Red Bull, sweat, and pervy children!

It’s been quite a quiet week on tour this week. Nothing major going on, no real news to report. I think that with the end of the tour just around the corner, we’re starting to wind down and get ready for our summer holiday!
So I last left you on Monday... let’s think back. Ah yes, Tuesday. Tiredness was definitely present on Tuesday morning. I stumbled through the show on autopilot, but thankfully the kids seemed to enjoy it and nobody apart from myself and Rob could tell, and he’s too much of a gentleman to point out how shoddy my performance actually was! Tuesday afternoon however, was a different matter. We were performing at a special needs school, which again was fine, but I knew I’d have to work extra hard and my tank was definitely running on empty. The hall was filled with chairs by the caretakers and slowly the kids all piled in. As soon as Rob introduced the show, they all went wild, loving that someone was there to entertain them. This meant that by the time I appeared onstage and began my opening monologue, I could have been speaking in Arabic for all they knew, the level of sound was through the roof and I could barely hear myself! I just crossed my fingers and hoped that Rob could hear his cue line to come on!
Despite the initial roar of the crowds, they did quieten down and seemed to really enjoy it. The teacher who had booked it was also full of amazement, and was really grateful that we had come to their school. I’ve probably said it before, but we like doing special schools because we get to do a shorter show which means early home time! Sadly this wasn’t the case that day. I find it strange when schools have assemblies at the end of the day, which was what happened there, and we were asked if we could wait to take our equipment out until after their assembly. Of course, as visitors to the school who were paying our wages we said yes, but this meant having to wait outside in the van for almost an hour while assembly was going on, and then having to wait to bring our van back into the school car park when all of the school buses had departed.
After the show, I noticed that I had a missed call from Jacc on my phone. Thinking that it might be a call revealing whether Starlight had made it onto television, I raced out to the van and called him back, only to find that he wanted me to quote ABBA lyrics down the phone to him for his kids musical theatre class that night as his internet had been cut off! But at least it passed the time, and in the end all of the teachers from the school helped to bring all of the set out to the van so we had a super-quick get-out!
Wednesday brought another of my favourite type of days. We had two shows in the same school! And as our first show wasn’t til 11am, I got to catch a bit more sleep! The first show went really well; the teachers had split the kids into upper and lower school and we had the upper school first. I prefer doing this show to the slightly older ones as they know more, and it’s easy to get the answers you are looking for out of them, rather than having 4 year olds shouting random words at you. We had about an hour’s break in between shows, so after the first show, I reset all of the props so that we could leg it out and grab some lunch. Some of the children were still in the room while I was packing away and I spoke to a few of them that were desperate to ask me questions. After a couple of minutes, I saw one girl looking at me so I gave her a nice smile. Only for her to say “I can see your sweat.” Brilliant. So I’ve been working my arse off for over an hour to entertain and educate you and all you can think about is my sweaty face! Thank you! With that, I ran off behind the curtain to cry. Joking!
The afternoon show was completely different to the morning’s. The kids knew nothing about any subject we approached and one child I asked a question to rambled on for about two minutes without me understanding a word! Turns out he had a speech impediment! I sure know how to find them!
Needless to say, I was very glad when Thursday rolled around, as it meant we had the afternoon off! I really enjoyed the show that morning. The company hadn’t been to the school before and so the teacher in charge seemed a bit wary of us, but even he was joining in and having a whale of a time! The show flew past and before I knew it we were home again. About 15 minutes away from the cottage was a discount designer shopping centre, so I waved goodbye to Rob and set out for an afternoon of luxury! Turned out I only got an hour’s worth, I wasn’t expecting to have to pay for parking and I just managed to scrabble around enough for the smallest amount on the tariff! It wasn’t all bad, I got myself a lovely new handbag and purse, and some lovely flower hair accessories! You don’t get any of those in primary schools!
