22/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

Nearing the end of my run in Salad Days, I’m wondering how close I should be to my character, Lord Nigel Danvers. He’s a likeable upper-class twit, or maybe just a bit too enthusiastic and keen to please, and certainly anachronistic, probably even then, but definitely now!

But my best performances have always enabled me to magnify an aspect of my own character, and this is one of those; but I felt amazingly comfortable putting on a Harris tweed jacket, and loved buying fresh carnations for my buttonhole. I mean! I’m a child of the 70s, so how much of a post-Edwardian throwback can I reasonably be?

I suppose I just need to get some distance after the show, listen to some electronica and get with the times… that is, until my next trip back to the 50s for West Side Story!

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19/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

In just a few hours, I’ll be “treading the boards” in Maidenhead, in the opening performance of the Grimm Players’ production of Salad Days. Lord Nigel Danvers is somewhere between Boris Johnson, Arthur Dent and Giles Wemmbley-Hogg, but in an endearing way. I’m glad he ends up with someone for the finale

The process of “finding” the character has been a bit illuminating… from “saying the lines” to “moving as directed” was fine, but it’s only been in the past few days that I’ve been able to trace a line through the character and do things even when I’m a) not speaking and b) not really the focus of any attention. I hope that someone notices (even if it’s only the other people on the stage…)

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16/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

Preparing for my next bit of conference blogging @ the DIA EuroMeeting next month, I’m trying some new software called Wavelog for my N95, which should be much easier and cheaper that using the Wordpress web interface. It all seems good so far, and only cost £5. The next step is to try it with my Nokia keyboard; if it works well I can go to Barcelona unencumbered by a laptop!

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09/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

As I write this, I’m half way through a run of Honk! with CAST Academy, a children’s theatre group based in Colnbrook (officially part of Slough, but I doubt the residents would agree with that!) Honk! is a bit of a special show for my family; Jessica and I played the lead roles in a Grimm Players production 5 years ago, and about a month into rehearsals we discovered that Jessica was pregnant with Thomas, our first child. So, the whole plot about Ida (Jess) looking for her lost son (me) all got a bit emotional…

But back to this production… I’m playing guitar, alongside some excellent musicians (I’m particularly impressed with the bass player, who I haven’t played with previously). I know the show inside-out, but was totally unprepared for the ridiculous key signatures that turned up in the score: everything from 5 sharps to 6 flats. There are also plenty of “stretchy” jazz voicings (most of which seem to have a major 2nd in the middle… which is fine on a piano, but VERY tough on a guitar) which seemed virtually impossible at first, but are now only impractical! This is exacerbated by the problems of monitoring, timing and coordination between cast and band that are standard to any amateur production. My performance last night was the first one that I really felt deserved to be seen by paying customers, and we’ve got two more shows today, to polish off the remaining rough edges.

In case any guitarists end up reading this, I’m playing my Variax 300, with J-200 (jumbo acoustic), Super 400 (jazz box), Les Paul Custom, Strat and Tele models saved to a custom bank, and switching to a Guild F212 (12-string acoustic) for one song. That goes into my Digitech GNX3, with a DI into the sound desk and headphones for personal monitoring (I want to hear more guitar than anyone else does!). I also used a slide for a couple of sections in the Cat’s songs, which made the Music Director smile…

After this, my next booking is a complete change of direction: playing clarinet and tenor sax for West Side Story in Henley in April. Quite how they’re going to fit a 14-piece band (including tuned percussion) into the Kenton Theatre’s tiny pit is something I can’t even guess…

I think that my clarinet needs a service before this, so I need to pop it over to Dawkes for some TLC…

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