First performance

I'm sat here in my little flat, snowed in, reflecting on last night's first performance of the 2 new Christmas shows. Firstly I should probably mention that I like the fact I'm snowed in, my car is stuck on the drive way so I can't really leave the flat, I've got just enough food (well, lots and lots of bad for me snack food at least) to keep me going for the day, and I can finally catch up on lots of things that need doing. Last night's premiere of the show was a slightly stressful affair, our panto cow was running very late and made it to the venue with about 3 minutes to spare, Vaughan - one of our key actors - fell over on the ice earlier in the day and hurt himself fairly badly, and Alan - our techie genius - broke his laptop an hour before the show that had all the music on it. All that, coupled with the tenseness surrounding the panto and it just didn't look like being a classic. But it worked; Juliette, who plays Goldilocks to perfection, seemed very unhappy with the tackiness of 'Goldilocks & The Beanstalk' and I understand her point completely; at times it's a ramshackle mess, at times that's intentional, other times not so much. And me? Well I'm an awkward, gangly rascal of a man on stage, winging every second of it. But as I say, 'Goldilocks & The Beanstalk' worked, because there's enough cheap but funny lines in the script to keep the audience happy, and there's plenty of enthusiasm too, and it's only 25 minutes long. The second half of the show, 'A Fairytale Of Bar Hill' made me a very happy, proud man indeed. The rehearsals suggested it would be great, but the performance itself excelled that - although far from polished, the confidence on stage just made everybody in the room feel that little bit more comfortable. I'm pleased it went down well too, sometimes we like things that audiences just don't, but in front of a sold-out house last night I'd like to think we made a lot of people happy. All in all, it's worked out rather well - but that's Christmas for you, things are just generally that bit easier for theatrical malarkey during the festive season.