October2007
SUCCESS
Hello;
It has been a success the whole run that we have finished today. We have sold almost all the tickets but we knew that we were not going to be able to make any money from the tickets. It is expensive to do a show in London and the higher the profile the more people are ready to pick money from what we do.
The list of agents that have come to see the show is really big. They all have come and they all have liked the show and the more important they all have liked us. Sadly Stephan and me have not managed to get an agent for our business in London. Toby and Petra are at the moment clients of Amanda Howard associates. It is a very good agency I believe.
I have to say this has been a big set back. I thought I had a chance to be represented but no.
All our friends have come to see the show. Many of them have come for the third time and they have enjoyed as much as the first time. They really liked the work and they really liked us. And I know it is very difficult for friends not to like what you do.
Lost of people that works in production companies and in the television business have come to see the show and they all think that we have done a great job. The person who runs the BBC has not come but many of his advisers were here watching the show.
We have had also some writers seeing Cooped and I think they have liked what they saw.
After doing the get out we all went in our own directions. I spent something like an hour waiting for a cab in Waterloo Bridge with Felix and afterwards it took us another hour to go back home. We have had a very successful week here in London but nothing seems to have changed. We still do all the things that we did before and we will carry on doing them for quite a while. This is definitely a big a difficult business.
Have fun.GOOD SHOW
Hello;
I did a good show. We had two shows today. The first show was really difficult because knowing that we had to do another one after wards you had to save energy to do the next one.
The fact that you have to keep all that energy makes you concentrate a lot. It is quite funny how you adjust s your brain and your body to what is ahead of you.
It is quite different for each one of us. Stephan spends all the energy as it goes and then when it is finish he does not do anything anymore.
Toby gets into a robot mood when there is not more energy to play with. He is the only one that knows him properly. But he will give everything until the end of the show.
Petra has lots of energy. Petra can do three shows in a row. She put herself on the line with every show and even then she goes full on with the next show and then she goes out and then she does more things and then ….she is unstoppable.
In my case I do what I told you but sometimes I do not calculate properly so like tonight when the end of the show came when the end of the second show I mean I was so tired and with no control anymore and my words were coming out all funny and estrange.
The audience were really laughing and I had such strong abandon and fun that it did not matter what we were doing but the fantastic time that me and my colleges were having while playing together.
So it was a good show.
Have fun.
THE RIVER
Hello;
The river takes all this water to the sea. I sit here and I look at it while I eat my dinner before the show. The first time I ever saw the Thames it was now 12 years ago. It is quite a mythical river. It is a river that appears in lots of movies and it is very famous. It is the river of London like the Tower or the Eye or all the things that London has that because they are in London made them be famous and important.
This river is very gentle. It goes down to Essex slowly where it opens in a big estuary.
My favourite view of the river is when I am on the plain and I can see how the river goes through London. It becomes a big S. You can see all the buildings filling the holes that the big S that the river does leaves and they make the river bigger and stronger.
But it is probably here at the South Bank where the river gets really well used and appreciated. There are always lots of people walking a long the river and they come here to walk or to run or to do what ever just because there is a river here.
I am sitting here eating my sandwich because there is a river so I can look at the river and let my mind go.
In this place there are many people like me eating their food. They eat their sandwiches looking forward. It looks as if the river is not doing anything to them but they know that is there and if you look the river will tell you stories.
And I do not want to say anything else I am tired and I am bored. I have to go now to the show and I hope that you all that are coming to see the show will understand.
SHOWS AND MORE SHOWS
Hello;
Yes, we are doing shows non-stops this week. There are many important people coming to see the show as I said before but also the tickets are getting sold very well. Yesterday as I told you the queen of England and Bob Dylan where playing here and that made me really proud.
But what is what we are doing? We do shows; we do our show time after time. Cal is coming to see the show everyday and giving us notes everyday so the show keeps being in a very good shape.
It is Cooped a difficult show to do. You have to be very good everyday. You have to be there the entire time whit all your senses alert so you give the sense to the audience that anything can happen.
The first night is the one that takes the more out of you. You have to nail it. You try to do all the things right. They are right in the way they were rehearsed it. The fact that you have to do that does not give you many possibilities of having lots of fun. Thou it is when the real job starts, that is when you really have to have fun doing the things that have been rehearsed for a long time.
Yesterday the show went well, when it finished the audience where very happy and we were very relieve that everybody was happy and was clapping really loud now we just have to do the same thing every show we do this week.
