Putting my attendance at the office to one side for a moment, this was the day when stress eventually turned to results. I contacted a friend of mine in London and solved my not-having-a-techie problem. I was right to reason that I was best of using someone who had seen the show. In fact there are a few people who have seen the show several times. One of them saw it before we premiered it in Newcastle, then saw both London previews, then saw it 2 and a half times in Edinburgh... and this person, now working as a consultant, based in London, was free on the day of the Newcastle performance. An invitation for him to come and see the show soon turned into a plea for him to come and do some technical stuff for us. His IT background giving me the confidence in us both that I'd be able to bring him up to speed in the matters he'd need to know in order to run the show for us.

So, I had a techie. The guys from the office were umming and ahhing about coming. I could do the show with just my friend, though the more, the merrier.

At lunchtime, I went to the arts centre and checked out the P.A. system they have there. It was well and truly up to the job, so I didn't need to worry about buying any more bits to make one. I paid the rest of the rental and suddenly realised that I had solved the basic technical problems for the Newcastle show. All problems left to solve would be the little on-the-day-style problems that would inevitably arise. The important bit was that it should, on paper at least, have worked.

After work, with a lighter heart, we did another rehearsal and the show dropped into our consciousnesses quite solidly. We felt confident about the run of four shows to come. There was nothing more to do but get on and perform the wee blighters.