Bye bye Buxton - 22/8, it may draw you a tear or a box on the ear

Dave: Thank you Michael

Me: What for?

Dave: For what you're about to volunteer for.

Me: What am I about to volunteer for?

Dave: To get the crate back home.

Say what you like about his dancing skills and his weird attitude to birds, but there's no doubt that Dave knows how to pick the right person for a sticky job.

So this morning I wander over to the Octagon to make sure the crate's OK, and note that apart from no longer being on the wheeled trolley we loaded it on, it's exactly as we left it. Good. So I ring the transport company. Can you send a tailgate and pallet jack? Sure, they say, but we'll have to do the same as before - open it, take out all the stuff to make it lighter, lift it onto the truck with four people, and seal it up again.

Sure. And while you're at it I'll sign a declaration of contents without being there to supervise the resealing.

Can't we just load it on the tailgate? No, because it's too long, it won't fit on the gate. There isn't a truck in all England that can lift a 2.4m wide load.

So are the trucks I get paper on at work a special model for Officeworks Clayton only?

Back home for a council of war. I can't get hold of anyone else from our company, and the treasurer isn't answering emails or pigeons. It's executive decision time. There are three options - unpack/repack, find a forklift to load it, or get another truck to take it to the depot in Essex.

Chris takes a stroll around town and asks various shops how they do their loading. Remarkably, it seems only Aldi have a forklift! We're unlikely to be able to drag the crate up all those hills to the fork, and even less likely to "charter" the fork for half an hour to load it for us. Strike one.

Google turns up quite a number of transport companies in the Manchester area, but very few of them have tailgate trucks - most only do containers. Eventually one refers me to a company that might be able to help. The quote is £111 plus VAT... luckily we still have some of the society's money left from what we had to use for things like the rehearsal accompanist.

It's taken four and a half hours, but we're fairly sure we've covered all the bases. The G&S Society owes me a day's gunzelling.

Just imagine if the Angelico Contingent had decided to fly out on Sunday. Dave would have had to change his travel plans, thereby annoying his family greatly. Or worse, imagine if someone else had been left in charge, someone with no knowledge of transport and no capacity for making something out of nothing. The crate might have been lost forever and the society hit with import duty. A day's gunzelling vs an averted disaster. I think I did the right thing.

A Buxton Blog - 21/8, last day of freedom

Note to self: the 7am Monday to Friday alarm doesn't go off on a Sunday. Furthermore, it's not possible to shower, pack gunzelling gear, breakfast and get to the station between 7:56 and 8:23. When's the next train? 9:19. Can I still get to London? Yes, in fact most timetables are clockfaced and run at least hourly - even on a Sunday. So I'm out by an hour but no more. Dat's what money can do for you folks.

Uneventful trip to Stockport. Hello Pendolino! There's a cute four year old in the seat opposite me, so making funny faces takes up whatever portion of the journey isn't spent enjoying 200km/h and tilting action.

Watford Junction - the end of the London Overground network. Quite a nice looking station, with expanses of clean concrete and natural lighting. The Overground departs from a set of four dock platforms, which must be fun in peak time - but a glance at the timetable shows it only runs every 20 minutes. As a matter of fact it runs every 20 minutes all through the day, only dropping to half-hourly after 10pm and before 6am. That's pretty good! They could almost unify their timetable and run the same times every day, but I suspect there's some operational reason they can't because on the corner of peak time the timetable varies by a couple of minutes or so.

So I take a Class 378 spark to Willesden Junction. Brand new Bombadier metro stock, with mainly longitudinal seating and a few bum racks near the doors. The carriage ends are even more open than our Siemens trains, I guess that's what happens when there's another few years of technology in the design.

Willesden Junction is a mess - upper and lower stations angled about 45 degrees apart, with walkways going in unusual directions (and on a gradient to make the station seem like it's on three and a half levels) and a bus bay buried in a corner. The main lines go past the Overground station on both sides, with a workshop for Overground trains in the mix as well. I head for the footbridge over the main lines and arm my camera for action.

The howling sound of the Pendolino actually doesn't carry upwards all that well. I get a few videos of them and a few more of Class 350s but I'm not satisfied. I try again from the bus bay but the blackberries muffle the sound. Mmmm, blackberries. And the fence is only 5 foot high so I can reach over it. The natives here must all be fairly short because there's hardly any ripe berries close to the fence but heaps just at the end of my reach. That was Lunch Mk.1.

