My Life With the Dogs at Spleen

(the van arriving at the theatre - it has been 4 years since we were here last, and I had forgotten where to unload vans)

We got to the theatre at 9am and unloaded everything. TAO (Theater am Ortweinplatz) gave us a nice big room to put all of our stuff in. We went straight to work taking out the stage (we'd have to take out even more for Everything Falls Apart, so we thought we might as well start with the stage immediately).
Clemens and his colleagues were very fast and moved on to hanging lights and our enormous sodium lamp in no time. 

Tom went missing for about an hour - he didn't emerge from the train Beate was picking him up from, and while she searched the train for a sleeping actor, Iva phoned anyone she thought could have more information on Tom's whereabouts. Tom himself wasn't answering his phone, and after several tries we decided his battery must have run out.

Doom scenarios were constructed: did he forget to get off? If he did, where could he be? Bratislava? Further? Or did he miss the train altogether?
Four people confirmed he got on the train. Or at least left the theatre in Prague on time to make it onto the train.

An hour and a half later he walked into the theatre.
Due to reorganisation of the train he was on, there was a delay which made him miss his connection from Vienna to Graz. As simple as that. He used someone else's phone to reassure everyone we had succeeded in worrying, and then helped us with setting up for a run through.

The show in the evening was very full, and a lot of fun. The audience made them come back for five curtain calls. (Five!)

 

In the meanwhile Liz had arrived and we took her along to the festival centre for some food and drinks. (And a lot of praise from the people who had seen the show).

When we got back to the hotel, Unai arrived. He'd come from Vittoria to Graz via Palma de Mallorca.

The next morning (well, noon), we played a second show to mainly teenagers. It was great fun again.

This was our walk to the theatre:

 

After we finished, it was time for a lot of action. Kjell and I went for lunch while the others packed the set, and an hour later we swapped teams and I made Clemens and his colleagues take all of the seats out of the theatre.

Most of our shows are very simple and we generally don't ask for much, but with Everything Falls Apart it is quite a different story. But I think that after all of these years of being flexible and simple, we deserve to be more demanding now.
Clemens didn't seem to mind, he kept smiling and didn't ever call me a slave driver.

Driving by numbers 19: Berlin-Graz

Distance: nine hundred and thirty six kilometres
Duration: nine hours and seventeen minutes
Idiot drivers: none
Snow during the last 5 hours.

When I arrived in Graz, the Moberg family, Alex and Bob were already there. I got there at 6pm and after showing off my new van we headed to the festival hub to get some food. We met Ossi who had invited us there and whose theatre we were about to perform in. He was in great form.

Graz was covered in snow and cold. But the festival atmosphere made up for the cold. Colombo was there as well - Sgaramusch had performed the day before and he stayed behind to be in the jury of the Jungwild section of the festival.
Jungwild are young people who make theatre. Three of them would win a prize to help them develop their work further.

We had some drinks with old friends and new friends, and then headed back to the hotel to get some sleep after a long travel day and before some long festival days.

Travel by Numbers 17: Ghent - Berlin

Distance: seven hundred and eighty six kilometres
Duration: seven hours and fifty three minutes
Idiot drivers: one (in a Porsche)

This journey is actually part of a longer trip from Plymouth to Oslo, but as I have several homes in several European countries, I'm breaking it up into smaller bits. So this is part 2 of 3.

On this trip I was particularly shocked by the amount of people who throw rubbish out of their car windows. I though those days were over, but I knew I was wrong when I saw various wrappers, cans and plastic bottles being flung out of cars in front of me, especially in Germany. (This is not a racist comment, it is just a report of my observations).

The next thing we're going to do is the trip on the cargo boat.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about: 8 of us will travel from Le Havre to Martinique on a cargo ship.
When? Departure is on November 13 (it's a Friday, but I'm not superstitious), unless loading the ship goes faster than anticipated in which case we'll leave on the 12th.
How long? 10 days, if all goes well.
Why? Research for a show we will make in 2010.
Who? Alex, Kjell, Tomas, Elisabet, David, Kieran, Margit and I.

I don't know what the boat will look like, but I think it could be this one.

