Football

Set building is very important. Let's face it, be it a pantomime or a Pratchett, Godspell or My Fair Lady, Stags & Hens or Outside Edge, the actors need somewhere to perform. From my point of view, there are very few excuses for not turning up to do what we call 'stagework' on the three Sundays before the show.
For some of us, with the complex nature of what we do, this now also includes the Friday night and Saturday of the last weekend as well. Two stag weekends have interrupted my participation in the past, but there is only one other thing as far as I am concerned which is allowed to get in the way. Football.
I am missing the second setbuild for this show, as I reminded a shocked director her when we went to pick up my mask. Producer, previous director, domefur, virtual dildo and another very special member of the group who is not involved in the show called scud will be in Berlin watching Hertha play Bayern Munich. I met the first four of these people through Cast and my friendship with the other has become reinforced since we have been there, so it is only right that we should all be allowed time off together for the great game. Of course.
Box office, dangerous, high priest, director him and producer geezer are among the many serious footie fans liable to disappear into the bar for slightly longer than it takes to get a drink when there is a big game on. Set man, not a fan, let's us get away with it because he knows we will put in the hours as required. Let's face it, we are the ones who will be doing the work at 1.30am once most of the rest are long gone.
But this isn't really anything new. It started back with Grease. With Albert and producer sneaking off like a pair of naughty schoolboys...
There we were, June 14 1992, banging some nails in to fix an 8x4 sheet of hardboard to a frame in order to build the side flats for the set:
'I can't believe we're here doing this and our second European Championships game kicks off in 10 minutes.'
'Do you think anyone would notice if we went off for a couple of hours?'
'Where would we watch it though?'
'I'm only down the road in Slough.'
'Right.'
Off we went - very quickly. We made it in time to sit down for the kick-off. England were as dull as possible. France were not a lot better. It ended 0-0. But the important thing is that we got to see it. After all, as the great Mr Shankly said: Football isn't a matter of life and death, it's more important than that...

Thought for the day: 'Chris WOODS, Stuart PEARCE, Martin KEOWN, Des WALKER, Carlton PALMER, Andy SINTON, David PLATT, David BATTY, Trevor STEVEN, Alan SHEARER, Gary LINEKER.' Hmmn there's a couple of worrying names in that list...