Have fun.THE QUEEN
Hello;
She came yesterday to the show. Yes, the Queen of England. She had to go to a Royal gala to the Festival hall and because the South Bank centre is very confusing she ended up coming into our dressing room while we were getting ready to open the show.
At first the security people tried to throw us away but then they saw the pictures in the program and they accompany the Queen to the green room.
Petra loved it, she bent down and salutes her in the most gracious manner, and Toby did the introduction because there is a lord in his family he was the one that was most at easy with her majesty.
I did not know what to say but Cal told me that I should call her madam. So that is exactly what I did and Stephan talked to her in German and yes she does speak German. I think it is because there is some German blood in her.
Then there was a little moment of awkwardness and someone said “Cup of tea anyone? “ and the tea was boiling and we just had plastic cups and it did not fell appropriate to give the Queen a cup of tea in a plastic cup so someone run downstairs a took a cup from a restoration play they were doing down there and gave it to the Queen.
She did not seem to be bothered by the unexpected situation and that made possible that we all started to have a small chat.
At one point we had to say that thou it was really nice to be talking to her but we had to go and do a show. She was free to stay in our green room for as long as she pleased but she said that she had to go back to the Festival Hall. All that people had worked really hard to have it ready for today and she could not do that to them but she said she would try to come and see Cooped as soon as it hits the West End.
Of course we bended again and she went and we went on to the stage to start the first performance of our run at the Purcell Room.
Bob Dylan was at NFT. He did not meet the Queen but I think they are all friends so
Have fun.
TWENTY
Hello;
We are closer than ever to success.
We have at least twenty people from the TV business coming to see Cooped at the Purcell Room.
We have worked really hard today in setting up the set and in making the Purcell Room a very nice place for us to play.
We have something like twenty agents coming to see all of us with the idea that they may want to represent us.
We have almost twenty directors of regional theatres coming to see the show and they, we hope, will buy the show for their theatres.
We have two people from the Arts Council coming to see our work and then if they like it they would put a very good word about us into the big organisation.
We have at least twenty promoters of festivals and tours coming to see the show that hopefully will want the show for their circuits and festivals and that will allow us to have lots of work on the next months.
We have send at least twenty mails and invitations to influential people in the Arts in this country and in Europe letting them know that we are going to be at the Purcell Room in the South Bank for a week and that the show is very funny so they should come to see it.
We have put two add in Metro advertising the show. Those adds will make at least twenty people or more to come to see a show they have never heard before off but by the look of the posters looks that it could be very funny.
We have worked at least twenty hours today and we will work another twenty hours tomorrow to make sure we do the best performances of our live while at the South Bank.
We have done at least twenty meetings or more in order to have this run in this high profile venue at its best possibilities.
We have a twenty percent chance that this will change the destiny of Spymonkey for the worst.
We have a twenty percent chances that this run will make us the most successful comedy troupe in the world.
Have fun.
B&Bs
Hello;
I wander why in England they are B&Bs and not Hotels or Motels or post houses where you can sleep?
Let me make my point a little bit more clear. I always wonder what did it make people to convert their private places in an accommodation house. Of course is the need of money but there must be something else. I mean we have been in B&Bs that were really big mansions. The owners could have easily have sold the place and by a smaller house and live comfortably without having to serve people like us.
There are B&Bs that are a hotels, really. They have something like fifteen rooms and there are people working in shifts and that is different.
The ones I am talking about are the ones that are run by normally retired people. They both work in the house and they use the money they make with the B&B to pay I cannot imagine what? I mean they have houses with six to ten rooms. So in order to pay for that they must have had good jobs in the pass. Now they have retired and because they cannot afford to keep the house they converted into a B&B?
I do not understand.
Oh¡Yes, I know that is not the case for every single B&B of the country but we have seen many like that. They use their one things to serve breakfast, the stay up until the guests are in their rooms, they wake up really early to cook them breakfast and etc. I think is a really taught life. I have lots of respect but sometimes it is a little bit difficult for me to understand it.
Anyway, probably is a good solution for people who do not want to loose their standards of living once they have retired. I don't think I would like to do that myself but who knows?
I just think it would be easier to run a hotel …or what the hell? I should not have chosen this subject for this blog. It is boring and I do not have a clear view about it. I enjoy B&Bs because I get a cooked breakfast every morning so… Vive the B&B.
Have fun.
WORK OR FUN?
Hello;
This is my question for the day. I fell torn with the answer that I will give to myself. In fact I think I am one of the privileges people in these world. I do believe I am. In comparison to many people I know I spend my years in this life doing what I like the most.
