It's Curtains for you, Chap!

Sewing curtains is not the most exciting job in the world. In fact, I'm listing it among my least exciting and enjoyable activities. It must be done, of course, and I've been mildly aware of this from very early on; during the tour I have therefore been taking extreme care with the show's most unnoticed set pieces. However I cannot prevent natural wear and tear, so we have all been threading needles and stitching these masses of fabric with all the elegant grace of a cat with its head stuck in a bag. (I speak for my personal sewing skills here, not those of the team as a whole.)

Of course, we are sewing because soon the curtains will soon be shielding an entirely new cast from the prying eyes of eager spectators, and covering covert scenery transformations for a different show (most likely Oliver) as Peter Pan is nearing his final voyage to Neverland. I can't say I wish I had longer, honestly I'm ready to go home now, but I've had the most wonderful time here and am looking forward to touring again in the future. So, up and over boys! Time for the final push.

Who's Idea Was Cocktails..?

Today : birthday of the Scotty one.. nickname Cuddles, actual name Jillian. I made cocktails, which were delicious, and am now too drunk for anything requiring more than minimal brain function. Alas, no grand blog this night.

Ciao.

The Last Man Standing

I am now officially the only male member of what was formally Team Tomato (now Team Peter Cover), Joe having been replaced by Faye on Monday and now Molly (who you may remember previously covered for Joe some months back) for the remainder of our tour.

This is rather delightful on my part. Obviously I did love Joe, bloody top chap that he was, and I miss Grace dearly. Now, however, I carry the mantra of being Man of the Team, a rather amusing title as anyone who's ever met me will appreciate. The ironic fact of the matter is I get along exceedingly well with groups of girls, and I've found that my ability to give half decent back and shoulder massages becomes a useful currency when my costume needs sewing. Current exchange rates are rather flexible, as honestly I'll give someone a massage for making me a cup of tea, but it's already helped repair two pieces of my costume. Maybe I've made the wrong career choice after all.

Snow Days and Farewells

A lot has occurred this week. Let us begin on Wednesday evening.

For a start, this evening saw me on the phone more often than the cumulative total of the past decade. I'm still trying to figure out how as one phone call ended another seemed to spring up.. but besides that, and far more interestingly, Grace's cover arrived in the form of a little Edinburgh lass by the name of Jillian. Of course, because of my sudden phone popularity, I didn't get much chance to properly meet her until Thursday.

Nice segway there, and on to Thursday morning: a school with one of my least favourite halls ever encountered. A hall so awkwardly shaped that I had to remove three curtains from their rails and string them up with gaffa tape and prayer, with wings so cramped that you had to leave extra time to edge through the gaps before your entrance. I was not having a good day. The show went ahead without much issue, other than a lot of confusion when trying to exit the stage, but I found myself thoroughly exhausted by the end of it, to the point where I found it necessary to sit down whilst undressing. Joe then complimented me on my energy, in a show in which I thought I'd performed on a sub-par level.. the lesson apparently being that if I'm unhappy before the show the end result is better and I finish up in a tired heap. Read into that what you will. Then at lunchtime things took an interesting turn.

Snow, the kind I hadn't seen since my last ski holiday, was buffering the Tescos we were sat in having lunch. We got a call from the office letting us know the afternoon's school had decided to close due to the inclement (thank you TFL for that excellent word) weather. Immediately we were preparing for battle stations. A last-minute booking could mean a long drive and rushed set-up. Then Joe started dancing in his seat, and after thanking the office, we were given the afternoon off. A blessing and a curse, as it did mean that Jillian couldn't watch the show from backstage as planned. But we had time to get home, relax and then do a full run-through working out her tech and lines.

Friday was an all-day-double, which we were all very thankful for as it was Grace and Joe's last day and emotions were running high. The audiences were fantastic; the teachers some of the friendliest yet; and, for the first time in about 18 years, I had an English school dinner. And I can safely say standards have vastly improved. The end of the shows was sad, but we focused ourselves on getting packed up and home to clean the house in preparation for today's move.

Today was the hardest part. The five of us herded into the van with all our worldly goods and set off. Stopping off at a train station, our goodbyes were short and sweet as Joe and Grace set off on the next steps of their journey, and the three of us continued on ours. To possibly the biggest accommodation we've had for the entire tour. Seriously it is huge. And gorgeous. I could happily holiday here in the middle of nowhere. But that's another story.

Previously in Peter Pan

This blog is coming dangerously close to adopting a weekly post status. This has been due to a number of things, including my desire to get earlier nights and an attempt to not use my phone before bed. I've also been feeling a little down lately, and I'm not entirely sure why. So, a recap of recent noteworthy events:

A boy in a special needs school made us all cards and flowers for the show, a gesture which threatened to melt my normally granite heart.

