Ready for Sweden

We finished rehearsals and played a show to a very small audience of friends yesterday afternoon. It was a slightly ominous start as the fire alarm went off about 15 minutes before we started.
Initially there was a voice that kept repeating: 'this is a fire warning, the alarm has been set off and we are locating the fire'. Or something like that (it was in Norwegian). The voice went on for what felt like an eternity, and then there was some kind of alarm.
We briefly thought Iva had set off the alarm with the iron, but that was very unlikely. She unplugged it anyway.

Then a man came into our space (of which we had carefully blocked the fire escape, so he had some issues coming in), asking if we'd been cooking. The alarm system pointed at the bar outside the space we were working in. Only we hadn't been cooking, unless you'd call making tea cooking.

He said it would all be ok, but then the voice said we had to leave the building.
So we did.
Our audience arrived and we had a chat with them outside and waited.

And then, at 2.58pm, we were allowed back in. Apparently they'd been making too much popcorn in the cinema downstairs.

The show was fun, the audience seemed to enjoy it, and then we packed up and headed back to Kjell's house to celebrate his birthday. It turned out to be quite a party, and it was a fantastic end to a great week.

Today we have a day off and we're all going to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D.
And tomorrow we all fly to Stockholm.

Walking on water

't Is the snowy season. 't Is also the birthday season.
Last night we celebrated Anna Moberg's 8th birthday. She got presents, cards and cakes. We screamed the devil out of both cakes, and ate them.

Afterwards we all felt quite full and decided to go for a walk to the fjord. Over dinner we had discussed walking on the frozen sea, and even though Kjell's brother didn't seem too convinced about the safety of the ice in Holmen (where we were), we gave it a go anyway.

We walked on water.

A snowfight followed, and Tom stopped to get the snow out of his shoes.
To me it seemed as if his method would get even more snow into his collar and possibly into his pants, but I guess his shoes would be ok.

We found our way back home, everyone was refreshed and the cakes had been digested, and we had an early night.

Today we did two run throughs and celebrated Kjell Moberg's 40th. With delicious fish and more cake.

Tomorrow we will play for an audience of friends and then we'll have a day off on Sunday before we all fly to Stockholm.

Half Past Remembered...

... is the name of a song Corin Raymond wrote for/about NIE.

We're now all in Asker, rehearsing Past Half Remembered. 

Yesterday I arrived with the van and as I would never manage to get up the hill to Kjell and Iva's house, Iva met me down at the bottom of the hill to take the instruments up the hill in her car.

We nearly got up the hill... Very very nearly.

If you can't get up a hill on snow, the only way out is to back down. But Kjell and Iva's driveway has a tricky curve, and backing out on a curvy hilly driveway is not easy. So Iva got the curve wrong and got stuck in a meter of snow. Both of us got the shovel out to uncover the wooden box of gravel (which was also covered in a lot of snow). We threw gravel in front of all of the wheels and tried again. No joy.

So we decided to ask Anna and Aude for help.

In this case pictures say a lot more than words, so all I will add to this is that we spent an hour getting the car all the way to the bottom of the driveway.

After all of that we felt like we'd had a decent workout (with pushing the car, shovelling snow, getting gravel back and forth).

We made no further attempts at getting the car up the hill. We parked it in the car park next to the van.


Then Alex and Tom (Anderson) arrived and despite Alex' encouraging, I refused to attempt to get the big van up the hill.

We had an early dinner and headed to the office in Oslo for a music rehearsal.

We made Tom (Anderson) work very hard for a few hours and then called it a day around 8.30pm.
We had late dinner and waited for Tom (Mechacek) to arrive.

This morning we got up for an early start to attempt to guide Tom (Anderson) through the whole play.
Every now and again we got side-tracked because we were having too much fun reinventing some scenes. We got quite far through it though, and Tom (both of them) did a great job, so tomorrow we'll crack on, get to the end and try to run through the whole show.

Ok, Wake Up!

I know it's been quiet for a while, but we're about to get into some serious action.
(I believe the guys from B61 have already been in action during the past week, but as I wasn't there, I have no first hand information).

As of tomorrow, I'm back on the road.
Still in the new van.
I'm convinced the initial hiccups must have passed now, and me and Mr Tatmobile are off to the ferry to Goteborg tomorrow.
From Monday the PHR (Past Half Remembered) team will meet up in Oslo to re-rehearse. A man called Tom Anderson will alternate David in the show, and we'll spend a week getting him worked in. He's no stranger (he is part of the New Arrivers gang), so I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun.
Then we're off to Stockholm, one of my favourite cities in Europe, even though I've only been there once and it wasn't for very long.

