Cuteness Overload [ROA:98/23]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So I was not supposed to be here tonight, but to be fair I was also not supposed to be blogging any more and yet, here we are because Alex! I mean, unplanned cover shows are always a bit of a nightmare, but unplanned cover shows on tour are often simply impossible. I missed that week near the start of the tour when Ryan was on for a different track nearly every night, I missed two weeks of Adam’s Hertz in Scotland and his mid-week Lonny run in Grimsby and then I missed Alex’s Franz on Tuesday. All of those were horribly frustrating, but Tuesday was by far the worst because I could have been there. The trouble is I was rushing off to see Kinky in Oxford and I tend not to check instastories during the day anyway (which is where the news first broke). By the time the WestEndCovers twitter notification popped up, I was already on the train and it was too late to change my plans. Needless to say, I was gutted. He was on again yesterday, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it, regardless of who was on, because I had plans with a friend and much as I hate to admit it, some things are more important than theatre. I did however, beg Alex to let me know if he was on again tonight, so at 4 o’clock I found myself booking a ticket, putting my opera ticket up for re-sale and trying desperately to contain my giddiness until I could escape the office!

Of course, this is hardly the first cover show I’ve seen, but it still felt like a special one. It was a boy show, so I got Ryan on stage and in a new track, plus I always knew I’d get to see Josh’s Drew because he has planned ones. And, ya know, I’ve also got a colossal soft spot for Alex, so…! Needless to say, I was beyond delighted that I actually managed to make it down to see him and it was everything I could do not to squee out loud when they announced him before the show. Although I will say I was rather miffed not to find a cover notice anywhere.

In the end, I think I was too busy beaming like a madwoman to take in much beyond ‘aaaaah he’s so f***ing cute!’, but I had the best time and of course I’ve still got a fair few things to say. Of course Alex played Franz completely differently to Andy, which I obviously loved because it was new and exciting (and I hate it when actors don’t have the freedom to put their own interpretation on a role). I think he was more shy and naive, plus he was generally less overtly comedic, although of course he still had his moments. I think the comedy came from a very different place though. One thing I particularly loved was the way he sort of looked out towards the audience during the not-quite-kissing scene, as if he was too shy to look directly at her. It was so adorable. Ack, who am I kidding, every thing he did was adorable and I spent a good proportion of the show with my hands clasped together below my chin, trying not to audibly squeak.

I also hadn’t considered the fact that prior to tonight I’d never actually heard him sing and that’s sort of important. Especially when one has already become emotionally committed to chasing said performer across the country in any future roles…! Fortunately it turns out that he’s good. Really good. He’s got a gorgeous voice and now I just need a crazy second cover Stacee show to hear him show it off even more! I mean, Franz is a significant improvement on a solo-less ensemble track, but he still doesn’t get to do that much vocally. Although I did enjoy his little ‘la la la’ after the Easter morning line. Also on a sort of related note, I thought his German accent was really good. I mean, sure I have no real frame of reference, but it sounded good to me and I thought he kept it up really well when he started singing too!

So Alex was on stage at the start of act two, wrapped around the pole with his armful of poster rolls and I reckon Franz’s late entrance at the last few venues must have been because there was no sheer curtain. What with the lights and all, the curtain does obscure the stage enough for him to get into position without it being visible to the audience. Needless to say, I was rather chuffed that I didn’t have to wait for Alex to pop up :P. There was still a delayed entrance later on, though I’m not sure that was entirely intentional…! After Alex assured Dennis and Lonny that he hadn’t called them, Vas took an awfully long time to emerge, to the point that I was beginning to wonder if he was going to turn up at all! I’d certainly have been intrigued to see what they’d have done if he hadn’t, since he is rather instrumental to that whole scene, but then he declared ‘I called you’ from the wings and belatedly strolled on to the stage. I’ll confess it still took me a moment to pick up on it, but I then realised he was missing his briefcase of cash for Franz, so I wonder if that’s what caused the delay.

Of course, I also got to see Ryan back on stage, which is always a pleasure. I love watching him dance and I got to see his Dennis cameo for the first time too, so that was fun. I also really liked his expression before he climbed up on the flight cases next to Stacee in Wanted. He seemed to dither for a moment before working up the courage to get up there, then had this rather cheeky expression on his face after he’d committed to it. He looked thrilled with himself once he was up there too… until he ended up rolling around on the floor clutching his nose!

On the other hand, I thought his producer from Orion Pictures was a lot more aggressive than Alex usually is, plus one of the notes fell on the floor when he tried to tuck them into Jodie’s coat, so she had to bend down to retrieve it. Of course, Jodie then responded different to him and she actually looked kinda scared after he walked away, rather than just fed up. I think she was then more aggressive when Drew bumped her (before she recognised him), as if she already had her back up before he came along, but I might be reading too much into that. I do love the way Jodie does that whole scene though. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but it always makes me grin when she mouths ‘s***’ after lying to Drew about her career, as if she didn’t mean to go that far. Then after she throws her hand up and admits she’s a stripper, she looks up at it hanging in the air like its betrayed her in some way. Given how generally confident Jodie’s Sherrie is, I think it’s particularly cute when we see the slightly less self-assured side to her character.

Speaking of cute, Vas wailed ‘I’m not a fascist’ at Rhiannon and it was bizarrely adorable. It’s no wonder Regina took pity on him after that! Continuing on the theme, when Drew interrupts Stacee & Sherrie after Wanted, Clifton steps off the flight case before abruptly turning and ‘shooting’ Drew with his finger gun. In response, Luke clutches his shoulder as if he’s been hit and laughs in a really dorky way and it’s so cute! He’s such an adorable little fanboy… Until he fully realises what’s going on, at least. Also, I love the way Josh looks around when Stacee says ‘it’s kinda noisy’ and often gets this adorably puzzled look on his face, cos it’s really not that noisy… Until he realises what’s going on and then he nods knowingly. Cute, cute, cute! Also Luke and Lucas were using the broom and the plunger to have a little sword fight in Nothin’ But A Good Time and that was rather sweet too. And another thing…! When they came on for the curtain call, Jodie sort of launched herself into Luke’s arms, wrapping her legs around his waist, and I’m not entirely sure he was expecting it! Bless.

Moving away from cute however, far far away, when Stacee came over to Sinead in Wanted, she clutched both her hands between her legs, before reacting (in)appropriately when he touched her face. She took a moment to recover as he walked away, then wiped her hands on Adam’s leg and I’ll confess it made me giggle. Although speaking of Adam, his vocal unexpectedly caught my attention in Noize and rather blew me away. I’m not sure why I never really clocked it before (I guess cos there’s a lot going on generally and it’s a Stacee scene, so I don’t often watch him & Luke, so the vocal normally just washes over me), but he’s really f***ing good. I want to see him in one of his cover tracks even more now and it’s so frustrating that I missed so many of them.

So I didn’t have the best view of the front row, but I guess none of them looked up for it, because Lucas went for the woman in the middle of the row behind. There was a large box in front of the stage that he could step down on to and he then propped one foot on one of the chair arms in the front row. From where I was sitting, it looked rather like he had his crotch in someone’s face, but he did apologise! Her name was Catrin, which I imagine could have all sorts of spellings and I’ve never seen them do this before, but when Rhiannon was handing out her flyers, she checked if it was with a C or a K. I wonder what Catrin thought that would be for! I did have a pretty damn good view though, especially for a seat a fair bit further back (F) than I would have chosen given the choice of something closer. It was a really good rake though, so I had a completely clear view and I was around stage height so it was really good for taking in the whole show. It also meant I could see Luke riding his motorbike on to the stage, which doesn’t really have anything to do with my seat and was really just a weak segue to record the fact that they’ve apparently fixed the bike since Grimsby. Although I will say I kinda missed seeing Lucas come back on to remove it at the end of the scene!

Aside from all of that however, there was another fairly major change this evening… You see, there’s a new drummer on the Strip! I didn’t even realise Amanda was leaving until I saw her tweeting her farewells last week and I’m rather sad I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. Although I did an equally poor job of welcoming the new guy (Vito Guerrieri), since I didn’t cheer for the band… I mean I’d sort of half decided not to anyway, because I always feel like such a prat and then I was so giddy over Alex, I wasn’t in any shape to be giddy about anything else, but I still felt horrible! Admittedly they still got their cheer, because after Dennis’ line, Drew & Marc raised there arms and the audience took the hint and cheered for them, but I still feel like I let them down…! At least I know I don’t have to worry about it on Saturdays!

Finally, before I get to stage door, I’m going to talk about costumes again [Edit: I realise I never actually finished the Grimsby posts in which I first started on this topic so ‘again’ doesn’t really make sense, but you’ll just have to go with it] because I find the whole thing inexplicably fascinating. So Alex wore his usual biker shirt and double denim in the opening number (before he became Franz), then the rest of his costume was much the same as Andy’s, although he had a different t-shirt (white with an anchor on it) for his casual look at the end. As for Ryan, he was in his usual costume until his Primo bit, when he had a similar outfit to Alex, but again, a different shirt (I think it was a Sex Pistols one). Although I did belatedly realise that I forgot to look up at the screen and see what footage they had for Beaver Hunt…

Kevin had a new shirt this evening too, only I’m sure I’ve seen it before and have a feeling it might be the same as the one Cameron had in Berlin? Although whether he actually has a new shirt or if it was just that Ryan doesn’t have the old one, I don’t know. I’ll get back to you on that when Andy returns. I’m also not sure why I only picked up on this today, but Bobby has a completely different costume just for the sandwich scene. I wonder if it’s to protect his normal clothes from spillages?! I feel like he’s on his second hat too, only I can’t remember what I think it used to look like…? I’m not sure if I’m just being weird(er than usual), but I don’t remember it being such a light colour before this year? One thing I am sure of however, is that Josh has his old vest back! Still, when he popped up with the new one in Grimsby, I was no longer quite certain what the original looked like so I went hunting. After digging through some production photos of him and Bobby, my suspicions that they were both in Black Sabbath shirts originally were confirmed and because I’m like that, I even managed to find them online (although Josh’s appears to have been acid washed at some point). I also accidentally stumbled across Bobby’s new skull & roses shirt, but I don’t know how I found that one, because I really wasn’t looking for it.

So as you’ve probably gathered by now, I’ve been on a weird costume kick for the last couple of weeks. I’m not even sure why, since I have no idea what I want to do with the information once I have it, but nonetheless I keep finding myself scrolling through pages of google image search results. Of course it started reasonably enough (doesn’t it always?), back when I was making Staceebear and needed the artwork for his t-shirt, but I certainly can’t use that excuse any more because I am definitely not making any more bears. Still, it was incredibly satisfying when I finally tracked down the original shirt and then I found the bandana (which I’ve taken to wearing as a scarf to justify buying it) so… Basically now I can’t seem to stop. I mean I really like Alex’s shirt, so I was kinda curious if that was attainable, but after far too much research on the subject, I reckon they made it based on a vintage Harley shirt (well either that or someone else did, but it’s definitely a rip off of an old design). On the one hand, it means it’s not technically available, but on the other, I know I could make a pretty decent replica if I so wished… only that seems excessive and I’m never excessive… right?! Incidentally, I’m also rather fond of Josh’s denim vest/jacket thing, because sparkles, but I can’t work out what it says on the back, so it’s nigh on impossible to track down and in conclusion… I think I need help (of the mental variety, not assistance with searching for costumes). Why am I like this?! Although on the plus, my ‘research’ did result in me looking more closely at this photo and Alex’s hair made me happy. I miss when it used to do that!

And moving on…! Stage door was brilliant, not least because I’ve been worrying about how busy it will be now and if I’d be able to see anyone at all. Admittedly this was a very small theatre, but even so there was hardly anyone there. Of course I still missed a whole bunch of them because they left together while I was otherwise occupied, but I saw a lot of them and it was wonderful and I was giddy and yay!

Zoe was first out as usual and hurried past with Honi, but she did say hello when she saw me, so maybe she does recognise me after all! Then Ryan also ran as he was getting a lift, but I called out a hello before he vanished. I then missed Paris and Drew because I’d done enough shouting to people for a few minutes and was taking a break from feeling awkward, but to be fair I did see Drew earlier. I was just on my way back from my stage door recce before the show when I bumped into him going the opposite way. We exchanged greetings and he sounded surprisingly happy to see me, so that was nice (until I let him down with the cheer…). He asked if I’m in all weekend, so I admitted that I’m at both on Saturday, but wasn’t meant to be here today and only came to see Alex. I’m not sure he heard the last part, but I said I’d see him after (oops) and we continued on our respective ways.

Adam gave me a hug and commented on my fresh hair colour, then introduced me to the woman he was with who was one of the producers. I got tongue-tied for some reason and didn’t say all that much, but she thanked me for buying all the tickets! Anyway, when Alex came out, I hung back, waiting for him to finish talking to the other people that stopped him, who happened to be the women sat next to me. I wasn’t overly enamoured with them since they spent a significant portion of the evening yabbering, so I was even less impressed when one of the them asked if I was only waiting for the main man. From the way it was said, I can only assume she meant Clifton, so I assured her that I was not, pointed at Alex and stated rather emphatically that I was there for him!

Of course as soon as it was my turn, I gave him a huge hug and told him I was so proud of him. I’m not sure why I said that, because I always think it sounds a bit condescending, even though I never mean it like that, but I really was so f***ing proud and it just slipped out. Anyway, I then carried on flailing at him, telling him how brillant I thought he was and generally fangirling at him. I also pointed out that I’ve never actually heard him sing a solo before, which made tonight even more exciting. He talked about how much fun it’s been and how much he’s enjoyed it, so I reiterated how happy I was that I got to see him. I also told him about the opera ticket I had for tonight, around which point Bobby and then Josh joined us. They both gave me hugs (yay), whilst I continued with my opera tale and explained about how I was already on my way to Oxford on Tuesday or I’d have dropped everything then. We chatted about where I was sitting as a couple of them had spotted me, I think; Josh and maybe Bobby? I admitted that I just booked what I could when I found out Alex was on and it was the closest I could get, but it was actually a really good seat. Plus I assured them all I’ll be in Saturday anyway and it was all just a bit awesome. This might sound kinda silly, but I felt so appreciated and like they were all genuinely happy to see me and just ahhhhh. They never make me feel like they’d rather I wasn’t there or that they’re just putting up with me because they have to, and I know there are plenty of people that genuinely appreciate my support, but when I’m almost surrounded by them and they’re all being so lovely, it gives me all the soft warm fuzzies and I was just so frickin’ happy. Plus Vas popped up next to me at one point and stopped to exchange greetings before vanishing just as suddenly and Luke called out to me as he left too and I hadn’t even seen him emerge, so that was equally lovely.

The chatty girls waited for Lucas too, so when he came out, I hung back slightly to let them speak to him first… and then felt a bit smug when he greeted me like a friend and made a point of giving me a hug :P. I mean I generally try not to be that person, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself! Anyway, he commented on my hair colour and we discussed whether it was purple or pink, so I stated it’s dark pink (it’ll get pinker as the dye washes out, but to be fair there is a layer of aubergine in there), plus of course he chatted to the other fans and signed and whatnot. We then ended up walking down the street together though, so we had a lovely little catch up. Naturally we talked about the show, but we also had a natter about Idiot and I talked about how it feels weird, but [in the end is] right. I gushed about how much I love that he’s still kinda in it too!

So after all of that I really couldn’t stop smiling. My face hurt from nearly three straight hours of beaming and I must have looked like a crazy person walking down the street grinning to myself, but I was just so frickin’ happy! It was a really special night.

Peace, love and happiness,

K xx

PS. Deciding that I wasn’t blogging any more was something of a weight off of my shoulders. So much so that it seemed to ease my writer’s block somewhat, which was a big part of the reason I decided to stop in the first place. That said I have a f*** ton of shows coming up over the next week and there’s no way I could even attempt to keep on top of it all, so it might be best not to even try. In conclusion, I’m not sure if this is a one off or if I’m going to keep trying to get things written up, but for now, I’m not promising anything beyond this.

[Actual publish date: 2/3/19]

Lick My Face [AI:142 T2:2]

Warning: Spoilers, fangirling, less Nick than you’ve likely come to expect, more Nick than there probably should be.

So the tickets for tonight were actually the first ones we bought because My Friend accidentally booked for today instead of Thursday. Of course we couldn’t miss the first show so we added that one later, but when we purchased these, they evidently still thought they might need a pit to keep the musicians in, so even though we booked front row at the time, we were actually in the fourth row of a flat floor. Obviously that was less than ideal, but on the plus after My Pal saw the show on Thursday, she realised she would have to come today as well and it must have been fate, because out of the scant handful of tickets left in the front stalls, there happened to be a single seat left next to us! As such, it seemed like the opportune moment to bust out some old costumes from storage, so My Friend was Johnny, I was Tunny (complete with Alexis’ old jacket because I couldn’t resist) and My Pal borrowed my Will shirt to complete the trio. A couple of our old Idiot friends came to the show dressed as St Jimmy & Whatsername too; I guess we’re really back! On which note, our evening began at My Friend’s house where the three of us met to get ready and since we were all gathered together and My Friend hadn’t seen it yet, we got ourselves in the mood by (re)watching Whiskey & Things episode 51. Who’d have thought in that last week at the Arts, when we were rewatching series 1 before each show, that a couple of years later Idiot would be back, Nick would be in it and we’d be watching new Whiskey & Things?! Dreams do come true after all :P.

Anyway, despite the pre-show Nick swooning, I honestly tried really hard to watch the cast today. I mean obviously I watched Nick too, especially when I knew he was about to do something particularly hot, but my focus was, believe it or not, primarily on the main stage and/or Will’s flat. On which note, I made a particular point of watching Will because I was annoyed with myself for not giving him any attention on Thursday. As it turns out, Sam is really bloody good and I’m glad I made the effort to break through the Steve thing. It’s in the past and I refuse to let it f*** with me any more. Of course I say that, but today I missed him more than I have in ages. I miss the way he used to be with us; the winking and the pouting and the knee… I really f***ing missed the knee. I found myself almost anticipating it and even though I’d have been quite horrified if there had been a knee, I still missed it a stupid amount when it didn’t happen. It sucks even more that he’s not really in our lives any more either. Meh. Fortunately however, Sam is a completely different Will and I really enjoyed his performance. Also, I checked and that guitar of his does look like it’s plugged in to something, which I was really rather delighted about. As for the pants (which are obviously very important), he’s got lots of little Cookie Monsters on his, but according to My Friend, there’s an Elmo sticker on the bong and she was quite thrilled that he’s still in the show. Of course, the pants don’t truly get their moment until near the end, but their first bid for freedom is when Will hangs from the mezzanine in Suburbia and in case anyone is particularly interested in Idiot lunar cycles; on Thursday, Tom kinda missed and didn’t get a proper grip on the fabric, so it was barely even a crescent, but tonight he managed it rather better and we weren’t far off of a full moon.

And since I’m talking about Will; there was something slightly jarring early on in the show but it wasn’t til My Friend mentioned it afterwards that I realised what it was. They appear to have swapped a line during Johnny and Will’s text exchange after Holiday and it’s now Will who says ‘all Tunny ever does is sleep’. I’m not sure it matters particularly, it’s just different, but I do wonder what the reason was behind the change. Also, in other teenie tiny little alterations, rather than finding a rattle or a baby grow or Heather’s cardigan or whatever Will used to find in the sofa halfway through celebrating his independence at the end of Enemy, Sam finds a ‘Dads Rock’ t-shirt instead. It’s kinda cute. And on the subject of cute, I’d somehow forgotten about how Will makes a real point of pushing Johnny into mending his bridges with Tunny at the end and how sweet the whole interaction is. Bless.

The three boys have such a great relationship at the start (and at the very end) though and I love that this lot already seem to have their dynamic all worked out. For example, Josh had his face right in Tom’s chest at some point during Suburbia. I mean I’m not sure if there was licking, sucking, biting or all three, but whatever he was doing, he seemed fairly invested! Also the popcorn is back this time round and obviously it started with Johnny opening the bag, stuffing a few handfuls in his own face and throwing it at people, but Tunny soon grabbed it off of him and held it in front of his crotch whilst violently thrusting the rest of it out of the bag and onto the stage. Johnny took it back after that, only to dump the (mostly) empty packet on Will’s head. Not that Will appeared to mind, since he happily wore it as a hat until they climbed down again. Speaking of Tunny’s more violent side though, Josh is damn good at that beer spray! So much so that we complimented him on it at stage door and we’ve seen enough disappointing spatters in our time to be impressed by consistent sprays :P. Although it was mentioned that they used to have trouble with wet stages, so to be fair to the previous cast, some of the more lacklustre efforts were probably intentional. Although my friends did say that someone was on clean up duty on the stage afterwards (Luke maybe? [I’ve belatedly realised that continuing to call Jimmy’s ensemble track ‘Josh’ could get very confusing very quickly…]), but apparently I missed that completely. I did however notice that the 7-Eleven finally has some new stock! When I mentioned that to Josh at stage door though, he looked rather stunned that I’d picked up on such a bizarre detail. It’s funny chatting to boys that don’t know me yet…! Although I refrained from mentioning that this place is the reason I tend to pick up on these things. If he/they don’t know about it yet (I feel that’s highly unlikely, but you never know), I see no need to alert them to it unnecessarily. Anyway, it seems they were new today, only what look like nice shiny boxes are apparently just blocks of decorated foam. Who knew?!

One thing Josh does that I both love and am immensely grateful for, is his own take on the Holiday cross. He crosses himself as per, but ends it by giving the audience the finger (with both hands). I’m thrilled that the cross is still in, because it’s such a huge part of the song for me & I’d have been gutted if it wasn’t, but I’m equally delighted that it’s not exactly the same as the way Alexis (or Cellen for that matter) used to do it. On which point, Rory threw the pen (and caught it) today after writing on the wall (both times) and we were all very pleased to have that back after he didn’t do it on Thursday. We can now spend the rest of the run silently willing him to drop it :P. And speaking of Rory and dropping things (sorry, terrible segue, I tried…), he dropped his trousers during Holiday! Of course I wasn’t watching him the other day (cos Nick), but My Pal was and commented that she thought he’d tried to undo his trousers to pee against the wall, but hadn’t quite managed it. As such, I made a point of looking out for it tonight (I know! I looked away from Nick in Holiday! The apocalypse is nigh…) and not only did he undo them, he shoved them halfway down his thighs! For the record, I approve of the addition to the scene.

I also very much approved of getting a boy back in Favourite Son, although none of us were quite sure why we did. When we ‘yay’ed at Racky about it in the interval she just said something about how she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, so I thought that meant someone wasn’t on, only there were five girls in Letterbomb (the stage looks so full, it’s bizarre!), so…? Confuzzled. Although I realise this would be much easier to work out if we knew who all the girls were and who’s doing which track (and ya know, if we actually paid attention to the girls generally…), but in any case, we were thrilled. It was fun watching Josh’s reactions to him as well; when Tunny was spanking all the cheerleaders as they went past him, he jumped back in confusion looking rather disconcerted by the whole thing when he got to Daniel (the off-stage boy swing). Plus Josh shot him a few dodgy looks later on too.

And just in case that wasn’t enough extra excitement for one night, we had a show stop! I’ll confess I didn’t notice until it was pointed out to me by the stage manager(?) that the bed had not vacated the stage during Letterbomb as it usually does, but it transpired that the gate at the back had got stuck (My Friend heard the bang) and they needed a moment to sort it out so there was space to move the bed. The best part of this however, was Tom. He was half passed out on the floor at the time, so after the announcement, he dazedly pulled himself to his feet, motioned drunkenly at the audience, then slowly meandered off. He came back on in much the same manner, declared he was ok, then promptly collapsed back on to the toilet and admitted he was not in fact ok. Although on that note, I feel like that bit has been tweaked slightly (based on Thursday, obviously), only I’m not quite sure what’s different? Did Johnny always say he’s not ok? I feel like maybe he just took frickin’ ages to pull himself to his feet, nearly falling over in the process, before eventually declaring he was ok, but I’m really not sure… Why the f*** can’t I remember this stuff?!

Anyway, show stop improv aside, Tom really impressed me again and I’m slightly concerned that I may have to adopt him now, which is a total pain. I already have far too many boys, I really don’t need any new ones. I can’t afford new ones! He’s f***ing brilliant though; funny when he needs to be (he had another lovely little chat with the generous, jacket holding scaffold pole today), but then he’s achingly damaged too. The heroin scene was excellent again today, plus after he’d injected, he collapsed back against the toilet and stayed still for just long enough that even I thought he could be dead and I know what happens next! Although I couldn’t quite take it entirely seriously when he then made a bunch of rather filthy noises as the drug started to kick in. I mean it was certainly effective, but those noises could totally have been something else in a different context and it really doesn’t take much to send my brain in that direction, especially in this show… with Nick on the stage… :P. Anyway, I also loved the way Tom played the emotion in his pre-September speech. I thought it was good on Thursday, but it was even better tonight. Less angry perhaps, but more broken and lost, especially when he said ‘I amount to nothing’.

I was also impressed by Johnny’s alter ego and I think Luke has already come on leaps and bounds since Thursday. Whatever I saw in him that felt too Lucas-y is gone and he’s certainly fun to watch. He’s positively overflowing with energy and he even made me laugh out loud at the start of Letterbomb. For all his bravado, Jimmy knows better than to cross a woman scorned and he tries really hard to get Johnny back on his feet, begging him to stand up as the girls approach. Then when Whatsername screamed at Johnny, Luke shrieked and sorta flailed back in fright, falling into the wings as he did so. It properly made me giggle and I heard My Pal laugh at it too.

Another thing I just have to mention is the way Luke sings ‘burning’ in Enemy. I mean obviously he’s no Thacko, but he does it in that same rough, throaty manner and the parallel has made me laugh both times I’ve heard it. I really hope he keeps that one in! Luke also sings the ‘photographs’ harmony in Whatsername (when he walks away after the Jimmy reveal) and that’s definitely new… right?! It’s really quite distressing how hard I’m finding it to remember things from before. [Edit: It’s definitely new, I just really struggled to recall which ensemble boy used to sing it because I could picture most of them doing it. According to my friends it was Llan, but then I guess we’d have seen nearly everyone sing it at one point or another given the number of cover shows that occurred?!].

One problem I did have though was that Luke blocked my view of Nick’s stomp in Idiot and whilst that was acceptable when it was Lucas (he was there first, after all), I was not overly pleased this evening :P. I mean I saw part of it, but still! On the plus, I was delighted to confirm that the Head Roll Of Heaven is still intact. So much so that I’m not entirely sure how I ended up missing it last time. I must have been doing something crazy like watching the stage. Luke did rather redeem himself later though when he licked Nick’s face. Properly. With a long lingering swipe of his tongue right up Nick’s cheek. Lucky git! Nick stuck his tongue out at the same time too and I’m not sure why, but it worked for me.

Nick’s very integrated with the cast though, it’s beautiful. When Sam popped up with his guitar at the start of Holiday, Nick held his arms out in welcome. At least, I assume that was his motivation and he wasn’t just asking who the f*** Nick Kent was…?! I mean it was early enough in the show that I’m pretty sure he could still recall his own name… Although I’m not sure I could recall mine after he did that. ARMS! Anyway, he then put his arm around Sam’s shoulders before they all began to play together. I guess it was time for band practice back in Jingletown?! That said, band practice was interrupted by Rory the bus driver, who climbed up the ladder at the end of Holiday. The best bit though was when Nick did a bit of lunging and leaned in towards him, so Rory grabbed hold of Nick’s face with both hands and I’m not jealous, who’s jealous?!

So the other thing I looked out for after missing it on Thursday was Nick’s crescendo face in Novacaine… Only he didn’t have one. What a disappointment. I should have just watched Tom, especially since I’m not sure that’s one I can ask Nick to bring back either! Although on that note, Luke wasn’t the only one doing some licking today because… NICK LICKED HIS BASS! And it was absolutely f***ing perfect. Long, slow and spine-tingly hot and I love him so bloody much for giving us that back. In fact, I was so excited that I grabbed My Friend’s leg – just like old times when we used to give each other bruises every time any of our boys did something unexpectedly glorious! Also, on the subject of Enemy, Nick did that thing I used to love where he looks up when Jimmy sings ‘blinded by the lies in your eyes’. I’d completely forgotten about it til I saw him do it, so I’m not sure if he did it on Thursday and I missed it or if he’s brought it back since then, but My Friend commented on it afterwards too having also only picked up on it today.

The band’ll suck bit was somehow even better than Thursday from the oh-so-casual band chat in the build up to Nick’s air kiss at the end, which really does set the whole thing off beautifully. I mean I was totally watching the stage beforehand, but as soon as Nick and Chris started acting casual, my attention was caught and I watched them (read: Nick) looking back to include Charlie in the interaction, then Nick and Chris poking at each other’s guitars (I don’t know what they were poking at exactly, but it made me chuckle anyway). Once Johnny’s monologue headed in their direction however, their little chat quickly broke up and Nick really went for it with the whole cracking his knuckles/head side to side thing until Tom looked round (at least I think he did, cos I wasn’t really looking at him). Watching Nick punching his palm with his fist was just as devastatingly hot as it was last time too and I loved the way he (and Chris) lunged forward to wait for Johnny to re-emerge. It gives me shivers just reminiscing about it!

Finally, before I jump ahead to the end, there was the interval. Of course the people in the middle of the row in front of us just had to come back in not long after Nick re-emerged and I ended up sat at a ridiculous angle, leaning right into My Friend, in order to see round the douches standing up directly in front of me. It was totally worth it though, because holy f***! I mean Thursday was nice and all; bit of a one armed thing going on, certainly a money shot at the end, but today…?! Both arms up behind his head, full stretch, and he held that pose for f***ing ages. I swear he was milking the moment because it just when on and he definitely saw us watching him well before he finally put his arms down… And then he burst out laughing. It was beautiful! Also on a slightly different and not at all crazy* note (*possibly slightly crazy), Nick has his old watch back (the cuff one – and who doesn’t love a man in a cuff?!). I mean admittedly I probably wouldn’t have noticed it had I not come across a mention of it in one of the old posts I’ve been working on recently, but I was still excessively delighted to see him wearing it again. It’s no gauntlet of power, but I did always love him in that old watch.