As we are in the middle of a non-touring period, I have a special treat for you.
During the last couple of months some of you have met Boris and Boris, but prior to that quite a few of you must have met the Ivans as well.
The Ivans posed with audience members during My Long Journey Home, and here is a collection of some of the Polaroids they made. (Unfortunately Polaroid stopped their production of cameras and film. We have some film left, but not a lot...)

Travel by Numbers 16: Plymouth-Ghent

Driving distance: five hundred and eighty six kilometres
Driving time: six hours and fifteen minutes
Tunnel time: twenty minutes
Total travel time: eight hours and two minutes
Idiot drivers: none


Doing the get-out in Plymouth we were parked next to a big truck. And we could easily image what our name would look like on a big truck.




I took the Eurotunnel, which has become very clever since I last took it. Last time I had to punch in my reservation code to get a letter to hang from my rearview mirror. This time, I pulled up at the check in booths and the machine automatically displayed my name. It must scan my licence plate or something, and I found it very clever and efficient.

Then again, I love the Eurotunnel. I think it's a fantastic piece of engineering. But I think I've mentioned that before...

Plymouth on a Saturday morning

The World of Tomas Mechacek

Last night. We just finished a fantastic meal Alex had cooked for us.
Someone starts talking about our departure from here and which people I will drive to the train station and at what time.
Iva goes through her train tickets. Tom grabs his wallet and takes out some train tickets.
'Oh no...' he says.

When Cat gave him is Plymouth-London tickets last Tuesday, he asked her if she wanted his used London-Plymouth tickets as a receipt. 'Euhmmm... yes, ok'. She didn't really need them as receipts as she'd booked them and already had the proper receipt. But she took them anyway.

Now, four days later, it seemed that Tom had given her the Plymouth-London tickets. Because in his wallet were the used London-Plymouth tickets.

If you think this sounds complicated, think again. This is just the start.

Alex texted Cat to find out what her memory of the events of last Tuesday night was. She phoned back immediately, but couldn't seemed to remember at first where the right tickets were now. At her house? No. In the office? No.
So where were they?

Alex hands the phone to Tom. We hear Tom say: 'I think we should share the cost of a new train ticket, as we're clearly equally responsible. You took them from me.'
Silence.
'Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember there was the ripping of the tickets.'

We all burst out laughing. The tickets were not just in the wrong place, they'd been destroyed.

Cat advises Tom to buy the tickets today as they'll still be cheaper than buying them on the day tomorrow.

Phone call over.

Someone asks Tom where this ripping took place.
In our flat. Downstairs. We haven't emptied the bin yet as it isn't full yet.

Tom disappears to the downstairs flat.

there is one small bit missing

tom's making a very big train ticket

then finds out that one is a receipt, one is the ticket

done (apart from the one bit that's missing)

I guess he might have a fair amount of explaining to do, but this story is just too stupid to be a lie, so I think no ticket controller should doubt the validity of this train ticket.

Tom's on

We've been rehearsing to get Tom ready to take over David's part in the show. We started with a music rehearsal in Kjell and Iva's tiny tv room, and went into the space yesterday and today to check Tom's dog. He's a very young dog.
He will play tonight at the Drum. It's very exciting.

Who wants to be a rockstar most?

Does holding the guitar higher help?

Father and son...

Post 199

I've just noticed this is post 199 and I'm wondering if this means I should do something special for post 200. Right now I don't think I should, as the 100th post came and went without fanfare.

Gideon is with us now and had the full tour of our upper class accommodation. Just to set things straight, we don't usually stay in palaces: Travelodges across the UK have been tried and tested, as have very small and charming B&B's. We like variety.

Gideon and I found this door today. Theatre Royal is a proper big theatre, with Porridge on the proper big stage. I'm not from here and have no idea what Porridge is, but the guy from Extras is in it and I do know him. But as I haven't seen Porridge and probably won't get a chance to, I'm currently more impressed by this big door.


Just above the handle it has this tiny label:



They certainly didn't exaggerate. It is big and red, and it's a door. And it's by far the biggest red door I've ever seen.

Plymouth luxury

We've arrived in Plymouth, have settled into our stupidly luxurious accommodation (I will post pictures at the end of the week, I wouldn't want you all to come down in droves to share our temporary richness), and have moved into The Drum.