Despite having had Thursday afternoon off, Friday morning rolled around I was ridiculously tired again. This might have had something to do with me staying up to watch films until silly o’clock! Oh well, I’ll learn. Friday morning’s receptionist seemed a bit of a dragon! Rob introduced us, and she just stared at us like we’d stolen her child’s Christmas presents! Luckily the teacher we needed to see popped his head out of the door and we scurried away. The show was a good one, although I wasn’t really putting as much effort in as I probably could, I was just hoping I made it to the end without falling over and going to sleep! As we were packing away, two girls walked through the hall, looking at Rob giggling, so I told him they fancied him! He replied with a disgusting joke. As usual! I knew something had to be done about my tiredness, so after we had parked the van up at lunch time (after driving around the town for ten minutes in circles trying to find the school!), I bought myself the biggest can of Red Bull I could find, and off we went.
I manoeuvred the van around the hundreds of small children in the playground and we patiently waited outside for the dinnerladies to finish sweeping the hall before we could get our stuff in. There was a maypole outside, and obediently a small group of children gathered around it to practice for the following day’s country dancing display. I love this time of year at schools, all the summer fetes are taking place and it’s so fun to watch all the kids getting excited about running around with a ribbon in their hand thinking they are amazing dancers! (Friday morning’s school were having their fete that night, and were putting a big screen up in the hall so that all the dads/boys could watch England play in their World Cup match!)
I was sitting in the back of the van watching all of the children take their places around the maypole when the teacher in charge of them walked over to us and said, “I don’t know why the hell we bother with this bloody country dancing. Every year it’s awful but the kids enjoy it so we have to do it.” I didn’t quite know what to do with that remark so I just giggled politely and smiled. I have to admit though, I did have a chuckle to myself thinking of what was going through his head when the kids kept getting it wrong!
So, we got in the hall, set up and prepared for the kids to come in. I was still feeling pretty tired, but as soon as I stepped in front of them, the Red Bull automatically kicked in and didn’t stop til way after we got home! I was literally bouncing off the walls! And despite it being a first school, so they were all the younger ones, I really enjoyed it! I suppose it helped that it was Friday afternoon too!
As we were packing away, I saw a couple of boys hanging around outside the door to the hall so I asked them if they enjoyed the show. To which one of them responded, “Well yes, but there was a bit too much talking. If you come again could there be less talking in it please?” I told him I’d do my best! Shortly after that, another boy appeared and looked at me for a moment before asking, “What’s your number?” Slightly baffled, I asked him what number he meant. “What’s your phone number?” I could hear Rob laughing over the other side of the hall so I politely told the boy that he was too young for me and ran away before I could be accused of something untoward! Rob said it was payback for me saying the girls fancied him that morning. I couldn’t argue!
I stuffed myself stupid with food that evening, so much so that I actually didn’t move myself off the sofa and ended up watching England’s awful attempt at football that night. I’d have probably had a better time at that school fete!
So then Saturday rolled around and it was time to say goodbye to Somerset. I couldn’t say I was sad. When you’re away from home it’s quite nice to have a phone handy, but Somerset is quite behind with the whole phone signal thing, and to be honest, I’d had enough of the wonky house. I ended up feeling like I was on a boat, with all the floors at different angles, I felt like I was at sea, and I’d bashed my elbow so many times trying to make my way up and down the stairs it wasn’t funny any more.
So we set off in the van up to St Helens so that Rob could get his car to use for this fortnight. And then I made my way back down to Nantwich, the place where it all began! And here we shall stay for two weeks, before the final week of trekking around the country in about four different locations! I’ll probably moan during that last week, but I’ll be happy to know that summer is just round the corner! x

