Southend

This week we have been at the Palace Theatre, Southend. It has been a week of many challenges: Who can attain the most fun points in Southend? How many hours can one human being spend in a casino? But most importantly; how do we adjust the set to fit the smallest stage yet?

The Palace Theatre has a much shallower stage than those we have performed on so far, which meant significant changes had to be made. Below is a picture of the full set at the Wycombe Swan. 

This week, the Down Stage Right arch had to be removed, as well as our treasured swing door which is normally Down Stage Left. The door provides a quick and simple way of moving between the war and the memory scenes; one side representing the door into the Azaire house, the other depicting the world of the War. It of course affects the play when things like this are changed or taken away, but the challenge is always to find a way around it and ultimately make it work which, fingers crossed, we did! Another feature of the Palace is that it has a pretty steep rake! It is very easy to lose one's balance when one is not used to it, and manoeuvering a Chaise Longue (Josh and Polly) can prove a very difficult challenge...by the end of the week though, we had it down...

Look at that rake! And Stage Left, minus the door :-(

Alastair and Lauren model our lone arch Stage Right

In preparation for these changes, we all arrived at the theatre early on Tuesday to run the usual scenes for space and lighting, but also to run scene changes that would be affected by the alterations. With only a few minor traffic jams and the odd loss of balance, we got through the first show relatively unscathed!


On Wednesday, Josh and Liam went on an expedition to gain 30 fun points. Perhaps judge for yourself and see how many points you would give them...

All in all a morning very well spent and an overall score of 0 which, considering what they were up against, was to be expected... They finished off by coming to meet me and the lovely Sinead at 'The Trading Inn' (+5) for a hearty lunch before setting off to the theatre for an Understudy Line Run with Lauren...

Lauren perfects her Stephen Wraysford

Later on in the week, the ladies racked up the fun points in Brentwood at the lovely Creme de la Creme Salon! The wonderful Sarah Jayne Dunn organised a spa day for us during which we were pampered and fed chocolate strawberries all day. Bliss :-)

Our final challenge of the week was entertaining ourselves between shows. It was an 8pm start, so after the matinee we had enough time to eat, chill and have press-up competitions...
Having bet he could do 75, Alastair got to a respectable 68. He did however cheat (by not doing full press-ups) so had to hand over the money to Tim VE, which he did! A memorable moment for all.

Tim VE then showed him how it was done...