Happy Normal Visual Acuity

Happy New Year! Rehearsals for Beautiful have been well underway and we are into our fifth week. The rather pleasant disruption of the Festive season has meant that the rehearsal process is a little more stretched out than usual, but we managed a non-stop run in the studio before we broke up for Christmas which pleased everyone, not least our splendid cast.

The show is a joy to rehearse. More of a play than I first imagined, the legendary songs are largely performed within the context of the story, e.g. at a concert, a bar gig, an audition, a studio recording session. This means more of a focus on the acting sides, but has meant that the moments of polished performance have to be well-rehearsed to make sure that polish is evident, and equally those times when songs are performed “for the first time” or as a demo need to maintain that fresh in-the-moment feel. It’s really quite different to those musicals when a character breaks into a song as an emotive choice or to move the plot along.

Another thing I wasn’t expecting was to teach so many people how to mime instruments! I knew that our Carole needed to play convincingly, as well as our alternate and 3rd cover. However a dozen or so members of the company also play at some point in the show. So far in my career I have avoided too many piano lessons, dabbling in teaching children when I was in the latter stages of my university course. To now find myself teaching the fundamentals of posture, fingering and rhythm was quite the surprise in the first week! It’s not just piano, as we also have cast who mime on guitars, bass and drum kit. It’s certainly made for quite the change!

We are ten or so days away from our first preview, so there are an exciting few days ahead: we complete studio rehearsals with our last few runs of the show, then the band arrive for rehearsal calls. We move into tech at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley and finally add set, lighting, sound, wigs & costumes. We are hearing that the run in Bromley is almost sold out, and we all can’t wait to put this production in front of an audience!

After our first venue, the show moves north to Hull, and then even farther north to Aberdeen. I’m looking forward to both: I haven’t been to the New Theatre since its renovation, and Aberdeen is a beautiful part of the country that could look stunning in the depths of winter - fingers crossed for non-disruptive but pretty snow! Hope to see some of you on my travels with the show throughout 2020.

Before We Begin

It’s the first day of advent, and not for the first time in my life, it’s the start of a new working year. To get shows ready for January, they often start rehearsal before Christmas. These next few months are dominated by my brand new role as Musical Director for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.

It’s the show’s second outing on a domestic tour, playing pretty much every city it can, week on week, throughout 2020. I took my mother to see the show in London during its run at the Aldwych - Carole King’s music was very much part of my childhood; her hits ringing through the house as I got ready for school, or playing on a cassette in the car. Needless to say we had a fabulous time, and I’m so delighted (as is mum!) to get to be Carole King’s piano fingers, accompanying the wonderful Daisy Wood-Davis in the title role!

Rehearsals start tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to meeting the rest of the cast. In six weeks time we will be playing to audiences in Bromley, and somehow in all that time I have Christmas in Cheshire to factor in. You can find full details of where the tour is going here.

November was understandably dominated by the end of the run of Falsettos. I was playing all performances, as the original MD had moved on to another show, and it was quite the work-out for the fingers! In fact, everyone in the cast admitted in the final week that the show had been one of the most taxing (emotionally & technically, as well as physically) to perform night after night. Everyone was sad the “tight-knit family” had to break up after the final night, but relieved they could finally have a holiday!

Family-wise, my parents managed to make it down to London just in time to see Falsettos and soak up the capital in general, and in the week before Beautiful rehearsals began I squeezed in a quick city break to Vienna. My sister is currently working out there on a cabaret show called Palazzo (look it up - it’s fab!) and so the rest of the family (husband Barry and 9 month old Léonie, my niece) are all staying out there. I hadn’t been to Vienna before, so I made sure to do all the touristy things, soaking up the Christmas markets (pictured above) and some warming Glühwein!

Have a fabulous Christmas, and I will update again on all things Carole King-related in January.

Freelance Mode (in falsetto)

October has ended up being a real taste of the freelance life - the variety of which I really miss when on a full time show (although full disclosure: I obviously miss full time work whilst freelancing, so there’s a definite “grass is always greener” mentality playing out here!). The month began with promo work for my next main show - still under wraps, but the photo above offers you an extremely cryptic clue!