Infant mobs, cows, and Jesus Christ in Bournemouth?!?

It’s Monday morning again and I’m awake earlier than I had planned. Apparently there’s something on the television called the ‘World Cup’, you may have heard of it. Anyway, the television seems to be blasting some sort of noise about it, and the walls aren’t particularly thick in this place.

But it’s so much nicer than last week’s accommodation. After Rob had picked me up on Sunday afternoon/evening, it took over 3 hours to get to our new place near Chard in Somerset. For once, the sat-nav took us to the exact place we needed to be, when I kind of hoped it wouldn’t!

We were on a farm again, and first impressions weren’t the best. Now I know farms are working places and there’s lots going on, but to me it seemed a bit... dirty! It looked like no-one cared much for first appearances, despite them having a ‘holiday home’ for rent. As usual there were the obligatory evil farm cats strutting around the place, this time coupled with several breeds of chicken, which tried to get inside the cottage every time the front door was opened. I was sure they sat in waiting in the bushes waiting for us...!

The cottage itself was another story. We got shown around by the farm lady and of course we told her how lovely it was! And when she left we looked at each other with a look that only meant despair. The whole place smelled damp, everywhere was stone with a couple of rugs thrown over the freezing stone floors, the kitchen was barely big enough for one person to be in it at a time (plus the evil farm cats sat outside the kitchen door begging for food every time you entered the kitchen. I seriously started to feel threatened by these animals!). My heart sank when I looked in the bathroom and saw no shower; just a bath with a shower attachment glued to the taps. Yes, actually glued... therefore, when I wanted a bath later on in the week, I had to fill it up through the shower head! Luckily my bed was the best bit about it! I had quite a large bedroom with a double bed and bunk beds in it. It was just the right type of comfortable squidginess!

I wasn’t sure what type of farm this was until bright and early the next morning, I was rudely awakened by a herd of cows that seemed to be invading my bedroom! Well, they were about 20 feet away, but still, not what I wanted on my morning off!

Monday afternoon took us down to where we were before half-term. Due to a communication cock-up, we had missed a show, so off we trotted back with the words ‘DON’T BE LATE!’ on our schedule. As we got closer, I realised that I had been to the school before on a previous tour, so I thought I might be able to remind them of what I had done before so that they weren’t too mad at us for forgetting them. Or not. It turned out the school was split into two, I had previously been to the infant school, and we were headed to the junior section. Brilliant. As soon as we walked in, the contact teacher had an attitude on her, snapping at us and telling us that this was the second time that this had happened with our company, the same thing had happened the year before. And were we aware that they were only paying a reduced rate because of the inconvenience. After explaining for the millionth time that we didn’t deal with the money, we were shown where we could park the van, and off we went to set up.

Needless to say, it was a brilliant show, every single child enjoyed it and that moody teacher soon swallowed her evil words. So I guess we’ll be invited back to not turn up again next year!

A couple of days later our afternoon show was in a prep school. I don’t usually like doing these because I feel that everyone is looking down their noses at me. And today was no exception. I know there’s only 4 weeks left of the tour but I’m going to make sure I check where we are going every day. I really felt like a tramp in that school! Obviously being a prep school, the kids were all immaculately dressed, and I rocked up in some tatty jeans, an old vest, and a flat cap that I had stolen/received from my last boss (Hi Barry!). After being left waiting in their grand entrance hall for an eternity, we were shown to our performance space. Due to the kids having their own performance that week, we couldn’t use their theatre(!), we were in their dance studio. As soon as we walked in I was almost violently sick on the floor. They were pumping something awful in the air into the room and it made me gag every time I walked in. Rob said it smelled like the stuff he used to rub on his legs when he went outside to play rugby at school. I took his word for it and re-swallowed the contents of my stomach.

The dance studio was tiny. It was incredibly narrow, and as you’ve probably guessed, had mirrors down the walls. This caused me to have a fight with our curtains as I tried to hide the back of the set from the mirrors so that our ‘magic trick’ wouldn’t be revealed to the kids via reflection! The show went well despite the lack of space, and it was nice not to have to stretch my voice as there were only 60 kids.

Before I knew it, it was Wednesday night and I was very excited! We had Thursday morning off! I was still ridiculously tired from my jam-packed half-term so a big night’s sleep is what I needed. And boy I got it! I was awoken briefly around 8am by the cows, but apart from that, I had twelve solid blissful hours of sleep! It was amazing! And to add to my good mood, the afternoon’s school was only a 15-minute drive away! Result! We left the house at 12.15pm, found the school, parked the van and found the route to the hall. It wasn’t too far to drag the set in, but we had to walk past the infant playground, and they were all outside playing.

We went past a couple of times and one child starting shouting something at Rob which we could only decipher as ’You’re a loaf’. We weren’t quite sure if this was a Somerset expression, or a new derogatory term used by the youth of today that we didn’t know about. It then became apparent that he was saying ‘You’re in love’, he began to chant it to the both of us, and soon enough, nearly all the children in the playground had gathered by the fence mob-stylee shouting at us. My good mood instantly evaporated. I didn’t know small children could make that much noise. But the show went well, and off we disappeared, thankfully at home time without shouting.

Dear reader. Please note that this blog now continues at a much later time in the day, due to having to go to work!

