"The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine!"

Yeh right, in my dreams!

Cheryl Cole and I finally have something in common; it’s not our long dark hair, nor the fact that I hail from Guildford where she allegedly clobbered a nightclub clerk and, no, HEAT magazine, she hasn’t suddenly ballooned to size 8, but I have been a Geordie lass for the last week.  Sadly, that is where the similarities between Cheryl and I end.  I could have chosen Jimmy Nail or Ant and Dec for that analogy but don’t judge a girl for wanting to be likened to Cheryl for a mere moment!

Avenue Q hit Newcastle-upon-Tyne last week and we all fell in love with the place.  Obviously the heat-wave may have helped brighten our mood and it can be argued that we would fall in love with any city in the 25 degree sunshine.  But the sun shone in Wolverhampton...............I rest my case!

I can be judgemental sometimes, a quality I am not proud of and knowing that Newcastle was known for the nightlife and partying, that was all I expected to find.  But lucky Granny Dani was greeted with grand Georgian architecture, castle keeps, cow-grazing on a Moor and beaches to visit!  I had a lot to do in 5 days in-between a horrific schedule of performances, (I keep forgetting the reason I get to visit all these places is the job, damn those pesky shows!)

That’s not to say that there wasn’t a stag-do in sight; I witnessed my fair share of fancy-dress characters roaming the streets and it was rumoured a score of man-sized, nappy clad babies rolled into The Holiday Inn in the early hours of Saturday morning!  A more youthful pack of lads were great ambassadors for their city when they spied our Aussie Eve from the cast sunbathing at the glorious beach in Tynemouth (yes we had a tiring week!)  Their shouts of approval echoed around the bay, bouncing off of the cliff faces, to inform us she must be highly skilled in certain sexual acts because her bum looked so nice - lovely!

I ordered a taxi home and the text I received went thus – your vehicle, a white ford transit, is waiting outside, your driver’s name is shaun.  I peered out of the window to see Shaun sat in a huge white van, I wasn’t sure if I was being taken on a stag-do or illegally smuggled across the North Sea!

But back to the wonderful city I discovered, amid the great restaurants and St James’ Park are remnants of Hadrian’s Wall and the “new” castle built by the son of William the Conqueror.  The history geek inside me was doing somersaults!  I even surpassed myself reaching new levels of Nerd-Dom as I stood with my back to the drunken stags on the Quayside and admired the mechanics of the Millennium Bridge.  Spanning the River Tyne along from the iconic Tyne Bridge, the Millennium Bridge tilts to allow boats to pass and at the risk of sounding stupid, it was so cool!!  The pedestrian and cycle paths curve upwards like some kind of ride at Alton Towers and lower again as if nothing has happened.   I’ll be sat with my sandwiches alongside a canal, applauding the rise and fall of locks, next!

Despite doing so many performances at The Theatre Royal that left our voices cracking more than the paint in our dressing rooms, I had one of my favourite weeks on tour to date.  Sign me up to The Toon Army and pour me a Newcastle Brown Ale!  The moral of the tale is “don’t judge a book by its cover” or a city at least, you never know what gems you may find beyond the Walkabout Bars and Pound Lands.

So, next time you get offered a gig in Basingstoke, give it a go; you may discover a Roman fort or at least a large branch of Primark.  It is always fun to explore!

"Papa was a rolling stone, Wherever he lay his hat was his home"

I predict that in 13 hours and 15 minutes hours I will be crying.  This is not a pessimistic prophecy on a “glass-half-empty day” but a realistic expectation judging from my recent behaviour.  You see (and this is an embarrassing revelation) at the start of each week, on the day I have to leave for a new venue on the tour, I burst into tears as I re-pack my suitcase.

It is pathetic that a grown woman is wailing like a 5 year old clinging to her mother’s skirt as I type a new and unknown postcode into my sat-nav, especially as I am only leaving to do a job I love.  But weep and wail I do, despite only having ten weeks left “on the road.”  I find it increasingly hard to leave my flat, my family and my fella.

