I didn’t have my first rehearsal yesterday. With an eerie sense of déjà vu, I got a text from one of my cast boys on Saturday night as I meandered around the Taste tents in the Meadows saying that he hadn’t realised that there was a rehearsal the next day and didn’t think that the cast girl had realised either.

Heart sinking – the blow only softened by a delicious chickpea patty-like thing from the Banns tent – I texted him back saying that indeed we were rehearsing the next day at this time and place. And no reply.

Of course at the moment, I’m doing my good Samaritan bit and sitting for someone else’s (biting) cats (as the lovely scar I have now acquired on my midriff will testify to any startled viewers). So had to drag myself back home the next morning to gather the appropriate telephone numbers (lesson learnt there – I now do have their numbers in my mobile phone) and start the mournful call round.

And indeed cast girl knew nothing about it either. I can only assume that the same problem which seems to blight my work email account when I try to mail hotmail account holders, also afflicts aol addresses. Convenient. As both of them swore that they hadn’t received the rehearsal schedule and I like to believe that no two independent people could lie so consistently. (Maybe I should know better.)

So the long and the short of it was that cast girl (dragged up out of her Sunday morning bed) couldn’t make the afternoon as she was visiting an ‘uncle’. So much as I would have loved to read in for her (as clearly I would love to play the girl part, despite being a trifle too old), I thought I should do the responsible thing and cancel. Start as you mean to go on.

It was just as well really. In my fear about the impending production, I have been spectacularly slack in even thinking about my ‘concept’. So the cancellation bought me a bit of time.

I’m totally lagging behind from a logistical as well as an artistic point of view at the moment. Flagrant procrastination. Much as the relentless chain of hen weekends and weddings seemed like a great excuse for inactivity in the middle of May, it all feels a bit more deliberately neglectful now.

I phoned Andy later that evening to (belatedly) chat about production stuff. He reasonably asked about the size of the technical team to date. Slimline would be the best description I suppose. As it is currently him.

And re-reading the script yesterday, I do need some pretty smart sound and some rather nifty effects at various points. So with two months and nine days to go till showtime, I should really get my skates on.

On the plus side, having failed to recruit anyone to produce my marketing materials (unsurprising given that I haven’t actually found anyone to ask), I knocked a scrappy effort at a flyer together in powerpoint (classy) on Friday in a snatched and hungover lunchbreak. So with luck, this was distributed to the assembled audience at the Improbables show that evening.

(Which sadly I couldn’t attend as I was busy watching Charmaine’s one minute masterpiece, “cold”, being aired at the Leith Festival for ya-tube. It was an odd experience watching various of my drama friends doing their stuff in the upper room at the Granary surrounded by work colleagues. “Cold” did not win the competition sadly. Though faithful Hamish, currently on a month’s work placement with us, said he thought it was by far the best of the competition entries. That boy will go far.)

So I have a flyer of sorts. Although Susan is displeased by the quantity of black ink it requires. I just need to get myself a show now. We start (again) on Wednesday.