We have become pretty good at publicising our shows in recent years. There are the usual posters around the village and local shops. There are postcards through all the letterboxes in the village. Actually, the postcards idea was devised by rincewind when he directed his self-penned play Stranded this time last year and they have been used for each show since. Neat. Then there are the leaflets for handing out at 'events'. These occasions vary from village fetes for the summer show to turning on the Christmas lights for panto.
Last summer in the stinking heat we walked round Wexham Park hospital handing postcards out to the staff. In and out of the offices, along the wards and into the cafeteria. Not into the nurses quarters though, which upset director him no end. Especially as he was dressed as a Roman centurion at the time.
I spent a long hot day (the hottest of the summer) trudging up and down the Bath Road in Slough Trading Estate persuading companies that, yes, they really did want a couple of posters and 20-odd postcards to promote the show through their staff social club/restaurant/staff noticeboards/foyer tables. I would like to point out that this was during the World Cup. I would also like to point out that I had taken time off work to watch the football. I would finally like to point out that I missed the first half of one of the games in order to do this distribution of publicity material. Dedicated or daft? I sometimes wonder.
We have good contacts with the local press. Well town crier works for the Express so we do have an advantage there. The Observer are pretty good to us too as they hate to be outdone by their rivals. So much so, that they sometimes end up giving us even better coverage.
But one of the great recent successes has been through radio. We are lucky to have a great relationship with Time 106.6 FM, the radio station in Slough. So good that producer geezer arranged, as I said he would, for director him and footnote to go in today to record an advert which will be played twice a day from now until the show. All the ones we have done before have been top class. I am looking forward to hearing this one. It's a great way to reach people outside our normal catchment area, and for TP I think that can only be a really, really good thing.
I will say something else about the power of radio. We had Virgin on when we were doing the big costume sort-out last weekend. They have this really annoying advert which has part of Queen's I Want It All as the soundtrack. I love Queen. I have all their albums and saw them live on two different tours. However, I do not want to hear part of one of their songs 20 times in the course of a day. Please.
I was singing it all day the next day. And the day after that. The following day secretary and I were driving along happily listening to Virgin in the car and the first 'I Wa...' came on and I turned the radio off instantly. That is bad advertising. Really bad. In fact it's so bad that I can't tell you what product they were advertising. Really.
Thought for the day:
'I go out to work on Monday morning,
Tuesday I go off to honeymoon,
I'll be back again before it's time for sunny-down,
I'll be lazing on a Sunday afternoon.
Bicycling on every Wednesday evening,
Thursday I go waltzing to the zoo,
I come from London Town I'm just an ordinary guy,
Fridays I go painting in the Louvre,
I'm bound to be proposing on a Saturday night,
(There he goes again)
I'll be lazing on a Sunday,
Lazing on a Sunday,
Lazing on a Sunday afternoon.'
Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon. Freddie Mercury. A Night At The Opera. Queen.
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