Happy Thursday everyone!
How are we all?
I am pooped (tired!) as i've been walking around London all day with my parents which consisted of a casual paced meander while my Dad asked every few minutes "what's that building Mark?" and most of the time I had to say "i don't know" but then that's cos most of the time he was usually referring to something a simple as a terraced house! hahaha!
I do love having them visit though. It is like two worlds collide for me, when I go home i can quickly go into small village, chilled out, fresh air mode, where as it is of course much more daunting for them to switch into the mode of 7 million Londoners, underground trains and chains of coffee shops and restaurants everywhere! It reminds me that at one point, I had to adjust to all this myself! It's such an overwhelming city, London, and when you live here you quickly forget how life exists outside of it in a way! I am so grateful I have my parents farm in the middle of the North Wales hills to escape to whenever I can!
So last Thursday night I….hang on….I can't think that far back, I'm just gonna check in my diary - OK……so……i didn't write anything in my diary! Ha. I think I just headed home after the show? oh yeah i did, and I watched a bit of Grey's Anatomy but not much as I fell asleep.
Friday I worked more on the preparations for the Radio Pilot which I was to record on Sunday, then I headed into town to meet my three Rocky Horror girls Haley, Charlotte and Daniella for a coffee and bit of shopping - then I hit the gym and managed to get through my entire workout that my Personal Trainer did with me earlier in the week, without him being there. That might not sound very impressive to you, but those of you who have worked out with a PT, you'll know how much their encouragement and support helps you push yourself that little bit more - but i coped all alone! Ha. It made me feel really geared up for the show!
Saturday morning i had a nice big breakfast to fuel myself for the day as i know that on a two show day, having worked hard at the gym the day before, it can be a real struggle energy wise to get through. Then I came into town a little earlier than usual to buy a few birthday gifts for my friend Charlotte in the show as it was her birthday on Saturday!
The two shows were indeed a struggle energy-wise. When I'm on stage it's great but then when you get in the dressing room it's shocking how quickly your mind and your body can shut down on you and you have to really motivate yourself to get going! But that's part of being an actor, and from experience you find ways to knuckle down and deliver the best performance you can!
After Saturday night's show we had leaving drinks for one of our stage management girls and I decided wasn't going to stay very long - I said goodbye to everyone and then went to the station, only to watch my train leave without me, so I went back to the bar, said Hello to everyone and enjoyed myself for another half hour, which was nice but it did mean I didn't get home until 12.30am and i was up at 6.45am on Sunday to begin a long Journey over to Cardiff to record the radio pilot!
Funnily enough though, waking up at that early time of the day was easier than i thought it was going to be. I'm hilariously OCD when it comes to early mornings - The night before, I lay all the breakfast stuff out and get my clothes ready and have my bag packed so I can almost practically do a Wallace and Grommit style wake up call and go through the machinations of my little wake up routine, which requires no personality until the very last minute when I leave the front door! Ha
I travelled over to the studio in Cowbridge (20 minutes form Cardiff) via train, tube, tube again, train again, and then a car! Sounds like a song eh… "get here if you can…"
For the record - I loved presenting my own radio programme!!! I really hope they commission a series for it. For those reading this as your first Mark Evans Blog then read the last couple of issues to get a better idea of what the Radio Pilot was about.
I arrived at about midday and the camera crew of my T.V documentary where there filming so needed to shoot some stuff for them explaining what was going on and why it was happening and where we were and how it was going to work and how this could effect my career etc etc etc.
Then Bethan the producer and I had a chat through things and did the final bit of re-scripting before my lovely guests Tara Bethan and Rhys Taylor arrived.
We more or less got straight into recording the chat. We had a really good laugh and considering i know them relatively well, especially Tara - I managed to learn a lot more about them just from asking the questions I'd prepared and because of all the effort i'd out into researching the two of them!
It's good in life isn't it, when you feel like all the effort you put into something is worth it! Well it definitely was for this.
Once we finished recording the chat we rehearsed the songs and music we were to perform live in the studio. During this I took a quick couple of minutes to record my first ever Video Blog which will be uploaded this weekend! It's a very short one to begin with but i am learning how to edit videos - been shown the basics and will get better by teaching myself I'm sure - I know I'm gonna get addicted cos I feel ever so clever when I press things on my MacBook and it does what i intended instead of nearly blowing up in my face, which could have happened a few years back had i tried anything technical - so the video blogs are gonna keep coming and will keep getting bigger and better over the summer with all the various things i'm working on and fun stuff too - so you will all feel you are living this exciting year with me!!! Sh-boom!
The rest of the recording went really well and then once I wrapped it up with a bit of filming for the T.V documentary I had the evening off from 7pm to have fun!
