Happy Thursday everyone!
Yup we're back to the normal Thursday blog day this week and wow has it been a busy week for me!!!!
But first of all, I'm just gonna send out the biggest SH-BOOM as a means of rejoicing over this weather! I'm very sorry if you live somewhere that isn't sunny as you read this right now and you consider my celebratory Sh-boom as a way of rubbing your nose in it but…..I don't care - haha. Us Brits moan about the weather so much but as of the last couple of weeks there is such a positive feel to London town and i love it! (Is it the weather or the lead up to the Royal Wedding!?!?!? Who knows!!!)
Right so I last blogged on Wednesday of last week! So that night after the show I met a few friends for a nice after show dinner and drinks at Sophie's again in Covent Garden! It was lovely - then I headed home to finish packing and got to sleep!
It was an early start for me on Thursday as I got the train home to North Wales where my mum met me along with my Sister and her youngest daughter. I was so happy to see them and we headed straight home so I could help my mum prepare all the food for our middle of April Christmas dinner that I had politely requested! THERE WAS A LOT OF FOOD!!!
At 3pm I went down to surprise my niece who was finishing school for easter and didn't know I was collecting her - when she saw me, she stood still for a split second, just trying to work out how uncle mark could possibly be in her school, and then from nowhere a big grin appeared as she ran and jumped up into my arms! I love my nieces so much and they make me very happy and proud! So then we went back up to my parents farm (or 'The Ranch' as we children call it) and had a big family christmas meal - we were pulling crackers and wearing the hats and telling the dreadful jokes and everything! I ate far too much food. Not only was the turkey dinner amazing but my mum had made homemade strawberry pavlova and my sister had made a homemade cheesecake with raspberry coolis - i had two portions of each with lots of carte d'or vanilla ice cream! I ate so much that for the rest of the evening I lay feeling very uncomfortable which resulted in me having zero personality which defeated the object of having a family get together in the first place really! But hey, that's what you do at Christmas right?, you eat, then sleep!!!
So Friday morning I woke and headed to meet one of my best friends and bride to be Aimee, who's wedding was on Saturday. We had lots of last minute wedding preparations to do along with her chief bridesmaid Helen and our friend Carys. We were working on table plans, place names, table decorations, collecting wedding cake and flowers and then we all headed to Aimee's mum's house where we were staying over and we toasted to her last night as Miss Edwards with a bottle of fizz and a take away chinese (again, Evans ate too much!)
We were in bed by 10.30pm but I don't think any of us slept very well as we were excited for the wedding the next day!
Saturday morning we woke at 6am - The house was utter chaos with bridesmaids, make up, bridesmaids, flowers, bridesmaids, hair stylists, bridesmaids and more bridesmaids!………
There was actually only 4 bridesmaids and two flower girls and a page boy - but my god those bridesmaids sure know how to make a house a busy one!
The were no real dramas other than one kinda major one - Myself and Carys were ready to leave the house to go to the church and set up the music player for my song, when something snapped off the back of Aimee's wedding dress that we decided had to be mended. So we had to quickly (baring in mind the church was a 40 minute drive away and this was only an hour before the wedding) head to a shop to find safety pins - I couldn't find any but found a mini sewing kit so they had to sew the little broken loop back together!!! D.R.A.M.A!!!
However - the wedding was stunning, she looked amazing, as did the 27 bridesmaids, sorry I mean 4 bridesmaids and everyone was very happy! The church was really cute and Aimee cried as I sang Josh Groban's 'When You Say You Love Me' - They were happy tears by the way, she wasn't crying cos I was rubbish!!!
We all headed to the reception for a good hour of photography (Evans in the mean time, found a secret stash of the bucks fizz they were handing out on trays and devoured about 5!!! Sh-boom!)
The wedding breakfast (why do they call it that when it's blatantly at lunch time!??) was delicious and it was a really nice afternoon with good speeches and great company!
My parents had been invited to the evening 'do' so it was nice to sit and chat with them whilst munching on bacon sarnies (cool idea for evening wedding party food eh?) and eating wedding cake and then working it off with some dreadful wedding dancing! I have to say that as a trained dancer, I don't know what makes me do this but I dance at weddings like I have never attempted to move in time with music before in my life! I'm sure people were looking at me from the outskirts of the dance floor thinking "well if that's what those west end people are like, I won't waste my bloody money going to watch them!"
I was tired and ready for bed come about 10.30pm so my Mum, Dad and I headed home and i went straight to bed! Oh and this never happens but I was VERY drunk that night!!! - Maybe that explains the dreadful dancing?!?!!)
Sunday morning i only felt a little delicate so had a nice healthy breakfast then my mum and i went for a long walk and spent the entire day visiting family and enjoying a relaxing day off! I had to go for a run in the afternoon as I had devoured so much food over the course of the weekend I just felt a bit yukey so I did a mile or two 'around the block'! Does everyone have a block? You know if you go for a walk or a run or to take the dog out you just say "I'm going for a walk around the block!" - Okay that was possibly the most random diversion from a blog i have ever made - I really do just write what comes to my head!!! Anyway….. by the time I got back to the ranch I think I was officially sweating wine!
