9th Feb - SWINDON

Swindon is a gig that none of us would want to have to relive. We battled through snow and ice to get there, as Britain was in the grip of a proper wintery snap. Actually, we didn’t really battle to get there, because there hadn’t been a fresh fall of snow the night before. However, we were aware that blizzards had been forecast to start during the show so we were most anxious to get the show up on time so that we could all get away sharpish at the end.

Some hope. When we arrived, the place was in disarray and Marc and Lara were tearing their hair out. Now we’ve had pretty complicated shows in the past, but this show is quite simple technically. We wanted it like that, partly so that the songs don’t get obscured by other clutter, and partly so that we don’t kill our technical team through overwork and exhaustion.

Apart from anything else, Marc was in a state of complete twitch about the piano. Now my memory of Swindon is that the one thing that made up for having to go there in the first place (yes, it’s a dump) is that the theatre has two very fine pianos, a very good Yamaha grand and a Bosendorfer.

Let me tell you about Bosendorfers. They are rarer than Steinways, and some of the world’s great concert pianists prefer them. If a Steinway is a Lamborghini, then a Bosendorfer is a Bugatti. Some years ago, I went to Switzerland to interview Vladimir Ashkenazy in his piano studio in Switzerland. (It was for a BBC Wales pilot on classical music which never got made into a series.) Apart from the fact that it was like meeting God, because he’s just as nice and twice as talented, he had two huge concert grands in the window which tucked into one another. One was a Steinway and the other was a Bosendorfer. I rest my case.

So I was looking forward to playing either of the Swindon pianos. Then I met Marc in the corridor. Marc is the most even-tempered of men, unless he’s being buggered around sound-wise. Then he gets a bit edgy. His South African accent gets more pronounced.

“Ah dunno whah you awsked for that Yamaha, Dillie, it’s a piece of shut, man. All jangly. Ut’s a shut sound. Dunno ha Ah’m gonna make it sahnd lahk anything but a piece of shut, man. They got a Bosendorfer, much better, hey. That Yamaha, ut’s total shut, even the tuner, man, he says ut’s shut. It’s so shut he can’t tune it, man.”

Well, I never got to even play that piece of shut, because once I protested that I’d asked for the Bosendorfer, Marc marched on stage and insisted that the Yamaha was replaced and the tuner fetched back.

So far so good. Some while later, I sat at the keyboard to do the soundcheck, ready to play what I remembered as a really beautiful instrument. Woe, woe is me. It was a shadow of its former self: no tone, no song, no touch: a ruined beauty, like Brigitte Bardot all fat, wrinkly and mad. Why? How?

Apparently, some while back, asbestos was discovered in the theatre and that section of the building was immediately sealed off. Nothing could be touched or moved. Unfortunately, both pianos were in the sealed part. The asbestos was removed by building specialists over several months, during which the pianos remained in that part of the building. I have no idea what the builders did to protect the pianos (bugger all, I suspect), but frankly, I’d like to go round to their houses and piss on their sofas. I also think that the regulations are fucking STUPID because there would have been just as much asbestos dust in those pianos at the end of the building works as at the beginning. And it was bloody ASININE of the management not to get the pianos out of the building the minute they suspected asbestos and before the local council apparatchiks got wind of it.

Back to the gig. The piano was not the worst of our woes. The technical side of the show was in no danger of being ready on time, and may I remind you that a blizzard was forecast. Sound checking was hell – Liza was trying out a new verse in “MISTAKEN IDENTITY” that night but it was almost impossible because there were blokes in black t-shirts wandering round shouting “Par Can 13, mate!” and “General Wash, Geoff!” or some such gibberish. Eventually, I told Lara just to turn the lights on, we’d make do without nice lighting – people were desperate to get home. Not least us. We went up FORTY MINUTES late with the worst lighting – poor Lara, after all that work trying to get it to look pretty.

The house was quite small – we understood that some people with tickets didn’t even turn up as they were so worried about being able to get home afterwards – but they did their best to act like a large crowd and particularly distinguished themselves by laughing immoderately at Liza’s new verse.

And guess what – it was raining on stage. Yes. It says a lot about the builders – they removed the asbestos, they fucked not one but two terrific pianos, and they left holes in the ceiling. As the snow melted through the holes into the warm building (I say warm – it was less cold inside than outside, but that’s all…) it dripped constantly on stage. What a joke.

Well, the audience were lovely, but that’s one gig we never want to play again. I saw a dear friend briefly after the show; the weather and the lateness of the hour prevented us from having more than a few words together. However, he managed to tell me that he’d had a stand up row with the box office and that, in his opionion, the local publicity was truly terrible. AS we left, the blizzard was in full swing, and my route back to Oxfordshire felt very scary. I slowly followed a big articulated lorry at a
safe distance most of the way, and it was almost the only other vehicle I saw.

10th Feb – EPSOM

After Swindon, anything was a welcome relief. Even Epsom. Adèle & Liza had a nightmare journey through the snows of London. And it’s one of those theatres where they don’t let you park out the back. What is that all about? Liza’s agent and uncle-in-law came to the show. The audience were jolly enough, but I can’t get enthusiastic about the building itself; the style is pure Late 70’s Dole Office, and for Dole also read Doleful.
After the show, we all waved goodbye before Adèle & I slushed away home for two very welcome days of R&R and Liza went to Ireland for the opposite.

