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30 October 2005
Loreley's report
We arrived in Derby in surprisingly short time. We drove around in Derby for a surprisingly long time. Nothing to do with the navigation and map reading skills of Lea and Li, no, no. We just liked to get a good look at the place where Craig lives these days. (And figured that it is not his kind of place.) But we did find the shopping centre where the Playhouse is eventually (after driving around it in a circle for about three times). After some running around in Derby (entirely unglamorous place - the most striking feature being scary looking gangs of youths running around on the streets, and lots of stalls on the local market selling German sausages) and dinner at a Thai place we made our way to the theatre.
The entry is literally in the middle of the shopping mall and again entirely unglamorous but the theatre is brand new and quite nice, with good views from all seats. We were in row D which was really, really close to the stage. I don't think it was completely sold out but it was very full.
And then the play finally began.
What you see on stage is basically the writer's room - of the writers writing the soap which is a hospital series. Between the scenes they show clips from that "soap". The actors are the writers on stage but in the clips they are the actors playing the hospital staff. No, it is not as confusing as it sounds. In the clips Craig is that smarmy doctor but in the actual play he is a writer called Matt. And that was the first eye-opener - Matt looks entirely like Craig, complete with Bermuda shorts and polo shirt, but the shirt is green (!) and....he was wearing glasses. And looks absolutely super sexy in them, in a geeky kind of way. Nggghhhh.
And...in one of the clips you see him full length from the back wearing nothing but a pair of very thight and quite sheer white pants. Lea claims I gasped when that one came up which is of course entirely untrue. Holy shit, what a body. Steel buttocks. Incredible chest. That little tidbit alone was worth buying the ticket, and I would pay good money to get hold of a copy of that clip. And I would pay serious shitloads of money to get my hands on that body.
I won't say much about the play (hey, you are all supposed to go and see it yourselves!!). It was great and funny for the biggest part. The last 15 minutes sucked. Craig seemed a bit subdued (and a bit nervous) in the beginning but he had some more dramatic scenes coming up later on and hell, the boy *can* act, and seriously so. I will for sure not mind seeing it again! Oh, and before I forget: Girl Kissing on stage!!!!
After the play was over we went to the bar that is conveniently situated in the Playhouse for a drink. There were seven of us that had come for Craig - everyone else seemed to be people that live in Derby and had come to see the new play. No hordes of mad Haldir fangirls as the news article on the Playhouse website had suggested ;-)
We'd been sitting there for twenty minutes and suddenly the man appeared at our table! I had not seen him coming because I was sitting with my back to the stairs but according to Lea he spotted us as he came in and made a beeline for us. Which was of course really really sweet of him. So he came and said hi and everyone got hugs and he sat down and chatted a bit. He seemed very relieved that it had gone well without any major glitches (and he said he was glad they finally got to play with an audience!). He also confirmed our suspicion that Derby is not entirely his kind of place. The Rebecca Hobbs came over together with James Griffin, the writer, and said she had to drag Craig away because the director "wanted a word or two". She might also have wanted to check us out I think...and was very impressed when Craig told her where each of us had travelled from. She stayed and chatted for a bit as well and we got her autograph and took pics with her and Craig and then they had to leave and join the gang of cast and team that by that time had all turned up in the bar and were being given food and drinks, bless them.
We stayed for a couple of drinks. Mark Little came over for a chat as well, and Craig came over once more to thank us for coming to see the play and to say good-bye. Then Lea and I realised that the parking below the shopping center was going to close in ten minutes so we made a mad dash to get there in time - and got to see the guys again and wave bye-bye as they were just getting into Mark's car to go for some more partying.
Drive home was ok - it was a lot easier to get out of Derby than getting into it! - apart from the end where first I took a wrong exit in a roundabout which resulted in us going ten miles up north on the M1 again, and then a closed street with a loooong diversion. But made it home eventually, opened a bottle of bubbly stuff to drink to Craig's health and career, and finally collapsed into bed at around three in the morning.
And yes, it was absolutely, absolutely worth it. | | |