Aye, me hearties, and welcome to this week’s blog, by me, Archie (or “Roger the Cabin Boy” if you must)! And this week was a really big one too!
On Wednesday, we (Me, Jo and the rest) did Pour, oh pour and (I live or die a) Pirate King, which were two very easy songs and I loved them, as I’m sure everyone else did too.
Meanwhile, the other girls (the lovely daughters) were very busy trying to snatch a hoop off someone’s wrist whilst the other person was spinning it (I hope they were up to more than just that)!
We also had a visit from two talented people Ewan and Esub who are putting our flyer together for us, I can’t wait to see the finished thing.
Anyway, that was Wednesday, and (here comes the embarrassing bit) I… wasn’t there on Monday. But… Warren told me that I could go through other rehearsals, so here comes one from last Wed (the one before the one I was just talking about)… Act 1 finale!
Now, I have to say, as a professional, that the song was extremely difficult and complicated to learn, with… a many good different topics in it. But, my amateur dramatics (and true self, if you ask me!) self-screams out loud that that song was simply “a mess, like Gilbert and Sullivan had made this song for comic relief, deciding that the good thing to do would be to get all different genres of music, and mix them together like a lumpy cake mixture- the lumps in the cake mixture being all the places where the genres clashed-and just stick it into the otherwise magnificent play.”
I mean, come ON, one minute the pirates (me included) are getting all emotional, sobbing our hearts out over David Bowman’s being an orphan, and the next minute, we’re “hailing poetry”? In my experience, there is NO SUCH THING as “Hail Poetry!”
But we got through that sticky mess, and I’m sure we’ll be all the wiser for other songs like this (if there are more abominations like this) because of all the coaching that our amazing Erika Gundesen and magical Alex Cobavie (she is BOUND to become like Tchaikovsky-her skills are beyond bounds) have given us so far, and will all the way to the end of the play.
Also, I would like to say that Jamie Somerville, you are an OUTSTANDING actor and a brilliant singer-any play that you are in is instantly something I would want to watch, because the moment you start performing, regardless of whether you are standing centre stage hands-on-hips or backstage right sweeping dust out of a corner (though I doubt that if anyone sees your talent they would give you a role like the latter), everyone’s attention would be focused on you, because of the way you play a role in a comedic and amazing way, whilst still doing what the director wants you to do.
Please don’t be sad if I haven’t mentioned all of you in this; that doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re just as good as everyone else in our merry little group, it’s just I haven’t been working directly alongside you and it would be unfair to you for me to judge you.
Anyway, I hope you’ve managed to get through this blog without falling asleep (or yawning either-I know I’m not the most exciting person in the universe), and if you have, congratulations!
Here’s to many more Mondays and Wednesdays to come, Archie is out!
Pirates of Penzance runs from 7th-10th June and tickets are available to buy through the Millfield box office here:
