Tim's Tour Blog Part 5

So, I've been getting a little behind on the blogs but luckily I've been keeping notes along the way, sort of...

All it says for Newbury is "oh my God a huge dog". Sometimes notes are useful and other times...

So we travelled to Exeter via some of the silliest named places in the UK - Honiton, Feniton and Whimple among others. Staying in a nice little hotel close to the curiously named 'Dinosaur Cafe' (selling Turkish Meze, obviously:).

We walked each day to the great Northcott Theatre inside Exeter University. The University had more hills than Teletubby land (and steeper!) which was exhausting even for us 'fit' dancers, but would also explain why all the students were mostly tall, slim and attractive...

That was until the night time when after a well subscribed performance, we visited the town centre to search for nourishment and it appeared that the entire student population had turned into Smurfs! Apparently the town had been taken over by a Smurf themed charity pub crawl, maybe we could have a Smurf-themed charity performance one day... hmm...

And so on to Taunton, which I'm convinced isn't a real place, it seems to consist entirely of roundabouts and commercial parks nearly-impossible to navigate by foot. Being practically the only place to eat other than Pizza Hut, we had a lovely meal in the hotel restaurant with most of the company and some insanely enormous ice cream sundaes consumed by a very happy then slightly sick Panos. We were served by some very nice staff there who nicely balanced out the less than friendly hotel staff at the Taunton Premier Travel Inn (NAME AND SHAME!). Oooh! It could be a silly rumour, but someone told me that on Christmas Eve if you are named Mary or Joseph - you can stay at the (Travel) Inn for free! In Taunton, our performance at Tacchi Morris Centre went very nicely, I always like performing there because the audience is very close and I can see them :)

Upon arriving to our hotel in Southport we were greeted by a bevvy of space maidens, because of a 'hair show' that evening in the hotel. These were the last young people we seemed to see in the hotel because breakfast turned into a kind of bingo style lottery, with endless amounts of cauliflower haired old ladies and gentlemen waiting eagerly for their room numbers to be called in order for them to be sat. It was only later that we found out from house technicians at the theatre, the hotel has the unfortunate nickname of 'God's waiting room'. A decent last performance before our London run...

Ending the tour in London was really exciting. Performing in the place we consider home is brilliant, but even more so when you get featured in the 'local' paper - none other than page 3 of the Metro! But it wasn't the impressive photos or the fame of being presented to thousands of bleary-eyed commuters that excited the company's over-thirties: it was the description of the cast as 'talented YOUNG dancers'!

Three sell-out performances at the Peacock Theatre to just under 3000 people was a fantastic way to end our Yesterday Tour! We just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who saw the show and enjoyed it!

Look out for more Blogs in 2009 as things get even more exciting when Jasmin Vardimon Company are let loose abroad...

Tim's Tour Blog Part 4

Apologies for the food-fest that was the last blog, I shall try and steer clear of mealtimes this week (who says dancers don't eat!)...

So most of the company went home for the weekend, but I travelled straight to Manchester for a nice weekend with my beautiful parents (who are gradually adopting the whole company!). I like performing at the Lowry as it holds many memories - for many of us our first 2 weeks with the company were spent there and our first tour ended there. For me, it's about as near to home as we get and so my friends from home can come which is great! (Hi to The Old Man and The Hero).

2 performances in Manchester means 1 morning off, and a few of us went to the Imperial War Museum which was a pretty cool place with a great viewing platform to see the whole of Salford Quays. For the first time on the tour there was a strange silence during our pre-show preparations - no last minute sound checking!

Manchester was pretty cold which made me doubt that I had packed an adequate winter wardrobe for the impending trip north to Inverness (which apparently is in line with Sweden) Brrr...

It was the turn of Miffy and I to travel early morning ahead of everyone to lead one of our numerous Workshops. We got a very tiny plane (which had propellors!) to the suitably playmobil-sized Inverness airport, flying over beautiful snow-capped mountains. Arriving a little too early to check in to our hotel (by 4hours) the only option was shopping *DANGER*! Er... I might have accidentally bought a kilt... The lady warned me not to believe the rumours and always wear undergarments - Thanks for the tip.

Had a good evening of workshops at the stunning Eden Court (yay for heated floors!), taking over a Musical Theatre and Jazz class for some Jasmin Vardimon Company action! On the performance day we had the luxury of having access to a sauna in our hotel (Thank You Tour Manager!) which was a luxury pre-warm-up-warm-up!

The morning after our performance, I was alarmingly woken up by a chamber maid dressed in a pink sparkly cowboy outfit knocking on the door (don't ask) then we did another workshop before travelling south to Stirling. We all went different ways, some in the van with the technical crew telling tales of 'relentless scenery' and some on the train appreciating the views at speed.

Halloween meant there was only one choice for entertainment- a scary movie. We went for the only one available - A Swedish Vampire Movie (no really!) - although it was slightly tongue-in-cheek and had some decent one-liners, I think Sweden should probably stick to flat-pack furniture and elk-salami!

We had a lovely reaction in Scotland! What is it about these rowdy Celtic audiences? There must be something in the blood that makes them go crazy for exposed flesh! Ha ha! I really like Scotland and the Scottish folk are always very friendly (Hello to Pete and his minions!). Back to London before the final leg!

Tim's Tour Blog Part Three

Observation: It seems that in Poole, a large percentage of the population seem to carry a walking stick- on one hand this makes pavement transport a little slow, but means that travelling with wheelie-cases is a breeze because of the high ratio of ramps to stairs!

Following a show at the lovely Lighthouse theatre, we consumed our first Indian meal of the tour. You may remember that due to late finishing times on the last tour, Indian was pretty much the only thing open after shows - so we have done pretty well to go so far without! At the restaurant where the staff were particularly (over)friendly, a disasterous game of 'guess the nationality' was played where Chinese/Japanese = Korean
Italian/Spanish = Israeli
Scottish/Welsh = German
We didn't tip well that night...

Having not learnt her lesson on the last tour, a certain company member decides that she will show off...

(The names have been changed to protect the innocent)

Dancer : I'll have the hottest thing on the menu
Waiter : Are you sure? I'd hate to see a pretty girl cry...
Dancer : yes yes...
*minutes later*
Waiter : I just had to leave the kitchen whilst the chef made it as it is so hot
Dancer : I'm used to it...
*food arrives, a few mouthfuls are consumed*
Waiter : How is it...?
Dancer : erm... Can it be made any cooler...

In Shrewsbury we were welcomed by castles and beautiful cobbled streets. The most amazing and civilized meal of the tour was enjoyed in the amazing leopard print surroundings of one of the town's many charming pubs. The three course amazingness (ending with sticky toffee pudding so beautiful that it nearly made me cry) cost a chunk over our living allowance, but was well worth it. This will be very hard to beat.

Reaching the half-way point of the tour there are 2 questions that have been concerning me...
1) What do you do if I throw up/have a nosebleed on stage?
2) Do I have to eat cooked breakfast every morning just because it is provided?
Answers on a postcard...

Then came Derby...
The date we had been waiting for with excitement an dread...
The smallest stage of the tour at Dèda...
and...
After all of the worry regarding spacing - It was actually fine!
A few close calls but, nothing terrible!
The audience was one of the most intimate yet and reacted really well to being so close!

Again in Derby we had the luxury of having 2 shows in one place which means a bit of a lie in, but also as we are finding - spending money, buying everything from winter coats and hog roasts to antlers...

At this halfway point I should probably say cheers for all the lovely feedback we've been getting! We've had warm applause and saucy cat calls and it's really nice to read your comments on Facebook, Myspace, the new site and from the Comment forms at the theatres. Seriously, we do read them so thanks for making the effort - It's great to know you're enjoying the show so much!

Tim's Tour Blog Part Two

Birmingham - DanceXchange was pretty cool with its lovely studios, views of the shiny new city and the amazing Bullring building. Our first 2 night run since Brighton went very well apart from managing to elbow myself in the knee (yes, really!) and being a little tricky backstage doing our quick changes in a cupboard!

After the show on Friday we really got to experience Birmingham nightlife (though not directly) due to some genius building the hotel on top of a nightclub. Hurrah! It wasn't that I couldn't sleep because of the music being loud, incessant and on until 5am - but rather because it was actually quite good and made me boogie a bit. David pointed out that the hotel had no 'customer comment' forms, despite having the corporate motto of 'your smile is our reward'. Most of the company weren't smiling in the morning...

24 hours in London before zooming to Ipswich for our first and only Sunday show. We had been anticipating some technical difficulties with this performance due to it's unique octagonal stage, but actually it was quite nice to have so much space! And kudos for providing sandwiches and being the first venue to provide toilet reading material in the form of the bestseller (apparently) '101 things your cat would ask your vet - if it could talk'!

As if to be some kind of sign of the strange evening ahead, we discovered a foot-long baby snake in the middle of Ipswich high street. After trying to palm it off to two of the most butch looking locals we could find (who both ran away like girls!), we sadly had to leave it on its way. To Sssssssomerfield or something (apologies, that was terrible).

The hotel was a unique experience, an old building covered in 70's movie posters, tribal masks and other knick-knacks. We retired to the dining room discussing scary movies over our take-aways and noticed that the dining chairs were adorned with coats that seemed to belong to nobody. A little freaked out, we headed to our rooms where staircases leading to nowhere made us wonder if we would hear some kind of bumps in the night. We survived though, heading to Cambridge bright and early. A place with many many bicycles but not many people riding them... Following a fairly smooth performance we were bundled into taxis and fed pizza on the train back home for a quick rest before Newport.

Upon our late arrival in Newport we struggled to find any restaurants open. It would seem that home cooked food in Wales is more popular. This point was proven when we finally found a charming Portuguese restaurant covered in trompe d'oeil, where the food took a little while but was brilliant (and incidentally cooked by Mama!). The theatre was pretty massive which made spacing a doddle and for the first time we got wolf-whistles from the feisty Welsh during a certain section of the show, can you guess which...?

And so the tour has begun...

Hey, my name is Tim and I'm one of the company members who will be blogging throughout the tour! We've all been working really hard for the last few months to get 'Yesterday' ready for performance. It's great to be celebrating ten years of Jasmin's work with some of the highlights of her past work along with some exciting new sections too! The Blog will aim to give a bit of an insight into what we get up to on tour behind the scenes!

The piece premiered in Brighton in September (with some lovely weather) and we have since headed to Bracknell (with a particularly excitable audience), Kendal (with torrential downpour) and Tewkesbury (where the town drunks seemed to drink cough medicine).

As soon as I walked into the theatre in Tewkesbury I was greeted with 'You must be a dancer, you look like one!'. Upon challenging this statement, I was told that had I been a musician, I would have been carrying a guitar and wearing a big wooly hat. Fair enough I thought, but was still unsure as to what the exact qualities were that made me so obviously a dancer? - was I standing particularly straight? Was it my silly trainers? Perhaps it was my graceful manner? (Ha!)

Despite starting slightly late due to the massive technical preparations required by the show (I'll go into that another time!) the show went pretty smoothly with an impromptu post show discussion held afterwards - with thanks to my old college principle (Hello :)

And so the tour has begun, next stop... Birmingham