And then is the question of do I like everything I do? Well, it is obviously NO. I do not like everything I do. But I learnt long time ago or perhaps it is part of my catholic education that in order to do some of the things you like you have to do others that you do not like.
So it is like paying the ransom for doing this wonderful life that I live. I miss my wife. I think I would like to do more things that I like than I do now but I know that this is just a question of time.
We are doing now lots of groundwork to make lots of friends in England that later on would play an important part in what Spymonkey future will be.
We are going to spend the whole month of October doing touring around England and that is hard work. It is hard work for Stephan and me specifically because there is not time to go back home. While Toby and Petra have more possibilities of going back. It is true that they keep the company alive while we are in our own countries.
I do not know. It swifts from work to fun and back and perhaps today I am writing this because today fells like hard work and not so much fun.
The reaction of the audience is amazing and the love the show but it is like we always want more. And there is only one way of getting more and it is doing all the steps, it is by following the right direction, it is by doing lots of hard work and not so much fun.
Perhaps the solution would be to have fun while you do hard work but in order to do that I have to grow up and I do not really want to grow up.
Time is running out and it is now or never.
Have fun.NOT ENOUGH FUN
Hello;
This is just I. The show went rocking. This is a bullet proof of a show because it has so many gags in it that it is completely impossible to fuck it up. It does work.
At the beginning of the show I realised that the first row of the auditorium it was full of girls and boys that were very keen. From the minute zero they were laughing about anything. They were not laughing about anything that we did but just to them. That is what called to kidnap the show. It is upsetting. It is very upsetting because you cannot do anything apart from just stop the show and tell them off and that would be not very well understood by the rest of the audience.
Never the less we carry on doing the show and it was quite funny because in all the parts that the show shows its plot the first row was in silent and it was the time for the rest of the audience to enjoy. And then as soon as there was something to make people laugh they went completely ballistic.
There was a girl who I could not identify that had one of those distinct laughs. She could not help but to laugh all the time in a very loud voice. I hated it. I hated it all the time. I hated it so much that I really wanted to stop the play and tell her to shut up and then go and start to do our play again. But you can do that. Audiences are all different and you just have to accept that and well that night the audience had decided that they were going to be the best audience ever and that they were going to make sure that they were going to see the best show ever even if our show was not the best show ever. That would be the subject for another blog.
At the end of the show the audience almost stood up and we almost got and standing ovation. The audience were very happy and some of us were happy. I was not very happy because I had not had the greatest fun. So lets hope that I get the greatest fun next time I do the show.
Have fun.WINCHESTER
Hello;
This is the first day of the autumn tour. The place where we are playing this time is in Winchester. And I did not know that we had played in the past here and that it was in the South of England. I think like me many foreigners we get to know England through the pictures and everybody arrives to England from the sea… so, well this does not make any sense. I suddenly thought of the movie “The prince of Thieves” when Kevin Costner playing Robin Hood arrives to England in the South and goes up to Sherwood Forrest so it could have been the west or even the east I do not know why I thought that it was the south. England is an island.
Any way we are playing at Winchester Royal Theatre and it is great because apparently the lady who we have never met likes the show very much and she has been trying to bring us here for quite a while.
The theatre is very nice. It has capacity for almost three hundred people. We have to do the get inn in just a day. We have never done this before, in fact the last time we tried to do the get inn in one day we did not make it. We had to cut many gags because we did not have time to prepare them. People liked the show but we did not like it very much.
So the pressure is up and I think is working as a preparation for the week that we are having next at the Purcell Room that we hope that you all will be coming to see.
So we are called to be at the theatre by eight thirty and we have packed the whole truck with a system that hopefully will make the unloading much easier. The system is that the panels for the set have names that make sense and all the scaffolding is put in a place where it would allow us to get it out first.
I had my reservations about everything fitting in the van but when everything was in I had to just accept that Tanya had made a very good job.
Winchester is a really nice town. It is the typical English town and it is quite posh. There are lost of kids playing on the streets and very expensive shops. There is the famous Abby and nice rivers and the oldest pub in England. We are staying in a B&B very close to the river. The landlady and the landlord are really nice and they have been very nice with us.
We should do a week here like we should do a week in Northampton at the end of the month but there are not theatre managers ready to take that kind of risk but I have to tell them that Spymonkey works on word of mouth. Also I have to tell them that we are really thankful for giving us the chance to move into middle scale touring.
Have fun.