Then straight after that, we're going to Denmark, to a village near Haderslev. I can't remember the name of the village, but you'll hear enough about it once we're there. Why are we going there? To be closer to Margit, who will be performing at that time.
And while we're there, we'll be rehearsing the Sea Journey. It's been a few months since we've been on the boat, and I for one am very excited to explore what we got out of it. David just emailed most of the music we made on the boat, and listening to it brought back fond memories.
A few weeks ago in Graz, Alex was saying he'd like to go around the world on a cargo ship one day. We couldn't work out how long that would take.
I'd like to go around the world without flying. But not just with boats. Boats and trains seems like a great combo.

So that's March laid out for you.
I will keep you updated as always, and if you're around in Oslo, Stockholm or the small Danish village: come and say hello - and put your stamp on our van.

New departures / New arrivers

We have now left Norway but not without a hint of northern light. Driving back to Oslo on Thursday night after dinner at Kjell and Iva's house, the sky was green. And not some weird bluish green, proper grassy green. It didn't move, so it wasn't as spectacular as you'd expect from the Northern Lights, but to see them this far south is unusual enough for me.
So, moose and northern lights on one tour: it can't get more Norwegian...

When we left, Anna gave me this for the van:

A small guard dog.
So if you have anything you think would look cool in the cabin of our new van, please bring it along to wherever you will find us. I want to turn the van in a mini museum of our travels.

Today is the start of a new project in Peterborough. The New Arrivers have arrived there last night and I have asked Elisabet to keep us updated. I'm not there myself, as I have some extra travelling to do in order to get to Graz on time with all of our possessions - in our new van.
(Is it clear how excited I am about our new van?)

A great day in total darkness

Iva phoned me yesterday to discuss some future things, and while we were talking she said that the culture contact for the school we were going to today said we could have as much darkness as we wanted.
I said I'd have all of it.

For those of you who are not familiar with the kind of touring we are doing right now: we play in schools. Usually in gyms. And gyms usually have a strip of windows just below the ceiling. They are usually impossible to reach and sometimes there are no blinds.
Since it's harder to create the magic and illusion of theatre in broad daylight, we always ask schools to come up with something. Sometimes they stick black binliners along the windows, sometimes they attach an enormous tarpaulin to the roof.
But Norwegian sunlight is very bright, and it is never easy to make it pitchblack.

But some schools have gyms without windows. That's where we were today. The main thing the darkness does is make it easier for the children to focus. And to imagine they're not in their gym.


In the meanwhile Kjell is looking for a new van. If all goes well, I'll be driving a new van to Germany on Saturday, and from there I will take it to Graz in February. We will be bringing a lot of stuff to Graz, and all that stuff doesn't fit in our current van (which died a few months ago anyway, so that was no option).

The other recurring issue is the chairs for Everything Falls Apart. Due to lack of van-space, we've been buying them all over Europe.
Until....
Ikea stopped producing them. Iva then sourced a different type of chair for the shows we did in Czech Republic. They were quite similar, but not the same.
Today I found out that our trusted Oddvars are back in stock. So I'll pick up a few extra on the way to Graz.

The sweet smell of paper

This weekend we went to the top of the mountain overlooking Oslo's fjord. It was absolutely stunning.

Anna and Lenka went sledging. I passed, as I didn't have waterproof trousers and I had images of getting soaking wet from the snow and then freezing to death (it was still -20°).

This week we are playing in 5 different schools in Moss. Moss stinks.
You might think this is a very offensive thing to say, but it's true. Moss has a big paper factory, and it smells of... something like sulfur mixed with something else.
I love books and paper, but that smell sort of puts me off a bit. I had no idea producing paper caused this type of sensory assault.

It is getting warmer now. Today it was only -4°. The snow is melting and turning into black slush.
But we don't let that get to us. It's still great fun playing to smaller kids.

Norwegian wildlife

This morning we saw a herd of...

I say reindeer, Anna says moose.
There is no evidence. No pictures.

I was driving, that's my excuse.

Koede boernie

This morning it was -20°(C), we went to our favourite school but we didn't play.

This is the school:

This is why we didn't play:

Bergenhus Skole is the only school I've been to so far that has a very nice black box theatre. Unfortunately, that's not so ideal for this performance. We had some discussions about it yesterday (before going there), but based on our combined memories, we couldn't remember enough to really know whether it would be possible to play or not. So we decided to go there and find out.

