30 Aug 2006
I don’t know how we got back to Dubai so quickly – but walking into the Novotel a week last Sunday it didn’t feel like we ever left. This time we were here to perform THE JUNGLE BOOK with five of the second cast and three of the original cast plus myself as Tabaqui. Unusally we met the audience after every show and we all fell in love with the adorable Alice, who at four years old asked Shere Khan the most interesting question ever posed by a child seeing one of our shows: “When you were dead, could you hear Mowgli saying you were dead?”
Dubai is strange place. I wouldn’t want to live there for more than 30 minutes, but being there on vacation with a show, it once again provided some of the most wonderful nights in the desert, on the the river and the glamorous bars. Most notably, everyone is extremely friendly and polite and perhaps it is this that makes it so strangely enjoyable.
And so back to reality! We now have to produce three shows in three weeks. KENSUKE’S KINGDOM started rehearsing last week, DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD started this week and PROOF starts next week!
We arrived back from Dubai yesterday and immediately drove to Cardiff to see the read-through for DANNY. Peter Brook says that the terrifying thing about a read-through is that it reveals whether or not you have the potential for a great show. An average reading can still produce a good show – but a great show is only possible if the signs are there at the very first read-through.
It looks like we could have a great show on our hands!