Well, done and dusted! And excellent it was too - no problems with lines last night, and everybody was just really "rock and roll" as Dave would say. Very good performances throughout - one of our best. I want to do it again now, but I can't. Pah.

First night last night, and it went very well - except I flubbed a line, but that happens. Didn't throw me too much. It was in the speech I thought I'd have trouble with, too; one I'd gone over and over again until I could just parrot it back. But everything else was just fine and dandy. We're sold out, so no tickets on the door I'm afraid.

Pics of the last production - haven't got the production page on the main website up yet, but hopefully that'll be done later in the week. Or when I get round to it.

Didn't blog much about our last production, possibly because it was an absolute bloody nightmare in many ways! But as always somehow happens, everything came together in the last few days to produce an excellent show. The show was Now That's What I Call Ubu!, a compilation of edited versions of Jarry's Ubu plays, with a framing story and linking bits written by my lovely and talented wife and additional scenes by Rhys and Anne, two other members of the company.

I think the audience were a bit shellshocked. It's an hour and a half of mad slapstick insanity. "Did you enjoy it?" I'd ask, and they'd look at me with glazed eyes and slightly blown minds and say, "er.. yeeess?" It was certainly an experience.

Annoyingly, only the first play - Ubu Roi is really remembered, despite the fact that the other two plays are actually better. They weren't performed in Jarry's lifetime, though, and Roi caused a riot.

The next one will be a bit more sedate, hopefully - the Bard's Love's Labours Lost. I'm terrified; I've never done Shakespeare - but I'm looking forward to it. It's a shame we're going to lose a lot of the current company, who are students. A really lovely crowd. Best of luck to them all.

And Road is done; a fantastic show it was too. And a fantastic aftershow party too, for the first time in a while. It's good having some young people in the company! There are more pics on the Castaway website.

Our latest Castaway production is Jim Cartwright's ''Road'', set in a deprived Lancashire town in the bad old days of Thatcherism. It's turning out to be awesome, and runs from Wednesday to Friday. Here's the blurb:

Castaway celebrate eighteen years of producing cutting edge theatre at the Arts Centre with Cartwright's classic play from 1986 - probably the most important play to emerge from the decade. Set in a tiny pocket of derelict Lancashire, Road is an uncompromising depiction of working class life in Thatcher's Britain. Your host is the drunken Scullery. During one booze fuelled evening he introduces us to a veritable pot-pourri of characters -beer flows, music plays, dreams are shattered and one record helps four young people tomake a startling discovery. Castaway's large and talented cast embrace Cartwright's raw poetry with vigour and energy... and (of course) a stunning soundtrack compliments the action!

Tickets are available from the Arts Centre if you're quick.

Incidentally, the Wikipedia page above mentions that it was done in New York at one point. With Kevin Bacon (as the Soldier, Brink and Joey). Apparently it didn't entirely work.

UPDATE: damn, really should have posted this before today! All tickets gone. Actually, that's pretty gratifying - but it does you people no good at all!

Should have mentioned this oooh, ages ago, but there are now pictures of Return to Albion. I've put them into a Flickr set, too:

Return to Albion is done. It went very well, I think. Certainly a lot better than we thought it was going to go: It was a devised piece (an almost oxymoronic term which means we wrote and developed it ourselves during the rehearsal process), and up until last week it really felt like a whole bunch of sketches and monologues. But it really came together in the final rehearsal week as the fat was cut away, revealing the common threads that had always unified it. Got a whole bunch of laughs, too, on the second night in particular.

I only had a small part, as I mentioned before - the Amazing Barry, a washed-up stage magician reduced to working on the streets. I shall miss him.

Sadly, I'm stuck in the office again firefighting while my castly cohorts are having their aftershow. Buggery.

Our latest production, Return to Albion, is going well, but it's a bit of an odd one for me - because of work pressures, I've had relatively little involvement in the rehearsal process, and my scene is quite self-contained; also, work pressures continue so I can't really get my head into the whole thing. Still, it's an excellent show and we wrote it all ourselves! There will be pictures.

Went brilliantly - bloody marvellous production, but one of the hardest we've ever done in many ways: it was very difficult getting people together to rehearse, and the language was astonishingly difficult. We could have had better audiences too, but then the publicity er.. wasn't. Oh well. Pictures soon!

Phew... that went really well, and my voice did hold out (thanks for the advice, Mel - I didn't have time to get the stuff today but might well have a look tomorrow.)

Anyway, there are still seats left for both performances tomorrow - Llanbadarn Church, doors open at 2pm for the matinee and 7pm for the evening. If you're around, come along - it's a good show (although a complete bugger to learn!) You can pay on the door, too.

Hello, you lot. Castaway's latest production - Tony Harrison's adaptation/translation of the medieval Passion - is going up tonight in Llanbadarn Church. Doors open at seven, there's a matinee tomorrow afternoon and another evening performance too. Judging by last night's dress, it should be good. Provided I get my voice back!

