More from the UK Tour

This month we have been in Cambridge, in Colchester on the lovely campus of Essex University and Oxford at the excellent North Wall Arts Centre. The weather was great and we sat outside the Junction for lunch and decided that spring had sprung. Four of the cast had come over from Scandinavia so 15 degrees and sunshine was a very pleasant surprise for them.

This is the start of the show in Cambridge - it was a full house and the foyer was very crowded. Margit and Jirka played music and Liz served Aquavit (but not the 6th form students)

We used a bit of time in Cambridge (as we were there for two days) to take some more pictures of the show - thanks Jirka (and Elke) for this one. It shows Captain Mathiasen suffering terrible visions out at sea.

We also did a bit of rehearsing and some more messing around with languages.

On Monday Margit had a splinter in her foot - luckily Jirka can fix anything.... except the financial crisis.

Thanks to everyone who came to see the show in in the UK - we had a great time and kept on working and developing the show.

From Alex Byrne - NIE's Artistic Director.

Tales from a Sea Journey/Hav: UK tour

We have arrived in the UK for the tour of our new show Tales from a Sea Journey. We flew in from Norway, Prague and Denmark but it was Elke our Production who had the longest journey. She left her home in Berlin in the early hours of Friday morning, flew to Oslo and collected the set before catching a ferry to Copenhagen, driving across Denmark to Esbjerg (stopping en-route to have cake with Margit who is also in the show) then catching a ferry to Harwich and finally, 48 hours later, arrived in Cambridge.

Cambridge is where we kick start our tour, dropping anchor at The Junction where we have our UK base. We will have the UK premiere here and we have spent time re-rehearsing parts of the show so that it is completely understandable for an English speaking audience.

The set for this show is huge and exciting. We have enormous projections at the back of the stage as well as ladders, rope, postcards, maps, creatures from the deep and cocktails!

On Thursday 17 March we take the show to Lakeside Theatre in Colchester and on Friday 18 March we play at The Northwall Arts Centre in Oxford. A whistle-stop tour before bringing the show back to the UK for more performances later on in the year.

Mexico

We arrived to Mexico City late at night, and and were picked up by some very nice people from the festival. There was some small confusion in the customs about the hockey and ski bags thet the set is packed in. Why do you come to mexico with winter sports equipment? But after pushing a red button we got thru.(!!??) When you push the red button a red or green light will shine - its the most random control I have ever seen.

We went up to the TV tower to get a better overview. I do not know if it helped. Mexico City has 22 million people and it’s enormous.

The venue

Every venue has got its own little altar to Santa Maria de Guadeloupe. She is supposed to look after the venue and the people working there. It looks like you still need a fire extinguisher !

Sunday was a day off so we went to in Teotihuacán. Its unbelievable that this is enormous site is man made.

Written by Kjell Moberg, Associate Director NIE