In another school, a child wrote the word 'shit' in the dirt on our van. Unlucky for him, a teacher was walking past the door and caught him in the act. He got some classic primary school teacher speeches (why did you do it, were you trying to make people laugh, what do you think your dad will say, etc) and had to wipe the profanity off with a paper towel. That evening we washed the van.

Joe spent the weekend on a mandatory trip to Butlins with the other TMs and I went to a school reunion in London (read all about that in my other blog. Hint: lots of drinking.)

And today I serenaded a teacher who's face looked as though I was presenting her with a plate of dead rat. The teacher sat beside her was absolutely howling.

We're now into Joe and Grace's last week (which may have something to do with my current state of mind; that combined with a month without internet leaves me rather in the dumps) and I'm going to miss them dearly. As my first team I'll always have fond memories and maintain that I couldn't have asked for three better people to live and work with for six months on the road. The silver lining is that in two and a half weeks I will be in York and then back to London and civilization. How times flies.

Previously in Peter Pan

This blog is coming dangerously close to adopting a weekly post status. This has been due to a number of things, including my desire to get earlier nights and an attempt to not use my phone before bed. I've also been feeling a little down lately, and I'm not entirely sure why. So, a recap of recent noteworthy events:

A boy in a special needs school made us all cards and flowers for the show, a gesture which threatened to melt my normally granite heart.

In another school, a child wrote the word 'shit' in the dirt on our van. Unlucky for him, a teacher was walking past the door and caught him in the act. He got some classic primary school teacher speeches (why did you do it, were you trying to make people laugh, what do you think your dad will say, etc) and had to wipe the profanity off with a paper towel. That evening we washed the van.

Joe spent the weekend on a mandatory trip to Butlins with the other TMs and I went to a school reunion in London (read all about that in my other blog. Hint: lots of drinking.)

And today I serenaded a teacher who's face looked as though I was presenting her with a plate of dead rat. The teacher sat beside her was absolutely howling.

We're now into Joe and Grace's last week (which may have something to do with my current state of mind; that combined with a month without internet leaves me rather in the dumps) and I'm going to miss them dearly. As my first team I'll always have fond memories and maintain that I couldn't have asked for three better people to live and work with for six months on the road. The silver lining is that in two and a half weeks I will be in York and then back to London and civilization. How times flies.

Bobbing Along

I haven't written anything up this week because, in all honesty, nothing new has happened. Nothing has stuck with me so dramatically that I felt the urge to put thumb to screen and share it with you, I do apologize.

However, now we are in the final few weeks of Peter Pan, and change is in the air. As it happens, the other three team members are continuing on to perform in the M&M summer shows (I'm spending some time settling more permanently in London before dashing back to the road again), and circumstances of a rather interesting and somewhat complicated nature mean that Joe and Grace will both be leaving Team Tomato two weeks earlier than planned to begin rehearsals for their new shows, leaving Emily and me to do the entire show alone! All right, not entirely alone, we will in fact have two new performers for the final weeks and Emily is being promoted to Tour Manager (cue the party poppers and prossecco). But we don't have to even think about that for at least another week, and as it happens I'm in London this weekend for a good old reunion. More about that over on the London blog.

One of Those Days

Imagine a day where lots of things that could easily go wrong suddenly go horribly wrong at the same time. I shall attempt to recount the events in chronological order.

The Great Set Migration
We arrived at the morning school, were shown in and started setting up, we were quite relaxed as we were early, the hall was big, everything was going to plan. Until the head teacher walked in saying, "Well we won't be able to fit them in there." After a very brief discussion we realized we had to move the entire set (completely show-ready at this point) onto the school's stage. Which means dismantling the entire thing and reassembling it about ten feet back and three feet up. Luckily we had a few extra pairs of hands roped on to 'help' us. When I say help, I mean they had the best intentions, but they hadn't been putting the set together for the best part of 5 months, and didn't know what to do with anything you gave them. But we managed, did a show to the packed hall, and it wasn't the worst of stages in fairness.

The Final Step
In the finale, Smee was a bit slow coming up the steps. My deductive skills began to whir when she wasn't jumping about like a loon during the final part of the dance, and when, after the show, she was lying on the floor and clutching her foot with a look of pained agony on her face, I began to think something might be wrong. She assumed (based on prior experience) that it may be a torn ligament, so we sat her down and put an ice-pack on her and did the get-out (again with help from the eager extra hands) before carrying her to the van.

It's in My Jeans
During the aforementioned get-out, I fell over into the van and tore my jeans. This is the third pair which have fallen pray to the dreaded lifestyle of the actor. I did the second get-in/-out with a large hole in my left thigh. Nobody mentioned it.

