Hi Everyone,
Happy Thursday! Hope you're all well and happy and have had a great week since my last blog.
I am feeling nice and spritely this morning heading into work for two shows. It has been a busy old week but a very good one.
Last Friday I woke and decided to head straight to the gym to have a swim and then shower before rehearsals, so I jumped out of bed, wolfed down some porridge and headed to the train station, only to find that the trains were (ONCE AGAIN!!!) delayed and cancelled! I get so impatient with it all nowadays because it's happening more and more. I kind of miss the days when I used to work at the restaurant with my Mum and Sister in North Wales when I was a teenager because it only took about 5 minutes in the car to travel just over a mile to get there! It's such an ordeal to get anywhere in London. (Rant over)
So I had to get a bus, having not showered I felt like I was doing the walk of shame (on a bus home after a night out, when everyone else is going to work!)
I ended up being too late to go for a swim and too late to eat before work and, yes, you guessed it, too late to shower before the physical warm up! - Now don't get me wrong, I had showered after work the night before but I'm just a bit of a clean freak and like to think that if you rubbed your index finger on me I would squeak - like the washed up dinner plates on the old Fairy Liquid adverts! So indeed, Squeaky clean, I was not. The resident director came up to me after the warm up and went to hug me and I said, "don't touch me I haven't showered" and he froze in his tracks with a disgusted look on his face!
Needless to say, I headed straight to my dressing room to shower before the rehearsal started.
It was a full run through of the show for the new cast members. It was really fun because whenever we were doing scenes on stage that didn't involve anyone new, we were just having fun with it and everyone was putting me off by delivering all of their dialogue lines looking directly at me - which is REALLY alien and very bizarre, because (incase you haven't seen the show) from the moment I get shot, I am then a ghost (hence the title) that no one can see unless they too are a Ghost, so I really wasn't used to making eye contact with people! It was funny as hell!
After the rehearsal I went for a swim, well I had to right?, before doing the evening show!
Saturday morning I had a tidy up of my flat ready for the arrival of my Mum & Sister who were arriving Monday and then I headed in to do the last two shows with the original cast. It was a great day.
I woke on Sunday nice and early and went to my local cafe for a nice breakfast before popping to see my good friend Wayne for a catch up and for him to cut my hair! Then I walked home (a couple of miles) to get ready for the What's On Stage Awards concert at the Prince Of Wales Theatre. It was really nice to get dressed up for an event that celebrates theatre. I met everyone who'd been invited from the Ghost company at the Haymarket Hotel for some champagne beforehand (my first alcoholic drink in 5 weeks!) and then we headed to the event!
I have to just take this opportunity to tell you how privileged I feel to have met and spent time with the writer of both Ghost the movie and Ghost The Musical, Bruce Joel Rubin last week. He is an incredible man who's full of wisdom and amazing tales and stories and is certainly one of the kindest and most generous people I've had the pleasure of meeting and working with.
I tried to point out to him just how wonderful I thought the story of Ghost is and how privileged I feel to have been given the responsibility of telling this story to West End audiences night after night! He was way too humble and modest to take the compliment but I meant it with so much sincerity! I think he's a genius!
So the night was a huge success. Ghost won 3 awards, for best lighting, best set design (which I collected on Rob Howell's behalf) and Richard Fleeshman had flown back from New York to collect his well deserved award for Best Actor in a musical.
I then went out for some food with a couple of good mates before getting a car home. I love being driven through London at night. When you drive over the bridge across the Thames River and past all the beautiful buildings it always makes me think of how lucky I am to be happily living and working in London and also makes me think of how different my life is now to when I was living in Wales up to the age of 16! You can never predict the future folks, much as you might like to or try to, so just let that feeling of an unknown future excite you to your core and it will make every day as good as it possibly can be! That's how I try to live my life anyway and please forgive me if you feel I'm preaching at you but sometimes people need a little nudge to remember that life is good!
I woke on Monday and raced around town buying a few little treats for the cast for opening night gifts because it was the first performance for the new 2012/2013 company then I headed in for the final dress rehearsal. Two shows on a Monday felt odd let me tell you.
After the dress rehearsal, Siobhan and I had a photo session and then I met my Mum and Sister for some food before they watched the show for the first.
The show went well and all the new guys did a great job. My Mum and Sister loved it and we all had a couple of drinks in the reception afterwards before getting a car home and chatting over some healthy nibbles.
Tuesday they left to head back to Wales in the morning and I had a bit of a lazy morning watching Brothers And Sisters - because I'd slept on the lounge floor the night before which wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever had. Then in the afternoon I did a couple of hours at the gym before the show. I had a fair few pancakes after the show which was really nice then slept like a baby!
Wednesday (yesterday) was a good day. I met up with Ben & Zoe who I worked with on Wicked, and it was really great to see them and catch up properly over lunch! I then went to the gym for a couple of hours before my guitar lesson.
Last night's show was great and then I headed to a friends house for lots of nice food and watched some fun video clips of when we worked together etc,
Which brings me to today, ready and raring to go with two shows! Bring it on.
Tomorrow at 1pm there is a new newsletter being sent out to everyone on my mailing list. Don't miss it, it includes all my holiday dates where I shall not be performing in Ghost! Sign up here if you're not already on the mailing list -
Have a great week people and remember try and be positive whenever possible, I find it makes life easier!
Believe
Sh-boom
Mark
