclaimed "WOMAN, you have given much..."

I think we are all feeling confident, if a little tired and I'm sure we all want to congratulate Peter on a great first day of rehearsals and say to Tony that we miss him.