ALASDAIR SATCHEL’S WEBLOG

Preparations continue …

July 4
The Claw! The Claw has overtaken the rehearsal room. Not the villain from the children's TV show Inspector Gadget, but a strange claw-like grip that afflicts members of the cast – leading to strange chuckling noises by others. The claw can appear at any point – it can pop out behind the head of a random actor, or in the lap of guitarist. It's a very strange thing indeed.

Mr Barrie Hunter – who plays MC John Angus - is one of the finest perpetrators of “Clawinism”. Swift in his clawing, you don't realise he’s there until it’s too late, and you're already halfway through a speech about the merits of a Bourbon vs. Rich Tea when you burst into laughter.

July 5
Rehearsals are going well. I'm very pleased. Our show is now blocked, in that we know what our entrances, exits are and where we stand when we act. We've now started to come “off the book”, or to act without the scripts in our hands. Naturally we're going to stumble along like this for a few days as we get all of our lines in the right place, but it'll be good when the lines really go in - and stay in.

July 7
There's a surfeit of cheese and crackers in the rehearsal room because I was given loads of cheese by two of the students from my Argyll College acting course for a party we were having. So we're all quite happy about that. And now that some old cheese from the previous Mull Theatre tour Swindle & Death has been removed from the fridge, all is well.

© Alasdair Satchel, 2008

Links

• Mull Theatre
• Right Lines