13th Feb – Worcester.

Back in harness for Worcester, not the Wolsey theatre, but Huntingdon Hall, a venue previously entirely unknown to us. It’s a converted Methodist chapel, and rather beautiful with a smashing acoustic. Lara couldn’t do much with the few lights she was offered, and was rather put out as a result because she likes to make pretty pictures. But I’m afraid I really don’t care about the lighting at all; all I care about is the sound and the piano, and as long as we can be seen, that’ll do me. The house was full to bursting and the audience were up for a good time from the off. Hurrah! And there was a lovely pulpit which I climbed into at the instigation of Liza and Adèle and was very appropriate for Tesco Saves. But oh why oh why do councils make it so fucking difficult to park near a venue? Don’t they know we have heavy bags to carry? We virtually had to park in Cheltenham. RIDICULOUS!

I remember nothing about the hotel. Apparently, it was on the ring road and was called the Florence or something like that.

14th Feb – Taunton

We were looking forward to Taunton in a big way, not least because the Brewhouse Theatre is rather dear and although it probably dates from the same era as the Epsom Playhouse, it doesn’t induce the feeling that you are entering the building to have your citizenship revoked or to collect a loved one’s death certificate, which Epsom does. There is always a a delicious smell of food as the restaurant is good and well patronised, and tonight it was chocabloc.

Another attraction of Taunton is the audience which has always been excellent – and tonight they lived up to their reputation.

The cherry on the cake, however, was to be the uniquely lovely B&B that Lara had discovered on the internet called, if you can believe it, the Blorenge. We were going to find it hard to leave in the morning, if it lived up to its promise. Now it is hard to imagine that anywhere called The Blorenge could be anything other than a shithole, but Lara assured (and continues to assure) us that the website is a thing of beauty. That may indeed be so – but frankly, the place was so utterly ghastly that I can’t be arsed to look at the website.

The others had checked in already by the time I arrived at the theatre. When I asked about the Blorenge, they looked as if they’d both been told that they were about to have all their teeth removed. Horror, nausea and dread flashed across their countenances as they tried to describe it, but words failed them.

And indeed, when I later went there, the place was indeed grim. Big ugly furniture, hideously knocked about rooms with what one might laughingly call bathrooms (actually cupboards with facilities) slapped into corners or stuck against a wall with no respect paid to the original mouldings or skirtings which disappeared into new plasterboard walls. It seemed actually to be two old houses knocked together, and individually they must have been fine houses in their heydey, because one could see that the rooms were originally well-proportioned and of a good size.

In the morning we came down to our breakfast – the houses had been slapped together so cheaply that their fine oak staircases had been left in – mercifully – but one had to go up half a staircase in House A and come down the other into House B to get to the dining room. It was then I experienced the full horror of The Blorenge, because the staff seemed to have been recruited by Central Casting for a gothic horror movie. Complete with lank and greasy hair, and walking with slight hunches, one expected them to whisper through gappy teeth, “The Master will be here any minute” whilst looking fearfully over one shoulder.

We fled. Never again.

9th Feb - SWINDON

Swindon is a gig that none of us would want to have to relive. We battled through snow and ice to get there, as Britain was in the grip of a proper wintery snap. Actually, we didn’t really battle to get there, because there hadn’t been a fresh fall of snow the night before. However, we were aware that blizzards had been forecast to start during the show so we were most anxious to get the show up on time so that we could all get away sharpish at the end.

Some hope. When we arrived, the place was in disarray and Marc and Lara were tearing their hair out. Now we’ve had pretty complicated shows in the past, but this show is quite simple technically. We wanted it like that, partly so that the songs don’t get obscured by other clutter, and partly so that we don’t kill our technical team through overwork and exhaustion.

Apart from anything else, Marc was in a state of complete twitch about the piano. Now my memory of Swindon is that the one thing that made up for having to go there in the first place (yes, it’s a dump) is that the theatre has two very fine pianos, a very good Yamaha grand and a Bosendorfer.

Let me tell you about Bosendorfers. They are rarer than Steinways, and some of the world’s great concert pianists prefer them. If a Steinway is a Lamborghini, then a Bosendorfer is a Bugatti. Some years ago, I went to Switzerland to interview Vladimir Ashkenazy in his piano studio in Switzerland. (It was for a BBC Wales pilot on classical music which never got made into a series.) Apart from the fact that it was like meeting God, because he’s just as nice and twice as talented, he had two huge concert grands in the window which tucked into one another. One was a Steinway and the other was a Bosendorfer. I rest my case.

So I was looking forward to playing either of the Swindon pianos. Then I met Marc in the corridor. Marc is the most even-tempered of men, unless he’s being buggered around sound-wise. Then he gets a bit edgy. His South African accent gets more pronounced.

“Ah dunno whah you awsked for that Yamaha, Dillie, it’s a piece of shut, man. All jangly. Ut’s a shut sound. Dunno ha Ah’m gonna make it sahnd lahk anything but a piece of shut, man. They got a Bosendorfer, much better, hey. That Yamaha, ut’s total shut, even the tuner, man, he says ut’s shut. It’s so shut he can’t tune it, man.”