So… We gave them a well deserved standing ovation at the end and Josh looked utterly delighted by my costume! I’m not sure who else saw us, but he kept grinning and throwing rock horns in my general direction, so that was a bit of a thrill. Less thrilling however was the fact that everyone sat down when the cast cleared the stage and left Luke with his guitar, so we felt the need to sit too. Admittedly that in itself wouldn’t have been too terrible, but Nick did the double armed ‘come on’ that I was so desperately longing for and I only half saw it because I was in the process of reluctantly sitting down at the time! ARGH! Although I was still delighted, naturally. So much so, in fact, that I said ‘yes’ out loud and My Friend reckoned that someone heard me from the stage… oops! (At least I think it was over that – it was definitely over something Nick did and that seems the most logical thing for me to be so giddy about that I reacted audibly to it…?!). Anyway, we stood up again halfway through because other people slowly started to pop up and as soon as the ones behind us were up, so was I. Woo! Also, for the record (because I forgot to mention it on Thursday), my guitar ‘thing’ that I used to do with Steve is back. I can’t help myself, it’s just too ingrained.

So stage door started off with a giggle, just chatting to the other fans that we know. Someone suggested kidnapping Nick and I can’t for the life of me remember what we needed him for [and neither can my friends], but naturally I volunteered for the task (in true Hunger Games style). The only trouble was, a few of them then realised that since I would obviously be the number one suspect should he mysteriously disappear, what they should actually do was kidnap him themselves and leave me to be the fall guy… With friends like these, eh?! Still, bassist-napping aside, it was a really fun stage door!

Of course we called over all the lead boys when they appeared, for photos with their doppelgangers, but everything is a bit of a blur apart from that and this is probably completely out of order, so I apologise…! Anyway, I’m not sure Sam or Tom were really aware before we showed off our respective shirts, but they all seemed pretty thrilled and Josh called me a ‘f***ing legend’, so there’s that! I also couldn’t resist telling Josh that my jacket was an authentic piece of AI memorabilia and explained that Alexis gave it to me on the last night. He immediately checked it out and noticed that I don’t have the big ‘Misfits’ piece on the back (that he has) and said we’d have to add it. Fortunately however, I managed to refrain from suggesting exactly what I’d to do someone who tried to make even the slightest alteration to that jacket… :P. Anyway, we chatted to Josh loads on and off as he was hanging around for ages waiting for Racky, but I know we started off chatting about the show and Alexis’ Tunny tips (on twitter), such as swapping legs every so often! He also told us how special the show is to him already, so we mentioned how the old cast are still friends two years later; they still have a whatsapp group and a load of them were at Alexis gig the other night. It’s a special show, it’s why we’re all still here and I love that the new cast are feeling it already. At one point we also talked to Josh about wanting the show to come back to London after the tour and one of the fans mentioned that he had been eyeing up what’s on at the Arts, but apparently SIX has just extended til next year, so there goes that idea. Someone did suggest the Other Palace though and that would be awesome! Although to be fair, anywhere in London where I can see the show multiple times a week without bankrupting myself would be awesome. I know it’s a longshot, but oh how wonderful would that be…?!

After we called Tom over to join us and I’d said something about my jacket, he was asking what Josh was going to give me to one up Alexis at the end of the run. It was very funny, but at the same time I obviously didn’t mean it like that at all and felt hella guilty! I mean it was horribly braggy of me to even mention it in the first place (especially since I mentioned it to quite a lot of people… oops), I just thought it was a cool piece of trivia and wanted to share. Plus I was giddy about it – that jacket never usually leaves the flat! I’m sorry! Still, it was amusing. Especially when Josh pulled out his phone and jokingly said he’d give me his sim card. Then Tom suggested that Josh would pull up in a Range Rover on the last day of the tour, hand me the keys and then get the train home himself! Although whilst a new car is certainly nothing to be sniffed at, I obviously don’t need anything from my boys except hugs and chats and apparently we’re already on hugging terms with Josh, so woo! Plus he’s been an absolute sweetheart at stage door even though we’ve only just met him and needless to say, we all adore him already. We’re probably gonna have to adopt him too…

Luke popped up around the time My Friend was getting her photo taken with Tom and was ridiculously loopy whilst trying to get out of the way. He was like an overexcited puppy chasing his tail in a circle, it was sorta adorable. I then got a photo with both of them, only it wasn’t until later that I remembered I’d always wanted a Johnny/Jimmy sandwich pic and I’m not sure I ever got one with the old cast(s). I don’t think the timing ever worked out with Aaron and by the time Matt came along I’m pretty sure I’d forgotten it was even a thing I wanted! Better late than never, eh? And I imagine this lot will also be my boys before too long. Anyway, we chatted to Luke a bit too and My Pal mentioned how much she’d enjoyed him tripping off into the wings with a shriek in Letterbomb. He explained that it’s the one bit of the show that he doesn’t stress about or plan and he just does what he likes.

We bought programmes today, but decided to leave autographs for another time as our focus was dress-up photos today, but actually it probably would have been a good day to start. We saw most of the cast, at least in passing, even if we didn’t speak to them and they drifted out quite slowly, so we probably would have had plenty of time, but oh well. There will be many more chances, I’m sure! I did get photos with all the lead boys though, since we were stopping them anyway, and then called Glenn over for one as well because cute. He said something about his face, then elaborated that he wasn’t looking his best because he’d walked face first into a fence… and caused a show stop in the process! Although in his defence, I gather it was because Racky directed someone to move it and forgot that was his exit. Oops!

As for Racky, she came out to join us for a chat and a notes session, plus gave each of us one of her personalised Idiot guitar picks, so that was rather awesome. I can’t remember most of our feedback now, but I know My Friend told her how much we like the gas mask thing with Johnny in East 12th Street. I then said I had one tiny little note… If she could just cut open the top of Nick’s shirt a bit…? I mean, I did say I’d bring it up if it hadn’t been fixed by today and I’m a woman of my word, but even so I wasn’t expecting quite such a dramatic reaction from everyone, who all burst out laughing. You’d think they’d know me well enough by now! Well except Josh, but I guess he knows me now…! I definitely like him though because in response to my comment he suggested that Nick play shirtless, following that a moment later with an even better proposition; that Nick just wears a sock, Red Hot Chili Peppers style. I for one, am definitely behind that idea!

Somewhat awkwardly, Nick emerged in the immediate aftermath of that conversation while everyone was still reeling from it, so he walked out to an air of amusement. It was certainly more at my expense than his, but of course I then felt the need to explain what we’d been talking about (after insisting on my (unfortunately awkwardly angled) hello hug, naturally) and I don’t think he was overly impressed! Apparently he likes this top much better than last year’s costume and he would really rather not cut it to shreds. Spoilsport. My Friend did point out that it could choke him if he doesn’t open up the neck a bit, but he was having none of it. At one point he even questioned why we can’t just let him do his job…! But where’s the fun in that? (No there’s no fun in that). I really don’t know why he puts up with us sometimes! Although I am forever thankful that he does and shirt shredding aside, he has been known to indulge us from time to time. For example, he mentioned that he’d put the lick back in Enemy for us and we assured him that we were very grateful indeed. We also mentioned Luke licking him, so he said we should have been there yesterday when they made out with each other… I thought he was joking and said it just to wind us up, but then a little bit later Luke (I think he actually is part puppy) bounded over to Nick and declared ‘I licked your face’, then added that it was better than yesterday when he (Luke) licked his (Nick’s) tongue… And I cannot believe I missed that. I’m devastated. They were joking about getting ill from each other after that too. Back to the previous conversation however (before Luke popped up), and My Pal mentioned Rory grabbing Nick’s face in Holiday. Nick then told us that he’s getting worried about falling off of the mezzanine now!

At some point Charlie said hello, so we had a lovely chat with him and I feel like he knows us already, because one of the first things he said was that he’d noticed us leaning around people to watch Nick set up…! We explained that it was terrible timing for all those people to come in, so he joked he’ll have to stamp and tell them all to sit so we’d have a clear view. We like him :P. We also chatted about the screen in front of his cubby and he explained that they’d used the wrong thing to treat it last time and that’s why Alex’s was opaque. We’re all rather glad they didn’t make that mistake again and in fact I had a pretty decent view of him today. Admittedly one of the cymbals was rather in the way, but I could see in pretty well and I even watched him a little every now and then.

We ended up talking to Nick again after a bit and he asked if we’d watched Whiskey & Things yet. We told him we’d seen the first one and My Friend added that we’d watched it before we left to get into a ‘Nick’ mood, but I admitted that we’ve not seen the second one yet. I pointed out that we need time to commit to it! He agreed it’s a big episode and complained that it took him ages to edit. My Friend asked why they made one big one and not four small ones, so he blamed Dave, although I think he also mentioned that they’d run out of whiskeys. My Friend then said something about the next one and he rather dramatically balked at that. Although he’s reacted in much the same way when we’ve spoken about it previously and we now have two shiny new episodes, so never say never ;). We do really need to make time for the marathon episode though because after we brought up him playing shirtless again and My Friend said that we had to make up for missing Bares, he informed us that Bares made the edit…!

Nick also volunteered that he’s seeing Alexis in a couple of days for a hair cut and informed us that Alexis is his barber now (which I think we’d all worked out already, but it was nice to have it confirmed). Of course I encouraged him not to get it too short, so he said if he doesn’t he needs to get it cut every week, but then something he said later gave me reason to think he hadn’t quite grasped what I’d meant so I clarified that I just meant don’t shave the sides completely. Short is acceptable, skinhead is less so. We like our fluff! Only it turns out that Nick has somehow never heard us talk about fluff… I mean WHAT?!?! And I always gave him so much credit for being observant! Admittedly I think that conversation came about after My Pal went off on one about chest fluff again, which for the record is rarely the fluff we’re talking about (no hijacking the fluff!), but even so! HOW can Nick not know about fluff?! Years, we’ve known him. Years! Although he did somewhat redeem himself later when he was grumbling about how difficult his hair is to manage since it’s so long. He complained he can’t push it back when he’s playing, so My Friend said something about it getting in his eyes and he said the problem was that it got in his mouth. He then proceeded to give us an extended demonstration of what happens when that occurs, miming spitting it out. The performance involved sound effects, faces, a lot of tongue and it was adorable and brilliant and I f***ing love him.

He also asked us what we thought of Rob’s rather ‘loud’ new trousers, so we assured him that we love them. Apparently Rob had hoped to get plain black ones this time round, but Nick messaged Racky about getting him some crazy ones and she certainly delivered! [Edit: Although on that note I’m not sure Nick has a leg to stand on, complaining about our interference with his costume, after admitting to that…!]. He added that they’re a 28 (I think? I know nothing about men’s trouser sizes) and therefore too small, so had to be let out and have a big black panel at the back, but it seems that didn’t stop Nick attempting to try them on. He admitted he couldn’t get them over his thighs though and I’m quite sorry we didn’t get to see that for ourselves. At least I have an active imagination, eh?! Anyway, speaking of the band, My Friend commented that he’s got his friend back in Cardiff and he got the most adorable grin on his face in response. I reckon he misses Tommaso as much as we do! Nick then asked if we’d seen how buff he is now and when we last saw him, so My Friend mentioned Joseph, but I pointed out that we saw him at Dave’s gig at the Monarch, so not too long ago. We then told Nick that we’re coming to see him because we’ll be in Cardiff anyway to see Frank Turner, so we may as well nip in to see their matinee first. He asked where Frank’s playing so we talked about the arena and how it’ll be the biggest place we’ve ever seen him [Edit: This tour in general he’s playing the largest venues we’ve seen him at, so technically I don’t think Cardiff will be the biggest], plus we mentioned how different it’ll be after the tiny venues in Poland. He said it was ‘interesting’ that Frank was in Cardiff, but I’m not sure what he meant by that.

He was still loitering after that, so in my giddiness I then blurted out a bunch of things. I said something about how good the new production photo is (below), which was fine because he agreed, but he probably didn’t need to know about Dave’s tweet to Danny about me if he hadn’t seen it already, and he certainly didn’t need an explanation! You see, according to Dave, I’m back. I didn’t think I’d gone anywhere, but after liking 9 of my tweets in a row, he tweeted Danny last night to tell him they’ve got their K back, so I guess I must have gone somewhere?! Or at least not been quite as Nick obsessed as I’ve been over the last 48 hours or so. On the plus, it’s always nice to be appreciated for my ridiculousness, especially since #NickDay often goes by unnoticed these days :P. As for Nick, I think he was just a bit bemused.

So they were all on the verge of heading off when Chris suddenly realised he was still wearing his guyliner and very hastily dug out his make-up remover and a cotton pad to take it off before he left. Evidently he doesn’t want to be seen in public with it on, but none of us were sure why – in fact, I think we told him to wear more! Apparently he’s never worn it before this week though, which surprised me as I’d assumed he wore it at Knights, but I guess not. Anyway, we had hoped to see Rob as we’ve not seen him at all so far, but though he seemed to be loitering inside for ages (and Nick went back inside to find him at one point), he never emerged and it was cold and late, so when Nick (complete with hugs, obvs) and the rest had departed, we gave up and went home.

And that was that (or so it seemed)… So for now at least, I’ll leave you with this beauty…

The reason Sam & Lucas are no longer my lockscreen. Credit: Mark Dawson

Peace, love and licking,
K xx

[Edit: I got 37 hits in 24 hours on the last blog and at the time of publishing this one (ten days late – oops) it was up to 46… Only there’s not a single like on the tweet, I’m not even sure my closest friends have looked at it yet and I don’t know that many other fans. I therefore haven’t got a clue who’s been reading it and I’m a little bit scared… As Aladdin once said ‘you’re only in trouble if you get caught…’ I suspect that I’m in trouble… Again.]

A Odd Sort Of Homecoming [AI:141 T2:1]

Warning: For those of you who haven’t read one of these before, there be spoilers, there be fangirling, there be silliness and despite my best intentions there be excessive swooning over Nick. I’ve also made very little attempt to write this up as if I were seeing a new show. I’ve basically just picked up where I would have left off had I managed to get show 140 published before tonight, ergo, read this at your own risk.

So I guess I’m back…?! And weirdly I’ve spent every spare minute over the last few days working on the old blogs that I never quite got finished, so I’m already on a roll… kinda. On the flip side, that has put me in a rather odd place mentally and add to that the fact I saw Alexis and Matt sing an Idiot medley at the weekend, well I’m not really sure how I felt about the new tour leading up to tonight. I mean I was hella giddy about seeing Nick, because holy f*** I did not shut up about him in those posts and there were so many things he used to do that I’d completely forgotten about, but seeing other people as Jimmy, Tunny and the rest…? With my head so wrapped up in ‘my’ cast, suddenly I wasn’t so sure I was ready for that after all. Plus I had a feeling there were some staging changes from glimpses I’d seen in various instastories and that’s all fine and dandy, but what if I couldn’t see Nick?! (Priorities, right?!). Still, I was cautiously excited when Nickbear, Jimmybear, Tunnybear and I headed off to meet My Friend for our mini-roadtrip to Dunstable (I mean seriously? It’s only just outside London, yet I had to take the afternoon off work for it because it’s such a f***ing pain to get to).

We went to the pub before and everything just felt odd, because Ant & Dec were back and we were seeing Idiot, but it was new and different and it’s been so long since the last time and so much has changed, but we were back… And then Chris George walked by our table to get to the condiments and in a very vague way it was sorta almost kinda like being back at the Arts. He was with someone who we (correctly) guessed was the drummer (Charlie Maguire) so we did wonder where Nick had got to, but sure enough he popped up a little later. In fact, I was just coming back with my tea when he walked through the doors so I ended up inadvertently following him halfway across the room. I couldn’t stop grinning, but refrained from calling out to him (he was far enough in front that I decided it was for the best) and just hurried away to flail giddily at My Friend instead. The best thing was that we had a wonderful view of his table and he kept stretching too! I’ve so missed the stretching…! The only downer was that he kept his beanie on and I’m sure you all know by now how we feel about fluff coverings. My Friend said we should tweet him about it, but when I asked if she was going to see said no, but I should. Naturally that was more than enough encouragement, so I dutifully tweeted him about the oh-so-scandalous hat sitch. Naturally, she then teased me about it like she’d somehow tricked me into doing exactly what I’d have done anyway and you know what? It was just like old times. Especially when he totally ignored us (and he had his phone in his hand the whole time) :P. Anyway, some of our friends started to arrive after that and they all received strict instructions not to block our sight lines. Of course some old guys then sat at the table right in front of his and totally f***ed our view, but by that point more Idiots had arrived and it would have been ridiculous to stop anyone sitting in front of us, so we had to concede defeat. (And to think I promised myself I wouldn’t just blog about Nick this time around… And trust me when I say I’m just getting started…!).

Racky appeared at one point and came over to our table with Richard Morris for a pre-show chat. One of her first questions was what we thought would be different, then almost immediately reassured me that Nick was still there…! Anyone would think I’m predictable :P. She also assured us that all the boys had their guyliner on and reminisced about the time My Friend put in a complaint about Steve’s lack of guyliner! Racky sorted it out for us back then, but apparently he had in fact run out on the day that My Friend objected! [I went looking for it later and the aftermath was captured in 109]. She also talked about the extra cast members they have this time around and how it’ll mean when people get ill they can take the time off to recover properly. In other words, no more Liverpools! We also talked about the band and getting Chris on board, as well as lamenting the fact that there’s no Alex this tour. We all agreed we would miss him with his complaints about how hot it was in the booth and his shirtless ways! I think Racky mentioned that Chris was going to be wearing a hat, so that vaguely prompted a fluff conversation maybe? I’m not sure now, but I do know that one of my friends (formerly & most frequently referred to as ‘my mate’ and henceforth known as My Pal) made a comment about wanting a bit of chest fluff… What can we say? We just love us some fluff!

So where do I start (properly)? It was so odd (which was definitely the word of the day) and even though I’d caught a glimpse of Heather in that oh-so-familiar dress on instagram, I don’t think I was really expecting them all to be in pretty much identical costumes. Seeing different faces in those same clothes jarred an awful lot and it’s going to take some getting used to. Still, at the same time it felt so wonderful to be back, seeing that same(ish) stage and those same(ish) clothes and those same (I’m pretty sure they actually are the same, they were certainly bashed up enough) 7-Eleven boxes… And after all my worrying, the set really wasn’t all that different. I mean it was certainly odd (there’s that word again), because the fundamental style hasn’t changed, but at the same time it’s new and sorta shiny (in a Jingletown/The City scruffy sort of way). Everything was just a little bit different and the biggest change was the way they’ve expanded the set out a bit. It obviously makes quite the difference not having to fit into the Arts and there was so much more space. Of course I couldn’t wait until the show started to find out what it looked like, so was peering through the curtain and trying to work it out, but basically the mezzanine is now slanted and a bit off to the side. It leaves more stage space and I’m sure the guitarists had more room than they used to as well. Obviously that’s a good thing, but at the same time, there’s nowhere for Nick to lean any more… Sad times. Maybe Racky can give him a pole just for leaning purposes? Do it up like a broken street light? It’d fit right in, no? *ahem* Anyway, the band boys seemed a lot more central too, which is also no bad thing, but that might have just been angles as we were fairly off centre ourselves.

So the nervous giddiness only increased when we saw the flash of Nick’s bass through the curtain. Naturally we did a bit of very blatant pointing and My Friend even gave Nick a wave, but since all we could see was the light reflecting off of his instrument, we have absolutely no idea if he even saw us, let alone if he acknowledged her… Just like old times! And on that note… There were many times this evening when I really struggled not to just watch Nick. I mean the whole show was totally overwhelming and there were so many new things, so it was almost easier to just give in to temptation and let him steal my focus, but I did want to watch the show too, so I tried to spread my attention around. And besides, just watching Nick on stage can be pretty overwhelming all on its own. I’ve f***ing missed this. I mean Knights Of The Rose was fun and all, but this… It’s just on a whole other level and even with all the recent blogging, there were so many little details that I’d forgotten about.

It started off on a pretty strong footing (if you’ll pardon the pun…) and Nick’s stomping in Idiot was a thing to behold. I’m so glad he’s kept that in, I’d have been quite put out if he’d forgotten it. After that though, things are a bit of a blur. I’m pretty sure that at some point between the stomping and the ‘band’ll probably suck’ bit I flailed at my friend over something he did, only now I can’t remember what it was… And then the band bit f***ing ruined me, so I guess it’s no surprise that I forgot what came before it. The crazy thing is, I’d kinda forgotten about how awesome that bit used to be (and I was even wearing my ‘f*** you, Johnny’ band shirt, so how I managed to forget is a mystery). I only really remembered Nick sometimes doing a bite-y thing at Newton and that’s about it. Admittedly I felt like they made a proper thing of it this time, or at least more of a thing than they used to, but perhaps it was just better lighting on the mezzanine. Whatever it was though, Nick really got his moment (I mean I guess Chris did too, but he got little more than a cursory glance from me, when Nick was exchanging looks with him, so I can’t be sure). I could see it coming, the way he listened to Johnny talking and then crossed his arms over his chest (on which note, holy f*** he looks hot when he crosses his arms – there was another bit later on when he was waiting for something or G-d knows what and he was stood there for ages in the half-light with his arms crossed, his biceps glistening… it was wonderful), but I had no idea how good it was about to get. His expression was scary in a hot-as-f*** and deliciously menacing sort of way. He crouched down in that prowl-y manner of his, as if he was lying in wait for Johnny and waiting to pounce. He even threw in a bit of an eyebrow, but in the middle of all of that, he tilted his head in a way that suggested he was limbering up for a fight and then, oh then, he smacked his fist into his palm and I think it was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. F***ing RARGH.

Naturally, I didn’t so much as glance at Johnny in that scene, so I’ve not got a clue what he was up to, but from Nick’s body language, I gather he hid under the mezzanine the way that Newton used to. I’ll confess I was hoping for the return to the bite at that point, but instead Nick kissed the air at him (in a taunting manner, rather than a Scott Alan manner, obvs) and I was really quite ok with that! In fact, if I hadn’t already been dead about three times over, that would have done me in for sure. Admittedly I might have died before that, only one of the ensemble got right in my way so I completely missed Johnny’s crescendo face in Novacaine, which I was totally watching out for and definitely not waiting with baited breath to see what Nick would do… :P. But I couldn’t see either of them, so it didn’t much matter in the end. Sadly that wasn’t the only disappointment either, because there was no lick in Enemy! The worst part was that he leaned right over his bass, his face mere millimetres from its neck and then did f*** all about it!

Although on that note, I was worried Letterbomb wouldn’t live up to my expectations either, because I remembered that rather well, only the lights were too low to see him properly and sure his hand was moving reasonably fast, but nothing like the image in my head and I thought I’d somehow way over-hyped it… Oh she of little faith. I should never have doubted him, because then it got to the end of the song and f*** me gently with a chainsaw, I hadn’t over-hyped it at all. The lighting had come up by then too, so I had no trouble at all seeing the insane speed he was moving his hand at and if anything it was even more glorious than I’d remembered, I just had my timing a little off, is all. My Friend on the other hand told me afterwards that she had forgotten about it completely, so she got a rather delicious surprise at the climax of that particular number.

Another thing I hadn’t forgotten about, but was still somewhat overwhelmed by, was the YMCA! Although we were all so busy yabbering giddily at each other that I forgot to watch for Nick’s return to the stage towards the end of the interval. Thankfully My Pal saw him, immediately drawing our attention to the proceedings and it was really quite wonderful. The stretching is indeed back and although there could certainly have been a bit more double armed action, it was still enough to leave me swooning helplessly on My Friend’s shoulder. Plus just in case that wasn’t enough, he did something glorious with his right arm just as Will, Heather and the baby formally known as Vinnie returned to the stage and, much to My Friend’s amusement, I dubbed it ‘the money shot’. It really is so very good to be back!

Back to the subject of lighting though and I’m sure there were some moments on the mezzanine that were darker than I was expecting. I don’t think it caused too much of a problem in general and the lighter bits were wonderfully bright, but I did feel like maybe there were some things I missed because I couldn’t see him properly through the gloom. There was also no September spot on Chris, although the light caught Nick beautifully so I didn’t mind overly much :P. Plus it was kinda different with Tommaso because he had the light and then they took it away from him and people shouldn’t be mean to our Mr. Adorable (I’d totally forgotten about that nickname ’til I revived the old blogs). Interestingly, they also appear to have put in a clear screen at the front of the drum booth and they couldn’t have f***ing had that for Alex could they?! Not that we could see in very well from down the front, but from higher up or further back, I think we’d have had a great view. The drummer has potential too, so we’ll see how that one goes ;). Although I’ve also realised that I’m really going to miss those band shows we used to have in the slips. Not that I think it would work as well with the new stage set up, but even so… I wonder if anywhere has slips…?!

Speaking of the band at large however, I couldn’t help noticing that they joined in with some of the Holiday choreography (when Nick was busy playing the bassline during the talky bit) and it was absolutely glorious. There weren’t a whole lot of changes (at least there weren’t many that I picked up on today), but that one I am 100% behind. Thank you, Racky! Of course, when I say ‘the band’, in this case I mean Chris and Will (Samuel Pope), who were either side of Nick at the time. I have to say, I’m glad Will is still part of the band, even if it can never be the same as it once was. Admittedly I’m not yet sure if his involvement is more Steve level or Cellen/Matt level, but either way it means Nick has more friends to play with and that can only be a good thing.

Of course, I can’t forget our wonderful MD and I got unexpectedly giddy every time Rob popped up with his violin outside Will’s front door. It was really good to see him again too, although we didn’t spot the piece de resistance until the end. You see we were making a point of checking out the band’s costumes just in case we need the details later for nefarious purposes, but of course we had to wait until the end to see what Rob and Charlie had on. We could see Rob’s plain black button down shirt through the door, but what we somehow missed, despite their almost luminescent brightness, were his trousers…! They were this crazy black and yellow print and I don’t think I’ll ever get over them, they’re absolutely glorious! Although My Pal refused to get some for herself. Spoilsport :P. As for Nick, I kinda miss his Aces High shirt and the whole double layer thing, but he looks good in black and the sleeves have been cut off of his new t-shirt, so that’s certainly a good start. Other than that however, it looks fairly untouched and that won’t do at all. I’m sure it’ll develop a few holes over the course of the run, but that neckline urgently needs sorting out. If someone hasn’t taken a pair of scissors to it by Saturday, I might have to have a quiet word :P.

Finally, before I move on to talking about things like, ya know, the show, the cast, that sort of thing, I just need to state for the record that his hair is f***ing insane at the moment and I bloody love it. He’s not shaved the sides recently either, so although it’s very short, there’s still a light coating of fluff and I very much appreciated that. I really, really hope he doesn’t take a razor to it again any time soon (although I’ll confess my hopes aren’t overly high on that front). The length on top though, is a sight to behold and whilst I got a hint of it at Knights, it’s nothing to what he’s doing with it on this show. It frickin’ flies when he headbangs, not to mention when he does his crazy headroll thing (not to be confused with the Headroll Of Heaven, which I think might have been absent tonight, although there was so much to look at at the start, it’s possible I might have missed it). Of course the absolute best thing about it is that he can’t control it without totally restricting its movement, so it falls in his face a lot… So he has to push it back… So he has to FLUFFLE! Yay!

So, er, you may not have realised it yet, but I was aware that there were other people on stage besides Nick & the band. I even watched them at times! Seriously though, there’s lots to get used to, it’s different and weird and I really do struggle to take my eyes off of Nick when he’s being all RARGH, but I really liked the cast too and I’m sure it’s only going to get better from here. This was an impressively high standard for a first preview and whilst it may have been a while since it closed at the Arts, my memory isn’t that bad. I know this show and this was it, just how it should be. They should all be very proud. And now I’m gushing so I’m going to stop that and finally say some proper things about tonight’s performance…!

I really enjoyed Tom Milner’s Johnny. He’s got a good voice and I loved the way he acted it, especially the latter part of the show. For example, I think I was so bored of the heroin scene by the time the show closed in town that I’d forgotten how tense and dramatic it can be when it’s new and fresh. I thought Tom’s take on it was excellent and his pre-Guns implosion was equally brilliant. Then on the flip side I loved how utterly adorable and almost innocent he seemed in When It’s Time. Plus he nearly made me laugh out loud when she turned over and scared the living daylights out of him! Bless. He had a proper little chat with the scaffolding pole before he hung his jacket on it too, which also made me giggle – I’d forgotten about that bit! Also, he cried at the end of September and somehow that felt like the icing on the cake to me. I like this new Johnny very much and I’m excited to see how he develops the role. Although I will say that despite my general struggle to take it all in, I still managed to pick up on one tiny detail, which was the colour of Tom’s nails. They’re currently painted claret and amber, which I gather from his instagram was inspired by a sporting team (I googled, it’s Bradford City FC), but rehearsals are over now. Get that red and black sorted, kid :P. Although speaking of finger(nail)s, I noticed that the three boys have a little twiddly finger thing they do with each other and I liked that they had a thing; a bit of a theme tying their friendship together. I’ll have to look out for it more next time, but it was cute.

Perhaps surprisingly, I missed Alexis probably more than anyone (even Lucas), yet at the same time Joshua Dowen as Tunny was the first cast member to really grab my attention. When I managed to settle on anyone (apart from Nick, obvs) for any reasonable length of time in the bigger scenes, I frequently found myself watching him. Of course I’ve seen Josh in stuff before, so I know he’s good and therefore I had high hopes when I saw he’d got this, but even so I was really rather impressed. The vocal at end of Boulevard in particular was phenomenal and I loved the way he played the part too. Brilliant, but nothing like Alexis; exactly what I wanted from him. Also he has ARMS, so that was fun, especially from close up. Plus he even has a bit of chest fluff for My Pal!

