AYLESBURY WATERSIDE THEATRE. NOV 27TH.

November 28, 2017

Bollocks.
Now I am lost and can’t remember the order of events.
This is where I am so saturated with geographical time-lines that I start repeating places in my head like sea-bed objects in a Brain Train exercise.

I was in a bed.
It was in a place.
I know Vinny knocked for me.
Fast food was consumed.
There was definitely weather of some kind.
The Aylesbury gig is near a Waitrose.
I was in a bed.
WRONG!

Shit.

This is what me relating events is more often like.
I aspire to riveting but am rarely more engaging than a rivet.

Aylesbury is a town in the environs of where I once lived for more than 30 years, though I don’t remember ever being here, it is a name known.

The theatre is impressive.
The wooden finishing makes us think of a pixilated Squirrel Nutkin Kingdom as opposed to the Sci-fi modernities of our recent venues.
It is certainly warm and expensive looking and of this age.
Better still, the sound is much more reliable.
The acoustics have been a feature in this design evidently, and the walls boast twinkling blue fairy lights that were always going to make my heart soar.

Dougie says he saw Sue Pollard in a dressing room this morning.
They have a pantomime here.
Past or coming or current I am not sure.

Perversely I have always fancied pantomime.
I love Christmas and my old man hates it.
I could happily lose myself in dressing-up for a season.
I would nail an old hag like I was born to it.
I was born to it.
I could terrify your kids without breaking a sweat.
Too much maybe.
If you’re going to bring them up limp that’s not my problem.

We are poking each other with what better things we could be doing were we not committed to this job.
Dougie and I, side-stage as we wait later in the dark for April 10th to play out.

I could have tour managed Sue Pollard, he drawls in his monotone Brum.
I could have been Sue Pollard, I return, mellifluously, most probably.
We nod sagely.

My room is small but it has a toilet and it is well lit.
Needs met.
I have Trout at dinner for the first time, I think.
Or at least this is the first time I think I will have it again.

Weaveworld is hotting up.

Hannah is singing a Beatles song down the hall.
Tour practises become viral.
It’s like how women all menstruate at the same time when staying in one place long together.
Or is that a myth?
Something to do with the moon and being able to measure the tide in a tea cup.
Anyway.
We party-entire are a huddle of water bound penguins.

We’re not, but it’s an attractive photo opportunity.

I go out front in search of 4G so as to be able to post my Nottingham blog.
We have no useful Wifi backstage or adequate phone signal.

I have written the whole of this blog project on my phone, with my right thumb.
I heard tell our thumbs are going to be getting bigger due to texting.

G’s fucked then.
Hers are massive.
Like Uma Thurman in when Cowgirls Get The Blues.
She’s quite a bit younger than me though, so maybe the evolution rot is deeper set there.
My thumbs are reasonably sized if you consider I take a size 8 shoe.
People are walking less.
Maybe they’ll get smaller feet.

I’m not keen on the small foot aesthetic on a big person.

We all have some kind of body fascism.
I’m body shaming someone here for sure.

Ah. Here are some of my splendid crew lads. I am going to take their likenesses on my phone camera.

The stage, when I am in possession of it, is one where you can trust that the required spectacle will be achieved.
Here it feels floated on a lower canopy of Tree World, and the haze hangs mist like. Half masking me it seems.
I like the camouflage I imagine it affords me.
I feel dressed as much by the lights as by cloth.

Today is the penultimate UK gig and my voice knows it.

When I start to sing it responds more sluggishly than of late.
Not unlike legs feel walking home after a resumed class of Body Pump.

Do this.
Nah. Make me.

3 or 4 songs in, I am restored of the upper hand and punched it in the throat.
It’s not going to bother me now.

Am I dying here? I wonder.
Sometimes the sound separation between stage and auditorium is so well isolated that applause is swallowed by the room and seems tiny.

No one looks pissed.
(The English Pissed)
There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of bladder sensitivity here abouts.
The doors are not swinging.
No shouts for me to change the set.

These are all very heartening signs.
As pleasing as a pulse found on someone very pale and prostrate.

No. I think they are just concentrating.
This, I decide, is what is happening.
They are in it with me.
Conclusion personally agreed upon, I fold myself fully into the programme and inhabit it gladly.
It feels like a good show.
I am immersed in it.

Straight in the car without any second guessing, it is a 40 minute drive to our hotel.

G texts me.

Nice one, Mo.

That’s her being verbose.