Rehearsal 22, Saturday 13th July 2002

I've recently got involved with the Lace Market Youth Group and have managed to get David's agreement to offer some of them places at the preview performance. This has left me with a slight problem as today is a Saturday rehearsal as well as the last day for the Youth Group before they break up for summer - and so my last chance to tell them. There is a little time that doesn't overlap, so I have arranged for someone to drive me between the two places. However, because I'm in a hurry, no-one at the youth group is, so I end up cutting things very fine and getting to the Theatre Royal a little late and out of breath.

After a bout of 'zip zap boing', the 'shoot-out' game (not won by Shelley this time!) and a quick practice at the frozen tableaux, we run through the play in it's new cut-down version. I'm ready for this and have brought my recorder to tape the whole thing to aid learning my lines.

This is the first time all of us, well - most of us, have been together for a while. The recent rehearsals have concentrated either on a single act or individual people and it's really interesting to see how the characters have developed during that time. I haven't had my specialised session yet but am particularly keen to get to it when I see the advances being made all around me. I don't want to get left behind.

After the run through, we have a feedback session, including a discussion of the School Superintendent's sexuality. There's lots of chances for him to indicate his affection for the inspector and his general weirdness. The line: "I've never put an onion in my mouth." causes much amusement. Particularly if you play about with which word to emphasise.

Walking back up the stairs after lunch, I pass a rather distinguished gentleman with a top hat and cane. I'm about to tug my ever-lengthening forelock when I realise it is Eddie, in costume and heading to the toilets to admire himself in the mirror. I hurry upstairs to kick up a tantrum, and find that my costume is there too, complete with huge white cravat, black gown and a kind of cloth mortar-board. Kitted out in all this get-up, I feel very stately and I discover why people wearing this kinds of gown always hold onto their lapels - it's to stop the damn thing sliding down your back!

Like Eddie, I head off to the toilets for a spot of narcissism. Very impressive! I think I want to borrow this gown so that I can practice poncing around at home in a Judge-like manner. I head back up and get changed back into my normal clothes, missing the chance to show off in front of the late-arrivals from lunch. No time to get dressed up again, so I join the crowd of merry well-wishers pointing and laughing at the padded leotard that Simon is putting on to add some extra bulk under his mayor costume. He then gives us an excellent encore as he attempts to kneel down in his stiff leather above-knee boots. With comedy performances like this, he won't need to remember any of his lines to get a laugh.

Once all the costumes are back, we all sit in a circle round David's tape player. Well, it's a quarter circle really as the only place we can plug in the machine is in the corner. David has found a friendly Russian from the university who has kindly gone through a list of all the Russian names and other words we used and recorded the correct pronunciation. She says each word three times - the first time in phonetics and the next two times wildly differently. We are to repeat after her. It soon becomes apparent that the gaps between the words are not long enough for us to repeat them, although we make a damned good attempt. So good, that by the time David decides we should just repeat each word once and says "I'll just rewind it a bit", we repeat that too.

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