I head back to the station and get an Underground service back towards Watford Junction. The Underground and Overground share tracks as far as Harrow & Wealdstone where the tube service terminates. Tube stock is quite something! The first thing you notice is that it's semi-circular - like the tunnels. The next thing is that from a full height platform I can look over the top of it! The doors open and it's a step DOWN into the train. Fun! The doors curve along with the body of course, which means even quite tall people can get in and out without too much trouble.

So I get on board and suddenly feel right at home. It's non-air conditioned, and the motor sound comes through quite clearly. It reminds me of a W tram or a Tait! I wonder how old this stock is...

It accelerates quite nicely too, although it's somewhat jerky. That's probably the effect of the third rail system, every set of points means a change of circuit which cuts the motors momentarily. I wonder why third rail still exists... does it have any advantage over overhead wires apart from lock-in?

So, Harrow & Wealdstone. It has platforms for all the intercity lines but there are regular announcements saying "The train now approaching Platform 3 is not scheduled to stop here. Please stand well clear." Thanks for the heads-up, I'll get my camera ready. WHOOSH! A Pendolino goes past in less than four seconds (as the camera proves). Ten cars each 20m long, do the maths. This is awesome!

After about 15 minutes a staff member comes up and says "I saw you taking photos". Oh dear here it comes... hey wait no it doesn't! She's very nice about it, and just lets the station master know that I'm not from the press, I'm a perfectly harmless transport enthusiast from Australia. The station master's fine with it too, he just tells me the rules (stay behind the yellow lines, no flash, don't obstruct passengers) and we end up chatting about the operation of a metro service. I love this!

Eventually I have enough videos of trains running at 200km/h through the platforms so I get a 378 back to Watford Junction. I get myself some Lunch Mk.2 and sit down to eat it, and then an announcement comes over the PA that there's been a power failure... or a signalling failure. One of those. But trains are disrupted and intercity passengers are recommended to take the Overground to Euston instead. Uh-oh... what's this going to do to my Cinderella Hour? I'd better find out. Talk to you soon.

A Buxton Blog - 20/8, loitering with the intent to gunzel

I awoke with a pain in my neck. I don't know why I decided to open with that but there you are.

What shall we do today? Apart from help the pros bump Utopia out and Pirates in, of course. And watch the awards ceremony (to collect our well deserved first prize). Well, the first thing I see when I wake up is my student accommodation standard pinboard - which has on it nothing but an A0 rail map of Great Britain. Ah, I promised my faithful readers that my youtube channel would somehow have some clips of trains passing at 200km/h, to hopefully capture the savage howl they make at speed. The Gwiwer recommends Willesden Junction as the Place to Be - but that's all the way out to London, surely there's somewhere closer?

A few hours with nationalrail.co.uk (for those reading at home that's the Mother Country's equivalent of Metlink) shows that there's really no point trying for anywhere else - even some of the minor stations between Stockport and Stoke-on-Trent are no easier to get to than Willesden Junction! So I'm going to do a Chrysaea tomorrow. Should be lots of fun.

A whistle sounds and I glance up, expecting the usual 66 and limestone train. DRAT! It's the Royal Scot! There must be a railfan tour on! Ctrl-T "royal scot buxton 20 august 2011". No hits. Add "rail tour". BINGO! Look up timetable - when's it coming back this way? It's unclear but it looks like it's going out via a different line. I had no idea there were multiple ways out of a quarry branch. Ah well, it's that kind of country. Nothing to see here, move on.

One very important bit of planning - what's Cinderella Hour from so far away? 19:06 to get the last train to Buxton on a Sunday night. Or 19:17 to go in to London and out again. I should probably try to get home earlier than that and preach another sermon to my congregation of two, but at least I know how to avoid a rough night on a station bench.

Whistle sounds. DOUBLE DRAT! There's the Royal Scot again, it did come back this way! Well it's too late to do anything now. It stops on the bridge outside my window. Get lost, I know that trick. Hey Chris, look out the window and tell me what you see. Snap off a few shots. They come out terrible. It's still there...

"Chris, I'm going to chase that train away by going out to take a photo of it. If I'm not back by 4pm come and find me." Sure enough, just as I get to the front door of the halls it moves off. Murphy's Law of Special Train Movements isn't restricted to Australia.

4pm and it's time to get over to the Opera House. The costumes people are delighted to see us again, and we make very short work of the transfers to and from the Octagon. In between costume work we also help put the various bits of set onto a truck - if you could grace such a vehicle by the name. It's a fairly new DAF rigid chassis but the curtainsider body and electro-hydraulic tailgate are positively primitive. How on earth could anyone countenance a canvas side with no steel gates? And (wonder of wonders) there is absolutely no provision for load restraint except for a pillar in the middle of the floor! The two guys from the transport company seem to see no problem and just lean flats against the canvas curtains. This can only end in tears (pronounced whichever way you prefer). Large pieces of set follow, and lots are stacked on top of a very unstable pile of flats. Is that going to shift in transit? There's a chance of it. There's quite a lot to put in, so the guys climb up over the load with pieces of rostrum held above their heads. I lost count of the number of OH&S violations I would have been dinged with if I'd done it at home. I also declined to try a prediction of how many pieces would be broken before reaching their destination. Oliver Smith, who was coordinating the loading, didn't seem to think it mattered much - most of this stuff would need to be repaired or modified before next festival anyway, so transport damage would hardly make a difference.

We finished loading up the truck and reported back to Harriet to help with costumes but there was nothing to do so she suggested we watch the awards ceremony. Hey, why not. Our idea was for Chris to be there (transcribing and posting to Savoynet live) and David to watch too because he's never seen one before, but if there's nothing better to do, why not.

Well Steph Gibson got the award for Best Female Voice - as you do. The cheering from the Australian section (including honorary Aussies and other enthusiasts) was something to hear. Neither our show nor Savoynet's won first prize, which was unexpected - but it went to South Anglia which we don't mind at all because we know some of their people and they're lovely.

After the big ones were announced we got the shock of our lives - Ian started talking about how wonderful the Australian shows were, mentioning Arcadians as well as Yeomen, and then mentioned me and Chris by name! I mean, I know we did a lot of hard work carrying sets and costumes, but to be mentioned by name at the awards ceremony is high praise indeed! And there's me in grubby tracksuit pants suitable for carrying set, and we have to get up on the Octagon stage to accept a framed certificate in front of the world's cameras! I try to hide behind Chris and David as much as I can...

Literally before we've sat down there's a message on Facebook congratulating us for our award - the wonders of live radio broadcasting.

As soon as he can Chris rushes off to help bump out Utopia, but David and I are caught in the tractor beam of a radio announcer, who wants to interview us about G&S in Australia, and what it's like to come half way around the world to put on a show.

What a day. Now back to packing set. There's not much left, so by about 7:45 we head home for food before it's time to help carry Pirates costumes at 9:15ish. Pizza and spaghetti. Very satisfying.

Carrying costumes. Free entry to the festival club. Lovely people to chat to. Awwwww this is the last festival club! The festival's nearly over!

Well we have to go out with a bang, and that bang is a pot-luck Trial by Jury. The position of Defendant isn't filled, and Oliver Smith just bought me a rum and cola. Yes please! And Chris goes for the role of the usher. David, here's the camera. You know what to do!

Jackie Mitchell is the Plaintiff, so I know there's going to be some acting involved. This is going to be fun!

Apart from his two big songs the Defendant doesn't have all that much to do. As tenor leads go it must be one of the easiest - at least, once the vocal cords are loosened up. I crack the top note the first time I sing it, but hit it the rest of the time. This is great!

At the end... farewells. We exchange compliments with the costumes people we've been working with. They're volunteers and have been working harder than many paid people I know. As you do. Lots of people ask us when we'll be back... and when we say "not next year, after that we'll see" the farewells are quite touching (literally). Thank goodness for Savoynet and Facebook.

Home and bed - I'm getting the first train tomorrow morning.

A Buxton Blog - 19/8, a day of Pickfords

As I said before Dave G and I made ourselves a date for 9am on the day after the cast party. Whose idea was that? It was forced on us by the fact that both Dave and Andrew were leaving Buxton at noon. What to do about the fact that the paperwork couldn't possibly be done in time? Good question.

So we assessed our position with regard to the crate the set came over in. Contrary to initial estimates we didn't have a missing side piece, we had a missing end piece and a side piece cut to nearly the size of an end piece. So even after Neil brought us the promised replacement timber for the side piece we had to kitbash the remains of the old side piece to make an end piece out of it. Confused? So were we.

But anyway, at about 10:30 we had the crate ready to fill. By this time Ron and Robert were there as well, and between us all we got it packed and sealed by about 11am. There was still no paperwork. "Thank you Michael!" said Dave. "What for?" I asked suspiciously. "For what you're about to do" he replied. "It is then as I feared", I said (aside of course). "You're going to fill in the manifest and customs documents. I'll get Steve Hodge to email you the details."

Well I guess that was the only logical thing to do - we're the only company members who will still be here when the crate has to go, and I've filled out so many customs declarations in my time you'd get a stiff arm in sympathy if I told you. None of them have been for two tons of theatre set but hopefully the details are pretty much the same...

And so back home. Hey, the pros are in tonight - Utopia! Should be utterly amazing. But more to the point, let's help them bump in and all that.

3pm-ish, what to do now? Straighten my spine out. On my bed. With my eyes shut.

7pm - Off we go to Utopia-land! We want to be Utopian if you'll only show us how! It's so grand to be Utopian in 1910! This is only the third professional production of Utopia. Ever.

Chris's blog hardly does justice to the show. His "template" for a review is so careful to be kind to mediocre shows that it doesn't have room to rave about outstanding ones. Well this one was outstanding. How does a company manage to assemble a dozen patter singers of a quality seen in only three people in the whole of Melbourne?

It's obviously a "big budget" show - the costumes are amazing, as are the special effects (particularly by the Public Exploder), there's lots of light, the set is a work of art, and the makeup is stunning. The cast are outstanding - not only did they manage to learn Utopia in a week (no mean feat in itself) but they executed the most complicated stage business with perfect precision. The perfect grand finale to the festival! Definitely one to get a DVD of.

Festival club of course - Jackie Mitchell is there for the first time since Utopia rehearsals started. So of course we were able to tell her how wonderful she was. And walk her home at the end of course. Instead of a cabaret we had a pot-luck Pirates, starring Chris as the PK and Jamie as Samuel. Also Anna (one of the volunteer costume assistants for the pro company) as Ruth. That was good fun. I filled a 2GB memory card with video of them...

I can't believe this festival is nearly over.

A Buxton Blog - 17-18/8, a yeomen effort

Well what with the rush of actually doing the show I've been forgetting to blog about it. It's better that way than the other.

The last day of rehearsals was pretty much like the rest, the stress wasn't too bad considering everything.

Festival Iolanthe in the evening. Someone I know who has a great opinion of her own ability now stands exposed as either a massive liar or a planetary egotist. That wasn't entirely unexpected. Still, the antics of the fairies were a lot of fun to watch, and were quite in line with my ideal translucent Iolanthe. Interestingly, a lot of the choreography (especially for the peers) was very similar to what we did in 2006... must be traditional. The quality of the chorus was the same as 2006 too - very mixed. Ah well, we need shows like that to set apart the outstanding ones.

Cabaret was quite good. We didn't know most of the songs, but Strephon (an expat Aussie) and Charli (who sends me messages on a fairly constant basis) did a duet which was really quite charming.

Funnily enough, there weren't many Aussies at the club. What, do they think a 2am finish is a bit much before the busiest day of everyone's life? How strange!

And so to Thursday. We were up and about in good time for 9am bump-in, which was actually quite easy since the set people (that's different from the stage crew around here) did it all for us. People sorted out their dressing rooms, got ready for an entrance check when the crew had their break, and then went off for lunch before the 2pm dress rehearsal. It wasn't quite so easy for me as Stage Manager, but I did manage to get time to eat.

Dress rehearsal went very well - we had to go back over a few things (not many) and the pace was so good that we managed to do the whole show with the exception of just the last section of dialogue (the orchestra will walk at 5:30 so we had to be sure we had time - as it happened we finished the show at about 5:28). Nobody had given me a list of props so I had to send Chris around to the Octagon to borrow some from the pro company. See, it's useful to know people and earn their gratitude by helping them with their bump-outs. It's even more useful to be close to everything and everyone, close enough to send someone to go and source a prop, during the dress rehearsal.