So, Friday rolled around and we ended up in a school that seemed to be slap bang in the middle of the countryside with no surrounding buildings. It was quite nice, I’m not judging it by its location! We were spotted by a teacher and led to the hall and began to set up. Some children were having music lessons before classes started and I was extremely jealous of a small girl who was playing Kelly Clarkson’s ‘My Life Would Suck Without You’. I find myself being extremely jealous of piano players. If there’s one thing I wish that I could do, it would be to be able to play the piano. I remember being told off at university because I kept looking at my teacher’s hands playing the piano during singing lessons! I got over my jealousy of the girl, carried on bringing the set in, and then did my good deed of the day by giving a small boy a packet of stickers of footballers for his sticker album! I’m nice like that! Plus, they were free in my bag of apples and I had nothing to do with them!

The rest of Friday rolled around in a blur, and I realised that I hadn’t written down any of the stories that the kids had made up during the shows this week. They obviously weren’t very inspiring/imaginative worthwhile stories so I didn’t really care too much. Besides, I was very excited... I was off to Bournemouth the next day!

So Saturday arrived and we hurriedly packed our belongings into the van to move on from the farm. We managed to be ready almost an hour before we were expected to move out, but didn’t leave as I was meeting my lovely ex-flatmate Nicki in town, and didn’t want to be waiting in a car park for several hours. After a mind-numbing hour of cookery programmes, we hauled ourselves into the van. As Rob was doing a final check of the house to make sure we hadn’t left anything behind, the farm lady poked her nose into the van at me and asked if we were off. She showed an interest and asked us where we were headed to next. I told her we were just off to Wells, not far. “It’s a shame, I’ve got a couple coming down from Yorkshire this afternoon, or you could have stayed here for a fortnight.” I did some of my best acting at this point, and I wasn’t even getting paid, nor was anyone watching... “Oh that’s such a shame. We’ve had a really nice week here. Thank you so much, it’s been lovely!” God, I’m good!

We turned our backs on the farm (Huzzah!) and made our way to the town. After several phone calls, and nearly two hours later, I managed to direct Nicki into Tesco car park, Rob went off on his jolly way to the new accommodation, and I was off to Bournemouth! For readers who do not know me, I trained at what was The Arts Institute at Bournemouth, and every now and then, an assortment of ex-housemates of mine gather back for a reunion and general drinking session! This time round, it was myself and the girls from my second and third year, Mat, who I lived with for one year with the girls, and Sam, a girl form my course who came out with us quite a lot, and who I bonded with on the first day of our degree course when she forced me into a bush to feel a bike. Yes, you read that right! (I had my eyes closed at the time... It’s one of those bonding trust exercises you’re always forced to do on first days/auditions!)

So we skip a few hours and we’re all in Bournemouth and have successfully found ourselves clothes to wear and alcohol to sip, so we head to Boscombe to find the hostel we will be staying in. I’ve only had one experience of a hostel before, and this was last year in Ireland. It wasn’t the best to be honest! But after a week on the farm, I really didn’t care what I was sleeping on, as long as I wasn’t woken up the next day by a cow in my ear.

We spotted the hostel on the main road but couldn’t seem to find anywhere to park. We drove around for about ten minutes before we pulled over at the side of the road to phone the hostel to find out where the parking was. Big mistake! Literally five seconds after pulling over, a woman came up to the car clutching what I thought was a can of beer, which turned out to be a cup of coffee (shows how much I drink either of these!), and started talking absolute nonsense at us. Apparently she was Jesus Christ, she had been walking the Earth for 2000 years, had been repeatedly raped by her husband who had killed all of her good children and kept the evil ones, she had been living in an absolute dive, and told us to be careful because people are trying to turn us all into robots!

Sam absolutely fell to bits with laughter which made me laugh too, I tried to get Nicki to drive away but she didn’t want to be rude in case the woman got violent! I thought to myself, if she’s Jesus Christ, surely she wouldn’t harm us! But eventually we mumbled something to her about having to find a house and made our escape.

The hostel was nicer than I expected, we had a lovely pub meal courtesy of the local Wetherspoons, occasionally having our conversation interrupted by a Vuvuzela(!) from the England fans who were busy preparing for our opening match. Then it was dressing up time and we hit the bars of Bournemouth! A lovely night was had by all, made all the more better with pizza at the end of the night! We woke up to beautiful sunshine on Sunday morning, and took a nice stroll down to Boscombe beach where we partook in some more lovely food, had a quick walk up and down the new pier, consumed delicious ice cream and headed back to sadly say our goodbyes and leave the beautiful town.

