Vatch Out!

Last night at about ten o'clock Lowri had a sheet of paper over her face.

"But if you twizzle the pipe cleaners a bit..."

She twizzled.

"...like that? You can get a whiskery effect?"

We all nodded in sage agreement.

Since about seven we had been gathered in Sara's flat, eating houmous, writing a script and pawing through a bag of wigs, all in preparation for Sunday's escapades at Cornerhouse. They are showing the wonderfully gruesome film of Roald Dahl's The Witches, and inviting lots of stinky children to watch (with grown ups in tow). We had a great time channeling the evil last night, screeching about dogs droppings and how we planned to vipe out all the children in Enkland. We (Eggs Collective) are performing after the show, which promises to be excellently mad and glittery, as Eggs performances generally are, only this time with some child-loathing, which will add a certain zing to proceedings. Then we're doing a workshop for a group of twenty children, who will hopefully not be too traumatised by a film full of secretly-but-definitely evil ladies to trust that we're not all about to banish them into a painting for the rest of their lives.

Right now I am typing very quietly (like this) sitting on some kind of box thing in the Royal Exchange Theatre. My cello is quietly waiting for me on stage. In the performance Dan and I are on stage the whole time, lit up gently when we play. Ben is, at this very moment, performing one of the scenes, while the tech people do their wizardry all around him. I am a bit scared that someone is going to suddenly shout "what's that tapping? Is someone typing? Is someone BLOGGING in a technical rehearsal?". Then they will all descend on me and turn me into a mouse. (I might have got a little confused between the two shows I am doing this week. My brain is only small.)

I am enjoying myself. I am enjoying the feeling of just doing what I am told. My only responsibility is to saw away at my cello on command. I don't have to do any organization, I have no lines to learn, I can just enjoy it and sneakily blog behind a pillar. At lunchtime just now I wandered around for a bit, got a sandwich and sat in the great, cavernous hall that is the foyer of the Royal Exchange. It's the sort of thing I used to do when I worked in jobs I despised, go and sit in inspiring places in my lunch hour, often feeling more unhappy than uplifted. I would will myself to be infused with the muses, galvanised to artistic endeavour, but more often I would just feel an overwhelming sense of being left out. I'm sort of glad I haven't forgotten those times, because if they hadn't happened I wouldn't be able to drum up the proper levels of smugness pleasure now that I get to do be all arty on Tuesday afternoons.

In November it'll be my show. I'm sure I'll feel totally intimidated and weird at times, and only once it's all over and I am holding a glass of wine larger than my own head will I breathe out. But I suspect I will love it. I hope I do.

Ben is doing some words, and the techies are clattering about, plugging stuff in, plugging stuff out, using complicated jargon and doing what they do. I have not been busted for tiptapping but I suspect I need to loiter by my cello and try to look useful.

If you are in Manchester and fancy being frightened and loved in equal measure, come to Cornerhouse on Sunday and vatch The Vitches (you can be/bring a child, but you don't have to!). This show that I am sneakily blogging in is Everything We Need, and it's on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I can promise that I almost definitely won't be blogging during the actual performance.