Dan Styles Diary

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Tuesday 1^st January 2008

Happy New Year. Did you have a good night? Ours was interesting. We had prepared a party at our digs in Southsea and just as it was beginning to fill up our landlord managed to insult one of the crew's wife and by ten thirty the whole place had cleared out. We then went to a couple of Pubs on the way to another house party, seeing in the New Year at a pub called The Festing. The second house party was good, we spent the rest of the night eating, drinking, singing and chatting.

The show has been getting better and better. We've had big houses every day, we'd broken box office records before we even opened and the theatre gets three or four calls a day to say how it's the best show they've had. Now we have just five shows left.

2007 was a good year; I had some amazing new experiences like the Pinewood workshops and the summer Shakespeare tour. I found some great new jobs like the Medieval Banquets, the Globe fight displays, the dance partners and the body conditioning at Urdang Academy (which sadly I couldn't do anymore). I've made some great new friends and some valuable contacts.

What does 2008 hold for me? At this stage I really don't know. I have a few irons in a few fires but there's still a lot of work to be done. When I get home I will re-start the ball rolling on my little production project and hopefully shoot something in February. I'm also booking a holiday to Prague in a couple of weeks. My last real holiday was to New York for three days back in 2002 so this is a long overdue gift to myself. I also have a friend over there who works for a production company so I'm hoping I may be able to get a look around if something is going on and I've been invited to an acting class too. Other than that I honestly don't have an immediate plan. I just have to see how things pan out over the next month or so and take it from there. So I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Friday 14^th December

Last night was our press night and I've just arrived at the theatre to find a very nice review, so I'm pleased to be able to tell you thinks are going well. That also means that we can now start to relax a little (but no too much) after the stress of the last few days getting the show on. To accommodate for the people who haven't done the show before (Lorraine Chase, Sophie McDonnell and the Dwarfs) there have been some changes to what the rest of us have been used to, so it's nice to have something fresh and different. Sophie is a lovely, innocent Snow White and Lorraine can really be quite scary (trust me)! The dwarfs are really nice too, we've had a few nights out with a couple of them and I share a dressing room with sniffles (Jamie Cameron). Which ironically was the dwarf I played in my very first panto (and professional production) ten years ago! And also in that show was Aiden J Harvey, who is still going strong as Muddles with me again this time. Anyway I'd better go and get changed.

Tuesday 4^th December

I'm in Pantoland again, well actually to be honest I'm just leaving it. I'm now on a train back to London (from Southsea) as I've agreed to do Medieval Banquets twice this week, while I'm rehearsing in the daytimes. So far it's been going well. As I've said before I know most of the cast, so it was lovely on Monday to see everyone again, and, as many of us have done the show before, rehearsals are rather effortless.

The last few weeks have been much calmer for me, however, I still managed to leave all my packing to come to Southsea until the last minute. I've been doing Banquets almost every night in November, which in one way is nice because I don't have to worry about other work as much and I have my days free to do other things, but it does mean my evenings are a little limited if I fancy catching up with a friend. I've been utilizing my days to catch up with all the things I've neglected this year – like my taxes. I've also done a few more fight rehearsals for the Born of Hope film, which have been lots of fun, some of the videos you can see on www.bornofhope.com or on my facebook page. I've been to the theatre a few times which is always nice, especially when I have friends in the shows. I've also been preparing a new production project (which I mentioned in my last entry) and Friday before last I arranged my first production meeting. It went really well and a lot of people have shown and interest in getting involved. We discussed how things were going to work and even decided on the first scene we are going to work on – a re-write of the final scene of ‘Consequences' (you can find out more about all this in the Freestyle Productions pages). Obviously nothing much can happen while I'm away, but we plan to shoot when I get back early next year.

I had a couple of interesting jobs last week. The first was a corporate party for The Royal Bank of Scotland with a Pirates of the Caribbean theme. There were five actors (including myself ) dressed as pirates and basically mingling in character all night. It was lots of fun and the clients were all very friendly and got into the spirit of the whole thing, so that made our jobs so much easier. The very next morning I was marching around London as a G.I. Johnny promoting safe sex in honour of World Aids Day (December 1^st). So within the last seven days I've been an orc, a ranger, a knight, a pirate, a G.I., and a huntsman. How about that for a weeks work!

We've got just over a week of rehearsal now (opening Wednesday 12^th December). So I'll be back again shortly.

Thursday 8^th November

It's been quite uneventful my last entry although there has been some recent news so I thought I'd catch up again.

To start where I last left off the Panto press call went really well, everyone is lovely and I know I'm going to have a great time. I will be leaving on 2^nd December to start Rehearsals on the 3^rd. The show then runs from Wednesday 12^th December to Sunday 6^th January. I may then be going north to Runcorn yet again to help get another show up and running; however, I don't think I'll be taking part this time.

My hectic work schedule has calmed down quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. I even took some time to get away from London and visit a friend in Torquay and then go to see my mum and brother back home in Liverpool plus go out with a friend that night. It was my birthday on Monday the 5^th so I spent the weekend going out, catching up with friends and family and generally chilling out and fun. So I'm certainly a lot less stressed out than I have been since getting back from the tour.