I had managed to persuade my housemate Gayle to drop me off at my next location, it didn’t seem like it was too far from her home town on my map, so I bribed her with a bit of petrol money and we hit the road. We were both ridiculously tired, Gayle was feeling more hungover every mile we went, but after what seemed like the longest journey ever, we made it to my home for the week. I waved goodbye to Gayle and began to explore my new surroundings! Rob had been a gentleman and had left me the double room, he’s good like that! I made my way up the stairs thinking I was still drunk from the night before but it turned out it wasn’t me! The house is wonky! The floors are all at different angles, and if you’re not careful on the stairs you will find yourself falling into the wall! All very bizarre, but it’s actually a lovely cottage... with carpets! Bonus! It had been a lovely weekend, I really felt the need to get away to somewhere different and try to forget everything that was going on, and it was so nice to meet up with old friends again. Even if we did feel a bit old now! But despite the loveliness, it was good to just sink into a nice comfy bed with a Johnny Depp DVD and a mug of hot chocolate to relax and unwind before the next lot of shows were thrust upon us.

I managed to find some internet signal and set about looking for any jobs I could find for something to do to fill my free summer time. I found a couple of jobs, sent off my applications with no real hope of hearing anything, as is the usual, and tucked myself into bed with the hope of having another twelve-hour sleep. Which brings us nicely back to the start of this blog!

The show today was the sort that I like. The children were really intelligent and knew stuff about every topic we asked them, plus there was an incredibly cute male teacher sitting at the back for me to admire! Annoyingly, he seemed to be looking at Rob for most of the time, typical! As we were loading the van back up after the show, I received a text message from my dad which ruined my good mood. He’d seen the finalists of the Neighbours Be a Star competition. I knew that I probably didn’t stand much of a chance with over 1500 entrants, but I was more annoyed that I hadn’t received a rejection email... I hate that! Surely you should respond to everyone even if they don’t make it! But I brushed it aside, there are still 6 more days to find out if I’ve made it with Starlight onto ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, so my fingers are still crossed!

Before I forced myself outside to go for a training session for my Race for Life (in 4 weeks time, eek!), I checked my emails and Facebook, and then I checked one of the casting websites that I use. It turns out, one of the companies that I applied for yesterday has offered me an audition in a couple of weeks time! Every cloud!

And now it’s 11pm and I’m back in bed, in a rather serene mood. I’ve just watched the season finale of ‘Glee’, and I don’t know whether it’s because I’m just very tired or a combination of things, but I ended up sobbing my eyes out over it! Watching the cast performing all their musical numbers made the tears well up in my eyes and spill uncontrollably down my cheeks. It made me realise how much more I want from my career. I know I enjoy touring but after this next tour, I want to get out of Theatre-in-Education. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, I just know that there’s something inside me that wants it so badly, that I’ll try anything to try and get to where I want to be.

OK, so I might have ‘failed’ in my attempts to meet Dr Karl in Australia, but as my friend Lucy said, it probably means there’s something bigger and better round the corner. Who knows what this audition may bring, but if I don’t try I’ll never know. I feel like I’ve been lazy in getting work so far, but now I really know how much I want to make a success out of myself, I’m not going to let anything get in my way. Watch out world, 2010 is my year! x

Starlight’s Big Television Audition! Don’t Stop Believing!

I’m waiting to be picked up in the lovely company van right now, Rob has been delayed so I thought I’d get a new blog in!

So, when I last left you, I was heading for Pizza Hut! I had a fabulous night, so a quick thank-you to everyone who came. Caroline and I had a lovely night with all of you! And thank you for the lovely and yummy birthday presents!!

So that was Wednesday... I spent Thursday with my lovely friends Corinne and Mari in London town. Camden to be precise. A fabulous day was spent shopping, and a fantastic evening at KOKO watching the gorgeous Jack Savoretti and Newton Faulkner.

Of course all of this fun and frivolity meant that myself and Mari missed an evening of rehearsals for Starlight’s big television audition! Therefore, my Friday afternoon (well, half an hour of it) was spent in Jacc’s front room learning new routines and trying to find a harmony line for me to sing!