Meanwhile, I have now taken over full time at Falsettos, running at The Other Palace until later this month. It’s one of the most physically demanding scores I have played, and by the sounds of it the performers get quite the vocal & acting workout as well. Thankfully the audiences remain fantastically supportive, and the ovations at the end are a treat and feel well-deserved. Whilst personally it is a demanding show to play, the music is gorgeous and beautifully written for piano, so it is a real joy to sit down at 7:30pm each night (plus the matinees, of course!) and get to accompany some of our best musical theatre performers around at the moment. My merry band made up of Rich on drums, Guy on woodwind and of course Josh on keyboard are an equal delight. I’m thoroughly enjoying making sweet music with them of an evening!

I’ve had a bit of a blast from the past, working on rehearsals for international versions of both Matilda & Chicago. My role was simply as rehearsal pianist, but it was lovely to metaphorically poke my head in the room and check back in on both of these wonderful musicals. There was also a bit of looking into the future as I had the opportunity to work alongside the original creatives of Be More Chill, a Broadway musical that has its UK premiere next year. They flew over to audition performers for its West End run, and from what I saw in the room this promises to be a very exciting show! The premise is unapologetically bonkers and the music is loads of fun.

November is dominated by the last few weeks of the run of Falsettos, as well as prep for my next to-be-announced show. Keeping busy, as ever!

Autumn in the Capital

My Capital Ring walk is going well! I am a third of the way round already, reaching Wimbledon Park having started in Woolwich. The next leg through Richmond Park should be quite stunning, especially if the weather is as good as the photo above (fingers crossed!). I can highly recommend the walk, which takes around 2-3 hours a day and is really easy & (mostly) well signposted. I use the app Go Jauntly as a companion, which keeps me on the straight & narrow.

As you can tell, I am enjoying home life back in London once again. It has been the best part of two and a half years on tour, so I have a lot of to-dos saved up! Another aspect has been West End shows - the list has grown longer month by month! Through September I managed to catch the Open Air Theatre version of EVITA before it closed, as well as TINA THE MUSICAL & WAITRESS. I am an addict for the Film with Live Orchestra series, so I took some mates to see The Empire Strikes Back at the Royal Albert Hall the other day. Hearing that theme played live in front of you with the “opening crawl” on the big screen is quite something! Yesterday I saw the intriguing play WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING, directed by the gorgeous Gemma Maddock who was voice coach on the Matilda tour. I’ll try and get a handful more shows done before I start full-time on Falsettos at the end of October.

Talking of Falsettos, I have now conducted my first few performances of this UK premiere run of the musical. My first show was actually brought forward by a week, so a somewhat relaxing week and a half at my parents in Cheshire was more like a lengthy piano practise session! My parents didn’t mind too much, thankfully. Once back in London, my first stab at playing the show went well. It’s one of the busiest shows I’ve ever done: my fingers hardly leave the keys for each of the 70 minute-long acts! But the score is beautiful, the cast & musicians are unbelievably good, so it’s a real delight to play. I’m looking forward to getting back to The Other Palace soon! A reminder that I take over as Musical Director full time for the last four weeks of the run from 28th October.

My trip to Cheshire, barring the odd afternoon of piano practise, was some much-needed respite after the last year or two of work. I even took my dad to watch football and cricket, and we were at Old Trafford on the Sunday that the Ashes were retained! My childhood home town of Altrincham hosted the final stage of the Tour of Britain cycling, and the centre & market were really bustling. It’s so great to see the town I grew up in becoming a real established gem in the North West.

October stays relatively quiet, so my adventure around the Capital Ring will continue. I’m going to get my act together and have a little break/retreat somewhere, and preparations for my next TBA show will also continue. Hopefully it will stop raining at some point and we can enjoy some autumn sunshine!

Matil-Done

21 months since the first preliminary children’s rehearsals began, the Matilda UK Tour played its last performance in Norwich. What a show! What a journey! I was 34 when I was told I would be Musical Director for the production, and 37 when it finished. Only my on/off work on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has lasted longer, and only on Chitty, Chicago & Joseph have I played more performances.

