Bentwater Roads: 'twas The Night Before Bentwaters...

The penultimate day of rehearsals and I head off for another run in the morning around Christchurch Park with my landlord Ivan, as always he's in high spirits and is telling stories of his youth (he's now 77) and random interesting facts and advice spill from him like a fountain and just like a fountain its all very refreshing.

I headed into town to play fooseball again with Mark and Caitlin - Mark wondering what the staff at ShakeAway must be saying ‘what do they do all day? They're here playing fooseball everyday'...

A lunch left a bit too late and a mad dash from the centre of Ipswich to the Sir John Mills Theatre (Eastern Angles base) sees Mark and I arrive at the Eastern Angles van in a mess of sweat and lack of breath.

Today we'll be running the show twice. These runs are dress rehearsals (dressed in costume rehearsals) - they are predominately to check costume, practice the show now everything technical has been sorted out and build up the pace and confidence of the play in time for the opening night, mini performances without an audience to facilitate an easy transfer into performing to a crowd.  It's a very clever way of helping curb nerves as well; like the warm up laps in a formula one race. We are planning to do three in total - 2 today and 1 tomorrow before the first performance in front of a full audience.

The first dress run started off well, we hit a few snares on the way through. A quick note session to smooth out the bumps and we're back up on the stage after a diner-break in the sun. The second run is a lot smoother and when Ivan gathers us all around the freshly constructed bar outside the hush house he is looking enthusiastic. 

Free beers are handed out to all the members of the cast and crew and Ivan does a nice pep-talk with a good note of optimism in it; a big salute to the work of the chorus and how their work is and will elevate the show to another level.

Another hero of the hour for me is Peter (now playing Mal and The Commander) who a week ago had no idea he would be in this play, he was just celebrating a friends birthday in a completely different part of the country.

Excitement builds as tomorrow night is our first performance to a live audience and the word is out that the space will be full. All 200 seats with expectant spectators in them.