Then Friday night rolled around and we trotted off to the final rehearsal. 24 of us rolled into the room and we set about doing our thing. Due to not being able to rehearse at our usual location, we rehearsed in a party room at Kettering’s Kids Kingdom! Cue half the cast running to play on all of the kids play things as soon as they arrived!

The rehearsal went really well, we managed to get some cracking harmonies going, and I even managed to do the whole routines correctly by the end of the 3 hours!

As is the norm on a Friday night whenever I’m in town, I took Jacc home and ended up staying for a couple of hours, this time rehearsing and making sure everyone had the relevant paperwork ready for the morning.

I left around midnight, and tried to sleep, but through sheer nervousness and excitement, and ridiculously hot temperatures, I didn’t manage to nod off for another 2 hours.

6.45am rolled around, the alarm went off, and I jumped in the shower, trying to wake myself up for the long day ahead. Jacc had demanded that I should be at his for 8am (ugh!) so that we could go over final preparations and rehearsals before meeting everyone at 9am at the train station.

If you’ve ever tried rehearsing vocals at 8am in the morning you’ll know it’s a bit of a struggle, so needless to say, we were a bit rubbish!

I was shocked to see that everyone had made it to the train station by 9.10am, and at 9.27am, we were off! I had a lovely giggle with the girls on the first train, chatting about how excited we were, and comparing our ridiculous answers on our 5-page long questionnaires sent to us by the production team! After a swift train change, the second leg of the journey was spent rehearsing our harmonies (much to the horror of our fellow passengers who actually moved seats!) and listening to the songs of ‘glee’ with Caroline!

And then came Birmingham! Jacc marched us out of the station with expert precision, and we started to make our 41-minute walk to the dance school with thanks to Google Maps on Jacc’s iPhone. I’m not going to lie, and I don’t want to be rude, but we did walk through some rough areas! I was a bit concerned that a few people weren’t keeping up, and that we’d lose them, but eventually we found the correct street. After following the iPhone to the correct postcode, we couldn’t find the building. A friendly taxi driver saw a big gang of dancers looking lost and asked where we were going. As soon as the words ‘Mosely Dance Centre’ were out of our mouths, two heads popped out of upper-floor windows and said in unison, “It’s round here!!”

We were literally 5 seconds away from it, right in our faces and none of us had spotted it! We walked around the corner and realised that we were 50 minutes early for our registration time. One of the boys spotted a patch of grass over the road, so we made our way over and began to sit down for a nice spot of lunch, courtesy of the local Greggs!

As soon as we had sat down, an attractive young man walked out of the dance centre and asked if we were there for the audition. He told us that a group had dropped out (hoorah- less competition!) and that we could go in earlier.

Over the road we went again, registered each person, which took forever due to our number, but could have been worse had it not been for Jacc’s and my organisational skills the night before! After a quick solo photograph being taken of each member, we were then directed to a small waiting room where we had a group photo and a chat by the same lovely man! (Eddie?!)

Jacc was taken away to be interviewed on camera, and he took Jemma and Ruben with him as the oldest and youngest so that they could get a variety of opinions. I was so glad he didn’t take me with him, I’m rubbish on camera... Bodes well for my Neighbours attempt doesn’t it!?!

While they were being chatted to, Eddie and a very pretty lady came round the rest of us and asked us questions about ourselves, Starlight, and Jacc! For some reason they were very interested in our hobbies and seemed a little disappointed when none of us could come up with anything other than performing! (Although the pretty lady was very pleased to find out that I am a professional actress!)

After our chats, we were shown upstairs and given 15 minutes of rehearsal time. Well, the lovely Eddie said 15 minutes but it was more like 25. We almost made it through 2 runs of each song when we were called downstairs to the audition room.

The panel consisted of 4 people, one lady and 3 men, 2 were producers, one vocal coach and one choreographer. The choreographer and male producer were gorgeous, no need for fake smiles in this audition! Jacc introduced us, and told them what we were going to perform, and then we were off! Jacc had explained that our Joseph Megamix was 8 minutes long, and they told us that they might stop us, but to just go with it. And so we did!

The Joseph megamix went really well... in the end they stopped us after about 6 minutes but we had delivered them some cracking harmonies and dance routines, plus a little taster of our acting abilities. Then came Skid Rom from Little Shop of Horrors. We had a quick costume adding session, in which Caroline got her hair stuck in her zip and ran around screaming! The song went really well, I wasn’t sure my harmony line went really well but the panel really seemed to enjoy it.