Now I have some bad news and some good news; first the bad news:

My film ‘Consequences' will be halting production short of completion. Due to some dreadful technical mistakes, and almost non-existent direction for both actors and crew the film is so riddled with errors, I'm sorry to admit, it actually looks quite amateurish in some parts. I would like to point out that this is not the fault of the majority of the team, (we had a talented team, many of whom actually rescued certain aspects of the production, unfortunately it wasn't enough) but mostly down to one person, with the greatest responsibility, who failed to make the necessary decisions. I've been aware of many problems for a long time but was always optimistic about being able to salvage something, however, after meeting an editor recently it was explained to me that it would take more time, effort and facilities than anyone would be prepared to give and still not achieve a standard that I would be comfortable to submit to festivals never mind sales.

It has come so far and I feel ashamed to have to tell everyone else, who have all worked really hard, that the film will not be finished. But I hope we can work together again in the future. I'm going to cut out some snippets of good footage, and there is some, to keep for showreels so that peoples' work was not entirely in vain and we still come out with something.

The good news is that I have learnt a huge amount from making ‘Consequences' and will not make (or allow others to make) the same mistakes twice. It has certainly not put me off and I'm currently starting to prepare for my next project. Over the next few months I will be putting together a team to shoot a series of scenes, sketches, promos, and short films. Each production will be collaborated and devised by the team with the intention of making something cheaply and simply, so that people have the freedom to experiment and grow as directors, writers, actors, etc, and to go on to work together on bigger and more ambitious projects. For more information on these projects see the production pages.

More news: Last Sunday I started fight training for ‘Lord of the Rings - Born of Hope', a prequel to the ‘Lord of the Rings' trilogy inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's writings in the appendices of the Trilogy. In homage to the original Peter Jackson trilogy where a fight team was created and trained to act as all the races in the film – in our case Orcs and Rangers – each race has its own fighting style and movement and we will be learning this over the next few months as well as the actual fight choreography for the film. I worked on shooting the promo trailer for the film last year, which since then has been around the world creating much of a stir amongst fans. If you are interested in seeing more about the film visit www.bornofhope.com.

Other than that I'm doing lots of Medieval Banquets throughout November, so if you have a free evening and fancy something different ride on down to see us at St. Katherine's Docks.

Tuesday 2^nd October (back in London)

Well I did have all good intentions of writing again once the tour was finished but with getting settled back into ‘normal’ life I guess I got a little sidetracked. In fact it was only when I was checking something else on the site that I realised it's been over a month since I last wrote anything and a month yesterday since the tour finished. So here's how it all ended:

Well our final ten day run went very well, mostly great weather and good audiences. One venue was in Torquay so I took the opportunity to visit everyone I know at the theatre there. I even got to go on the radio there (as I know the presenter from Panto). That was really fun and slightly surreal, particularly as he kept using my name like I was some well known celebrity. We were generally around the southwest and I have a few friends in some of the areas we visited, so I was pleased to get a few of them to see the shows. On 31^st August we did our last Midsummer in Surrey, it wouldn't say it was sad, kind of exciting really. We were all on the internet and our phones all day arranging work and auditions for when we got back home. We got lots of photos that day; in one we all swapped costumes - I was peasblossom.

That night we travelled north to Lincoln , our last journey of the tour. I was driving the van and Jamie was with me. We'd just got onto the M1 when a light started flashing on the dash board. Just as I was about to pull over the engine cut out. It was about 11:30pm at this point. We'd stopped in a free recovery area and after a few phone calls and about a 30-45 minute wait a truck arrived to tow us to the nearest garage – a truck stop near Luton. We waited over an hour for another pick-up from the RAC to arrive (which was too small to take the van) and tell us that he didn't know what was wrong with the van, couldn't get it started and didn't want to touch it. After some more phone calls we were eventually told there wasn't a pick-up big enough to take us until 8am. By this time it was about 5am, so Jamie and I managed to get a couple of uncomfortable hours sleep until then. While loading the van onto the pickup the driver managed to get it started again, so we decided to attempt driving it. He followed us for a short while and there were no problems, so he left us and we continued to Lincoln , stopping only a couple of times along the way to stop me falling asleep. We arrived in Lincoln at 11:30am (12 hours after breaking down) to a hero's welcome. We were sent straight to bed and I managed another couple of hours before going up to Lincoln castle to set up the show.

Lincoln was probably our best performance all round. We were on form, the entire audience were on our side and hugely responsive (probably as they were all friends and family of ours or the company's) and the setting was beautiful. We had a big party that night and came home the following day feeling a little delicate.

All in all the whole experience was an opportunity I wouldn't have given up for anything. I had so many ‘firsts' during that tour, met some wonderful people, performed in some stunning places, had an amazing time and enjoyed every minute of it. I also learned a lot about myself; not just my temperament being on the road for a long time (which I thought I adapted to quite well) but also my acting – my strengths, my weaknesses (and everyone has weaknesses) my style. I had good feedback from audiences and the rest of the cast and it's nice to hear that you're doing the right thing every now and then. My hope now is that this new experience will open more doors for me in the future. I would love to do something like this again, to do more Shakespeare and more touring. So we shall see.

