02 May 2006
And so we return from Dubai. The first two evenings there were amongst the best of our lives. On Monday we all went on a boat trip, which was shaping up to be one of the worst evenings we’ve ever had! The boat was awful, the food inedible and it all seemed to be topped off when my chair started slowly collapsing beneath me. Strangely, I couldn’t stop laughing, thinking no-one could be having a worse evening of ‘entertainment’ in the world! But then, out of nowhere appeared an aggressive pantomime horse, which proceeded to attack us, followed by two wrestling dummies, an Egyptian Mr Blobby and a man spinning a plate. It was truly one of the funniest nights any of us had ever experienced. Unrepeatable. Indescribable. And then the bus got lost taking us home. The perfect ending to an extraordinary night!
The following evening couldn’t have been more different – or perfect. We travelled into the desert, or rather everyone else went into the desert in cars across the dunes. I had to go the short way to camp because of my dodgy neck – and had an hour alone sitting in the desert as the sun set. It was magical in such an easy way. Then everyone arrived at camp and we had a seamless evening of riding, smoking, eating, dancing and laughing in the darkness of the desert. It ended much too soon. And I got a hint of why people fall in love with the desert. The peace. The isolation. The community.
The day before we left we went in a river taxi along the creek for one breath-taking hour and enjoyed a superbly relaxing night-time drink in the open air of an Arabian bar.
Dubai is a very strange place but it does seem to offer these extraordinary possibilities.
Meanwhile the show sold out, we received rave reviews and between shows the cast relaxed on the beach, swam in the sea or flopped by the pool. It was just like Birmingham.