Bentwater Roads: Getting Our Groove On.

This is when things get a little more like work for us - not too much like work but a little. During the weekend when most people will be having a bbq, enjoying the park etc etc we'll be doing four performances of the show. The weather gods have decided to make this a challenge task as well by adding the extra factor of it being the hottest, muggiest weekend I can remember to date for this year and I'd venture to say the last four years (though then I fear treading into an ancient mariner style narrative ‘it were the day the sun sizzled your skin to leather and the air swam round your knees' - or something like that).

I started my day in what is becoming quite a good little habit; going for a jog twice around Christchurch Park. Then I wrote yesterday's blog as the sweat was still dripping from my wrist onto my laptop, very messy.

Ivan Hamilton (my 77 year old landlord) was up and he told me some great stories about his time in the merchant Navy and sailing through the ice at the South Pole. They would use the bow of the boat as a slow battering ram to hopefully split the large sheets of ice to give them passage through the frozen waters but sometimes they had to disembark and split the ice themselves or back the ship up and hit the ice with a bit more momentum on the reinforced steel hull. It sounded so exciting I was very jealous then he really made me green with envy by telling me about his voyages around Greenland, Iceland and the North Pole/Finland. Oh how I'd love to see the Aurora Borealis (the Northern lights - where the whole night sky is lit up in magnificent every moving colours, the effect is spectacular, google some images if you've never seen them before, Northern Norway, Sweden or Finland are the places to see this wonderful side effect of Solar Winds colliding and emitting photons in the upper atmosphere of the night sky).

Retiring to the lovely and spacious back garden I read through the entire script again. I wanted to look over it for accuracy, in case I was unaware of recurring paraphrasing I'd been getting away with and also to comb through it again for phrases and words that link my scenes to the rest of the story and vice versa.

Dan came down to get me and we met Mark on the way in, the other habit that is being created is the tesco stop on the way into the Theatre before driving to Bentwaters, we all loaded up with ready meals, I got three, Lunch, Dinner and Post Show Energy Booster ('who eat all the pies!' I hear you sing!) some how I still fit in my costumes but at this rate of consuming I'm not sure that will still be the case by final night.

The first show of the day was the 3:30pm Matinee. It was a rather relaxed show that glided along. It didn't feel fast but when we looked at our watches somehow the first half had been cut down by five minutes, that's a lot of time to knock off - just like knocking 5 minutes of your time when you're jogging 8 miles. The audience was a lot smaller than the last two sell out shows - just 75 people but they laughed and followed us all the way through the twists and turns, there were a few teary faces at the end as well. So a good show.

Between the shows we started a game of Cricket (officially the best warm up for a show - lol) it was really nice to have members of the cast, crew and chorus all joining in, that is until Mark Knightly hit me for such a big 6 (over the designated boundry on the full) that we lost the ball in the shoulder high grass and stinging nettles.

The chorus were rustled together in our hour long break between shows to figure out how they were going to do the show with two less chorus members. The show went so smoothly and no one would have dreamed we were short of company members, really, really impressive and well done. The show sparkled in the evening, in my opinion it's the best we've done so far and I hope it keeps growing - it was so, so much fun being part of the show when it was on fire (not literally). I think I got a little extra kick because I thought I was being slightly naughty by chewing gum in my pilot scenes - but he is an American Pilot and it really worked.

After the show we necked a few beers and Tony Ramsay and his beautiful wife and daughter had come to see the show. Tony is such a lovely, lovely man and it always makes me really happy to see him, I feel very indebted to him as well, as the most touching moment I have in the play is the most phenomenally written speech I've ever had to act and I swear he's written it so well that it is bad acting proof - I'm probably good proof of that. Big, big thank you Tony and really lovely to see you and your family at the show.

I also met Rachel's mum who complemented my blogs and said she'd been reading them all, crazy that they've garnered that much interest but really nice, James and Elizabeth in the chorus had said similar things as well, so thank you, I'm really glad someone is reading these and enjoying them.

Cherilyn our costume supervisor who along with Kelly constructed all the costumes came back from her graduation today and still hadn't celebrated so we headed back to the Moorish Longue (highly highly recommended) at Woodbridge. Penny who is normally driving us everywhere even got to join us and Dan, Mark and Caitlin did the cast proud by coming along. I happened to have sparklers in my pocket (god knows why? they were left over from my amazing 30th birthday weekend that my girlfriend Trina made unforgettable for me, I even still have a helium gas canister in my room as well??? Odd I know.) We lit the sparklers and sang 'happy graduation to you, happy graduation to you'. Someone, I can't remember who suggested going dancing in Ipswich and the idea caught on, we all headed for The Groove Bar, a really funny, dodgy, eighties themed night club, somewhere along the road we lost Dan, Penny, Mark and Caitlin. It's a shame because it was a great laugh and good to dance, the last time I really danced was at Trina's friend Rachel's wedding, we tore up the dance floor to a Ceilidh and then to the Latin and swing. I really missed her and am feeling homesick for her smiling face xxx