Since getting back I've pretty much launched myself back into ‘normal' work. I returned to London with very little money so have been working hard to build that back up again. Fortunately I've come back to lots of work and all of it varied and some quite interesting. I've done promotions for Orange , Galaxy, Eurostar, Alpro Soya, Vodafone, and Adidas. I've been crew for a musical, trapeze act at the Thames Festival, the Rugby World Cup Launch Dinner and a Burberry fashion show. Plus I've been back to the usuals – personal training, Medieval Banquets, dancing partners, globe fight displays and the Party Bus. Sadly I'm not going back to the Urdang Academy as they've had to change their syllabus, due to a new university affiliation (meaning courses change from diplomas to degrees) so body conditioning has been dropped in favour of more academic subjects. I still keep in touch though and perhaps I can go back again in the future.

Right now I'm on a train to Southsea where I have a press call for this years pantomime. I will be playing the huntsman again (3^rd time) in ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. I will be with Mark Rafferty (Neighbours) Aiden J Harvey (Copycats) and Phil Randall who were all in the show when I last did it two years ago so I'm really looking forward to seeing them again. We also have Sophie McDonnel (CBBC) who I've met before and is lovely, and Lorraine Chase, who I've heard is also very nice. It's a small company so I'm glad it's going to be a good one and its only two months tomorrow until I start rehearsals.

That's plenty to catch up on for now. I'll write again soon to talk about other things past, present and future.

Monday 20^th August

(Day 100, Tour Day 68)

100 days since I first traveled to Lincoln and met this group of people that I’ve been living, performing, experiencing, socialising and learning with for over three months; and what an experience it has been. I’m not going to do a big re-cap/summary/evaluation, I’ll save that for when I’m actually finished. But this seemed like the perfect time to give another update, especially as the last week has been particularly eventful.

It’s good to be touring again. It was a little disorientating to be at home for so long and then to be back on the road. It took some time to adjust both times. But I’m well into the swing of it again now. The last few weeks have been pretty much as usual. Some interesting, stunning, and beautifully picturesque venues, the shows getting better and better as each of us are experimenting as we go and finding new things all the time.

On the 4^th I got to see the production of ‘Oliver’ in York, which I would have been doing had I not gotten these roles. It was like a re-union; not only were there the ‘regulars’ I see there all the time, but on that day many of the older faces, who have moved on since and haven’t been around for some years, also came to see the some. There were even a few (myself included) who had been involved in the production of ‘Oliver’ six years ago. Some of them I’ve watched grow up and they are now going to full time drama schools or in one case in the West End. So that was a lovely day. The next day I enjoyed a day of wandering the city and taking a river boat ride in the beautiful sunshine.

A few more days off in Lincoln followed, and the restlessness was beginning to set in again, but fortunately it wasn’t too long before we were doing the shows again. On our next couple of days off (last Monday and Tuesday) Katherine and I went up to the Edinburgh festival. If you’ve followed my diary in the past you’ll know I’ve visited the festival for the past two years and always had an amazing time, and this was no exception.

I stayed a bit longer this year than I had done in the past and in two days I saw 11 performances including comedy shows, stand up, plays, sketches and a Samurai display show. I caught up with many friends; some I knew were there and some I coincidentally bumped into (including someone I hadn’t seen for six years). I can’t recommend it enough, and I hope sometime I’ll get the opportunity to be involved in a production there. Who knows I may even be producing something there one day?

The events in the days that followed were quite unexpected. On Thursday morning as we arrived at our venue in Lancaster Zack decided to leave the company, for various reasons I don't need to go into, suffice to say we were a little stuck with a 7:30pm show and minus one cast member. We set up as usual while discussing ways to continue with the show. About an hour or two later our director (Becks) arrived to fill in and we got about preparing her for the show. At about 5/5:30 Becks went to move her car and was hit by another car coming around a blind corner. Fortunately it was nothing too serious, however, she was still taken to hospital as a precaution. With so much riding against us doing the show we accepted we would have to cancel and out of courtesy we stayed at the venue to inform everyone coming to see the show what had happened. Fortunately we were doing the other show at the same venue the following day, so we could offer people tickets to see that instead. It actually turned out to be one of our best shows of the tour and one of our biggest audiences too. Becks is fine now, just a little bruised and tender and I believe she is now going to be staying with us for the remainder of the tour, which everyone is very happy about.

We now have our last three days off before our 10 show run, which takes us to the very end of the tour. Here I am back in Lincoln again where it all started 100 days ago and where we’ll be performing our last show 12 days from now. All that’s going through my mind is… What’s next?

Wednesday 1st August

(Day 81, Tour Day 49)

It feels like ages since I last wrote, but looking down it’s only been a week. It has been a rather strange week, however; due to the cancellations we’ve only done one show in the last eleven days and I’ve been at home in London the rest of the time. I was starting to get back into the swing of ‘normal’ life. I’ve even done a few jobs last week. It’s been good to be back at home, being able to catch up with friends, sleep in my own bed and wash my clothes and not think about the shows at all. Having said that it’s good to be back on the road again. I was actually beginning to get bored and was running out of things to do; there’s only so much I can do when I’m not going to be around for long.

Today we’ve done our first show after the break in Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes. It was a really good show and by far the best weather we’ve had on tour so far – It’s the first day since our dress tech in Lincoln on the 13th June that it hasn’t rained at all throughout the day – So I really think that added to the performance. Some of us also had guests watching (including an agent) so that probably helped too.

Yet again we’ve had another show cancelled. This time in Leeds (I don’t know why) which is really disappointing for everyone, as I think the whole cast had people coming along. It also leaves us with another chunk of time off. Tomorrow we are in Leicester and Friday in Norwich, then don’t have another show until the following Wednesday.

On Saturday I’m going to go to York to see a production of Oliver, which many of my friends are working on (both on stage and off) and which I would have been doing had I not been doing this. Well It’s been a long day so I’m off to bed.

Wednesday 25^th July

(Day 74, Tour Day 42)

Some disappointing news: unfortunately we have had three of the four shows we have this week cancelled. I can only assume it’s due to the weather as they were all around the South West of England. So now I will be travelling to Crediton, Devon for our next show on Saturday and after that we resume as normal (hopefully) with Milton Keynes next Wednesday.

Saturday 21^st July

(Day 70, Tour Day 38)

I guess I’ve had a lot of time off lately as I’ve been writing quite often. I’m now on a Ferry from Dublin to Liverpool. We left at 10am (had to get up at 5am) and will arrive at 6pm. It’s now 3pm so we’re over half way. I then drive to London (via my Mum’s for a pit stop) and I think we should get into London at around 10-11pm.

So the Ireland adventure is over. It’s been a wonderful experience; I’ve probably been to more of Ireland than most Irish people and seen places that I’ve only ever heard about in stories and songs – such as Blarney and Tipperary. But I’m pleased to be going home. Although we’ve been together now for over two months, I think our two and a half weeks in Ireland have been the most intense. Not because of work, but just being able to get away from it all. This is no reflection on anyone in the group, we are still getting along really well, but everyone needs a bit of space once in a while, and everywhere we’ve been in Ireland has been so remote and difficult to get away anywhere. I’m also looking forward to catching up with friends back. I bought myself an international phone card the other day, so I have spoken to a few people now at least in the last few weeks. It’s also going to be nice to sleep in my bed, do some washing, re-pack my suitcase.

Our next stint of shows begins on Thursday in Cornwall and we do a few around the South West before going to Milton Keynes, Leicester, Norwich and Leeds the following week.

I know I will enjoy this time off, but it will be really nice starting back rested and afresh with renewed vigour.

Tuesday 17^th July

(Day 66, Tour Day 34)

Thought I’d write again as I have the time. In Sligo now in the North West of the Republic of Ireland. Just had a wander around town to buy and post some birthday cards (so many Birthdays at the moment!).

Found out yesterday that we’re coming back to England on Saturday! Despite it being a beautiful country and we are enjoying the time here, I’m getting a little tired of the currency, the metric system and the expensive international calling. So I was quite excited about getting to go home.

Katherine, Zack and I will be travelling back to London – I’ve just worked out that it’s going to be about a 14 hour journey (including the ferry) and I’ll be the only driver – and then we should get about 4 days off before our next show in Cornwall.

Shows have still been going well, another one indoors and another in the rain. We had a strange Midsummer last week as it had been 9 days since our last one and there were a few minor mistakes.

We arrived here yesterday and have a show tomorrow. We then do a show in Co. Monaghan on Thursday and Limerick on Friday and that’s the end of our Irish tour.

Wednesday 11^th July

(Day 60, Tour Day 28)

Ok found some time now. I only had an hour on the Wi-Fi and that was just enough time to download all my emails that have accumulated over the last 2 weeks (and frustratingly about 90% of them are junk).

After that we went to a place called Muckross where we were performing in another huge stately house. The weather was amazing all day, but typically the clouds had covered the sky by 7pm and when we came out to do the show the swarms of midges had a feast. Despite being eaten alive (and now I’m paying for it, with itchy bites all over my body) it was a good show.

Today we’ve had another day off. So Dan, Miranda, Katherine and I went to Blarney Castle (and kissed the blarney stone – which isn’t as simple as it sounds), we went up (and down) the Wishing Steps, into the Witches Cave and saw the Fairy Glade, which – being King of the fairies – I found quite disappointing.

Tomorrow we have a four hour drive to County Louth where we stay for the evening and then complete the journey to Carrickfergus, near Belfast on Friday where we do a performance of As You Like It that evening.

Going back now to the 2nd July. We travelled across Scotland from near Edinburgh to Stranraer where we caught a ferry to Belfast and then drove about another two hours to a small place in the sticks (even the Sat-nav couldn’t find it) called Strangford. We were staying in the Gamekeepers Lodge of Castle Ward another huge multi-acre estate. We stayed there all week as we didn’t have to travel too far for any shows (particularly the two we did there – which we’re nice and easy). It really was like going back in time. One of my lasting memories will be the excitement of the lady that met us there about recently getting rid of their gas fridge in exchange for an electric one. We had a generator, which powered the house, a log fire – for which we had to cut our own wood – and out door toilets. I enjoyed it thoroughly; however, being brought up on camping, I’m rarely squeamish in the great outdoors. I even saw a mother and baby seal on our second day on the banks of the river/lake within the estate, which I was quite excited about. That night we went into the village and met a stereotypical drunk, but very witty, Irishman called Benjamin (“I AM Benjamin”) who kept us entertained all evening with his catch phases – Ah la la la va ba ba ba ba.

