Because I suffer continually from a surfeit of sentimentality, regular readers (all two of you) will be familiar with a usual post-show nostalgic recollection of show things I most particularly loved.
But this show is a funny one. The Monday afterwards is always the saddest. Back to school. Majorly nothing nice will ever happen again. Tuesday slopes around and you miss your regular rehearsal and swap nostalgic emails with your newly bags of time (ex) cast. Maybe on Wednesday, you text someone a line or two that pops into your head that you (sniff) won't hear again. By Thursday, you're settling into life post-show, having time back, doing normal things like mid-week cinema visits rather than hunched over folders under fluorescent light in a ramshackle rehearsal room.
But this time, all the sharply sweet pleasure of the nostalgia. Confused somewhat by the fact that we still have two weeks THAT'S TWO WEEKS of not just EIF things as the good Fringey stuff is usually all sold out by week 3 but an abundance of a fortnight of a Fringe. I still had a handful of Things to review which kept me busy last week. Along with a few play things. And now I'm trying to juggle EIF with Fringe with two weekend days remaining. It still takes some organising. And anyway, then, in the midst of that, the weekend just gone and the - o! - we'd've had our last night party tonight if we were on in week 2. So nostalgia all over again. Lower level nostalgia again as we limp through this week. Somewhat alleviated by stunning theatre distractions. And I still haven't had time to properly pick pluck over what I loved about our show.
So list it then.
Well.
Friday nights in the pub.
Most of all, Friday nights in the pub.
Chips and cheese.
Resetting the furniture part-way-through each run through at a frenzied flying pace as if no-one would notice that we were terribly interrupting the action.
Vests.
Ill-fitting shoes.
The Aviemore leather jackets.
An ever-expanding props list.
Cath bringing chocolate cake to a rehearsal.
Emma bringing highland biscuits to a rehearsal.
The Chains.
The shorts.
Johnny living off biscuits and biscuits and biscuits.
Me ranting and ringing my hands.
Emma soothing.
And nagging by text.
Patrick guzzling up the chocolate milk.
The discarded cigarettes every other night when Johnny's fiddling had rendered them un-re-usable.
Me nagging my poor father about a particular pharmacists' plastic bag.
When we have a doctor in the cast.
Cartons of wine.
Heather trying to tell me she's engaged and I'm just panicking that we're starting a rehearsal at 7:31.
Tennent's Super. x4 cans.
The Pear Tree - to the point where I almost tweeted a photo when I was forced into that same place, just adjacent to Our Seats last Friday night WITHOUT my cast as it was wrong so wrong being there without them.
Johnny mouthing whole swathes of Dad's speeches. Convenient understudy.
The Secret Rapture jumper, recycled and placed on a boy who was too long for it.
The shorts.
"LOOK OUT! IT'S GOT VODKA IN IT!"
Siobhan raiding houses for E45. And discarded child paraphernalia.
The eternal (mostly eternal) good manners of the cast.
The beautiful photos, courtesy of Julia and Jon.
And of my little sister, aged 7. ("Has anyone said anything about my photo yet?" "Yes, little sister, they're all saying it's the best thing in it.")
The script.
My limp courtship of Paul Higgins that failed to find fulfilment.
"I like ch(u)ps."
"No, just a glass of milk."
"My god, you'll get arrested."
"Fush."
"Well, don't fucking interrupt me then. I don't have time. Forgive my language. It's terrible."
"...running, salad for lunch (hunchy walk), drinking fucking water in the bar."
Cath and the candle on the black black stage in scene 4.
"You were such a little stick."
Father Borghese.
"Whoof."
"How do you know you're not bumping against the glass?"
"It was awful cold."
"..and make the.......fucking........sausages??"
And Patrick's eyes blinking back at her in shock.
Heather murmuring the lines backstage.
Our matching T-shirts.
Everyone's favourite coffin.
The night they forgot to move the candle. And moved the coffin.
The night Patrick's jacket zip got stuck.
Every forgotten fudged and fluffed word. Because it made Ste and I chortle squirm.
Every vulgar rogue fu***ng that snuck into the script as the week progressed. Just don't tell Paul Higgins.
The night Emma burst onto the stage in the dark black between the scenes.
The teddy hug.
Pressed apple juice.
Filling and refilling and emptying and refilling increasingly battered cans.
The night the intercom delivered "don't tell Claire but" silence. And the whole rest of the performance before I could discover the what.
The shorts.
Chips and cheese.
Our hashtag (thanks, Emma).
The sun terrace at the Royal Scots Club.
And our pre-show pallid (poor Mum) torpor.
Pinot Grigio Blush.
Scattered moments from the word the cast came to dread. Two words really. The Exercises.
Patrick apologising to the priests for leaving early.
Cath telling her little sister why she missed her.
Dad hugging Mum when she told him she was pregnant. The First Time.
Johnny breaking up with Rosemary. For all the wrong reasons.
Dad telling Mum her cat was dead. (Heartless.)
The mean post-it notes about Dad, early on, when they all realised he was a monster.
The deeply thought through graphs charting the character's mounting (or waning) (or dead) rage as the play progressed.
Mum sobbing her heart out when she was told that Ruth was dead. Proper hairs on the back of your neck moment.
All the people that cried, scripted, in secret or otherwise. For you made it what it turned out to be.
And last but by no means of all least,
the first five lines of Paul Anka's My Way,
(clap Johnny on the shoulder. Johnny jumps. And cue the evillest look I've ever seen)
delivered as if by Keats.
If Keats was doing karaoke.
#ForgiveUs cast and crew. You've been a delight.
Thank you for every minute.
