Curtain Down on 2024

Only ten more days before the start of a new year. Two hundred and forty hours into which I’ll ram as much as I can in a manic effort to visit family and friends I’ve not seen for ages, tackle the mountain of eclectic tat that is the garage, fill multiple bin bags with Autumn’s backlog of garden debris, read books, go to the cinema, eat cheese etc. I might even finish off painting the bannister!

A glimpse through the 2024 calendar reminds me that a hell of a lot of my time and energy has been devoted to theatre alongside work and family. In January I travelled 264 miles as a rehearsal pianist (for musicals Curtains and Frozen), 308 miles as second keys for Beauty & The Beast panto in Consett, co-chaired a Tyne Theatre Productions committee meeting, attended the first Richard Jenkinson Commission presentation evening at Laurels, Whitley Bay, as a finalist and embarked on a second foray into the wild ride of producing an entry to the Durham & Sunderland One Act Festival at Royalty Theatre, Sunderland.

Through February our One Act entry, an original play called Zuzu’s Petals by excellent playwright (and good friend) Jamie McLeish, was rehearsed over the water in the back room of a pub and I threw myself into the task of designing and bringing to life a set that represented Life, Death and the bit in-between on a miniscule budget. I sourced a park bench and book-case from Facebook Marketplace and our house became like the wings of a theatre packed with all manner of props. We invested in a smoke machine, room divider, fake moustache and twenty grand in bank notes, borrowed a Vape from a friend, procured a massive mirror from my daughter’s bedroom and prepared a mountain of vegan sandwiches. A trip to the Theatre Royal on Valentine’s Day to see Peter Pan Goes Wrong, featuring a friend of ours as the brilliant Tinker Bell/Mrs Darling, was in stark contrast to our little One Act effort. The revolving stage was superb and showed just what can be achieved with proper funding and investment - truly magical spectacular entertainment. Another Tyne Theatre Productions meeting to discuss our commercial appeal, followed by a visit to a lovely talented fellow pianist to try (and mostly fail) to keep up with her, duetting as Patrick & Pankhurst.   One more rehearsal of Curtains then the One Act Festival technical rehearsal where we had 10 minutes to assemble our set and 45 minutes to work through the technical requirements of Zuzu’s Petals. Four days later we presented our play to a judge and an audience alongside the brilliant writer Tom Caisling’s original drama Snakes & Ladders and other local entries. We were fortunate enough to be awarded Best Writer, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and our entry was put through to the next round of the All England Festival. Exciting!!

In March I organised a group of friends to see The Full Monty at Theatre Royal (for its artistic merits of course, the stripping being coincidental to our enjoyment) and took work colleagues to see 9 to 5 by Tyne Theatre Productions, featuring my other half in a cameo role and brilliantly production-managed by the fantastic, funny and relentlessly hard-working Josie Clements. I also enjoyed The Fast Show at Tyne Theatre, which was a real nostalgic treat.

By April, Carpet Time Productions was formed with myself and co-writers Jamie McLeish and Hannah Sowerby working together to bring our original dark comic project Doomgate to life. We were given the opportunity by the wonderful creative team at Laurels, Whitley Bay. This quirky venue encourages local voices and original ideas like no other, offering support, encouragement and space to develop and grow North-East theatre projects. In case you’re wondering about the name, Carpet Time was inspired by those moments at school when you’re gathered on the carpet listening to stories, letting your imagination go on amazing journeys. Our fledgling production company went on its own amazing journey as we spent the next seven months putting together multiple funding applications and script re-writes, developing our directing, design and production skills with guidance from Laurels and other experienced arts practitioners. The support of the venue, the experts who gave their time and energy, the brilliant cast, our friends and family and other audience members who came and laughed (and were sometimes moved) at our crazy little imaginary world of Doomgate meant so much to me, to Jamie and to Hannah. It was draining mentally, physically and financially for all involved but we did it. Hearing the audience respond and feedback how much they enjoyed it was everything. Creating theatre on a shoestring budget is like birthing a whale - painful and messy but very rewarding in the end.

During those seven months, alongside birthing Doomgate we presented Zuzu’s Petals again at Saltburn in the next round of the One Act Festival. Having lost our technical support to his full-time job, I persuaded an old theatre friend of mine to step in and bless him he did an heroic job in spite of our chaotic management. Denny, you’re a legend! His feedback was “your group needs to get a director to interpret the play properly …blocking and bollocking (loads of lines lost) that almost lost the meaning of the play…It’s great to see groups like Son of a Gun are still pulling talent together.” Those lost lines cost us dearly but nevertheless I was proud that we delivered something the audience enjoyed.

Zuzu’s Petals is an excellent short play that’s going worldwide in 2025. And I learned never to use smoke and mirrors in a small theatre - funniest moment being in tech when we set the smoke machine off and the theatre staff appeared with a Henry the Hoover to vacuum it away in case the alarms went off.

Across the year I went to see friends and family in Curtains, Frozen, my niece’s Graduation Dance show which was fabulous at Newcastle College, as was my husband in Priscilla Queen of the Desert at Little Theatre, Gateshead, son Sam in both the Theatre Royal Youth Show and Little Gems Dance Show at Tyne Theatre and my gorgeous sister from another mister Nickey in A Christmas Carol (along with old school friend Ailsa). I helped out my friend Julie’s company on the Auf Weidersehen Pet Live shows at City Hall, enjoyed Subterranea at Laurels, Wor Bella and Gerry & Sewell at Theatre Royal, Dear Evan Hanson at Sunderland Empire, rocked with the Blueshounds at Tyne Bar, with Pictures to Burn duo at Four Ladies, at the Scoop Festival in a campervan and laughed along at two live stand up comedy nights featuring the lovely funny clever Welsh wonder Kelly Rickard. I appeared briefly as an actor in one scene of another version of Tom’s play Snakes & Ladders that I’d previously seen as part of the One Act Festival - this version was produced and directed by Dan Burlison, a force to be reckoned with as a teenage performer and theatre entrepreneur who is a maelstrom of drive and passion for entertaining. My old sequence dance sheet music got an airing at clubs in both Middlesbrough and Seaton Delaval and I proudly managed a dep appearance at Leam Lane in its final year of live backing. Can’t believe it was almost forty years ago that I first got up and played live music for a paying audience.

In December so far I’ve been to see The Little Mermaid, helped out front of house for a week’s worth of pantomime at Park View Theatre, loved the raucous Seagulls & Sad, Sad Stories by Sarah Bond at Laurels and shaken a tub of gravy granules (you had to be there) in time with the North East Concert Band at Parish Hall, Chester-Le-street. Performed at a Buskers evening in Cramlington and danced along with Discography at Hoochie Coochie on Black Eye Friday.

I reckon there’s still time to squeeze in a couple more shows and some drama before the year’s out. Next year I’m hoping to reduce the level of crazy in my extra-curricular theatricals, focussing mainly on music and a bit of comedy. We’ve been working on an 80s and 90s Bangers live show which should bear fruit in 2025 and a comedy sketch show with Sun of a Gun.

All of your kind words and support have helped hugely so thanks again and hope to see you in 2025 at one gig or another. We’re really lucky to have so much choice in live entertainment across the region and paying audiences are the life blood of them all.

And if you prefer to stay in, as some folk do, then I’m a little jealous of that at times! One of these years that’ll be me, just not quite yet….