Just to let you know that I’ve just fixed some new tour dates for February; firstly at Reading University and then in North Yorkshire. More details are here.
February Mini-tour
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Category Archives: Touring
All Things Must Pass (or…All Adventures Must Come to an End)
20th December 2017
In 1916, the world-famous philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell was ousted from his lectureship at Trinity College, Cambridge, because of his work for the conscientious objectors – more specifically, because of the scandal of his arrest for having written an article about one CO in particular (the much-abused Ernest Everett).
That summer, the government also denied Russell a US passport, preventing him from lecturing at Harvard, and banned him from speaking in certain parts of the UK – especially near coastal areas – ‘For fear I might signal to enemy submarines,’ as he sourly commented.
Call me Fred. Or Mick. I’m really not bothered.
17th December 2017
Five days off…to launder my costume, hang out my costume, iron my costume … to eat, sleep and catch up on the piles of admin … to be taken to the opera as a surprise … then it’s back on the road up north on November 30th for three full-on days of touring.
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The Rolling Stone in the white Peugeot van
10th December 2017
Week 8, and it’s Tuesday 14th November when I rock up to Northampton’s Royal Theatre, to play my one and only ‘main stage’ of the tour – a beautiful 500-seat Victorian theatre that I’ve performed in previously in big cast shows – but in a solo play? Just me and my nine crates? Plus two hessian sacks?
The Pacifist Who Nearly Killed Bambi
29th November 2017
‘There will be more than this won’t there?’
I was looking out at the large hexagonal hall at Leighton Park School, Reading, where I was about to perform at the start of week 7 of the tour. It was 6.05 pm. We should have started at six. I could see maybe five pupils sitting timidly to one side and perhaps 20 adults: teachers, etc.
Leo: Actors aren’t animals! They’re human beings! Max: Have you ever eaten with one?!
November 16th, 2017
One of my all-time favourite bits of dialogue, from Mel Brooks’ ‘The Producers’.
Food – where to get it from, when to have it, how much of it to have, and whether there’s enough time to digest it in before the performance – is a constant preoccupation for actors on tour, in strange towns and cities, with little time to spare. I’ve never met an actor who didn’t love their food, and who didn’t happily wolf down any sandwiches, cake or biscuits put in front of them.
Somebody sleeping in the corner of my dressing room.
Nov. 4th 2017
A black box. That’s how most theatre studio spaces are described – and indeed, that is what they usually are: a box. Painted black. Within which one tries to create a little bit of magic.
That’s what I’ve been performing This Evil Thing in, these last few weeks – black boxes – apart from the few schools, where I’ve been perched rather high on an old-fashioned-style stage looking down on the students below…and then, a complete one-off, on Friday 27th October – the Eastern Lady Chapel of Bristol Cathedral, ancient, ornate, multi-coloured, with an altar of course, and a carpet, on which I set the crates in readiness to perform the play as one of the events running alongside the ‘Refusing To Kill’ exhibition (focusing on Bristol’s WW1 conscientious objectors).
As seen in Burger King – once upon a time…
Oct. 29th 2017
‘To beep, or not to beep, that is the question…’
Is that chap about to leave or not? Can’t tell. But he doesn’t look happy.
If I beep to show him I’m waiting, will he get in a strop?
Behind me, someone has decided that ‘To beep’ is the answer to the question.
Well – to honk, loudly…
‘I’m waiting to see if this chap’s going!’ I mouth impotently back at them.
Honk! HONNNNKK!
Oh, give me a break…
Who left Winnie the Pooh for me?
Oct. 22nd 2017
33 years ago, I was being crucified nightly (twice on Thursdays and Saturdays)
in the haunting ruins of the old Cathedral in Coventry – in a production of the Medieval Mystery Plays – an extraordinary experience. Nuns, monks, and countless dog-collars were clearly visible in the audience – ‘Will I live up to these peoples’ ‘image’ of Christ?’ I asked myself each night before the plays began. My dad who, while he was alive, loyally followed me in productions all around the country, said of this one to a friend, ‘You know, it’s very hard watching your son being nailed to a cross so convincingly…’
A Worrying Show of Hands In Favour (and Disco Lights in World War One)
So the tour bandwagon rolls on from Bewdley to Stroud, forty miles or so south in Gloucestershire… the bandwagon consisting of one man and his partner – his Peugeot Partner – (not getting anything for that plug, alas) – and his nine crates lovingly made from reclaimed wood.
Michael Mears 