Well, I never got to even play that piece of shut, because once I protested that I’d asked for the Bosendorfer, Marc marched on stage and insisted that the Yamaha was replaced and the tuner fetched back.

So far so good. Some while later, I sat at the keyboard to do the soundcheck, ready to play what I remembered as a really beautiful instrument. Woe, woe is me. It was a shadow of its former self: no tone, no song, no touch: a ruined beauty, like Brigitte Bardot all fat, wrinkly and mad. Why? How?

Apparently, some while back, asbestos was discovered in the theatre and that section of the building was immediately sealed off. Nothing could be touched or moved. Unfortunately, both pianos were in the sealed part. The asbestos was removed by building specialists over several months, during which the pianos remained in that part of the building. I have no idea what the builders did to protect the pianos (bugger all, I suspect), but frankly, I’d like to go round to their houses and piss on their sofas. I also think that the regulations are fucking STUPID because there would have been just as much asbestos dust in those pianos at the end of the building works as at the beginning. And it was bloody ASININE of the management not to get the pianos out of the building the minute they suspected asbestos and before the local council apparatchiks got wind of it.

Back to the gig. The piano was not the worst of our woes. The technical side of the show was in no danger of being ready on time, and may I remind you that a blizzard was forecast. Sound checking was hell – Liza was trying out a new verse in “MISTAKEN IDENTITY” that night but it was almost impossible because there were blokes in black t-shirts wandering round shouting “Par Can 13, mate!” and “General Wash, Geoff!” or some such gibberish. Eventually, I told Lara just to turn the lights on, we’d make do without nice lighting – people were desperate to get home. Not least us. We went up FORTY MINUTES late with the worst lighting – poor Lara, after all that work trying to get it to look pretty.

The house was quite small – we understood that some people with tickets didn’t even turn up as they were so worried about being able to get home afterwards – but they did their best to act like a large crowd and particularly distinguished themselves by laughing immoderately at Liza’s new verse.

And guess what – it was raining on stage. Yes. It says a lot about the builders – they removed the asbestos, they fucked not one but two terrific pianos, and they left holes in the ceiling. As the snow melted through the holes into the warm building (I say warm – it was less cold inside than outside, but that’s all…) it dripped constantly on stage. What a joke.

Well, the audience were lovely, but that’s one gig we never want to play again. I saw a dear friend briefly after the show; the weather and the lateness of the hour prevented us from having more than a few words together. However, he managed to tell me that he’d had a stand up row with the box office and that, in his opionion, the local publicity was truly terrible. AS we left, the blizzard was in full swing, and my route back to Oxfordshire felt very scary. I slowly followed a big articulated lorry at a
safe distance most of the way, and it was almost the only other vehicle I saw.

10th Feb – EPSOM

After Swindon, anything was a welcome relief. Even Epsom. Adèle & Liza had a nightmare journey through the snows of London. And it’s one of those theatres where they don’t let you park out the back. What is that all about? Liza’s agent and uncle-in-law came to the show. The audience were jolly enough, but I can’t get enthusiastic about the building itself; the style is pure Late 70’s Dole Office, and for Dole also read Doleful.
After the show, we all waved goodbye before Adèle & I slushed away home for two very welcome days of R&R and Liza went to Ireland for the opposite.

13th Feb – Worcester.

Back in harness for Worcester, not the Wolsey theatre, but Huntingdon Hall, a venue previously entirely unknown to us. It’s a converted Methodist chapel, and rather beautiful with a smashing acoustic. Lara couldn’t do much with the few lights she was offered, and was rather put out as a result because she likes to make pretty pictures. But I’m afraid I really don’t care about the lighting at all; all I care about is the sound and the piano, and as long as we can be seen, that’ll do me. The house was full to bursting and the audience were up for a good time from the off. Hurrah! And there was a lovely pulpit which I climbed into at the instigation of Liza and Adèle and was very appropriate for Tesco Saves. But oh why oh why do councils make it so fucking difficult to park near a venue? Don’t they know we have heavy bags to carry? We virtually had to park in Cheltenham. RIDICULOUS!

I remember nothing about the hotel. Apparently, it was on the ring road and was called the Florence or something like that.

14th Feb – Taunton

We were looking forward to Taunton in a big way, not least because the Brewhouse Theatre is rather dear and although it probably dates from the same era as the Epsom Playhouse, it doesn’t induce the feeling that you are entering the building to have your citizenship revoked or to collect a loved one’s death certificate, which Epsom does. There is always a a delicious smell of food as the restaurant is good and well patronised, and tonight it was chocabloc.

Another attraction of Taunton is the audience which has always been excellent – and tonight they lived up to their reputation.

The cherry on the cake, however, was to be the uniquely lovely B&B that Lara had discovered on the internet called, if you can believe it, the Blorenge. We were going to find it hard to leave in the morning, if it lived up to its promise. Now it is hard to imagine that anywhere called The Blorenge could be anything other than a shithole, but Lara assured (and continues to assure) us that the website is a thing of beauty. That may indeed be so – but frankly, the place was so utterly ghastly that I can’t be arsed to look at the website.

