Ballet Central Diary

I am Tired!

The waiting is over, I have finally entered a new weblog. It has been a long time since my last one and since then there has been a whirlwind of activity, so much so that Ryms 5000 word essay couldn't even fit it all in. I do not really know where to start. Since the Linbury we have danced at 10 different venues (Bracknell, RADA, Canterbury, Chipping Norton, Grantham, Shrewsbury, Hereford, Taunton, Bridport and Frome) and 7 of these venues were while on tour. All of the theatres have posed us with different challenges and all have been a rite laugh.

The first, Chipping Norton was a teeny weeny stage but the audience were fantastic. I danced Arabian, Jazz and Cinderella all of which I absolutley love although having read Rym and Brenda's blogs I know they have told you all about the show so I will go into detail on another wonderful aspect of the tour...living in a pub! 2 Snooker tables, great food, loads of games on the itbox (our favourite of which was Caesars palace) and generally a lovely country atmosphere. After losing our last 50 pence on Caesars Palace (Cheers Nick 'theres only 6 ducks in the pond' Peak) and having destroyed Doug (lighting designer) and Chris (Stage manager) at Pool me and Ruan retired to our room to watch Derren Brown, what a night! The shows went very well and we all found a place in our hearts for the little dog that roamed around backstage.

Our next tour was Grantham, Shrewsbury, Hereford which involved no pubs (boo!) but 4 nights in 3 different Travelodges the last of which had a lovely cocktail bar (yay!). The only disappointing thing was the that Hereford did not sell very well, which I believe has been the first time this year, still the theatre was stunning and we had a very good response. I did find it amusing to read Rym talk about the tension on tour, something which I, as always was completely unaware of. The girls often make us lads laugh with their ballet gossip and rivalry so I will certainly be going upstairs in a moment to find out if I missed anything particularly interesting, its a shame it will all be finished with now, they will all be friends again and I will have missd it, dammit!

Our most recent tour was Taunton, Bridport and Frome. In Taunton we stayed In a lovely Premier Inn rite opposite a pub(yay!). It wasn't quite as homely or characterful as the one in Chipping Norton but the deal or no deal and wordsearch games on the itbox kept us occupied for a good few hours. I must apologise to Jamiel, Nick and Ruan for going against their wishes, selecting box number 5 and losing 10 pounds, for some reason the consolation prize of 16 pence was ironically not much of a consolation. As is Ballet Central tradition, in Bridport we stayed with host families. Ruan, Long and I stayed with a lovely couple named Penny and John who on night one cooked us pasta and fed us strawberries, gave us some cereal and a full english in the morning and made a fabulous stew the next night along with numerous glasses of wine, cups of tea and coffee and juice. John even took us for a saturday morning drive around Bridport, at which point we saw Jamiel and Nick walking towards the theatre. Now I am not going to lie to you the thought of ambushing them came into my head probably less than a second after I saw them innocently poking a beatle in the grass. Ruan, not suprisingly, was thinking the same thing and John pulled over and watched as the silent countryside was pierced with one of the girliest squeels imaginable from Nick and a full blown cry of fear from Jamiel which was followed by a leap in the air and a dive to the floor covering his head... quite possibly one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

The theatre in Bridport was by far the strangest we will face this year. The stage was small and with a strange alcove and the lights for the stage perched beautifully....in the dressing rooms. Yes not a word could be said during performance as you were never more than 5 feet away from the wings, it was interesting to say the least. I found the funny side of it, most people understandably didn't yet we got on with it and after probably the worst dress rehearsal in history we actually pulled off a pretty good show. The Jazz particularly went down superbly with whoops and cheers from all angles of the theatre. My Mum and Dad were there again as always and are quickly closing in on the record of most performances seen ever in the history of Ballet Central.
We finished with Frome, which was a lovely theatre and again we had a fantastic audience, before trecking back to London and arriving at one o'clock in the morning. After an eventful cab journey back to my flat (I left my phone in the cab only for Jamiel to sprint back down the road and dive back into the moving vehicle to retrieve it) I finally got in at half past one, woke up my flatmates Goz and Matt(Ballet Central blogger from last year) and watched rubbish tele until half 4 in the morning.

That is undoubtably it for now although I am sure I have left things out and have probably made my traditional spelling mistake. Not quite a match for Rym but I feel like I have been sitting in this chair for eternity. I definately wont leave it as long as last time before i write my next one just for the simple reason that I physically could not write one more word.

Speak soon

Tom

Posted by Tom Conlan at June 9, 2008 05:41 PM