Hi Everyone,
Happy Thursday,
Hope you're having a good day so far and have had a good week since my last blog.
The last edition was posted just before I left for my contemporary ballet class at Pineapple dance studios. I had a great class and it felt so good to really sweat out any stresses and leave the class feeling calm and focused. I did the class with my friend Charlotte who is also in Wicked and we worked together on Rocky Horror too. It's always nice to have company in a class.
After doing that I headed to meet my friends Gemma and Nick who I work with in the show for a quick bite to eat before watching Crazy For You which is currently playing at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park. We had been so lucky with the weather. When I was heading into class that morning the rain was pouring from the sky but by the time we headed to the park to watch the show it was glorious sunshine, which makes a difference because as you may have gathered, the 'Open Air Theatre' doesn't have a roof!
I thoroughly enjoyed the show and highly recommend it. The cast were fantastic on the whole and it was great to see two genuine triple threats playing Bobby & Polly. Stephen Mear's choreography is always so fantastic. It was a great afternoon.
I then headed to work and was actually quite tired after a long day so when i headed home i hit the hay immediately as Friday was to be a busy day too!
Friday morning I was up at the crack of dawn to run a few errands before heading to a dance studio in Covent Garden to rehearse with the boys who were dancing for me on Sunday at the Gwyl Gobaith / Festival Of Hope in North Wales on Sunday. My friend Aaron Renfree was choreographing the routine and we had a two hour rehearsal and what he did was great. We had good fun working on it. My manager came to put her seal of approval on the set at the end of the rehearsal and then she and I headed to check out a venue for a certain little something something we have planned for a little album launch which you will find out about TOMORROW! I can't wait to announce it and for you all to get excited about it. It's gonna be really different and really cool.
After that we went for a meeting together over lunch before i gave myself an hour to shop for some outfits for some performances I have coming up on T.V and gigs and appearances in the near future. I then headed to Her Majesty's Theatre where Phantom of The Opera is playing, to rehearse the duet for Sunday which I was singing with John Owen Jones, who's currently playing The Phantom. We sang through it once and chatted the rest of the time. It was a lovely song called 'River In The Rain' from the show Big River.
After that rehearsal I went to work and by the time the show was finished I was absolutely shattered. What a busy day. Very productive though and very exciting.
Saturday morning I packed my outfits for the weekend and for the gig to make sure that by the time i finished work and got home Saturday night I could just flop into bed which is exactly what I did after a good two show day.
So Sunday morning….I woke up feeling refreshed after a good night's sleep…if only I knew what was in store for me that day I might not have been so calm…brace yourselves for this next bit because I'm going to reveal every detail because it was so outrageous!!!
I had arranged that I would meet the boys who were dancing for me at 9.45am in Euston which gave us 30 minutes to get some breakfast and get on the train. The train we were aiming for was scheduled to leave at 10.15 which would have ensured us getting to the venue with not a minute to spare in time for a sound check and rehearsal on stage. Well….because Virgin Trains announced some very last minute changes to the time table, in other words they just cancelled lots of trains, they were severely over booked on every train so unless you had a seat reservation they would't let you on - they were literally stood there on the platform linking arms between station staff and British Transport Police. So there were hundreds of us who watched the 10.15 train leave without us.
So we checked our iphones for the next train which would've been an hour later but that was one of the ones they'd cancelled. So we decided we'd get a train an hour later than that to Wolverhampton because at least that was half way to where we needed to be for the gig. Oh no…we couldn't get on that one without a reservation either. They announced that nobody was going to be able to board ANY train without a reservation, however you have to book a reservation at least 3 hours in advance so we joined the queue hoping to get a train at 2.30pm which would have got us to the venue just in time to walk straight on stage without any rehearsal. We weren't able to do that either and Sophie Evans who was also billed to perform on Sunday was in Euston in the same situation. It seemed hopeless, so the management of the festival called and said "we have booked an Addison Lee private car which will be there to pick all six of you up in 20 minutes and bring you to North Wales" - So that's how we got there. The car cost £580 to get us there and that money had to come out of the charity fund which the festival was raising money for in the first place. I was absolutely appalled at what a dreadful service Virgin Trains provided. Regardless of whether or not you make a reservation they still charge in excess of £70 per ticket to travel with them so why did we have to get a car?!