My memory had no records of the seating steps not all being wide enough to put a tripod on.
With wider steps, we could have played half on the steps.
However, as you can see, only the middle step was wide enough, which would mean the tripods (with the projection screen draped over them) would be too far away from the floor cloth the kids sit on, and the projection itself would have been reduced to the size of a tv screen.

Some of the option we went through were: cutting the projections, cutting the slide projections, cutting the double bass, playing for only 20 kids instead of 100. None of them were acceptable.

If it wouldn't have been so damn cold, we could have played in the gym, but the heating in the gym didn't work (frozen pipes or something), so we couldn't move there.

The school then suggested the hall:

The problem there was that it was also the main entrance to the school, and the different parts of the school connect through this space. Additionally there are some enormous windows at both sides, and a lot of light-spill from the adjoining class rooms. So again, not an option.

You would have thought we'd be in and out of there in no time, but as we all like it there so much, we stayed there for an hour and a half, and talked to the teacher who was in charge of us. She was a very nice lady who told us her husband is a pig farmer, and these temperatures are quite tricky to keep the water flowing for the pigs to drink.
She also said he can't go away. Not even for a day, let alone a holiday somewhere warmer. Pigs need to eat twice a day. Every day.
It sounds like a hard life to me, but I guess that if he really hated it, he wouldn't be doing it.

After having coffee and cake (the school supplied the coffee, Nils had made the cake), we drove back to Oslo. In total, we drove for three hours and visited a school for an hour and a half. Not your standard working day. Not ours either.

Back in Oslo, I thought I should test myself under these weather conditions. So Anna and I walked to the harbour. It was cold, but not unpleasant.


And now my skin feels a bit sunburnt, even though I'd pulled my hat down to just above my eyes, and pulled my woolly collar up to just under my eyes.
I can deal with -20°.
The weather forecast says it's going to get colder.
I'll test my resistance if it does. But I'm glad I decided to put the International Haircuts on hold until after winter.

A good day

Today we had a much gentler start. No angry men waiting for us by the car, a smooth ride to the school, very friendly teachers, a gym with a half-decent blackout and very nice kids.

This was the view from the school:

I no longer need gas to start with a bang

Happy New Year.



Like a lot of kids this morning, we got up early to start work again.

The car has been fixed now, so I can leave the startgas in the car door and just turn the key and go.

This morning however, things weren't quite that easy.
Anna and I are staying in a short term rental flat which comes with a car park. Anna had been staying there before with Honza, but I'd never been there. When I arrived, she met me downstairs to show me the garage.
The space Honza used before was taken, so I parked next to it. There was plenty of empty space in the car park, so I assumed it would be fine. (Assumption...)

So this morning, at 6.45, we saw a Landrover parked right behind our van. And a man walking around the cars parked either side of the van.
As we approached he said to me in Norwegian: 'Is this your van? Why did you park there?' Even though I had understood, my Norwegian is not good enough for an elaborate apology and/or explanation, so I told him I didn't understand Norwegian. Technically I don't. If it suits me, I do. A bit.
The man was angry. Or rather, he was fuming. I tried to explain I was unaware of the numbered parking spaces, and that I only just arrived the night before. He told me that if we had been two minutes later, he'd have left and his car would be there until Friday. (And if my uncle had breasts he'd be my aunt, but anyway.)
I apologised a bit more, but it only made him angrier. It seemed incredibly hard to steer the conversation to an end, despite the fact that we clearly both had somewhere to go.

He concluded with: 'Anyway, this car is from Fredrikstad, it's not even supposed to be here. Is this even your car?' I promised him I'd call our landlord as soon as it was a more respectable hour to call people and find out where I should park. I apologised again and got into the van.
That's when I saw him remove notes from under the windscreens of the cars either side of the van.
They were printed. Not handwritten.
Which explained how much time the man had had to work up this seemingly exaggerated rage. If he'd already gone back into his flat to trace the licence plate of our van and write and print out notes on his computer, he'd definitely had enough time to reach the boiling point.


Having said all of that, my experience of Norwegians couldn't be further removed from this morning's incident. I know Norwegians as patient, friendly and welcoming.
But for all I know I may have caused this man to miss his train that would take him to work outside Oslo, or even miss his flight towards a holiday somewhere warm. Whatever it was, I'm sure there was enough reason to be furious with me.

Again, Mr. Landrover, please accept my apologies. It won't happen again.


This is what we can see from our balcony. It's 15.43 and the sun is setting.

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.