(THE MISTAKE tour 2023)

So I’m strolling over Waterloo Bridge, it’s not quite sunset yet, this is back in early May, strolling with my great friend Marcia, hugely talented director, playwright and sometime actor.  She lives in Canada, has dual nationality, her mother still lives in London and Marcia is back to visit her.  ‘How is the tour shaping up?’ she asks me.  ‘Oh, it’s all coming together well, my only headache is that I’m having trouble finding a stage manager.’  Marcia thinks for a moment, asks me what the tour dates are, then says, ‘I may have the perfect person for you.’  ‘What, you know some UK stage managers?’  ‘No, this one is Canadian.’  ‘Well, how’s that going to work?’ I ask. ‘She’s coming to the UK on a 2-year visa in just a few weeks and will be looking for theatre work.  She also wants to explore the country – so your tour could be ideal.’ 

‘Can she drive,’ I ask? 

‘Yes.’

But on the wrong side of the road, I think to myself. 

I later learn that Kelly, for that is her name, can also only drive automatic.  That’s the favoured choice in north America.  So I will need to source and hire an automatic van – not so easy to come by. 

But I do, and Kelly arrives in the UK, and is absolutely up for the job, stage managing on the tour of THE MISTAKE, knowing that into the bargain she will get to see York, Chester, Canterbury, Brighton, Chichester, Stratford-on-Avon and a host of other places, even if only fleetingly.  Then WHAM!  She contracts Covid in the second week of rehearsals – having avoided it all through the pandemic in Canada – and has to take the best part of two weeks off, meaning I have to fall back into temporary stage management duties, as well as acting, writing, organising, hiring vans, you name it…

But rehearsals continue apace – in the splendid Sands Films Studios, Rotherhithe – and Kelly eventually returns to us, and meanwhile Riko Nakazono, my new-co-performer, has been getting her hugely challenging role under her belt, thanks to the expert guidance of our director Rosamunde Hutt, and with extra voice coaching from the brilliant Kate Godfrey, and before we know it, it’s Tuesday September 5^th…

Did you hear the one about the Canadian, the Japanese and the half-Italian, who set off round England and Wales for two months to perform a play about Hiroshima and the first atomic bomb?

No?  Well, it’s not a joke, it’s a reality…and first stop is Dartington in Devon, where THE MISTAKE tour opens on Friday Sept. 8^th… Watch this space for more news over the next few weeks…and I very much hope that news won’t include being pulled over by police for driving on the wrong side of the road… 

Photo of Riko Nakazono by SIMON RICHARDSON