Is It Too Late To Save Oscar Pike - first 2 performances

Difficult to believe this was a couple days ago now, but finally found time to sit down and consider what was a long, but frankly brilliant evening. Perhaps the whole good diet thing did work out after all - I felt in good shape going into Thursday evening, although nerves were continually threatening to get the better of me. Okay, so they were just performances at CB2, a venue we know inside out, a venue we have been performing in for about 6 years now. But this was more than that - this was me, on stage, for an hour, with no hiding place. Preparations had been relatively intense, Michelle is an outstanding director who knows how to get the best out of me - but how can you prepare for the fact that you're about to blurt out 32 pages of dialogue and there's every chance you'll dry up and let yourself down? In front of friends and colleagues? After talking about this show for weeks on end to everyone? As well as the excellent direction of Mrs. Golder though I was also extremely grateful for the backing of an outstanding fellow cast - Kate, Izzy and Kevin all helping make me feel very secure and have the experience/ability to save me if I do go off track, whilst Matt's lights and Alan's sound were both so on cue we knew we were in safe hands. With all the preparation possible, I went into the shows knowing that it could easily fall apart at any moment, but in short, it didn't. Okay, so the first 15 minutes of the first show was a little slow, but I put that down to nerves more than anything, but by the end of that one we were buzzing along nicely. And with the second performance we were completely in the zone - it was like I was dreaming the play at times, felt very comfortable and any sense of doubt had disappeared - probably because I know the script inside out by now having been working on and off with it since nailing the first draft in January, but also probably because everybody else around me seemed equally comfortable. It was touch and go, but it's all come together rather wonderfully, even the worrying scene in which I was just in my pants. Both audiences were lovely and laughed when they were supposed to, lots of money for Teenage Cancer Trust was raised, I felt lucky to be working with such a brilliant team on this, my friends who came to see it are the best friends in the world - fact. I think the fact that I took a week off work just to secure the lines in my head is a reminder that I'm not really an actor, even if I was playing an exaggerated version of myself, but this has been a wonderful experience. The slightly scary, but exciting thing, is that this journey has only just begun - with the ADC Bar performances on May 31st/June 1st, a little jaunt to the Edinburgh Fringe, and probably another show or two somewhere else too. And the 'tattoo' on my back of Bruce Willis from Thursday's performance is still there, got a worrying feeling I may be stuck with it.