On the Wednesday we went into Belfast, which was a lot prettier than I expected – both the city and the ladies. We wandered the high street without much intention of buying anything, found some internet service and went to watch Die Hard 4.0, which was amazing and I would highly recommend it.

All our shows that week went very well and we had some of our best audiences so far. On Sunday we did our first show in the Republic of Ireland. I was surprised to find there was no “Welcome to Ireland (or Eire)” sign, just a distinct change of road signs, mobile phone provider, metric system (and later that day, currency). All of which have become quite tiresome now the novelty has worn off – Particularly the phones as I feel a little disconnected from friends and family back home.

On Monday we went west to Killarney, where we have been staying so far, in the Agadoo Hostel. And we’re back up to date again.

Tuesday 10^th July

(Day 59, Tour day 27)

Today (yesterday and tomorrow) we are in Killarney in South West Ireland. Apparently it’s the second biggest tourist location in the Republic. It’s only small but there seems to be a lot of outdoor pursuits in the area, so there’s loads of hostels and the village is thriving. We went out last night and met loads of people from all over the world. There was a live band last night who were really good. I was the designated driver so didn’t drink, which I’m very grateful for this morning. We’ve been in Ireland just over a week and I’m afraid I don’t have time to tell you about it all now. I was a little unprepared today as we just found a Wi Fi spot. But I’ll make sure I’m better prepared for next time and I’ll tell you all about it then. Suffice to say it has been wonderful so far and even the weather has been starting to improve!

Sunday 1^st July

(Day 50, Tour day 18)

Got a bit side tracked last time, dinner was amazing and then we got carried away playing ‘Who Want’s To Be A Millionaire’ and ‘Scrabble’ – Oh the fun. Well we’re now in Scotland (near Edinburgh) it’s just gone midnight (so it’s really Monday actually) and today we did As You in Hopetoun House in South Queensferry and it was a bit of a wet one. The weather has been varied the last few days; we had a nice day in Manchester on Friday. Saturday, in Alnwick, Northumberland, started nice but ended up raining for the show. However despite the weather there this has been my favourite venue so far. It’s a beautiful castle with hundreds of years of History and is still the residence of the Earl of Northumberland. It was also where the Quiddich game was filmed in the first Harry Potter film. Today yet another huge, stunning venue. I found time to go for a walk through the grounds to the hills overlooking the coast. This morning I had a bit of an accident; I managed to pull all the muscles across my upper back and I’ve been struggling throughout the day. At it’s worse it’s been painful to breathe and I’ve not been able to lift anything too heavy either. Fortunately we now have three days off to recover and possibly the most anticipated part of the tour, tomorrow we travel to the west coast of Scotland and then catch a ferry to Ireland where we will spend the next two and a half weeks. I’ll see if I can find a masseuse to do something with my back. Oh and we’re now halfway through our contract (since I arrived in Lincoln back in May. How long ago that seems! Going to get to bed now as we have to get up early to catch our ferry. I’ll have time to continue very soon.

Thursday 28^th June

(Day 47, Tour Day 15)

Another day off today, and this time we’re (almost – Zack’s not here) all together in a lovely little cottage on the edge of a huge deer park within the gardens of Fountains Abbey, near Ripon, North Yorkshire. I’m currently sitting in the living room waiting for our first communal meal - fajitas and nachos. Earlier some of us went for a walk together around the park. I really is huge we walked for about an hour and a half and still only saw a fraction of the grounds. We sat by a lake, played pooh sticks on a bridge by a waterfall and climbed a steep hill. I should really introduce everyone as I expect I’m going to be talking about them a lot over the next few months, if not more:

Miranda Heath:: plays Titania and Hippolyta (opposite my Oberon and Theseus) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Phebe,; Audrey and Second Lord in As You Like It.
Zack Polanski:: plays a very energetic Puck and Philostrate in Midsummer and; Le Beau, Amiens and Silvius in as You Like It.
Marcus Cooper (the oldest of our company);: plays Demetrius and Starveling (Moonshine) in Midsummer and; Charles and Jaques – who delivers the famous “All the world’s a stage” speech - in As You Like It.
Jamie Brown (the youngest in the company):: plays Lysander, Mustardseed and Flute (Thisbe) in Midsummer and; Orlando De Boys in As You Like It.
Katherine Bower:: plays Helena, Cobweb and Snug (Lion) in Midsummer and; Rosalind (Ganymede) – the largest female role written by Shakespeare – in As You Like It.
Alice Brockway:: plays Hermia, Peasblossom and Snout (Wall) in Midsummer and; Celia (Aliena) in As You Like It.
Dan Creasey:: plays Bottom in Midsummer and; the two Dukes and Sir Oliver Martext in As You Like It.
And last but not least...
Aaron Kelly (our company manager):: plays Egeus and Quince (Prologue) in Midsummer and Adam, Touchstone and Jaques De Boys in As You Like It.

Dinner’s ready

Monday 18^th June

(Day 37, Tour Day 5)

I hoped to have got round to writing before this, but it’s been such a busy few weeks I just haven’t had a chance. Today is our first day off after seven tough days. We did our first show on Thursday and up to then we’ve been rehearsing lots and working hard to get everything up to scratch.

