Confessions of a Struggling Actor

So this is the first in a mini-series regarding an amazing week of craziness, joy and tears over the course of going to France.  Obviously, there's a fair bit to report.

Friday night after work, I go to meet Victoria.  She tells me that she won't be staying at mine tonight, but would be happy to have me along to meet/stay with her friends.  Things are fine, but not fireworks til we get a bit more pissed and she starts being suggestive.  After a fair bit of booze we retire to bed, but with my protection back at mine, the deed is not done.  Things are ok the next day, but I have to go and pack and head down to SE London to stay with James (Montague in R&J) to get the 4am taxi.  She heads off to Richmond with her pals and I go home and try to pack frantically, but take ages to find my passport which stops me seeing her.  On the train to James' flat, I think about what would happen if we did go out, with her moving back to Aberdeen and only ever down on business.  Is this what I'm looking for?  the attention is great and she's a fab girl but is that enough?  I decide not to think about it too much and decide more once I'm back from France.  James cooks me and Owyn (Benvolio) dinner and we try to get a decent night's sleep.

4am and bleary eyed, we drag ourselves to the taxi and then thru Gatwick to the plane.  We meet our fellow cast members and travellers and board, where I fall asleep before the plane leaves the tarmac and wake as we touch down - perfect!  We pick up the car and I drive on the right hand side of the road for the first time.  After a few bumps into the kerb getting out of the airport, we hit the motorway and I got used to it fairly quickly, even if I did keep hitting my left hand on the door looking for the gearstick.  We attempt to go in a 3 car convoy, but eventually get separated.  We drove through some amazing countryside (aquaducts, windy roads, beautiful sleepy little towns) and eventually got to Puy L'Eveque over half an hour in front of the others.  We had a buffet dinner at the producers flash house by the river Lot and then went down and checked into our gites.  I was in with Owyn and Shaun (Tybalt) and we invited everyone round for a whisky from the litre of Port Wood Glenmorangie that I bought at Gatwick.  We were all pretty knackered by the end of the day and fell asleep pretty quick, though I agreed to get up early with James and swim the next morning.

Next day was free apart from the dress rehearsal at night and we took advantage of the weather by going for a dip in the river and stocking up on essentials - baguettes, cheese, ham, Nutella, Kronenbourg and wine.  Swimming in the river I felt as happy and relaxed as I've been in a long time and it was lots of fun when nearly all of us swam down to a rope swing, where I was certainly the worst with a couple of spectacular belly flops.  After that swimming back against the current was quite hard, but we did it and I decided I need to concentrate on upper body strength and swimming was a good idea.

We then went back to Puy L'Eveque for a dress rehearsal on a kind of quayside.  It went well, but we felt the difference in volume and diction that it would take in the actual shows, though sometimes you could hear the louder lines like 'Then I defy you stars' reverberate around the valley.  Everyone was happy and the small production team (that hadn't seen it before) were fulsome in their praise for all of us.  We then went to a hotel across the road from their place and had a dish of foie gras, duck and other such meats, with some cheese and greens.

The wine went down well and on our return we popped into one of the gites to celebrate.  After being told that we were a bit loud (and rather drunk) a few of us wandered down to one of the beaches on the campsite which ended up with most of us skinny dipping in the river.  Nothing untoward or rude happened, but we ended up back at ours in the wee small hours, wrapped in towels and sipping whisky to warm us up, while talking Shakespeare and what other plays/roles we'd like to do in the future.  We got to bed late, with anticipation of the performances over the next four days.