Wild Duck in Flight

It is now into the second week of performances for "The Wild Duck", Kitten's production for the Bench Theatre at Havant Arts Centre. We have just completed the Tuesday performance after the Sunday/Monday break from the first week. This is traditionally a quiet night for audience numbers and a slow night as the cast and crew get back into their stride. I am delighted to say last night's performance was none of these things. The audience was bigger than expected and quite vocal. When I reappeared in uniform for my final entrance in Act 5, I distinctly heard a man's voice say, "There he is". At first, my actor's vanity (of which I have an enormous, nay, infinite supply) thought it was a fan, who had been waiting with bated breath for my re-appearance since the end of Act 3. However, upon cooler rationalisation, I realise it was a plot comment - the Ekdahls were under the mistaken impression that the grandfather is up in the loft shooting rabbits - and the gentleman from the audience was just putting them right on that score.

The performances were slick and certainly the tempo has been picked up since the first night, which doubtless affected the review. Nathan's performance is now capturing the comedy and the gamut of emotions. Hjalmar is funny and exasperating in equal measure and Nathan is now delivering all the nuances. The play is slow to get going and I think if we could rework Act 1 in the light of what we have learned in performance I think we could lighten the load that exposition places upon the play. Nathan has grown in stature as a physical actor and could be giving one of his best performances. Megan was another who never seemed to get going in rehearsal but who seems to arrived at a characterisation in performance. Her Gina is well rounded and quite rightly attracts the audience to her, even though she is a woman with a "shady" past. Charley as Hedvig is beautiful and uses her natural beauty to illuminate the part. She plays a fourteen year old perfectly and her range of emotions is modulated and moving. The Ekdahl family is a convincing and beautifully acted unit. It is a shame they were unseen or at least unmentioned by the reviewer. They have certainly been noticed and commented upon by the audiences.

My character is the one who produces the dead skinned rabbit onstage. I bought them at a local farm meat shop and though they do create an audible reaction they haven't yet fulfilled W.C.Fields dire warning about "never appearing with children or animals".

I have also persuaded a fellow cardiac rehab exerciser to bring his wife to the Thursday performance, thereby fulfilling Robin's exhortation in the recent Benchpress to introduce someone new to the Bench. I was impressed that Paul Millington delayed his business trip to Worcester till today so that he could do front of house last night.

Our cardiac rehab classes are getting a website - www.cardiacrehabphase4.co.uk - (not yet active) and I am hoping to sign on as a stand alone speaker for the British Heart Foundation and to join my local fundraising group for the four main events of the year. So please don't ignore me if you find me stood outside Asda hypermarket one day with a collecting tin in 2008. I am hoping that my job as speaker will enable me to boost numbers for Debbie's cardiac rehab classes. The NHS run Phase 3 but getting the cross over into Phase 4 can be hard work.