The others had checked in already by the time I arrived at the theatre. When I asked about the Blorenge, they looked as if they’d both been told that they were about to have all their teeth removed. Horror, nausea and dread flashed across their countenances as they tried to describe it, but words failed them.

And indeed, when I later went there, the place was indeed grim. Big ugly furniture, hideously knocked about rooms with what one might laughingly call bathrooms (actually cupboards with facilities) slapped into corners or stuck against a wall with no respect paid to the original mouldings or skirtings which disappeared into new plasterboard walls. It seemed actually to be two old houses knocked together, and individually they must have been fine houses in their heydey, because one could see that the rooms were originally well-proportioned and of a good size.

In the morning we came down to our breakfast – the houses had been slapped together so cheaply that their fine oak staircases had been left in – mercifully – but one had to go up half a staircase in House A and come down the other into House B to get to the dining room. It was then I experienced the full horror of The Blorenge, because the staff seemed to have been recruited by Central Casting for a gothic horror movie. Complete with lank and greasy hair, and walking with slight hunches, one expected them to whisper through gappy teeth, “The Master will be here any minute” whilst looking fearfully over one shoulder.

We fled. Never again.

February 6th-8th – GREENWICH

One is always a bit blasé about Greenwich. It’s London, for heaven’s sake! Just the other side of the city! Only about 16 miles away! An hour’s drive, perhaps? An hour and a quarter, say?

Do not be fooled. Greenwich is at the arse end of the other side of the world. It is also East, and I have a problem going East. I am always late going East. I believe it is because I have inner magnets that draw me towards my Ancient Irish Roots, coupled with my natural Time Clock which means that I approach my best as the day draws on – in other words, the sun pulls me Westward.

Knowing this, I set off at a corrective 3.45 in the certain knowledge that I would pull up outside the theatre at approximately 5pm. Ha! What with the concatenation of my Inner Magnets, the Westward Pull of the Sun, the Eastward Direction and the Bloody Rush Hour, I didn’t get there till a sweaty 6.50. Aiee! Only just in time for the Half!

A word of explanation. The Half, as it is known, is the Half Hour Call and is a sacred moment in the theatre. It’s the latest moment you can arrive at the theatre by contract. Although we are a self-sufficient entity and could make up our own rules if we cared, we observe the theatrical rules wherever possible, and we get deeply agitated when there’s a deviation from the norm. In addition, the Half Hour Call is actually called 35 minutes before curtain up, which may seem nonsensical to outsiders, but it seems utterly logical to us. It gives us 30 minutes to make up and dress, and then 5 minutes to go to the side of the stage and get our brains in order.

Actually, the longer I go on in theatre, the longer I need to be in the building before curtain up. One needs to be able to shake off the outside world, and there is much delicate pleasure to be taken in the little rituals of preparation. Marc Cohen needs to do a proper sound check, I must get to know the piano a little, we eat backstage, and only then do we start the process of getting our faces on. So arriving with just five minutes to spare before the Half is horrid.

However, the show was a doll. Audiences at Greenwich are always really good. We were still learning the show, being so under-rehearsed, but somehow we got through without fluffing or drying. We were particularly thrilled with the Front of House Manager who counted up our Charity Money and took the change, giving us notes to bank. We collect every night for Help For Heroes and Combat Stress, and counting the money is a daily chore. But worth it!

Sunday 1st February – Llandudno

First of the month, first date of the Tour Proper, and Laughing Dave sends us abroad to Wales, giving us a taste of what the tour will be like.

Let me introduce you to Laughing Dave. He’s the No.1 tour booker in the UK, and specialises in one-night-stand tours. He’s tops at his job, he’s a good bloke, he’s a real supporter of the acts he books, his deals are fair, and he’s an honest chap. He’s also been a boon companion on a couple of jolly nights in Edinburgh, so all in all, it is an excellent thing to have him on board. However, I suspect him of having only a sketchy sense of geography. Thus, when he shows you the tour schedule and you cry out “Dave? Southend to Barnstaple to Coventry in three nights?” in your most incredulous voice, he gives a little laugh and says, “Yes!”

Travel these days is immensely complex, and getting to Llandudno involved meticulous planning. I checked the trains, but the return tickets were £172.00 each. Whaaaaaaat??? Outrageous! In addition, to get there for 5 o’clock (bearing in mind we’re talking about catching a train on a Sunday when, as is well known, British trains grind to a crawl), we’d have had to leave home at 6.30am to catch a train from London just after 8am. It would have been a wretchedly long day. And there was no guarantee that we wouldn’t have had to transfer to a coach at Rhyl, or Birmingham or wherever, because of weekend engineering works. Sunday trains in the UK are a bloody disgrace.

Okay, we could have gone up by a cheaper and more convenient train on the Saturday, but that would have involved staying an extra night in a hotel, with more meals eaten in restaurants etc., and up go our costs again. We are nothing if not Crunch Conscious!

