Our First Day...

So, I arrived at my digs in Hull late last night! I have the attic room of a family house in the 'avenues' area that lies between the city centre and the University. There are plenty of bars and cafes locally, which I'm always very pleased about!

The Old Hull Truck

The New Building

Hull Truck is an impressive new theatre, the company having moved from it's historic home, a now decrepit but once very atmospheric space close by in Spring Street. My first impressions are that this will be a great place to work. The auditorium itself, with its thrust stage, looks as though it will be thrilling to perform in.


No matter how many years of experience one has, the first day of rehearsals is always a bit like one's first day at school. This was made all the more pertinent since we shall be playing seven year old school children.


We kicked off with a meet and greet in the green room. The Artistic Director, Andrew Smaje, welcomed us and introduced the acting company to the building staff. We then went to our rehearsal room with Director, Matthew Lloyd.


It was great reading through the play. As the writer, Tim Firth, says in his introductory notes, describing the structure of the play is a bit like trying to describe the structure of vegetable soup. As such, when reading the play in one's head, it's rather difficult to keep up with the episodes that make up the childrens' unfolding relationships. Things were so much clearer with an individual actor reading the lines of a particular child.

The Auditorium

The Rehearsal Space

Actually, I was very moved by the end of our read-through. It's a brilliant piece of writing. It's also very complex. One of the most important things that came out of today was the director's desire for us to perform the play such that it appears almost anarchic to an audience whilst adhering to a very defined structure in terms of its rhythm.


Tim Firth very generously sang the carols that appear in the play. They are far more complicated than one imagines. On first glance one assumes they are simply carols sung with alternative lyrics, but, in fact, there are many musical and rhythmic departures.

A model of James Cotterill's design for the show

The afternoon was great fun. We first spoke about our individual characters. Since we are each playing a seven year old and, subsequently, one of the child's parents, the story of who the child is in relation to the parent was an important part of this, i.e., how the traits of the child relate to the parent that we later meet.


For me personally, having been unable to interpret one or two of the lines spoken by Adrian, the child I shall be playing, I'd missed the fact that his father (whom I subsequently play) had spend some time in Prison, which made me see him in a dramatic new light.


The most enjoyable part of the day was the improvisation that followed. Matthew pretended to be our teacher, Miss Horrocks, and we were asked to draw pictures of ourselves and one family member, and to show our work to the rest of the class. I simply love doing improvisations like this.


However, I recognised an early frustration, that will no doubt surface in many forms. Since Adrian is newcomer to the class and suffers with a lisp for which he is mercilessly teased, he is very isolated from the group. And yet I as an actor love to be very involved. I shall need to override my natural tendency.