And so off to dinner - no not yet, we have to sort out fly cues. And the last few lighting cues. And by the way Dick, how do you want to do your orchestra bows? And are these stand-by buttons working? OK, now I can go eat. Oh grumbles - everything's closed! And the frozen meals we have at home take an hour to cook!

So we went to the festival club - in its daytime incarnation as a fairly nice cafe. Soup of the day and chips? And you can do that in half an hour? Sounds perfect.

So I arrived back at the theatre JUST in time to give the half-hour call over the tannoy. No sooner had I done it than front of house asked me if we were OK to let the audience into the house! Quick guys, let's preset for Act 1 and let them in. We're doing a show tonight!

The rest, as they say, is history. We did the show. Nobody made any major mistakes (just a very few minor ones). My announcements ("Ladies and gentlemen, I have no idea what time interval started but it must be about time so this is your five minute call, five minutes until you're required on stage please") were received with an agreeable degree of mirth. The lighting and flying teams did their job amazingly. The cast were outstanding. I was sure the adjudicator would rave about us...

She didn't. She said quite a few nice things, but she hated the lighting! Must have been too innovative for her. She said it was too dark and she couldn't see people - for goodness sake, dark lighting goes with dark humour to make a dark show! Yeomen isn't Pinafore! So who knows, we might not walk away with first prize this year.

Festival club and cabaret! Andrew got up and introduced us (from notes on his netbook - just in case they thought Australia was a backward country) and people sang. Considering the songs weren't all that amazing (although the singers were, admittedly) we must have had a lot of the audience's sympathy because they were giving us their attention - all the way to the back of the room. Quite something.

Some people never rest though - Dave Gerard was already thinking about how the crate of set was going to get back home. So we made a date for 9am to pack the thing. With the minor setback that half the material was missing. Still, Neil Smith promised us his full support (up to and including the replacement of the missing timber) so I couldn't worry too much.

Well they kicked us out of the club at 1:30am (as they do) and we went to the common room at the halls of residence to finish off the party. What a great cast we have. It lasted until about 4:30am. Was I worried about being able to get up the next morning? Of course not.

A Buxton Blog - 15-16/8, the hard slog to the finish line

Well here we are once more on the scene of our former triumphs. No not the opera house, not yet - just the rehearsal venues. Dick Stockton, our "honorary Aussie" MD, has been notebashing and cleaning up the musical aspects of Yeomen, and Robert has been resetting the show from the Scotch/Paramoor "shrunken" version back up to the way this show should be run. There's new people to be brought into the choreography and a new space to learn, so it's a lot to achieve in three days. Still, I have no doubt that we're still within reach of first prize.

After rehearsal we had our company dinner - at 6pm so people could go and see the show if they wanted to. Chris therefore rushed to the box office to get tickets - no luck. Argh. Situation normal I guess - the Oxbridgians must be popular.

So I hung around at dinner until it was time to go to the Festival Club. The general hubbub was quite noisy, and I think my threshold for pain in the auditory nerves is dropping. I needed glasses at 16, I think I'll need a hearing aid at 36. But it's still a great way to learn random things about people.

Also, it's a fairly good way of combining the work of the society (getting some money to pay bills) with a good whinge session with some of the movers and shakers. Of course you know when movers and shakers whinge, it usually results in problems being identified and solutions proposed.

So Chris caught me up and we went to the club. Choruses from Gondoliers and then the Oxbridgers came in and did a cabaret. Like most it was comprised of songs we don't know so it was of mild interest only. But what happened after that was a different matter! Buoyed up by post-show vibe and certain volatile liquids the cast started spontaneously launching into snatches of music - starting with Eagle High from Utopia! Chris joined in and I wandered over to listen, and an audience of two was all they needed. Pirates and Ruddigore followed and we joined in. In the Ruddigore madrigal I started singing the only line I know... and Savoynet's Yum-Yum shut up and let me have it! W00000000000t!

That night we left the club when we were kicked out. We got home at about 1:30am. But it was all worth it!

The next morning... well let's just say it's a good thing my alarm snoozes instead of switching off. We all got to rehearsal this morning spot on time. Breakfast was an apple eaten on the run, but we got there.

And so to another day of hard slog. Half way through we got moved from a small, airless room with no mobile phone reception to a much bigger, high ceiling, open windows, three bars out of five room, which we think we can have tomorrow as well. Phew!

