Hey Everyone
Happy WEDNESDAY!!!
I'm writing this week's blog a day early because I don't get internet signal at my parent's house in North Wales and I want to have a chilled out Christmas so I'm writing this whilst sat on the train home.
I would just like to mention that this train is extremely busy and luckily I got a seat thanks to a friendly lad who helped me fit all my luggage in. However there was one seat I tried to sit in before hand, next to what looked like a lovely kind old lady……well let me tell you, she was a BITCH!!! She looked at me with the filthiest look and said, "I hope your not going to sit here and eat that food" I said "I'm sorry?!" She repeated herself and I said "well I was planning to yes" she replied sarcastically "well isn't that just wonderful!!!" - baring in mind all I had to eat was a salad from The Camden Food Co, it's not like it was a stinking burger from McDonalds or something. I decided I'd rather sit on the floor than sit next to a moaning misery like that. I simply smiled and said "well I hope you have a wonderful Christmas" - Little does she know that my extremely heavy guitar case is now stored in the rack above her head……all that needs to happen is a little jolt in the train line and bam…..merry christmas scrooge!!!! Ouch!!!
Anyway, I'm back to the festive cheer now! I cannot wait to be home with my family. I spoke to my eldest niece earlier on the phone, she's 5 years old. She said "Uncle Mark, I watched you on the telly this morning in the Marcaroni Christmas special. You were acting really stupid again", that's clearly how she sees me - Uncle Mark who acts stupid for a living. Actually she's pretty much hit the nail on the head. I love that I get paid to act stupid! I'm going to spoil them rotten when I get home and I don't care what anyone thinks of it!
So this week has been great.
Thursday I headed back to Ghost rehearsals after being in Cardiff at the beginning of the week. It was good. We had started running things in sequence ie 4 or 5 scenes straight after one another to get a feel for the shape of the character journey. So from that moment, everything started coming together in my head quite nicely. So it was a good day. I then headed to the gym before meeting a friend to randomly go and watch the film Seven Brides For Seven Brothers at the BFI (British Film Institute) on the Southbank. It was great to watch it. I used to put the video of it on at my Nanna's most weekends and sing along and fast forward it to the dance routines and then my first professional job when I graduated from college was a national tour of 7 Brides playing brother caleb. That was 6 years ago and I haven't watched the film since before that so it was SO good to watch it on the massive screen. It was a really fun night.
Friday I was at rehearsals again but was exhausted by the end of the day and had a guitar lesson which made me feel a bit disheartened because I hadn't had any time to practise because of filming in Cardiff etc so I felt I'd taken a couple of paces backwards, so I decided to go home, chill out and try and get an early night instead of letting things stress me out.
Saturday morning I arrived the rehearsal studio an hour and a half early to do some extra work on my script by myself and to do a good 45 minutes on the guitar and then felt really prepared for a great first run through of the full show. We ended the week feeling we had really achieved a lot from running the show for the first coupe of times.
I met a couple of good friends on Saturday night and we went to one of my favourite restaurants Inamo which I've mentioned before. It was great to eat the amazing food, drink lots of bubbly and have a good laugh. I was quite drunk at one point and it felt really good! Ha. Sunday morning I woke up early and headed into central London by 10.30am to do all my Christmas Shopping, completely forgetting of course that the shops don't open until 12 midday on a Sunday. They all do that thing where they allow you to browse but they legally can't make any transactions from any purchases until midday. So I ended up shopping until about 5pm. I was exhausted by the end of it and my arms were really aching from carrying all my cool (yet heavy) presents around. It was a very successful day though.
That night I went to watch a couple of friends in Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker at Sadlers Wells Theatre. My friend Edwin was playing the Nutcracker and he was brilliant. The whole show is great and I really enjoyed it. After a few drinks afterwards and catching up with mates I headed home because I had a long day ahead of me the next day.
I woke on Monday and needed to be at the studios where we film and photograph the footage and shots for the projection walls and video/photographic montages in Ghost. It was basically our only chance to do all the stuff with the understudies too. So it was a case of "Hi, I'm Mark, nice to meet you, let's snog!". So there were many combinations of people doing sequences and photos together to make sure they're covered for every possible scenario with who ever will be playing Sam & Molly during holiday dates and sick/injury time etc. So it took a lot of patience and organisation but it was great to meet the other cast members and it was a fun day on the whole.
We finished a little early which was nice, so I went to buy a few more things for Christmas gifts and then met my wonderful manager Rebecca for dinner and a good catch up. It was a lovely night and I enjoyed my first (of many I'm sure) Christmas dinner. MMMMMMMM TURKEY AND ALL THE TRIMMINGS!!!!! It's Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Headed home and attempted to wrap some presents and was just too desperate to get to sleep so I hit the hay!
Tuesday (yesterday) was our last day of rehearsals for Ghost before our Christmas break. We ran the show and had a good vocal session with the music supervisor. I'm just gonna put this out there - I love singing the songs in Ghost. Had lots of tweets asking what my favourite part of the show is so far and favourite song to sing is and i'd probably say that at the moment I probably enjoy singing 'Rain' at the top of act two the best, but I love it all!
After rehearsals I went to the gym for a good session before going for a haircut and then meeting our producer, resident director and Siobhan (who's playing Molly) for drinks at the Ivy Club (which had carol singers last night - lovely) and then dinner at Les Deux Salons which was beautiful. We had a lot of fun and it was a lovely way to finish our initial rehearsal period and toast to a good Christmas and an exciting 2012 working together.
The next time I see them all will be when we start the technical rehearsals at the theatre on January 3rd - just 10 days before opening night! Aaaaaaarrrrggggghhhhh!
So I woke this morning feeling particularly tired but happy to be heading home. I had to pop into Covent Garden by 10am today to go shopping with the costume designer of Ghost to buy a suit for my 'work outfit' for the show. It literally took 15 minutes. I tried one on, it fit and they bought it. Easy as that. It's a lovely suit and I will be pleading with them to let me have it by the end of the show next year! ha.
And then I popped home to wrap some presents and catch up with todays Marcaroni programme on www.S4C.com/clic as it was a half hour Christmas special (all the stuff I worked on last week!) - My niece was quite right, I did just act stupid for half an hour but I loved it, I think it's great and it made me feel really Christmassy!
And on that note I would like to wish you all a very VERY merry Christmas. I shall see you on the other side, probably a little fatter, but hey why not it's Christmas. Have a wonderful time.
Thanks for reading.
Sh-boom!!!
Mark
