Paul's Voiceover and Performance Journal

Well, opening night looms ever nearer - no pressure then. This has so far not been the easiest of journeys. The pandemic has really limited what we have been able to do, with who, where, and when. This means we have largely been shivering in the rain in the car park over this last month, with the odd exception for nice weather. It has proven impossible thus far to have all the cast and crew together at the same time, meaning that we have yet to do a full run through of the whole play. Did I mention we open in a fortnight? Well, in spite of all the odds against us, despite the delay in the ending of lockdown restrictions, despite some of our motley band having to go into isolation, it looks to me that we have a play. the fight sequences have become slicker: even the dancing is shaping up to the point that it's unlikely that anyone will throw things at us.  There will be issues once we do the getin at the Abbey ruins, of course. The step in the stage might flummox some of the movemen

  OK, I know. I didn't quite keep up with what I promised to do before, so let's see if we can't make amends with this. We started rehearsing for the open air production of Romeo and Juliet in April, and here we are now, 20 days from curtain up, and it feels all very close to the wire. Not as close to the wire as bloody Mother Courage, but close nevertheless.  Currently, we're down an SM (she has the 'rona) and a Prince (She may also have the lurgy, but is self-isolating in Mantua to be on the safe side), and we're still rehearsing in the car park at Progress. We've been doing this despite the stupidly cold weather and rain, then the very briefly stupidly hot weather, then the bit with more rain, all the way through. Now, while it's good practice for an open air production, it's not very good for ensemble work, as we've been working in Covid secure groups (i.e. limiting numbers to batches of 6 at first and then slowly building up as the rules all

Like every theatre in the country, the one to which I'm attached, Progress Theatre, has been dark since last March, and, like many other places, has been trying its best to provide online offerings  - check out our Vimeo page for some of the performances we've filmed over the last decade or so. We've also been busy with a digital theatre performances. In the past year, I've reprised a couple of roles, as well as perform in a scratch theatre event, and now, I'm in rehearsals for an evening of monologues, titled Life Lessons. As the name suggests, it's a series of monologues that deal with life events from the perspective of people of differing ages. I'll be performing from Oedipus The King, though exactly what life lesson it has to offer is a bit uncertain, unless it's 'don't kill your dad, marry your mum and have kids' - which, to be honest, I don't think needs much drumming in. Anyway, I thought I'd keep a series of blog posts chroni