Hi Everyone,
How are you all? Good I hope. I am sat in my lounge with my Mum and my Sister. We're all just chilling out because they've had a long journey down here this morning and they're watching Wicked tonight as it's MEDIA NIGHT!!! Which basically means that everyone involved in the show invites a couple of guests who come and watch along with many invited VIP's who are in the media or public eye, be it T.V, Radio, Press, etc and then there is a big old reception and party afterwards where everyone will look wonderfully glamourous and will hopefully have a great time!
It is very important to me that I have my family at events like this whenever possible so that they can experience the true 'showbiz' sides of this crazy industry that i'm a part of because they are the first people who hear about any moaning or groaning I have to get off my chest! So I'm looking forward to tonight and sharing it with Mum and Sis!
So my first week in Wicked ended well last week. It is great to have the opportunity to really settle into a role like this, and have complete trust to experiment with character ideas! Working opposite Louise and Rachel makes this job even more of a pleasure - so wonderful to act with and it's been great getting to know them even more since opening in the show!
I have been trying to get as much gym in as possible this week but it's not as easy as when you have a pool and leisure centre as part of your complex like I did in Cardiff- but I wouldn't swap it for anything. I love being back in my flat! It's brilliant.
Friday I went to watch 'The King's Speech' and thought it was brilliant. Amazing performances all round. Colin Firth was fantastic and definitely deserved the BAFTA for the role he played!
However, the screening my friend and I watched was for deaf or hard of hearing people as it had subtitles throughout - we weren't made aware of this before watching the film so we found it hard not to keep reading the words on the screen, and between two hours of reading the subtitles and the rather calm feel that the film has in general - it resulted in my friend dropping off to sleep and both of us feeling very tired afterwards but, it is a very good film and is highly recommended!
Saturday night, a few of us in the show decided to celebrate a good first week and go out for a few drinks and we had a great night! It was lovely to get to know my 'new friends' better and to spend the evening laughing, dancing and generally having a good time. It was a late night which I actually think has helped change my body clock to working nights again - having been waking at 5am every day to film 'Marcaroni' in Cardiff I have found it much more difficult than I anticipated getting used to late nights! I'm just like an old man really!!! Cup of tea and early bed would do me fine! ha. So anyway - Saturday was great!!!
Now that I'm back in London I just walk everywhere I can just to appreciate being back in the big smoke. So Sunday I woke up, feeling a little tired and had a slight champagne head on me so I decided to jump in the shower, step out of my front door and just walk wherever I fancied walking! It was amazing - I called friends to chat while I was walking and ended up in lovely East Dulwich looking round antique furniture shops and gift shops, card shops and little cafes. I sat in Cafe Nero to read a chapter of my book 'One Day' by David Nicholls which I'm loving reading at the moment (full report when I complete the book!) and I looked up and noticed Orlando Bloom was sat in there writing! I had to do a double take to make sure it was him, and the only reason I think it might not have been was the thought 'what would he be doing in Cafe Nero in Dulwich?' - but i took a sneaky picture just to prove it was him (or his exact look-a-like). Orlando Bloom is the only person I get told I look like which is the reason I thought it was so random that I happened to see him! There was no chance of me looking like him on Sunday though as I was dressed like a geek!
I often find that whatever role I'm playing at the time, whenever I have a day off, I try to look as unlike that character as possible - so, as Fiyero is described as this handsome 'winkified' prince, on sunday I was sporting thick rimmed glasses a big old wooly jumper and the messiest hair ever - loved it!
Then Sunday evening, I chilled out with nice food, and watched our amazing Elphaba, Rachel Tucker perform the song 'Defying Gravity' from Wicked on Dancing On Ice - I know that the majority of you reading this who are UK based will have probably seen it - wasn't she amazing! She really enjoyed it too!
So Monday was Valentine's day wasn't it eh?!?!?!? How do we feel about this?
I had a lovely day. I had a meeting with my bank manager who ended up offering me relationship advice (thanks but no thanks). Then the producers of Wicked took me for a lovely meal at the Ivy which was great - we were laughing at the fact that I had been taken to this wonderful restaurant on valentines day.........by my bosses!!!! Haha!
In the evening, there were about 11 of us in the show who are single, who decided to go out for a singletons meal! It was a great laugh.
Valentine's day can be very romantic if you're in a relationship and can be lovely but it's extremely commercial isn't it!?? I am such a romantic at heart but I'd much rather express my feelings to the person I'm involved with whenever it feels appropriate as oppose to feeling I have to buy a card from Moonpig.com or buy a dozen roses from the local florist on Feb 14th just 'cause it's the done thing!
Probably just a cliche single person's view I suppose. Ha! Don't get me wrong - I actually quite enjoy being single!!!
Tuesday I went for a swim and then met up with a friend before the show. I stayed at my best friend's house on Tuesday evening and then we went for brunch on Wednesday morning which was lovely!
In between shows yesterday, I had a meeting with my friend Nathan who does a lot of work on my summer school West End In Wales (www.westendinwales.com) which was productive.
I have decided that in my blog I'm basically not going to talk about all the boring paper work stuff that I have to do and any admin side to my life because it's dull really isn't it?! But basically just so you know- my life, around the stuff I write about in my blog, consists of emailing, paperwork, more emails, business phone calls, meetings and then a few more emails! Nothing worth writing about!
So my mum and sister are looking glamorous and are ready to go more or less as I have a car picking us up in about half an hour (because my mum doesn't want to walk in her heels - she's a farmer's wife remember! ha) so I'm gonna sign off now, get my suit ready for tonight and head to the bright lights of London Victoria (which is basically a busy train station/road junction in London with Wicked and Billy Elliot trying to make it look a little more West End than it is, haha)
Love your lives folks, and to all of you who have been getting in touch on facebook and twitter I love hearing from you and thanks for your messages and tweets and a particular thanks goes to each and everyone of you who have been sending letters, cards and fan mail to the stage door of the Apollo Victoria theatre! Your time and effort and kind words mean so much and it's great to have such support!
Til next week - Hwyl Fawr (Welsh for Farewell)
Sh-boom
Mark
To find out more about Mark and his career visit his official website at http://www.markevansonline.co.uk/