After rehearsal? Dinner, time off to read emails and stuff, ignore Opera della Luna's Sorcerer and go to the festival club.

"A Patter Parade", Ian Smith said! In other words, patter songs and some chorus numbers from (almost) all the shows! Lots of fun. Finishing with Eagle High - and since I don't know it I had to video it didn't I! What fun.

Forecast for tomorrow: more of the same, possibly with more stress from the directorial team because it's our last day before the theatre. Might be time for an early night. See you soon.

A Buxton Blog - 14/8, nearly a day of rest

Technically Sunday started between the show and the cast party, but to me, the day ends when I go to bed. That made Saturday about 30 hours long, interesting...

So I woke up to my alarms (both of them - the phone and the Class 66) and proceeded to encourage Chris and David to get out of bed for church. It's the Sullivan service!

We got there just in time for choir practice at 10:30 and were handed music for a piece called The Day Closes. I try to pick out the tenor line but it's NOT EASY. Like Yeomen's tenor line I guess. No doubt someone could do a doctorate on the progression of Sullivan's music from Pinafore to Iolanthe to Yeomen. Well this piece sits squarely in the third tranche.

With not nearly enough notebashing time we sat down for the start of the actual church service. It bore a remarkable similarity to the equivalent service two years ago! Hopefully we still have the pew sheet from then because it would be an interesting comparison.

As regards orthodoxy of doctrine I think it was about the same as two years ago - if anything slightly more orthodox than the other service we attended at the Metho church but still basically shallow. The sermon was about the tendencies of both Gilbert and Sullivan to carpe the diem rather than worrying about tomorrow. If it was me preaching I'd have said more about Jesus's words referring rather to doing the work of the Kingdom without worrying about tomorrow, rather than living it up hedonistically. But my chance would come...

Lots of people we know were there, and just about all of them had something nice to say about Arcadians. Wow. Once we shook off all the well-wishers Chris went up to the organ and had a chat with the organist. Incidentally, he was the man who runs the lights and sound for the Festival Club. Apparently he's an organist at another church in the area, so he was able to talk randomly about the weight of the keys when they're doing a lot of work with lots of stops pulled out. Fascinating stuff. Chris managed to get himself let loose on the organ! He played Roseleaf, Let Her Go and Graciously and I videoed all three. They're on Facebook.

That afternoon we had a music rehearsal for Yeomen - it never stops! Dick Stockton as MD is great - like David Hulme did for Arcadians he's finding and fixing problems I could never have even put my finger on.

That evening I did a repeat of last Sunday - kerplonk method of choosing a passage, and semi-led Bible Study with a pre-chosen theme. I turned up Psalm 8, which is further confirmation that the kerplonk method is inherently weighted in favour of favourite passages. What does it mean to be ruler over God's creation? Find out on our 44-minute podcast!

And so to the Festival Club. We decided to get there at about 9:45 to make sure we could get a table - getting there at 10 isn't enough it seems. The table was unattended but the doors were open, so we sort of hung around near the table for a bit wondering what to do - and then Neil Smith came up and said "Greetings gentlemen! Welcome, you're guests of the festival today!" I knew what that meant. "Can you gentlemen help us carry the Yeomen set back to the Octagon when the curtain comes down?" Of course we can Neil - it's the sort of thing we do at home for nothing, and if it means we get free entry to the club that's a bonus. Did I ever mention how much I love Buxton?

Unfortunately helping bump out meant missing the quiz, which was a bit of a shame, but I think becoming known as a reliable worker is better. When we finished we found the list of questions on our table (and Jamie filled us in on some) - and as expected they were the rankest trick questions ever posted by some of the lighter hearts on Savoynet! Which show opens with a chorus of Peers of the Realm? Pirates. And that was one of the better ones.

So we get ourselves settled and Neil gets up and pays tribute to "the army of helpers" (there were others as well as us) before introducing the pros for their cabaret. Chris got chatting with some of the pros afterward... despite what Nomie thinks he's got an uncanny knack of getting people to talk to him, when he's got something to talk about. They had to forcibly remove us from the club at 1:30am or so...

I think we're all subconsciously aware that the festival isn't going to last forever so we're carping the diem. And that's how we should be spending a holiday like this.