Rehearsal diary, week 5

'Cloud Nine' by Caryl Churchill

By Aggi Gunstone

Well what a week it´s been for Indulgence… We are striding on with Act One, so this week we were all set to make some great leaps into Act Two which is set in the 1970´s. All started well on Monday when we did a stagger through (that´s a technical acting term…) but unfortunately by the next rehearsal when we were going to concentrate on the bits which needed work, two of our cast member had been struck down with plague, pestilence and all things foul. Well, a slight stomach problem... So rather than deal with the consequences of interrupted rehearsals while one or another legged it off to the men´s room, we few, we happy few who were left standing ran and re-ran the bits of the play we could get through without them. Poor lads. But at least our bits are looking fantastic now. You´ll just have to catch up.

So we really only have three weeks to go at this stage. It´s always fresh trousers time, but you can rely on the boys to take these things too literally (only kidding gents). I am feeling very happy with act one, everyone has done some fantastic work and we are very nearly at the ‘polishing stage´. Lines, lines, lines is our mantra at the moment. Kevin, of course, knows the thing backwards and is great for prompting when required, which is fairly often at the moment. Daniel is fantastically commanding in Act One as the patriarch Clive, and Jo H´s Maude is a real force to be reckoned with.

On Thursday our esteemed costumier Pauline (or Poo as we lovingly called her – don´t ask me why I haven´t a clue, though it is oddly in keeping with this weeks theme now I come to think of it…) brought along two splendid colleagues of hers – Vic and Adam, who bravely came to take photos of us all dressing up in our splendid cosies at the Uni. They didn´t bat an eye as we all strolled around in our undies and took some marvellous shots of us individually which they are going to do very clever things with and we are going to try and use as images for the set. Bravo chaps!

Speaking of the set I went to B&Q this week with our friend Mark who is building it for us. Kevin has designed the set which is known affectionately as the ‘broken polo´ – find out why when you come and see the show- and Mark, who is a man of many talents, has willingly stepped in to create the polo for us. He reckons it should be with us by Monday. What a star. Creating a set out of 2-by-4 and some glue on no budget is a feat to be reckoned with. The man´s a legend.

So at the end of week five, with three (not panicking, not panicking…) weeks to go we aren´t as far on as I´d hoped we´d be. However illness happens to the best of us, and we have a wealth of talented people on board so I am sure we will pull it together next week. We have scheduled four rehearsals in to really hammer it, hoping to spend two days solid on each act, and I will have a bucket full of disinfectant to hand in case anyone has an accident. Mrs Hollingworth now has the title Jo ‘two cups´ after a slight incident in the warehouse, where you will remember there are no lavatorial facilities… So we will return next week full of good cheer, with lines learnt, all guns blazing and packets of Imodium to hand. Chaps, if you´re reading this, remember there is no better place to read a good book, or thumb through your lines than ‘the smallest room´.