Slim Pickings
To say the second hall was narrow would probably give you the wrong idea. We've done narrow halls and narrower stages before, but this was different. At a guess, the hall was maybe 12 feet wide. The back base of our set probably measures around eight or nine feet, each of the spinning bases measure about five feet. Needless to say that our scenery wasn't going to be flush with the audience. However when we started the show, we found that when the spinning bases are spun together there was about a foot of space between the set and the wall, and I've got very broad shoulders. Between that and Smee supporting herself on a mop during her stage time, it was one of the most ridiculous performaces we've ever done.

So ends the day, as we sit patiently - pun int.. oh wait, hang on - in the walk-in centre - pun intended! - waiting for x-ray results and snacking on a pile of supplies I bought at lunchtime. Could be worse. Could be raining indoors.

The Best of Days, The Worst of Days

The entire title is ridiculously exaggerated, to be honest. The past two days have fallen into neither category, but they've contrasted one another rather starkly.

Monday was an all-day-double. One of those glorious days which mean long shows, long lunchtime, and relaxed atmosphere. Nothing particularly amazing happened, but it was a good start to the week. Today was a normal double-day, which we were dreading. It meant a pre-7am call time (translating to a 6am alarm time), a drive to Shrewsbury (well over an hour away), a get-in, two shows, getting out at speeds approaching that of light, a frantic half-hour dash to out next school, and then when we got there we sat down and had tea for 20 minutes because lunch was being had in the hall. Still, the show started and finished in good time, the audiences all day were good, and aside from my legs being in agony - must stretch in the mornings - I'm feeling pretty good.

Silence of the Adam

In the ever raging war between Adam (astounding actor, dashing gentlemen, gorgeous hair) and The Voice (Adam's voice, that is; not the TV show), a valiant battle was fought this week, and Voice triumphed. Which, ironically, renders Adam mute.

This has pros and cons. Pro: Adam is far better at listening. Con: Adam cannot laugh. The list goes on, but suffice to say it does present its challenges where acting is concerned, since I depend a lot on my voice when I act. I may not be much of a dancer but when I'm on good form I can throw my voice around enough to make you dizzy. I'm being hyperbolic, but only because the written word is currently my only form of communication, and I have to use words like hyperbolic to assure myself that I've still got it. Which I do. Hopefully a weekend of pseudosilence will allow me to join the fight once more.

La-la-la-la-lasagna!

One of the things I have to admit that I have loved most about tour has been the opportunity to cook for the team. Our weekly team meal is an event we all look forward to, each taking it in turns to feed the all-consuming mass that is our collective appetite. So far my meals have been an apparent success, from my signature favourite Tuna Napolitana (substited Salmon into it for the sake of the team's personal taste) all the way to today's Quorn Lasagne (as previously mentioned, Grace is vegetarian).

I made a dish which could be divided into six modest servings, and it was completely scraped clean between the four of us - Joe and Grace almost came to blows over seconds. Even the peas were polished off with ruthless efficiency. I get one more chance to impress them before our tour ends, so suggestions on a postcard, please.

Back on The Road (II)

So two days have passed and four shows have gone smoothly. The energy levels are back up to pre-Christmas levels, the audiences are bouncing with post-Christmas sugar overdoses and the teachers are happy to have something take their minds over just how long it will be until Easter.

Of course, as is customary with me and theatre, my throat is completely opposed to my acting career and is doing all it can to sabotage me. However that did not stop me from shouting "CLAP YOUR HANDS!" into the face of a half-asleep year sixer. Poor boy nearly fell out of his seat (no exaggeration) whilst his classmates fell about laughing. Children can be so cruel.

Back on The Road (I)

As tour boots up again and the energy which has lain dormant over the Christmas period begins to flow again in full force, it may be worth letting you know what I've been up to during this literary absence. In a word: travelling. No rest for the wicked, eh? My last postcard talked of trains, ferries, and a complex travel itinerary. I cannot put into words how ridiculously long 16 hours is when you're on a coach. Even with the brief break for the ferry crossing, the journeys were arduous. Combined with 8 hours of trains the next day between Germany and Poland, I was completely travelled out by the time I finally got back to London just in time for the new year.

Back on familiar turf, I stepped back onto the bar and spent the entirety of New Year's Eve cleaning glasses (there were too many people serving on the bar for me to have been anything but an obstacle) and enjoying a couple of celebratory drinks. Then I spent a couple of days working lunches and trying my hand at table service, previously a mere pipe dream in the White Hart. Turns out I'm quite good at it, pocketing £40 worth of tips in two days. Finally with the holidays drawing to a close I hopped on a train to Derby to finish the final leg of the grand tour.