On August 3, Tnee and I jumped on a plane heading for London via Singapore. I must say that every time I go to Singapore I like it more and more. For four days we basically ate ourselves into a frenzy in the countless foodhalls found in the basement of every building. We also found a grungy little rehearsal room and started getting up to speed with the mammoth task of Edinburgh ahead of us. We arrived in London on August 7 and drove straight up to Edinburgh. With one day to check out the venue and finish rehearsals we then stepped onstage at the Jazz Bar to a nearly full audience. Phew, the next few shows were a bit tough as we tried to massage the show around the Edinburgh jazz audience, and we came good after about show #4! In week two I began Ella, Marilyn, Marlene and Me, my one woman musical theatre show. Again shows went well and the afternoon time slot worked a treat. We also began The Dinosaur Show at 10am. All in all I performed 36 shows in 31 days. There were three days in a row where I performed all three shows each day and amazingly, by show nine of those three days I think I turned in my best performance yet! Funny how things go.
A week in beautiful romantic Paris staying with my aunt was delightful. Tnee and I wandered around the city lost in its beauty. We even recorded “J’ai deux amour” for an upcoming doco about Paris.
Back in the UK we started the UK rural touring part of our trip. We performed in six villages in the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire areas for the UK Rural Touring Scheme. These were beautiful places with real senses of community and some pretty amazing, eccentric people to boot! We performed in whatever the village centre happened to be, a church built in 1132, a renovated scout hall, a fully fitted out proper theatre … they were all different and all a great experience.
A little time in London and then it was time to head back home. 42 shows, 9 venues, 14 beds, 6 planes, 4 hire cars, over 2000 audience members and many thousands of kilometers later we were back in Brisbane, ready for the next chapter …