Alex managed to buy a new lamp for the show, so the old one is now discarded, will not tour Europe with us any longer.


Tomas is with us as well, to rehearse Dave's part in the show. They'll be alternating this part from now on. Since we live in an enormous house, we can rehearse in the living room.

Fabulous as our house may be, I started off with calling the Gas Man immediately after I arrived. We could smell gas and didn't like it. So for the first 24 hours we were without hot water or heating. But now it's all been reconnected and it no longer smells of gas, so it's perfect.

Cat's been to visit us yesterday and Gideon (Tom Womwell, but already is a Tom so I'm using his other name) is coming to visit us later today.

UK tour so far

We are in Bristol. I really like Bristol.

On Monday we started off in Tonbridge, and played to a crowd of 280. It was great fun. It was also the first time in many months that we had the full lighting rig for this show. All the disco colours in their full glory. So I had a few moments when I ran out of hands to operate buttons or keys or drumsticks, but I got through it without big disasters.
On Tuesday we went to Peterborough. We had quite a tough get-in and worked until the moment we opened the doors to the audience, but the show itself was great despite the fun fair outside. I heard 'We Will Rock You' three times during the course of the show.
In Peterborough we found a very good and very cheap Indian restaurant. As I'm not getting paid to advertise, I feel there is no reason why I shouldn't: The Shalimar on New Road.

Then we were off to Sint Mary's, a place we know and love, so after the hick-ups in Peterborough, we were treated to a much smoother set-up and again a fun show.

Last night we opened in Bristol. As I said, I really like Bristol.
The Tobacco Factory is a great space for us. The only problem there is that we're not allowed any naked flame, which means no cigarettes on stage, but it also means no waving lighters to the tune of Winds of Change. A real shame.
Last night we went to a bar that sold peanuts for £3. I thought that was absolutely incredible. I didn't buy them, but now I wonder what could have been so special about those peanuts that made them cost as much as a beer.

Today I got a full tour of Bristol Old Vic and was taken up to the cannonball track right under the roof. It was a tricky place to get to (and a little bit scary), but it was fantastic to see this enormous construction just to create the sound of thunder.

We're playing two more shows in Bristol, so come and see us.

Everything Kept Falling Apart

We have been immensely busy this week, hence no blog posts. I'll try and catch up with this post.

So this is what happened since Horn:

Friday night: a wild night for some
Saturday morning: a rough morning for some, combined with driving from Horn to Prague.
Saturday afternoon: some more NIE people arrive in Prague. Kjell, Iva, Alex, Cat and I had a meeting about the meeting.
Sunday afternoon: NIE meeting in cafe Montmartre in Prague about making a new Montmartre agreement and working out how our mental touring could stay as mental as it is without killing anyone.

This is the meeting.

This is NIE at Montmartre.

(when I have time in the near future, I will do a photoshop job and put in all the people who couldn't make it last Sunday: Lenka, Henrik, Margit, Kieran, Tuan, Honza, Bara, Tarek and Hannah)

Monday morning: get-in at La Fabrika in Prague
Monday afternoon: play the first show at 5pm
Monday evening: play the second show at 8pm
Monday night: strike at La Fabrika

Monday was not such a good day. We were told that the company that would take us across the Atlantic in November is going bankrupt and cancelled our booking on the banana boat. Alex phoned Cat and asked if she could fix something.

Tuesday morning: drive to Jindrichuv Hradec.
Tuesday afternoon: get-in in Jindrichuv with the same brilliant technicians who helped us in Horn.
Tuesday evening: dinner and an early night in Jindrichuv.

Wednesday morning: 10am show to teenagers of Jindrichuv. It was great fun.






Wednesday lunchtime: get-out at Jindrichuv.
Wednesday afternoon: travel home (for me: five hundred and fifty four kilometres, nine hours and seven minutes, three idiot drivers).
And Cat found us a new cargo ship to sail across the Atlantic with. Top job! I've ordered myself a singing saw to celebrate. I will try to learn and play it on the boat, but I might try a little bit before we set sail, otherwise Alex might kill me (or saw my head off) before we see land.

