Basingstoke

Well we did it! The show is now open! And what a fortnight it has been in the town that can only be described as Amazingstoke.
We arrived for production week eagerly anticipating the first glimpse of the set, the costumes and of course our dressing rooms. <<< It almost goes without saying that the ladies' is the place to be. We have a theme tune. It perhaps seems obvious to choose Beyonce but she knows "who run the show?...Girls!!"

After an intense day of rehearsing and familiarising ourselves with our surroundings, the director took us to "the best pub in Basingstoke"...so for the remainder of our stay, Wetherspoons it was!

Ah....Sunday, relax. Nope, Sunday lunch at the pub followed by charades and lots of singing along to a particular Irish band that goes (or went) by the name of B Witched...Then if that wasn't enough we played a pool competition where, I am proud to say, Team Birdsong smashed it and got bought Champagne, twice!!! But Liam (Goose) didn't get any because he deserted us to play for the other team???!!! Traitor!

And breathe... We started preview week with tech and dress rehearsals before our first show on Tuesday night. What an incredible feeling performing it to an audience for the first time. We couldn't believe that after all the preparation and hard work that had gone into this right from the start, that we had got through the first show. We all went for a drink (to Wetherspoons) to celebrate and Tim T kept us thoroughly entertained...he may need to work on a few new songs though...or at least ease up on the repetition of one particular word?!

With that we had kicked off previews and the show continued to grow with rehearsals throughout the week ready for press night on Friday. After which we had a jolly old time. Having been strongly advised by a local that 'Tonic' was the place to be on a Friday night, we ventured out to pastures new, but not before a quick pint in the familiar surroundings of Spoons. (But sadly not all could join us :-( Perhaps not the best week to lose your only form of I.D.....eeeek sorry, had to get it in!! Mwah!!!)

Well it seems mean not to show you...but you must forgive the music ;-)

Finally, today is the wonderful Emily Stride's 30th birthday! So many happy returns going out to her. Celebrations will occur on our opening night in Coventry, read all about it next week! X

Last week in Peckham

We have packed so much into this week that it feels like a month has passed! We started on Monday with a singing session with the lovely Tim VE. We were in the music room of a Jacobean/Georgian/Regency....basically it was a beautiful house despite our/(my) ignorance. As I'm sure you can imagine, the boys couldn't resist a room full of toys...

Back to the rehearsal room to get down to serious business...

 

Oh dear Liam, still mucking around.

Me and Charlie G posing

Bit more posing.

Tuesday proved difficult as we couldn't get into the room....so rehearsals began in the Deli, with coffee and brownies. Yum yum. Then we really did get down to work......

....after 1 quick game of 9 square. As I've said before, I won't mention Alastair Whatley's hat.

By Wednesday, we had got a fair amount of work done (honest!) Just as well, because none other than the man himself, Sebastian Faulks, dropped into rehearsal and came to the pub! He was lovely, it was a humbling experience to meet him. Hopefully, after we'd quizzed him on his books, the characters, nurses in WW1 and the footprints, he thought us an alright bunch too!

By the end of the week, we managed to not only get to the end of the play, but do a run on Saturday. Everyone did an incredible job and it was a perfect way to wrap our time in Peckham. We will miss The Infinity Studio but forward to Basingstoke we go! And a very exciting two weeks it promises to be.

Bye bye Infinity

Benchball

In past weeks you have heard me speak of 'Benchball.' A game "invented" by Alastair Whatley.
Re-Cap: Netball without nets. No real rules. (Well, none that are ever applied...or perhaps to some teams but not others...anyways)

TEAMS

Roe's Rebels

Poppy Roe
Polly Hughes
Emily Stride
Tim VE

Smith's Smashers

Jonathan Smith
Sarah Jayne Dunn
Malcolm James
Joshua Higgott
Arthur Bostrom

Whatley Wanderers

Alastair Whatley
Charlie G Hawkins
Liam McCormick
Tim T

With the 3 teams firmly established and "tactics" rapidly evolving, the Birdsong Benchball Tournament is well under way. The highlights of the week include a yellow card for Sarah JD for nearly knocking out poor Liam McCormick (one of the more honest Whatley Wanderers) Arthur Bostrom incurring a serious Benchball injury rendering him unfit to play! And an official complaint made by Roe's Rebels to the Benchball Association with regards to scoring - we are eagerly awaiting the results.

As you can imagine, with all this going on and then having to rehearse the play??!!!! It has been quite a week...

Christmas

Christmas 1914

On Christmas Day 1914, the Western Front felt like a very different place. For a few hours, the guns fell silent and on the most part, an atmosphere of unification prevailed. Men from both sides sang carols and shouted 'Merry Christmas!' over the parapets. Some emerged tentatively up into No Man's Land and met in the middle to share schnapps, cigars and even a game of Football. Some men worked together to bury their comrades. In some parts of the Front, the truce lasted until New Year's Day but it many, it ceased on Christmas night.