I’ve been keeping a sort of journal of what we’ve been doing each day and funny things that have happened, most of it is hard to explain as you really had to be there, but it helps me to re-cap the main things.

On the 2^nd and 3^rd we had the weekend off and the weather was lovely so we all went to the Arboretum – A park area about 10 mins from our digs. We bought a badminton/volleyball set and just played games and sunbathed all weekend, it was just what we needed. I burnt a little, but not too bad, and now I’m nice and brown, which I’m hoping to top up on considerably as we go. The following week we concentrated on performing outdoors. It was quite a surprise to find how difficult it is to project to a distance in the open air, even without wind, rain, aeroplanes or animals over the top (all of which we’ve had to deal with this last week). We were rehearsing near a building site and the noise from that could be impossible at times so I guess we had good practice. One morning we came to rehearse and the builders were all singing one of our songs. We can’t be doing that bad then.

From Monday last week we have been slowly adding costume & set to our rehearsals and on Tuesday and Wednesday we did our first unofficial performance (technical dress runs) with an invited audience. As You Like It, which is the one I was less confident with went surprisingly well, however I was a little late on a few of my quick changes (which I’ve tightened since). I have 6 quick changes in the first half and 4 in the second – sometimes I literally follow myself on as a different character. The Midsummer dress tech was much smoother, although we had to take the second half indoors because of a thunder storm.

On Thursday we packed everything up and traveled to Wymondham, near Norwich, to a beautiful country house called Kimberly Hall. It was a private residence that was hosting the show in the back garden (which was huge – including a lake, a walled flower garden, and adventure playground, log cabin and acres of fields). The house was beautiful and we were all fed and put up for the night in huge bedrooms. The house was just full of amazing things that the family had obviously collected over many generations. All kinds of stuffed animals, furs and horns adorned the walls and furniture, a full sized snooker table on the 1^st floor landing, an organ, a set of binoculars that had to be close to 100 years old. This was our opening night of As You Like It. We had an audience of about 90 and despite the rain (which fell constantly throughout the show) they stuck it out and really enjoyed it.

The following day we traveled to Michelham Priory in East Sussex, which was an idyllic little place, surrounded by a moat. This time the weather cleared up and although a little chilly we got through our first Midsummer Night’s Dream without complaint.

The following two shows Midsummer at Petworth House, West Sussex and As You Like It at Lainston House Hotel, Winchester both went without fault (despite some light rain in the second half of As You Like It) and were again received very well; particularly at Petworth House where we had an audience of approximately 300 and many people stayed behind to thank us and to ask for autographs, which was very nice. The shows have been getting better everyday as each of us is getting more comfortable with our characters and finding new ways to do things. Both shows are tight, funny and there is not a weak link amongst us.

Today I’m actually at home in London. As we were not too far away in Winchester on Sunday a few of us decided to come home for a day. I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon to join the others in a caravan park in Christchurch, Dorset for our next show on Wednesday. It’s been nice to be home – get some washing done, re-pack, catch up with some friends. But believe it or not I’m missing the rest of the cast already, and I’m looking forward to getting back again. Anyway, better go. (For further venues and dates see www.chapterhouse.org).

Sunday 27th May

(Rehearsal day 14)

Our second day off and, just looking at my watch, exactly a fortnight since we all met here in Lincoln.

Both shows are now blocked (minus a few dances and two prologue sequences) and from tomorrow onwards we begin fine tuning and running everything together.

This week has been a little more difficult as I knew As You Like It least and the dialogue is a little harder to learn, but I’m much better with it now and I think once I’m confident with it this will actually be my favorite show as the acting is a little more challenging and I’m playing 4 rather different characters (and one has a complete conversion half way through). Both shows are looking very good and there is going to be a lot of comedy (which figures for two comedy plays). We’ve already had many rehearsals where we couldn’t act for giggling.

I’m still thoroughly enjoying myself, and everyone is still getting on. It seems like we’ve known each other for ages and despite living in so close surroundings no one is treading on any toes and there has been no tension at all – suffice to say there probably will be eventually. In the latter part of this week, we’ve actually been doing a lot more individually or in smaller groups and not in any conscious attempt to have space either, so it’s nice to know we can still get away if we need to. Last night many people had friends or girl/boyfriends visiting and everyone went their separate ways. There were two of us left at the digs and we just chilled in our rooms on our own, which was nice. We’re still doing the usual things though – the card games have become quite the evening event. I’m hoping we may be able to arrange something like go carting or paintballing while were still here.

Today I’m just lazily catching up with odd things, looking through the countless emails I downloaded yesterday, going through the photos I’ve been taking (which I must include here soon), doing my laundry, oh and of course going over lines. By the way I can still check emails now and then so please do keep in touch and let me know what you’re up to.

On Tuesday another cast (Doing Much Ado About Nothing tour for the same company) will be joining us at the digs, which will be interesting. We’ve joked amongst ourselves about playing tricks on them, as if they were first year students starting a new school, but it will be nice to have a new group of people to get to know and there’s no reason why we wont get on very well. It will just be odd in another two weeks when we go our separate ways.