I’ll say now that I didn’t pay anywhere close to enough attention to Sam’s Will and that is totally not his fault. Even after all this time, something about Will still feels kinda weird given the whole Steve thing and I think I felt so awkward about it then, that I never really focused on Will properly after that (not that I didn’t love Matt, but it was complicated and emotionally messy). It’ll probably take a while to get past the subconscious block, but at least from what I did see of him, he’s so totally different to Steve that they may as well have been playing different parts and I hope that will help a lot going forward. Also it didn’t really help that we were on the wrong side of the flat for Will’s sofa and there was frequently so much going on between us and him that it was far too easy to get distracted. Also Nick exists and lives on the same floor, so… Oops? Anyway, Will does at least get a moment on his own (and therefore my full attention) during Nobody Likes You and I thought he did a great job of that, so watch this space, I guess?! I’ll try and be marginally less s*** at this next time. Although on a side note, I thought he looked like Jon Robyns in profile and since I just saw him the other week as KG3, it was a rather odd comparison to be making! Heather’ll be back?!

So St Jimmy was always going to be a tricky one. No one will ever be able to compete with Lucas for me (well except perhaps BJA) and I wouldn’t want anyone to try. Of course I also knew that Luke Friend missed a large chunk of the rehearsal process because he was still in panto and it was Lucas who stood in for him in the meantime. I wasn’t sure what to expect therefore and came in to this thinking that I’d just have to give him the benefit of the doubt for now and see how he progresses. As it turns out, I didn’t need that disclaimer at all and feel kinda bad for doubting the poor kid in the first place. I mean, there was something a bit too Lucas-y for my liking in his St Jimmy (the song, that is), but in general I thought he put his own spin on the character and honestly I liked him far more than I expected to, given how ridiculously high my standards were, plus it obviously helps that he’s got a great voice. I also think he’ll massively improve as he gets into the character more too and finds the room to play with him. I mean obviously I missed Lucas every time Jimmy appeared and it was particularly bad when he was behind the fence lit in red and through most of Death, but overall. Good job, Luke! Plus Boulevard was acceptable and that’s very important to me :P. Interestingly I don’t think I ever quite stopped missing the abruptness of the way Aaron/Lucas used to do the Johnny jumping at his own (sort-of) shadow bit, but Tom played it more like a tingling spidey sense followed by a slow curious turn, so it worked pretty well with the timing of Luke turning and disappearing back into the crowd.

So other than the lead boys, I can’t say I gave anyone else all that much attention (I mean I struggled enough with them!). Sam Lavery as Whatsername has a good voice and a new corset, but otherwise I was too busy with boys to really focus. As for the rest, I’m not even sure I’d recognise some of the ensemble in costume, let alone out of it yet, because there was just too much to take in. That said, I do have a few special mentions to be starting off with…

Back to my word of the day and it was so odd having Raquel back as Ex Girl after all this time! The original cast feels like such a very long time ago now, plus I guess we didn’t really talk to the girls back then either, so maybe that didn’t help?! Although to be fair, I don’t even know who I picture in some of the roles now. We had so many long absences and crazy cover shows on that run… Anyway, it was certainly surreal, but it was lovely to see Raquel again and she always did have one heck of a voice. Also, for the record Glenn Adamson, AKA the new Cellen (remember when he was the new Luke?!) is rather pretty and I certainly wasn’t the only person to say so! He did remind us of Chris Cowley (which is certainly no bad thing), but something about his jaw or his smile or something reminds me of someone else and I can’t put my finger on who and it’s driving me slightly mad. I may have to stare at him a bit more, for ‘research’ purposes, you understand, to see if I can work it out. Anyway, on a slightly more serious note, I love how expressive he is and the faces he pulled at the bus stop in Tales made me grin. On which note, I also have to mention our new bus driver, Rory Maguire. Everyone thinks he looks like a mini Llandyll, but to be honest I don’t really see it, I just think he’s cute! But then I thought that when I saw him in Summer Holiday too (he’s clearly very good with a bus) and I’ve been following him on instagram since then, so maybe I just knew his face too well by the time anyone thought to associate him with Llan.

And then of course there were the cameos. It was really quite wonderful to see Ross in that old Favourite Son video again, but even more exciting than that was our new Rock ‘N’ Roll Boyfriend, the one and only, Lucas Rush! It was quite possibly one of the best things ever. I mean I knew it would be him even before I saw his name in the programme; I watched the instastories from the green screen filming the other day and it was the only thing that made sense, but I had no idea quite how wonderful it would feel to see it. I love that he’s still sorta here and I could have burst with happiness when I saw his face and heard his voice… And needless to say, he was absolutely brilliant; a tiny bit Jimmy, a little bit Lonny, a lot Lucas and I loved every single second of it. Plus after the screen ascended into the fly tower, I looked up and down the row at all my friends’ beaming faces and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I’m so unspeakably glad that they got him back to do it. St Jimmy lives!

So as I’ve probably said a few times now, there was so much more going on that I felt like most of the time I wasn’t really watching any one thing properly (except maybe Nick…). As such, it was almost a relief when there was only one person on stage and I could just focus on them without needing to think too much or worry about missing something exciting. Of course that meant that if there were many changes, I missed most of them, but one thing that did stand out to me was the choreography at the end of East 12th Street. I noticed early on that there was a gas mask attached to the front of Johnny’s desk and I didn’t remember that being there before. Then when he wanted out at the end, it became a struggle between the boys flanking his desk (I didn’t actually look, but I assume it was Glenn and Rory) trying to put the mask on his face and Johnny trying to stop them. It was a really nice touch, especially because I’m not sure I ever came up with a satisfactory reason for the masks before. Seeing that one little change today suddenly seemed to make all the pieces fit perfectly into place. The masked workers powering the capitalist machine march on behind him as Johnny fights to keep his own identity, refusing to become just another faceless cog in a soulless corporation. Or something. Political metaphors aren’t really my forte. Give me fluff and bass licking any day.

It was interesting what I could recall and what I couldn’t though. I mean obviously I remembered the music because I still listen to it, but I’d forgotten so many of the other bits. Johnny’s speeches and the letter and all that and even the recurring forgotten shower theme! It was so strange hearing it again and knowing how it went, but at the same time not being quite able to recall the words. Once upon a time I could have recited every line easily, but now? I think it’ll be a few more shows before I’m up to speed again. And incidentally, this is why I blog, because it’s far too easy to forget…

In fact, something I’d forgotten about until My Friend mentioned it before the show started; Johnny’s armchair wasn’t on wheels! I mean, WTF?! Now how’s it supposed to almost roll off the stage, possibly taking several cast members and half the front row with it?! It’s health and safety gone mad! Although they may have a new set and a new chair and (I’m pretty sure) a new sofa, but I’m also pretty sure that some of the costumes are the original ones. For example, Heather has new leggings (they’re still red and black, I think, but not stripey like mine are) and she’s definitely got a new belt, but from the looks of it, she seems to be wearing an old dress, which certainly explains how they managed to get hold of one. Only My Friend has Emma’s so it ain’t hers! Some of the boys t-shirts look sufficiently aged that I thought they might be second hand too, but then some of the ensemble’s tops are definitely new, because the designs are different and Llan’s old knitted hoodie is certainly no more (shame that, we were all so fond of it). It’s a weird mix of old and new and it’s sorta confusing! As for the wig situation, I haven’t got a clue. Most of them looked slightly different, but then different actors have had different wigs in the same tracks in the past and I really can’t remember who wore what any more, so who knows! Ex Girl still has her wings though, even if they have done something to them to make them a little more sturdy. I think the lights are properly sewn in now, so maybe they won’t catch on Tunny or the bed or Ex Girl’s belt, or themselves… :P.

Another interesting mix of costumes were on the cheerleaders in Favourite Son, because there were five of them! Some of them seemed to be wearing the original shorts, whereas others were in much newer looking flag themed clothing. The one thing they did have in common though was that they were all girls. Sad times. It was fun having a lot of people on stage though, even if we did all miss Lawrence! Plus one of them used her bomb like a space hopper, which tickled me and I liked the attitude of the girl who very intentionally ‘accidentally’ dropped her pompom right in front of Tunny. On which note, we were right by his chair and it was an excellent view of the gun show. I’m glad that’s still a thing on this tour ;).

We saw Racky briefly at the interval when she came over presumably to get our notes :P. This time she was with a guy called Blair, who she introduced to us as her new associate. We all chattered at her and after our conversation in the pub, we did comment that we didn’t feel there was enough guyliner going on (ironically on everyone except Will), but I don’t think she heard us. I did tell her I liked Nick’s whole band’ll suck bit though, because I’m nothing if not predictable and she asked if we liked the band joining in with the choreography, which I very much did (just in case I didn’t make that clear enough earlier). We also talked about not having a male cheerleader anymore, because we were all sad about that, but apparently the boy swing covers all the girls’ tracks in that routine, so if anyone goes off we’ll get to see him. Racky also told us that the dance captain and res des (I think?) get regular show watches, so it sounds fairly plausible that we’ll get to see him at some point. It sounded like Racky knew how we’d feel about it and actually put some thought into what we’d all think!

So I’m not really sure how I was expecting to feel at the end. I’d forgotten about Matt’s ‘murmur of a heartbeat’ chest tap until the muscle memory kicked in and my hand automatically went to my chest as Tom sang that line. It was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster after that and I honestly thought I might cry. Whatsername was no easier, not least because I’d forgotten quite how much I love the way they retell the story in it. Especially the explanation of the whole Johnny/Jimmy Fight Club thing. I mean it was a f***ing surreal evening and it will take some getting used to, but I’ll get there and even in this weird limbo of newness, the feelings are still there, the same as before. This is my love.

We stood up for the curtain call along with our friends dotted around the auditorium and then stayed up til the end. I’m not sure how that went down with the people behind us, but I’m not sure I cared overly much. It was the company that was important to me and I wanted them all to know that we’re good. The Crazies have officially accepted them into the Idiot family :P. Of course, the cast did seem pretty chuffed by the ovation. Raquel grinned at us, Josh acknowledged us in some way too and seemed really appreciative of the support. I think Tom looked over at us too and even Nick pulled a face at us that wasn’t a smile, but might have been if he was the smiling type rather than the face pulling type. I mean I’d have preferred The Nick Face if he was that way inclined, but any sort of acknowledgment from the Kent on stage is something special and rare :P. Although speaking of rare, I was a tad disappointed that there were no ‘come on’ arms at the start of Good Riddance. I mean sure, I’d forgotten that was even a thing until recently, but towards the end of the run at the Arts he kept doing it one armed and it was a real struggle to get him to remember he had two of them. We spoke to him about it on several occasions and finally he brought the double armed version back and we were thrilled. Only the silly thing is that I was almost as thrilled reading back on it! It was like I’d been waiting for it for ages all over again, not knowing if it would ever happen. The tension was very impressive given it was all in the past and I wasn’t actually seeing it… I digress. There were no ‘come on’ arms, but there was clapping and I do so love watching Nick clap, especially when everyone is following his lead and he ends up with the whole room in the palm of his hand. RARGH!

So stage door went pretty well for a first night with a new cast. For one thing we had a really long chat with Josh. We talked about the show, obviously and he mentioned that he knows Aaron and Alexis from way back. He also told us that he’s had a stomach bug today and nearly couldn’t go on tonight. He said the first few numbers were really hard going, which just impressed me even more, because I thought he smashed them. We also wondered about the lifts in Ex Girl since he wasn’t feeling his best and he joked that when he was doubled over in Lobotomy, that wasn’t acting. I said it was very method :P. My Pal also mentioned that she always tends to watch Tunny in a particular number (September?), which prompted a mini conversation about how hard it can be to watch someone on stage from the front row without getting self-conscious and having to look away. I think we also talked about being fans of the show and dressing up and whatnot. I think it was him that My Friend showed the photo of Idiots Assemble day to, when we a huge group of us dressed up and surprised the cast. Anyway, he seemed very friendly. I like him!

As for Nick… Well, I sorta threw myself at him without really meaning to. I mean, sure I was always going to pounce on him as soon as he got within reach, but I didn’t actually intend to launch myself into his arms from several feet away. Oops?! And according to My Friend I then held on to him for ages too, although it didn’t feel that long. I just gave him a big cuddle, told him how good it was to see him on stage again and then stepped back. Perfectly normal behaviour (for me)! Still, My Friend informs me that he looked scared again, which was actually kinda impressive. I didn’t think I could still do that to him :P. Anyway, he was lovely and chatty and it really was so f***ing brilliant to see him and be giddy over him again. I told him that we loved the fist thing (in response to the band’ll probably suck line) and he reckoned he’s got more menacing since last time. I’d certainly agree with that evaluation and I also very much approve! We did however tell him off about the missing lick. He didn’t know what we meant at first, but we clarified it was in Enemy and then it clicked. It sounded like he was open to bringing it back if he remembers, so I said something about letting his muscle memory guide him. He retorted that he doesn’t have muscle memory in his tongue! He then added that he’d thought we meant licking St Jimmy, or something like that, so I said he could lick whatever he wanted (Seriously. I said that. To Nick. We’ve come a f***ing long way since we first met Nick Clark Kent in Leicester…!). He then said he tried to lick Rory in Holiday, but his tongue wasn’t long enough… And somehow, although I’m not entirely sure how, I made it through that entire conversation without combusting on the spot. I mean it was a close one and I didn’t dare look at My Friend, but f***…! And just in case that wasn’t enough, My Friend referred to us as crazy and I think he was being nice and disagreed? I missed part of the conversation, but she suggested ‘dedicated’ instead and HE suggested ‘passionate’. Nick called us passionate. I f***ing love that man. So f***ing much. He’s so wonderful and pretty and wonderful. I’m so happy!

Anyway, Nick drifted off to talk to others, but came back later to retrieve the rest of the band to go for food (I think they went out for a full company meal after the show) and to say bye to us. Naturally I insisted on another hug, although it was rather lacklustre after the first one :P. In the meantime (while Nick was mingling), My Friend and I had a long chat with Chris. Obviously we kinda knew him from Knights, but it was good to have a proper chat with him. We talked about seeing the show so much before and now seeing it again with a new cast. I mentioned that I can’t wait to see what they do with it once they’re settled and start to play around, so he said that the band will get much tighter too and talked about learning the music for this while he was doing panto. Obviously he can’t have a music stand on this one, so had to memorise it all. That said, he assured us he’ll add some ‘hey’ fist punches for us once he gets to grips with it and works out where the gaps are! As for Charlie, Nick introduced him to us when the three of them came out together, but My Pal ended up chatting to him while we were talking to Chris and they were too far away to really include in the conversation. Next time.

Of course we chatted to Raquel a bit and we even got hugs (we’re so much better at the girl thing now :P). Of course we talked about the show and she told us she’s loving being back. I think it was also her that noticed my rage and love earrings. Anyway, My Pal had a programme to get signed, so she did far better than us at talking to the newbies, but I did make a point of stopping Tom when he passed to compliment him on his performance. He was a proper little gentleman too, introduced himself, asked my name and held out his hand for me to shake! Admittedly he then disappeared, but no doubt our paths will cross again :P. I also briefly spoke to Luke, but by that point I was so overwhelmed by everything that I couldn’t really think of anything to say, so there wasn’t much of a conversation.

So needless to say, I was buzzing the whole way home; trying to make notes, chatting to my friends, planning more trips etc.. And despite the late hour, it was just as crazy when I got in; still making notes (in case you couldn’t tell, I had a lot of notes), shopping for new costumes and helping the Idiot bears with their twitter follow spree of the new company!

It’s good to be back!

Peace, love and oddness,

K xx

Alexis, Live

So I hadn’t originally booked VIP for Alexis’ album launch gig at The Water Rats, but due to an admin error with the crowd funding, Alexis kindly offered me an upgrade and I was hardly going to say no! It basically included early entry and a free drink, but Sexy Lexi (who was looking very sexy indeed this evening) also came round to see us before the show. Naturally he didn’t want to talk too much, but he made sure to say hello to everyone, plus I got an extra cuddle by way of additional apology, so that was very much appreciated too ;). One of my friends was photographing the gig so after Alexis headed backstage, we picked out a spot right in front of the stage and were soon joined by a few other Idiot friends.

The first support was Matt Thorpe and it was such a joy to hear him sing again. Besides which, he’s such a born entertainer and it was a great set. He played a few of his own tunes, including a couple of new ones, and the opening number in particular was brilliant (I think it was called Better Man). He also did an old school RnB medley (apparently Alexis suggested it after seeing an old video of Matt doing it), plus Alexis joined him for an Idiot medley including Holiday, Boulevard, September & Good Riddance. Given that I’ve been back working on old Idiot blogs over the last few days, it hit especially hard, but I loved it so much. Especially hearing Alexis singing lines/songs that he didn’t get to do in the show. Although that said, when he sang his ‘faith and misery’ line in Holiday, we both crossed ourselves and had a bit of a moment over it…! I mean I’d have done it anyway because I always do, I can’t help it, but I didn’t really expect him to as well & locking eyes with him at the same time made me far too giddy! He also looked at me in September and traced a tear track down his cheek with his finger, but I can’t really object, it’s a perfectly fair thing to tease me about :P.

Matt Thorpe

Matt & Alexis

Anyway, after Matt’s set I headed to the bar to redeem my free drink, only I wasn’t really in the mood for a long drink and they had a bottle of Jameson’s behind the bar, so I figured why not (to be clear, I had a single on ice, not the entire bottle). I was so intent on getting my drink, that it took me a second to realise I was standing next to Cellen. I mean, I’d wondered if any other ex-Idiots would turn up, but I’d sorta forgotten about it by that point and wasn’t looking out for them. He was there with a few of the girls, but they were across the room, so I didn’t see them until after. It was so good to see him though and we had a lovely little chat while we were waiting to be served. He and Karina are busy in Club Tropicana rehearsals at the moment, so we talked about that and I assured him we’ll be in to see it later in the run. The new Idiot tour starts next week too, so naturally we chatted about that as well.

By the time my drink came, the second support (Liv Austen) had already started, so I hurried back to my spot as soon as I could. I’d never heard of her before Alexis dueted with her on his album, but she’s got an incredible voice and she played a really nice mix of music. When Alexis tweeted about her yesterday, he asked for a couple of songs one of which was called Detour and she dedicated it to him when she sang it. She said it was a bit rockier and perhaps that’s why I liked it so much, but it was definitely my favourite of the tracks she played. She also shared Alexis’ kick-ass band for the evening, featuring Jon Wright (who produced the album) on guitar, Tiago Dias on bass and Stuart Pringle on drums and I very much enjoyed seeing them play.

Liv Austen

As for the main man; Alexis was amazing, obviously. I’ve really missed seeing him perform and panto just doesn’t quite cut it! It was a really great set too and my only complaint is that I’d have liked to hear even more of his own stuff! Also an extra hour would have been cool too, because I really can’t get enough of that boy. He sounded incredible, he looked incredible and he f***ing rocked that stage. He often picked up the mic stand for extra rock ‘n’ roll effect and I loved how much he moved about too, really owning the space and putting on a show. He belongs up there. I mean I want him back in theatre too, obviously, but if we can have a few more gigs at the same time that would be a whole world of perfection.

So the setlist included a few covers (Shut Up and Dance, Come Together, Hard To Handle and We Will Rock You) plus, what with it being his album launch and all, there were unsurprisingly a fair few of his own tracks off of the album too. Of course he sang Home with Liv, then later he got Landi Oshinowo up to sing Rule The World with him, which was absolutely gorgeous. She sounded awesome – panto didn’t do her justice either!

Alexis & Liv

Alexis & Liv

Alexis & Landi

Alexis & Landi

He sang plenty on his own though, opening with Sweet Angel and closing with an encore of Face The Crowd and No Ordinary Girl with Save Me and Don’t Let It Go holding their own in the middle! On which note, a while back he asked twitter which songs he should play off of the album and though I’ve adored Sweet Angel from the very first time I heard it, I figured he’d play that anyway, so I thought I’d pick something else. In the end I think the song picked me, rather than the other way round, because every time I listened to the album (usually whilst at work, so it was just on in the background), Don’t Let It Go was always the one that caught my attention (and frequently distracted me from whatever it was I was supposed to be doing so I could bop along to it). I always ended up humming it, so I asked him for that one and he assured me it would go on the list. When he reached that point in the set tonight, he shot me a grin, then started to sing and holy f***…! I think it might have been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made requesting that song. I had no idea it would be like that when I asked him for it, I just thought it had a catchy chorus, but f*** me! I mean the way he sang it…! The low smouldering throatiness at the start of the verses over that thrumming bass line… The seductive huskiness of the almost-whispers in the ‘keep on running’ bits… The kick-ass rock of the chorus and the totally f***ing killer note near the end… It was so sexy! I was nearly on the floor by the end and him singing one of the la la la bits at me was just the icing on the cake. I mean I really can’t emphasise this enough; Alexis performing that song live is just pure frickin’ sex. I needed a bloody cigarette by the end of it and I don’t even smoke.

And speaking of sexy… He looked HOT. I mean I’m sure this is news to absolutely no one, but much swooning occurred this evening. Especially when he did a slow hip rotation right in front of me at one point. I’m not sure what prompted it, but I certainly wasn’t complaining! I loved what he was wearing too, and I loved it even more when he stripped out of his jacket halfway through the night! Plus on top of that, his fluff is looking spectacular at the moment. On which note… I GOT TO FLUFFLE! Mid-song too and I certainly didn’t see that one coming. He’d just finished the first chorus of No Ordinary Girl when he headed towards me and reached out for my hand. I had no idea what he was planning, but he’s Alexis, so it kinda didn’t really matter what he was planning, I’d have helplessly followed his every command… (which is probably not something I should admit to :P). What I hadn’t thought about however, was the fact that the second verse begins with the lyric ‘your fingers through my hair’ and as he sang it, he pulled my hand to his head for me to run my fingers through his fluff and I don’t know if I’ve ever loved him quite as much as I did in that exact moment. It made my night and it was a pretty damn good night to begin with.

I probably didn’t take this photo on purpose… Probably. I posted it on purpose though 😛

So after the show, we all descended on Matt en masse and chatted to him for a good while. We talked about him being an emergency cover on the JB tour and, of course, we discussed the new Idiot tour. He also ended up colouring in one of my friend’s tattoos again, although I’m not quite sure where that came from. Later when they went over to Alexis he got in on it too, only rather than just colouring (and doodling rather wonky Simpsons) he copied a picture of Tigger and did a pretty damn good job of it, especially given that the medium of Sharpie on upper-arm isn’t all that easy to work with! Anyway, I joined the conversation just as Alexis was finishing up his artwork and we chatted about my blog. I’m not sure what I said about my memory, but his is certainly up to snuff, because he remembered that I used to write notes. I admitted that even writing notes at the end of the night isn’t really enough to capture everything and I’m sure it’s worse now than it used to be! We also chatted about the new tour, of course, and I admitted it’s prompted me to finally go back and try to finish up the old posts from the end of the London run before the new one opens.

We didn’t keep him too long as he’d been chatting to people since the gig finished and wanted to go and find his wife, but it was lovely to see him. When I hugged him goodbye I made sure to tell him how very much I’d enjoyed the gig and to beg for another one soon! I intended to head off after that, but ran into the other ex-Idiots in the main bar, so stopped to say hello to Emma, Karina and Alice. We chatted about the new tour as well and the fact they’ve got some extra people this time around. Emma mentioned that Declan (originally Dec Bennett on Broadway) was the Josh track, so that’ll be interesting! I also mentioned to them that I’d been working on the old blogs recently and been doing a lot of reminiscing. It was so lovely that so many of them were there and I was rather chuffed I got to see them all too. It’s been far too long! That said I didn’t want to intrude too much on their time, so I hugged the girls and Cellen goodbye, then headed off, humming Alexis’ tunes the whole way home.

So all in all, it was a brilliant evening. Alexis did himself and us proud and I had the best time watching him up on that stage. I gather he’s already working on some new music, so I can’t wait to see what he comes out with next, but in the meantime, I just hope I don’t have to wait until next Christmas to see him on stage again! I mean we’re in desperate need of some new rock shows in the West End, right?!

Peace, love and Lexi,
K xx

The Last Time Arsenal Will Play Together [ROA:95/20]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So it was a nice and friendly start to the evening… I was finally back on the front row where I belong and just off centre, only aside from one random guy next to me, I was once again sat in between a whole bunch of empty seats. Plus even when Lucas told him to (I mean he told everyone, not specifically the dude next to me), my neighbour wouldn’t say hi. Not that I had any desire whatsoever to be making out with him, but still, rude, much?! Although on the subject of Lucas’ intro, he’s said a few times this weekend how much he loves the accent when the audiences here say ‘boob’ back at him, which is fair enough really, it’s certainly very different to back home!

Of course he didn’t have a whole lot of alternative options, but I was still kinda chuffed when Lucas picked on me again. He gave me a fake rose at the end too (I had wondered how come the roses here seemed so full and vibrant!) so hopefully that will make it home in a rather better state than the real one from Cardiff did! (I hung it up to dry when I got back so I still have it, but it lost quite a few petals before I even made it out of the theatre and another one fell off recently. It looks a bit like it’s trying to re-enact the end of Beauty and the Beast…). I love a good souvenir though, so I was particularly delighted by it. I will say however, that it’s really quite intimidating having the cast all staring down at me like that! Admittedly it’s nigh on impossible to look away from Lucas when he’s got all his attention focused on you, but I did fleetingly glance over at Bobby, Josh and Paris, because I always do and I wanted to see what they were up to this time!

And just in case being chosen on wasn’t enough, Lucas decided to expand on my name today and called me ‘Pink Haired K’, which then continued right through the show. He/someone added a ‘Pink Haired’ in small letters above my name on the whiteboard and even Luke said it when he asked who I was. It all rather made my night and I think I kinda needed my night making this evening! On which note, when Lucas told me to stop crying at the end, I mimed tracing a tear down my cheek with my finger. I mean admittedly I was ‘crying’ over Sam, not Dennis, but I am sorry to see Cameron go too. Fortunately however, I was just miming, because I totally missed the wadded up loo roll he threw at me, which landed on the guy next to me instead, oops!

Anyway, after setting up the stage for Drew’s audition, Lucas held his hands out to show me how big he was before ducking (incidentally that corrected itself to ‘f***ing’… Believe it or not, once in a blue moon ‘ducking’ actually is the right word!) behind the bar to get the beers. And if I hadn’t already been laughing after that, I certainly would have been when he returned with the bottles and refused to let Cameron have his. He teased him with it for ages, pulling it out of his reach whenever Cameron tried to take it. The two of them were definitely enjoying their last night together though. Before that, during the ‘running through the streets with my pants down’ scene, Cameron was holding on to the chain on Lucas’ trousers, almost like a leash. I have no idea what prompted it, but it did mean that Cameron kinda got dragged off stage at the end, because when Lucas left, he had to as well. Dennis normally delivers his final line after Lonny has already vanished off into the wings, only that didn’t quite work out tonight, which made the whole thing even funnier. I bloody love Cameron’s Dennis, he’s so delightfully mental! There was even some extra crazy dancing going on in Too Much Time, I think. He threw in a fair few air grabs and a good bit of thrusting before they even got to the part where Lucas puppeteered his knee, which in retrospect I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet… Basically during the repetitive ‘too much time on my hands’ bit at the end, Cameron bounces his knee up and down and Lucas acts as if he’s controlling it, like a marionette on strings.

Rather randomly, Lucas had his glitter back tonight, only I forgot to ask him about it, so I have no idea what happened at the last two shows. I wish I could go around setting the mood by throwing handfuls of glitter about! Also, on a vaguely related note, he had so much popcorn tonight! I don’t know how he doesn’t choke on that stuff, the way he pours it into his mouth. I usually choke on it just eating it like a normal person! Anyway, a couple of other things; Lucas had his sound guy headphones on over his eyes during Drew’s support set and it reminded me somewhat of Cyclops from X-Men. Also, I think this was tonight, but the slow clap got excitable far too quickly and Lucas had to tell everyone it was a slow clap to calm them down for a proper build up. Although to be fair, he doesn’t guide the audience as much now as he used to. These days he generally only does the first few claps to start everyone off, before leaving us to it and dancing a little jig instead.

So Andy’s ‘I’m just German’ line has been getting a very ‘ohhhh’ sort of laugh, but it seems to be going down surprisingly well and Andy really milked the audience reaction today! Also, since I’m talking about Andy, at both shows today he didn’t appear for the second act until just before his first line and I was thoroughly confused. At the matinée I thought he was going to miss his cue, he cut it so fine, so I watched out for it tonight and he did the same thing, only I’m sure I’d have noticed if that had happened yesterday?! He usually starts that scene clinging to one of the poles looking rather terrified, right?! Also, on the subject of ‘huh?!’ I was sure Bobby had something in his beard and I couldn’t work out what it was and why no one had told him about it… It wasn’t until later that I saw he’d posted an instastory in which he pointed out the bobby (ha) pin that was buried in his face fluff and said something about it managing to stay put. So I’m none the wiser really, but at least I know what it was and I’m sure he had his reasons for its presence?!

And then there was Sam… The ‘last time Arsenal will play together’ line very nearly set me off (I know, painful :'(), but Harden My Heart turned out to be a bit of an emotional curve ball too. Simply because Stacee was gone from the stage after his multi-song section so it made me sad and I wanted to cry… I mean I’m so tired that my eyes were watering all night anyway, but I really thought I was going to go then. I also thought Every Rose was bound to set me off, but I just wound up hugging myself harder. In the end it was Don’t Stop Believin’ that destroyed me, yet there were still no tears and I really don’t know how that happened!

So before I carry on with tonight’s show, there are a few little details of Sam’s performance that I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned, but don’t want to forget so I’m going to jot them all down here. Towards the end of Wanted, he cups his ear with his hand as if listening out for Sherrie’s voice in the crowd and to encourage her to sing back at him. Admittedly I have absolutely no idea what she does because I’ve never been able to look away from him for long enough to find out, but in my defence I’m little more than a puddle by the end of that song. Also, he then slides his hand right down his body in a ridiculously seductive manner and that’s really not something I could permit myself to miss out on…! He then pushes one hand into his trousers and pulls it out again like a gun, shoots Sherrie with both hands, then lassos her and as he pulls her towards him, the roadies bring her in to join him on the flight cases.

