Living the dream

I am amazed and disappointed in myself to discover that my last posting was October 19th.

This week I have been living the dream that I had before I retired and have tried to recreate ever since I retired in January 2007. During the day I have been working on the set of "Wind in the Willows" at the Havant Arts Centre painting flats, caravan and train. Then in the evenings either rehearsing or performing in the play alongside all three of my girls. This is the ideal life for me. I love working with David Penrose at the best of times and as he is the set designer for "Willows" he has spent a lot of time, talent and effort in creating a marvellous theatrical experience for cast and audiences. I am playing the part of Badger with "lovable gruffness" as the preview goes (we are still awaiting the review as I write) and as he only appears in the second half of each Act I am not unduly stressed or taxed. This ideal state of affairs only lasts to December 21st, which is the get out day. As you may know actors wish other actors to "break a leg" at the start of a performance ( I explain this custom on my sister page, "Bench Hamlet 2008"), well David came up with "break a grenouille" for Mark Wakeman, who is playing Toad!

However I have got involved with the Portsmouth News and its ghost writing story competition. This came about purely by chance as I was having a break in the theatre between shifts of painting the set and the phone went inviting me to take part in reading the winning and runner up entries in both the age categories of the competition. Being an old theatrical tart of the first order, I agreed with alacrity. I was then photographed, was taped reading "The Last of the Spirits" from "A Christmas Carol" and told to expect the former in the paper last Saturday and the latter to be broadcast on the newspaper's website.

Imagine my surprise when on Saturday there appeared this huge photograph of me and article covering a good half a page! I hadn't realised the scale of the venture or that because the project was being led by the features editor it would be given so much prominence. The first-born has the copy at the moment but as soon as i get it back I will scan it and publish it on this blog with the URL for hearing my reading. I now await the winners and runners up of each age category been chosen and then I get the chance to read them aloud again for publication on the News website. There was even early talk of videotaping the stories as well - so you can see why I said I was "living the dream".

I couldn't take up the opportunity of working on "Sherlock Holmes", which came from my agent, as it would have interfered with "Wind in the Willows", for which I have grown a set of whiskers anyway and casting directors prefer clean shaven extras where possible. I would have loved to have worked on "Nine", the new Rob Marshall directed musical (we saw the Donmar production with Larry Lamb and Sara Kestelman, and loved it!). I will just have to wait until it reaches the cinema.

There is obviously a need for more self discipline if I am to keep up with this blog and once more I thank all of you who take the time and trouble to read this egocentric view of my very small world.