Pendolino

A quick one as I’m off to Manchester tomorrow for the first week of rehearsals. I’m really looking forward to it – and especially to meeting the actors properly and meeting the city properly – as I haven’t yet been up for longer than a day at a time. But also – inevitably – anxious to know that the play will withstand and support the pressure of reading and rehearsal.

Since, until recently, I was working in literary departments (most recently at the Birmingham Rep), I’ve felt like I’ve been reasonably aware of what would be expected of me as a writer in the early stages of producing the play. In the past I’ve been to script development sessions and rehearsed readings, I’ve been to design meetings and liased with marketing departments. But I do not have much experience of seeing writers operate in a rehearsal room, and I’m a little unsure about my role, and how I should behave there. My feeling is that it’s best to be as silent as possible and channel any thoughts I have about through the directors rather than blurting something out.

I’d be interested to hear any thoughts on this one (writers, directors, actors). Thanks, by the way, to those who’ve left comments on the blog already – it’s nice to know that people are reading it.

Despite the excitement of the trip, I’m not especially looking forward to the journey itself, which, in the wake of engineering work, is going to take FOUR HOURS on one of those stupid Virgin ‘Pendolino’ trains. The designers of the Pendolino clearly working on the assumption that since people find FLYING exciting they will find TRAINS exciting if they reproduce the discomfort and claustrophobia of the in-flight cabin.