Thursday 17^th May

(Rehearsal day 4)

I have a break in rehearsals and I needed to take my mind off my lines for a short while so I thought I'd catch up a little. It's all going very well and I'm really enjoying myself. We have a lovely company (9 actors altogether plus a director) and everyone seems to be getting on very well (so far anyway). We're even starting to create catchphrases and make nicknames for each other. The accommodation here is really convenient as we are across the road to the centre of town and even better, our rehearsal room is upstairs; so we don't even have to leave the building to go to work. We have our own rooms which are adequate and share a kitchen which can become crowded at times, but we manage to cook in shifts.

We've been rehearsing A Midsummer Night's Dream this week (and start As You Like It on Monday) So far we're about half way through the blocking and it's going really well. There's some great business between Puck and I and the director really knows what she is doing – which is always a relief.

Socially we've managed to be quite active too. We've been out for drinks a couple of times (but not all the time), we've been shopping together, on Tuesday night we went to a dance class, watched a film together and then played Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? DVD. Last night we played a fantastic game of Dodgeball upstairs. It was brilliant and it's going to become a regular occurrence. Tonight we're going for a nice meal together at a Chinese.

Saturday 12^th May

Tomorrow morning I'm off to Lincoln . How quickly have the last few weeks gone!

I was really rather busy this week. I've been event managing a promotion for a new agency most of the week, plus doing some evenings at Medieval Banquets, training clients, having meetings, packing and generally tying up loose ends. So last night I was up pretty late finishing my packing. I'm at my Dad's now as he's kindly offered to take me up to Lincoln .

I'm not sure when I'll next get a chance to get online, or even write, so I thought I'd leave you with a brief goodbye. I still know very little about the details of the tour or the cast, so there's not a lot I can say about it, apart from the fact I know I'm going to be doing many things for the first time and I'm very much looking forward to it. You can find out more about the company, the tour dates and locations, and book tickets at www.chapterhouse.org

Friday 4^th May

The time is going so fast! It seemed only yesterday I was telling people I'm going in 3 weeks, now I've got only 9 days! I'm doing my best to tidy up so it's easier to pack and my stuff isn't all over the place when I get back, but obviously I still need to work. I've been good at going through my lines regularly. I'm not remembering full sentences yet, but I'm noticing it's going in, so that's good. It also helps to read it lots because you're always finding new things in the text and the sub text. I can't wait till we're rehearsing it and actually bringing it all to life. I really don't know what they're going to do with it, there's so much that can be done with Shakespeare. I don't even know what I'm going to be wearing. I could be in a grass skirt for all I know! With that in mind I've been making an effort to get to the gym more often lately.

I was saying in my last entry about how the group from the film course got on so well and how we were planning getting together again. Well on Tuesday night we did. One of the group is moving to New York (today I think), and we were all invited to her goodbye party. I'd had a busy day and wasn't sure if I could make it, but I did and was very pleased to see some familiar faces. It's amazing but it had only been a week since the showcase and we'd all really missed each other.

As most impromptu nights like that do, it very quickly turned into an all singing, all dancing, all cross-dressing party, and subsequently spilled back to my flat where we continued until 5am. It was a lot of fun and yet again we are planning the next one (though maybe not as wild) next week before I go.

Other than all that, life is fairly normal: still fighting at the Medieval Banquets and the Globe, still dancing, still doing my circuit training classes, and the odd promotions job. While, in the meantime, I've been cancelling my subscriptions, paying off any outstanding debts, buying travel gear and thinking about all the things I'm going to need. I can see next week getting quite hectic – and I'm still inevitably going to forget something important!

Wednesday 25^th April

I'm now starting to prepare for the Shakespeare roles. I didn't want to do too much on it before the showcase. I've just printed out all my lines and still can't get over how much there is. I suppose there's not really as much as other shows I've done and I'm probably making more of it than it is; I've learnt plenty of Shakespeare soliloquy's without any trouble. I'm going to have plenty of rehearsal time too. I feel much better now. I'm just going to try to read it regularly, so I have a good enough grasp of it for when we start rehearsing.

The showcase was a great experience. I've never done anything quite like it before and fortunately I didn't get worked up over it. It was all over so fast; each of us have about 3 minutes to show our scene and then that's it. Show's over, for us anyway. We all had a drink together afterwards and some of us stayed out quite late. I must say, the best part of the whole course has been the company. It has been an amazing group and we've all got on so well. I have no doubt that the majority of us, if not all, will keep in touch for a long time onwards. In this business it's actually hard to make good friends because you meet so many people, mostly for only short periods of time (in comparison to those who work in a job for years and years), sometimes you will work together quite intensely, but then you move on to the next job. I have a feeling this will be different and we have already been contacting each other (since Monday night) about when we're next meeting up.

My plans for ‘All My Sons’ have gone on hold for the time being. I actually went to look at a location yesterday, but this afternoon I decided I've got enough to do over the next few weeks, so I'm going to put the preparations off until I return in September. I've got many more ideas of things to film too, so I could be pretty busy then.

Friday 20^th April

If you've been reading other areas of the site (or if you know me already), you'll probably have noticed I've been cast in a Shakespeare tour, which I'm very excited about, so now I have just over three weeks before I go and there are suddenly so many things I need to tie up. I don't think I've ever been away (from everyday life) for this length of time – 15^th May to 1^st September – so I have subscriptions to cancel, jobs to finish, clothes to buy and money to save. Not to mention lines to learn.