But this show is a funny one. The Monday afterwards is always the saddest. Back to school. Majorly nothing nice will ever happen again. Tuesday slopes around and you miss your regular rehearsal and swap nostalgic emails with your newly bags of time (ex) cast. Maybe on Wednesday, you text someone a line or two that pops into your head that you (sniff) won't hear again. By Thursday, you're settling into life post-show, having time back, doing normal things like mid-week cinema visits rather than hunched over folders under fluorescent light in a ramshackle rehearsal room.
But this time, all the sharply sweet pleasure of the nostalgia. Confused somewhat by the fact that we still have two weeks THAT'S TWO WEEKS of not just EIF things as the good Fringey stuff is usually all sold out by week 3 but an abundance of a fortnight of a Fringe. I still had a handful of Things to review which kept me busy last week. Along with a few play things. And now I'm trying to juggle EIF with Fringe with two weekend days remaining. It still takes some organising. And anyway, then, in the midst of that, the weekend just gone and the - o! - we'd've had our last night party tonight if we were on in week 2. So nostalgia all over again. Lower level nostalgia again as we limp through this week. Somewhat alleviated by stunning theatre distractions. And I still haven't had time to properly pick pluck over what I loved about our show.
So list it then.
Well.
Friday nights in the pub.
Most of all, Friday nights in the pub.
Chips and cheese.
Resetting the furniture part-way-through each run through at a frenzied flying pace as if no-one would notice that we were terribly interrupting the action.
Vests.
Ill-fitting shoes.
The Aviemore leather jackets.
An ever-expanding props list.
Cath bringing chocolate cake to a rehearsal.
Emma bringing highland biscuits to a rehearsal.
The Chains.
The shorts.
Johnny living off biscuits and biscuits and biscuits.
Me ranting and ringing my hands.
Emma soothing.
And nagging by text.
Patrick guzzling up the chocolate milk.
The discarded cigarettes every other night when Johnny's fiddling had rendered them un-re-usable.
Me nagging my poor father about a particular pharmacists' plastic bag.
When we have a doctor in the cast.
Cartons of wine.
Heather trying to tell me she's engaged and I'm just panicking that we're starting a rehearsal at 7:31.
Tennent's Super. x4 cans.
The Pear Tree - to the point where I almost tweeted a photo when I was forced into that same place, just adjacent to Our Seats last Friday night WITHOUT my cast as it was wrong so wrong being there without them.
Johnny mouthing whole swathes of Dad's speeches. Convenient understudy.
The Secret Rapture jumper, recycled and placed on a boy who was too long for it.
The shorts.
"LOOK OUT! IT'S GOT VODKA IN IT!"
Siobhan raiding houses for E45. And discarded child paraphernalia.
The eternal (mostly eternal) good manners of the cast.
The beautiful photos, courtesy of Julia and Jon.
And of my little sister, aged 7. ("Has anyone said anything about my photo yet?" "Yes, little sister, they're all saying it's the best thing in it.")
The script.
My limp courtship of Paul Higgins that failed to find fulfilment.
"I like ch(u)ps."
"No, just a glass of milk."
"My god, you'll get arrested."
"Fush."
"Well, don't fucking interrupt me then. I don't have time. Forgive my language. It's terrible."
"...running, salad for lunch (hunchy walk), drinking fucking water in the bar."
Cath and the candle on the black black stage in scene 4.
"You were such a little stick."
Father Borghese.
"Whoof."
"How do you know you're not bumping against the glass?"
"It was awful cold."
"..and make the.......fucking........sausages??"
And Patrick's eyes blinking back at her in shock.
Heather murmuring the lines backstage.
Our matching T-shirts.
Everyone's favourite coffin.
The night they forgot to move the candle. And moved the coffin.
The night Patrick's jacket zip got stuck.
Every forgotten fudged and fluffed word. Because it made Ste and I chortle squirm.
Every vulgar rogue fu***ng that snuck into the script as the week progressed. Just don't tell Paul Higgins.
The night Emma burst onto the stage in the dark black between the scenes.
The teddy hug.
Pressed apple juice.
Filling and refilling and emptying and refilling increasingly battered cans.
The night the intercom delivered "don't tell Claire but" silence. And the whole rest of the performance before I could discover the what.
The shorts.
Chips and cheese.
Our hashtag (thanks, Emma).
The sun terrace at the Royal Scots Club.
And our pre-show pallid (poor Mum) torpor.
Pinot Grigio Blush.
Scattered moments from the word the cast came to dread. Two words really. The Exercises.
Patrick apologising to the priests for leaving early.
Cath telling her little sister why she missed her.
Dad hugging Mum when she told him she was pregnant. The First Time.
Johnny breaking up with Rosemary. For all the wrong reasons.
Dad telling Mum her cat was dead. (Heartless.)
The mean post-it notes about Dad, early on, when they all realised he was a monster.
The deeply thought through graphs charting the character's mounting (or waning) (or dead) rage as the play progressed.
Mum sobbing her heart out when she was told that Ruth was dead. Proper hairs on the back of your neck moment.
All the people that cried, scripted, in secret or otherwise. For you made it what it turned out to be.
And last but by no means of all least,
the first five lines of Paul Anka's My Way,
(clap Johnny on the shoulder. Johnny jumps. And cue the evillest look I've ever seen)
delivered as if by Keats.
If Keats was doing karaoke.
#ForgiveUs cast and crew. You've been a delight.
Thank you for every minute.
posted by Claire at 10:43 pm
2 Comments:
Well that made my day. Completely and utterly. Thank you! x
This made me happy and sad in equal quantities. I miss it all so much now, we were a dysfunctional family ourselves.
I miss you all! xx
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