jammy! 20 April 2009
I got back to London a little blue yesterday, then had a wondrously bad night’s sleep – probably something to do with the fact that I hadn’t been to bed early for quite a while and during the week in Cork was anywhere between 3am and 5 am each evening after a high energy show. So a mixture of the blues and poor sleep meant that even seeing the great women of Jam and Jerusalem didn’t quite lift the pall (I know, I know, the bleddy cheek of me). However the sun is shining, I got some free wifi which enabled me to reactivate my errant mobile broadband system and it’s time to shed the fug and get (fugging) ON with things. I have a big audition on Wednesday that I have to be off book for so I need to concentrate, learn the effin thing and not mess up (a lot of people are onside for it and want me to do well – not least me as I really want to keep working as regularly as possible this year so that the builders can be paid and the ‘ship’ kept on an even keel – not the easiest of ambitions to be harbouring with the year that’s in it). I am also determined not to put back on the weight I lost during the run of OCTOBER though that is also easier said than done…onwards and onto that upwards slope again – not so much a soaring slope but the one that is hard to climb up…and getting harder by the year….
soup 19 April 2009
We are at the end of our week in Cork – I have seen them ALL off and am now headed to the airport to go to London – v odd and sad and lonely. One last great thing in the hotel though – they have a Soup of the Moment – yup, we have all seen Soup of the Day but this is an instant sounding off the top of the chef’s head kinda thing!
partying 18 April 2009
Ah yes, it was just asking for trouble to say we cannot party like we used to – that’s clearly why the entire cast and Dublin crew of OCTOBER ended up in a Cork pub last night dancing to 80s tunes…then went back to the giant drink-selling hotel they live in and talked and laughed more. The dancing though was SUCH fun – disco will never die, I am delighted to say, and neither will we while it’s being lashed out for our delight. Of course my first remark on entering the bar was ‘this music is way too loud – I’m staying for one then leaving’ – CUT TO: two and a half hours later jumping around to ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ – well they had their fun those girls alright and then had to face into 2 shows today. It’s between performances now and all a bit odd – the set is being sold off from under us (I kid you not – our stage manager has found new homes for EVERYTHING when the show ends) and I have a vision of the garden chair being snatched away as my fat ass gets off it for the last time and things disappearing during the show as they get their last run out!
giving in 17 April 2009
Even young George, who plays the postman in OCTOBER, has admitted defeat – we cannot party like we used to. When we ran the show in Dublin we’d have a few pints after the performance and go to our respective homes (and, the shock and horror if it – sometimes no pint and off home) but as home is a lovely hotel now, here in Cork, we have been staying up late talking nonsense and laughing for Ireland…oh, and having more than a few pints…And finally it has made an impression – Pauline’s inability to snooze has disappeared and she slept an international level length of time last night – huzzah! (I realise this referring to myself in the 3rd person spooks some of you so I’ll cease now). We have 3 more shows to do and then it’s another goodbye. I’m hoping I’ll not be too blue as I am flying directly to London and on Monday will met up with the other ladies of Jam and Jerusalem for a readthrough of the new series. We head for Devon shortly thereafter to do our location work and it will be just fantastic to see it at this time of the year – we are more used to working there in the autumn. So, a little sadness (working for this wonderful management LANDMARK PRODUCTIONS, run by the indomitable Anne Clarke, is one of the great experiences) but much excitement in the offing too – BRING IT! as my present co-star Miss Victoria Smurfit says.
GAY 16 April 2009
I love a good bit of signage, as you all know. I have a new favourite courtesy of Cork city (where we are getting the loveliest, most appreciative audiences!). It reads ‘Cork Gay Community Development Project’. What I love about it is that it almost suggests that some bright spark thought to themselves what can we make here in the city? Well, why don’t we develop some gays? I have a fantasy that there is a team dedicated to growing or hot-housing men into a life of gayness from this office. Nice one!
snoozing 15 April 2009
We had a lovely opening of the show in Cork last night – hence also the delay in blogging…too good a time had plus, as I don’t have wireless technology in my room, I have to leave the cocoon and risk encountering innocent, regular people who deserve more than the fright that is The McLynn after a top night out, so washing and make-up etc are all pressed into service and it all takes time, my dears. So, yes, I am a shadow of my former self but the top thing about being in a hotel and away from home is that there is very little guilt in lying a-bed the day. What is not so welcome though is that Real Life is trying hard to get a hold now and every so often I find myself sitting bolt upright with thoughts like ’ARGH, I promised to write a short story for a newspaper by the end of the month’ and ‘I’d better get proper cracking on the new novel’ and ‘I must book my flight from Cork to London NOW’. Having said that it’s much more fun to roll over and go back to sleep – which is what I shall do now – The McLynn has to be rested and match fit for another cracking show tonight.