The final couple of weeks proved a great send-off. I got a chance to play the big Keys 1 piano chair on the show, swapping with my Assistant MD Mike for one of the shows in our 9-performance week. Having begun on the show as a Keys 1 deputy in London I’ve been itching to give it another go on the tour. There was a raft of social occasions in the final week, beginning with an Alice In Wonderland-style tea party for the children, then an awards party where the orchestra won for “Commitment to the Cause” (pictured above) - an award celebrating the fact that we were the only department to survive the entire tour without anyone leaving. I also won “Head Boy”, whatever that means…

These two events were followed by the traditional Band Curry and then finally a big end-of-tour party thrown by the producers, with Matilda alumni making the pilgrimage to Norwich to say goodbye to the show. There were speeches, presents, and a chance for me to show everyone a film I had been making of the tour, right back to the first day of (adult) rehearsals, with each day of work represented by a one-second clip. The film ran for nearly 12 minutes, and was a pretty intense watch, as you can imagine!

Final days are always a bit strange. There were two shows and a get-out, and it was never going to be possible to say a proper goodbye to everyone. However there were more lovely words at warm-up, plus a company photograph, and then a small handful of us who weren’t immediately setting off home headed to the nearby pub to dissect what on earth had happened over the past 21 months…!

Returning to London, I was surprised at how quickly I acclimatised. I had a lot of touring luggage to sort through, and a few bin bags worth of items & clothes were removed from the flat before I fully unpacked! Then after a few days of sorting & chilling, I turned my attention to my next show: Falsettos. Running at The Other Palace, this is the first time this musical has been performed professionally in the UK. I am Associate Musical Director on this, which means I help out whenever the Musical Director (the marvellous Richard John) needs to be away. As I write, the show has just opened in previews and is running until the end of November (see my now/next page for a little more information and a link to book tickets). I will be conducting some performances from the end of September.

I have got my act together and started to see shows that are soon to close in the West End. I’ve seen JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR at the Barbican, ALADDIN at the Prince Edward, COME FROM AWAY at the Phoenix, THE SECRET DIARY OF ADRIAN MOLE at the Amabassador’s & ON YOUR FEET at the Coliseum. All fantastic productions, but I will be directing everyone I know to see Come From Away! A tremendous feat of theatre.

Finally, I’ve decided to walk (and maybe jog a bit of) the Capital Ring, which is London’s footpath equivalent of the North & South Circular, but involving more parks and quiet-ways. I’m just putting this in writing to ensure I stick to my goal…! It’s in 15 sections, so I’m hoping to get it done by the end of next month. Are those famous last words? I hope not…

Working The Fingers

The last complete month of this first Matilda UK Tour is done. The show completed its run in Southampton and is now residing at its final venue on this long road, the Theatre Royal, Norwich. The smallest of the theatres we have played, but some of the most welcoming audiences of our entire tour! This Norfolk city sparkles in the warm summer sunshine, with incredible buildings around every corner. There are so many churches here that my digs are actually in one, converted into a lovely modern flat!

I turned 37 at midnight on Press Night, so I was “treated” to a rendition of Happy Birthday from most of the company (thanks guys!). The following day, a few of us (including the whole orchestra) headed out onto the pitch & putt and crazy golf courses of Eaton Park for a day of golf competition. Suffice to say I didn’t win…!

Also this month, a week’s holiday between venues were well-timed enough for me to head back up north for my traditional visit to the Manchester am-dram circuit, helping out with their annual charity Showcase at the Lowry. Always a top fun day seeing old faces, and a great workout for my fingers to play songs from such hits as Miss Saigon, Little Shop of Horrors, Heathers & Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.

Talking of that final show, I decided to pop and see ETAJamie’s West End run as I didn’t know the show too well. A really lovely story, well performed, I was intrigued enough to dig out the old BBC documentary on iPlayer that it was based on!

With just over two weeks to go, thoughts turn both to giving this show the amazing send-off it thoroughly deserves, as well as to what is to come post-Matilda. For me, I’m looking forward to getting started on Falsettos, which is currently in rehearsal, as their Associate Musical Director. It’s my first time back in London working on a show since I was Associate Conductor on Jersey Boys almost three years ago, so it’s high time I show my face in the capital once more! That runs until November, and I hope to be able to share news with you next month about a show I will be MD-ing through 2020! Stay tuned…

Return of the Mayflower

Finally proper summer temperatures have arrived, just in time for our matinee performances! Thankfully, though, the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton has just had a state-of-the-art air-conditioning system installed, meaning the dressing rooms and stage/pit are all nicely temperate. It helps, also, that Southampton sits by the water, meaning temperatures aren’t as stifling as in other areas of the South of England.