When Drew interrupts them, I love the way Sam closes his eyes with impatience before he leans sideways to see past Sherrie. On which note, I like how Jodie leans with him, like she’s so captivated by Stacee, she can’t look away, so when he moves, she moves with him to keep him in front of her. I sympathise :P. Also, I was so sure I’d mentioned this before but I can’t find it anywhere and it’s important, so; He doesn’t always do it, but usually after Sam takes the ‘coolers’ off of Luke, he spanks Luke’s arse as he walks off. It’s wonderful! Finally, I’m always amused by the way Sam looks around for Sherrie after Bobby leaves the restroom, like he’s confused as to where she’s disappeared off to. There’s something kinda cute about it.

Anyway, back to tonight specifically… Adam missed the bottle Sam threw to him from the bar (‘thanks buddy’) and Sam seemed to be struggling not to laugh. The whole thing was hilarious, but… I missed the step off the bar because I was distracted watching Adam. Gutted. Although I did make a point of appreciating it at the matinée, so at least I had that and it was really funny! Plus, my view of the Bourbon stage was far better than expected; Josh didn’t get in the way too much and I could half see Sam over Saran’s head. I mean it wasn’t perfect, but I wasn’t expecting to be able to see him at all and I was rather glad that I had clearish views for the last two shows.

What really made my night though, even more so than Lucas picking on me, was when Sam looked right at me as he walked across the stage with his finger gun on his way to make some dreams happen. He certainly made MY dreams happen, especially given how he did it. He was gazing out over the heads of the audience the way he usually does, only then he seemed to make a point of seeking me out and meeting my eyes and then he held my gaze for ages and f*** me…! And the thing is, I really wanted him to do it, but at the same time I really didn’t think he would and I love him so f***ing much… I nearly cried. It meant so much to me, I don’t have the words. [Edit: Writing this up two months later still choked me up a bit. It really did mean the world and it rather breaks my heart that I’ll never get another one of those gut-wrenchingly smouldering looks off of Sam’s Stacee :(]. Also, I got half of a wide eyes look from him when he was singing his bit as he moved across the front of the stage in Here I Go Again, which kinda sounds like nothing after the earlier look, but it’s still worth remembering.

So I genuinely don’t know how I managed it, but I never actually cried. I mean it was very close at the end, especially when Lucas hugged me because I’d sort of expected to be molested, but he just gave me a big cuddle instead. I maybe squeezed him a bit tightly, because I think he asked me if I was ok, but to be fair I imagine there isn’t a single person in the company that doesn’t know how much I adore Sam and how gutted I am that he’s leaving. Plus Lucas knows me better than any of them, I doubt he was oblivious. Anyway, after he hugged me, he stood on the chair next to me and kinda watched the cast, which was rather cute, but it also meant I could watch Sam…! I usually get self conscious watching him exclusively at the end (and no I don’t know why), but I pushed past that tonight for obvious reasons.

Sam wasn’t wearing his jacket when he came on for his bow, then at the end he half hugged Luke from behind and ran off before Luke had even registered he was there. Luke seemed a bit bewildered, presumably because the two of them always have a big hug at that point! I assumed he was planning something (so I filmed the whole encore just in case), but I still wasn’t expecting him to come back on for the encore bows in his llama costume! So admittedly it was very funny, but it’s not exactly Stacee’s sexiest outfit… Plus the llama’s head kept blocking my view of Sam’s head! The costume also rather got in the way of the cast who all surrounded him for a big jumpy group hug at the end. Although I suppose it meant I could still see him through the crush! There was a bit of a stage invasion too, although I’m not sure who anyone was beside Barney (I mean I recognised a few of them, but I have no idea who they were) and let’s face it, I only really had eyes for Sam. He acknowledged me a couple of times too, although once I nearly missed it as I’d just glanced at Lucas for comfort cos I was sad :(.

And then it was over and I was outside waiting for the cast and being pointed at by a random woman who I’m pretty sure said ‘pink haired’ in German! Anyway, Ryan waved on his way out, so he said he’d see me in the new year and then added a merry Christmas over his shoulder as he was leaving the forecourt. I got a ‘see ya’ from AJ, which I thought was fairly impressive even by my standards, given I only met him today! Paris stopped to say hello and asked me what I thought of Berlin. I admitted I’d not seen much, but that I’ll likely come back again to see it properly. The cast all seem completely enamoured by the city and she was no exception. I also finally saw Cameron and I couldn’t let him go without saying something so I stopped him and he was absolutely lovely, so now I’m even more sorry that I didn’t get more time with him in the show. I told him how amazing I thought he was and he only increased my admiration for him when he told me about only having about four hours of rehearsal! He didn’t even meet most of the cast until Tuesday afternoon. He also said something about messing up the timing and I assume he meant in The Final Countdown when things did admittedly go a little skew-whiff, but I told him you couldn’t tell… and assured him for about the fifth time that I thought he was amazing. I’m so glad I got to see him in it. It’s definitely the silver lining to the whole ‘Sam is leaving’ thing, because I wouldn’t have come out here otherwise.

Vas waved on his way out, but then Andy saw me and came over for a hug. Also I think it was him who shouted ‘Pink Haired K’ across the forecourt and caused loads of people to turn and look at me! I felt like a minor celebrity :P. We were soon joined by Adam and then Bobby and one of them asked me where I was coming next. I told them I couldn’t get to Scotland (I mean, it’s not that I didn’t consider it, but they’re restarting the tour in Glasgow, followed by Aberdeen and I’m seeing Frank Turner both those weekends), but that I’ll be in Grimsby. I mentioned that I’ve never been there and one of them joked that no one’s ever been there…! It also prompted a conversation about all the less glamorous places they’re going on this tour; the ones with no bars/clubs/nightlife/stuff to do etc.. In any case, I did get the impression that it might not be a bad thing I’ve got no sightseeing time there, unlike here! Andy also asked about my video of the encore as he wants to see it, so I told him I’d recorded a couple and I’d try and get them posted somewhere.

When Jodie left she said a passing hi, but then asked if I was sad about Sam. I nodded and pouted at her, so she said she was sure I’ll see him in something else. I’ve no doubt she’s right, he’s too talented not to get another show at some point soon, but it won’t be this show or this role and this one is so very special to me… And weirdly it ended up being her words that very nearly broke me. After she walked away I was really struggling to fight back the tears and my only saving grace was that Alex wasn’t far behind her. There was a girl waiting for him who obviously knew him, so I didn’t like to interrupt, but when they started walking towards the exit, I called him over. We’re not on hugging terms yet and I’ve been uncharacteristically well behaved with this cast so I’ve left it to them to decide when we ARE on hugging terms, but I broke that unwritten rule today and held out my arms to him for a cuddle as he approached. I really needed it though. Plus he was wearing a big puffy coat, so it was all snuggly and lovely :P. I told him I was sad, so we ended up talking about Sam and Alex said he’ll be missed. He also said something about me following him to whatever is next, so I assured him Sam’s stuck with me now! To be fair, quite a few of them are stuck with me now, Alex certainly is, but he doesn’t need to know that yet because he’s not leaving me! Or at least, he’ll be back on the Strip next year. At that precise moment he was leaving me however, as he had to head back to his hotel for shower and needed to get a photo with his friend first who’d been waiting for him while he spoke to me. I mean in normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have stopped him when he was with someone, but since I hadn’t seen him all weekend and it’s two months till I’m back, it was important to me to at least say hello. Although I would like to state for the record that when he left he hugged me goodbye, so… Maybe I wasn’t being too cheeky in reaching out for that initial hug :P.

Speaking of hugs, Josh hugged me when he appeared and it was a really good tight hug too. He thanked me for my support and mentioned that he likes seeing familiar faces, which is always lovely to hear (and would be a very useful comment to come back to on days when I’m feeling particularly paranoid). He also talked about how hard going it is doing this show, so I told him what Jodie Jacobs once said (during the last week in London, I think) about it being like an abusive relationship; you love it, but it doesn’t half hurt. He thought about it for a moment and then agreed! That prompted a bit of a conversation about Jodie and how awesome she is. He’s known her for a few years and they’ve done some gigs together, so I told him that she was my first London Sherrie. I think he was already on the verge of leaving when Sam and Lucas came out, but he said I’d want to see Sam anyway, so said his goodbyes and headed off… I really can’t think how everyone knows I like Sam so much?!

Lucas had to run back to his hotel as he has a taxi picking him up momentarily, but still stopped to give me a hug. He also said he’d wanted to call me Pinky Winky something-or-other, but didn’t think the audience would go for it! I thanked him for the rose as he was leaving, because I can keep it and gave him a brief overview of the state of the dried Cardiff rose. I’m kinda tempted to put the new one in the cooler bottle I have from the Vegas show.

As for Sam, he hugged me hello and stopped for a proper chat, which I very much appreciated given I have no idea when I’ll see him again *sniffle*. We talked about his grand finale tonight and said that even though he was pretty cautious with his knee slide earlier, he’s been scraping off a layer of skin every time and didn’t want to risk it again! He still wanted to do something different though, so decided on the llama. He was pleased I’d filmed it too, although I did warn him that I had no idea what I’d caught. I explained that my screen brightness was so low, I couldn’t really see what I was filming so I just tried to aim it at wherever he was and hoped for the best. I promised him I’d post it somewhere though.

He also mentioned the matinee, which already felt like so long ago that I’d forgotten I hadn’t spoken to him afterwards. I assured him that I loved it, but didn’t say any of the things I was thinking earlier because I wasn’t prepared for the conversation and hadn’t thought about what I’d have wanted to say to him about it. He did tell me that he’d had permission to do it, plus there was a bit more freedom since they were here too, but I do hope that means they’ll be allowed to do a proper muck-up at the end of the contract too. If ever a show was written to muck-up, it’s this one.

Of course I promised I’d see him in whatever’s next and he said something about ‘stage or screen’… To which my initial reaction (that I did not share with him) was ‘nooo not screen, I can’t see him in person if he’s on screen!’. Although I suppose screen things can be watched as many times as one pleases… And can be giffed… Anyway, there was a whisper on the wind from a few sources that it wasn’t completely ridiculous to hope that he might pop up on The Strip again one day. I mean, sure it’s a f***ing long shot and even if it did happen it’d probably be a last minute emergency cover show on a weekday matinee in Aberdeen, but… It’s always worth a hope, eh?! In any case, I made him promise to let me know if it ever does happen, because I would drop all manner of things to be there. He then mentioned some girls who just walked out of work in the middle of the day to see his other half when she went on as Heather Chandler, but I assured him that would be a bit much even for me… Although I did tell him about the time I blew off a gig in Birmingham (complete with train tickets and hotel) to catch the second cover Stacee (Sandy) in town :P. Anyway, he did have to leave eventually, but I got a hug goodbye before he departed. I then loitered for a bit longer, so said a passing hello to Drew and briefly saw Marc. He was in a rush and didn’t have time to stop, but he was very apologetic about it, bless him, and he did give me a hug before he ran.

So that’s how this part of our story wraps up… And has Arsenal done all it could do in its current manifestation? No, no it f***ing hasn’t. Clifton, you have got some frickin’ ginormous cowboy boots to fill. No pressure. Still, at least I managed to squeeze in seeing Sam twenty times and that’s not bad going at all, even by my crazy standards. Interestingly I currently only have five tickets booked for next year too, which is obviously going to increase imminently, but I only need five more shows to bring my grand total up to 100 and I kinda like that this is how I’m ending the year.

Of course what I should have done after all that was head back to my hotel to bed, but I wanted to go to a proper market (the one I went to by the theatre between shows only had a handful of stalls) and I really wanted my mulled wine, so off I went to the fancy Gendarmenmarkt by the concert hall. It was a whole euro to get in, but it was so pretty it was well worth the token fee. I wandered around for a bit looking at all the craft stuff and devoured a waffle before finally treated myself to a glühwein. I then made that wine last far longer than I should have done whilst I admired all the pretty lights and the beautiful churches either side of the square. Eventually however, the cute little keepsake mug was empty and as horribly tempted as I was to get a refill, I forced myself to head back to get some sleep before my crazy early flight. Of course I still stayed up far too late, catching up on instagram and such, but despite the wine and the sleep deprivation and the farewell Sam stories, I still didn’t cry. I’ll confess I’m slightly worried it’ll all explode out of me as soon as Thacko takes to the stage tomorrow, but I guess that’s a problem for another day. For now, auf wiedersehen, Berlin, it’s been magical.

Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin

Peace, love and glühwein,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 8/2/19]

Touchdown [ROA:94/19]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

I was emotional before I’d even got out of bed, so that was a less than promising start to the day, but I did my best to blame it on tiredness and dragged myself off to see all the places I missed out on yesterday. I mean I’ve kinda been in denial over the whole ‘Sam is leaving’ thing for a while and even now I don’t think I’ve really accepted it, so it wasn’t too hard to keep my head in the metaphorical sand for just a little bit longer. Besides, Staceebear and I had places to be, plus after yesterday’s mistakes I had no intention of skipping any meals. Fortunately I’d planned my morning fairly well and had just the right amount of time to dawdle round all the sites I wanted to see, grabbing a decent brunch while doing so, before heading to the theatre for the matinee.

As for the show, Sam had his own personal muck-up and it was magical. It also meant I couldn’t possibly get teary because I was grinning so damn much. He pulled out all the stops as well; everything from script changes, to lyric tweaks to extra props! He started it off pretty early too, since he threw in a ‘touchdown’ when Bobby caught the dictaphone. It entertained me all the more after everything I’ve previously said on the subject and I was as happy as if my team had actually scored a winner. It pretty much made my day on the spot! Besides, it only got better from there. Admittedly I’m not sure if the subsequent lack of panties was intentional, but I sort of assumed not since he didn’t cut the line and it didn’t make all that sense without them. I figured he probably expected them to be there, but I was so thrown by the ‘touchdown’ that to be honest, I don’t entirely trust my own judgement. In any case, there were no panties, I have no idea why, but I did then spot Lucas walking around wearing them as a hat not long afterwards, so my best guess is they fell on the floor, Lucas retrieved them and then improvised… For the record, I was not complaining at all. Sam also sang ‘I’ve seen a million faces, and I’ve f***ed them all’, which thrilled me no end and sort of vaguely on that subject; I love how he crushes Jodie’s face against his chest in the restroom, so much so that her voice gets muffled, only today he pulled her right in after he’d lifted his shirt up too. Fiiiiiilth! On which note, after he emerged from the stall, he had some toilet paper in his his hand. He held on to it whilst really feeling Bobby up (I mean it might have just been angles, but it looked like he was very much getting into it), then gave Bobby the paper as he was leaving…!

I then had an unexpectedly clear view of the Bourbon stage, which I was especially relieved about because I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to see it tonight. One last unrestricted Arsenal show was just what I needed this afternoon. Plus Sam said ‘suck my d***’ when the focus came back to him after We’re Not Gonna Take It and whilst it’s not the first time he’s said it (I’m sure I’ve heard it a few times, maybe in Sheffield?) I was still delighted. Admittedly the mic didn’t even catch most of it, but it’s not like I didn’t know what he was saying and I’d totally forgotten about it, so it was a very welcome reminder. Sam was certainly on a roll today though, because he also declared ‘I’m the motherf***ing star here’, which he f***ing well is! (I mean sure, they’re all stars to me, but that’s not the point :P). He’s got some excellent ideas too, because one thing he added that I really loved, and not just in a muck-up sense, was bringing Young Groupie’s bear on stage with him in Here I Go Again. When he had Saran bent back over the railing, he was teasing her with the teddy and it was brilliant! It made a lot more sense to me when she then popped up holding it later on, because as I think I’ve said before, the continuity just isn’t there for her character in this production and the bear perfectly connected the two scenes together.

So I’m not sure if this technically counts as a muck-up or if it was just standard tomfoolery, but in the Final Countdown, Sam spanked Adam with his truncheon and Adam seemed to very much enjoy it! It wasn’t the only time S&M featured in this afternoon’s show, but the latter occurrence definitely fell under the definition of a muck-up. I knew something was up as soon as Sam stumbled into the Venus Club, because there was something black and fluffy sticking out of the partially sewn up hole over his left knee. I was incredibly curious, but couldn’t for the life of me work out what it could be. It was only when Jodie dragged him off to the champagne room that he finally pulled ‘it’ out of his trousers (I’m sorry, that phrasing was too good an opportunity to pass up) and it turned out he’d smuggled a black feathered riding crop onto the stage! I’m pretty sure it made Jodie laugh, so I don’t think she was expecting it, but she went with it, snatching it off of him and holding onto it throughout the scene. Once he got on all fours though, she used it properly and it was f***ing brilliant! Plus when Sherrie tried to run off after Drew, he complained that he had ‘more dance and spanking coming’. I really can’t express quite how much I love him for everything he added to this afternoon’s show!

Interestingly though, despite this afternoon’s tweaks, I’ve felt like Sam has been more out of it than usual at the Venus this weekend. Admittedly I’m not sure if I was imagining it, but he seemed almost disinterested at times, like Stacee had seen it all before and wasn’t impressed by any of it. It’s not until he sees Sherrie that he perks up a bit. His apathy was certainly only specific to that scene though. On which note, I don’t think this really counts as a muck-up, but I felt it was worth noting anyway; Sam licked, or at least came very close to licking, the dildo that Sinead was teasing him with during Too Much Time and it was quite glorious. And speaking of his tongue… :P. He stuck it out and pulled an ‘aah’ face at me in Here I Go Again before the spotlight caught him… At least I assume it was at me and and not the kid in the front row! In any case, Ryan grinned at me too, so yay!

And speaking of people who are not Sam… In I Wanna Rock I found myself watching Bobby, who was on his knees on the floor of his platform bit, leaning right back, with his shirt pushed up as far as it would go, whilst he thrust his hips enthusiastically into the air… He may not necessarily be my main focus in that scene, but I’m pretty sure I’d have noticed before now if he did that on a regular basis?! I wondered if he was playing around to entertain Ryan, who was up there with him covering Josh’s track, but whatever prompted it, I was certainly entertained! As for Ryan, it was awesome to see him on stage again and there are already little bits of the way he plays that track that I’ve started to look out for. I love the way he does the clap/stomp bit in Nothing But A Good Time, plus he’s so exuberant in that whole scene, he’s really fun to watch. Also his camp stylist cracks me up. He has a habit of leaping past the bar on his way off stage and it’s frickin’ brilliant!

Of course, Ryan was on for Josh because Josh was on for Drew and whilst I thought he sounded great last time I saw him, he was miles better today. I also loved getting another chance to appreciate all his little quirks he brings to his interpretation of Drew. For example, when he first introduces himself to Sherrie, I love how abruptly he changes tac when his ‘Wolfgang Von Colt’ is met with confusion. He goes from wannabe rockstar to bashful dork in an instant and it’s so cute. On which note, he looked so adorably chuffed when Justice implied that Sherrie had called him a cutie, only for his whole demeanor to drop when it belatedly clicked that she’d probably confused him for Stacee. Bless him. He also really struggled with ‘what about when you f…’ and made a much bigger thing of it than Luke does, properly tripping over the word and then attempting it twice more before finally giving up and just saying ‘Stacee Jaxx’. I thought it gave an extra vulnerability to him and really highlighted how much he’d been hurt by her past actions.

On a slightly different note, in the ‘dramatic conjurer’ scene, Lucas pushed Josh back in a mirror of the way Josh had just pushed him, exactly how I was reminiscing about it the other day, so I was quite delighted! I thought that was gone for good. Also, seeing him again reminded me of something Lucas did last time Josh was on that I forgot to note down at the time: When Lucas does his ‘nay, somebody’ bit after Nothing But A Good Time, he tends to throw his arms out in front of Drew & Dennis as if physically holding them back from continuing to have a good time. Only on that occasion, he took the opportunity to have a good old grope of Josh’s chest while he was at it! And since I’m talking about Lucas; he complimented Alex on his bandana this afternoon (when he popped up in Can’t Fight This Feeling), which made me giggle, although in retrospect, I think I preferred him without it :P.

When Dennis called Stacee in Too Much Time, Cameron called him Stacilee or something like that and I wasn’t the only person who was amused by that one. They were all struggling not to laugh! Plus Vas and Cameron cracked up over something else at one point, but I was watching Sam so I’ve got no clue what happened, I just heard their reactions. I really am loving all of Cameron’s little quirks and what not though. When he questions ‘is that Drew?’ towards the end of Cum On Feel The Noize, he doesn’t waste any time before rocking out as soon as the realisation hits. He’s very supportive! As much as I love Cameron though, Andy seems even more smitten. He’s so much more flirtatious and camp with him, I love it. For example, in the Falco scene, Andy stood behind Cameron and massaged his chest with both hands. Plus he made a circle with his fingers and rather filthy poked his tongue through it after the ‘Easter morning’ line…!

On a rather different note, they seem to have run out of glitter! Both last night and this afternoon, Lucas just snapped his fingers to ‘set a nice mood’, rather than sprinkling the stage with sparkles. Sad times. And equally sad were the three empty seats in the middle of the front row. Admittedly the woman on one side of the gap was clearly enjoying herself a lot, but she also appeared to be accompanied by a small child, so I’m not overly surprised that Lucas didn’t pick on her. In something of a curve ball, he actually went for a woman in the third row. Of course she then had a name he didn’t know, so he ended up checking it with her a few times and rolling it around on his tongue. Then he/whoever is responsible for the whiteboard guessed at ‘Nemin’ and he mouthed something to her during the scene about not knowing how to spell it. The best part though was when he climbed over the seats, and the people in the second row, to get to her at the end! And speaking of the end, Lucas caught me grinning at him when Jodie said ‘Michigan’, so he pulled his Meers face at me, which properly cracked me up.

As for the extra encore, Ryan massively upped his game and followed a forward roll with that jumpy kicky dance thing that I’m not cool enough to know the name of [Edit: I spent a good half hour fruitlessly trying to work out what the f*** viral video I’d seen with it in and am still none the wiser (I was picturing Tom Holland… Apparently it was not Tom Holland), but in the process I did discover the name of the dance. It’s called the Hype or possibly the Shoot Dance… Maybe? It’s kinda confusing and I don’t care enough to look into it. In any case, as I’d vaguely suspected, it has something to do with Fortnite… Whatever that is :P]. Then on top of that, Sam did the knee slide again! Admittedly he was a bit more cautious this time around; there was less slide and he half lost his balance at the end, but I was still delighted. Plus I think he managed to tear open the stitched up hole in his trousers a bit. I mean it’s not as great as it was before it was attacked with a needle, but I’m sure it was gaping a fair bit wider afterwards and it was certainly an improvement :P. And just in case that wasn’t enough, when Lucas went over to him at the back, Sam grabbed hold of Lucas’ head and held him in place for a bit, before turning him around and just carrying on thrusting, refusing to let Lucas go for ages! It was absolutely f***ing brilliant!

Finally, before I get on to stage door, I noticed this afternoon that a new picture has been added to one of the Venus dressing room mirrors, only I couldn’t see who’s in it. It looks like a big group, perhaps a more candid photo than the production shot of Danielle and Zoe, but that’s all I could make out. As such I’ve decided that it’s Stacee surrounded by the Venus girls and I shall continue to believe that until it’s proved otherwise! On another note however, I really had to drag out the whoop for the band before the rest of the room finally clued up and joined in. I rather wish I’d never started the damn thing in the first place, but I just can’t bring myself to let them down now!

And speaking of the band, Barney stopped to say hello after the show and asked how many I was doing this weekend. He thought I was a bit mental when I said all of them, but I pointed out that I’d come all this way, I may as well make the most of it. He also introduced me to AJ, who was depping on bass this week (I did wonder when I saw Elliot posting about panto). Barney asked if I could tell (no) then said it’s because he’s so good and whilst I don’t doubt AJ’s prowess as a musician, I’m not sure I’m the best judge of that. I suspect he’d have had to have been pretty bad for me to pick up on it! Anyway, tonight is also Barney’s last show before Liam takes over next year, so I’m glad I saw him.

I then ended up having a lovely long chat with Marc when he came out a bit later, about where I’ve seen the show and the differences between productions. I told him that whilst I love some of the new stuff, I still miss some of the old stuff. For example, I hate that the band aren’t all on stage, plus the few of them that are keep disappearing behind a curtain. I also mentioned missing Primo’s big Beaver Hunt moment. Amanda then appeared just as I was about to give up and go for food, so I hung on to chat to her briefly. We talked about how many times I’ve seen the show and she commented that I’d have wanted to come out here to see Sam… I sometimes wonder if I’m a little transparent?

As for the cast, I didn’t see Sam, but then I didn’t expect to. I did however wave to Saran & Sinead when they passed and then Adam & Bobby stopped to chat. Adam asked where I was sitting, but Bobby assured me he’d spotted me and asked if I enjoyed the carnage. Naturally my answer was a resounding yes and it sounds like it went down pretty well with them too. They reckoned the whip should stay in it, so I mentioned seeing the fluff poking out of his trousers and wondering what the hell he had stuffed down there. I also said they should keep the bear in Here I Go Again because it works better, so one of them joked about ‘Director Sam Ferriday’. The guy’s got some good ideas though! Ryan stopped too and queried how many this weekend and commented that I got to see Josh. He also asked what I think of the encore, so I assured him I absolutely love it! He called it ‘crazy’, which is a fair assessment. As for Josh, he was with a friend, but paused to say hi, so I took the opportunity to compliment him on his performance. He stroked his throat and said ‘it’s coming back’, so I gathered by that that he doesn’t consider himself back up to full health, but he said he was trying a few things and I assured him I thought he sounded great. Finally, I waved to Rhiannon on her way out and then to Jodie when Rhiannon’s greeting made her look over. I also said a horribly awkward hello to the two of them and Luke when I bumped into them on their way back in (I was only just leaving), so that was fun…! I escaped to a mini-Christmas market after that though and treated myself to a crepe followed by some perfectly roasted chestnuts, so it was all deliciously wonderful in the end.

Peace, love and riding crops,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 7/2/19]

The Bosh Bromance [ROA:93/18]

So this evening found me on the second row, with four empty seats either side of me and four more empty seats in front… Admittedly I could have moved so I wasn’t quite so isolated, but it’s not like they don’t already know I’m a sad little loner and with no one next to me I didn’t have to worry about noisy neighbours so much. Plus with no one in front, there was no one blocking my view of the stage, although… every rose has its thorn, right? There may have been no people in my way, but that didn’t mean the set couldn’t block my view and it did rather badly in Every Rose. The Bourbon Room door was right in front of me and I couldn’t see Sam at all, no matter how far over I leaned. Naturally, I was rather gutted, although it did allow me to appreciate his voice more and even now I still can’t get enough of that ‘bonus’ vocal at the end of his line. In fact, I probably don’t say this enough because I keep getting distracted by everything else (STUBBLE!), but for the record; I love his voice.

That stubble though… I mean, it’s just perfect. I really was worried he was going to shave too, because his wig kept getting caught in it and given what he’s said before about hair in his mouth, I figured it must be annoying him, but no, the stubble was intact and I was (in)appropriately delighted. In fact, I was pretty damn (in)appropriately delighted all night, because in case I haven’t mentioned it, I f***ing love this show and these people, but I had a real moment of never wanting it to end in Wanted Dead Or Alive and gaaaaaaah. Time is moving too fast and I’m not ready to say goodbye and it really don’t get better than this and I know I don’t half go on about it, but I f***ing love Sam and I don’t want him to goooooooooo *wails*… *Ahem*. Ok, I’m done. For now. Ish. So, errr, where was I? On the subject of Wanted, I love how Erin times the ‘to’ at the end of ‘you don’t have to if you don’t want… to’ with the ‘two’ in his countdown to the song. I only half noticed it for ages and then kept forgetting to mention it. Also, when I wasn’t too busy being overwhelmed by how wonderful it all was, I was alert enough to pick up on a little detail; Sam almost seemed to prep for fluffling Josh, stretching out his fingers in a manner not too dissimilar from the ‘tingly fingers’ thing that I do when I want to fluffle, except I usually can’t! Incidentally, Josh happily fluffled himself afterwards too, it was very cute.

So just like this afternoon, Josh held Bobby against him at the start of their ‘love story’, but unlike this afternoon, tonight they stayed pressed together even after their focus shifted to Lucas’ victim. It just meant Bobby ended up bending over, waggling his tongue filthily at the woman in the front row, while Josh took advantage of the position to smack Bobby’s arse and the (b)romance didn’t end there. Admittedly I wasn’t watching them properly in Too Much Time because there was a lot of other stuff going on *cough*STUBBLE*cough*, but after one of them (Bobby?) did something rather violent with his fists that I’m slightly worried was supposed to be sexual, Josh turned around and did his arse clench thing, which Bobby responded to by squeezing a cheek and then sniffing his hand… Even Josh looked a little disturbed by that, but evidently something else caught my attention at that point so I looked away. Only when I looked back, they were in each other’s arms, eyes locked, only a few centimetres away from kissing and moving inexorably closer together until… the lights went out and the scene ended. So close and yet, so far. I ship them so hard :P.

Although on the subject of Josh and arse spanking/grabbing (at least, I think this was tonight, I’m not entirely sure. It’s all a bit of a blur, to be honest); after Josh smacked Jodie’s arse when Sherrie first arrived on the Strip, he then grabbed Luke’s arse too when he passed him on his way into the Bourbon. Luke is sweeping the street outside the front door at that point, while Lucas watches from his perch on the stack of amps. They frequently end up messing about with each other, only I keep forgetting to watch out for it and even when I do remember, I then forget what they got up to by the time I get the chance to note it down. I’ve definitely seen Lucas give Luke a kick up the backside on more than one occasion and the theme is definitely Lucas winding Luke up, but that’s all I can tell you right now. Anyways, continuing on the same theme; obviously Vas can’t goose step here, so in the bit when Hertz guides a rather confused Mayor into stepping with him (towards the back of the stage/desk), he’s replaced it with something else… and grabbed Adam’s arse instead! Although to be fair, Adam’s WTF reaction isn’t all that different. And finally before I stop talking about arses… In the Final Countdown, Sam spanked Lucas with his truncheon when he fell into place behind him on his way round (when the company walk in a circle around Bobby & Alex who are having a heavily choreographed altercation in the middle of the stage), so that was fun :P.

