THE GIG OF THE CENTURY!

Firstly: We Rocked. Think Pink Floyd live at Pompeii, then scale down the budget and relocate to Shoreditch.

Secondly: More respect due to GG and his total fearlessness when confronted with a strumpet with a trumpet. The usual band on-stage hierarchy involves lead singers/guitar-heroes and their egos at the front, horns and backing vocalists at the back. So when GG asks me where I want to play, I'm assuming he's asking whether I want back right or back left. I'm not that bothered.

He puts me at the front. It's a new experience. And let me say, just for the record, I definitely play better at the front. Grant himself, looking like a mad professor who has just emerged from a wind tunnel, flanked by the Strumpet and on the other side Fiddler Harris*, with his equally mad hair and Byronesque bowing. Bring it on!

To be fair to the others, you simply can't put a cello on the front row. They take up too much bloody room! Ditto drummers. I think if Jari had been on the front row with her accordion she'd have been sick, keyboards are a trip hazard, and as for theremin players... they just look plain weird. Everyone is rocking out on stage and then there's this guy with a box with an aerial standing absolutely stock still with his hands a metre or so apart. He can't move. If he even breathes, he changes the pitch of the theremin. Fascinating, but a breed apart.

Thirdly: We rocked. Did I already mention that? You should have been there.

* He's a master of the art of violinnning. Not a dirty old man. Just thought I'd clear that up.

Seven Musicians In A Very Small Kitchen (and that's just the ones that made it today)

I'd like to take a moment to give respect to Grant Gordon, composer of 'Century':

"...an ambitious, experimental total theatre experience. Acoustic and electric instruments mix with samples, sound effects, archive news reel, and project specific speech interviews from witnesses of the events"

That blurb is not what inspires respect. The respect is for this:

Me: Grant, don't you think this might be a case of 'less is more'?

Grant: No, Lally. More is always more in my book. I want as much trumpet as possible.

With an attitude like that how could I fail to have an utterly fantastic weekend? Aside from the deep joy of making music with loads of mates, some old, some young new, how amazing to be working with a man, (what's more a twanger of strings!) who blatantly does not fear the mighty horn. Bring. It. On.

He has also been completely unfazed by my lack of availability for rehearsals. Mind you, having listened to the rehearsal CD non-stop for 11 hours in the car (6 hours down, 5 hours back), I probably know it better than he does himself.

Over the course of this weekend, Grant and Jari have had in their kitchen the following: Cello, electric bass, bongos (in lieu of proper kit, the ONLY concession to the neighbours), accordian, amplified acoustic guitars, fiddle, 2 keyboards, a mini cinema and of course my trumpet.

For those of you that are free, the gig is next Saturday, for one night only, at Rich Mix in Shoreditch. It'll be an amazing concert. Come if you can. If you book in advance it's only £8. If you're a last minute Lionel, it'll be £11 on the door. I was blown away by what we did today. I'm almost sorry I'm in it, as it means I won't get to be in the audience. But you can be, follow this link:

http://www.richmix.org.uk/aandc_century.htm

Be there or be a triangle

Rehearsals Week One

THINGS THAT ARE BRILLIANT:

Having a job and all the associated joy that comes with gainful employment, to wit self respect, paying the mortgage, eating...

The staff at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. My they're a jolly bunch! People take tea breaks at the same time and make cake for each other.

The 'Marlene' team. Like them all immensely. The Musical Director I know of old. When I was in Keswick giving my Hedgehog and Fox in 'Wind In The Willows' he taught me to play poker. He's also a fine instrumentalist, composer and arranger but stuff all that. I'm hoping that this summer will see my texas hold 'em skills honed to the point where the Man in Black, the Ginger Annihilator and the Guerilla Gardener are shaking in their Corrèzian boots. Bring on the winter tournament!

Special mention for Sarah Parks who is playing Marlene and is going to be BRILLIANT! Ably supported by moi as Vivian, her manager/lover. Book your tickets now! And yes, we have to kiss. Get over yourself. Stephen Joseph Theatre

Having the third and final member of the cast in place. They have been looking for the taciturn 'Mutti' for a while now. Did I say taciturn? Perhaps 'Trappist' would be a better description. However, now we are overjoyed to be joined by the lovely Rebecca Jenkins, whom I worked with in the West End several years ago. I have managed to erase all details of that particular show from my head and replace them with memories of jolliness in Groucho. Such was the trauma of Sweeney Todd. She'll join us next week with her cello.

Ozzy Clarke Suit: As a proper American intellectual lesbian in the '70s, the designer has drawn me in an Ozzy Clarke suit. Oh yes. I'm not kidding myself that the budget of a repertory theatre in these straightened times will stretch to an original, but still... In my head, we're doing a play called 'Vivian'. I am wearing the suit and Marlene's dress comes from Primark.

THINGS THAT ARE LESS BRILLIANT BUT ONLY SLIGHTLY:

The amount of practice I am going to have to do on the French Horn in order to sound half decent. When Marlene does her concert at the end of the show, I play in her band. Trumpet I was expecting. But think about the cello and the horn in glorious counterpoint and understand that I will do what it takes.

Paying £45 to get my car stereo fixed. This car has its gear box welded together and the engine is patched with polyfiller, but that little citroen has taken me from Leeds to London, to St Germain-les-Belles and back, and up to Scarborough. And now the stereo works, so bring it on!

How little work I have done on Grant Gordon's epic musical "Century" in which I am performing a week on Saturday at Rich Mix in Shoreditch. Check it out, if you fancy it, come along. If enough of you commit, I'll up the ante and do some practice, promise! ;-)

How much my boobs are hurting at the moment. Sorry if that's an over-share too far for those of you not familiar with my blogging style, but they do!! And they have been since I left France. Maybe it's psychosomatic.

How much colder here it is here in Scarborough than the Haute Vienne. I know, I know. I'm several hundred miles further north, but still... Last Friday, I had dinner at this amazing little auberge in La Porcherie, OUTDOORS as the sun went down. Sigh.