I’ve also been quite lucky that my digs for Southampton are on a boat! The cooling water below means my room stays a lovely temperature. I’ve been looking forward to staying on this houseboat all year - I last stayed with the couple who owned it back when I did the Hairspray tour in 2013. They’ve renovated another part of the boat since then, meaning that I have a rather luxurious en-suite double on the top deck.

Talking of renovations, although it was less than two years that I was last at the Mayflower (with Addams Family), the theatre has had another spruce-up. Adding to the backstage extensions when they extended the dock area in recent years, the auditorium has had a lick of paint. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that they had enlarged the pit, utilising under-stage space that was previously a corridor. The new pit is sensational and I’ve never heard a show sound as good as that out front before! The Mayflower had always been a head-scratcher for sound designers and music supervisors, but it looks as though future productions should have a very lovely stay at this venue.

The show itself ticks along nicely. Cast are starting to audition for new projects and everyone backstage is asking about post-tour plans. There are less than two months to go until the tour is done and dusted! We played a rather hilarious post-show game the other day which involved jumbling up little-known facts about our colleagues and then matching up with the correct name. I only managed to guess 2 people out of the entire company! The winner got 20, no idea how, but it was a great chance to find out just how little you actually know about the people you’ve worked with for the past 18 months!

July sees us play Southampton for one more week, then we have a well-earned final holiday week before we open in Norwich. It’s also that time of year again when I pop to Manchester to be a part of Showcase. Oh, and I turn 37! Who’d-a-thunk-it…

Nine Lives

Joseph 2005, Jerry Springer: The Opera 2005, Scrooge 2006, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 2007 & 2009, Hairspray 2013, Wicked 2015, The Addams Family 2017… Matilda the Musical marks my ninth visit to the Bristol Hippodrome with a musical! It’s a theatre that inside & out hasn’t seen very many changes, remaining one of the quintessentially traditional venues on the touring circuit. However I’ve watched the city adapt and develop over the years into quite a place.

The streets teem with art & culture. Fine coffee, vegan bakeries & cider outlets are in abundance. Takeaway cups and plastic bags are on the verge of being outlawed (or at least massively frowned-upon). Musicians descend on the Harbourside almost in flashmob-style, bringing crowds singing & dancing with them. A Cat Cafe (You & Meow, of course) is a recent addition to the establishments by stage door. Cuisines are so far-reaching that I’m managing to eat in a different establishment every single day, and loving every single one of them.

We’ve just completed half term week. It sold out months ago, so the Hippodrome requested we add a ninth performance which took place on Friday afternoon. With only five-or-so weeks notice, impressively that performance also sold out! Audiences as ever have been fabulous, and we have one week left here before we move on to our penultimate venue, Southampton.

The end is looming into view, now, with just over two months left. The tour feels like it’s taken over half my life, and yet counterintuitively the warmth of June has had us all reminiscing of the heat this time last year in Milton Keynes & Birmingham, which only feels like five minutes ago! It’s definitely one of the peculiarities of working on a tour that lasts more than a year. It almost makes it feel like a proper job…!

Scottish Getaway

It transpired that, with the sheer length of the Matilda Tour (both in performance weeks and rehearsals) I had accrued some additional holiday days. An unexpected bonus, I decided they weren’t going to be wasted days. Most of the scheduled weeks off from the show largely end up being time to take stock at either my flat in London or at my parents in Cheshire. If I’m in London, it invariably turns into a week of admin, washing and theatre-going with the odd box set thrown in of an evening. So I took a few days towards the end of our run in Edinburgh with the aim of driving as far north as anyone can get on the UK mainland.

Before that we had the task of settling the show into the Edinburgh Playhouse for its Scottish premiere. By my workings-out, Matilda the Musical played to its biggest ever audience in the world at this theatre, with over 3,000 patrons in watching at most performances. It’s definitely a different scale to the intimacy of RSC Stratford or the Cambridge Theatre, London! But it made the story & score all the more epic, the performances that bit more rewarding and the ovation at the end just that tiny bit louder…!

Edinburgh is my favourite city to tour to. So many things to do and see, so much history, fine food and drink, and walking around Old and New Towns is an utter joy. I was in two minds as to whether this was the city where I should have holiday, but having now clocked up over a year’s worth of work in the Scottish capital, I felt as though I wouldn’t be entirely missing out. So in the final week, my car and I set off north, visiting Inverness, John O’ Groats, the far north and west coasts of the Highlands, as well as the Isles of Skye & Mull. Whisky Distillery tours, fabulous food, incredible views, seriously comfy accommodation and exceptional wildlife abounded across my six days and 1,031-mile trip. The photo above was on my final day, as the clouds parted at the perfect moment to capture what much of the trip felt like. I was very lucky with the weather!