The nomadic lifestyle of an actor is challenging.  You need to find somewhere to sleep, familiarise yourself with new theatres and cities and re-pack your clothes every 6 days.  I will always remember when I first learnt about nomads when studying the Native American Indians for GCSE History, I think it began my love of discovering new words.  You know when you secretly feel slightly more intelligent when you learn a big word and its meaning, resulting in you dropping it into random sentences for weeks on end?  No? Just me?  Well, you won’t find me using “word of the day” loo roll but that is one of my quirks.

The definition of a nomadic way of life is “communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location.”  There are approximately 30-40 million nomads in the world and perhaps our touring company of Avenue Q is included in that.  We could particularly be likened to the Peripatetic Nomads who travel about offering skills or crafts in return for food.  I have yet to be given a cheeseburger in return for a rousing chorus of “The Internet is Porn” but you get my drift!

Many cultures are traditionally nomadic so couldn’t it be argued that somewhere in the recesses of my DNA I am programmed to be a nomad?  Who am I kidding?  I can’t sleep a full night in a tent without freaking out about hedgehogs breaking in and think that Yurts are purely a “glamping” trend.  I have been fully modernised!

But it has got me thinking about the similarities between this long-established way of life and our tour around the UK.  The Native Americans just needed nature to survive; it provided them with weapons, food and shelter.  So what do my fellow cast members need?  The dominant answer was technology; we depend on iPads, iPhones and laptops to communicate with the outside world.  How did people survive before wifi and WhatsApp?  Imagine Big Chief Rain Man from Utah courting Little Dancing Queen from Missouri without Skype?

But delving beyond our technological needs revealed more about us.  For example my tour bag always has a jar of peanut butter, gravy granules and a Diptyque candle; peanut butter is my ultimate comfort food, gravy to create a roast dinner and the candle to make any room can smell like home.  My wonderful dressing room buddy's suitcase contains a wok, ketchup and a back massager, her clothes get fewer but her DVD collection increases!  Another resourceful lady has an emergency bottle of wine in her suitcase; it seems the only way to soften the blow of being stranded at Crewe Station awaiting your delayed connection!  The boys are more pragmatic; Kayi insists on Tupperware, Berocca and his own set of cutlery, Luke needs his young person’s railcard and mouthwash!  The boys also tour a football, a ukulele and a poker kit, whilst the girls depend on thick socks, teddies and a diary to record their thoughts.  It is whatever keeps you sane!

But the overwhelming response related to food.  Our basic human needs aren’t so dissimilar to indigenous cultures; they had buffalo and we have Matt’s homemade chicken seasoning!  Being able to comfort yourself with familiar food is at the top of our tour survival list until we can get back to Mum for some home-cooked goodness.

So despite loving The Rolling Stones as a band I cannot claim to be a rolling stone myself.  I am more than happy to grow moss and settle down, a word derived from the people who went to America to “settle” the Indians and their land. 

I may have ten more Mondays of tears but at least I get to share the weeks with some gorgeous, funny people that are as eccentric as I am!

"Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?" Barack Obama

The month of May is all about politics, there are elections locally and all around the world.  We have seen a new French President this week, voted Boris back in as London Mayor and had local elections which I think has put the wind up David Cameron.

Even from my touring bubble, we recognise that the real world is at odds with itself.  When the public are concerned or unhappy with “the man” we tend to vote for change, any kind of change, just think of the words sung by the girls in Sweet Charity “There’s gotta be something better than this!”  Then there is the old adage that ‘a change is as good as a rest’ but I can’t help but be reminded of a disgruntled Germany in the midst of the Depression following World War One who voted for change and what was that result?  Heil Hitler.

