Something happened to me last night which has never in my - getting on for ten years of this time-guzzling milarkey - happened before.

I attended a rehearsal for my own show with weeks and almost months to go before curtain up that had been (wait for it) requested by my actors.

Unprecedented.

I'm used to panick (oops) last minute rehearsals when it dawns on them suddenly that they must strut forth without the comfort of script, secret dark rehearsal room or appreciatively chortling director to air their wares to the nation. And then there's no time and it's tinged with a secret squashed down simmering resentment.

But last night.

O the indulgence!

Weeks to go and hours to play and it was fabulous.

The Two Lovers had - in a kind of roundabout way - wondered whether more time might be spent tending to their scenes.

So two and a half hours in the dingy rehearsal rooms of horror and all we actually achieved was a moderately hasty (in the end) canter through two (two!) tiny short scenes.

But o my life. The difference between the before and the after. Amazing.

I would that I had such interest, attention, eagerness to please, patience, aptitude (tremendous aptitude), good humour and general all round loveliness from all of my casts always.

Hats off to you, Two Lovers.

(Having said this, if any of the rest of you are reading this and send me a sudden 'extra rehearsals please' request, I'll see straight through it.)