Back now in London on the official week off and it is Bristol next for five weeks, my favourite English city to tour to (I don’t count Manchester as I feel biased having been brought up there). With no more rehearsals or auditions on the horizon, everything feels really rather settled on the tour. There’s a real feeling of just enjoying these final few months of the most epic tour I’ve been a part of since my Chitty days.

11-show week

The Matilda company survived Bradford! Not that there’s anything explicitly wrong with the Yorkshire city (indeed the city centre continues to improve and the curries were absolutely fantastic) but we hit cast change hard at the end of a gruelling 16-week run non-stop. Our final week saw 8 performances and 3 dress rehearsals - an 11-show week!

Once the curtain came down on that 11th performance, however, a week’s holiday awaited us. The tour has essentially been paused for 7 days. No emails, no WhatsApp messages, just everyone enjoying some away time before hitting the next venue. Next? Edinburgh!

I have arrived two days early into the Scottish capital, largely to enjoy the sights of the city before our busy first week setting up the show here. We are still busy rehearsing the new children - they have each done one performance in front of an audience, so to ready them for the change of venue they get three days in a rehearsal room first. As ever, these new kids have amazed and humbled me with their work ethic. Every single one pulled it out of the bag in that final week in Bradford. Our 3 new Matildas - Sophie, Olivia & Freya - totally stepped up and should be rightly proud of their achievements after ten weeks of rehearsal.

We are only in Edinburgh for 4 weeks. I could have easily done 10 weeks here! But we’ll make the most of it and I can’t wait to seek out the social life here to see what’s changed and more importantly which of my favourites are still here.

So it’s the end of my week off - a week where I purposefully didn’t make many plans and ended up hiring in a hot tub for Mother’s Day! I had one of my usual Cheshire Chill-Outs, made extra special by the fact that my new niece was around for the week. I thought about heading off to a nearby spa hotel, before deciding that I could bring the spa to my parents’ house instead…! My mum was rather pleased, as you can imagine. Cheers mum!

New Arrivals

A little late with my update this month, which only serves as evidence of how ridiculously busy things have been over the past few weeks. I left Plymouth early to head back to London, working with the new cast of children as they prepared to join the tour. The show has now moved to Bradford, and current cast met new cast as everyone congregated at the Alhambra (and its very useful studio theatre doubling up as a rehearsal space) to complete the rehearsal process for 20+ new pint-sized members of the Matilda cast.

As I write, we are halfway through technical rehearsals. We tech Act Two next week and then we dress and open them the following week, before hot-footing it to Edinburgh, our next venue! Back to Bradford, though, and I’ve been ensuring I find time to sample its famous cuisine of Pakistani Desi flavours and sumptuous curries. I’ve been trying to find more of the well-established favourite haunts around the area, and was blown away by Shimla Spice up in Shipley. I still have Mumtaz and Akbar’s to cross off this time around!

In family news, my sister (whose birthday is today, in fact) gave birth last week, making me an uncle for the very first time! Welcome to the world, Léonie. Apparently I have to teach her piano at some point.

Snow in Plymouth?

Almost… not quite. Into February, and the Matilda tour is in Plymouth. Whilst most of the South West of England has been cut off by snow, the coastal city is just slightly sodden. We’ve been here almost three weeks, and with rehearsals for the new cast of children taking place elsewhere in the country, our full attention has been on the show each night, as well as making most of the winter season in this seaside resort!

Audiences have been flocking to the Theatre Royal in this usually quiet post-Christmas period, making us feel very welcome here in Devon. This is my fourth show here, and I have been rediscovering the likes of the Barbican, the Hoe, and visiting Fort William Yard for the first time. Our two woodwind players on the tour, Sue & Duncan, own an old mill a few miles north of Plymouth, and they hosted the most amazing Sunday meal a few days ago. I couldn’t think of a better way of spending a weekend at this time of year!

A great feed with the fabulous Matilda Band! L-R Yvonne Parsons (cello), Sion Jones (trombone), Andrew Corcoran (me), Mike Steel (Assistant MD), Felix Stickland (guitar), Simon Wells, Duncan Ashby (woodwind), Sue Phipps (woodwind), Jim Davies (trumpet).

