A close run thing

A minor miracle happened yesterday afternoon. There we were, sat round Gwyneth's dining room table, with several committee members urging me to cancel the show, when a knight in white armour rode in to save the day. Our Gordon - henceforth known as Our Hero. With no one else seemingly willing to step into Sylvia's shoes, dear Gordon manly volunteered to play Inspector O'Reilly. Our treasurer was particularly pleased as we've spent quite a lot of money on this production - as you'll see with the special effect at the end of Act I - and the thought of having to refund ticket money gave her palpatations.

Although he hasn't acted since he was at school, he is of course blessed with a photographic memory - if only the same could be said of Thelma - and it seems that Act II was already in his head from reading it in at the dress rehearsal. So he went away and learned Act I during the rest of the afternoon and, it has to be said that, under the circumstances, he didn't do too bad a job (a few pauses, missed cues and prompts aside). He's now on standby for the rest of the week, as obviously we'd like Sylvia to return to the role if at all possible, but it's all going to be very last minute as to whether she has the stamina.

Of course, the theatre insisted that we had to check every single floodlight we'd put up after the calamity. I think the trouble is that poor Martin has had far too much to do in a short space of time. At one point in the show last night I was lying on the floor (for plot purposes you understand, I hadn't slipped) and saw several decidedly shaky looking lamps on the rig overhead. This despite the fact that I have spoken to Martin about tightening his nuts. I had him down on the floor several times after the show last night but I have to say I am still not satisfied.

We did have one slight issue before the show yesterday but, to be fair, Doug wasn't expecting to have to take over stage management duties from Gordon. Gordon hadn't had time to finish off the aforementioned special electrical effect for the end of Act I, so Doug and Henry were tinkering with it about half an hour before curtain up - fortunately before any of the audience had arrived - when there was an enormous explosion backstage. All we could hear was Doug's falsetto voice screeching something along the lines of "You blithering idiot! I warned you this might happen. It's backfired and burnt his knob off!" This was all too much for Felicity who passed out on the spot. Luckily we had some smelling salts on the props table (at least that's where they should have been; Audrey please take note).

Let's hope that after all this excitement, tonight's performance passes off without incident.