Hello, it’s the hairy one again. Here’s an update of how the tour’s going so far.

BRIGHTON

We started in Brighton for the premiere, staying on the beachfront was a pleasant relief from our native landlocked London! We were there for almost a week making the final preparations before the tour started. The dome is a lovely big space to start the tour off and the premiere went smoothly, it was slightly nerve-racking as we had never performed the piece in front of large audience before, and you’re never quite sure how they will react (especially with 7734) but the feedback was all positive.

High points: Just doing the premiere to such a welcoming audience and kicking off the tour was my personal high point, I also found a really nice jacket in the lanes market.

Low Points: Realizing the jacket was £300 (should have seen my face, a mix between shock and disappointment). Unfortunately Esteban and I drew the short straw with the hotel rooms and ended up with child’s beds which meant a lot of waking up on the floor due to falling out!

Here’s a nice picture I took of our poster and the pier



OXFORD

Next stop Oxford! This was a particularly special performance for me as it is my hometown, performing to an audience who have known you since you were a child is much more terrifying that performing at Sadler’s Wells believe me!

High points: Just performing for the home crowd was special; we had a good show in a smaller venue, which would prove useful for the rest of the tour.

Low points: As we walked from the train station to the theatre Luke said to me “As long as we don’t end up at Nando’s for dinner”, inevitably it was the only place open and 11:00pm.

WINCHESTER

We arrived in Winchester for our first 2 show run of the tour, after quite a difficult que-2-que (in which we go through the piece troubleshooting space, lights, sound) I was a little apprehensive about the show, yet we did one of the best shows we have ever had, just what they always say. Bad tech, good run.

High Points: Very good shows, doing 2 in a row isn’t so bad after all! Hotel was nice although had their calendars a bit confused as it had a Christmas tree in October?!

Low points: I accidently hit my head quite hard in the 2nd show, which ended up gave me a headache for a few days. Kudos to our stage manager Ally for shining a light in my eyes and asking me where I was, I answered correctly before giving him my pin number accidently…it was a hard hit.

NEWPORT

We’re flying now, well in the rhythm of the tour. Newport has a lovely theatre and it suited the piece perfectly. Strangely the city (as lively and colourful as it is) had a lack of restaurants to eat in which lead to us eating in the same Indian 2 nights in a row, either that or we enjoyed the Tom Jones paraphernalia and soundtrack, typical of an Indian restaurant.

High points: Theatre was like something out of startrek (very modern), the Bombay bicycle club restaurant, if you’re in Newport for some reason, check it out!

Low point: Lost my phone charger

LINCOLN

Lovely little city. The space was strange, very wide but shallow, but also because the front row of the audience was incredibly close to us. Some of us thought it was nice to really look into the eyes of the audience and connect with them, I felt a bit sorry for them as they must have been sprayed with sweat a number of times!

High points: Good show, stayed in a very nice motel called Damonds, which was linked to an American style diner, this of course meant the classic American pancakes for breakfast. Amazing.

Low Points: Cant think of any?!

So that’s you up to date, the company have many photos and videos we would like to share and hopefully it should all be sorted soon through a tumblr account.

The tour so far is going very well, we’re almost halfway, enjoying it a lot. Getting very good feedback from the audiences and hope to see you soon if you’re coming to see it.

Next stop, Truro.

Premiere - Brighton Dome - 23/9/10

So, we begin the 7734 tour in Brighton at The Dome. After a week of technical rehearsal and a whole year of creation we finally get to show the piece to people! Real, living, breathing, ticket buying people! And, not just a handful this time - over 1000!

We’ve warmed up, done our hefty pre-set and the only thing left to do is get into our starting positions. As I lay there in my starting position I’m going to be honest, I was shaking… A LOT! The opening bars of the overture began and all I could feel was my body vibrating with a mixture of excitement and ‘oh please don’t let anything go wrong’ type thoughts.

Thankfully, very little went ‘wrong’. I have realised that this piece is a bit of a wild animal, you can know your lines, know your choreography and be in the right place at the right time - but the set is like an unpredictable assault course that constantly shifts, tangles and spreads. For the premiere, the set was pretty nice to me :) though I’m sure this is the start of the next level of my relationship with it and that you’ll hear more about that as the tour goes on! I can see potential for a falling out!

Anyway, the thing about having an audience in, is that suddenly there’s a lot of ‘new noise’ - i.e. coughing, clapping and laughing (no mobile phones yet… but when there are…). There are happy bits, there are sad bits, people make appropriate noises and unexpected ones too. It was really very nice to hear a reaction for the first time!



That’s my first tour blog to pretty much say - ‘and we’re off’! Thanks to everyone who came along to Brighton, this looks like it’s going to be an exciting tour. 7734 is GO! See you on the road!

Tim

Hello, so first blog of the upcoming tour, this is a bit strange because there to two faces above this post, I’m Sam (the hairy one on the left), Tim will also be contributing in amazing technically proficient ways, but we begin the old fashioned way on Microsoft word.

To start this blog with an intro to the piece is hard without giving anything away about it? But here is a bash. We’ve been making this piece on and off for a year now and believe me blood, sweat and tears have gone into it from every one of us. The subject matter of 7734 isn’t the happiest, so the research and development of the piece was not really fun and games (although we did have some very memorable funny moments). Extensively we explored many issues during the Research and development from humiliation to power, hell to bliss, fear to happiness, anything inbetween and all at the same time as touring Yesterday & Justitia! So a very challenging and busy year for all of us…not to mention tiring.

Last week we finished the year with 7734’s production week, working 10am-10pm to get the piece where it needs to be technically (lights, set, projection etc) and we ended the week with a preview performance for the organizations who have aided the company with the creation of 7734, it went well, everyone was happy, especially the dancers (and of course Jasmin) and as the piece is running at about 2 hours, too get it finalized, in a theatre with the tech sorted… massive sigh of relief. Not that it was not going to be ready in time, but now the company are on a well deserved break over August. The piece is an epic in every sense of the word, don’t miss it, premieres on the 23rd Sept, I’m going on holiday, see you on the other side.

Sam

P.S while on tour we’ll try and update this blog regularly with our progress, anecdotes, and anything else that comes to mind.