So, in spite of a well-intentioned desire to do as little damage to the planet as possible, prudence dictated that we drive. Adèle came up to the services at Junction 10 on the M40, where they transferred to my van, and Farmer John took Adèle’s car back to our house. These are very dull details, but I mention them to highlight how very tricky travel can be. If we’d all met in London, for instance, Adèle from the East and Liza from the North would either have had to lug their kit (overnight bag, makeup and full costumes) across town on public transport to meet me in West London, or they would have had to shell out FORTUNES to come over by cab. Or Adèle could have conceivably driven them both over to my flat in W London where she would then face the headache of parking permits… We could, of course, meet at a Service Station and leave one car there, but they all charge you for parking overnight these days …

Oh, but it is infuriating. Why are trains so cripplingly expensive? Why don’t councils issue households with guest parking vouchers that go over a few days without having to be filled in on a daily basis?

Well, we got there, and as Adèle has reminded me, I drove over a cone in the car park which was rather embarrassing, and which got stuck under the undercarriage. (As she has just pointed out at the time of writing, this is a bit rich coming from a woman who took out several cones on the M1 and drove for several miles with one stuck under her own car.) The house was moderate in size; we’ve never played Llandudno before, but the reception was lovely. Even better, our digs were fantastic. A small boutique b&b called The Escape, which we can’t recommend too highly, beautifully decorated – chic and modern. A helpful young man took our bags to our rooms which as I grow old and feeble is a wondrous thing. Views from the rooms, sensational breakfast, all in all a delightful experience. Frank Thompson, our delightful director, had come up to oversee the first tour show. He came to our hotel and had drinks after, but was staying at a different establishment – his loss, I fear!

February 2nd

Er… we drove home. The landscape outside our van grew snowier as we drove south.

February 3rd - GUILDFORD

When I was 13, I was sent to ballroom dancing classes to learn the Cha-cha-cha (yes, it’s true – my mother hoped I would go to polite dances and win myself a handsome accountant with my fancy footwork). The only thing I ever gained from it was a tendency to dance in the snow and cry “Snow! Snow! Thick thick snow!” Well, it amused me.

It’s not something I have been able to chant very often in recent years but today, oh frabjous day, the world was white and beautiful and I danced the Cha-cha-cha by myself in the garden in a fit of joie de vivre. And so we set off for Guildford, which was not very far. In spite of doomy prognostications – we might get marooned, caught in a snow-drift, die from lack of Mars Bars, - we all reached Nirvana without incident.

Thankfully, Adèle remembered to bring her TomTom and, not only that, used it on both the journey out and the journey home, thus avoiding an unnecessarily circuitous journey to Liza’s. Adèle’s acquaintanceship with Simon TomTom has been not so much a learning curve (was there ever a more fatuous phrase?) as a learning stumble, leap, plateau, lurch and clamber. My union with Tracy TomTom (I chose the girl voice, of course) has been far smoother. A learning stairway, perhaps.

I think the show was rather jolly. The Guildford audience was treated to the full new panoply of songs and seemed rowdily appreciative. Oh, who am I trying to fool? Since when has Guildford ever been rowdy? Okay, they were appreciative with gentile gusto. Will that do?

February 4th and 5th – BURY ST. EDMUNDS

“I come to Bury St. Edmunds, not to praise it!” as Noël Coward said to a young journalist when asked to give his opinion on that lovely town.

In my case, I came to bury the piano. There are three main types of pianos, and they are:

A) Instrument. Suitable for professional use.
B) Furniture. Nice exterior, interior not so hot, might just use it for a party singalong, put your family photos on it.
C) Firewood. Self-explanatory.

Our piano on the first night was direct from the lower circles of Category C. I wanted to take an axe to it there and then. One of the notes stuck repeatedly, it had been given a bit of a gussy-up with a coat of acrylic gloss paint which played merry hell with the sound, and there were all sorts of harmonics (ringing sounds) which reverberated around the stage. Thank God for Marc Cohen, Sultan of Sound, who was mainly able to control some of the odder acoustic nightmares from his desk. I had to learn very quickly to avoid playing certain notes too heavily or often, as they either didn’t sound at all, or caused yet more harmonics – and I couldn’t use the sustain pedal at all.

The trouble with nights like that is you are held over a barrel. I have a contract rider that is painfully, anally specific about what kind of piano I will or will not tolerate. It gives makes, measurements and colour. There is no excuse for a Resident Stage Manager not to know the difference between a tuneless, elderly, Bechstein upright and a Yamaha 6’ grand.

So we arrived at tea-time, around the five o’clock mark, and our hearts plummeted when we saw this wretched old German upright that had been cruelly abused and knocked about, and probably saw its glory days when Goebbels was in short pants. Of course there was no time to throw a fit and demand a decent replacement. (I merely threw the fit.) Which gave us the choice of either cancelling the show (I would have been within my rights to do so) or of enduring the horror of two hours trying to wring a bit of music out of a plank. And in the end, the theatrical inside me always wins out over my inner musician – the show must go on.

You may think that I am being overly melodramatic. However, if you compare pianos to cars, it’s quite instructive. Imagine you are going on holiday to France and have ordered a nice new BMW from Hertz. When you get there, the only car they can give you is a clapped out, rusting, 1952 Trabant; the brakes are dodgy, the exhaust is falling off and the gear shift won’t go into fourth. That was the kind of piano it was. And since my voice is wrecked and tuneless, the least I can do is make some nice music with the keyboard.

