Snapshot

Outside, on the platform, waiting for the train. Cold. Thawing snow had made me think it would feel a degree or two warmer than it actually did. On the bridge, above us, a small team of technicians, a camera, filming… something: the track, seemingly. Unobtrusive. Odd. I dropped my attention into the middle distance, toyed with twopenny thoughts about the journey I was about to make, what I’d done, hadn’t done, yesterday. Then, peripherally, a movement. An impact, slight, but enough to focus my senses, sharpen me into the moment. I glanced down at the platform, then, up. A pigeon, resting on a beam, had voided itself, missing, by a fraction of a second, the man who a moment earlier had turned, started walking towards the other end of the platform, who remained unaware, innocent. I looked away from him and, in doing so, caught the eye of the woman, also watching, a few feet to my left. We smiled, then looked away, both shy at being complicit, to have caught the other unawares – but, in that moment, laughing: at the pigeon that shat, and the oblivious man, and the tiny, indefinable joy of living in moments.

Then the train came.

A Little Bit of Festive Cribbins

A delight to have the mighty Bernard Cribbins on television on Christmas Day. Until then, here’s something that, while not elaborately festooned in tinsel, has something of the season about it.

A Very Important List Of Stuff For 2010

Because it’s the done thing around this time of year, here is my list. It’s 10 Things I Don’t Want To See, Hear or Endure in 2010:

1. Any jokes being broadcast on television or radio which take as their start – and end –  point that John Prescott is fat. Yes, he’s quite a stout man, but there are fatter. I mean, is that it? Go for a new angle, why don’t you. Surprise yourself.
2. Celebrity anything.
3. People in shops contorting themselves into peculiar shapes to squeeze past and around other people in order to avoid the appalling ordeal of having to say the words “excuse me”.
4. This:
5. Anyone who thinks the line “Global warming? Bring it on! It’s freezing where I live!” or any variation thereof is amusingly iconoclastic.
6. The Daily Mail having conniptions every time Jonathan Ross leaves his house. Tedious.
7. Any discussion, of any kind, about Twitter. If you use it, as I do – marvellous. If you don’t – marvellous. But, really – we don’t need to talk about it.
8. The spivvy affectation of ending sentences with “yeah?”. Ugly.
9. Radio 4 announcers talking up their parts by spoiling the jokes in the programme you’ve tuned in to listen to, two minutes before the programme starts. I’m sorry that their job isn’t more interesting but, well, hard luck. If you want to be a comedian, go and be one. If you want to reach out to a confusing and uncaring world in order to try and validate your existence, start a blog. But, as it is, just say “And now – The News Quiz” or whatever and then button it.
10. Warts.

Definitive Review of the Year: 2009

“Nothing.”

I’ve only worked with friends a few times. I’ve worked with plenty of people I’ve got on well with – most, I’m glad to say – but only a few with whom I’d share my private thoughts and feelings. So, if I’ve had any bad news, or have been feeling low for any reason, I’ve kept it to myself, and got on with the job in hand. Work is work, and private life is exactly that.

It’s not only a sense of propriety, though; there’s a sense in which I recognise that blurring these boundaries is pointless. If I’m troubled by something in another part of my life, it’s not going to be remedied by discussing it with people who don’t know the context or who I don’t want to open up to in that way. In which case, walking round in a markedly distracted manner, pointedly not engaging in conversation, and responding in monosyllables would be an indulgence.

I never understand what it’s supposed to achieve, beyond a little, immediate, and cheap attention; that, and creating an atmosphere for everyone in the vicinity, which is unfair, as they don’t know how – and usually aren’t able – to help. And having been one of those bystanders, on more than one occasion, only fuels my own desire not to create that discomfort for others. It’s childish, selfish and silly.

Not that I’ve encountered that recently, you understand. Just saying.

Yes, but what do you actually *do*?

I’m the Company Stage Manager for a show that’s touring the country at the moment. This is my life.

Monday morning: the get-in starts at 9am. I arrive at the theatre around quarter to; say hello, find the dressing room that acts as the company office, and have a quick look at the stage, so we’re ready to start on the dot. We open that evening, so there’s not a lot of time to hang around.

Hmm. Sounds like the introduction to some cheap ITV2 documentary. (Any takers…?)

Pregnant with anticipation...

Everything we tour is in one large articulated lorry. First thing out is the floor – 33 wooden sheets, which we screw to the deck. I use these to determine the position of the lighting bars, and the electrics department (LX) then rig the appropriate lanterns on the bar, according to our lighting plan. Meanwhile, the remaining crew are starting to take the rest of the set from the lorry. We ask for 10 crew from the touring venue: 6 stage and 4 LX. How much nous and how much civility they have really determines what kind of day it’s going to be. I hope for a lot of both, though I expect very little, and most of the time the answer is somewhere between the two extremes.

We’re about an hour and a half in by now, and, as LX are still rigging bars, I’ll send the remaining crew on a tea-break – part of my responsibility is making sure that everyone has the appropriate breaks. At this point, most of the crew will disappear from the theatre, to a local café that makes bacon sandwiches. The café is always at least 5 minutes away, the sandwiches take about 8 minutes to make, which means that the exact point of the 20-minute break elapsing always coincides with the crew just about to take their second bite. I’m therefore obliged, by the fact that I need them onside, to let them finish eating, while treading that fine line between gesturing at my watch like a demented mime artist or giving in and calling an early lunch break.