Soldiers from both sides taking a picture together during the Christmas Truce.

The Christmas Truce A Poem By Carol Ann Duffy

Christmas Eve in the trenches of France, the guns were quiet.
The dead lay still in No Man's Land –
Freddie, Franz, Friedrich, Frank . . .
The moon, like a medal, hung in the clear, cold sky.

Silver frost on barbed wire, strange tinsel, sparkled and winked.
A boy from Stroud stared at a star
to meet his mother's eyesight there.
An owl swooped on a rat on the glove of a corpse.

In a copse of trees behind the lines, a lone bird sang.
A soldier-poet noted it down – a robin holding his winter ground –
then silence spread and touched each man like a hand.

Somebody kissed the gold of his ring;
a few lit pipes;
most, in their greatcoats, huddled,
waiting for sleep.
The liquid mud had hardened at last in the freeze.

But it was Christmas Eve; believe; belief thrilled the night air,
where glittering rime on unburied sons
treasured their stiff hair.
The sharp, clean, midwinter smell held memory.

On watch, a rifleman scoured the terrain –
no sign of life,
no shadows, shots from snipers, nowt to note or report.
The frozen, foreign fields were acres of pain.

Then flickering flames from the other side danced in his eyes,
as Christmas Trees in their dozens shone, candlelit on the parapets,
and they started to sing, all down the German lines.

Men who would drown in mud, be gassed, or shot, or vaporised
by falling shells, or live to tell, heard for the first time then –
Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles schläft, einsam wacht …

Cariad, the song was a sudden bridge from man to man;
a gift to the heart from home,
or childhood, some place shared …
When it was done, the British soldiers cheered.

A Scotsman started to bawl The First Noel
and all joined in,
till the Germans stood, seeing
across the divide,
the sprawled, mute shapes of those who had died.

All night, along the Western Front, they sang, the enemies –
carols, hymns, folk songs, anthems, in German, English, French;
each battalion choired in its grim trench.

So Christmas dawned, wrapped in mist, to open itself
and offer the day like a gift
for Harry, Hugo, Hermann, Henry, Heinz …
with whistles, waves, cheers, shouts, laughs.

Frohe Weinachten, Tommy! Merry Christmas, Fritz!
A young Berliner, brandishing schnapps,
was the first from his ditch to climb.
A Shropshire lad ran at him like a rhyme.

Then it was up and over, every man, to shake the hand
of a foe as a friend,
or slap his back like a brother would;
exchanging gifts of biscuits, tea, Maconochie's stew,

Tickler's jam … for cognac, sausages, cigars,
beer, sauerkraut;
or chase six hares, who jumped
from a cabbage-patch, or find a ball
and make of a battleground a football pitch.

I showed him a picture of my wife. Ich zeigte ihm
ein Foto meiner Frau.
Sie sei schön, sagte er.
He thought her beautiful, he said.

They buried the dead then, hacked spades into hard earth
again and again, till a score of men
were at rest, identified, blessed.
Der Herr ist mein Hirt … my shepherd, I shall not want.

And all that marvellous, festive day and night, they came and went,
the officers, the rank and file, their fallen comrades side by side
beneath the makeshift crosses of midwinter graves …

… beneath the shivering, shy stars
and the pinned moon
and the yawn of History;
the high, bright bullets
which each man later only aimed at the sky.

Rehearsal Week 1

Phewww....where do I start?! As we say farewell to the first week of rehearsals (and to each other for Christmas...) we reflect upon what we have learnt thus far...

Alastair Whatley cheats at everything!

Poppy Roe will be the first female Bond.

Emily Stride (Stryder) is by far the best recruit.

Tony knows everything about everything.

I now know the base of a rifle is called a Butt Plate.

Tim V E can build boats.

Charlie G has a photographic memory.

Sarah is an eyebrow expert.

Jon listens to the Prodigy(?!)

Liam is Twitter King (this week...hahaha)

Josh plays Mendelssohn beautifully.

Malcolm will steal your pencil given any opportunity.

Arthur is blooming brilliant at Bench Ball.

Rachel has the best Christmas Jumpers.

Lucie is about as flexible as you can get.

Tim T will inevitably get frowned upon when playing 9 Square.

Lauren buys the best croissants.

Charlotte loves Sesame Street.

Our accent coach Tim is pretty damn amazing at accents.

Tim K provides the best rehearsal spaces!

Just to clarify...

Bench Ball - Netball without nets.

9 Square - Picture a giant su doku grid. 1 player per square, each player has to guard their square. It can only bounce once in each square and you have to hit it upwards Tim T!!