Back to marginally more sensible things and my growing fascination with Cameron’s portrayal of Dennis. I really do wish I had more time to appreciate him and I’d have loved to see where he’d have taken it given the time to really develop the character. To expand on that, I really enjoyed the way he played Drew’s audition scene. He kinda over reacts in a comedic way, falling dramatically back in his chair when he says ‘easy tiger’, but then thinks better of it when Drew starts to walk off. I thought he sounded almost curious when he called him back and I think he’s sufficiently intrigued that he doesn’t want to push Drew too far, especially when he knows his initial reaction has put Drew’s back up. He’s also fleetingly impressed by Drew’s music, even if he’s got a few reservations about his lyrics, so I reckon that’s why he’s less patient with Lonny than he might have been otherwise. Of course it helped that I think Cameron got more feedback from Lucas than usual, so it made sense that his ‘Lonny, go away’s grew increasingly irritable, but whatever was different I loved the way both of them played that whole interaction. Plus Lucas came back on to curtsy after he’d milked us for sympathy and (so I thought) departed. It certainly confused Cameron (who had his back to Lucas and didn’t see him come back on) when the audience suddenly cracked up over a line that had no particular comedy value!

So I have no idea what happened and I didn’t get the opportunity to ask, but when Alex appeared for his Dennis cameo in Can’t Fight, he didn’t have his bandana on. As a result, his wig turned into a mess of fluffy awesomeness and it was one of the best things that happened all night! It was then made even better by the fact that Lucas commented on it, so Cameron patted his when he came back on afterwards. And speaking of wigs… When Sam rode his llama onto the stage, I couldn’t help noticing that there was a deliciously thick stand of fringe caught between his bandana and his hat. I mean, there was a fine stand that escaped significantly earlier and I certainly appreciated that too, but this was better than anything I’ve seen since he got the bandana so it rather got my hopes up and I’m delighted to say those hopes weren’t dashed when he reappeared sans llama. That whole beautiful lock of fringe had indeed escaped the confines of his headgear and was hanging over the bandana looking glorious. I was thrilled.

Somewhat impulsively, I decided to record the second curtain call, because I’ve been seeing clips on social media all week, so clearly everyone else was doing it and I figured why not. Annoyingly the camera on my phone has been having increasingly regular fits and today was no exception so I completely missed the ensemble bow and all of Bobby’s awesome craziness, which sucked. Although Josh later pulled a face at me when he caught sight of the camera and I did at least get the bit at the end when Sam helped Bobby off with his shirt and swung it around before they left the stage, so there’s that…! Plus, most importantly, I got Sam and Lucas doing their usual ‘thing’ at the back, which I can presumably gif, so I will do that at the earliest opportunity and stick it in here ;).

So just in case I wasn’t quite giddy enough, I got a message from Lucas at the interval containing not one, but two photos of he and Sam together and I nearly hyperventilated. My face hurt from smiling so much, they were beautiful and I had totally given up hope of getting a photo of them so it was even better. Plus Sam had his arms up and they were obviously recent because STUBBLE and I genuinely don’t think I could have asked for anything better if I’d been directing the photo shoot myself. The best thing was that he sent me the first picture, then said he thought there was a better one and sent me another…! I’ll confess I nearly replied to the first one with ‘Really? Surely it don’t get better than this?!’, but then he sent me the second one and maybe it does get better than this, because damn! [Edit: I mean it was still my lockscreen six weeks later, so…] I f***ing love those boys and I really can’t thank them enough for indulging my crazy.

Anyway, I managed to pull my giddy self together enough to chat to the Saturday Guy at stage door while we waited for the company. He doesn’t usually wait afterwards as he suffers from standard stagey awkwardness about such things, but since I was there anyway he stuck around and of course they all recognise him from the front row. Admittedly as stage doors go, it wasn’t the most successful, in part because a lot of them left through the middle doors and I wasn’t expecting that, so was badly positioned. I did wave to Sinead and Saran, but spotted Bobby and Adam too late to greet them and didn’t see Alex at all, which sucked since I didn’t see him earlier either. Luke and Jodie vanished somehow (I saw them at the door and then suddenly they were gone) and despite keeping an eye out, I must have missed Cameron too, but on the plus I did manage to stop Tori, so that was something at least. I told her I thought she was brilliant and she gave me a hug! I like her :P. I also had a nice long chat with Josh, so that made up a bit for missing the rest of the ensemble. We mostly chatted about what he’s up to in the break (he’s got a ship gig) and the effect that has on spending time with family over the festive period, but he did add that his other half will be based in London next year, so they’ll get to spend more time together, even though he’ll still be on tour, which is rather lovely. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it must be a nightmare for stagey couples when they’re both on different tours at the same time.

As for Sam, he came out with Marc and Drew, so they all stopped, but the Saturday Guy ended up chatting to the band, while I fawned over Sam. Of course I hugged him hello, at which point a strand of my hair got caught in his stubble so obviously I then did the only logical thing and earnestly told him quite how much I loved it. He said that since it’s the end of the contract he can get away with growing out his beard and with an opening like that, I caved and asked if he has anything else lined up. I know it’s a horrible question and I hate asking it, but I just couldn’t help myself. Not that I actually know him well enough to know if I’d get a straight answer, but anyway. In any case, he also has a ship gig, next week I believe, but after that is anyone’s guess. Anyway, we talked about his knee slide and he told me he’s done it three times, but keeps hurting himself – the second time he hurt his hand slightly (which I assume is what Bobby was talking about earlier) and this afternoon he really scraped his knee, so he didn’t dare do it again tonight… which is totally understandable, but it’s rather a shame that I apparently recorded the wrong curtain call! I also mentioned that it was such a new show this afternoon, obviously because of Tori and Cameron, but I pointed out that I’d not seen Rhiannon or Erin before either. I think I then said something about how I’d wanted to just watch him, but then there was all this new stuff, so I couldn’t… And it still kinda surprises me how candidly honest I am with him (in a fangirly sense). It feels like I’ve only just met him (I mean, to be fair it’s not exactly been that long since Bromley), so logically I should be more guarded (because I’ve always been so good at subtlety…), yet I always come out with the most ridiculous stuff and it’s fine… at least, I think it’s fine…?! It’s nice though, feeling like I can be me without worrying that he’ll read more into it than I intended. It usually takes years to get to that point!

On which note, I also saw Lucas, who appeared while I was still talking to Sam. I know I gave him a big hug, but I can’t actually remember what we talked about in the end. I know he had some sort of fake cigarette thing he was puffing from, which he was chatting about with the band (I think?). He said he’d stopped smoking a couple of days ago thanks to his new gadget though, so good for him! Anyway, I definitely thanked him (quite profusely) for the photos so he told me they’ve been meaning to do it for ages. I’ll confess I was a bit giddy over the thought that it had been a topic of conversation & not just a lucky coincidence…! I can’t believe I ever doubted them :P.

Needless to say, by the time I finally headed back to my hotel, I was exhausted. Despite that, I would have loved to have gone for a drink on my way back, but by that time of night the markets were shut so my only option was a bar. I didn’t think I could face that by myself, though I was briefly tempted by an Irish pub with a live band that I passed, but it was really busy, so in the end I called in quits. Of course, I didn’t go straight to sleep anyway because I had notes to make, but I was so tired, I had a complete mental block of everything that had happened. All I managed to do was jot down a few stage door notes whilst hoping that the rest would come back to me the following day. There were so many tiny details I knew I wanted to talk about, yet I couldn’t even recall the bigger things. Everything unique about the show was gone… [Edit: I did manage to remember a fair few things over the next few days, hence why I had some stuff to say about the second act. If all I’d had to go on were my notes from that evening, this would have been a significantly shorter post].

So I’d been up for about 20 hours by that point and had barely eaten anything since lunch, so it was probably no surprise that my memory had given up on me entirely. I’m also pretty sure it was a good thing I didn’t get my hands on any alcohol. I nearly ended up in tears and whilst I can (and will) blame that on sleep deprivation and hunger, it’s also beginning to hit me that Sam is leaving tomorrow and I’m really not remotely ok with that… Waaah :(.

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 21/1/19.

This has been nearly ready to go for a week or so, but I’ve been distracted by Idiots and didn’t get the chance to finish it. The tour restarts tomorrow though, so even though I’ve still got a few weeks to go til I’m back (and two more blogs to finish before then), I though it was about time to get this out there. Also, for the record, that stunning photo Lucas sent me was my lockscreen right up until a couple of days ago and even then it was a struggle to let it go. Only Nick happened, so… Sorry, Sam! I still love you, I promise!]

STUBBLE! [ROA:92/17]

AKA Facial Fluff – because I’m amused by how many accidentally alliterative (see what I did there) titles starting with F I’ve come up with recently, but not amused enough to change my mind about announcing this post with a simple shout of STUBBLE!

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So it was a very early start to the day. My alarm went off not long after 2am and given that’s usually my bedtime, it was not fun. I also had the genius idea that I could do a walking tour on my arrival, inspired by some of the company who did one the other day (although that’s exactly what I did years ago when I only had a few free hours to see Dublin, so I’m not sure why that didn’t occur to me before). I did think I was cutting it a bit fine, but the flight was on time, the bus to town was easy and stopped a few yards from my hotel (directly opposite a big advert for the show – I got giddy when I saw Lucas’ face) and I had plenty of time to grab some food and catch up on a bit of blogging while I waited for the guide to arrive. Only it started late, the three hour tour turned out to be four and a half, it was a huge group and most of what the guide told us was just a very broad history of Germany, which I actually knew quite a bit of already. We also got caught in a downpour at the Topography of Terrors, at which point I gave up and left. So I got drenched, didn’t have time to go and check in to my hotel, so couldn’t even try to dry off a bit and I also didn’t get to see the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, the bunker or most importantly for me, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Needless to say, I wasn’t in the best mood by the time I made it to the theatre. I was cold, wet, tired and thoroughly fed up. The only saving grace was that I had time to go for a quick rekkie in an attempt to find the stage door and bumped into Barney while I was walking round the back. He pointed out where it was, but told me that no one uses it and they all come out different ways… Which wasn’t as helpful as it could have been, but I gathered I’d be better off round the front, so at least that was something.

Of course once I got inside and saw the stage I felt instantly better. As you may recall, I definitely wasn’t coming to the matinee today, but I like my round numbers and I only needed to add one more to take my total for this leg of the tour (AKA Sam shows) to 20 and besides, round numbers or not, the fact is I just wanted to be there. I came all the way out here to see them, what was the point in denying myself one extra show? Anyway, I’d had my eye on a 9th row ticket all week, but kept dithering in the hope something better would come up and yesterday I got my wish when a single fourth row seat on my favourite side popped up. Clearly it was fate! Especially since it meant I finally got to see Rhiannon as Sherrie. Admittedly it also meant there was far too much new stuff going on on that stage and Sam had frickin’ stubble, so it was all rather overwhelming, but even so I was thrilled to see her and as for the new cast members; wow. I really wish I had more time to watch them, but at least I made the most of my trip out here by coming this afternoon, right?!

So aside from the cast changes, I was fully expecting a few tweaks to the show here and there. What I hadn’t anticipated however, were the tweaks to the staging. For one thing they didn’t have the sheer curtain down the middle of the set, although they did have some big velvet curtains (presumably belonging to the the theatre) that closed at the end of the first act. I assume it was just down to logistics and Lucas disappeared between the velvet ones after getting ‘stuck’ at the front of the stage instead, but I think it lost a lot of the comedy value of sliding under the normal one. Still, on the plus the stage looked much more photogenic at the start and it was nice to be able to see Lucas and the band properly before the show began.

The stage itself was pretty big and much like Dartford, it was set quite far back, with the space over the pit covered up and not really used. When I spoke to Lucas about it later he said he’d have liked to use it, but because of where the lighting rig was, he couldn’t as it wasn’t illuminated. Weirdly however, the arch (that was missing in Sheffield) was really far forward, a fair way from the set. Also, despite the stage size, they still didn’t use the platforms at the sides properly. I’m not sure if it was because of sight lines in the circle (which wrapped around the room like an opera house), but from my perspective the sight lines were terrible. There was a light that totally blocked my view of Sam in Too Much Time, although I took the opportunity to watch the Bourbon Room part of the stage instead. And now I’ve seen it, complete with new Dennis, so that’s all they’re getting. I’m on Sam watch in that bit for the rest of the weekend! Also, while I’m on the subject of the big stage, I realised I wasn’t going mad last Friday when I wondered what happened to Ryan outside the Bourbon in Every Rose. I thought he was meant to be there and was confused as to why he wasn’t, but then Josh didn’t turn up either when he was back in his normal track so I thought I’d somehow got it wrong. In retrospect, I assume they had to lose the extra protestor due to stage size, because tonight Josh was back on the front step where I expected him to be.

They also made a few tweaks to the script, presumably to make it more accessible to a foreign audience. For example ‘narratoring’ became ‘being the narrator’ and ‘formal wear [for pets]’ became ‘evening wear’. For obvious reasons they also skipped the joke about Alec Baldwin and Curly Watts being in the same casting bracket, but I’d wondered if they’d replace it with something and they didn’t. Of course there were also a few changes for Hertz, although less than you might have expected. He had a normal yellow construction helmet instead of the gold German military one and of course he cut the salutes and the goose stepping, which I think are both illegal here [Edit: Apparently goose stepping is not illegal, but nonetheless I imagine it’s not something people would find overly amusing], other than that however, it was pretty much the same as usual. The audience didn’t seem to to have a problem with him though, so I guess there was no need to change anything further.

It was actually kinda fascinating watching the show with such a different crowd. I mean the people around me had NO concept of how to behave and there was loud chatter coming from all angles, but aside from that, it was interesting to see what they laughed at versus what British audiences laugh at. I mean they were really grossed out by the state of the restroom and I think their collective sound of revulsion was the loudest reaction all night. Although that said, the woman next to me reacted comically dramatically to everything and listening to her gasping in shock was funny enough that I considered forgiving the fact that she and her other half talked non-stop (either to each other or to their kids) the entire first act and through a good chunk of the second too. That said, I probably laughed out loud a few times and maybe not necessarily in the same places as the rest of the room, foreign language or no. For example, I may have giggled quite a bit over the latest installment of the Bobby/Josh ‘love story’. This afternoon Josh held Bobby close against him, with Bobby’s back against his chest (at least I think it was that way round… I’m now doubting my own memory) and it was almost sweet… only then Bobby declared ‘no, we can’t’ and reluctantly pulled out of his arms. [Edit: And it’s probably a good thing I’ve not made it to a panto yet, because otherwise I might have helplessly shouted ‘oh yes you can’ back at them!].

So despite my general sense of ‘aaaaaah there’s too much to watch’ I loved getting to see so many new interpretations of the characters and I thought the newbies were incredible. I know they’ve had a few days to find their feet, but even so it’s hardly any time at all and it’s crazy how much they both brought to the roles after so little rehearsal. Tori has an incredible voice, but what I really loved about her was how much she made it her own. She sang it so differently to what I’m used to and anywhere there was room for her to give the vocal her own spin, she did so. It sounded brilliant and I really enjoyed listening to her. Of course her performance was very different too (which I also loved) and I thought her Justice was harsher; more jaded perhaps and less sympathetic, at least early on. I think that made her appear all the more regretful when Drew came a-knocking.

As for Cameron, he’s also got a great voice and it felt like he put more of a stagey twist into Dennis’ vocal than I’ve become used to. He full on sang ‘oh the musical, it never ends’ and he even threw in a bit of a belt at the end; it was quite glorious. He also let’s people finish their lines…! Most notably (for me) was when Stacee was talking about Arsenal’s last tour gig in Portland and Cameron only interrupted at the end of Stacee’s scripted dialogue. I don’t like it when people talk over my Stacee and it’s been an awfully long while since I’ve properly heard the end of that line…! Although on the subject of scripted interruptions. After Cameron declared ‘the Bourbon is an institution’, he finished the line with ‘you can’t just bend me over…’! I’ve got no idea where that came from, but it properly made me laugh. He’s definitely got Dennis’ character nailed and I felt like that came through in every aspect of his performance. I loved the nuances in his acting and there seemed to be a lot going on in the little details of the way he played it. I found him really interesting to watch.

So Cameron also did something that Kevin used to do; moving closer to Luke after he steps away to read the Arsenal article in the newspaper, then scaring the life out of Drew with his unexpected proximity. These days Kevin holds on to Luke’s shoulder and moves with him, so Drew always knows he’s there and I’ve rather missed watching him jump out of his skin, it was fun to have that back. Also, I really liked the way Cameron smirkingly held on to Sherrie until Luke intervened and pushed him back. He relinquished her on demand, but he was certainly enjoying himself in the meantime! Lucas also made me giggle after that when he held Sherrie’s apron in his lap and mimed ‘something’ not-so-little underneath it. On which note (the Lucas note as opposed to the rest of it, but I suppose that’s relevant too…!), Cameron and Lucas seem really comfortable together and they had some great little moments of camaraderie. I mean, he called Lucas ‘sugar lips’ when he told Lucas to her him a beer before Drew’s audition, it was brilliant! Also, Lucas joined in with the silly dance in Can’t Fight This Feeling. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before and I’m too lazy to check, but when Lonny & Dennis hold hands and dance around each other, Dennis does this utterly bizarre, but highly amusing, bouncy, knee lifty thing and today Lucas joined in so they were taking it in turns and it was even more hilarious. I think Cameron is a bit lighter on his feet too, so they were well matched. Not that he could compete with Alex, obviously, but the transition was maybe a little smoother :P. Also on that note, Lucas said something like ‘that’s really contemporary, I love it’ about Alex’s cameo and I’m not sure I’ve heard that one before.

And in case all that wasn’t enough to be getting on with, I had the new old cast too; Rhiannon as Sherrie and therefore Erin as Regina. Of course neither of them got even close to the amount of attention they deserved because there was too damn much new stuff, but hopefully I’ll have more chances to see them in future because they were both great. I mean, Rhiannon has pipes. Not that I didn’t know that already, but I was still impressed. She sounded amazing. Also, on a slight tangent; all the Sherries I’ve seen on this tour have pronounced ‘Chateau Marmont’ totally differently, which I actually rather like (for example, Jodie really goes for the French accent), but to me it will always be the Shaytoo Marimonty and that’s pretty much how Rhiannon pronounced it, so it made me grin.

I saw quite a bit of Rhiannon’s Regina in her Sherrie, but then I think we see a softer, shy-er side to Regina in this production, so perhaps that’s not such a surprise. She still gave her Sherrie a distinct personality though and I think she slotted in somewhere between Jodie and Danielle. She’s very sweet and there’s definitely a lot of naivety there, but she also has spunk and she’s not so nervous of Stacee either. She’s in awe of him of course (who wouldn’t be?), but she’s not scared to go after what she wants. On which note, I’m almost certain there was some face licking today, only I can’t remember when it happened. My best guess was that it was in the restroom, so maybe she licked him? Or vice versa? I really wish I could remember :/. I do recall Sam pointedly looking up Rhiannon’s skirt when he was kneeling on the floor in front of her though.

So, er, I kinda forgot to not watch Sam once he came on properly. I mean it’s not like I’d planned to ignore him, but I really did intend to use this afternoon to focus on all the new stuff. Only his face had new stuff and I was a little bit floored by it. Admittedly I didn’t actually notice it at first, what with the lights and stuff when he was up top in Too Much Time, but once he appeared on the main stage I couldn’t not notice it and holy f***ing hell, if it wasn’t one of the hottest things… He looks amazing with stubble and if he shaves before tonight I’ll cry. Fourth row is far too far away to appreciate it properly!

Of course it then made total sense that Paris’ Constance fell under Stacee’s spell a little earlier than usual (Erin tends to hold out a bit longer)… I mean, I’m sure that’s just how Paris plays it, but it worked as a segue, no?! Anyway, Paris melted when he told her that Arsenal was a living thing; basically as soon as he grabbed her hand and held it against his chest. Also, on a slightly different note [Edit: I’m writing this up really late and didn’t note down which girls were where so I’m doubting my memory, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about this]; Saran was the only groupie getting it on with Stacee mid-set and I guess because that was different and because SAM HAS F***ING STUBBLE AND I CAN’T EVEN, I was paying particular attention to them, so I saw Andy smack her arse with one of his poster rolls. I realise that sounds kinda kinky, but given this is Franz we’re talking about and he maintained an expression of horrified disgust throughout, I think it was done more in the way somewhat might swat at a fly to get rid of it. Still, kinky :P.

As for Erin as Regina; I thought she was really good. She has a great voice and doesn’t usually get a chance to shine, so it was lovely to hear her sing. She also had spirit and despite her baby face, she made an excellent revolutionary leader. Incidentally, I happened to spot her sitting in the front corner of stage right working on her placard and I’ve never noticed Regina doing that before, so that was intriguing. I did wonder why she didn’t have an extra costume for the initial scene in the mayor’s office though. Rhiannon wears a Regina-ish, but slightly more office-y, dress and waistcoat combo, with her hair in a bun, but Erin wore the same costume from the start, with her hair in the same half pony tied with that big ribbony scarfy thing. Not that it matters, but I’m really quite confuzzled by some of the understudy costume choices this tour. Erin did get her own open-pit BBQ animation though and I’d wondered if she would since her face isn’t really visible anyway.

On the subject of projections though; the photo of Lucas and Cameron that they put on the screen at the end looked like it was taken on a phone 5 minutes before the show started, but I actually really liked it! I mean it’s not as good as the fancy canvas they had in town, but despite it’s shadowy nature, I prefer it to the overly polished one they have of Lucas and Kevin. It’s more authentic somehow, even though iPhones weren’t exactly a thing in the 80s and it screams smart phone at me…! As for Lucas, he managed to spot me in the audience even though he thought I wasn’t coming til tomorrow (he messaged me afterwards and said so). I think he must have caught sight of me around halfway through the second act and pulled a few faces at me after that!

So one of the most bizarre things about the whole show was the addition of a second encore, although I certainly wasn’t complaining. The basically just redid the curtain call from the ensemble bows to the end, but with an extra level of crazy. Needless to say, Bobby in particular was absolutely brilliant. He ended up on all fours on the floor, doing some rather intense thrusting, as well as tearing off his jacket and pulling it back and forth between his legs… I feel like that’s a fairly standard (if rather filthy) dance move and there must be a name for it, but I wouldn’t even know what to search for, so I hope you know what I mean…! Still, not to be outdone, Sam gave us an epic knee slide right across the stage and that was even more wonderful. Plus it answered a burning question I had about his trousers. You see, when I wasn’t melting into a incoherent puddle over his facial fluff, I was wondering what he’d done to end up with filthy marks on both knees… I mean I didn’t like to presume, but this is Stacee Jaxx we’re talking about, so… :P.

On Barney’s suggestion, I waited out front after the show and that turned out to be the place to be. I mostly just exchanged hellos as they were all heading out in search of food between shows, but a few of them stopped for a chat. I also saw the guy who does every Saturday (the one I met in Sheffield) and we talked about cheering for the band. I have to say; it’s always good when I know he’s in, because I can follow his lead, rather than having to start it myself. It’s nice to have a day off :P. On which note, Drew said ‘you made it’ as he passed, which made me wonder if there was there a doubt?! Anyway, I complimented Rhiannon as she walked by and she said something about not being on tonight, which briefly confused me (she meant as Sherrie, but I’d thought it was common knowledge that she only had one show, so I initially thought she meant that she wouldn’t be on tonight at all).

Vas paused on his way out and we discussed the fact that he’s still alive as well as the changes they’d made to keep him that way. I then spoke to Bobby (and Adam when he joined us) for a fair while longer and he mentioned that Vas had been (understandably) a bit stressed! He also asked (unprompted) if I liked the knee slide… It’s possible he knows me a little too well…! Although that’s probably not surprising, given how unsubtle I tend to be. Plus I’m even worse on twitter and he keeps liking my tweets… which to be fair I love him for, because no one else cares and it’s rather nice to know that at least they entertain somebody! So of course, I had a reputation to live up to and replied to his comment about the knee slide by telling him that I’d been wondering about the state of the trousers… :P. Although on that note, Bobby said something about someone (Sam?) cutting their finger, but it was more aimed at Adam than me, so I wasn’t sure what he meant. [Edit: Sam mentioned when I saw him after the evening show that he’d hurt his hand during his previous knee slide, so I assume that’s what Bobby was referring to]. I also told them about how and why I’d ended up adding the extra show today and said that I’d been dithering over ninth row when fourth popped up. Bobby then informed me that he’d seen me in fourth, although Adam admitted he hadn’t spotted me. I’ll confess I was rather surprised that anyone saw me that far back though and it’s not like my hair is all that bright right now either. Anyway, as I said, Lucas messaged me afterwards having evidently remembered that I’d asked him about stage door, so I told him I was out front, but didn’t end up seeing him in the end. I wanted to get back to my hotel and check in before the evening show, so assured him I’d catch him later and headed off.

So was it worth the craziness of the morning and the aborted walking tour for that show? Yes, yes it was. I had the best time :D.

Peace, love and fluffy faces,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 10/1/19]

Fluff & Friskiness [ROA:91/16]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

As soon as we were done stage dooring the matinée, my fellow ROAdie and I headed to the box office. She hadn’t intended to come this evening, so needed to pick up a ticket (see, I’m not the only crazy one :P) and I wanted to swap mine from G to the front. They wouldn’t give us A, which sucked, but fortunately there were two individual seats left in B so we snapped them up. Admittedly we did still try and sit in A, but people kept turning up with tickets again so in the end we gave up and to be honest, I would rather have been in B on my preferred side than in A on the wrong side anyway. You see, I felt like this evening was a bit of a preliminary goodbye to Sam. It was certainly my last chance to see him on such a small stage and of course it was also the last time he was performing opposite Kevin & Zoe. Needless to say, I barely took my eyes off of him ;).

So when Sam was doing his goodbye instastories earlier, he said something about missing kissing Kevin. Given he’s not done that in weeks, it left me wondering whether he might do it one last time tonight and I kept a special eye out just in case. Despite that, I’m still not sure exactly what he did. It certainly wasn’t a kiss, at least not the way he used to do it, because it was far too brief, but it was something. A lick maybe? There does seem to be a lot of licking in this show (not that I’m complaining, obviously). Whatever it was though, it clearly wasn’t enough of a farewell for him, because later on when Stacee told Dennis to get rid of Sherrie, Sam gave Kevin Constance’s panties from out of his trousers…! I think I mentioned earlier that Sam always grabs his crotch when Sherrie is talking about it, but he doesn’t usually shove his hand inside his trousers, so I was confused but intrigued when he did it this evening (to retrieve the pants). I love Sam. He just gets Stacee. Even when he’s messing around, he does it perfectly in character so it just enhances his performance even more and I just frickin’ love him. Have I mentioned that already?!

On which note, his hat fell off during Wanted tonight, just before the bit with Alex on the flight cases. I kind of expected one of the roadie boys to give it back to go him, but they didn’t, so I waited with baited breath to see what Sam would do. To be fair it wasn’t all that different really, he just elbowed Alex instead of smacking him with his hat, but it was a really sharp movement and it was hot as f***. I’m very glad I got see it. And just in case that wasn’t enough, he’s taken the restroom opening pose to the next level too and added some hip rotation to his arms-above-his-head stretch position… and I’m not even sure there are words for that. I think I died. Does he really truly have to leave?

And speaking of arms… I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it before, but after he sings ‘I’ve gotta take a little time’, he adds in a high pitched ‘oh’, which is somewhat startling even though I’ve heard him do it a dozen times. At the same time however, he dramatically throws a hand up in front of his face and I love that, because ARM. Also while I’m on the subject, Jodie copies the move and I’ll confess I’m not quite sure why, but she very much takes her cues from him throughout that number and it’s kinda cute. Although that said, her Sherrie makes a real effort to be seductive despite her awkwardness/inexperience (and I imagine she’s still pretty starstruck too). I noticed the other day that she only stops stumbling around clutching her nose (after the stall door smacks her in the face) when she realises he’s looking at her and abruptly straightens up, trying to look sexy.

On a slightly different note, Sam was apparently feeling a bit frisky tonight, because he was all over everybody. Not that he isn’t usually, but he fluffled both Saran and Josh this time, plus he kept stroking Marc’s head when he was on stage with Arsenal. He also pulled Saran’s arm right out her jacket during the Young Groupie bit in Here I Go Again and usually he just pushes it open while he’s bending her back over the railing. Maybe there was something in the water though, because it wasn’t just him; Bobby and Josh were all over each other at the beginning too. I was right behind Lucas’ victim, so I was perfectly positioned to watch the way the rest of the cast respond to her and it’s a lot of fun, especially with those two boys on the end. Bobby has been waggling his tongue filthily every time I’ve looked over at him recently, but I also noticed this evening that Bobby and Josh had their hands all over each other. Bobby in particular was stroking rather ardently up and down Josh’s leg. Bobby always has been rather physical though; another thing he does pretty regularly now is give his arse a good scratch while he’s peeing during I Wanna Know What Love Is. Really enhances the romance of the scene, that does :P.

Anyway, something else I’ve been meaning to mention for ages is the way Lucas joins in with the harmonies in Waiting. In between spying on Drew & Sherrie, he turns to the audience to sing along and it’s kinda sassy, but also really cute and it never fails to make me grin. Although speaking of cute; Lucas blew Luke a kiss tonight when Drew thanked Lonny during his support set… I mean what’s that about?! I don’t think I’ve seen him be nice to Luke in that scene the entire run! Although it wasn’t just Drew getting positive feedback; when Lucas announced the act one finale, he got a round of applause and had to shush everyone for the ‘and yeah, everyone’s s***’s got real emotional right now’. Once he’d got his line out though, he allowed it. Of course he then had a similar problem at the end of Here I Go Again and had to shush us so he could do jazz hands. He told us he loved us all, but shut up :P. Later, during the slow claps, the lights flashed again, only this time they were in time with the claps. It made me wonder if that’s actually a thing and I’d just never noticed it til they f***ed it up this afternoon. Anyway, it was a thing and for whatever reason (the lights or just the fact he had an auditorium full of people under his spell) Lucas said something like ‘I feel so powerful right now’. Also on the subject of things which are now a thing; ‘stop crying like a little b****’ is now a thing. In case you were wondering.