They told Jacc that he had done a beautiful job with us and we gave him a little round of applause! We had been told that we might be asked to do some extra things after our pieces but they just said thank you and we were done! We had to hang around outside for a few minutes and wait for one of the ladies in charge to come and explain the next stages if we got through, which gave us time to check out a few other groups in the competition. Who knows if it matters, but we were much more professional in our approach and ridiculously well-organised compared to them!

And then we made our journey home. Jacc made me a lovely gingerbread man with my nickname on it (see above!) A lovely ticket collector on the first train made friends with us and even made an announcement over the train tannoy wishing us luck for the future which was lovely!

We rolled back into Kettering around 5-ish, ridiculously tired but buzzing and pleased with our performance, and with Caroline in her Skid Row old lady costume, complete with rain hood, much to the bewilderment of other train passengers!

Now we play the waiting game, we find out in the next 2 weeks if we’ve got through. Sadly I can’t announce it on here if we do get through, as we have been sworn to secrecy until it has been publicly released!

But, a big congratulations and good luck to Jacc, Kurt, Tara, Karolina, Lauren, Vicki, Georgie, Audrey, Olivia, James, Josh Pugh, Simmo, Mari, Jemma, Ruben, Caroline, Paige, Patch, Laura, Jo, Chloe, Ashley, J-Pick and me(!), I have everything crossed for us! Even if we don’t get through, we should all be so proud of ourselves for coming this far! Well done guys! Go team Starlight! x x x

The Evolution of New Friendships

It’s Wednesday morning and I’m very tired. I’m forcing myself to wake up early every day this week so it’s not a shock when I have to do it again next week on tour.

So, I arrived back in Kettering last Friday around 6.30pm, literally threw all my touring stuff into the house, shouted goodbye to Rob, jumped straight into my car and flew to the final rehearsal for Starlight’s show ‘Evolution’. I thought everyone would be in the middle of a run through of the whole show but luckily the Starlight kids were there running through their routines and I just managed to run into the studio, throw my bag down and take my place in time for the dance routine to Britney Spears’s ‘Circus’.

The final run-through on Friday night was amazing. I’d hardly been to any rehearsals due to being in a different part of the country nearly every week since rehearsals began, but if I’m honest, what I did see when I was back didn’t fill me with the greatest confidence that it was going to be a good show. Rehearsals finished on a high and then it was back to my usual routine of heading to Jacc’s house after rehearsals to eat crap food, watch some 90’s television programmes and in this case, finish sewing children’s costumes for the next day!

The calming of Jacc is also another challenge that I face on show week! And this night was no different; suddenly things were going missing that had been there in the afternoon, his stress levels were going through the roof… I was just glad when our dirty burgers arrived so we could stuff our faces and forget about the show for 2 minutes!

I was ridiculously tired that night, a week of shows ending up in the worst school in Basingstoke, followed by a horrendous journey back home, stopping in every traffic jam possible made me very grumpy indeed, and so when Jacc showed me the final programme for the show, I almost cried. Nestled away at the bottom of the ‘Thank you’ page were the words “Evolution is dedicated to Natalie Castka. Joined at the hip, together we evolve”. Just a few words that meant so much. It was the best early birthday present I could have wished for, and I thank you so much Jacc!

I eventually finished the costumes around midnight, and after being assured that my services were no longer needed, I made my way back home to sort out the rest of my required show bits. I had sorted out all of my costumes weeks before on one of my breaks from the tour, but hadn’t sorted the little things like make-up, tights, shoes, first aid…. the list goes on. By the time I had eventually gathered everything together, had a shower and made several lists of things I had to take, I climbed into my bed at 2am.

I was terrified that I wouldn’t wake up on time on Saturday due to my ‘snooze’ addiction. Not once had I woken up at my alarm’s specified time this week. But I knew that if I was late to the theatre, my life would not be worth living! So I was early!! I managed to gather all my belongings together and ready at the front door by 8.45am, and our call time at the theatre wasn’t til 10! I had a little chat with my brother, we booked ourselves some tickets to see Ricky Gervais in Birmingham in August (eeee!), and then I made a trip to Tesco for some food supplies for the day. I also took the opportunity to pick up some liquid refreshment for the after-show party but had to ask the lady at customer services if I was allowed to buy alcohol that early in the morning! She said yes, so the day was off to a cracking start!