I showered and then chatted to my brother and his family who had popped in to say hello before heading to the train station to head down to Birmingham!!! I hate saying goodbye to my family but I'll see them soon enough, and instead of feeling sad i decided to feel happy and celebrate a great weekend!!!
I was heading to Birmingham cos it was a bit closer to London to travel back the next day and was meeting my friends Laura and Colin from Dancing On Ice (who a lot of you very kindly voted for - thanks!) as they were there with the live tour! We went out for dinner with Chris Biggins who I hadn't seen for a while - He's a friend of mine since we worked together on The Rocky Horror Show and it was great to see him and a lovely fun night out!!! Laura's Mum was with us too and we decided that she and I will be the next 'Laura and Colin' and will go on Dancing On Ice next year! Ha!
We then had drinks at the hotel and Laura was taking her hair piece out after she'd warn it for the show that night and Biggins tried it on - that was hilarious! I think Laura tweeted a picture of it on Twitter if you wanna try and find it! Good times!
The next day Laura, Colin and I went bowling in central Birmingham to a place called 'Leisure Box'. It's apparently not been open that long and the staff were really lovely so if you are ever in Birmingham and fancy a bit of bowling or ice skating (they have a massive rink too!) then go support them!!!
After that I did some mooching around Birmingham before getting on a train back to London - I felt I had to do a good hours work out at the gym to work off the food of the weekend and then returned to work and it was lovely to be back!!! I needed a break away from London, but it is so nice to come back too and also come back to a show and a job and a company like Wicked which is almost like a family!!! Good times!!!
After the show on Monday I went straight home to unpack my case and get to bed!
I had to be up early on Tuesday morning to do some filming for WICKED!!! That's all i'm gonna say for now but it was fun and I will of course post the link to the footage we filmed as soon as it's available - if you haven't already then sign up to the monthly OZMOPOLITAN news letter on the Wicked London website too!!!
After that I had a meeting with my agent before heading to record a track for the new album by composer Chris Passey! It didn't take long as it was a duet so I didn't have too much to sing and then I did a video blog for @stageleftpod which will be released on Twitter soon - i was answering some questions that some of you sent in and was chatting about the CD and the recording! I'll put it on Twitter for y'all!!!
Yesterday (Wednesday) I woke early and was very productive, between food shopping, washing, cooking, sorting through my tax return work (which for those of you who don't need to do it or aren't self employed - it takes AGES!!!) then I met with the wonderfully talented Oliver Tompsett who used to be in Wicked - he and his brother do a lot of song writing and have written a corker of a track for my upcoming album which i have written the Welsh lyrics for!
I'd just like to say that everything is really coming together with my album now! Next week I'm getting together with my musical director to work on the orchestrations and soon after that it'll be time to hit the studio and get my vocals down!!! I have put so much hard work into it and there are so many things about it that excite me but I am not able to say much at the mo - but stick with me on this, within the next few weeks I'll be releasing more and more information as the build up to the release gets nearer! We're looking early August at the moment but nothing is definite!!! How exciting!!!
The two show's yesterday I found difficult as I think the weekend's busyness finally took a hold! I'm fine when I'm on stage if I feel tired it's when I come off and am not in character that it is hard work! But I had a good nights sleep so I feel good today. Continued work on my tax this morning then had a very exciting meeting just before coming here to Starbucks to write this blog! Lots of good things are going to be happening as far as you fans are concerned! So watch this space!!!
And that brings me to the here and now!!!
I have to just say that my Best Friend sally got engaged today!!! How amazing!!! So there'll be another wedding to write about in a future blog - but not for some time!
Thanks for reading everyone! I get so much positive feedback from you all about this blog and I'm delighted you all enjoy reading it (don't forget to click 'Follow' in the top left hand of the screen to make sure you never miss anything!) - Last week saw a record number of readers so keep spreading this around to all your friends and share the positivity and love of life cos it really is too short!!!
Get in touch on Twitter and if you have any questions I'll try and answer them! @MarkHEvans
Keep smiling
Sh-boom!!!
Mark
P.S I just remembered I promised to write a little bit about tonight's West End Eurovision! Tonight at the Piccadilly Theatre in London's West End 12 shows will compete against each other to raise money for TheatreMAD which is an incredible charity! The idea is that each show picks any song which has been performed by any country in any year of the Eurovision Song Contest and the entire night is run in the same way as the actual contest itself, with VT (Video Tape) introduction's and then the audience vote via text for their favourite performances! It's so much fun and it all gets very competitive and political as the best of the West End's talent battle it out to take home the trophy!!!
I competed with Wicked three years ago when I was in the ensemble and it was the first year that TheatreMAD had held the competition and we won by performing Gina G's '(Ooh Ahh) Just A Little Bit' (which is on YouTube)! I shall be tweeting from the show tonight but be warned it'll be a late night and Wicked are not scheduled to even go on stage until 1.30am!!! If you wanna vote I'll tweet the texting number - assuming it'll work ok! It's all for charity!!! And it's all fun!!! Sh-boom!!!