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ENGLISH COUNTRY SIDE
Hello;
We drove during the night. We arrived here in the van. Tanya had given us the maps and the directions and the address and everything that we needed to find this place with no problem and it will not be of a surprise to anyone of you we did not find it. It took us quite a bit to find the B&B place where Stephan, Lucy, Angela and me are staying. The rest are staying in another B&B and Tanya is staying with a friend.
She has come this time because we have a one day get inn tomorrow and she wants to make sure that everything goes fine.
Our B&B is in the middle of the countryside. Everything smells like a recently cutgrass and when I go out to smoke my daily cigarillo it is very pleasant.
We are in Winchester. Yes, it is southwest but it is not by the sea. I am sure many people will argue this but I am not going to say anything in return.
The show has to go very well in here because we are doing all this regional touring so we can create relationships with theatres all around England and create a reputation for us.
Also the lady who runs the theatre has seen it and she really liked it.
Now, let me tell you something about Winchester. This is a posh town. Arguably there are poser towns in England I am sure of that but even so I am sure that this place is one of them at a really high place.
Saying that it is very pleasant to be here. The city is nice, the B&B is nice and they give us a very good breakfast in the morning. The city has amazing charity shops which means that people has money so they can give nice things for charity.
The theatre is the Royal Theatre in Winchester. I believe we played here before some years ago but we did not play in that theatre we played in another one.
We are going to be here for a week and let me tell you it is quite amazing to see all these fields surrounding the city and these cathedrals, and the pub with names like the black Rat, or the Black Boy.
Bear is the same anywhere and we have Felix with us so the tribe is almost full or fool.
Have fun.HANGOVER
Hello;
At Flo's is nice to stay. She is very nice and she cooks great. She did the most beautiful chicken casserole ever. The chicken, normally really dry it was super moist. I felt really privilege that she had cock for me.
I mean, Graeme and her have always have been very generous from the very beginning. There was a first time when I went there to stay and they always receive me there very well. I tried to pay them back when they came to Bilbao to stay with us and I have to say it was very easy to keep them happy because they are easy going and generous.
So knowing that she was going to cook something nice I got some wine on my way back home.
We drunk wine and we ate the food. The whole evening was really nice. She even made a desert and then we smoked a couple of peace full splifs and we watch TV.
There are people in this world with whom you fell fantastically well immediately or soon enough to be the exception. Flo is one on those persons.
You can talk to her all the time and about many different things and I have to say I have always fell really well with them in their house.
And I was hangover. I had a party the night before in London and then I came down to Brighton that now is like my second home in England and I did not think I was going to be able to make it. It is definitely the combination of factors.
And I am telling you that now I lost the interest in this thing I was writing. Do not take personal. There is something fantastic about having the computer in front of you and just working non-stop in whatever. And it does not have to be even working because just to have the screen there and you typing is always really exacting and it does work as a if you are having a conversation with someone.
But do not over do it because it is a little bit scary. You will end up substituting the real people for the robots and that is what happened in the famous movie Minority Report and it was not pretty.
Have fun.BACK ON THE BALL
Hello;
Here I am back in London. In the city that never sleeps and I have to say that about London because I have never been in New York and I know that London never sleeps that is for sure.
I have arrived again but it also fells as if I have never left. In away it is better like this because then I do no need any time to adjust. I have to go and load the van soon. Probably tomorrow and the best thing is that everything is going to stay in a van for the whole month so we are not going to need to load and unload every time we finish doing each leg of the tour.
But you know it is really great to be here and had the chance and the luxury to be in Ca and Matt house. Here I have an incredible garden and an incredible house and when I am with them I fell very happy.
In pass I was a little bit unhappy with being there because we were having some work troubles with Cal and then it is difficult to live with people that you are not agree with.
But now everything is fine again and probably all those troubles and history have made us stronger and happier.
I really need to go and have lunch in my favourite pub, The Junction. I love their menu for Sundays. I am a little bit worry when I go there because their terrace is fucking great and if it is sunny I never want to leave.
Of course London has his down being the biggest one the fact that it is extremely expensive. And when you go to the pub and you drink more than one beer you end up spending lots of money.
And at the end of the day this is our main problem when we do Spymonkey. We have not managed to make more money or better said we have not achieved our biggest goal that is to live comfortably with the money we make with Spymonkey. We do not make enough money to live in London. We make enough money to live in Paraguay so we have to put ourselves together and fight the system until we achieve the wage we need to raise our families and our lives to the place where we want.
Have fun.
