Hi Everyone,
Happy Thursday.
How are you all? I'm good. A little anxious that it's only a week and a half until November 13th which is the day of my T.V show. I can't quite believe it. It's come around so quickly. Just two blog posts away it will have happened and I'll be back in London writing about how it went. Hopefully writing about what a success it was.
I will be honest, because I think people consider me to be a work-a-holic, invincible bloke that nothing fazes, but on the night of the T.V show, I reckon I will be pretty nervous. I'm so glad I have an audience of 200 family, friends and supportive fans watching. It'll make it a lot easier. If you have reserved your free ticket then I'll see you there for lots of song, dance, and good times.
So it's been a busy week. Last Thursday I wrote my blog early because we had the extra matinee because of the half term school break. It was a bizarre feeling being in the building warming up on stage so early the day after our usual matinee day. Thursday is usually a recovery day in some way so it was definitely a bit more like hard work but enjoyable non the less.
After the evening show on Thursday I headed over to my friend Craig's house to work on things for my Christmas show as he's my musical director and arranger. He is incredible (can we please just take a moment to appreciate the fact that Winter Wonderland opens in Hyde Park in just over two weeks - Mevans is excited by this!!! Mevans likes Christmas…….a lot!!!) So Craig and I worked on all the song ideas for the set list for 'The Journey Home - For Christmas' (Tickets available below)…..
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137318
……and then we just chilled out with cheese & red wine which was a lovely way to relax after performing 4 shows of Wicked in 2 days.
I woke the next morning and we both worked on some more song ideas before I got the train back into London to meet a friend for a quick lunch, then headed to Dress Circle (The Showbiz Shop in Covent Garden) to sign another massive batch of my album, as they had completely sold out of their first pile the record label sent them. Thank you to all of you who have bought my album! I am very grateful and also for all your sweet and thoughtful messages that you've sent me about it! You're all legends to me!
I then had to head to the theatre to do a live English Radio Wales telephone interview to promote the album and Christmas show and then I hit the gym and the pool before work.
Saturday morning I woke and did a lot of work on my T.V show, scripting and learning song lyrics because I've said I don't want to use an autocue so that it will be more spontaneous and natural! I now have a lot to work to do because of that though.
After the matinee show I met my friend who works in Billy Elliot. The two of us have been working in theatres more or less across the road from each other for 8 months and have vowed to keep meeting for dinner but it never happened - until Saturday. We had a lovely catch up over a Wagamama's meal and put the world to right!
The evening show on Saturday was AMAZING! I think the whole cast was pumping with adrenaline because of the 9 show week exhaustion, and with it being halloween weekend and eating lots of sweets it was such an incredibly energised show and I got a real buzz! The audience were great too!
I then went to stay with a friend for a night of halloween treats, (way too much chocolate) a few G&T's and some scary movies! It was a fab night and we got the extra hours sleep which was a huge bonus.
So Sunday was WICKED DAY!!! I'm sure many of you reading this were there. Wasn't it a great day!?! For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, basically Wicked The Musical, for one day every year, each of it's 13 productions world wide host a charity event called Wicked Day. Now the London production always pick the Sunday closest to Halloween, which makes sense as it's a show about two witches. They seriously go to extreme efforts to put on a great day. Between face painting, Karaoke, Book readings, cast signings, competitions, free goody bags, cast performances, to name but a few, it really is a fun family day out and it's all for free - where else does that happen?! Myself, Rachel (Elphaba) and Chloe (Stand-by Glinda) were asked to judge an X-Factor type competition where dozens of applicants had sent in a YouTube video of themselves singing a song from Wicked and the management had picked three to perform live on Sunday for us judges and the Wicked Day crowds (there were a couple of thousand there during the day!) and we had to decide who the over-all winner was who received a family day out to Wicked and the chance to meet the cast and have a back stage tour. We found it really hard to pick a winner. All three were very good in their own way and deserved to win. The guy who won sang Dancing Through Life and I think he has his eyes on my job. Haha. It was a great competition.
After that I was invited onto the stage to perform three songs from my new album and I have to say, if you're reading this and were in that audience, I cannot tell you how great you were as a crowd. I sang Reach The Sky, Brand New You and then loved the fact that so many people in the crowd knew the words and were singing along to the album title track 'The Journey Home' - it was like having 100 backing vocalists. Ha. You guys are the best! Thanks.