Today I've been chasing a lighting desk for hours. It wasn't fun. I ended up letting go and getting a different one that didn't have to be chased.
Tomorrow I will go back on the ferry to Norway, to rehearse with the guys from the Song of Lost Treasures. On Sunday we're going to the UK with the Dogs.
Three different shows in four different countries in just over a week. You have to admit that's pretty good going.

End of the Arctic

We're done up north. Last night we had a coffee and met a professor of Literature from Tromso University. He talked to us about the second world war, Shakespeare and the darkness of winter. He was a bit drunk, but very friendly.
Today we played two shows to a great audience in Tromso and now we're off. We dropped off all of our gear at the cargo place, and even though the guys there were very nice and helpful, I still don't trust cargo. But we'll find out in two weeks what the state of things is. We borrowed guitars in every venue this week, so we're sending back the broken guitar. If they break it more, it won't make a difference, as long as they don't break anything else.
We're travelling back on three different flights, like the royal family. Bob and David went immediately after the show, Liz and Alex left at 4.30pm, and Kjell and I are on the 6.30pm flight.
I will be going via Oslo to pick up the set for Everything Falls Apart and will be taking the Color Magic ferry from Oslo to Kiel on Sunday. Last time I got into a fight on that ferry, and I'm hoping I won't have to kick someone this time.
Next week will be a mad one. We'll be in Horn (Austria) for two shows on Thursday, then we're off to Prague where we'll have a company meeting with nearly everyone of NIE there. After that (on Monday), we're playing in Prague in La Fabrika, Tuesday we drive to Jindrichuv Hradec to play a show there on Wednesday. On the days we're not playing, we'll be setting up.

Paris of the North (?)

When I woke up this morning the mountaintops around the hotel were covered in snow. It must have been snowing all through the night up there.


After we played two fun shows in Norkjosbotn (which also has the easier and shorter name Vollan), we headed for Tromso. This is our last destination on this tour, as as far north as we will go this time. We're quite keen on coming back and going further: Finnmark and Svalbard are our aim.

The drive up north was amazingly beautiful. We all snapped away and I took some road trip films so you can have an idea of what it's like to be in the van with us.

Tromso is called the Paris of the North. I'm having a hard time understanding why. It's a nice town, but Paris?


The modern looking triangular building is the cathedral. On the mountain behind the white tall thing (is it a lookout post?) is a cable car. We wanted to go up but when we got there the rain was coming in fast and the entire valley was getting covered in clouds, so we'd miss out on the view and it wouldn't be worth the 100NOK. Kjell and I have time tomorrow, so if the weather is better we might try again.




After we arrived and checked in, we all went shopping together. NIE goes H&M...

The end of the world according to Randy

Today we are sleeping in a place that is almost as north as you could get.
But before I get to that bit, first a bit more about the shows we've been playing.

Yesterday we played in Salangen Kulturhus. The shows were fun, but the first one started a bit ominously. One of the kids (I've been reluctant to call them kids because teenagers aren't really kids anymore - but in this case I think I have a right to call them kids) walked in wearing a full face Bush mask with his hood pulled over his head. He was gesturing wildly, apparently thinking he was hilariously funny.
Initially it freaked me out a bit, because I couldn't see him very well and at first I didn't see it was a rubber mask.
But it had all signs of becoming one of those dreadful schools shows.

We were wrong though, it was great fun and they were all really into it.

After the second show we packed up and the man from the theatre opened the curtains. What a view...


After the show we went back to our strange hotel in the even stranger Bardu and decided to give Bardu another chance and drive around it a little bit. There wasn't that much more to Bardu: more army bases, a closed alpine centre, a closed motorsport centre, and more tanks.

So we returned to the smelly hotel.
And drove past it so Alex could show us where he'd been jogging the day before and where he got stopped by men with guns. One the way there we found some tanks.


They were part of a museum - it's not as if we'd scaled fences of army property.

In the evening we played poker. I lost (again). During the game we could hear gunshots in the forest at the other side of the road. Army practice.

This morning as we arrived at the sports hall of Bardu to play there, we heard more shooting.

After Bardu we drove up north. So far north in fact, that Randy (our GPS) decided we were approaching the end of the world. There seems to be no North Pole according to Randy. It all just stops about 150km north of here, in the Arctic Sea.



This is our hotel in Nordkjosbotn. It's a very friendly and non-smelly place, that serves fantastic food.







