Crazy-busy day today. After the late finish last night, I was up at 7am this morning with just about enough wakefulness to throw myself in the shower, down some breakfast and jump in the car to get to the Royal for 8.30.

Once there I ran through the video cues with the DSM and made sure they all worked, inserting a few extra elements as we came across things that didn’t quite follow. Then the cast arrived and we set to work on a full technical run through, where I found myself doing my usual tech work of running around like a madman sorting all the extra little bits and bobs to make things work nicely and seamlessly.

Come 1pm we broke for lunch and I left the Theatre, heading back home with enough time to grab a sarnie before jumping back in the car and heading to the Grove for the first Youth Theatre session of the new term.

With the two Grove workshops dispatched and a couple of minor incidents dealt with, I was back at the wheel and headed North as quickly as legally possible (and possibly a little quicker) to get back to the Royal for the 8pm curtain-up on the first performance of Vikings and Darwin.

It went fantastically well, especially considering I’d not been there for the dress and the immediate audience reaction was brilliant, as was the feedback from the party of suits from the National. They came to see the show a few weeks ago in a scratch performance to judge whether it could go to play the festival at the National (sadly deciding “no” the following week), but commented on just how far the show had come.

I escaped the Royal around 9.30pm and was back home within the hour, with about enough time to chill out with K for a while in front of Hell’s Kitchen, to which she’s become addicted and I’ve found myself being drawn into as well. After that, it was an early(ish) bed for another early start in the morning.