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Rehearsals started about ten minutes after I arrived in Keswick. Dad gave me and my sister a lift down to Keswick, we arrived at ten to ten and I declared myself present at the box office. Before I could even say goodbye to my sister, our stage manager appeared, pounced on me and whisked me off to the rehearsal room. I've never been attacked by a trapdoor spider, but extrapolating from this experience leads me to sympathize with the prey.
At least this was a friendly spider. Rather than the more traditional 'hang you up and drain your internal organs' treatment, I got tea and a welcome pack. The draining of actorly juices could happen at leisure over the next few weeks of work, there was no rush.
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There's no heating in my digs. Well, okay, that's not fair, there is heating. It's just switched off. It's switched off at night. It's also switched off during the day, when everyone is out.
It is switched on for an hour or two in the morning and an hour or two in the evening, because that's when people are in. Not me, of course, I'm out from 0930 to 2130 right now. This enables me to skip all the heated hours and make the most of the cool, damp ones instead, like some form of large hairy slug.
Like most Keswick houses, this one's made of green slate. Green slate is a bugger to heat, apparently. So much of a bugger that it's clearly cheaper not to try. The current energy prices aren't helping, I expect. Bastard big six.
I get an electric blanket for my bed to make up for the fact I won't be at home when the radiator is on. It works. It works really well. The lowest setting makes me sweat like a pig. When I turn it off, the sweat all slowly freezes under the duvet. I'm an actor-flavoured sweatsicle by morning.
Rehearsals are fairly sweaty and intense, it's a movement-heavy show in which I play a wildly enthusiastic seven-year-old. 'Sweat' seems to be one of the themes for the show so far, in fact. There's nothing nicer than getting back after a long sweaty rehearsal and climbing into a deep, hot bath. I know this because I can't. There's no bath at my digs, which are also on the wrong side of town. The icy rain I trudge through for half an hour every night is the closest I get to one.
At least there's a shower. It's cleaner than the rain water, although not really any warmer.
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Two weeks into rehearsals. My voice is feeling the strain of singing and shouting all day, I'm getting pretty hoarse. An old chum of mine is sending me helpful emails about the time she developed nodules on her vocal folds and needed an operation. I should eat plenty of salmon and almonds, apparently. And turmeric. That sounds quite nice. Nicer than an operation, certainly.
My landlady is very helpful and friendly. She may have yak genes, she seems immune to cold. She's also a little fussy - she stands next to me in the kitchen, talking at high speed about the hiking she'll be doing all day, and joins in with my cooking. By, for example, chucking half the water out of the pan I've just filled because you don't need that much to boil eggs, for goodness' sake, and oh! the autumn colours in Keswick, oh, the colours James.
Well appointed though the kitchen is, and she's stressed I'm welcome to use it (as long as you use the mats, I can't bear crumbs), I'm not here for long enough to cook. I'm on a diet of tuna mayo sandwiches and hard boiled eggs, easy on the water. I don't mind that at all, it's healthy and cheering. But after a week of it, I certainly wouldn't mind some almond and turmeric salmon to go.
I'm not sure I feel entirely at home here. I don't feel much at all, really, I'm too numb with cold. After hanging up my laundry and going out for the day, I come back to discover she's (helpfully) spread it out to dry on radiators all round the house, a shirt here, some socks there. Not the underwear. I never touch underwear, she later tells me. Never have, I've been saying it for years. They should make a play, call it 'I don't touch underwear'. You could be in it.
Well intentioned though she doubtless was, she's gone out as well, so the radiators have all turned themselves off. I ladle my cold, damp clothes into my suitcase and move to another flat.
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My voice is getting pretty hoarse. Too long since I last worked this much, too long since I did any vocal warm-ups regularly. I'm drinking hot water with lemon, ginger and honey all day. It's not enough. Time to add garlic as well.
This kind of remedy is much discussed in the Green Room during tea breaks. Which throat sweets to avoid, what vitamin supplements are cheap in town this week, how thixotropic is your manuka honey, all that kind of thing. Okay, not the last one, I made that up. But we do talk about manuka honey a lot. Mostly about why on earth would you pay forty quid for a jar of it.
My new throat medicine tastes like 75% of a good chicken noodle soup. It just needs the meat and noodles. Everybody says so, because they can all smell it. Not just in the Green Room, which is redolent with the steam and spice of a handful of different Dr. Theatre Brews. Also in the rehearsal room, where garlic has quickly become the dominant note.
At least my voice gets some extra rest, if only because people veer away from me outside of the obligatory bits in rehearsal. No conversation is good conversation.
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I'm ramping up the drama for all of this of course (hello, I'm an actor) - it's not quite this dreary or relentless. The company is excellent, the show is great fun to work on (if exhausting) and I do like Keswick, lonely and dreich though it can be. But I'm definitely feeling the distance.
Roll on January, I want to say, although it feels ungrateful to my current employers. Even if I love my job, and this is a good one, make no mistake, being away from home is taking a toll.
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