I just got back from playing pool with Liz. I lost. A pattern seems to be evolving... But I don't really mind.

The Arctic Circle

We are currently in Bardu, which is a little bit like Twin Peaks.

We all met yesterday at Oslo Gardermoen, and waited anxiously for David's arrival. He was on a very tight schedule, and it started to look like he wasn't going to make it. As soon as we found out he'd landed (with 40 minutes to go until our next flight), the Mobergs got into Action Hero mode. Iva ran off to check him in at the self-service machine, Kjell phoned him to tell him what was going on, and the rest of us went through security hoping for the best and denying a possible problem. As David came upstairs (from the downstairs arrivals area), Iva gave him his luggage tag and sent him off to the security check shouting: 'ONE MINUTE!' That was how much time he had to get on the plane.
So he made it and we all set off to Harstad.

When we arrived in Harstad it didn't really look very different from other places I'd been to in Norway, so I was a little bit disappointed. But only a little bit, as I was (and still am) ridiculously excited about being in the arctic circle. Even though I've travelled to a lot of places (with various degrees of bizarreness), going to places I've never been to before still thrills me.
So we got into our rental car (which had all of our set and our lighting equipment tightly packed inside it) and started driving. To Harstad city. We were booked into a hotel on the fjord, which was quite classy in a tacky way.


After dinner we went for a walk to look around the town. The thought on everyone's mind was that very soon winter will kick in here, which means a lot of snow and darkness. Right now it is still light until about 8.30pm. But days are getting shorter and for the people up here total darkness will set in a few months from now.
It must be hard to live here. I can't even begin to imagine how it would be, and I don't think I'd be tempted to find out.


But it is beautiful. Stunning.
Kjell, David and I saw something in the water. 4 somethings. It could have been porpoises, or seals, or whales maybe. But they swam off to fast and we didn't get a good look. We tried to make them come back; Kjell and David gave their best porpoise impressions to call them back, but it didn't work.


This morning was an early one. We set off at 7.30 to go to a school in Skanland. That's where not such good news awaited us.


We opened our flightcases and the first thing Kjell noticed was a rattle in our streetlight. It had never rattled before. We opened it up and the ballast had come loose. Clearly it had had a rough journey. Next thing was the accordion. So Dave started operating it and managed to fix it. The third thing though, was Alex' guitar. Broken. Cargo had snapped its neck.
How I wished the set had stayed with me. But there's not enough time for me to drive it back to the UK for the tour there, so that was not an option. Maybe one day someone will prove to me that there is solace in freight, and that it can be trusted, but right now freight and cargo are not my friends.
We found solutions to everything and got ready for the show. 80 teenagers from Skanland came to watch us. It was very different from playing in Edinburgh, but it was great fun.
Afterwards we were invited to have lunch with some of the students who had helped us set everything up. They'd been a great help and it was very nice talking to them. We asked them what it was like to live here, and when the snow would come. Soon, they said. And the darkness would follow soon after.
They uttered their surprise at the south (Oslo), where it was light on Christmas day, where they heard people even mowed their lawns on Christmas, that's how warm and light it was there.
You could contest this statement, but in all honesty, I've been in Oslo just before Christmas when the snow hadn't come yet, there was only relentless rain. Not ideal for lawn-mowing, but I'd argue that the Skanland students were only exaggerating a little bit.


We headed off, we had a two hour drive ahead of us. Direction north-east. We stopped along the way to admire the view, and to look at WWII sites of the Battle of Narvik. I did a 360.

This is our rental car. We called it Spanky. It was Alex' idea - he got it from a television programme he watched where a tour guide was called Spanky. The GPS is called Randy. That was Kjell's idea. There are two more GPS's in the company: one is called Judy, the other is called Emily. I spend most of my time with Emily.


This is where we are now: 1001km from Kirkenes. Kirkenes is the end of Norway.


After two hours of driving we entered proper army territory. With Bardu in the midst of it. Bardu is a small town that currently has a big hole as its main drag. Roadworks. There are soldiers in camouflage jackets, a few shops and a bowling alley.
So bowling is what we did. And I lost spectacularly. My pink ball did not bring me any luck. But I had a great time.