On a rather different note, you may recall one of the things I missed from the original production was the mouthed ‘oh my G-d’ when Drew & Sherrie first realise they have oh-so-much in common. I still miss it, but since Jodie has taken over they’ve added a thing where they turn away from each other and both do a double fist clench/’yes!’ movement. It’s not the same, but it’s in the same vein and it’s certainly better than nothing. Of course there’s always been a ‘ting’ sound when he helps her up off of the floor and their eyes meet for the first time, but it’s less dramatic and I like dramatic :P. Although speaking of dramatic; Jodie practically jumps out of her skin when Sinead starts singing To Be With You at her. She then remains leaning back in her seat looking rather stunned until she hops hastily to her feet when commanded to do so. Also, since I’ve mentioned Waitress #1; for quite some time now, Kevin has been telling Sinead not to forget the baby oil as they leave the stage at the end of that scene, except the only time he’s done it all weekend was last night. Not that it matters particularly, but it was a point of discussion amongst us fans and it had been suggested that perhaps he was skipping it at matinees. Only then he didn’t say it tonight either, so there goes that oh-so-fascinating theory.

So another thing I don’t believe I’ve mentioned before is Vas’ reaction to Adam’s ‘white people’ comment. In the immediate aftermath of Lonny running through the street with his pants down, Hertz evidently thinks he and the Mayor are on the same page and when Adam first speaks Vas goes to agree with him, only to be brought up short by what he’s actually said. I think he takes it quite personally too, it’s kinda funny. I do enjoy some of Hertz’s hard done by moments, like sometimes when he drives in at the start of the Final Countdown, Vas waggles the digger a bit with a ‘what the f*** is this? You see the s*** I have to put up with?’ sort of expression.

Something I’ve been interested in recently for no particular reason is the sweet situation in the Mayor’s office. Adam has a pot at the very start of the scene that he seems to keep in his desk, so I’m not sure if that’s where Vas gets them from, but he always seems to take three. One for himself, one to throw at Regina and one to feed to Franz (like a treat for a puppy) when Andy’s sprawled across the table between Hertz’s legs, showing off the really cool model he made. Today however, I happened to notice that Vas offered Andy his hand earlier in the scene so that he could choose which sweet he wanted. Whether Andy genuinely made the wrong decision or just thought it would be funny, he did not get on with his sweet choice. In fact, at both shows today he pulled an utterly disgusted face while eating his sweet. Bless.

On the subject of Franz’s tongue (it’s not my best segue, I’ll admit), I happened to be watching Luke during the eminent domain scene, so I have no idea what happened centre stage, but I had a feeling Andy missed the ‘but it is a handsome sad’ line and just went straight into ‘like Falco’. I genuinely have no idea if he missed it or I did, but I assume something happened, because when Vas shouted Franz’s name, he sounded like he was laughing so much he struggled to get the word out. I hate missing funny things, damn it! Although I suppose it could have been something off stage? Who knows. Anyway, one thing that still makes me grin is the way Franz and Regina have to relocate to centre stage at the end of the Final Countdown, but I won’t pretend I don’t frequently get distracted by the riot police loitering at the back of the stage. It’s not even just Sam that catches my attention either. I love the way Alex and Luke exchange looks when the centre spotlight comes on and Rhiannon & Andy aren’t in it. Admittedly Sam is sometimes involved in that too, but it’s Alex’s concerned expression that tends to draw my attention the most.

So this post has turned into a bit of a brain dump of all the things I’ve noticed over the past few days/weeks/months but haven’t yet mentioned, so I apologise a bit for that, but before I finish up with a bunch of specifics from tonight, I have a couple more things to say. There’s something about Zoe’s manner with Luke outside the Venus that I really like. It’s as if she knows she f***ed up with Sherrie and doesn’t want to make the same mistake again. Justice genuinely cares about her and I think she’s sees a lot of herself in Sherrie too, especially after their conversation about Edgar. At this point I reckon she’s actively playing matchmaker in the hope of making amends for the damage she feels she caused by forcing Sherrie to dance, but even more than that, I think she’s also trying to stop history from repeating itself. To me the way she tells him exactly which train Sherrie is getting is as close as she dares get to outright telling him to ‘go get her, kid’. And since that’s apparently not enough over analysis for one paragraph, I also want to talk about this: Every now and then Rhiannon gets whistled at when she takes her dressing gown off, but tonight it was loud. The thing is though, even in her underwear she’s more covered up than nearly every other girl on that stage and besides which, this takes place after her rainbow leotard scene. It amuses me what a difference context can make, because I’m sure I’ve never heard Sherrie get whistled at like that when she strips off her gown!

And now, back to tonight…! Lucas came over all Italian (or thereabouts) when he said ‘don’t play games Franzy’. I have no idea where that came from and evidently neither did Kevin, if the WTF look he gave Lucas was anything to go by. Although to be fair, Lucas’ sleazier producer has gone rather European this weekend too, so there’s a precedent, ish. Anyway, I apparently forgot to write it down so I can’t remember when Lucas and I had this conversation (was definitely this weekend, might have been this afternoon), but we were talking about the way Jodie says ‘Michigan’ during Don’t Stop Believin’ and how it’s a little bit Mrs Meers. He’s stood on the Bourbon stage at that point and I couldn’t help looking over at him. Only he looked back, our eyes met and he pulled a Meers face at me and I ended up laughing so hard I was nearly in tears. I f***ing love that boy.

So I’m not sure where Lucas disappeared off to when he climbed down into the audience at the end, but he didn’t quite make it back to the stage in time. Not that he’s got a hard deadline or anything, but towards the end the whole cast come forward and stand in a line across the front and generally he aims to be back as that starts to take shape. Today he totally missed half of it (not helped by the high stage and lack of a step, of course), but he got up there eventually and he & Kevin then linked arms and danced round in a circle, so that was fun. Of course as I told you before, it was Sam’s last show with Zoe (& Kevin) and he blew her a kiss as he passed her when he rode his llama off stage, then planted a smacker on her as they left at the end. Before that though, he smiled at me, so yay. Also Kevin waggled his tongue at me, so all in all it was a rather fun end to the show.

Now, when I booked my coach home, at no point in the process did megabus point out that Meadowhall is nowhere f***ing near Sheffield. I mean, had I known I probably would have booked it regardless and at least I realised this yesterday and not when I turned up at the wrong place and missed my coach, but still. Rather than sitting in my nice cosy hotel lobby and blogging for a few hours before taking a leisurely stroll to the coach station, I had to drag my stuff to the theatre again, then ensure I caught the last tram, after which I got to sit at the coach station in the cold (the indoor bit was shut, obviously) for nearly two hours instead. Not impressed at all. On the plus, the ROAdie I was with had parked near there, so we got the tram together and we still had time to stage door before we left.

Of course, because we had a deadline, they were all having prosecco in Jodie’s dressing room, but fortunately I still got to see everyone I wanted to see (Sam. I wanted to see Sam). There were also plenty of them that didn’t stay, or didn’t stay as late, so we were kept entertained at intermittent intervals. Vas was one of the first to leave and as he passed he asked me to make sure his body gets back to his family when he gets shot next week…! I mentioned I’m not there till the weekend and I think he said he might not make it that far. I asked if they’re changing anything expecting a resounding yes, but apparently the only thing he’s cutting are the salutes…! WTF? I’m morbidly curious to see how that goes down…!

Anyway, when Josh appeared I called him over for a photo and we then ended up chatting to him for ages, because it turns out that he and the ROAdie I was with grew up in the same place and even went to the same school a few years apart. Admittedly I didn’t have a huge amount to contribute to that conversation, but it was still crazy to listen to; it’s such a small world! We also talked about the show and stuff he’s done recently and he told us that he hadn’t wanted to be in the ensemble unless it was Rent, JCS or this and then he got to do all three back to back. I’ve seen them all too, although I hadn’t realised he was in Rent.

We also had a really long chat with Barney about all sorts of things. He told us he’s only MDing this year and then he’s stepping back to musical supervisor duties and Liam will take over as MD full time. I hadn’t realised until he told us about it, how involved he was with the whole creative process of this production though. He didn’t have anything to do with the set and praised Morgan for that, but he was involved with the rest, even costume, ish. Apparently he disagreed with having Regina in sexy underwear (fair point) and found her a crochet bra instead. (It was from Etsy, in case anyone was wondering. I mean, it’s something I frequently wonder about. I love finding out where costumes come from, particularly the ones that are bought rather than made and can therefore potentially be obtained or copied for, er, purposes. On which note… if anyone has any idea where Sam’s tshirt came from, I would love to know. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for something similar before I had to admit defeat and create Staceebear’s shirt from scratch. It was particularly frustrating because after tracking down Heather’s dress from Idiot, I genuinely thought I could find anything I set my mind to :P). Anyway, he made a good point that the original production was an American transplant, whereas this time around, they’ve given it some more British (Monty Python-esque) humour. I’d never really thought about it like that, since last time they changed the language to make more sense to British audiences and this time they haven’t (I mean who the f*** knows what Arby’s is outside America?), but in retrospect I see what he means.

Of course we chatted about the band too. Barney mentioned that he’d done Sunny Afternoon with Marc and I said something about the insane solos Drew keeps posting on instagram, which turned into a bit of a tangent about how much I love watching incredible guitarists and how in awe of them I get (I can’t even move my fingers that quickly, let alone with any form of skill). We also got onto the subject of how great Lucas is; how he’s naturally very funny and perfect for Lonny. I mentioned how frequently I hear the audience raving about him and clearly his ears were burning, because at that moment he popped out for a cigarette! We explained what we were talking about and I then stroked his ego even further but telling him about all the conversations I’ve been overhearing, including one in the queue for the ladies at tonight’s interval. There were two women in front of me and they were going on about how brilliant he was and wanted to look him up. I interrupted briefly, checked they were indeed talking about who I thought they were and then told them Lucas’ name. Admittedly they clearly thought that the film came first and that the reason the show was different was because they couldn’t do the same things on stage, but I decided against correcting them on that. I mean Lucas kinda corrects them anyway during the show, right?

Anyway, Barney had an area booked for the company in a pub round the corner and was trying to persuade Marc to join them, which vaguely prompted a conversation about drinking in general. Barney was saying he wanted a party row on the plane to Berlin! Then after Lucas went back in, Barney was telling us how amazing Berlin is as a city and reeled off a whole host of must-see places that I won’t have time to visit because I’ll be at the show… and I really do want that matinée ticket! He headed off to the pub eventually, but we both got hugs goodbye. Lucas left not long after that too and I hadn’t intended to speak to him again, but then impulsively stopped him briefly to ask him to let me know where the stage door is in Berlin… I love going to new theatres, but I hate having to locate stage doors, especially abroad!

We also had a rather lovely chat with Bobby and I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him so much before, so it was particularly appreciated. My fellow ROAdie told him he was her favourite ensemble member, or something like that, so I added that I love how he can say so much just with one expression. He joked that he likes scene stealing, but he’s so frickin’ good at it and it’s so much fun to watch him, I hope he continues to steal away! Anyway, I’m not sure what else we talked about and I can’t even remember how this came about, but I definitely said ‘I’m obviously a bit smitten with Sam’… and whilst I’m aware that he already knows how smitten I am with Sam (he pays attention on twitter), I’m really not sure why I felt the need to say it out loud…?! Although he did say he’s going to miss Sam too, so it’s not like it’s just me…!

As for Mr Ferriday, he came out with a group so I waved goodbye to them (I noted down that this group included Alex, but have since forgotten why I felt the need to single him out…? Maybe I waved to him specifically?), but Sam came over to us for a chat, so yay. He’s seemed kinda quiet the last few days and as I mentioned earlier, I was going through one of my paranoid phases this weekend, but then he came over and hugged hello and goodbye and chatted for a good while and even when I exchanged goodbyes with Luke and Rhiannon (who left with Jodie) while we were still talking, Sam didn’t run away so I’ve stopped being so ridiculous now. Anyway, the ROAdie told him he was her favourite Stacee, so he said something like ‘that’s two’ and she also asked him if he was enjoying it. He assured us he’s loved it and somehow we then ended up talking about his replacement. He’s never met him and was very diplomatic. I on the other hand really wasn’t (there may have been some scowling), but I still think it’s a really odd role for a dancer. Sam said he’d use his skills to enhance his performance, in the way he moves etc. but I pointed out casting Jo in Flashdance (and even Millie for that matter) made sense because they were heavy dance roles, but this…? Meh. I mean hopefully in a few months it’ll all be grand and I’ll be eating my words, but I’m really gonna frickin’ miss Sam and I am not ready to be thinking about someone else attempting to fill his boots. Hmph. Anyway, back to happier things; Sam wasn’t wearing a hat! He even fluffled himself before he came outside, using the inside of the door as a mirror, which I assume must have looked reflective to him, but was perfectly clear to us. FLUFFFFFFFFFFF! And whilst any sort of fluff is always appreciated, I wanted my photo today, so it was even more wonderful. Plus after I took a selfie (which came out beautifully) the ROAdie offered to take a pic for me, so she snapped a couple from further back as well. And he was FLUFFYYYYYYYYY! *Ahem*. Needless to say, I was very giddy after he left (because he was lovely, not just because he was fluffy)!

So all in all, it went pretty darn well. I’ve lost track of hugs now too, which is always fun, especially since I got quite a few new ones today I think, including Vas, Josh and Bobby. Anyway, we saw everyone we wanted to see and easily made the tram we needed. Plus there was WiFi at the coach station, which was very much appreciated since I struggled to get data to work at all from the moment I hit Doncaster (despite apparently having full 4G signal. Sigh). It’s amazing how much time you can waste on social media when you’ve not checked it all day… Although I will say that both Sam and Lucas liked my tweet asking them for a photo, but did they post a photo? No they did not. And to make matters worse, Sam teased horribly by posting a collage full of costume pics with Kevin, but they were all tiny and washed out and written over, so none of them are remotely useful for lockscreen material. I mean, it was even worse than one of Golan’s! It’s such a hard life :P.

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

Free The Fluff [ROA:90/15]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So I can’t tell you how good it felt to have a decent night’s sleep. I probably still could have done with a few more hours/days/weeks, but even so I felt a lot better for it. Of course the weather was miserable when I got up, so I decided to find a ‘Spoons for lunch and just sit and blog until show time, but I went via the high street and did a bit of shopping while I was at it. I managed to pick up decent birthday cards for my parents for a change (I always leave it too late and have to choose from the three birthday cards left amongst all the Christmas cards) and even more excitingly, finally managed to buy some new jeans with ankles intact! I also accidentally followed Sam down the street when he suddenly appeared in front of me after I left a shop, which was a bit awkward. I tried to hang back and let him get ahead, then caught up with him at the lights anyway, so ended up stopping completely for a moment just to give him a sufficient head start!

Anyway, I did manage to do a bit of blogging over my usual veggie brunch, then headed to the theatre, where I bumped into the ROAdie I was hanging with yesterday out front. We loitered for a bit and while we were there, Lucas walked by on his way in and stopped for a brief chat, so that was rather lovely. He then returned a few moments later because he was worried about the average age of the matinee audience and who he’d be able to pick on! He asked where we were sitting, so we explained that we were both in the second row, but intended to move to the front. I think he was rather relieved by that and said he might have to pick on one of us. My companion pointed out she’d already had a turn this week, so he said he’d pick on me and added that he could really go for it with me, because he knew he wouldn’t get in trouble! Only then we got inside and they’d started giving out actual tickets for the front row, so we couldn’t sit there in the end. Somewhat bizarrely, there were a bunch of small people sitting in front of me and it was kinda distracting at first – I kept finding myself glancing over to watch their startled reactions to some of the early swearing/general filth. Fortunately however, the girls in the middle were at least old enough to be drinking alcohol and were clearly up for it, so Lucas didn’t get stuck. Even better, the one he chose happened to be called Sam. Needless to say, the board made me giggle again. Me too, Lucas, me too :P.

So I’ve taken to watching Bobby and Josh before Lucas starts on his victim and I think a part of me is continuing to hope that one of these days they’re just not going to stop. Sadly today was not that day, but Josh did wrap his leg around Bobby before they pulled back from each other, so that was fun. Also, I only noticed today that at the end of that scene Bobby and Luke found each other in the crowd, took each others’ hands and then skipped off into the wings together, it was so cute!

Speaking of Luke, during the programme scene that isn’t, the girl waved at Luke when he asked who the f*** she was. Lucas even informed him that she was waving at him, but Luke didn’t even look round and remained completely oblivious. Although on that note… I still find it sort of amusing that when Lucas first selects his victim everyone on the stage looks at her too, including Luke… In fact, that whole scene is ‘we are in a musical’ and Drew is very much a part of it. Just sayin’ ;). Anyway, back to the ex-programme scene and Luke (usually) pushes Lucas back with one hand when he says ‘took my dream’, the other hand for ‘my girl’ and both hands for ‘crapped on them both’. When Lucas ‘no no no’s back at him, he just pushes him back the way they’ve come with one hand, but there was a phase earlier in the tour when Lucas used to mirrored the way Luke pushed him and I kinda miss that. Especially the times when Luke switched it up slightly and Lucas would then copy that too. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to anything of course, but I forgot to mention it at the time and they don’t do it any more and I wanted to record it so I had to mention it like this instead.

In other overdramatic reactions; I checked on Lucas during Drew’s set tonight and when Luke thanked him, Lucas pretended to hang himself with his scarf…! Also, when Lucas started the slow clap thing, the lighting people started flashing the lights pointed at the audience and I don’t think they’ve done that before? Surely I would have noticed if they had, even from the front row? Anyway, it wasn’t quite in time and it was a little odd, but it was fun and Lucas made a comment about having the power, so that was fun.

Another thing I’ve not noticed before and I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve missed it or because they don’t always do it, but Lucas and Andy were slapping at each other outside the Bourbon at one point and it made me giggle. I also found myself watching Andy and Rhiannon after Hertz gave Franz the money and they tried to high five, but failed spectacularly so had to try again more carefully and it was adorable. Although on a less adorable note, Vas threw in an extra salute when departing the building site on his little digger. He also seemed to temporarily forget the word ‘city’ (at the end of ‘the sex, drugs und rock ‘n’ roll are destroying your…’, I think) and it happened just as I took a sip of water… I mean it was fine, he finished the line, it wasn’t late enough to sound wrong and I didn’t choke on my drink, but it was a close call! On the plus(?), he’s had a whole chorus behind him in Keep On Loving You this weekend. Every show so far the audience has carried on singing after he stops, so he ends up looking out and aiming a slightly confused ‘scheisse’ at them.

Something I picked up on earlier but forgot to mention is that Jodie seems kinda chuffed that she’s been mugged and it reminded me of an old Sherrie so much that it gave me a bit of a pang… Only now I can’t even remember which one it was and that’s really quite depressing. I think it was Natalie, but it might have been Cordelia? Meh. Anyway, I watched Jodie again in I Wanna Rock and it tickled me when she held out her hand for a high five, only for Luke to walk right past her, leaving her hanging. On the flip side though, I was watching Luke after Sherrie went off with Stacee and the expression on his face was heartbreaking! He looks so gutted and even Josh (crouching on the floor by the flight case just behind him) looks as though he can feel Drew’s pain. Bless.

So the last few shows I’ve felt like I’d calmed down a little over Stacee; I still swooned, but for example, I didn’t end up drooling every time Sinead pushed his shirt up in Too Much Time (she’s been doing that for a while now, I appreciate it). Today however, I was back to being a total fangirly mess and by the end of Wanted I was little more than a puddle on the floor. I mean, I’m talking similar levels to that time in High Wycombe when he looked at me and I died. To be fair I did half catch his eye tonight when he was on the Bourbon stage, but that happens at nearly every show in as much as it was another one of those ‘it was probably coincidence and he didn’t actually look at me, but it sorta looked like he might have, so I’m calling it because it makes me happy’ moments. I just love Sam’s Stacee So. Damn. Much and I actually got a bit emotional over the fact I’m going to have to say goodbye so soon.

And I know I’ve mentioned this before and I’m making a real effort not to keep rehashing the same things in every blog, because the Idiot ones are ridiculous and I need to not do that again, but the way Sam steps off of high things is really f***ing hot. It’s so beautifully arrogant when he does it to confront Drew (after he interrupts Stacee’s moment with Sherrie on the flight cases), but he does it before that too when he gets down off of the bar in Wanted and I can’t always see it that clearly because of angles, but fuuuuuuuu…! I don’t even know why it’s so hot, but it just is. Maybe because it’s so cocky and self-assured? And since I’m on the subject of er cockiness… (which might be my favourite segue ever) I’m still loving how much filthier he is with Jodie in the bathroom. When he says ‘I’m a danger to even my own heart when I love this hard’ he grabs his crotch to emphasise ‘hard’ and it’s glorious. It also kinda mirrors the way Stacee readjusts himself when he’s walking across the Bourbon afterwards, just as Sherrie says ‘smaller than I thought’ to Waitress #1. Just in case anyone was in any doubt as to what she was referring to…!

On a slightly different note, Sam fluffled Josh again when he was on the flight case today and said ‘curly hair’, so clearly that does not just apply to Ryan. Sam seemed to enjoy it though, because when he came out of the restroom later on, he fluffled Josh instead of Saran, who incidentally looked very jealous indeed. Josh was delighted though, as was I! Although Josh turned on him pretty quickly after that and I’m not sure why I’ve never noticed it before. After the knockout, when he’s not struggling to keep the girls from molesting Stacee’s unconscious body, Josh has a right go at Stacee. I’m not sure exactly what he was saying but I interpreted it as a fanboy rant; ‘you were my idol, how can you let me down like this?’ sort of thing. Whatever he was saying, he was very passionate about it! Also, before I move on, Arsenal roadies Josh & Bobby caught my attention during that same bit Ryan & Bobby did last week (in Too Much Time) and whilst I was too distracted by Sam to watch them properly, I caught a few bits and that’s one thing I’m going to have to keep tabs on going forward, because it was very entertaining and they obviously change it up. Today, Josh was showing off an arse clenching move to a suitably impressed Bobby, who then responded with a little foot dance (a side to side wiggle of one foot, then the other, then a faster version of it) that was adorably simple, but roadie Bobby looked very proud of himself indeed.

So I didn’t have to lead the whoop for the band today, which was frickin’ awesome, but obviously I still joined in and helped with the general audience encouragement and I think I got a grin off Marc for my trouble. On the subject of Marc, I noticed yesterday he’s been patting Wolfgang (he did it to both Josh and Luke) on the shoulder in commiseration after his ‘makes your boobies hard’ lyric fail. I also had a much better view of Amanda than I usually do and I could see her reaction to it as well. In the immediate aftermath, she gave it a very clear double thumbs down, then when Luke turned back to her imploringly, she shook her head at him and he then turned away a tad dejectedly. It was rather cute really. I love that they haven’t killed the band interaction in this production, even if half of them are off stage and they keep hiding the rest of them behind a curtain.

On that note however, they had a bit of a glitch with that today. I’m not actually sure what happened and it could well have just been someone pressing the wrong arrow on the controls, but the whole band stage ended up abruptly going backwards instead of forwards, right near the end. They fixed it pretty sharpish, but I was a little concerned they might knock a guitarist off if they jerked it back again! That wasn’t the only staging issue either. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but it was before Stacee’s arrival at the Bourbon. The door to it got stuck moving onto the stage and didn’t come out all the way. It looked like a bit of wood had fallen onto it from behind the stack of amps and I was wondering what they were going to do about it and the door was pretty badly blocked. In the end, when Josh came out the door and managed to squeeze through the smaller than usual gap, he sorted it out and it was fine after that, although I was rather confused about his fix… He pushed the ‘Stacee has arrived’ lever (see gif below… any excuse) up to where it should have been anyway, the wood disappeared from view and the set was then able to move as usual. I have no idea how any of those things were related because I’m sure that lever does f*** all and is just there for effect, but colour me intrigued.

Finally, I have one more thing to say before I cover the curtain call and stage door; Alex’s hair. Now you may or may not recall that I discussed this fairly early on in the run because the movement of it fascinated me. I haven’t really thought about it so much recently and I assumed it was because I got more interested in the rest of him, but now I’m not so sure. You see this weekend it really stood out to me how immovable it is now. He uses far too much product to keep it in line and for a fluff lover like myself it’s really quite frustrating, no matter how convenient it may be for him :P. That said however, one sizable lock made a bid for freedom this afternoon and spent much of We’re Not Gonna Take It tickling his nose. I enjoyed it immensely. Forget Save Our Strip, I need a ‘Free the Fluff’ placard!

Soooo…! I’m not sure what was up with Lucas in the curtain call, but when he headed back to join Sam he just bounced up and down on the spot in front of him. I wasn’t impressed and evidently neither was Sam, because he grabbed hold of Lucas’ head with both hands and pulled him down for his usual session of suggested fellatio. It was f***ing glorious and I loved their shared laughter afterwards as well. They all seem to get on so well still, despite several months on tour together and I love watching them all play around at the end. In fact, Luke found a however-many-dollars bill on the stage and decided to tuck it down the front of Sam’s shirt. Plus the two of them always hug before they leave the stage and it’s all so lovely and d’awwww!

Stage door was an odd one because they had notes immediately after the show, which I only knew because Lucas told me when he popped out for a cigarette first and chatted to us for a bit while he was at it. It meant that they all came out together so I didn’t get to talk to many of them. It also rather messed with my I-still-look-a-bit-of-a-state-but-it’s-an-improvement-on-yesterday-so-I’ll-get-photos plan and the only one I ended up taking was with Alex & Bobby together. Of course I’ve got plenty of time to get selfies next year and at this point it’s probably better to wait til I recolour my hair again anyway, but there’s one person I can’t wait for… Only Sam walked past without looking in my direction and I’m in the middle of one of my standard fangirly ‘he probably hates me’ phases for some reason, so I didn’t want to call him back. Sigh. On the plus though, when Luke and Rhiannon saw us hanging around, they came out to talk to us while they waited somewhat impatiently for Jodie to join them. Rhiannon mentioned something about me coming to Berlin and apparently Luke didn’t know that. She said she’d be on for one of the matinées, but still didn’t know which one and Luke added that Josh didn’t know which show he’d be doing either. Something about not announcing understudy dates in advance – where have I heard that before… :/. Anyway, I admitted I might miss it as I definitely maybe won’t be at the Saturday matinée… *ahem*. At one point Luke said something like ‘stop being mental’ and I took a second to reply because I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that, only then the words sunk in and I simply told him ‘no’! I don’t think he said anything back, but seemed to accept my answer as fair :P.

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

Filth [ROA:89/14]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So a big part of the reason I ended up coming today was the row D seat they had left for tonight, which was the best seat I could get for the whole weekend. Only they hadn’t sold the front row and there was plenty of space so I ended up moving. I probably should have just moved my ticket to B when I called up to swap the matinees cos where I ended up was £15 cheaper, but I figured the chances of coming back to use the credit wasn’t worth the effort. Either way, I was happy and that’s what matters. Admittedly I was on the ‘wrong’ side (stage left) but it’s such a small stage, even when they were over on the other side, they didn’t feel far away and I’ll be on the other side tomorrow, so it’s all good. The angles also meant I caught something I’ve never seen before; I was watching Sam as usual when he headed off to the Champagne Room in Sherrie’s wake, but at one point Zoe was in between me and him and I saw something in her face. In the immediate aftermath she’s still counting his money, but then her expression suddenly darkens and there’s a moment of regret, as if she’s having second thoughts already about pushing Sherrie into dancing for him. And while I’m talking about angles and Zoe… I noticed something else this evening. There’s now a production photo of Zoe and Danielle stuck to the middle mirror in the Venus dressing room! I got a bit emotional when I spotted it, it’s such a lovely thing to do! I hope Sam makes it onto the set after he goes too, even if it isn’t something visible from the audience.

Looking forward however, tonight I spent a fair bit of time watching Jodie, although I don’t have that many specifics to talk about. I’m sticking with my theory that she’s a fairly mature Sherrie; she’s got confidence and a real sense of ambition, but underneath all that, she’s still the naive country girl that’s way out of her depth in the big city. She really pushes Drew into I Wanna Rock, but the way she watched Luke once he launched into it made me grin. She attempted to interrupt him a couple of times before she managed to get his attention and in the meantime she tried to join in with the dancers too. In fact, her Sherrie’s attempts at dancing were fairly entertaining in general; I liked how awkward she was in Any Way You Want It and the way she clutched her inner thighs in pain after accidentally sliding down the pole (the second time). I also thought it was amusingly adorable this afternoon that she didn’t actually know where Detroit was & pointed to completely the wrong place on the wrong hand…! She had it right tonight though, so I’ll forgive the mishap :P.

The other thing about Jodie’s self-confidence is that she’s far more forward with Stacee. For example, when he first takes hold of Sherrie’s arm atop the flight cases, Danielle used to pull away when he reached his belt, but Jodie leaves her hand in his. The best thing about it however, is the way Sam responds to her. He’s so much filthier and I f***ing love it. Unfortunately I don’t really have specific examples, it’s just a general vibe, but there are lots of little things, like the way he pulls her head against his chest and keeps it there, plus he was tugging on the bow of her apron when he was kneeling in front of her. Also the leaning back against the stall with his arms above his head seems to be a thing now and it’s so wonderful… I’m going to miss him so f***ing much. Waaah.

Sam was having a lot of fun this evening too and during Arsenal’s performance at the Bourbon, he kept holding the mic in front of Drew & Marc so they could ‘sing’ the lines that Stacee doesn’t. The three of them seemed to be having a whale of a time and it was making me happy just watching them enjoying themselves. Although on that note, Marc grinned in my general direction at both shows today, only in standard me fashion, I wasn’t 100% sure he was actually smiling at me, especially since he had his mirrored shades on one of those times. I was sat in totally different places though so it would be an odd coincidence if it was indeed a coincidence. Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t know who I am… and by this point I’m pretty sure both guitarists are more than vaguely aware that I’m the nutcase who insists on them getting a cheer every time I’m in…!