Once the LX bars are rigged, they’re flown out so we can start building the set. This comprises 15 flats, 4.5m high and various widths, plus several smaller pieces that make up the French window. Oh, and a ratty old chandelier. It all goes up quite easily, really, so then it’s lunch. I like to try and eat with the crew, if possible, to try and maintain contact, but I wouldn’t say these lunches are a hotbed of warm and convivial repartee. At least the homophobic banter that’s acted as a commentary to the morning usually subsides during this hour. Once back, the crew tidy up the backstage areas, put down carpet runners, tidy up cables, that kind of thing, while I’m onstage with the LX team, focusing lanterns. There are 98 lanterns in total, so that all takes a few hours. The lighting states are saved to a disc, so after we’ve focused I run through the states, tweaking as necessary.

By this point, it’s around 5.30pm, and the cast are starting to arrive. They have a walk round the set, and backstage, to acquaint themselves with where everything is, and how the auditorium looks and sounds. This is also the time when they, forgetting or not quite comprehending the fact that I’ve been working continually onstage all day, ask me about tickets or local amenities or whether I can fax their tax return to their accountant.

Finally, at 7.30pm (usually), the show starts. I’ll watch from the front, to make sure it looks OK, and then make any adjustments to the lighting the next afternoon. It also means I can let the cast know how it sounds, and whether they need to project more or pull it back a bit.

Mondays are by far the most demanding day, and if anything goes awry – old lanterns not working, difficult access from the dock to the stage, crew being stupid or inexperienced or both – then I can be working on things right up until the moment we open the house.

Often, on the first night, the ‘Friends of the theatre’ have a post-show event in the dress circle bar, which means a free drink and the experience of opening the door from backstage to a cluster of blank faces, disappointed that you aren’t someone they recognise. Then, the chairman of the Friends gives a speech, praising the cast for their hard work over the last couple of hours. Mind you, the flipside of being ignored is that no one’s waiting with a picture of me in a funny outfit taken 20 years ago to be autographed.

And that’s the show up, then. Rest of the time, I’m the point of contact for everyone who has a question, and for the cast regarding almost everything to do with their working day; this covers anything from liaising between them and the marketing department in the setting up of interviews to letting them know how many people are in for a performance. I’ll fix anything that’s causing a problem or acting up in the show (including fellow cast members, if need be!), and if a bulb’s blown or a tap’s leaking in their dressing room, I’ll get that sorted too. With the exception of day-to-day costume issues, which are overseen by our Wardrobe Mistress, everything comes through me. It can make for long, sometimes frustrating, days, but if you have a good company, who are well behaved and generally happy, helpful and sociable, as I’m thrilled to say is the case at the moment, then it can be quite fun.

And on Saturday, the moment the curtain comes down, we chuck it all in the lorry, ready to start again.

IN SUMMARY: Yeah, well, this is as interesting as I get right now.

A few lines

A tiring week, this week. We were at a theatre that’s been dark for the best part of two years, and I think it’s fair to say that it wasn’t really in the “receive position” for us [Insert Own Joke Here]. Monday (get-in day) was l-o-o-o-o-n-g and difficult. Thrillingly, though, the show’s been playing to full houses, which makes it seem as though there’s some point to it all.

We’re also past the halfway stage of the tour, so a game of “Murder” has been instigated. It’s done the trick of giving everyone a different focus and shaking things up a bit, but also means everyone is looking shifty and paranoid. Mind you, I’ve worked on shows where we didn’t need to fabricate that.

I managed to catch Question Time and was disappointed that Griffin wasn’t subjected to a proper interrogation. There was far too much posturing and hysteria, and, while that might be understandable, it didn’t really serve to expose his inadequacies. A missed opportunity.

Next week is a week off, and I must try and resist the urge to sit in my pants in front of the iPlayer for the entire seven days. Maybe five, give me that.

Where the buffalo roam

This week’s digs are simply somebody’s spare room. I’ve stayed in worse, but after a few weeks of this now I’m itching for my own – by which I mean an anonymous – space. The bed is a single, very springy mattress, but the get-in at the theatre was so tiring that I haven’t noticed that too much. What’s harder to ignore is the wiry pubic hairs, conspicuous on the bathroom floor. That, and the terrible smell of cat-shit focused around the kitchen, which is the reason, I assume, for the superabundance of Glade plug-ins, pumping out a continuous and sickly fug of poison, making the place seem like something from the set of Se7en*.

Oh, and this? On the wall?

Morning!

Mind you, the alternative is this.

Mwah!

There is no place like somebody else’s home.

*That’s 7even. I mean, Seven, even.

What?! Are you crazy?

Right.

Wrong.

Can I have a receipt? – UPDATE!

She’d seemed a cultured woman. She goes to the theatre, there are lots of respectable books in the flat, she listens to Radio 3. But I had to get out of there quickly this morning. Why? Because this was oozing through the entire property. What was? This:

I’m so sorry, but you had only 30 seconds at worst. I had at least half an hour, before I got to the front door, my torn and bloodied hands scrabbling at the handle.

It’s no way to end the week. And not a dream-catcher in sight.