Blimey, that play took it out of us. The situations and characters in it are so unpleasant, they get inside your head; but while you're working on the piece you don't notice. It's when it all stops that it catches up with you. As soon as I got in after the last night I had to have a bath, to wash the Philosophical Lieutenant out of me.

Our new show, The Possibilities by Howard Barker, is going up tonight for two nights. Tickets are still available! It's turned out bloody brilliant too, our best Proper Acting play for ages. Come and see it, please!

I keep forgetting to post this, because I'm an idiot. Our Day Out went very well, sold out (in fact oversold) on both nights, and a lot of fun was had by all. There are pictures and a review on the web site. Here's a bit from the review:

Jim Finnis putting his wealth of talent in good-humoured roles to great use and proving, in the role of Colin, a reluctant heart-throb for schoolgirls Linda and Jackie, played by Sarah Mair Gates and Norma Izon respectively, both of whom played their parts with voluptuous flair and northern sharpness. Matt Fullwood played the bad-tempered headmistress' lackey Mr. Briggs with a great variation of texture, humour and tone, while Lauren Hodgkins showed similar depth of characterisation as Susan, particularly in a riotous mock-seduction scene with schoolboy Reilly, played with handsome cockiness by Dan Frost. All of the above, as well as other characters, were given a beautifully laconic support by Stephanie Gunner and Catrin Fflûr Huws' Bored Girls, whose downbeat attitudes were hilarious from start to end.

So that's good notices for just about everyone. He goes on:

Special mention should be made of Lindsay Blumfield, who as Carol - the backstreet girl with longings and dreams - gave the most heart-wrenching, beautifully nuanced performance, particularly in her latter scenes, helping to capture the shifts in mood that make this laugh-out-loud comedy much more than just that.

which is spot-on, it's one of the best things I've seen Lindsay do. For some reason, though, there's no mention of Lizzie's Mrs Kay, which is criminal.

Todays top spam sender name: Frasquito Brown. I hope they're not googling for these; I could be making myself a prime target for something or other. Anyway. Dress rehearsal/preview performance of Our Day Out tonight, performance nights are tomorrow and Saturday. There are still tickets available, come and see us - it should be a good show! I'm glad I asked for a small part in this one, though - pressures of work would have caused a few problems.

Well, the Nativity's done! It went very, very well indeed - amazingly well, considering the lack of rehearsal time we've had. Really lovely, performed in the great hall in a sort of inverse round arrangement - we laid out chairs around big round candlelit tables laden with mince pies, and did the play on four stages around them. Just for posterity, because they're lovely and I'm probably going to forget them now, here are my two God speeches:

Ego sum alpha et omega,
Via, vita, veritas -
Primus et novissimus.

I am gracious and great God withouten beginning,
I am maker unmade and all might is in me.
I am life and way unto wealth winning,
I am foremost and first, als I bid shall it be.
My blessing in bliss will be blending
And harboured from harm, shall be hidden.
My body in bliss, aye abiding
Enduring without any ending.

Since I am maker unmade and most high in might
And aye shall be endless, and nought is but I,
Unto my dignity dear shall duly be dight
A bliss all abundant about me -

In the which bliss I bid that be here
Nine orders of angels full clear
In loving aye-lasting to lout me.

Thee, mightiest of all I made, most after me,
I make thee to be master, and mirror of my might.
I set thee here by me, in bliss for to be,
And name thee for Lucifer, als bearer of light.

(obviously that doesn't go too well for Lucifer, and we get the Fall. Then, the Creation)

These fools from their fairhood in fantasies fell -
They would not me worship that wrought them,
Wherefore shall my wrath ere go with them
And all that me worship shall dwell here, I wis.

Since earth is vain void and in murkness doth dwell
I bid in my blessing the angels give light.
The murkness thus name I for night,
The day do I call this clear light.

A firmament I bid appear,
And that same shall be named heaven,
With planets and with cloud full clear.

The sun and moon in fair manner
Now greatly gang in your degree -
For ye shall set the seasons here,
Day from day and year from year.

The water I will be here
To flow both far and near.
The largest part I name the 'sea,'
Gathering of waters clear

And with the sea I will begin -
Whales all quick in sea will dwell
And other fish to flit with fin
Some with scale and some with shell.

The land shall foster and forth bring
Buxsomly by me decreed
Herbs and fruit to fill and feed
And trees also thereon shall spring
And flowers fair from height to hang
And winging with the wind on high
I bid me fowls full fair to fly.

All divers beasts on earth I send to breed
And be with bale forth brought
And with the beasts I will to blend
Serpents to be seen unsought
And worms upon their wombs will wend
To woe in earth, and worth to nought.

And so it shall be kenned
How all is made that ought.
Beginning, midst and end
I with my word have wrought.

To keep this world, both more and less,
A skilful beast then will I make
After my shape and my likeness,
The which shall worship to me take.
Of the simplest part of earth that is here,
I shall make Man.