So Lucas went with titty/boob and then smeg/ma as his call & responses today, admitting after the latter that it was kinda gross. Given he did the same thing at both though, I assume he got a kick out of it. He’s also sticking quite firmly with Lee Keyanus as his second support act suggestion, so I reckon he likes the laugh that one gets. And speaking of laughs; I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it before, but when Hertz comes on to shout at Franz about the protestors still being out there, he steps over the line of the ensemble just as they’re standing up in the wake of Regina kissing Franz’s cheek. As such the chain between Alex and Saran ends up between Vas’ legs and the two of them have something of a tug of war, while Hertz continues to shout at his son. Usually he finishes his conversation then snaps his fingers at Saran who nervously ducks down to let him go. Today however, Vas said ‘you can stop now’ and even though I have no idea what prompted it, it very much made me giggle!

And speaking of Alex, I watched him quite a bit today and it was wonderful. There’s been so much else going on recently, it feels like ages since he’s had my focus and I’ve missed him! Not that I have a whole lot to say, but I did notice that after Lucas stole his beer during the post-Stacee-knockout chaos, he found another bottle sitting atop one of the amps and was so delighted than he kissed it. That seems to be a bit of a theme in fact, because I definitely saw Adam tonguing the mouth of the bottle Sam threw to him in Wanted. Anyway, I thought I’d use the roadies pulling the girls off of the unconscious Stacee in Wanted as a segue into my next comment, but I couldn’t make it flow seamlessly, so I’ve gone with explaining it instead… At the end of Don’t Stop Believin’, while Luke was doing his big belty bit, Bobby was behind him and trying quite doggedly to grab his arse with both hands. This time it was up to the girls to hold him back and I was rather entertained by the whole interaction!

So stage door went pretty darn well. I said lots of passing hellos, Josh teased me about being back again and I got a Sam hug. Yay! Admittedly I didn’t talk to him for all that long, but it was still lovely to see him. I had my poster in my hand at the time and I think he asked me who I still needed, so I told him I was just waiting on Amanda. He then questioned if I had Jodie, so I admitted that I didn’t, but wasn’t sure if I should ask her since she’s not actually on it. He thought I should however, and at that moment she came out, so I let Sam go in order to go and talk to her (who even am I any more?!). Jodie was with Rhiannon and Luke, so I stopped all three of them and apparently I’m on hugging terms with Luke now, so that’s exciting!

Anyway, I told Jodie I thought she was great and Rhiannon put that into context by explaining to her that I see the show a lot. They asked me about numbers, but I couldn’t remember so I guesstimated at 80 something, with around 13 on this production, so I wasn’t far off. I then got Jodie to sign my poster, because why not, but added the disclaimer that she’s not on it. Luke told her to sign across Danielle’s face and she kind of did, which was funny and sort of annoying, but mostly funny and it’s not like Sam didn’t already sign across faces, so I can’t really complain!

I also had another long chat with Alex and just in case you weren’t already aware, I’m totally f***ing smitten. The soft spot I have for that boy is immense. He’s just too cute for words. Anyway, we mostly talked about all the cover shows they’ve had and how crazy it was at the beginning of the week when they were low enough on cast that they had to cut things. He mentioned that it had been rather stressful for a lot of people, but that he actually enjoys the craziness. He’s been a swing quite a lot in the past, so it’s just business as usual for him. On which note, I ended up explaining that I watch Ryan a lot in the ensemble scenes when he’s on because I don’t get to see him very often, although I managed to refrain from mentioning that I usually watch him when Ryan isn’t stealing my attention away… Although if Alex is even vaguely aware of this place, he’s probably not exactly oblivious to my fascination with him. Anyway, we also touched on all the cover shows I missed earlier in the tour in Darlington (I couldn’t remember where it was, but he knew which week I’d been talking about, when everyone was off sick and Ryan went on for nearly every track). I said that obviously I don’t want anyone to get ill, but I love cover shows and I’m gutted I missed so many!

I ended up hanging around til pretty late, but it was worth it when Amanda eventually appeared and I was able to complete my poster. Yay! I mean I suppose there’s a chance I might want other Stacees to sign it next year, but… Well let’s just say, I’m not holding off putting it up for that. It’s going on my wall as soon as I get home (and have had a bit of a sleep). Anyway, Amanda was surprised I knew her name, but seemed quite chuffed about it. She recognised me too and we ended up having a nice little chat. I talked about how much I love the show and she said she’s nerdy about plenty of things too and it’s good to be nerdy about stuff. I like her :P.

Of course I couldn’t leave without seeing Lucas either and while I was waiting I ended up taking to a couple that were also loitering. They’d been hanging around for a while without stopping anyone and I thought I’d best check who they were waiting for in case I could help. As it turns out they wanted to see Lucas too because they loved him so much :D. The guy had only ever seen the film before and loved it, but I think his other half had wanted to introduce him to the stage show. They’d both had a great night and had nothing but good things to say and it was really lovely to chat to them. When Lucas appeared we continued on the subject of the film, which was probably far more interesting than my train problems, which is what I ended up telling him about after they left…!

So in the end I didn’t make it back to my hotel til around midnight and I was so desperate to get inside and put my bag down that I couldn’t face stopping for food. I did intend to go back out again, but of course once I sat down I wasn’t going anywhere. I’m not sure the cereal bar I found in my bag filled the hole quite as well as a pizza would have done, but it took the edge off and at least I didn’t have to move! It was a very long day!

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,

K xx

Lost Innocence [ROA:88/13]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So it was a bit of a morning. We had a health & wellbeing day at work so my day started(ish) with a very enjoyable massage. Unfortunately it was all downhill from there, which was almost funny given that the masseuse specifically told me to try and take it easy for the rest of the day… You see, I had this brilliant plan to get my hair curled at the office, add a bit of make-up when I got to my hotel and then get photos with everyone at stage door whilst looking ravishing(ish). Only my hair looked awful and even though he didn’t use hairspray (thankfully), it still had horrible kinks in it after the curls dropped out. To add insult to injury, the trains were a total nightmare so I didn’t have time to so much as check-in to my hotel, let alone sort out my dragged-through-hair-straighteners-backwards appearance and needless to say photos were definitely out.

The real kicker though was that I had to change at Doncaster because I couldn’t afford a direct train. Only the direct train that I couldn’t afford got cancelled and everyone from that one ended up on mine. It was cool til I had to change; I had a seat and the tiny baby across the aisle didn’t cry, but then we got to Doncaster and it all went wrong. The train to Sheffield turned out to be a single carriage, possibly dating from 1903, with a stroppy conductor who wouldn’t let any more people on even though there was clearly loads of space. So I missed the train I booked, but not to worry, says the conductor, you can get any train and there’s another one in twenty minutes. Well that was just fine and dandy, because it’s not like I had places to be or anything. And luckily for us the next train had two carriages, maybe dating from as late as 1950, and it was only 5 minutes late, so I was totally winning, right?

So I did not make it to Sheffield in time to go to my hotel before the show, although I am aware it could have been so much worse and I genuinely am grateful that despite national rail’s best efforts, I got to the theatre in plenty of time. They even had a free cloakroom and chose not to throw a strop about my bag, so it all kinda worked out in the end. The best part of ‘it all worked out’ actually happened earlier in the week, however. You see when I booked this, the ticket situation wasn’t ideal. There were a handful of seats left and none of them were all that good. Given the prices I made a few compromises and for both matinees I’d booked up in the circles. When I realised I was at the back of the dress for Josh’s Drew, I was really rather gutted about it, only it turned out they hadn’t initially put the front couple of rows on sale. They added row B a few days ago and as soon as I found out I called up to move my seats, so I ended up getting to watch Josh from the middle of the second row and I was absolutely delighted. It’s also by far the smallest stage I’ve seen them at so far this tour; they were back to not really using the side platforms and they didn’t have the arch at the front at all, just a pile of amps on either side of the stage. It was kinda weird not having it and I was only recently writing about how much I like what that arch brings to the lighting design, but I won’t pretend I didn’t love the smaller stage. Even with a fairly sizeable space in front of row A, they seemed so close, it was wonderful!

Now, I have to confess, I hate having two new leads to watch at once, because I feel like whatever I’m watching, I’m constantly missing things. It was slightly easier today because obviously I have plenty of time for Jodie, so I mostly focused on Josh, but Jodie was still new and exciting, so I frequently found my attention caught by her, no matter how much I was trying to exclusively watch him. Before I get to their performances however, I want to take a moment to talk about costumes, because I’ll admit they threw me a bit. I’m not really sure what I expected Josh to be wearing, I suppose I wasn’t necessarily expecting identical to Luke, but I thought he’d be in something different. He wasn’t. He wore his usual costume, complete with bandana tied around his bicep and the only differences were the addition of the fringed leather jacket when needed and the Street Boyz outfit. The leather jacket was identical from what I could tell, as were the Joshy J jacket and shirt combo, although he was spared the horror of the leather trousers and I think his boots were slightly different. Jodie on the other hand mostly had the same costumes as Danielle, except for the boots and underwear (she doesn’t have the ropes on her Venus costume either), but there were a few differences there too. She’s got a trench coat instead of the red crocodile leather one and a yellow kimono instead of the pink one (which confused me slightly as Jodie posted a photo of herself in the pink the one other day with a reference to Heathers). She also has a red patent skirt and matching boots at the end, although she’s still wearing the fancy pinky/purple & black jacket that Danielle wore. It clashes horribly and that upsets me, but oh well :P.

So Josh was absolutely adorable as Drew, but in a totally different way to Luke. There were so many little bits that he played completely differently and I loved it, I’m just not too sure how to explain it. I think the best way I can put it is that Luke has a naivety and innocence about him, whereas Josh seems more self-conscious; he’s a little bit more mature perhaps, but that gives him a self-awareness that seems to leave him lacking in confidence as a result. They’re both just as uncertain of themselves and of Sherrie, but I felt like they come at it from very different places and it was fascinating to watch. Of course there were countless things that back up what I’ve just said, but I’ve forgotten most of the little details that stood out to me at the time.

One thing that did stick in my memory though was the scene before High Enough. Josh was pretty agitated and really tripped over the ‘when you fuuu… Stacee Jaxx’. He also kept arguing back, even after she threw the ‘just friends’ comment back in his face. He was very defensive, holding on to his righteous indignation right up until she said she’d been crazy about him. At that he stopped short and you could see the fight draining out of him as he realised exactly what he’d lost. Also, after she revealed she was a stripper (Jodie looked like she hadn’t meant to say that at all and was just as surprised by the revelation as Drew was, which was rather cute) and then attempted to correct herself to ‘exotic dancer’, Josh nodded at her in an ‘ah ok that makes sense, no biggie’ sort of way. As if he didn’t know they were essentially the same thing and he was taking her at her word, that her correction meant she wasn’t actually a stripper. I’m really not explaining any of this very well, but despite what I said earlier, there’s certainly still a bit of naivety to his Drew!

On a slightly different note though, one thing I was really entertained by was the way he acted in the ‘if you want something you can’t just wish for it’ scene (I really need a catchier name for referring to that). As Lucas was talking to him, Josh looked out at the audience several times, only he made enough of a thing of it that it was quite obvious he couldn’t see through the fourth wall at all, which I really liked. He also had a bit of a moment after the long note in Oh Sherrie, until she called his name and he abruptly snapped into what I can only refer to as ‘seduction mode’. He looked up at her, said her name in a slightly deeper tone and with such seriousness and intensity, it made me giggle. I’m not sure that was exactly the response he was going for, but it was brilliant! Anyway, needless to say I really hope I get another few chances to catch him in the role, once certainly wasn’t enough!

As for Jodie, I’ll have more to say about her tonight, but a little like Josh, she’s nowhere near as innocent as Danielle was. For example, she was all over Stacee from the start. I mean, she nearly licked his face when she leaned in towards him atop the flight cases at the end of Wanted. In fact, she also licked (or came very close to; I’m not sure if she actually made contact) Alex’s face when she pulled back after giving him his lap dance. She’s a girl after my own heart, this one! In fact, I’m half tempted to title this Face Licking, except that it feels wrong to use that phrase for something not involving Nick Kent :P. (I’m really struggling with titles though, it’s so hard to keep coming up with names, especially when you don’t want to risk wasting a ‘good’ one when there might be a more appropriate use for it later in the tour).

Anyway, speaking of pretty boys; the angles meant that I had a clear view of Alex when Stacee was being interviewed before Wanted and speaking of wanting; the way Alex gazed at Sam…! He looked how I felt, it was brilliant! Although it’s possible I looked even more smitten than that when the restroom rolled into view because Sam has apparently stopped humping the stall and whilst you’d think I’d be upset about that, the new pose is OH so much better. He was stood with his back to it instead, holding on to the rail across the top with both hands. And you remember how I like it when he does that on the platform at the side in the bigger venues? Well imagine it when he’s not wearing his jacket…! Those arms… and the way he stretches… and holy f*** it was beautiful.

On the subject of the jacket though, I was kinda relieved when he wasn’t wearing it today and not just because it hides his arms. Generally I actually quite like it; he wears it very well and I it’s really rather hot, but the trouble is there aren’t many photos of him in it so I had to base a lot of the design for Staceebear’s jacket on memory and similar products on google. I knew I’d missed a few details, but there wasn’t much I could do until I saw it in person again. Today was that day, so every time Sam appeared wearing the damn thing, I was more focused on pocket angles than the rock G-d inside…! That said, it did throw into relief something I absently noticed ages ago, but never thought to write down: When he first walks in to the Bourbon he stops in the middle of the floor and crosses his wrists high above his head (which is f***ing hot, by the way) and clicks his fingers. The click brings a roadie running to remove his jacket for him (although sadly not this ROAdie, even though I’d be more than happy to help divest Stacee of his clothing) and it’s disgustingly arrogant and insanely hot and I love it and… I really do have horrific taste in men, don’t I?!

Anyway, on a slightly different note, I’m not sure what they’re using for cocaine in this production, but whatever Sam ‘blows’ into the air is rather clumpier than I’d expect. So either their icing sugar is badly in need of sieving, or they’re using something else. Some days it looks better than others, but more entertainingly, some days it also ends up all over the ensemble. Saran ended up with a face full of it today and I’m not sure Erin escaped un-dusted either. I mean if ever there was a time for face licking…!

Moving on… I’ve always wondered what would happen if Lucas’ victim refused to tell him her name and today it finally happened (apparently for the first time, so that was even more exciting)! Of course he initially turned to her friends for assistance, which has worked for him in the past, but this time they stuck by her and wouldn’t tell him either. When it became quite clear he would not be provided with a name, he informed her that for the purposes of this show, he would be calling her Fanny from now on. Of course it’s a fairly comedic name in this modern era anyway, but seeing Lucas holding a board that said ‘I love Fanny’ has to be one of the highlights of the tour so far! I think he had a lot of fun with it too and got his own back by being more overtly crude and flirtatious with her than he usually is. Not that it was particularly obvious if you didn’t know the show, but he looked over at her lot, pulling extra faces and such. He also told her to ‘stop crying like a little b****’ at the end, so that was new!

In fact, Lucas had quite a bit of fun with the audience in general this afternoon. For one thing, the people at the end of my row (who to be fair were clearly having a great time) f***ed off as soon as Here I Go Again ended, so he made quite a thing about that before he finished the act. He also asked one of the boys in the middle of the front row to help him back onto the stage in the finale, so that was rather entertaining to watch too. Finally, on a slightly different note, but before I move on to stage door, I’m not sure exactly what happened, whether Lucas broke his scarf or it just fell off or what, but right near the beginning it ended up tied around his wrist instead of wrapped around his neck. There was some kerfuffle over it anyway and he relocated it, so then when he was waving his arms around, he accidentally smacked himself in the face with the end of it, which made me giggle more than it probably should have…!

So what I should have done after the show was go to my hotel, but it would have been at the expense of seeing the cast and that clearly wasn’t going to happen, so round to stage door I went. On the plus I hadn’t actually intended to bring the poster today (because I was going to get photos instead. Sigh), but since I had it with me anyway, I figured I may as well get it out and I managed to get a few more signatures for the collection including Zoe, Marc and both Barney & Liam, which was an unexpected bonus. They didn’t have a lot of time between shows, so in most cases I just exchanged greetings, but it was still lovely to see them all and I did have a few brief conversations. Liam was in less of a rush than the rest as he was only in for the matinee and won’t be back now til next year. It was lovely to see him though and he clearly knows exactly who I am because he commented that I’d have plenty for the blog from this afternoon’s show…! Although oddly, this feels like one of the shortest posts so far. I did struggle to get a lot of my notes down on (digital) paper though because I was too busy chatting to have a chance to write much after the interval, so there’s probably a lot missing…!

Of course I couldn’t let Josh go without complimenting him on his performance and he was nearly as self-deprecating as his Drew :P. I think it’s been a pretty crazy week for all of them though and he’s not been back from illness for long either. On which note, I also chatted to Ryan a bit, who was obviously on covering Josh’s ensemble track today. He talked about it being a very different show today, so I commented that I really can’t handle two new leads at once! He pointed out I’d only have one tonight, then asked if I knew who was doing Berlin yet. I’m not sure if I was supposed to know, I’m not sure there’s been an announcement at all, but I’ve known for a while now either way, so FYI, Cameron Blakely will be Dennis and Tori Allen-Martin will be Justice and I am SO excited! It really sucks that I have exciting new people when all I’m going to want to do is watch Sam, but it’s not like they’re in THAT many scenes together and I’ve got several shows anyway and possibly another one if I give in to temptation and book the Saturday matinee and I’d have been gutted if I’d missed them and I’m so thrilled I’m going to be there and eeeeeeeee! For the record, I was not that giddy to Ryan, he got a significantly turned down version of my excitement, but that’s how I feel generally and I was on the subject anyway, so thought I’d mention it! Weeeeeeeeeeee!

So there were a couple of ROAdies in that I knew and one of them had brought his daughters with him, so when I wasn’t talking to the company, I was talking to them. When Lucas nipped out we had a group chat about the show in general, so I didn’t have that much to add, but we did talk about the nameless victim, so that was fun. I mentioned I’d always wondered what he’d do and he admitted he hadn’t 100% decided until it actually happened. He also told us that he’d been intending to step his teasing up another notch after she swapped seats with her friends at the interval to sit further off centre (and they was pretty off centre to begin with), but she softened as the show went on, so he decided against saying anything. I can’t remember exactly what he’d planned; it was something about her not being able to escape him, but much funnier than that. I did mention the board though and I think it amused him just as much as it amused me.

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

Back On Your Feet [ROA:87/12]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So I was really quite pleased about my third row seat tonight, right up until Goliath sat down in front of me…! The Orchard has a decent rake too and even that wasn’t enough to stop him very much getting in my way. It was even worse when he stood up at the end, but it was still better than being far away or worse, not being able to see Sam for whole sections of the show, so who’s complaining?! And it’s not like I missed the best (non-trouser related) thing to happen so far this run…

Picture the scene, we’re in the Mayor’s office, Hertz is doing his thing and goes to lean arrogantly against the desk as usual… Only the desk was evidently not where Vas was expecting it to be and he missed it completely. I mean, I shouldn’t laugh, because he ended up flat on the floor and it looked rather painful, but holy f*** it was the funniest f***ing thing…! I was in tears I was laughing so hard and the cast didn’t fare much better. Every time I thought they’d reined it in, one or more of them would corpse again and Vas in particular really struggled to keep it together. It was nothing short of magnificent! [Edit: I was still laughing uncontrollably when writing this up several days after the event… Sorry, Vas!]. And just in case that wasn’t enough, Kevin referenced it too, at the start of the eminent domain scene. He started with ‘you can’t just walk in here’ as usual, but then added ‘and anyway, you keep falling over’! It was beautiful!

And speaking of beautiful… Sam :P. A while back I noticed that he’d taken to fluffling Josh when he’s standing on the flight case in Wanted and tonight he did it to Ryan too. Only Ryan is a lot fluffier than Josh, something Stacee obviously picked up on because Sam muttered ‘curly hair’ after he did it. It seemed to give him a taste for it too, because when he left the restroom after I Wanna Know What Love Is, he fluffled Ryan again (instead of Saran, as she wasn’t there). I do love a good fluffle, even if it’s only vicarious.

Anyway, back to the flight case and Stacee’s first proper interaction with Sherrie. He always leans right into her at the beginning and today Sam also added a crude finger-through-a-hole movement right by her face. I’ve not noticed him doing that before, but it seemed to be a bit of a theme, because he wasn’t the only one. I got a bit distracted at one point by Ryan and Bobby, because they seemed to be having a sort of one-upmanship contest through posing and mime. There was a lot of muscle flexing (which sadly couldn’t be appropriately appreciated thanks to their puffy roadie jackets), but Ryan also did the finger-through-a-hole move. Of course, as I’ve told you before, when Bobby does something, he fully commits, so he copied Ryan’s move and then put his whole fist through… At times this production is pure filth, I love it :P.

On which note; I’m not sure if it was just my imagination, but Sam seemed extra touchy feely with Danielle in the restroom scene this evening. I don’t think there was anything specific that I can pinpoint, it was just a vibe, but it worked for me! As for Heat Of The Moment however, that was just off the scale. For one thing, Sam kept trying to tuck money into Danielle’s clothing and he’d obviously planned it because he kept retrieving more bills from his pocket! He wasn’t overly successful in his attempts but he did manage to get one into the waistband of her garter belt and another under one of the ropes across the top of her chest. Towards the end of the scene, she took her second bra off (the fancy red & black one she wears over the top) and I wasn’t really sure where she was going with that. Sam was kneeling on the floor at the time and happened to have his hands behind his back, so for half a second I entertained the possibility she was going to use it to tie him up. Obviously she didn’t, but it was a nice thought :P. I mean, I’m sure Stacee wouldn’t have minded…!

After Luke ran off and Danielle made to go after him, Sam grabbed hold of her ankle to stop her from leaving. I actually much prefer it when he physically restrains her, because it explains why she doesn’t just walk out then and there. Stacee is no longer her focus and I don’t really think words would be enough to swing her attention back to him at that point. Anyway, tonight he effectively stopped her in her tracks and once she’s halted he then took the opportunity to walk his fingers up her back (which I’ve seen him do before, without the preceding grab). I’m not sure which part of it was the final straw today, but Danielle really emphasised every part of ‘you asshole’ before she punched him, so it came across as though Sherrie was particularly mad at him.

So I have a bit more to say about Danielle in general, but before I get there I wanted to add a few things I couldn’t work out how to fit in to the rest of the post. First off; Stacee has started falling asleep on Dennis’ shoulder after his shenanigans in the restroom. Stacee tells Dennis to get rid of Sherrie, leans against him and just sorta passes out…! Kevin ends up prodding him to wake him up for the show, at which point Sam goes seamlessly into his ‘make some dreams happen’ speech and the whole thing works really well. Also, Rhiannon has a shiny new clipboard and I couldn’t help wondering if someone had to run out to the shops between shows to pick her up a replacement! The new one appears to be made of black plastic rather than the hardboard one she used to have and I imagine it’s a bit more durable, but even so, she opted not to bang it this evening! Finally, I’m not sure I’ve mentioned the ensemble curtain call before, but it’s always fun. They each have their own little thing they do for their solo bows, starting with Paris who does a flip. Ryan was up next in Josh’s spot and he made me giggle when he moved his hands as if he was going to do a flip too before doing something a bit more low key. Unfortunately I couldn’t see Bobby, thanks to Goliath, but he always makes me laugh. He changes it up quite a lot so I’m never sure what he’s going to come out with, but whatever he does, he’s always sassy as f*** and it’s brilliant!

So, Danielle… I can’t believe we’re saying goodbye to her already and it sucks. I’m sure I’ve mentioned plenty of times before how much I’ve adored watching her, but it’s always worth saying again. She’s wonderful both on and off stage and she will be very much missed. So much so that I might actually have to go and see her in panto. And she’s a girl! I mean that alone should speak volumes to anyone who knows me well! I nearly cried on at least three occasions this evening and there was something about the way she sang a few lines (at the start of Here I Go Again and another song later on) that really caught at my emotions. I’m not even sure what was different, but I thought she sounded even more amazing as a result.

Of course she had to go out on a high and she made one hell of an entrance for her bow. Luke came on as usual, but obviously didn’t know what she was up to because he seemed rather confused to find himself alone centre stage, then from the stage left wings came Danielle, driving her little tractor, drinking her slurpee and wearing some bright green guitar shaped sunglasses. She also had a bobbed wig on over the top of her hair, but I didn’t spot that detail until she stood up. It was really quite glorious! Anyway, she then took her bow and Adam gave her a bouquet of flowers and that may have been one of the times I nearly cried. I am really gonna miss that girl :(.

So stage door was a long one because, as several people warned us on their way out, Danielle was having a bit of a party, but the last train was pretty late, so I stuck it out til (nearly) the bitter end. On the plus there were a couple of other people waiting (the Danielle fan from earlier and a guy from the Netherlands) so I wasn’t on my own and the cast mostly left in dribs and drabs, so every so often there was someone new to talk to. Anyway, despite having been on, Ryan was still first out and looked like he was in a rush, so I didn’t like to delay him, but when I checked he assured me he was fine to sign my poster (even though he had a train to catch). So it is now boy complete, woo! He also mentioned that he’d spotted me in the audience, so I giddily told him how good it was to finally see him in stage!

I exchanged greetings with most of the cast as they left, even though I didn’t converse with all of them. Paris asked the three of us at stage door when we were in next, so I told her I’d see her in Sheffield. She added that Berlin was a bit far, but I admitted that I’ll be there too… I might be wrong about this, but I think I might be getting a reputation as a ‘Crazy’ again… Oops?! On which note, when Kevin was leaving he stopped outside Danielle’s dressing room to shout things through the window like an overexcited fanboy. It was really rather funny and I totally don’t do that, so I didn’t feel like he was making fun of me so it was fiiiiine… :P. Anyway, when Vas appeared I managed to check he was ok without laughing too much and he told me he was going home to ice his hip, poor thing! Later when I saw Andy, he told me he hadn’t even seen it, he just turned round to find Vas rolling around on the floor! I really do feel for him though and I hope he’s not too battered. Still, if it’s any consolation, it genuinely made my weekend!

So I had another lovely chat with Lucas when he popped out for a pre-departure cigarette. He was worried about last trains, so I assured him I’d checked and there were plenty, then went off on one about places where they don’t run their last trains on a Saturday night… Such as that time I went to Aylesbury for Millie and had to leave before the curtain call. We also talked about Danielle’s epic final entrance. He said he didn’t know what she was going to do, but for health and safety reasons, he had been warned she was going to do something. That then reminded me about his knee, so I checked on him. He assured me he was fine and it looked much worse than it was. Apparently it was just a friction burn from crawling around on the stage, but because it was bleeding, he had to cover it and since a plaster wouldn’t stick to his hairy legs, he had to bandage it. He was rather chuffed I’d noticed, I think.

I had a nice long chat with Alex too, which was particularly lovely as I hadn’t really expected him to stop for more than a quick greeting. It had got quite late by then and I’d obviously been there a while, so he asked if I was cold. Somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad, so I assured him I had enough layers on to keep me warm! I can’t quite recall where the conversation went from there, but I know I ended up telling him that I’d booked loads of tickets for this year to make the most of Sam before he leaves. I also explained that I still need to work out next year because I got carried away with this year and therefore hardly have anything booked so far. We also talked about Danielle leaving and how easy it is to get attached in such a short time. I admitted that I nearly cried tonight, even though I hadn’t really expected to get so emotional over it. Although to be fair, I also wasn’t expecting to get giddy over chatting to Alex, but I was all beamy after he left. He’s just so frickin’ cute, I absolutely adore him.

Anyway, I kinda forgot that the band always take forever on the last night in a venue, so after Sam and Danielle left, I gave up and went home, but I did see Drew, so at least I managed to add him to the poster collection. It was only when I was looking for a spot for him to sign though that I realised quite how low on space I am and there are still a fair few people missing… Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that Sam signed over one of the photos! And speaking of Sam… He and Danielle didn’t appear til 11ish, so I was hanging around for a while, but I wasn’t in a rush and at least I got to see them. I’m apparently now on hugging terms with Danielle now too, so that was fun. There was much hugging this evening in fact and I got hello and goodbye hugs from both of them. Although Danielle had her arms full of flowers and gifts and a helium balloon in the shape of a palm tree, so she wasn’t all that easy to hug…! Anyway, I ended up hanging around with Sam while she was talking to the other fans who’d been waiting (aside from a brief interlude when he jumped in for a photo with one of them), only we kinda didn’t say much at first and it was a bit awkward… But at the same time it wasn’t because we were kinda both just stood together waiting for her… Except more than half of the reason I was still there was because I was waiting for him… Sigh. Fortunately the awkward didn’t last long and the conversation sorted itself out eventually.

He asked how many times I’d been in this week so I told him four, after which he asked how many times I’m seeing the show in Sheffield, so I told him four again…! He commented that there’s generally a better crowd at the weekend, which I agreed with and then explained how I’d realised I could do the double on Friday with just a half day off, so it would have been rude not to come. I also told him how excited I am about seeing Josh as Drew, so he pointed out I’ll get to see Jodie too as she’ll be on by then. Of course, that’s true, but I’ve got the rest of the run to see Jodie, so it’s not quite as exciting in the same way… I hinted at that point without actually saying it by adding that I love understudy shows. I also mentioned that I’d only seen Ryan on stage for the first time today, so he commented that it was my first time seeing Sinead too… which to be fair is a very good point and I’d kinda forgotten… I really don’t pay attention to girls do I…?! Although on that note, he asked if I’d noticed all the differences in Hate Myself For Loving You (which is what he called it, which amused me, because I call it Heat Of The Moment, because that’s his bit… but anyway). I told him I’d seen a few, although at the time I’d already forgotten some of the things I’d noted down and could only recall his thing with the money. Still, whilst I obviously caught a few things that they’d changed up, he left me wondering if there was anything else I missed?! But I guess I’ll never know…

When Danielle was done talking to the others, I spoke to her for a bit too, or rather, I gushed at her for a bit. I told her how great she is, how much I’ve enjoyed watching her and how much I’ll miss her. By the end I felt a bit like Sherrie talking to Stacee…! I mean, what I actually said was ‘you’ve been amazing’, but it wasn’t too far off! Anyway, she kept saying how much she’s loved it, so I pointed out that you could tell and that’s a truly wonderful thing. I’ve always said that in most cases when I really fall for a show, the company tends to love it just as much as I do and that’s what makes it truly special.

