The Big One's Belfast Bound!

I am so so sooooo excited! The Big One is currently finishing up his packing to head over here for a long weekend, see me, see the show, celebrate my birthday with me....WHOOP WHOOP!

How on earth will I sleep? It feels like Christmas!!!

“Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.”

- Carl Sandburg 

Cards and Flowers Galore!

We are open! 

The Belfast and Scotland leg of the run is officially open. It was opening night last night (Wednesday) and the audience seemed very responsive. The bar was rammed afterwards and as the playwright said, 'it's always a good sign after a play that people don't want to leave'. The tables of the bar area were filled with people discussing and debating the themes of the show which in my eyes, is a result!

I had the lovely HawkandFallow in to cheer me on and I was inundated with lovely cards and unexpected bouquets from supporting friends and family to boost me on to that stage to do my thang.

Hugely appreciative thanks to Mama Mooskin and Ee (new blog name entries), Patch & Tache, HawkandFallow, The Big One, Spaghetti Arms, Arfur, and My Lovely Dad for all your kind messages, cards and flowers. I felt loved.

From Mama Mooskin & Ee

From Hawk&Fallow

So now we can just get on with doing and enjoying the show. We're here for another 10 days then off to Scotland then...the big London run!

"We do not go to the theatre like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it."   

~Charles Lamb

The Obsession is [Baby} Growing

The other night I was at the playwright's house to join his family for a BBQ. It was there that my distant comfy-fantasy of hanging out in an adult sized onesie began to take a realistic shape. His grandchild has a fleece one piece that she goes to bed in (she's 4) but then his 14 year old son appeared to model his adult sized (he's 6'2") onesie and they both looked so smugly comfy.

I had been watching Dirty Sexy Things and admiring the Fair Isle style one pieces each of the models seemed to have and today,  I found them.

I want one.

 

They come in all different colours and cost £130 - eek! But don't they look sooo cosy!

As a cheaper alternative there's always the American Apparel romper £35 but they're just not the same...

"If it seems a childish thing to do, do it in remembrance that you are a child."

- Frederick Buechner 

Birthday List

It's my birthday on Saturday, it's funny cos I didn't feel particularly bothered about it even a week ago but now I am officially EXCITED! I get all bubbly and full of jumping beans when I think about it. I don't think it's any coincidence that my excitement coincides with The Big One, who I haven't seen for weeks, is coming over to celebrate it with me.

He arrives on Friday, we are out for dinner with HawkandFallow and Spaghetti Arms after the show on my birthday - what a treat to have 3 of my favourite people in the world to mark this new number with me!

Then on Sunday he has booked us into a lovely hotel, we have a table booked for dinner at Made in Belfast and then on Monday, he tells me we are going on a shopping trip!

What a very lucky and very spoilt gal I am!

So now I am embracing my impending birthday my thoughts have wandered to my ultimate birthday list, thought it'd be fun to make a visual list...who knows maybe I'll strike gold!

Knitter's Necklace - All the Fun of the Fair 

Lambswool Tweed Jacket - Vivienne Westwood

Winter Tartan - Vivienne Westwood

Coloured Skinnies - Kooples

Poem cushion - mybeardedpigeon (Etsy)

Alice in Wonderland Teapot - zinniapea (Etsy)

Feather Print Notebook - Liberty, London

Sterling Silver Anchor Necklace - Love Your Silver

Detachable Peter Pan Collar - luminia (Etsy)

Podengo Pequeno...well you never know!

Lola's cupcakes 

In all honesty though I will have all I could want by being on stage in a play I love and then getting to share my birthday with some very special people.

"Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more."

- Tony Robbins 

Song of The Week

It's opening week, with opening night just around the corner. One more preview tomorrow evening then Press Night. Even more exciting, The Big One arrives on Friday for a long weekend, whoop de whoop!!!

And it's my BIRTHDAY on Saturday!!!

SO - The song this week had to be fun, lively and because we're opening the show, involve clapping....hopefully!!

Enjoy The Clapping Song by Shirley Ellis!

Hope you all have good week's planned!

"3, 6, 9
The goose drank wine
The monkey chew tobacco on the streetcar line
The line broke, the monkey got choked
And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat"

- The Clapping Song

Cos He Loves Me

It was the first preview last night and it seemed to go well, we had an almost full house (390) which was huge for a preview and they were a great audience. Very responsive and engaged. There were a few drinks afterwards to celebrate but the big night is yet to come. Wednesday evening is press night and the big opening night so keep those fingers crossed for us til then!

I got into my dressing room yesterday afternoon to find a HUGE and BeAuTiFuL bouquet of flowers waiting for me, sent by The Big One. It made me beam inside all day, filled me with happiness and that lovely feeling of knowing you are loved.

"A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love."

- Max Muller 

How Does My Garden Grow?

One of the things I miss about being away from home is my garden. When we first moved in to our flat the garden was a MESS, with help from friends and a lot of patience we have turned it into a lovely place to be. When I'm home I love wandering around it every day to see what's flowering, growing, appearing.

I asked The Big One to send my pictures of my little garden so I could see any new developments.

Gary and Cooper, the other aspects of home I miss most, joined in the photoshoot.

Gary

Cooper

"Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature."
- Gerard De Nerval 

Hello Old Friend

Yesterday we started and finished the tech for the show I am here to do in Belfast. Tech's are traditionally a long, arduous, stressful and, did I mention long, experience. This tech lasted for a smooth 4 hours!! Mainly due to the fact we've done the show before, and it's style is not overly technical but still, it was the stuff of legend!

Teching the show also means that we have now officially left the rehearsal room we have been in for the last month and have relocated to our new dressing rooms and of course the theatre.

