Monday – preparation

I arrive at Soho theatre it’s a hive of activity – not content with performing 6 new plays, rehearsing 2 Shakespeare plays, and preparing for an ‘event’ in Trafalgar Square, the National Youth Theatre are doing a series of rehearsed readings during the day this week! I wonder if they’re going to have time to meet me, but Ryan our brilliant company manager manages to make it happen.

The actors from the ‘1960’s’ play cant stay long however as they have to get to wigs to do their ‘beehives’. The 1990’s company have more time and seem laid back in a 90’s brit pop way,- even though I’m sure some of them were barely 5 when the Gallagher Brothers were giving us their finest hour.

I stayed to watch the performances – Set in the ’60’s ‘Astronaut Wives Club’ by Ali Smith was an imaginative idea, a story of the wives left at home as their husbands travel in space. Intriguing too to see a play with an all female cast written by a man. The under current of bitchy competitiveness seemed very ‘now’. The story threw together characters who wouldn’t normally be together at times and I felt very voyeuristic watching it, kind of like a 1960’s ‘Big Brother’ or in this case ‘Big Sister’ .

The 90’s play ‘Fish and Company’ by Samuel Adamson, about internet entrepreneurs made the 1990’s seem some how a long way away. There were some great characters not least an asthmatic, pet rat loving, loner guy who turns out to be the anti-hero and a wonderful ‘Goth girl with a stolen pistol and a Gerald Durrell novel, two people so disparate they were meant for each other.

The acting was excellent in both plays, and I’m really excited about working with them all next week.

On the way home the tube was really crowded but I managed to get a seat next to a woman who it turned out was reading a book on space travel. I was glad it wasn’t a Gerald Durrell novel, as I would have felt very uneasy not knowing what else she had in her handbag!.