Palm Wine & Stout: I Hear Drums...

It's a drizzly day ouside, but inside the building vibrates with the sound of drums and African song. It can only mean one thing - the cast of Palm Wine & Stout have arrived, and are already making sweet music.

After yesterday's readthrough and buffet lunch (including the titular stout!), and with Bentwater Roads a distant memory, the theatre feels populated for the first time in ages. The cast - Joe, Helen, Zack and Antoinette - have been joined by Segun, the writer, and Clement, the music and movement director, and along with Ivan and Kate (directors) and Cherilyn busy working on costumes, the Sir John Mills Theatre is positively buzzing.

It has suddenly become very busy for Eastern Angles. As I type this, we have 2 shows in rehearsal (Palm Wine & Stout in Ipswich, and Our Nobby in Peterborough), NIE are busy devising Tales From The Middle of Town, and we are about to start a fourth set of rehearsals for the newly updated version of Lincoln Road.  By the time we reach the start of rehearsals for Christmas in November, we'll still be busy performing some of these shows across the East of England and beyond.

I think I may need a Guinness myself to keep me going....