Luckily, the public has cloth ears, and if you make them laugh, they will forgive all sorts of tonelessness, and the show went pretty well, even though it felt like walking the tightrope. Liza (that’s Liza with a Z, not Lisa with an S) has a heartbreaking new song called “I WATCHED TWO PEOPLE” which is beginning to reduce the audience to pin-drop silence.

We repaired back after the show to the Angel with Graham Naylor, who shares the honours with Marc Cohen as being one of the two great sound designers we work with. We nattered and caught up into the wee small hour (sic) and then repaired to bobos. The Angel is one of those gorgeous old coaching inns, and one should really see it in the early autumn when the Virginia Creeper that clothes the whole exterior is turning red – it is a glorious building in a splendid position. And it has been given a terrific makeover inside – it was a bit Brown Windsor Soup and Candlewick Bedspreads in recent times, but now it can hold its own with the best. And, I must add, that they provided Liza with a Z and me with a glass of very fine dry Riesling. Liza is, like me, ever in search of a decent dry Riesling, because it is the finest white wine on earth, and no relation of the sickly syrup that amateur gourmets abhor. But the dry stuff is rarer than hen’s teeth outside Germany and Eastern France (the bastards keep all of it for themselves) so it speaks well of a hotel that can provide a decent glass of the golden nectar.

On the second day, our firewood piano was replaced with a ravishing Steinway, supplied by a delightful young couple who clearly treasured and cared for this Beast of a Piano. It takes about 6 years of intensive training to be a fully qualified Steinway technician, which tells you a lot. And if you want to continue the car imagery, a good Steinway is like a Lamborghini.

Even so, there was still a weird occasional harmonic ringing. The Theatre Royal is a venerable old Georgian building, and has had a major refurb of late. All the old plush seats have been removed and modern seating has been installed. The seats are only partially padded, with large areas of shiny, varnished wood. It’s my opinion that these seats are mainly to blame for the changed acoustics of the house, and it’s most definitely NOT an improvement. No changes to performance spaces should ever take place without being overseen by a specialist theatrical acoustician, and after a chat with Marc and Graham, we all agreed that the refurb has damaged what was a perfect acoustic. Shame.

February 9th, 2009

Blog 1

 

Jan 5th

Rehearsals began – and then they didn’t.  Adèle and I arrived bright and early, convening over coffee with Lara (Company Manager), Marc Cohen (Sultan of Sound) and Frank Thompson (Director).  Then my phone rang, and LIza’s name appeared in the display. 

 

“Morning Liza!” I cried, merrily.  But it wasn’t Liza at all, it was very old woman with a thin croaky voice who seemed to have stolen Liza’s phone and, worse yet, was claiming to actually be Liza.  It was bad news.  Miss GT (Golden Tonsils) was at home in bed, muttering feverishly, tossing and turning in her bed of sickness.  So Adèle and I did a bit of admin, we sang Frank the new songs, and then trailed off home to do rewrites. 

 

Jan 6^th

Day Two of rehearsals. Adèle and I arrived bright and early, convening over coffee with Lara and Frank.  Then my phone rang, and LIza’s name appeared once again.

 

This time her phone had been hijacked by a sickly baritone who was auditioning for the voice of Satan in the stage play of The Exorcist.  Miss GT was once more indisposed, and was unable to sing today.  Adèle and I sang Frank the rewrites from the previous night, and trailed off home to do yet more rewrites. 

 

Jan 7^th

Day Three. Adèle and I arrived bright and early, convening over coffee with Lara and Frank. Suddenly, a chill entered the room and we were appalled by the arrival n elderly woman with the pallor of moist flint and deep circles under her eyes that hinted at a life of terrible excess.  Only the Golden Curls (matching the Golden Tonsils) indicated who it might be… and yes, it was Liza Pulman, once known as the Warbler of Wood Green, now sadly the Crow of Crouch End. Bless her, she struggled personfully through a couple of hours work, and then we all trailed off home in different directions:  Liza to her sweaty mattress, and Adèle and I to do even more rewrites.  Will this show never get written?  Hell, will it never get rehearsed?

 

Jan 8^th

A repeat of Days One and Two.  Liza was felled by the efforts of the previous day and the flu claimed her once again.  Our first perfermance – only 4 days hence – loomed.  I felt like the woman who has got her foot stuck between the rails and sees the 3.35 express to London bearing down upon her.

 

Jan 9^th

I remember little of the day except that it was long, and Liza was there the whole day, looking ever so slightly less ghastly.  We decided not to include any of the really new songs except The Markets (a song about doings in high financial places), and that we would do the show we did last summer.  All breathed a sigh of collective relief, with the doomy knowledge that the relief could only be temporary – we had four more new numbers to learn for the album! 

 

 

 

Jan 10^th & 11^th

In spite of all the new material we had to learn, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and took the weekend off.  Liza dosed herself up with every legal chemical available, Adèle stayed at home swotting up The Markets and I had a fall in a garage in High Wycombe.  (Since doing Grumpy Old Woman, I have learned that at my age, one doesn’t simply “fall over”, one “has a fall”.  Too humiliating for words.)