We have just over two weeks left in Plymouth, then all hell breaks loose in our next venue, Bradford, as Cast Change meets Matilda Tour. Better enjoy the relative calm while it lasts!!

Christmas in Cardiff

For a few short weeks, the Matilda tour has felt more - how should I say - ordinary? Rehearsals have purposefully not been scheduled over Christmas and New Year, largely due to extra performances and prescribed days off. Other than a few rehearsals for our new male swing and a returning Matilda preceding that, the tour has had a chance to really settle down nicely again with a run of continually sold-out performances at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff.

I was fortunate enough to get three whole days off over Christmas, returning to Cheshire once again to be with my parents. A very Chilled Christmas! Lots of great food, drink and relaxing. Perfect. Most of the company managed to have similarly relaxing times, and spirits have been high. We’ve just celebrated New Year 2019, with about half of us watching fireworks explode over the theatre from Roald Dahl Plass. All very apt.

Attention does of course now turn to 2019, the year that the first Matilda Tour will come to an end having started rehearsals way back in late-2017. In the immediacy, we have rehearsals! Elliot Harper’s run as Miss Trunchbull is about to begin, and he starts with us tomorrow. In just two weeks, rehearsals for our final cast of children will get underway in London and carry on until April. Then there will be just four months left of this epic tour. Time really is flying.

I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and I’ll be back with an update in a month’s time once we’ve all settled into 2019!

Well-Deserved R&R

Did I really say rehearsals had ended in my last post? I should have known better…

The behemoth that is the Matilda UK Tour has now finished its fantastic Manchester leg and everyone is having a well-deserved week off before moving into the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, for a six-week run over Christmas. Most of the company have jetted off to find slightly warmer (or colder!) temperatures, whilst I plumped for a few days R&R at the Cheshire Abode, before a few days sorting out and catching-up back at my London flat (which I haven’t really seen since July).

The final few weeks in Manchester were busy on two fronts (not including the 8-show weeks): we completed our search for our final cast of children for 2019, culminating in a big weekend of auditions in London (shared with the West End production). Rehearsals begin again in January - not too far away! We have also welcomed Tom Mather to the show, who will be one of our swings. Brand new to the musical, he has now been in full-time rehearsals with us for the past 3 weeks and has already made a (brief) appearance during a couple of numbers in the show when we had a few people off. We continue to rehearse him into the rest of the show over the coming weeks as we settle into our Welsh run.

I’ve managed to catch a few other shows during the pockets of down time, finally seeing the fabulous Kinky Boots when it arrived in Manchester. Whilst back in London, I’ve tried to catch shows that I know close soon: Company at the Gielgud, and Bat Out Of Hell at the Dominion. I don’t think I could’ve seen two different types of musicals if I had tried! But really glad I got to see both fantastic companies before they end their runs early next year.

Talking of 2019, I don’t think I will get back to London in any notable capacity until at least February now. Our six-week run in Cardiff, which includes a busy Christmas schedule immediately followed by rehearsals for our new Miss Trunchbull, Elliot Harper, then goes straight into a few weeks at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth. I do at least get back to my parents in Cheshire for a couple of days around the Big Day itself, so that’s something to look forward to. Have a great Christmas! More updates in the new year.

Manchester Continued

Only a quick update this month as the Matilda tour gets settled into its Manchester run. Rehearsals reached their conclusion (for now) and all the new children and adults are performing fully in the show. We are welcoming new members of the backstage technical team as some staff move to other productions, so we have people learning how to call the show, mix at the sound desk and operate the lights. Lots of new faces to learn as ever!

Old school friends and family members not nearly seen enough continue to come and see the show while it’s at the palace, so I’ve been having lots of lovely catch-ups. As a thank you for tickets, my sister arranged for me to have a relaxing spa day at a hotel nearby. While I’m a big fan of the odd jacuzzi, sauna & steam, this was actually my first ever spa to include a massage and a facial (yes, totally ridiculous for a 36 year old never to have had treatment, I know). As a pianist who also conducts every night, it was totally worthwhile getting some of the tension massaged out of my shoulder and upper back. I already want another one…!

Just over three weeks left of our Manchester run. Do come along if you haven’t seen the show yet!

