Murder in the air....

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The Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich

Well here we are, one week into the run of Meutre, Mystere et Mutilation.  Last week at lunch time myself and Peter Sowerbutts performed at lunchtimes at the Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich.  Next week we start the tour part of the run with the locations we are touring to are listed below.  Full details of the play can be found at http://www.headlessteddy.co.uk/.

1^st October, Red Lion, Debenham, 8pm

6^th October, Community centre, Eye, 8pm
7^th October, The Cut, Halesworth, 2pm
8^th October, Fisher Theatre, Bungay, 8pm
9^th October, Wingfield Barns Arts Centre, 8pm

15^th / 16^th October, Groundlings Theatre, Portsmouth, 8pm

23^rd October, Community Centre, Shepshed, Leicestershire, 8pm

Its always a concerning time when you are putting on a brand spanking new play, especially when it is a comedy.  However, we have had some great feedback from the audience including:

"Wow, what an amazing play", "It's a brilliantly confident piece of writing", "So well done", "Just like the best farce scripts", "Brilliant and funny".

So if you fancy it, it would be great to see any of you at any of the remaining performances.

As part of the advertising for the show we finished a performance at the Maddermarket Theatre and had an extremely long drive to BBC Radio Suffolk.  While the interview was very short lived we did end up bumping into Michael Fenton-Stevens.  While I don't know him, Peter does...in fact Peter is actually blamed (or praised) by Michael for him becoming an actor!  So in the end we spent the afternoon in the green room at the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich having coffee with Michael.  He was an extremely good host and a very funny man.  Michael can currently be found playing Rev. Canon Chasuble in Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance Of Being Ernest' at the New Wolsey Theatre...make sure you check it out.

Tom Davey, Mark Edel-Hunt, Ishia Bennison, Esther Ruth Elliot, Michael Fenton Stevens and Nelly Harker in The Importance of Being Ernest

Well to be honest that is all I have been up to for the last few weeks.  The show has kind of taken over my life!  When this show is over normal service will resume!! :-)

Oh actually I almost forgot, a couple of weekends ago Headless Teddy Coffee provided coffee for the Martlesham Air Day.....the highlight (particularly for James Bond fans) was the presence of Little Nellie from You Only Live Twice along with the pilot from the film Ken Wallis.  Unfortunately I never got chance to get a photo with him or a signature so you will just have to be happy with photos of the actual machine I managed to get during the day.  I also found out during the day that not only did Ken pilot the aircraft he was the designer and actually built the machine too.  From what I hear variations of the design have been and still continue to be used by air forces around the world.  Well done Ken, what a flipping genius!!

I have attached a couple of articles that might be of interest to the bottom of the blog....let me know if you have any thoughts!  So until next time, thanks again for reading!

Hope to see you all soon.

David Blood

Email: info@davidblood.co.uk
Website: www.davidblood.co.uk
Twitter: @davidbloodactor

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Another week....another blog!

Well here we are again, managed to find time to write another blog entry.... admittedly I could have written it earlier today instead of leaving till late...but due to an unforeseen hangover I was unable to look at a computer screen till now!!  Anyway all recovered...well almost, slightly fussy head but such is life.

I do have a good excuse for the hang over though, yesterday was Barnaby Matley and Anna Kaye's wedding day!  The ceremony was at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Norwich with the reception at Dragon Hall.

The first dance....bless 'em!

Okay so I was wrong, it was still too early for me to be looking at a computer screen, as that was as far as I got before feeling very rough!  So where was I.....oh yes...the wedding.  Right well obviously it was a great day / night especially for Barny and Anna, bless them.....it does feel weird when one of your best friends gets married.  But then again, those two where pretty much getting married the day they met.  Bless them.  So here's to Mr & Mrs Matley, long may their marriage last and that they be very, very happy together....blimey that was deep for me!  Rather than getting them a present for the wedding myself and Peter, the Headless Teddy boys (does that sound wrong??) decided that we would provide coffee during the inevitable hour long photo session.  Actually it went down amazingly well, so if you are getting married soon, or know anyone that is, and fancy something to occupy your guests while the photos are being taken, why not ask us to provide coffee for you?!!?  (shameless plug I know!)

The bride and groom with Anna...actually there are two Annas in that photo, so Barny is having an Anna sandwich.......

So what else has happened over the last few weeks....  Around 2 days after my last blog entry myself and a friend, Claire (follow her blog here), decided to go to Ikea...the problem was it had to be after working in the office for a day...so come 6.00pm (ish) we hit the road, got stuck in traffic, got there at around 9pm proceeded to run round the shop within the hour get everything we needed and head home.....now this would have been fine as we should have got back around midnight.  Little did we know half way up the M11 there was going to be a pile up 300m up the road from us.....joy.  So the usual emergency services came and went and eventually we got moving and got home around 2am...at least i think it was then, it could have been later...to be honest the time of the had become irrelevant..bed was the only priority.  You would think I would learn from these things, however, two days later after a long rehearsal I decided to build the flat packs....at 1am!!?!?!?  Obviously I have an aversion to sleep!  Oh well its all assembled now and hopefully I don't need to go back there again for a very long while!

There was also the now famous (I'm sure) house warming party of Peters...where much to his disapproval I decided (in my slightly intoxicated state) that everyone should watch Super Gran of which he was in as PC Norman....oh sudden thought...he's going to kill me again for mentioning it!  sorry Peter...you know I cant help it.....anyway, people of my generation who remember it on TV absolutely love it..so you should be pleased so...SHUT IT! :-)  Moving away from Supergran there was also a large Jenga set that kept everyone massively amused for the entire night....I do feel we should apologise to his neighbours though as I think the last of the hang ons left the house at around 4am.... (sorry couldn't find any pictures...but if you want to watch the credits...just for nostalgia then they are HERE.)

Sorry Tim....about all I can say about that! (The 39 Steps)

Moving on a week there was also Tim Speyer's BBQ in London, apart from having to drive it was a great afternoon / evening.  Tim can currently be found in 'The 39 Steps' at the Criterion Theatre in London.  For those of you who haven't seen it, I really would recommend it everyone, its one of the funniest plays I have ever seen.

The 39 Steps again...running on top of  a moving train...as you do!

Other than the mass of rehearsals for Meutre, Mystere et Mutilation that's about it really for this probably exceeding long blog....if you made to the end, I congratulate you!  Thank you for reading!  By the way if you haven't booked your tickets for the show yet the details are all on the website www.headlessteddy.co.uk

That's it then, this is me signing off....well actually going to sleep...but you know what I mean!  I hope it all makes sense?!  Then again, I doubt it!  Speak to you all soon.

David Blood

Email: info@davidblood.co.uk
Website: www.davidblood.co.uk
Twitter: @davidbloodactor