 

This is how it happened.  I was driving back up to Bicester, where I live with Farmer John, and it was so cold that my windscreen washers were iced up.  I left the M40 at High Wycombe to go and put some anti-freeze in the water tank, and pulled up at a garage beside the air and water machine.  Got out of the van and BAM!  I went down like a stone.  Backwards.  No flailing, no ridiculous skating, no trying to catch my balance – one minute I was upright and the next I was seeing stars of both the real and imaginary variety.  My head and my left elbow took the main brunt of the fall – by some wonderful act of providence, I was wearing my Tibetan fur hat – no, it’s not at all PC but there you go, it’s warm, it’s gorgeous, and now it’s a life saver because it really cushioned my fall. 

 

I lay there for a few minutes, wondering if I’d broken anything, and then very cautiously made my way to my feet by way of my knees, and holding on for dear life to the door of the van – I saw that I was in the middle of a vast patch of ice which was getting larger by the moment – the water dispenser was leaking and there were no warning signs. 

 

I stamped into the shop and complained bitterly, feeling very dazed and old and angry.  A lacklustre and drippy youth was sent out to “do something” and rather feebly chucked a bit of sand around while I growled at him.  Finally, when I was feeling (just about) able to drive, I set off on my journey again.

 

Once I got home, I had a look at the elbow.  It was bleeding and the skin was a bit torn.  “Hmm”, I thought, “I’ll probably get a nasty bruise.”  John found plasters and I cleaned it up, and after feeling a bit sorry for myself, I more or less forgot about it, apart from a couple of nasty headaches, and a bit a whiplash. 

 

 

Jan 12^th

Run through.  Fear.  Perspiration.  Dread.  Shite harmonies from me and worse piano playing.  Aieee!  My elbow was quite sore and swollen;  Liza wanted to have a look so I rolled up my sleeve and gave her a gander.  Just to see how swollen it actually was, I gently pressed the bright pink cushion of flesh and a great stream of clear liquid spurted out.   Liza and I both gasped – so I did it again, and another spurt gushed out.  Neither of us had evey seen anything quite like it, and Adèle is sad to this day that she missed it.  Frank said, “You want to be careful of that, you don’t want to get septicaemia,” and I laughed. 

 

 

 

 

Jan 13^th.

Well, I hardly slept a wink.  It was Guildford!  Our first gig!  And I was convinced I had septicaemia.  All through the night, my elbow had throbbed with pain and my head had throbbed with worry.  I tried my pressing action over the washbasin and it was a veritable faucet.  Things Were Not Right In My Left Arm.

 

A digression.  I should explain that when we first agreed to do the show, we planned three weeks rehearsal from 5^th January.  During that time, we would work steadily and quietly to learn the new material and really hone it, getting it ready for a live recording on 25^th.  Somehow, the information didn’t get through to Laughing Dave, our booker, who had booked and confirmed 5 gigs slap bang in the centre of our rehearsal period before you could say knife.  Well it put the heart across me, I don’t mind telling you.  So here we were, schlepping round the country when we should have been working on the new stuff.  Oh dear.

 

And yet.  And yet… it was lovely to see the dear old Yvonne Arnaud Theatre at Guildford.  Jamie Barber does a valiant, nay heroic job keeping that theatre open in the teeth of grant cuts and whatnot.  He is also a delightful man who makes every actor welcome and runs an extremely tight ship. 

 

Back to the Great Drama of the Elbow.  I was sent off to see the Theatre Doctor, a delightful man called Dr. Beaumont, who sympathised mightily, prescribed very strong penicillin, booked me in for an X-ray, and warned me to watch out for the signs of MRSA which has, terrifying to contemplate, made its way into the community.   The girls were very impressed with the size of my dressing.  Somehow, we got through the show, and the audience seemed to love a surprise entrance by Lara, who had to cover for us while we were experiencing technical difficulties in the interval.  She did so very ably, and it’s a relief to know that she can fill in if I am delayed for any reason. 

 

Actually, the audience were completely marvellous.  They were so enthusiastic about everything and laughed so immoderately at even the feeblest of jokes that they were in danger of giving us delusions of hilarity.  But it is the best fun in the world to play an audience like that, and when people wonder why we chose this life, that’s why.

 

Jan 14^th

 

Guildford again. Elbow still throbbing, but now worse and no signs of MRSA.  Show much the same as yesterday, but with a smart new white drape courtesy of the multi-talented Lara A King, who once again filled in during an awkward moment when I had to be elsewhere.  The audience, however, were a little less exuberant than the previous night and we had to work a little harder for our laughs.  A good lesson.  Chums turned up from hither and yon – Pam Russell, my old flatmate from my early years in London, turned up out of the blue.  I haven’t seen her since she went winging off to Switzerland to run a chalet and it was great catching up.  Curiously, her brother-in-law is also brother-in-law to my old Head Girl, Sue Foll, who was also there.  Pam is now back from the Alps ((it was a long visit), and is a physiotherapist in Salisbury.  Sandi Toksvig was there with her completely delightful wife.  Sandi is a wonderful audience member, she gets the crowd going with that infectious laugh of hers.  Mind you, after Liza’s recent bout with the flu, we are wary of anything infectious.

 

Adèle has asked me to point out that Patricia Rose was there … but since we didn’t see her, how can we know?  The mystery deepens.

 

Jan 15^th.

Buxton.