Busy Bee

So our new set of Matildas are now performing and the rest of our kids cast are settling in. We are also underway in our new temporary home of the Palace Theatre, Manchester, playing to stunning audiences every night. So rehearsals have finished, then? Not on your Nelly.

Having began the process way back in June, we have two weeks of rehearsals left as three of our new children cast learn a second role, a covering arrangement unique to the Matilda UK Tour. We have also welcomed a new adult ensemble member, Richard Astbury, who has just left the London production, as well as a new swing, Katie Lee, who debuted in the role of Hortensia last night.

All these new additions have meant rehearsals continue relentlessly. We have a dress rehearsal planned for next week, at which point things should start to calm down, although we have already begun the process to audition for the 2019 children’s cast, so it never really stops.

It is a joy to be back at the Manchester Palace. For me, it’s my childhood theatre, where I watched all the big musicals as they began their first outings from the West End. I know, therefore, how much the audiences are appreciating seeing Matilda for the very first time in Manchester. The cast are definitely feeling the love! As a city, Manchester is blossoming. I haven’t really worked here that much since I began this career, as most shows I’ve worked on have played Salford. As a result, its been great to re-explore the city as a 30-something. For the first time, I even have digs a mile away, although I still have the very welcome option of driving 45 minutes to my parents house in Cheshire, which is indeed where I’m spending the weekend.

I’m also loving meeting up with rarely-seen friends and extended family while being back here: school friends who now have families, am dram mates who were there back when I was learning from early mistakes, and family members who have never seen me conduct a show before. It’s a real boost at this stage of the tour, making all those hours of aforementioned rehearsals worth the slog. I look forward to meeting up with many more over these remaining eight weeks.

Cast Change

August did flash by, as I fully expected it would. The month was totally dominated by rehearsals for 19 new children who will join the tour for the next six months or so. They have been rehearsing since June in London and joined us at the beginning of August to acquaint themselves with the technicalities of the show proper, including all of its moving parts and the various adults that make appearances during the performance!

Our two new Matildas, Sophia & Scarlett, have excelled already high expectation and their first performances were an absolute triumph this week. The rest of the young ensemble have been inspirational in their devotion & focus towards a stunning debut performance, honestly making the whole rehearsal process overall easier than I was expecting it to be! They are joining a fantastic company making it even more so, and I can't recommend enough that you get yourself to Manchester & Cardiff in these next few months to see them in action.

The existing company, both on stage, backstage, creatively and administratively, have stepped up to the plate admirably and, pulling 12 hour days back-to-back for almost a month, somehow kept spirits high to ensure the new children are well-rehearsed and prepared. We officially ended cast change last night with a "Sports Day" front of house (adults only!) which involved Scoot-offs, newt-chucking & hockey limbo. Far too much fun, but well deserved after a long week of dress rehearsals!

It was, of course, goodbye to our first cast of children - my first cast. We have been through A LOT together since all beginning our journey with the show back in mid-December last year, and it was especially poignant to me to say farewell to two Matildas, Poppy & Lara. I look forward to seeing every single on of them further their theatrical careers a little further down the line. For now, get back to school!

Ten weeks in Birmingham are almost up, amazingly. Later this month (after an extremely well-earned break) we sit down for another ten weeks in the city I grew up in: Manchester. I have a long history with the Palace Theatre, having seen many of my first musicals there with my mum, and taking part in a couple of shows with my dad there, too. I haven't really worked there enough in my career, yet, as this will only be the 4th show I've done, but this extended stay will more than make up for that. I'm looking forward to lots of old friends & family swinging by to see our amazing show.

Family matters took an unfortunate precedent for a time this month, in fact, as my grandad (on my mother's side) passed away. The last surviving grandparent, always proudly supportive of my endeavours, it was an emotional send-off to a great man who joins his wife to carry on their adventures elsewhere. Rest In Peace, Grandad.

Relaxing Into the Tour

Well, July was *almost* a complete month of summery sun! A day of rain towards the end, though, was rather welcome considering how brown the UK had become.

Temperatures into the mid-30Cs caused a small amount of discomfort down in London where are new cast of kids have continued to rehearse all month, but my infrequent visits there have always been a delight as they clearly continue to enjoy the process of learning Matilda. In a few days time, they will finally join us up here in Birmingham and the month-long process of integrating them with the adult cast and with the fully-automated set can get underway.

