I arrived at the rehearsal rooms last night on the cusp of being late to find my pretty chickens already at work.

Indeed, it came to light that they'd been there since 5pm. (I arrived at 7:29pm.) Carefully, devotedly, plodding and working through their lines.

By way of a reward, I unpacked an ugly bag of jumpers for Cath. Sacklike, unattractive and mine all mine.

But then discovered to my horror that the biscuit store was running low so their collective biscuit dinner was reduced to a handful of Hobnobs and my current (but nobody else's) favourite Malted Milk snappy treats. "No Kit-Kats?" said Johnny, sadly.

I felt like a mother that had provided only a satsuma and a handful of nuts in the stocking at Christmas. Must replenish the biscuit box for tomorrow.

Undaunted, they proceeded to turn in some lovely performances.

Though I've yet to see the pieces that they darkly promised they'd changed, refined and improved in my absence.

Maybe tomorrow will be A Day Of Rage.

But as I haven't had too many of these so far, maybe I'd even let them off for that.

Pretty chickens.

Thanks.