 

We love Buxton!  We stayed at the dear Old Hall Hotel, right beside the theatre. It has wonky floors and an infinite number of comfy chairs in the reception rooms, and bloody good breakfast. With poached haddock.  Yay. 

 

Jan 16^th

Salford.  The Lowry.  Marvellous venue.  Good audiences. I’ve run out of puff now.  Wait for the next blog!

Well, here we are, trying to write songs, and feeling rather dull.  Today we re-wrote the end of DOGGING, a song about strange sexual practices in the woods, and also wrote our 278th version of MISTAKEN IDENTITY… We took Barney the Big Black Lab for a walk, and that is the sum of our achievements.  I still have a hangover and need continuous cups of tea.  Many ideas but nothing really hitting home just yet.  There are so many terrible subjects in the world that it’s hard to be funny… Adele is staying with me for a week and no doubt we will gather steam as the days pass…

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

Welcome to Fascinating Aida’s brand new Online Blog.  Actually, we were amongst the first to blog, only we didn’t know it was called blogging then.  We just called it a web diary and I would sit in the passenger seat with my first laptop plugged into the lighter socket while Adèle drove.  She’d remind me of everything that had happened the day before - and no, this doesn’t prove that I was losing my marbles early on, I would simply wipe from my mind incidents like the moment she trod on a nail, or dropped her mascara.  Dame Adèle has a memory for detail that you wouldn’t believe.  Anyhow, she’d remind me of the previous day’s dramas, and I would type them into the laptop, and then we would bully the stage staff at wherever we were performing into letting us use their telephone line to send the material to Gary, the WunderWebMeister who would then post the blogs on the site.

It’s all SO much more sophisticated now.  I have a laptop with a modem and I can log in and blog from anywhere in the world.  So we have decided to start a blog again - although it will be pretty intermittent at the moment.  The main things are (a) we have had wonderful fun working together this summer, so much so that (b) we are planning a BIG tour next year, plus a new album.  We want to cover the whole of the UK this time - so if you are in the Highlands and Islands and you are reading this, please get in touch as we would LOVE to come and sing for you.   FA are Cabaret Evangelists - no venue, no festival is too small or too remote.  We have pared down the show so it travels more easily, we don’t have fancy scenery and a wardrobe full of enormous gowns.  All we travel with is two bentwood chairs, a rubber snake, a prop phone, a book of music and our microphones.  And it has been a very great joy to work with Lara A. King again who came out with us as Company Everything on our brief tour of summer festivals.  Lara is a long-term member of the FA family and ran the show with great efficiency and precision.  And she makes me laugh. 

Diehard fans may, of course, be rather disappointed that we have abandoned the sequins and the shimmering frocks.  All I have to say about that is that when you get to my age (and size) you look awfully foolish and mutton-like in a bloody great dress.  And because we started out this summer with a budget of approximately 25p for costumes, press and marketing, we had to wear our own clothes on stage and it seemed rather good.  Also, the older you get, the sillier you look when you all wear the same clothes.    

So it’s a stripped down show - just the three of us on stage and poor old Liza and Adèle have to put up with my piano playing which has got very rusty.  I’m afraid I scarcely played at all in the past few years - I was so distraught when I heard about Russell’s diagnosis that I couldn’t bear to even go near a piano, and it took a long time for me to go back to it.  

(Brief explanation for those who are new to FA - Russell Churney became a member of Fascinating Aidain about 2003 when we co-opted him to play piano for us and also sing.  He and I had worked together on my solo shows and he became a more and more integral part of my working life - we had 10 very happy years together.  Then in 2006 he was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas, and died just 14 months later.  It was a terrible blow to all who knew him - he was the loveliest, kindest, drollest, most intelligent person I have ever met.)

Of course, Russell would be utterly horrified if he thought that I had abandoned music on his account, so eventually I forced myself back to the keyboard, and because I couldn’t face replacing him I told the girls they were going to have to put up with my rather more basic style (oompah oompah) and I have to say they have been incredibly polite and forbearing - I’m not being modest when I say my playing is rubbish at the moment.  However, I have had the most wonderful offer which I am eagerly going to take up.  My very old friend Matthew Bannister, the broadcaster, has remarried and moved to a new house which doesn’t fit his magnificent Kawai grand piano.  He wants it to go to a good home, so he’s lending it to me indefinitely.  I am so excited I can hardly speak.  My partner, John, is not quite so excited as it means a certain amount of upheaval and shunting of furniture here at home, but frankly he doesn’t get a say in this.  And no, we won’t be able to use our tiny so-called dining room because it will only fit the piano or the table and thus the table has to go.  But we have only used our tiny so-called dining room once, and that was for breakfast. No-one uses dining rooms any more.  We only use the room to hang our laundry in.  So it is becoming the Music Room, and I shall play much much more and come January my fingers will be trilling up and down the keyboard like Ashkenazy. Well, perhaps not…

So that’s enough for now - it has stopped raining, the sun has come out, which is a rare occasion this summer, and I must go a-gardening.  My dahlias are calling to me.  I will blog again, but not for a week or so as this Wednesday I am opening my new show - MY BRILLIANT DIVORCE by Geraldine Aron - in Milton Keynes, and I must concentrate on that.  Eek.  

Stay well.