I rolled up to the theatre around 9.35, and had to wait for the gates to the theatre to be opened. Seriously, my family are always so early for things!!! I didn’t have to wait long for more people to arrive, but it was staring to rain and we didn’t want to be standing outside for very long. Jacc and Craig turned up and Jacc sat in the car refusing to get out and say hello to everyone(!), I got in the drivers seat, gave him a slap and a hug, and eventually he got out! We all went into the theatre, threw stuff down, and after a very patronising talk from on of the techies, it was spacing time!!

All the big numbers had to be properly spaced on the stage, something which I was extremely relieved about, as for most routines I hadn’t got a clue where I was meant to be; I was just running about and barging in wherever I felt like it! Then, with spacing over, the kids arrived to space their routines and we got the chance to bag the best dressing rooms!!

Before we knew it, it was dress rehearsal time, and everyone went into panic mode. Make-up was slapped on, people were choking through clouds of (my) deodorant and gallons of hairspray, and costumes were still being fixed and lost!

Despite a couple of hiccups, the dress run went really well (apart from Georgie hitting her head in the middle of a routine and having to leave the stage), and everyone was buzzing and ready for the evening performance. We had a little bit of time before we had to be ready, so some people left to get food, or have a little sleep, and the rest of us stayed behind to blow up nearly 200 balloons! (For the song 99 Red Balloons, obviously!)

Then it was re-application of make-up time, and I was informed that I’d be doing programme selling at front of house. A little team of us attacked the crowds selling our wares, and getting very excited at seeing our friends and families (and the Mayor of Kettering) arrive. With ten minutes to go, and most of the programmes sold, we headed backstage, costumed up, and took our opening positions.

Myself, Corinne and Jemma were the vocalists for the first song of the show, ‘Rock Around The Clock’, and it fell to me to sing the first line of the show. We were placed at the front of the stage in between the house curtain and a gauze curtain hiding the rest of the cast. A musical montage played while the curtain rose, exposing the three of us for what seemed like an eternity, but before I knew it, my opening ‘beat’ of music kicked in , my line came out and the show began! It seemed like 5 minutes between starting and the interval; the show absolutely flew by! We all pulled together, helping each other with lost costumes and attaching hoods to each other with expert precision. Then all of a sudden it was the finale, Take That’s ‘Never Forget’. The song finished, we all came on and took our bows and then did our cheeky waves to the audience… and received a standing ovation!

Had I not been so tired, I probably would have cried. Jacc had put so much effort into whipping everyone into shape and creating an amazing show, I was so proud of him. He completely deserved every single clap that night.

The after show party went the same as usual, at least two people seeing their insides on the floor or in the toilet again(!), and a very late bedtime. I stayed at Jacc’s for the whole day Sunday too, got dragged out shopping and had a lovely time! Bank Holiday Monday whizzed by in a blur and yesterday was my birthday!

I was summoned to Jacc’s for a present-giving ceremony and Beef Stroganoff (private joke!) which had an… interesting taste! And then it was onto the next Starlight project! We have an audition for the new TV series on Channel 5 called ‘Don’t Stop Believing’. We were planning on doing the crowd pleaser from Saturday; our dance to Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’, but found out we couldn’t do a dance, it has to be a vocal performance. Cue Natalie and Jacc thinking over everything we’re done in previous shows that shows off our talents.

So, we’ve now got our entry sorted for Saturday, we’ve got rehearsals late this week, we’re off to Pizza Hut tonight for myself and Caroline’s birthdays, and I’ve made some lovely new friends in the Starlighters. It’s funny how shows can force people together so closely so quickly. ‘Evolution’ was only on for one night, yet I know that their friendship means more to me than just a quick ‘Hello’ on Facebook every now and again.

We’re all so excited to watch the DVD of the show together, we know from the audience reaction that it was an amazing night, and in helping each other, we know that no-one was let down, we all pulled together as a team and entertained the 400-odd strong crowd far more than our appalling attempt at Eurovision would have done!

Congratulations again to everyone involved in the show, we did it! Let’s show these telly folks what we’ve got on Saturday, and see you later for birthday pizza! :) x

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