Dartford Orchard Theatre Tuesday Feb 2nd

Well, we're off and running, though not without incident, as is pretty much to be expected with the first show of any tour. You sort of expect teething problems; what we actually GOT was major maxillo-facial surgery without anaesthetic, but as our lighting guru Rodders so accurately pointed out " no-one died, though ", and that's always a bonus, I find. Thinking about it now with the benefit of hindsight and several cans of Red Bull, things could have actually gone quite spectacularly wrong; it was a new show which the crew hadn't seen or heard, we hadn't be able to do production rehearsals, the gear hadn't been on the road in a while, and most seriously, the Moon was in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligned with Mars ( a free Bootlegs' t-shirt to the first person to successfully spot the lyric there, as long as their claim is accompanied by a letter from both great - grandparents confrming that the claimant is over 21 ). In a nutshell, a snagged cable in the house lighting rig earlier in the day had caused a short circuit of trouser-dampening proportions, resulting in the loss of all twelve of our moving lights, all three projectors, the PA system and, crucially, the kettle. With the moving lights, the short had caused some kind of digital hissy fit and they promptly fell over and stayed fallen for much of the day despite Rodders' closest attentions ( he even tried percussive maintenance on them at one point ). I believe it was the promise of a box of Thornton's chocolates that finally got them working in the end....well, that always works for ME, so that figures.....There were also some issues with the stage monitoring system and the usual " Did you bring the box of knurled grunion rods ?" " No, I thought YOU did "...kind of stuff. We had a big problem with the Powerpoint laptop right at the end of the show so we didn't get to do the old " follow the bouncing ball " thing for the last number. I have to admit to a brief attack of hand-flapping and squealing like a girl at that point, but fortunately Clive was on hand to tell me not to be such an arse and get on with it.
The show itself could also have gone tits up as it involves a lot more dialogue and quite a few new cues, but I have to say a very, very big " well done " to everyone for getting through it with literally no worries at all. Having our own lighting engineer on the tour is going to make a LOAD of difference; even if Rodders was a total klutz ( he's not, of course )the simple continuity factor alone is going to improve the show as the tour progresses. The new songs were all great, the medley sections worked really well, and the onstage banter was a hit with a very " up for it " and appreciative audience, who were on their feet and dancing well before the end. Yes, there WERE problems and mistakes, but to be honest we're really the only people who know that; everyone else seemed to go home happy, and that's what it's all about, of course ( actually it's about making a shedload of money and being surrounded by sexually uninhibited young women, but who's arguing ? ) We keep talking about this being an " organic " tour, and to illustrate the point we even had to make several changes today on Day One, so this first week will really just be letting us get the measure of the whole caboodle. I'll add more detail and possibly even some pictures from the shows over the next couple of days, but for now it's crash - out time.....tomorrow we ride to High Wycombe on wings of steel to do battle with the False Ones ! They are many but they are WEAK ! We are few but we are STRONG ! Are you with us, brothers and sisters.....?!