So anyway, I am to be Sebastian in the Twelfth Night. Post-audition, I was of course full of love for Viola's lines and dreamily imagined myself movingly describing Patience plonked down on her monument, smiling at grief, to a tear stained audience.

I have now more or less recovered from the disappointment and am embracing the opportunity which playing the more or less mute brother affords. I have approx one page of speaking in the first act - although Gordon hasn't revealed yet what he plans to cut so some of this could go - and then maybe five to six pages (again subject to snips) in the second act.

So I have pleasant fantasies of an autumn with thinly scattered rehearsals, few but beautiful Shakespearean lines and a brilliant boy disguise.

The cast is lovely. Those that I know are, at any rate. And I'm sure the others won't be any different. And I shall be in a play with Caroline for, I think, the first time since Arcardia. So I look forward to much dressing room giggling.