Basically, way back in September/October when I was touring with Oklahoma I had to spend 4 days on random weekends here and there recording the 52 songs for the kids T.V show Marcaroni which I completed filming in February and which is now on S4C. Well that recording was done in a studio owned by Caryl Parry Jones who wrote Marcaroni (The studio's in a building outside her house) - Caryl is now a good friend and so are the rest of the Marcaroni company so Sunday evening we had a mini reunion of four of us from the show! It was AMAZING!!! We drank way too much Champagne, ate way too many Krispy Kreme doughnuts (which i bought en route through London) and laughed until our stomachs were hurting! It was the perfect escape from London! Not that i needed it, but i was worried by not having a day off over the weekend that I would be exhausted but clearly the saying is true 'A change is as good as a rest' and it did me the world of good to enjoy being with lovely people having a great time!
Caryl is the co-host of the most popular radio programme on the welsh station, BBC Radio Cymru titled 'Caryl a Daf' and so she was leaving her home on Monday morning at 6.50am to get to work so I decided to get up at 6.30am to get a lift with her to Cardiff train station so that i could get back to London. My goodness did i look dreadful. I expected to FEEL awful, but because i had such a great night I think I was still on a bit of a high BUT when I looked in the mirror of the gents loos on the train I looked like I'd been tied to the front of the train as it raced at 150mph through a heavy storm of hail stones which had been pelting against my face!!! ROUGH!!!
Got back to London around the time that a normal person with any sense would have been waking up in Cardiff nursing a hangover haha, and went for a swim to clear my head which was still slightly bubbly from the night before's beverages!
Felt good after that and fitted in a couple of hours work online with my manager before meeting up with my friend Colin. Most of you who read these blogs know of my friends Laura and Colin who were on Dancing On Ice this year. They just got back off a holiday together so I arranged to meet up with them, then Laura couldn't make it as she had grown up things to do - she's moving house! :)
So, because Colin heads back to Toronto (where he lives) at the end of this week, we decided to do a few of touristy things. We visited Abbey Road studios which is where the famous picture of The Beetles crossing the Zebra crossing was taken and because Colin wanted pictures we ended up walking across that crossing about 7 times…AND……the last time, a guy in a car got so impatient because we actually stopped still with our legs wide like they do in the picture, to pose whilst the kind american lady took our picture for us, that he actually attempted to run me over! I have photographic evidence, his wheel was about 2 inches from my heel! Hilarious! We laughed hard at that!
Then we walked from there all the way back to Victoria for me to go to work! By this point with all that walking I had started to feel the effects of the late night and early morning! Urgh!
After the show Monday night i caught the train home with my mate Aaron who lives near me, I'd sorted tickets for him to bring his parents to see the show, so by the time I said goodbye to him at the end of my mammoth day i felt drained of all energy! What a long day of random buzyness! Good though!
Tuesday I had a meeting with my friend Nathan to discuss and work on a venture of mine that he is now involved with and then i headed to work for a quick rehearsal before another hard work out at the gym with my Personal Trainer. Really enjoyed it! If you seriously want to see a difference if your into working out, go to the gym with someone - doesn't have to be a trainer but having someone spurring you on makes it much easier. I get a lot of people tweeting asking for gym advice and that is my main advice for this week - train with a friend!!!!!!!
After Tuesday night's show i headed home to tidy my flat for the arrival of my folks the next day.
Wednesday was our two show day but i had a meeting at 11.30am with my manager and a couple of people who run a very exciting company which we are in discussions with so watch this space for more info on that!!!
After the matinee I met my parents and took them for food before showing them around back stage at WICKED before they watched the show.
My Dad hasn't been down to london in a long time - He hadn't even seen my flat until last night and I bought it two and a half years ago. Ha. So they both really enjoyed the show and afterwards we picked up some nice M&S nibbles for the train home and then practically went straight to bed when we got in!
Today I walked them for miles and miles!!! During tonight's show I received a text from my mum saying 'We're home - My legs are aching! Thanks for a lovely time and well done in the show, just a shame you can't sing better!'…….My mum is clearly a comedian now! Ha. It really made me chuckle! Loved having them here!
So that's it folks! Another crazy week in the life of Mevans! (That's the name i call myself when I sign in at work).
Hope you enjoyed reading! Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for the first video blog! I'll post the link on twitter and Facebook! In future i will be embedding them in these blogs but was unable to do that for today!
Have a great week folks and get in touch! Hi to all new Twitter followers and of course hello and thanks to you old faithfuls!
If you've enjoyed reading this then pass it on!
Stay happy people and enjoy your lives folks!
Sh-boom!
Mark :)