I don't mind paying for good service, but no service at all other than extreme lack of public communication is unacceptable and if we don't get the money refunded to the charity after the letter I have sent to Virgin Trains, then I shall be contacting Richard Branson himself to inform him of what happened and how much money was literally wasted on a private car!
Anyway….I don't like to moan but needed to point that out! Being a positive person surrounded by mates who were up for having a great weekend, we had to laugh at the situation and the car journey was great fun. We had a wonderful driver who managed to get us there in 4.5 hours, so we arrived at 5pm, 3 hours later than scheduled and ended up having to sound check and rehearse on stage with a lot of the audience already arrived and watching - but hey, they got two shows for the price of one!
It unfortunately poured down with rain a good few times but there were about 2000 people in the crowd and we had a great time. Watch this week's VLOG for an insight into the fun -
http://vimeo.com/28436368
So after watching that you kind of get the picture of the entire weekend! It was great!
So after Monday night's show I headed straight home to crash, because I was tired with a capital T!!! Slept well and after sorting a few things out on Tuesday morning, I headed into central London for a neck massage because i had really bad head aches because of tension in my neck and a little woman with demon thumbs and elbows relieved a lot of that built up tension which was a big help.
I then met Zoe and Charlotte from the show to head to the cinema to watch….dum dum duuuuum - ONE DAY!!! This is the film adaptation of the book i've been harping on about for so long now, since I read it. The book is incredible and I have so much admiration for the author, and I was a little nervous about the movie living up to the book, however, as soon as I read in the opening titles that the screenplay was also written by the same guy, David Nicholls then I knew it'd be great.
There has been a lot of criticism about Anne Hathaway's northern British accent in it. Well this is my opinion in response to the negativity - When a book is adapted into a film people automatically assume it will not be as good as the book and go in to the picture house actually wanting to criticise almost - where as, if you just appreciate it as something completely different you're not setting yourself up for disappointment, so as far as Anne Hathaway's accent was concerned - I didn't have a problem with it at all. The character of Emma Morley is from Leeds, studied in Edinburgh, moved to London then lived in Paris so she kind of had a general British accent with the odd northern twang on a few vowels here and there which was very believable! I am very much a proud Welsh man but I don't have a strong Welsh accent at all! Mine is neutral - as was hers! Anyway, I waffled on a bit there, but basically i loved the film and highly recommend it to you all! If you see it I hope you enjoy it!
After that I headed to work and enjoyed the show before heading home.
Yesterday morning (Wednesday) I headed into town early before the matinee for a vocal massage. Some of you on Twitter asked me to explain what a vocal massage is. It's basically a way to release tension in the neck to re-set the larynx/voice box to where it should be naturally. So it involves a lot of painful manipulation of the muscles down the side of the neck and the root of the tongue and the jaw and then manipulation to the throat to lower the larynx to it's natural set position. It is a painful and very uncomfortable half hour but it makes singing and talking so much easier and is an excellent form of maintenance for people who use their voices a lot. Hope that explains it clearly enough!
So the two shows were really lovely to sing because my voice felt really relaxed. After the matinee I had a brutal body massage to iron out lots of built up lactic acid in my muscles. I know what you're all thinking right now, I had a lot of massages this week, ha. Not one of them was pleasurable let me tell you. I tend to do that, let myself get to a certain point then just get painfully put back together again. I am very bruised as i type this this morning, but it's good.
I have a week off from work next week. Now you all know that i love my job, but I am so excited to have a week off to chill out. I was originally going to be heading somewhere hot abroad, but i have decided to have a holiday in London instead. I have told my agent and my manager that other than one planned two hour meeting I am not working AT ALL for the whole of next week. I am going to be a tourist and do things i never do and eat lots, drink what I like, enjoy friends, see shows, go to the movies, read, play guitar and generally have fun and relax and i cannot wait!!!
And that's the reason I have had all the re-setting of my physical form this week so that next week I can give myself some time to rest!
After last night's show i came home and finished off my VLOG before bed!
And that brings me up to date with this morning. I now have a lot to get on with today to make sure i don't have anything on a 'to-do' list for next week! I'm doing NOTHING but enjoying myself next week!!!
I hope you've had a great week. Thanks for reading my blog.
Just a reminder - tomorrow there will be an official exclusive announcement about my album launch! Just wait till you hear what we have in store for you guys. I'll give you a hint - P.A.R.T.why? Cos I gotta!!!
Keep loving your loves and smiling
Sh-boom!
Mark
