Press to impress
April 30, 2012
We made it. It was a long journey to the opening performances, and there is such a sense of relief all round.
A leisurely breakfast in Carluccio's, in the knowledge that there are no other calls on my time before the show tonight, is a particular pleasure.
Actually, there is an appointment this afternoon to treat what we think is a ruptured hamstring. Running off stage in the Twelfth Night on Wednesday something went snap in the back of my knee and I had to crawl halfway off the vom. Let this be the first and last reference to the appropriateness of a hamstring injury for an old ham.
It's funny, isn't it, how sometimes adversity can offer us advantage. I had to do The Tempest with a walking stick - which David Farr thought tempered my sometimes excessive energy! I couldn't easily sit down, so delivered the 'commonwealth' speech standing up - which turned out to be a much better way of doing it.
There were a few more enabling discoveries of good ways of doing stuff that were born out of temporary disablement. We'll take things a step at a time, now - almost literally - and fully consider and test anything that might be challenging. Fingers are firmly crossed.
It's all a bit embarrassing because I had a knee injury here in 2006, which was somewhat compromising. This is nothing like as bad but at the moment it does feel a bit like an unwelcome re-run.
We are generally pleased with the press night performances. Certainly the audience response has been hugely favourable. Now that I'm loving a day of relaxation, I'm mindful of the continuing burden on stage crew, press, marketing, education and all the immensely busy people who will be progressing the World Shakespeare Festival through the summer.
On Monday our understudies will be back in the rehearsal room along with our hard-working stage management. Just when we thought we'd arrived, the journey continues.
Caption: the picture today is of me saluting the bard at Holy Trinity church. Somebody caught this private moment at the birthday celebrations so, as I don't have any other pictures for you, I thought I might as well make it public.
by Nick Day
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