With a week jam packed with Introductory Speeches, Set Presentations, History lessons (and tests...!) Vocal Sessions, Fighting Workshops and Script Work, it seems best to show you...

Final thoughts...

As the final week before the start of rehearsals draws to a close, the cocktail of nerves and excitement is as prominent as ever...


When one hears the euphoric news that "you've got the part, the job is yours!" there is often a 'cloud 9' period when one basks in the pure joy of knowing that there is work lined up. For me in the case of 'Birdsong' it was not only this, but that I was going to be working on a piece I love. This period of time lasted a while as I auditioned back in July and, as I'm sure any actor would agree, knowing about a job (that you are so thrilled about) this far in advance, can only be a great thing!



As time goes on and rehearsals approach, euphoria slowly morphs into nervous excitement. Have I read the play enough times? Have I done enough research? What will we be asked to do in the first rehearsal? Whilst it is of course different for every actor, I'm sure that we have all experienced this roller-coaster of emotions in some form.



As my final day pre-Birdsong plays out, I leave you with a section of a poem written by St Vincent Morris in 1915 having just reached the age permitted to enlist.

'The Eleventh Hour'

Nay, this is not to love, nor this to live!
I will go forth; I hold no more aloof;
And I will give all that I have to give,
And leave the refuge of my father's roof.
Then, if I live, no man shall say, think I,
'He lives, because he did not dare to die!'

Our week in preparation!

On route...

Preparations have been in full swing this week as we count down to the official start of rehearsals! There have been research trips, museum visits and pre-rehearsal workshops where the cast have made the very most of the chance to...bond. We have not yet all been in the room at the same time so are very much looking forward to the official meet and greet on the 17^th.

My week started with a trip to the Imperial War Museum with the lovely Emily Stride, who will be playing Marguerite. We got there just in time as the museum is closing in January for its major redevelopment project. One of the additions will be the First World War Galleries, opening in the Summer of 2014 to mark the 100-year anniversary of the start of the Great War.

There is a section of the museum called ‘Explore History’ which houses the most incredible collection of historical papers including personal diaries, letters and poems. (As I learnt, the best thing to do is research on the website exactly what you’d like to look at and book an appt!) We requested to look at two collections of personal papers. One belonged to a Private and one to a Sapper, both of whom had served on the Somme for most of 1916. Firstly, we looked at a series of letters that the Private had written home from the Front. What struck me was his practicality. Considering the atrocities he must have witnessed on a daily basis, the letters seemed significantly detached. He listed items he needed sending out to him in neat bullet point form, including a mug as it could be “used for many different things.” He would often write one line letters saying, “I have received your letters. Yours sincerely” or “I am quite well. Yours sincerely” It didn’t come across as curt, just distant. I got the sense that he wanted to keep his life at the front separate from that at home, perhaps so as not to infect the latter with the former. He later exclaims, “Gee Whiz!” when describing his first bath in a month! But there is little mention of what he was really experiencing.

We moved on to the papers belonging to the Sapper and the most astonishing moment of the day was holding his diary. It was a humbling experience handling an object that had been to the Front and been a part of that world. After carefully opening it, we found descriptions of food, trench conditions and tunnelling operations. But it wasn’t until the July 1^st entry that we got any sense of reality. “Getting in wounded all night, awful. As near to hell as I ever want to get. Couldn’t possibly have imagined it.”

We were not the only ones researching this week. Sarah Jayne Dunn, who is playing Isabelle and Jonathan Smith, who is playing Stephen, went to Amiens and to the Somme with our director, Alastair Whatley. After a tricky start with the breakdown...they finally reached France!

Sarah, Peter (fabulous recovery man), Jonathan and Alastair...

After exploring Amiens, they visited the house Sebastian Faulks based the Azaire’s house on!

 

They then visited the Thiepval Memorial.

Inscribed on the memorial are the names of over 70,000 men who fell on the Somme and whose bodies were never found. The word they used to describe the atmosphere there was quiet.

On Wednesday, most of the cast assembled for a pre-rehearsal movement/voice workshop where we were able to share what we’d just discovered. It was a great way of breaking the ice as we all had so much to talk about! At lunchtime, having realised that there was in fact an entire high street full of delicious eateries (not just Lidls, Sarah and Jon) we ventured out! Charlie found cake, so was very happy. (It's all good, I've changed it to black and white so no-one will know it was pink...) and Poppy, Emily, Josh and I beamed at the sight of Greggs and Subway :-)

Thanks to the genius of Alastair, Tim and Lucie (Director/Vocal

Coach/Movement Director) we ended the day feeling very much like a unit. And had all used muscles we didn’t realise we had! So were thoroughly ready for bed. X

  

The collections mentioned are held at the Imperial War Museum

Private papers of C R Jones – Cat No. Documents 13273

Private Papers of Captain W H Sansom OBE MC – Cat No. Documents 8079