Roadies at the ready

Credit: Jason Lock

Six weeks ago, I was sitting in my kitchen bewailing the fact that I felt totally powerless to do anything to get a showing for Bog Standard - the musical and storytelling show I have been working on with harpist Lucy Nolan. But 24 hours later we were looking at a new reality - a tour at the beginning for May and the possibility of another in Cambridgeshire in Autumn 2025.

I’d like to say that again - a tour. There is nothing like the knowledge that the tickets have now gone on sale for Lancaster (May 7, 7.30pm, The Gregson Arts Centre) and Edinburgh (May 9, 6pm, Scottish Storytelling Centre) for focusing the mind.

Thank goodness for transferrable skills, I say. All those years as a medical journalist writing for  titles like The Guardian and The Independent, give me the ability to turn round copy, know what works on a leaflet or poster, and the bare-faced cheek to ask contacts for help when I don’t know the way things are done in the theatrical world.

Then there’s rehearsing a show - and learning your lines. That’s where I find myself turning to another string to my bow - my cello, which I’ve been playing and performing since I was 10. If I get stuck I find myself asking myself what I would be doing if this were a piece of music. Then I have to find the theatrical equivalent of scales and arpeggios, troubleshooting a problem, and of building that magical accord with the audience.

Who would have thought that the confidence I had to build over years to interview anyone from a health minister or an international orchestral conductor, to a survivor of a gang rape, would be my support structure for drawing people into the new world I build with them based on words, music and the imagination?

Come and see us do it.