I am the only original cast member in this production and it was a lovely homecoming to step back into my costume and to be back on the set I love so much.

It was also lovely to be back in a dressing room, the show I just finished in Manchester took place in a large but old Victorian Cotton Mill. It was very 'on location'.

The theatre here is state of the art and brand-spanking new, it opened in May having been being designed and built over the last 3 years. So my dressing room is pretty swish, but then again I'm just delighted to have a room, lights, a shower and a show relay!

It will be my new home til early September when we transfer to Scotland and then to London where we will run til October.

Wish us luck!!

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being."

- Oscar Wilde 

A Bel-Feast with HawkandFallow

Last Sunday to celebrate both HawkandFallow and I being here in a full-working-actor capacity we went out for dinner to one of our favourite restaurants, Made in Belfast.

The food is delicious, the decor beautiful and anarchic and the company, well, you couldn't beat the company!

Drinks anyone?

Make mine a French Martini - delish!

Toast Skagen - swedish style prawns

Crayfish and Hazelnut Risotto

We were so StUfFeD we had no room for pud despite the menu being enticing to say the least!

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." 

- Donna Roberts

Song of The Week

This week is production week, last days of rehearsals, technical rehearsals, dress runs then on Saturday we have our first preview, our first audience so for me the song of the week is calm, chilled and beautiful.

Tawiah - Every Step

Have a listen, music player right there ------->

Enjoy!

A Beret Full of Cables

I finished this the other day and have worn it several times to the sound of muchos compliments!

I'd love to show you a pic of me wearing it but here in Belfast I don't have my trusty photog, The Big One.  So til I pluck up the guts to ask one of my cast members of stage management, you'll have to imagine it on.

I can assure you it looks fab...if I say so myself!

It looks really blue here but it's actually a teal colour

"A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in."

- Frederick The Great 

Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking...?

Crazy Zauberball

Just so we're on the same page  - I'm thinking SOCKS! My first pair of knitted socks are about to commence! That is what you were thinking right?

“True love is like a pair of socks: you gotta have two and they’ve gotta match.”

- Anon

London Press Night Outfit

It's the Belfast opening night first (24th August) but this is the outfit I have planned in my head to wear for our London opening night in September....what do you think? 

And - which shoes!?

"I love acting. It is so much more real than life."    

- Oscar Wilde

Just Watched...

Today I watched The French Line starring Jane Russell and it was great! She was so sexy! Beautiful in a striking, somewhat unconventional way, very leggy and very....curvaceous! 

Some of the numbers were down right provocative but after reading about her I discovered that Howard Hughes, who produced the film, was quite obsessed with her...qualities.

It was glamorous, great fun, made me chuckle, all in all a superb 'curl up and craft' movie to watch on a drizzly day in between rehearsal sessions...yes I was called back into rehearsals after all.

 

P.S. Tomorrow is a run of the play then costume fittings and hair and make up consultations which means...we're nearly previewing!

"Sometimes the photographers would pose me in a low-necked nightgown and tell me to bend down and pick up the pails. They were not shooting the pails."

- Jane Russell

A Drip of A Day

That's exactly what it is, a drip. The day here in Belfast is wet but not raining, just drizzling. Like the rain can't even be bothered. The sky is that kind of solid white cloud which makes you wonder if you exist anymore.

I was in rehearsals this morning and now have a few hours off...or maybe more. We may be doing a run later, we may not. You see what I mean, everything is - 'muh'.

So I have come back determined to turn this day around. After going over some lines, I shall knit, watch a lovely old movie, make myself all snuggly and eat popcorn.

That looks better already doesn't it!

Hope you're having a better, brighter day!

"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."

- Alfred Hitchcock 

Song of The Week

Image courtesy of Hot Dog

My love of Robyn's music is well documented on here...this is my song of the week.

Stars 4-Ever

I CANNOT stop listening/dancing/singing along to it.

Have a listen - music player right there ------->

Clear the floor, you'll want to spin.

“Music is what feelings sound like.”

- anon

Karl + Macy's = P-R-S EnVy!

So Macy's has just unveiled a preview of Karl Lagerfield's Impulse collection exclusively available in Macy's stores across the US from August 31st....yes, I am jealous! 

Here are some of my favourite looks from the 45 piece collection.

All images courtesy of Macy's

So if you're in the US and near a Macy's store, better set an alarm. Fashion o'clock on August 31st!

grrrrr.....

"I'm from nowhere. I'm a European, old European is all I am."
- Karl Lagerfeld 

We Watched..

This weekend we watched two great movies, I highly recommend them both!

Bright Star was so beautiful, so romantic, so moving. The Big One and I were entranced by the end. The cinematography, the performances, the way Ben Whishaw recites Keats' poetry all combined to make this one of the most romantic films I think I have ever seen. Their burgeoning love was so realistically paced, it was a wonderful film and I urge you to watch it if you get the chance.

The next film we saw was quite a different genre and 'beast' altogether.

Pure nostalgia for me. I am an 80's child and this has such the Spielberg touch, I really enjoyed it. That's not to say it was perfect because it wasn't but it was highly enjoyable. 

The nostalgic element has potentially clouded my judgement on whether it's a 'good' film but I would watch this again. I jumped, I gasped, I laughed and I was entirely engaged. The end was a little humdrum for me but still, I loved reliving my childhood for the 112 minutes that this was on. I could have been at someone's 12 year old birthday party about to go and have pizza after the film before we stayed over and plaited each other's hair....thankfully though I wasn't and I got to go home with The Big One afterwards instead.

"Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity."

- Robert Morgan