A couple of idea stealing sessions. I was in London a week or so ago and had time to kill before my flight back. So was wandering very aimlessly from Belgrave Square and ended up passing some posh shop with a window display that was largely black with coloured masking tape stretched diagonally across the floor and onto the back wall. It looked great. I’m thinking of a bare stage without back cloths anyway. So wonder if this might be a way to break up the stage area.

And then last weekend, I saw a show at the Traverse: Majnoun by Mehrdad Seyf, produced by 30 bird productions. It was a cracking production, really neatly staged. And they had a series of rostra (asked my dad who was visiting and knows these things…) built up so they sat on an angle. But it was obviously in two sections that crossed the stage horizontally so characters could dart behind one portion or another. Could be a way to solve the bath problem. (Grusha’s carelessly married just back from the dead husband is meant at one point to be naked in the bath. I wonder should I specify this as a criteria for auditionees..?)

I’m having a bit of a theatre going fest at the moment. Saw “Good Sister Bag” by Lung Ha Theatre Company on Friday night at the Traverse. Quite magical and notable from an idea stealing point of view because the cast were all dressed in what was probably their own “bottoms” – trousers, skirts, whatever – but had what I guess must have been specially dyed tops making a rainbow of colour. And of course they were beautifully ranged around the stage in colour order. Don’t quite see how I could make use of this but it was very pretty.

Saturday night saw me at the Royal Bank Drama Club’s production of “Ghost Train”, a terrible play from which I shall steal no ideas. Except that trying to circumvent the smoking ban by having a character fussing around with lit matches pretending but conspicuously not lighting the cigarette – isn’t the best way to get round the ban.

Better to abandon smoking altogether as we are doing in our current production in progress, Patrick Hamilton’s “Rope”. Watched a rehearsal of this on Sunday and they’re doing brilliantly. Would that I can be so lucky with my cast.

We have a committee meeting in a week or so which means I have to nail my colours to the mast and set an audition date. I can’t be worrying about it yet. Surely.