I'll skip the fact that I spent a day in the office. It was probably interesting at the time, but it isn't the important bit of the story I remember from mid-March. One notable thing that occurred on the Monday in the office was that I asked the people who had offered to do technical things for me whether they were still up for doing it... expecting the answer yes. The answer was no. This caused me mild discomfort. Some would say panic, but I'm not some. Oh no. It was just uncomfortable. I had to resort to plans C onwards. I think plan B was a non-starter.

I also had bits of kit to buy in an attempt to turn what part of a PA system (to the non-technical, that's the bit which makes the sound come out) I had into a totally working entity, capable of filling the Arts Centre with sound. So far, this was not looking good.

All I needed was a bum rehearsal with Chris and I'd be feeling like the whole show was a really bad idea. It was quite a stressful time. I took the majority of the stress on my shoulders, since I felt like being Mr Responsible and I wanted my musical other-half to get on with the important task of remembering the show. Perhaps I felt more confident about the performing and wanted to make sure that he had the chance to get as confident. I also have a knack for making technical things work out... whatever the cost. So long as we had the show to put on, I'd make the machinery come together... somehow. Did we? Did we remember how to say our lines and act the part?

About 5 or 10 minutes into the rehearsal that evening, which we conducted "off the set" i.e. just in the dining room with no set set up. We both started giggling. The lines were coming. We neither of us know exactly where they were coming from, but they were coming. They weren't quite flowing. It wasn't a performance-standard rehearsal, but we got through it enough to show us that we could get to performance standard quite easily. It was still really weird for us finding these words flowing... almost of their own accord. It wasn't so much a conscious effort of memory on our part, more like we'd just tapped into the show where it was residing, ready to go, deep inside of us. I guess that's the benefit of having performed something 28 times... it drills its way deep into your subconscious.

Anyway, we couldn't sit about congratulating ourselves on the show. We had more work to do. I can't remember how many times exactly we rehearsed the show. I know that we did it without the songs, with the songs, just the songs and that we got back into the flow quite quickly. I nominated the Tuesday as a dress rehearsal. The idea behind this was that we'd have Wednesday to put right any things which had gone wrong in the dress... better that than do the dress on Wednesday night and feel like the day of our first show - Thursday - was also our only chance to put right the performance problems.

I went to bed on Monday night confident that the two of us would be able to make the show work. However, I'd realised in the brief time we had in rehearsal, that there was a vital element missing. Our technician in Edinburgh had made himself an important part of the show. It was obvious when we started rehearsing without him. At certain moments, the machinery of the show takes over and moves the story onwards. At certain moments, the performers do it. Without the technician, the show would stutter and some scenes would not be possible. We needed to have capable techies (or one very capable one) for Thursday and it wasn't sorted out yet.