One month to go

We reached the only-one-month-to-go milestone on Easter Sunday. I couldn’t give the traditional exhortations expected from directors on the occasion and resisted the urge to do a mass email. I think that a suitable sense of urgency was setting in without my help.

On Wednesday Helen Critchley presented us with detailed plans for the set along with a small sample of the finish she will artwork onto the ‘ingots’ – decorative lattice-work walls which will back the platform areas. She is using glitter spray on top of a paint effect and the result looks superb and metallic. Last weekend she was colouring vast areas of gauze with black ink that will be used to back the lattices but still allow light through. The result will be gorgeous but Alan Compton (Stage Manager) and team will have a daunting amount of carpentry to do in a relatively short time.

This is a simple model of the set made in Lego and cereal packet cardboard. We're all children at heart. It comes in handy for moving the actors - I use lego traffic signs to represent them - and to discuss lighting.

Martin Oakes (Lighting) also sat in on Wednesday’s rehearsal and took notes. The actors confuse him by wandering into slightly different places as they are getting used to being a new, bigger rehearsal room. They have been accustomed to emoting with their faces pressed to a wall or mirror so the space is liberating and I can see what they’re doing at last. The room still isn’t as deep as the stage will be but it’s a huge improvement.

Piano Seranade

I arrived early as usual to stick down the cardboard set plan and surprised the theatre’s webmaster, John Roberts, practising on the piano. We compared piano-learning notes and we have discovered that we are both making slow progress having reached the level of our own incompetence. He serenaded me whilst I set up, which was a very pleasant way to start what turned out to be a productive rehearsal.

The breakfast props made another appearance to encourage a cosy, warm, good humoured opening scene between the Bohrs and we continued to work on developing that relationship. Jason Blackburn (Heisenberg) joined us later and the complete scenes were excellent - a real improvement. Keith, our prompt of the night, told me that it was much lighter and funnier than he had imagined from reading the script. This was welcome news and exactly what we’d been aiming at so I was delighted.

The night before I had had what can only be described as an anxious director’s dream: I was in the rehearsal room directing the cast of three when another character turned up to do his bit of the play. I couldn’t remember seeing him before, was certain I hadn’t auditioned him but he pointed out that his part was in a section of the play I had somehow overlooked. We had been working on the piece for months and nobody had told me. More actors arrived, this time in animal costumes - who were very rowdy and destructive – and the mysterious section was now several pages larger.

Fortunately the Copenhagen giraffes, horses and elephants will not be wreaking havoc except in my dreams. It’s really not that kind of play.

More from the Director

Us ladies have been proving the weakest link over the last two weeks. Liz Maisey (Margrethe Bohr), Sally Norman (Production Secretary) and myself have all been struck down with the lurgy and have at one time or another lost our voices. In my case the cast were probably quietly rejoicing. However with Liz away, the men got my full attention and what was left of my voice so their jubilation didn’t last long.

In spite of the difficulties rehearsals have been going so well that we did our first run through of Act One this evening. Peter Osborn (Niels Bohr) has thrown down the gauntlet to the others by getting through the act without his script. He was distressed not to be totally word perfect, as he is in his kitchen at home; the rest of us were just impressed.

Considering that we have been concentrating on Act Two recently Act One was remarkably good. It is a bit of a plate-spinning act to keep a two and a half hour play progressing at the same rate. If you concentrate on one bit other areas go wobbly so you run round and round with never enough time. And of course this doesn’t stop because as everything improves you chase smaller and smaller details. Will they work with me again?

From the Director

Although we’ve been rehearsing since early January we only emerged from my kitchen on the 11th February into a rehearsal room. To mark the occasion, Sally Norman arranged a photo session with our production photographer, Jack Boskett.



He caught the inevitable blocking session; we were all getting used to the cardboard mock-up of the set and he probably took a lot of pictures of people looking at their feet and pointing at the floor with puzzled expressions. However here are some of the highlights (it proves we’re working, not drinking).

Has it been challenging so far? I think so. We have found the play hard to visualise and have had a couple of sessions trying some scenes out in more familiar settings – ‘in a pub’ and ‘at the breakfast table’ – to try to get away from the strangeness of a play set in some undefined afterlife. No photos of this sadly, but fun was had and it helped.



Am I pleased with progress so far? Yes indeed. I couldn’t ask for a more dedicated team who have had to put up with my endless tweaking and interference – even when I promise them I’m just going to let them run, I usually don’t. Some bits could go on stage now and be fabulous; other sections are more unfinished, but where it’s right I can see how fantastic the finished production will be. They are a great cast.

Production Details

Performance Dates: Wednesday 23rd – Saturday26th April 2008
Presented by Deep End Theatre Company.

The Playhouse, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Box Office Hours 10:00am - 4:00 pm Mon - Fri
10:00am - 2:30 pm Saturday
Tel: 01242 522852

Performance start at 7.45 pm.
Matinée at 2:30pm 26th April

Tickets £8, £6 Concession (24th & 25th April)
Opening Night Offer: All Seats £5