Barons Court, however, has 60 seats which surround the stage on three sides. The decision I need to make is this - do I stage the show for Barons Court and slightly adjust it for the Quay or do I go all out on the Quay staging and change it completely for Barons Court?
The Quay is a bigger space and requires the performer to go out to the audience - it's a space where video projection will work, where a pictorial aesthetic will work, where music and sound effects will work, it's a space for bigger gestures. Barons Court cannot be pictorial because only those sitting facing the front of the stage will see those images - Barons Court works in three dimensions rather than two and a bit. It is easier to stage for Barons Court and remove a dimension for the Quay, but who wants to make life too easy?
I've faced this decision before with Cuckold's Fair when we filled in a last minute vacant slot at the Quay and we didn't change much, just turned ourselves around a bit, but this time I don't want to ignore effects that will work in that space, even if it means cutting them completely once we return to London.
Re-rehearsals with the cast begin next week, so I've got a few more days to decide precisely how it's going to come together. Around these deliberations I'm performing version two of the GhoStoryteller show, this time in a pub in Glemsford. I'm performing ghost stories on Halloween. I must be mad. Especially as since starting this GhoStoryteller lark I think I've invited a ghost into my home. Well, I say a ghost - I mean that in a room in the house, where there are not sources of water and where the ceiling is dry, a puddle of water has appeared. No one knows how it got there. Spooky.
Or someone in the house is sleep walking and pissed on the floor. Jury's out on that one. Does anyone know of ghosts producing water? I've not come across it. Answers on a postcard.