Anyway, they headed off eventually and I finally headed home. I had a brilliant day and I was still pretty giddy by the time I got back, but all that said, it sucks having to start the goodbyes this early. Because it feels like we’ve only just started and yet it’s reminding me of the far bigger goodbyes to come. I don’t just mean Sam either, because the trouble is, I’ve said goodbye to too many shows now to be able to forget how it feels at the end. From the moment I realise ‘this is home’, there’s a little voice in my head that replies with ‘yes, but for how long?’. To be fair, I’m still pretty good at squashing that voice into a corner and I don’t think it really gets in the way of my happiness, but it’s always there and with every goodbye it gets a little bit louder… And I’ve only got two more weeks of Sam. Waaaaaah!

Peace, love and holding on,

K xx

PS. I’m still getting a fairly consistent number of hits on these posts and I’m also still a tad confused over where or rather who they’re coming from, especially since there are significantly more of them than I’d ever have expected to get on a regular basis. Not that I’m complaining, obviously. I love that people apparently want to read my ramblings and it also validates the amount of time and effort I have to put in to get these published, so that is very much appreciated too. And at least everyone still seems to be talking to me, so if any of my readers ARE in the company, apparently I’ve not got myself into too much trouble (yet).

PPS. On which note… No one attacked Sam’s trousers between shows. Sad times.

Cover Show! [ROA:86/11]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So I woke up to the news that today I would finally get to see a cover show! Admittedly it was a girl cover (Sinead was on for Justice), so I figured I still wouldn’t get to see Ryan, but he mentioned last week that he’d be on at the Sheffield midweek matinee and it didn’t occur to me until yesterday that there’s only one midweek matinee, which is the one on Friday that I’m already going to, so yay! Only then the show started and the ensemble began to fill the stage and suddenly, there was Ryan! He was covering Josh’s track and having not seen a cover sheet anywhere (I found out about Sinead from twitter), I did have the briefest moment of panic over who he was on for… I was pretty sure Sam was in the building though, so I wasn’t too worried and as it turned out it was Josh himself that was off.

So I intentionally booked what I thought was as far off centre as I could get, only to sit down and find it wasn’t remotely far off centre. The trouble is, I’m getting to the point now where I feel a bit self-conscious sitting in such a conspicuous spot. Of course I still want to be at the front and it felt so good being back there tonight, but a little bit further off centre certainly wouldn’t hurt (especially if it means I’ve got a clear view of the Bourbon stage :P). It was a fairly rowdy audience though, so at least there was that and for the first time in a while I wasn’t the only one appropriately (and loudly) appreciating the band! The girls a couple of seats down from me were very into it too, it was just unfortunate they couldn’t quite handle the whole ‘clapping on the beat’ thing. And I though people clapping on the 1 and the 3 was annoying…!

Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, I was pretty excited about finally getting to see some understudies and they did not disappoint. Sinead’s Justice is totally different to Zoe’s and it was really cool getting to see another new interpretation of the character, especially now that I know this production fairly well. Waitress #1 doesn’t get to do much except for the one big belty bit in To Be With You and it was good to finally hear her spread her wings vocally. It also meant we had a few bumped up tracks; Saran was on for Waitress #1 (and sang it brilliantly; she’s got a great voice) and Paris covered Young Groupie, although obviously it wasn’t a straight swap. For some reason it wasn’t until the show actually started that it occurred to me they’d be a girl short, but needless to say, it made the ensemble scenes particularly interesting and apparently I know the show well enough now that I could pick up on most of the changes, even though they were girl-based changes :P.

And just in case the covers weren’t enough, it was also a wonderful start to the afternoon because something went wrong. Yay! Admittedly I didn’t actually see what happened, but Rhiannon did something to her clipboard when she was having a fit in the Mayor’s office and I think it snapped in half when she was banging it on the table? In any case, the paper went flying and both she and Vas cracked up, to the point that she really struggled to get ‘you won’t get away with this’ out with a straight face. As for the paper, that ended up on the floor and was retrieved by Ryan when he and Bobby came on as Stacee’s roadies. I watched them quite a bit more than usual today, because Ryan (yay!), and their shocked expressions when Bobby pulled the dildo out of Paris’ bag really tickled me.

It feels like I’ve waited forever to actually see Ryan on stage and I was really quite giddy about it finally happening. He’s an amazing dancer, which is not remotely surprising, and I loved watching him move. It certainly wasn’t just the novelty factor, or even the fluff (and holy f*** that boy is fluffy!!!), that kept my attention throughout the show. That stompy/clappy bit I love (when Dennis sings ‘I raise a toast to all of us’) was even better with Ryan involved, especially as he got really into it. He really seemed to love being on that stage and it made it such a joy to watch him. Although I did feel like I neglected Alex a bit because Ryan kept pulling my focus in ensemble scenes when I’d usually be watching him… In an odd way I kinda missed him afterwards, even though he was there the whole time… I’m weird.

Anyway, I spent a fair amount of time watching Ryan and Bobby fighting to keep the girls off of unconscious Stacee. Ryan was holding onto Paris and maybe it’s just because I know they’re good friends off stage, but they seemed to be having a lot of fun with it, which in turn made it more entertaining to watch. Also right near the beginning when Lonny mentioned the need for a love story and Bobby grabbed Ryan by the shirt, Ryan waggled his tongue at Bobby in response and I’m still really quite disappointed that they stop before they get too carried away :P. Although speaking of not getting carried away, someone kept shouting at Rhiannon and Andy when they had their not-a-kiss farewell scene. I’m not sure who it was, but a man somewhere behind me shouted at them to kiss, then added ‘with tongues’ and something else I didn’t catch, but I assume was a step up from French kissing. I was rather impressed that neither of them so much as smiled in response, although I imagine they’ve been heckled in that scene a few times before.

And continuing on the rather sad subject of no kisses… It’s official (in as much as I’ve not seen it since before Birmingham); Sam no longer snogs Kevin when Stacee arrives at the Bourbon, he just walks past him like he’s not even there. I’m quite sad about that one, even though I never quite worked out why I liked it so much in the first place. Maybe it’s just because it’s the only kissing Stacee actually gets to do? Although kissing them or not, he certainly makes his way through the girls, even if he only had one groupie sucking him off mid-show today. Admittedly I’m not sure why (I wasn’t paying sufficient attention to things that were not Stacee to know what else was going on on stage at the time), but Erin had to take one for the team and got him all to herself for that section (lucky thing :P). Also, on a not-so-different note, one thing that I’ve always found a little odd in this production is the lack of distinction that Young Groupie gets when she’s with Stacee. I felt like it was even less clear today given how distinctive Paris’ ensemble track jacket is and I suspect that if I didn’t know better I’d never have realised she was supposed to be the same person as the little school girl with the teddy bear who pops up later on when Stacee doesn’t sing Renegade (not bitter… :P). Although while I’m talking about Stacee and Young Groupie getting it on, I half caught Sam’s eye over Paris’ chest in the middle of that scene this afternoon and that was just a little bit weird…!

Anyway, back on to slightly safer ground; I was trying to make the most of Danielle today, before it’s too late (*sniffle*) and as such I fleetingly kept my eyes on her after Stacee pushed past her in Wanted. I was aware that he pushed her away by her face and always sort of assumed she would be a bit put out by that. It’s a rather degrading thing for him to do after all and besides, he’s pushing her out of the way, but I should really have known better. Of course she’s not upset, he’s Stacee Jaxx! Instead, after he passes her, she raises her hands to cup her own cheek and says wonderingly ‘he touched my face’! You know; I really do feel right at home at the Bourbon in that scene! Also, I’m not sure if it’s possible this has happened before and I just couldn’t hear it or if it was new, but when Danielle draped herself seductively over the inside of the open stall door in the restroom, she told Sam to ‘come on’, who replied with a ‘yeah, baby’ as he joined her.

So I actually got a bit choked up over the start of More Than Words this afternoon and I hadn’t even watched her video yet (see below). I’m really going to miss Danielle and her take on Sherrie. She’s been brilliant and I’ve loved watching her develop the character, even though it’s only been a few months. One thing in particular I’ve been appreciating this week is her manner with Alex outside the Venus. I love how she starts off simpering at him a bit, like she’s genuinely flattered, right up until she says ‘two for one lap dance’ and her tone shifts from sugary to sharp in an instant. She’s no fool, our Sherrie, despite her naivety at the beginning. Anyway, while I’m on the subject, I like the way Alex grabs her hand when she takes his card. I mean I say ‘like’, it’s a total dick move, but in the context, it works well and there’s just something about it that I really like… Or maybe I just like watching Alex being assertive, even if he’s being a douche at the time :P. Although speaking of assertive; I often find myself watching the pair of them in the Venus just before that scene, mostly because the choreography is so provocative, I find it oddly captivating. Maybe Danielle feels the same, because after she climbed off of Alex’s lap she leaned down and planted a kiss right on his mouth. I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t usually do that?! It was certainly different anyway, so I got a kick out of it. I kinda half caught Danielle’s eye when she stood up too, so I figured she’d probably realised I was watching them, but who knows what my expression was like at the time. Probably a beaming grin, if past experience is anything to go by!

And I seem to back on the subject of kissing again… So on that note, I happened to be watching Bobby at the end of Hit Me With Your Best Shot and as he was leaving the stage, he blew a kiss at Vas. I imagine that’s standard behaviour, but I’ve not seen it before and it made me giggle. The audience decided to turn Hertz into a panto villain today too and kept booing him, so it was even funnier in that context. In fact, after all the booing, Vas gave the audience the finger when he left at the end of Hit Me. Although for the record, a precedent had been set for that earlier in the afternoon; Kevin also flipped us off after we sympathised with Lonny following Dennis’ dismissal.

Back to our villain and when Vas tried to leave on his little digger in the Final Countdown, the thing wouldn’t start on his first attempt and he was not impressed at all. I’m not actually sure if it was genuine of just Vas messing around, but either way it made me chuckle. Not that it was the only potential technical hitch this afternoon: There was another missing narratoring follow spot. Lucas had to call for his spotlight for Stacee’s introduction and whilst normally I love a missed cue, it distracted me from appreciating Sam’s hip rotation, so I was slightly miffed :P.

So unfortunately I don’t have a trouser updates today… unless someone sneaks into Sam’s dressing room with a pair of scissors between shows… Not that I’m condoning vandalism… Obviously… *looks shifty*. Instead however, I can offer you an update on Lucas’. He’s got some pretty massive holes in his trousers (far superior to Sam’s on that front) and at some point fairly early on he did something I didn’t see that resulted in a bloody knee. When he next appeared he had a bandage wrapped around it, but he seemed ok, so I wasn’t too worried. Continuing on the trouser theme however, he forgot to do up his fly at one point, so that was fun, then when he was at the sound desk in Drew’s set, he was completely oblivious to what was going on in the room as he was far too busy holding his waistband out as far as it would go and staring down at himself. I shall leave it to the reader to decide what exactly he was so captivated by… :P.

Lucas did seem to be having some fun today though and he got to stretch his improv skills a bit more than usual too. It would appear that as soon as the final note of Here I Go rang out, some people were on their feet, so Lucas chattered at them a bit, telling them goodbye before he finished the scene properly. Also he added a bit of an Irish jig to the end of his slow claps dance today. I’ve definitely seen him do that once before, maybe at the start of the week in Birmingham, but it’s a rare treat! Incidentally, napkins were apparently also a rare treat; he’s started throwing a huge bundle of toilet paper at his victims now instead :P.

Of course, he still hands out a rose during the curtain call and this afternoon that meant he was a little late back and ended up face to face with Luke & Danielle when they came on for their bow. He dealt with this by first bowing to them, quite formally I might add, then nipping between the two of them to get to the back of the stage. It was brilliantly funny, I f***ing love him! Plus he grinned at me during the curtain call, so that helps :P. Not that he was the only one, Ryan and Danielle also smiled at me, so yay. Also, Danielle and Bobby both pretended to burn themselves on Luke when he was doing his big belty thing at end, although naturally Bobby fully committed to the mime and made my grin even wider in the process.

So stage door went pretty well. I didn’t see Sam, but did finally catch up with Lucas when he popped out for a cigarette, so that was rather lovely. They were having a surprise leaving party for Danielle, so I wasn’t sure how many of them would be out, but I saw a lot more of them than I expected. I had my poster with me and thankfully it wasn’t raining, so I asked everyone to sign who hadn’t done it already. I’ve now got all the girls except Zoe and all the boys except Ryan, but none of the band except Elliot, so I’ve got some serious work to do there. Admittedly I did see Marc, but he was rushing to get to his car before the parking ran out, so naturally I didn’t stop him. I have to say though, I got some really lovely comments about my design and I was just a bit thrilled. Several of them even said it was better than the official ones! And yes I made it purely for myself because I wanted something for my wall and there was no acceptable official alternative, but still, I put a lot of work into it and I’m proud of what I made, so to hear so many nice things from the cast was awesome. Anyway, much as I’d have loved to get one printed for Danielle as a leaving present after what she said on Thursday, I just didn’t have the time, so I sent her a digital copy instead. I’ve got no idea if she’ll do anything with it, but I mentioned to a few of them that she had it if they wanted a copy, so who knows, maybe it’ll end up on another wall somewhere too, which would be pretty darn cool.

So after spending half the year at the barricade, where half the cast still don’t know who I am, I’d kinda forgotten about the stage door turning point; That point when you’ve only really said passing hellos to people before, but you’ve been there so much that they suddenly start treating you like part of the furniture. Note: This is a good thing! I mean I’ve never really spoken to most of the girls (shocker, I know), but when I was stopping them for autographs today, I ended up chatting to some of them like we’ve been on chatting terms for ages. Plus Saran complimented me on my hair colour, so I like her now :P. Seriously though, I’m not sure I’ve ever really spoken to Adam properly before either and today we had a lovely long chat. I think he was on ‘keep Danielle away until we’re ready for her’ duty, so while she was talking to people at SD, he hung around with me.

For obvious reasons one of the main topics of conversation today was understudies and forthcoming cast changes (there are a couple of special guests for Berlin, so that’ll be exciting!). I gathered from what Rhiannon was saying to someone else that on eight show weeks, she gets a Sherrie show. She’s also doing the beginning of the week in Sheffield while Jodie gets up to speed (Jodie sat in on rehearsals back before the tour started, but hasn’t been properly rehearsed in yet), but what I hadn’t twigged until Adam mentioned it is that the reason Ryan will be on next Friday matinee is because Josh will be on for Drew! Obviously I was rather excited about that and mentioned in passing that I’d seen Josh as Judas. That then lead to a conversation about the JCS arena tour on which Lucas was cover Judas, because it turns out Adam was on that too (and covered Annas, although apparently they never went on together). So since I didn’t know him prior to this, I hadn’t even realised Adam was in that, but still admitted that I used to watch that DVD a lot back when I first started following Lucas. I’ll need to watch it again now though :P.

Of course I saw Danielle too and my goal for the day was to get a photo with her as I don’t have one yet and I’ve really rather run out of time. I was still hanging around with Adam when she came over too, so he kindly stepped up to play photographer. I do need to get pics with the rest of the cast at some point too, but I’m saving that for my next mission, once I’ve stopped lugging the poster around. Anyway, as I said, I also finally saw Lucas and as it turns out, I hadn’t told him I’m coming to Berlin… oops! I’m not sure how I managed that oversight, but he knows now so we chatted about that a little. I told him that I’m trying to keep some time back for sightseeing, but that I’ve still got my eye on another ticket. Obviously he’s not sure how much time he’ll have to see the city, but he’s been told to go to something, which I have since forgotten the name of and he had no idea what it meant either. I did suggest that he googles it before he goes rather than walking up to a local when he’s there and just saying the word to them, but whether he takes that advice is another matter :P.

I waited a little longer after that in hopes that some of the band might appear, but I’d been passing the time chatting to a Danielle fan and once she left, I lost interest and ended up departing in search of food. I’d intended to find a coffee shop and settle down for a panini, only I forgot that outside London NOTHING IS OPEN, so I eventually gave up on plan A and bought a large portion of not very nice chips from a fried chicken shop instead… I then headed back to the theatre for a much needed cuppa, only I was sat there for about 10 minutes before the cafe opened and the bar doesn’t serve tea… :/. Although on the plus, I’m broke and the whole lot cost me less than a panini would have done, so… win?

And speaking of winning; Danielle (and Sam) posted this lovely video, which I watched in parts on instagram during the interval and I couldn’t not share it…

Peace, love and turning points,
K xx

Go Long [ROA:84/9]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So inkeeping with what is apparently becoming tradition, my train was delayed, which rather sucked as I’d intended to get there early enough to pick up some tickets for Saturday without fees. Fortunately the lovely lady at the box office agreed to sell them to me anyway, only it turns out the Orchard charges fees even when buying directly from the box office (f***ers), so it didn’t make a bloody difference and I was in a flap for nothing. On the plus, the extra stalls seats that they released at some point this afternoon were still available and at least I didn’t lose out by booking them in person rather than online before I left the office. And it means I’ve got front row for the matinee (I opted for as off centre as I could get so Lucas doesn’t feel obligated to pick on me – I’ve had my turns, it’s only fair) and third row for the evening (on my new favourite side), which is a marked improvement from the overpriced restricted view ones I’ve been looking at buying for weeks.

On that note, tonight was my first non-front row seat of the tour and it was weird and wrong and I didn’t like it at all :(. I hated being so far away and there was something about the way they’d put the stage together that made me feel almost cut off from it. It had been extended to cover the pit, but obviously that part wasn’t used except for when Lucas and Rhiannon interacted with the audience and there was something about the line between the two and the haze on stage that made it feel almost like they were behind a screen. Still, there was certainly something to be said for being higher up and it was quite the novelty being able to see beyond the front line. Naturally Cum On Feel The Noize was particularly fun…!

The Orchard is obviously larger than the last couple of venues and as such, the staging has gone back to normal, which on the one hand means my restricted view on Thursday is going to suck every time Sam is on the scaffolding at the side, but on the other meant he was hanging on to the bar above his head again tonight and I am really quite fond of that. He knocked his hat off right near the beginning too and it ended up on the floor, so that was fun. Also, while I’m on the subject of headgear, something went a bit wrong with his bandana at the end of Heat Of The Moment and the bit that’s usually folded over the front and tucked underneath kinda flipped up; it looked ridiculous and I couldn’t stop laughing :P. Still, what I know you’re all really waiting to hear about is the state of his trousers and I shan’t keep you in suspense any longer. Not only has the thread snapped, but he’s ripped them right down to his knee! The fabric was gaping open the whole night and It. Was. Magical. I don’t know what I did to deserve this gift, but I assure you I am thanking the stagey gods for it!

So Sam has cut back on the weirdness with Constance since last time (for the record this occurred prior to me publishing my thoughts on the subject!) and now he just sniffs her from navel to chest before heading over to the bar. It’s far better in my opinion, and worth giving up the trembling arms for. Although on that note… Sam has arms. And I’m sure he didn’t used to, at least not to the same extent…? In any case (mostly unrelated to the arms), I ended up doing my best impression of a Dali clock over the wall of the circle during Wanted Dead Or Alive. It’s crazy; no matter how many times I see it, it doesn’t seem to affect me any less. I totally frickin’ melt every single time. Although despite a serious case of Stacee-vision, I still somehow managed to spot Bobby throwing up his arms in celebration after catching the dictaphone Sam tossed to him. I can only assume it’s because I was subconsciously looking out for it after a recent twitter exchange between the two of them caught my attention and made me chuckle.

It started when Bobby tweeted:

Every day during Dead or Alive @rockofagesuk I imagine this @NFLUK scenario… @samferriday has the dictaphone…gives the eyes and fakes out @erinbell123 …he goes long to @bobalus with the dictaphone….he’s wide open…TOUCHDOWN ARSENAL…the celebration is a 3 minute song

Then later on added:

Another touchdown pass in the matinee of @rockofagesuk from @samferriday

Which prompted the following conversation:

Sam: are we going for the two point conversion next time??? #howfarcanwego
Bobby: I’m worried @erinbell123 is gonna run a blitz defence and you’ll get sacked
Sam: I don’t think Stacee would mind that all too much I, however want the points!!!

And entertained me sufficiently that I decided to immortalise it here, despite the fact I know f*** all about American football.

So I’ve mentioned a few times that I get a kick (seamless segue, right?!) out of the occasional late follow spot, but tonight was just ridiculous! I mean I genuinely wondered if it was the kid’s first night on the job. Don’t get me wrong, I find it hilarious, but it certainly left Lucas with his narratoring work cut out for him. He had to outright ask for it at the beginning, then during Too Much Time they had it on Lucas instead of Kevin, despite the fact Kevin was singing and Lucas was just sat at the table listening to him. Lucas fixed it by looking up at the operator while pointing none to subtly at Kevin. By the end of the act he’d obviously given up and rather than gamble on it, he just told them to keep the light on him before he propositioned his victim in the front row.

Continuing on my favourite subject of f*** ups (actually that’s a lie, my favourite subject is obviously Sam’s trousers, but this is a close second), Kevin actually sang the wrong part today…! Well ok not quite, but he slightly fluffed the words and if ever there was a time for such things…! It couldn’t have been more perfect. It really made me laugh when Lucas then said ‘well yes…’. There was also an incident later on with the door to the Bourbon. I’m not actually sure when it’s supposed to come off, but it’s certainly not meant to still be there when the Kleinmans introduce Dennis to the concept of eminent domain. I’d wondered how they’d deal with it given that Hertz is supposed to leave the room so Franz can nip back for his Falco bit and his exit is tightly choreographed. They both goose-step together and then march towards the wings, which takes Hertz off stage, only he’s supposed to be leaving the bar and the move would have taken him straight past the inside of the door… Not that it would have been a disaster, but I was still intrigued and rightly so because they did deal with it. As Vas reached the door, it was pulled off stage along with him and they exited together.

So I think I’ve already established that I think Luke’s Drew is frickin’ adorable, but he’s particularly cute in his early interactions with Sherrie. I love how possessive he gets over her when Dennis offers her the job and she hugs him, but then it’s just as cute when Kevin teases him about it, poking him mercilessly when Luke gets in between them. I’ve also noticed Kevin and Lucas making crude hand movements at each other in reference to the pair of them in the immediate aftermath. Not that Drew is all sweetness and light; he still checks out her arse with the rest of them when she bends to pick up the lucky penny, even if he does look adorably self conscious when she turns back round and he pretends he wasn’t looking. He does the same thing when she bends over to get the picnic blanket at the start of their date too. Although on that note, she’s very cute over him as well. I watched Danielle quite a lot in I Wanna Rock today and other than questioning ‘where did they come from?’ when the dancers first appeared, she kinda followed him around the stage, rocking along with him and looking utterly smitten.

On a totally different note, tonight was the first time I’ve heard Rhiannon pronounce ‘Doheny’ the way I’m used to (doh-heeny as opposed to doh-eny). I’ve got no idea what prompted the change, but I’d kinda got used to it, so it jumped out at me when she changed it tonight. Interestingly however, it was only when I googled it to check the spelling that I realised La Cienega & Doheny are streets and not bars/restaurants as I’d originally assumed (without ever having given it any real thought). Learn something new… Anyway, since I’m talking about Regina, I’m also going to mention my favourite little trio of backing protestors. I love the way she’s always dragging responses from them; reprimanding them when they don’t join in with one of her ‘we’re not gonna take it’ choruses until they tiredly sing along with her or glaring at them until they give her a half-hearted ‘yeah’ in response to her ‘power to the proletariat’. It’s brilliant how easily Rhiannon can flit between the intimidating revolutionary and the painfully awkward girl she turns into around Franz. On which note, their reunion keeps getting cuter; the other day Rhiannon held up her hand for a high five, but today she just threw her arms around Andy. Also, I only noticed this recently, but immediately after that Vas beckons to her, so she walks over to him and holds out her hand for him to shake in a ‘no hard feelings’ sort of manner. Only as soon as she gets within reach, he grabs hold of her hand and pulls her into a bear hug!

So there’s something I’ve been meaning to mention for a while and it was only tonight when it didn’t happen that I finally remembered to record it. Usually when Justice tells Stacee ‘no touching, be respectful’ she points at him and Stacee being Stacee totally ignores everything she’s just said and leans down in an attempt to lick her finger tip. Only Zoe didn’t point tonight, so there was no licking or even attempted licking. Sad times. Also, I had another note from the show that was simply ‘yes’ only I couldn’t remember what it was about. After much consideration, my best guess is that what I was referring to was Stacee’s reaction after Justice sends him off with ‘Misty’. I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure there was an audible ‘yes’ from Sam as he followed Danielle to the ‘Champagne Room’ tonight. He’s very good at winding her up though; he calls her Rachel in the middle of that scene too; when she’s straddling his chest and torturing his nipples… In case you were wondering.

Back to Zoe for a moment and I really love the way she mimes Sherrie punching Stacee when she’s talking to Luke outside the Venus. She gets quite into her little mime until Luke pulls her out of it, doubting what she’s saying. Also, I was watching her a lot at the start of Every Rose and she was so emotional before she started singing. There was so much pain in her story about Edgar; you couldn’t help feeling for her. And talking of emotional; I had a real pang today in High Enough. I missed the way Drew and Sherrie used to stand next to each other at the front and he would reach towards her hand only for her to move away. I don’t think it really registered as one of the things that were gone at the start of the tour, but today I really missed it.

It was a quiet audience this evening, but I suppose that’s not unexpected for a Tuesday, even though it was fairly full. I booked quite late (after the tour had already started) so the main stalls section was full and I had to improvise. I would have booked the dress circle slips seat closest to the stage (also known as my Nick seat), but the stage left ones weren’t on sale and I was worried I’d miss too much of Stacee from stage right, so in the end I booked the seat at the auditorium end of the stage left slips instead. Only no one else booked slips seats at all and I was all by myself. I mean, there were plenty of people across the aisle from me, but when I was turned to face the stage, they may as well not have existed. I felt very much on my own and as such I chickened out of cheering for the band… I’m so sorry. I hated myself for it after, but I’m shy and Birmingham was hard enough, I just couldn’t face it… but I should have been stronger and pushed through the fear. I let them down, I let everyone down, I let myself down.

To add insult to injury, it was pouring when I left the theatre and I forgot to bring my umbrella. I did go round to stage door anyway, but once I was done jotting down blog notes and checking train times, I decided I was being ridiculous and left. I did see Adam while I was dithering and said a passing hello, but that was it. Shocking. Although to be fair, a big part of my decision was because I didn’t want any of the company to feel like they had to stand out in the rain to talk to me either, but even so. I can’t quite process the fact that I left without seeing Sam of my own free will.

Of course the thing about not waiting for the last stragglers is that you end up leaving around the same time as they do. I thought I saw Ryan on the platform, but wasn’t sure and didn’t like to intrude anyway. Only then Bobby, Erin & Saran turned up…! I said an awkward hi to the group, but kept my distance for the same reason I didn’t speak to Ryan. Obviously they didn’t have that problem and when they realised it was him, they went over to join him. Meanwhile, I apparently decided that to make up for not talking to anyone, the best course of action was to get myself into trouble on twitter instead. Admittedly I was already halfway through composing an ‘I love you all’ tweet (and finding an appropriate Sam gif for the occasion) when the cast rocked up at the station, but once I’d sent that off into the wild, I couldn’t seem to stop…

So I tweeted about tweeting when the cast were right there. And then I tweeted about not waiting for Sam and tagged him in it. And then people saw it. Cast people. Sam people. And then he liked my tweet about blog 80… And I mean, sure there’s a chance he just saw the thumbnail of himself and didn’t actually click the link (right?!), but even so, I tweeted it ages ago, so how did he even find it…?! Not that I mind him reading it, obviously, because if I did I wouldn’t have published it in the first place, but I still had a bit of a freak out, not least because I couldn’t even remember what was in that one…! I mean yes I was tweeting silliness this evening, but I wasn’t expecting the blog to get involved…! It wasn’t even the post I published today!

Every time I think I’m safe. Every single frickin’ time. I blog and tweet and no one cares and I think it’ll all be fine and then just when I’m convinced I’m home and dry, somehow or other someone sees something and I get scared of restraining orders all over again…! Although I suppose the stupidest thing is that it still surprises me, even on a day like today, which just so happens to be the anniversary of the day the Idiots first found the blog…! Still, Sam doesn’t seem to mind, Bobby keeps (possibly inadvertently) encouraging me and you know what? I’ve missed getting myself in trouble. It doesn’t happen nearly often enough any more and it’s fun… So what the f***, let’s do this!

Peace, love and twittering,
K xx

PS. So the weirdest part of this is that this morning I was seriously considering giving up on these completely. Before it suddenly got some extra attention today, my last post had only picked up 4 hits in a week and it was beginning to feel like a waste of time keeping them going. It’s an awful lot of work to get my notes into a publishable state and I’d half decided that as long as I elaborated on them sufficiently for my notes to make sense if I came back to them in the future, I could leave them unpublished and that would be enough. I mean it’s not like they’re really written to be read in any case. My intent is simply to record everything I remember as thoroughly as possible and that doesn’t make for good content. Even I don’t find the posts that interesting any more, so I can’t imagine why anyone else would bother to read them…! Still, I suppose if I’m getting hits, someone wants something from them, so who am I to deny them that? Even if it’s just the cast skimming for their own names… :P.