All Aboard!

We are open and on the road! It’s a bit crazy to think that since 2020 began we have completed rehearsals, teched, previewed, opened, moved venue three times and completed the first cover run for the understudies! But this is to be expected from a fast-paced weekly tour.

This tour covers most of the United Kingdom, but we aren’t hanging around, usually playing just 5 days in each city. We opened in Bromley to a near-100% capacity run with great reviews all round, especially for our amazing Carole, Daisy Wood-Davis, who has to be one of the hardest working actors I have had the pleasure to rehearse with. She had never played piano before getting this part! The Churchill Theatre, Bromley, was actually the theatre she used to go to as a kid, so to open this tour there was even more special for her.

The rest of the cast provide bucketloads of talent, with practically every person on stage getting to front one of the many iconic numbers included in the show. We have of course been joined on the road with a ridiculously good band of musicians, and our technical & backstage support is the envy of the industry. Everyone is upbeat at the expectation that we have a great tour ahead!

Our second venue was Hull - its New Theatre even Newer since my last visit in 2013. Having been a Capital City of Culture recently, the theatre has been transformed inside with a brand new backstage and (mercifully!) a larger pit. Notoriously viewed as a bit of a backwater these days, I took great pleasure in seeking out some gorgeous amenities in the Humberside city, including great coffee, fabulous beers and some seriously incredible food from across the region and the wider world - a great reminder that Hull was once at the epicentre of international shipping.

Next was Aberdeen, a city I always look forward to visiting. I usually end up driving, but this time it made more sense to fly, which meant I missed seeing the stunning Aberdeenshire countryside on my travels. The Granite City, however, still stands proudly and I was able to seek out some of the great restaurants, pubs & bars that I remembered from previous visits, notably Brewdog’s very first bar and The Grill, a legendary whisky pub on Union Street. The theatre is small but perfectly formed, and thankfully there were no problems with snow during our visit as often happens in the winter months.

As I type, the show is moving into its 4th venue: The Derngate, Northampton. The tour stays fairly south for the month of February, playing Eastbourne, Woking & Bristol. We have a bit more rehearsal to go as we work with the remainder of the understudies, the second covers, as well as preparing my Assistant Musical Director, Luke, for his first conduct. Although the schedule is busy, we do at least get Sundays AND Mondays off, leading to the rather novel luxury (in our theatre industry) of a proper two-day weekend. Lovely!