Jon Robyns

Hi all,

Well, phew! Manchester proved to be quite... no incredibly busy. Here's a small guide to the intricacies of putting up a show the size of the Les Miserables tour:

The first week of any new venue is always frantic what with the get in for the crew and stage management depts, followed by the dress rehearsal which is the first time the new dressers and in house crew have set eyes on the production. Brown trousers for all.

Then there's the opening night preview attended by heads of creative depts - director (in our case 2), music dept and movement dept heads and more often than not, the producer.

The next day sees a note session to sort out any problems the new venue presents followed by another show.

After this is usually a matinee and then the official press night opening of the show. (stop me if you're getting tired). Then the party, at which everyone is very well behaved and tucked up in bed by 11 having in no way drunk dry the stock of whatever bar we defiantly aren't in... got that!

That brings us to Fridays which are spent (with no hangovers) doing more notes and a show in the evening. Saturday is another 2 and then some sort of small aneurysm on Sunday.

Believe it or not, this is a lenient tour schedule.

So my point, long winded as it may be, is that the start of any new city is immediately very tiring. In Manchester we had this plus a weeks recording the Cast Album, which will be out later this year, watch the site for more details, an EPK (electronic press kit) similar to a music video for promoting the show was filmed, and we had to get ready for the subsequent venue - Norwich. All in a month. So, I'm truly cream-crackered!

Now in Norwich, home of in my opinion the best waffle house in the country, the Les Mis tour just keeps on trucking. A small but perfectly formed theatre houses us for the next 4 weeks.

I thought that I should post my holiday dates. They are:

4th, 5th and 6th of March.
4th 5th and 6th of June.
2nd 3rd and 4th of July.
5th 6th and 7th of August.

At these shows the part of Enjolras will be played by the wonderful, welsh and far too attractive for my liking Owain Williams.

Just a quick thank you to the talented students of Pendleton College in Salford who were great fun to teach while I was visiting the city. Good luck to all of you auditioning for Drama Schools.

That's all for now just a last recommendation to take a quick look at the new Les Mis site, very cool.