CORK 14 April 2009
We have hit Cork for the next leg of the OCTOBER circus – in fact, yesterday we were able to utter the immortal showbiz line ‘We open tamarra!’ so I guess today will be full of ‘We open TONIGHT!’ – a terrifying enough prospect after a few weeks off. Normally, when a show is done my lines disappear, as I need to recycle all of the brain cells these days (they being of a finite number)but knowing that we had a grace note of a week here in Cork meant I held on to it all and I am pleased to report we are all right back in show mode. (It’s on tues to sat with a matinee on sat too at the Cork Opera House so see you there if you are in the environs)
I would have posted all of these gems past night but it seems the little executive lounge in the hotel is electronically closed after a certain time (I don’t know what said time is but I wasn’t let in, special key or not, last night. It would probably have been a wasted visit anyhow as it doesn’t have WiFi like we were told so that’s a pain too – technology biting me on the butt again…The other idiosyncracy, if you will, of the hotel is that there are no blinds or muslin curtains on the widows so it’s blackout of displaying yourself to a trance of neighbouring houses – and believe me, the good people of Cork should not have to look at the wreck that is Pauline McLynn first thing in the morning. As my friend Dee says at our age it’s all about the maintenance, and it ain’t a pretty sight…
Mind you I LOVE staying in hotels and where others might find them a bit sterile I love that someone makes the bed and the towels and bedlinen are fresh and clean. In fact I love that the room is clean. Makes a change from the tumbleweed of dust and cat hair at home (though I wouldn’t swap that for anything either, of course)
golf 12 April 2009
I am ADDICTED to golf on the box – that’s why I got Sky Sports in. I have been STUCK into the Masters all weekend. Angel Cabrera won and he was my fave from Friday (no, not Thursday – then I was, foolishly, as it happens, rooting for the Irish) and I knew from then he was HOT golfwise. I rest reassured that I was correct – I thank you.
I will tell all the rest soon – off to Cork in the morning to play in OCTOBER in the Opera House till Saturday – get in there if you are within even a hundred miles of it – great show and it’d be wonderful to see you.
spiders 11 April 2009
I am not great with spiders – there is the issue of too many legs plus the unpredictablility of where those legs might take a creature IN A HURRY. The larger they are the more I quake – so, I have no problem with ‘money spiders’ = those tiny tiny little things that dangle off trees on a gossamer thread in the mornings. BUT house spiders = NO! Alina, my Russian teacher, met a great spider recently called Frances. She visited her owner and Frances (a tarantula) was so shy and scared that she covered her furry little face with her front 2 legs. Later, when she felt more comfortable, she allowed herself to be stroked. I imagine that must have felt like stroking a bumble bee (great faves of mine) – it’s something I do regularly during the Summer as the lads are constantly falling in the drip trays of water for the plants and threatening to drown – only way to save ‘em is to get ‘em out and moving, to drain the water out of ‘em, and while they are staggering around they will let you feel how wonderfully velevetty and furry they are. FAB. I once spent a fortnight fishing insects out of a hotel pool in Corsica rather than see them drown. I am a strange woman, or so I am told…
Still addicted to the golf on telly, so I guess that clinches it…
easter 10 April 2009
My sis in law told me of one of THOSE experiences on the Tube recently – apparently a man was listening to 2 women talking at length about Jade Goody as if she was still alive and when he felt he should lean over and let them know she was dead and buried, which he did, they looked at him as if he had missed the point entirely and, you know, maybe he had – I don’t know anymore!
I had a pint in a pub tonight (London, doncha know) which for me (dragged up Catholic) is the most delicious pint ever – as youse all know there are still 2 DRY days in Ireland from the time when Church and State were all too entwined and I think this hang-up is from 1929 or so – surely time to move on – as it is I am home with only the 2 in me – fact is, I don’t feel guilty I AM JUST NOT ABLE TO DRINK MUCH ANYMORE