Politics affects everybody.  All of our working lives are plagued with politics, even our happy touring bubble of Avenue Q with its smiley puppets.  Despite doing your favourite hobby as a job, which I know is a gift, politics and grumbles creep in because we’re all human.  It is not quite “Dave from Accounts keeps stealing my favourite mug” or “Barbara only got that promotion because she displays her DDs so eloquently in the boardroom,” which can concern a more average working environment.  Well, to be fair, an element of Barbara can creep in, anyone heard of the fabled casting couch?  But our “office” is the antithesis of average; most of our luvvie “Hi babe,” bum slapping, “you %&*!!” behaviour would raise a few eyebrows in a local branch of HSBC and no doubt result in a law suit if we happened to work in mid-West America.

But wages, working hours and colleague clashes affect even responsibility-free actors because although it is your hobby, it becomes a job.  A strange thing to comprehend when you’ve dreamt about it, auditioned alongside hundreds of people and others think you’re living the life of Reilly.  But everything is relative; Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” becomes our 6pm-11pm instead. 

We feel let down politically (at least the Daily Mail does) when people and promises we’ve believed in don’t come to fruition.  We put our faith in our vote and await the changes to children’s schools, pensions (don’t get my Grandad started,) bloomin’ TFL and care for the elderly and you start to question what effect we really can have.  The politicians’ manifestos and policies are like dreams for a nation that we all invest in; the fact that Martin Luther King started his infamous political speech with the words “I have a dream..” says it all.

There is that same faith and anticipation when you start a new job; expecting the challenge, respect and support of the management.  I’ll never forget how the little 8 year old girl inside me who had dreamt about being in Les Miserables died a little when it became my working reality.  Maybe it is when dreams become accessible that they lose their sheen or is that just growing up?   

But as we can’t put an X in a box and have a say in our working life then you need to find a way to dodge the politics and try to sail on throughout the day until you can get home and go to Zumba or down a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.  I think it is all about keeping that element of the dream going inside of you, remembering why you are there without getting dragged into the mire of discontentment.  I am not saying get all new-age and meditate yourself above the rabble.  There is no need to grow dreadlocks or wear a flowing skirt; you can appreciate your lot and still aspire for better without surrounding your work station with healing crystals and incense sticks.  But politically speaking, surely little changes can result in a big one?

I guess the only real change you can make is to yourself and hope the world follows suit!

Rainy days and Sundays always get me down.....

Well, the Sunday part of that quote isn’t quite true; it is my one day off from work and the tour so I actually live for each Sunday and the promise of seeing loved ones but rainy days do get me down.  At the risk of being quintessentially English and at a loss for things to say (a great trait in a writer I hear you scoff!) I am mentioning the weather.  Everybody else is; droughts, hose pipe bans, torrential rain for weeks and a tornado north of Oxford!  I saw that one on the news on Monday, there must be a very confused girl in gingham with pigtails having landed in Sunderland lamenting “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Banbury anymore!”

We all thought Spring had sprung but it has sprung a leak and I have to admit it has made me lose my touring mojo.  A fellow cast member and I reflected on this as we went for a run yesterday (in the rain) realising we hadn’t been sightseeing in the last few weeks or made the most of the cities we’ve visited.  I dripped my way through Oxford quite glad at the respite of spending nearly every day rehearsing inside work and Leicester went past in a grey haze.  Instead of exploring the Oxford Spires or the potentially pretty Victoria Park surrounding DeMontfort Hall I have rediscovered my love for DVD boxsets and crawling back into bed as the clouds continue to batter Britain.  This is not normal me behaviour since I past 25 years old and is quite frankly concerning me.

I don’t think I suffer from that SAD syndrome where people suffer depression during the winter months but I certainly feel brighter and have a zest for life when the sun is out.  Don’t we all?  I tried to fake it with a visit to a sunbed centre which only resulted in a sweatier show than normal and a seriously bad burnt bum-cheeks situation. 

Maybe I am just hibernating and conserving energy for work or maybe I need to google anti-rain dance rituals.  If you see a girl banging sticks and wailing at the sky outside The Salford Lowry Theatre you may want to stay away as I will have finally lost the plot or join in, you never know we could coax out the sun with a group onslaught!  We’re heading to Glasgow next week so we need all the help we can get!