Monday 8th August

So, I have opened THIS EVIL THING at New Town Theatre, Edinburgh, with the help of my brilliant team, director Ros Hutt and sound designer Mark Noble.  Various teething problems with lighting boards and so on, but the incredibly mature and experienced Mark (aged 24) has dealt with them all.

First two performances last week went very well, including the two who travelled down from Dunblane and were very moved by the whole experience.

Also a father with his 11 year old son.  A woman in the audience accosted the man afterwards asking, How old is he?  Your son? How old is he?’
‘Erm, 11,’ answered the father.
‘And did he get anything from the play?’ she persisted.
‘Yes, he did.’
‘Right, then I’m coming back with my 13 year old, thank you!’

The next day a third of my audience were asleep for most of the performance.  A third.  That’s one in three.  Yes, one of the three people in my audience that day was asleep.  Because of the heat perhaps.  But the other two were very much awake and seemed riveted by the events unfolding before them.  Thank goodness.  I was battling a bad throat too, but because of the intimacy of the space and the size of the audience I could afford not to push too much.

‘Inspirational and disturbing…this is important, vital polemic,’ said Festmag online, for which many thanks.

Oh and thanks to Kleen dry cleaners who just took in my hulking bag of sweaty laundry from the first week here.  ‘It’s alright – I know how to spell your surname,’ said the lady in the shop.  ‘Mears is my maiden name.’

So one Mears is looking after another, in this stunningly beautiful city.