Back on the tour proper, the most notable event of July was arguably our first Relaxed Performance for Matilda on the road. An autism-friendly event, the idea is for families to be able to enjoy the musical without the worry of disturbing other patrons too much. The house lights are left on (albeit on a lower setting), the auditorium doors are kept open and extra members of front-of-house staff are constantly available for assistance. From a show perspective, sound is less amplified, lighting effects are made subtler and small directional changes go in. It was a pleasure conducting this performance, especially as it fell on my 36th birthday! The focus and energy onstage was expertly geared towards providing the audience with the same experience that the usual show offers, and the reception at the end of that matinee proved that that had been achieved. Everyone had a spring in their step that day after that!

I also moved past 4,000 professional performances in my career this month. Yes, it's rather strange of me to keep count, but as I started counting back in 2004 it's proved very difficult to stop! It all stemmed from a biography in a programme I once saw where a principal claimed to have done "over 20,000 performances" in her career. Knowing they definitely hadn't counted, it intrigued me enough to see just exactly how many I would end up doing. And happy to see after 14 years I'm still going strong (just about)!

It was Showcase this month. This is the amateur dramatic spectacle that usually takes place at the Lowry in Salford every summer. It's full of familiar faces from years gone by and is always far too much fun, especially enjoyable to step back into the depths of an orchestra pit, behind a keyboard, and play things other than Matilda! Well, except that one of the medleys this year was, in fact, Matilda...!

August will flash by, I reckon. By the end of the month, our new set of kids, including two new Matildas, will have performed their first shows. Before that, much rehearsing awaits! Let's hope the weather outside stays kind. But if it doesn't, we probably won't notice much anyway.

If Ever There Was a Lull...

If ever there was a lull during this tour of Matilda, this was that month. Milton Keynes has been relatively easy-going: rehearsals are pretty much done and the theatre is more than well-equipped to deal with a large show like ours. Most importantly, the air conditioning works! Very useful during this rather elongated heatwave that the UK is enjoying.

Of course, by "lull", there has still been much to do. More of our understudies have been getting a chance to get on stage, and many technical departments have used the opportunity to train up new and existing personnel into specific roles on the tour. On the music side, Phil Cornwell has successfully joined us as one of our conductors, taking the helm for a couple of performances here in MK.

Audiences here have been great, as ever. It's also been lovely to live out in the suburbs around Milton Keynes this time, rather than commuting. The weather has helped, of course, but all the walking and cycling routes have been great to explore, especially around the lake and numerous parks. The area is much greener than I've ever given it credit before, what with Central Milton Keynes being so full of concrete!

Away from the tour, but still within the Matilda bubble, rehearsals for our 20 new children got underway this week. I was there for their first afternoon of music calls, everyone fizzing with excitement! They'll be joining us for technical rehearsals from August.

July sees a new venture for the tour as we begin our 10-week sit-down at the Birmingham Hippodrome. A great theatre, a great city - let's hope the weather stays good for the entire duration! (not likely)

Ends and beginnings

May, again dominated by the Matilda Tour (which played all month in Sunderland) saw the end of one process and very much the start of another.

The show itself continues to settle into its rhythm. The sheer effort it takes to put on each performance is quite like no other show I've worked on. It takes over six hours to prepare the production for a Monday performance, over three hours on any other given day and even the cast have to be in almost two hours beforehand. But the theatrical experience that each audience experiences each time it totally worth it.

The process that came to an end was officially our rehearsal period. 169 days after teaching "Bruce" to a load of kids in a hall in London, we had our dress rehearsal for the 2nd cover understudies. That now means every child is rehearsed and every adult company member knows the tracks they perform as well as the tracks they cover. Stage management are happy that everyone knows technically what they are doing, and wigs & wardrobe are happy with the look of every character. Oh, and I'm of course delighted with how everyone is singing their roles! The "cover run" was well-timed, as one day later saw some company members having to cover these exact roles, which they of course did brilliantly. In fact, the whole company pulled together magnificently to maintain our spectacular show.

The one that begins? Rehearsals. Again. We have now cast our next set of children who will start performances in September. They initially rehearse in London at the end of this month before joining us on tour in August so that they, too, can be teched & dressed into the production. More exciting times await and we can be sure (although it was never a surprise) that this tour will never get boring!

The show moves to Milton Keynes next week for a 4-week run. We'll continue to prep for these rehearsals from there. And, who knows? More understudies may get the opportunity to get out in front of an audience.