We then did a little fashion parade to finish the event. We were each given the task, as cast members to customise a mortar board - you know, those flat graduation cap things with the tassel. The reason for this was because the whole of Wicked day this year was Shiz University themed. We've all made them and they're all now up on ebay for auction and all the money goes to charity. Here's the link below, but if you're gonna bid, then please bid for mine. There was lots of hard work went into it and I signed it! ;)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wicked-Day-2011-Mortar-Board-Mark-Evans-/280765396229?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item415eebf505#ht_500wt_1178
After the event finished I met a wonderful friend of mine who was over visiting from New York. He'd never heard me sing and caught the tail end of the day where I was performing my set of three songs which was nice. We went for a lovely dinner and a few cocktails before heading on down to The Alley Cat Bar where our Glinda, Louise Dearman was doing her first of three one woman gigs. I tell you now, if you haven't booked a ticket for one of her remaining 2 nights then get onto it. There really aren't many tickets left and the girl is sensational. We had a really great night.
However I do need to get her back for severely embarrassing me! ………..So, here's the story - on Saturday night I was in the wings at the side of the stage and said to Louise, "What song are you finishing with at your gig tomorrow?" and she said 'Moves Like Jagger' so i said "These are my moves like jagger" and proceeded to perform the stupidest and possibly fastest dance you've ever seen. She said "I'll get you to do that tomorrow night" and we both laughed.
Well long story short - she blooming well did. She got the whole crowd to chant practically so I had no choice but to get up there and groove to the drum beat! Very funny and I really will get her back for that one day! Louise Dearman…be warned!!!
I was really tired by the time I got home that night. Long day! Monday morning I woke and literally worked on the TV show stuff until 2pm when I had to head into town for a meeting over afternoon tea which was lovely and lasted 3 hours! Many a carbohydrate was devoured. Monday night's show was good although I was still feeling rather tired. My friend from New York was watching though which was lovely. He'd seen Wicked on broadway and he actually said our show was, and i quote "far superior" - that's nice isn't it!??! We had a quick drink afterwards before heading our separate ways. The next time we catch up will probably be if I go to NYC in the new year which is quite likely because my friend Becca who I went to see play Sherrie in Rock Of Ages has just left the show as she opens in Spiderman next week playing the lead girl! Good times!!!
Tuesday I woke up and headed into town to buy some birthday gifts for my friend Haley as 4 of us were meeting for birthday lunch with her that day. It was really nice and we laughed a lot.
Then I headed for a session with my personal trainer who killed me, before a swim then a sun bed (getting brown for the TV show!) and then the show!
I woke yesterday (Wednesday) early to head in to meet a friend of mine, Laura, and her mum for brunch before the matinee. Laura was our wardrobe mistress on Oklahoma which I did before Wicked and she was also given the relentless task of curling my hair before every single show! She'd never worked with hair in her life. I hadn't seen her since the end of the tour which is a year ago. Can't believe how the time has flown. We were laughing at the memories of just how bad my hair looked in that show on too many occasions. haha.
Laura and her mum watched the matinee and in-between shows I had some physio and then did more rehearsing of the TV show. We all survived on Lucozade last night during the show. Needed a little help from some sugar to get through!
I am about to go and meet my friend on her lunch break as she is rehearsing for White Christmas, in which she's playing the leading lady. We've not had a chance to catch up properly in a long time so I can't wait to see her!
Can I please take this moment to thank each and everyone of you who has tweeted or messaged me saying you have nominated me for 'Best Take Over In A Role' for the What's On Stage Awards. I am very flattered. These awards are fast becoming as big as the Olivier's in London so to be nominated by you guys is very touching. Let's see if there was enough of you for me to actually get abomination. I did try and reply to each of you who said you'd submitted a nomination form. If not well please know that I am very grateful!
http://awards.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=125
I hope you are having a great day so far! Here's to a good week until my next blog. Also - apparently the Starbucks red cups are out, which only means one thing…..it's nearly Chriiiiiiiiiiistmas!!!!!!!
Love your lives folks. All is good, even when it's bad, it's good (cos you're alive)!!!
SH-BOOM!!!
Mark