For anyone that doesn't know, I'm going to be performing in a national, open air tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream (playing Theseus and Oberon) and As You Like It (playing Oliver De Boys). I've read both plays before, but I've been having another look over the last few days and God, I've got a lot to learn! I hadn't realised how big a part Theseus was and that's probably the smallest of the three! This will also be my first ever Shakespeare performance(s) - excluding workshops and audition speeches - so I think I've certainly got my work cut out for me. I'm also currently rehearsing for the Showcase performance on Monday (how fast has that come up?!) I'm doing a selection of scenes from ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ all stuck together. If you know the film, you'll know it's hard to understand at the best of times, never mind doing it out of context, and with no set but a few chairs. Please don't mistake me, I'm not complaining. I'm just spelling out the challenge we have before us and one that I'm modestly confident about. Speaking positively; at the last count this afternoon, we have 22 confirmed agents and casting directors coming to see the show. So all fingers, toes, arms, legs, eyes and ears crossed that one of them may see something they like and want to meet me again.

If that wasn't enough; in between the two performances I'm preparing to shoot a few scenes from Arthur Miller's ‘All My Sons’ for my showreel. More lines to learn! I've pretty much got everything organised so far, I'm hoping to confirm the location this weekend and then set a date to shoot.

There's not anything else to tell so I shall take my leave and bid you farewell.

Tuesday 3^rd April

A month since my last entry; I usually have a lot to talk about, but I can't really think of much to say. I've simply been busy doing lots of the same things I've already talked about. Nevertheless there have still been some noteworthy events:

Over this week and next I will be doing sword fight displays at the Globe Theatre Exhibition. The fights have each been choreographed (by Phillip Stafford) for one (or more) of Shakespeare's plays; e.g. Hamlet, Henry V, Macbeth, and utilize a range of weapons and styles. I've been rehearsing for a few weeks and after Easter we will continue the displays on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 10:30am-1pm.

I've been auditioning quite a lot over past few weeks too, for a whole range of projects. I've actually had to turn some things down, that I've really wanted to do, because they've clashed with something else I've committed to. It's so frustrating, just like the old cliché that you wait for ages where nothing ever happens and then everything comes at once. Despite some disappointments I didn't miss out on everything. Today I'm actually going to a rehearsal for a music video which I'm filming on Thursday. Its for a rock band and the video centres around a bare knuckle fight (surprise surprise) in a futuristic setting. Next week I'm filming a short film called ‘War Story' about a soldier on the run behind enemy lines. I actually play one of his pursuers and I get killed, which is new for me, so that should be fun. Then in three weeks (Monday 23 rd April) I have my showcase from the film and television course I've been doing. I'm really looking forward to it, we're just sending out our invitations to about 250+ industry professionals and this company have a good reputation for people actually attending, so fingers crossed. For more info on that see Upcoming Performances.

Sadly last week saw my last body conditioning class at Urdang until September. In their third term all the students work towards performances and there just isn't enough space in the timetable for me, ahh. I have really enjoyed working there, and I'll look forward to the new term in September and a whole new group of first years.

As I said, there's not much. I'm waiting to hear about a few things coming up, but nothing confirmed just yet. So until I hear anything: Happy Easter!

Saturday 3^rd March

I've been too busy to keep up with the diary lately, so this could turn into a long one, but I'll keep it as short as I can. In a nut shell - still doing all the things I mentioned before; just a lot more. Plus fitting in auditions, exhibitions, events, screenings, promotions, marketing and if there's any time left a social life.

All my new projects are going well – The Actor's Studio course, the Latin & Ballroom Dancing, the fitness classes at Urdang and the Medieval Banquets. It's nice to have lots of different things to do, it all adds some variety to my week… exhausting though! Oh, while I'm thinking about it, I now have some more details on the Showcase I'm doing in April, take a look at News or CV pages. Since last time, we've done a class on TV auditions and a class on voice. Tomorrow we look at ‘the casting process'.

In the dance classes I've now learned the Cha Cha, Quickstep, Rumba, Foxtrot and Samba, and we're currently working on the Jive, Tango, and Waltz.

Last weekend there was a big fitness convention at the Excel Centre. It's basically a place people in the fitness industry can go to learn about new techniques, ideas, technology, etc. It was very interesting and inspiring and makes you realise how big the industry is and how much there is to learn. I participated in a few classes and listened to some seminars and took away lots of valuable ideas that I've been injecting into my own classes this week (and with good feedback too).

That didn't take too long. So what's coming up? Well I'm having some meetings next week regarding a new film project (or series of projects) that I'm starting the ball rolling on. I'm currently writing up a page, with all the info on that, which should be online very soon. Apart from that, nothing particularly exciting, just back on the audition circuit again.

Sunday 11^th February

This morning I started the first day of a 10 week course on Development in Film and TV. Its run by the Actor’s Studio (see links below) and is based at Pinewood Film & TV studios (where many major films are made – Harry Potter, James Bond, etc). I’m normally put off by courses this long as it’s very difficult to commit when my work is so varied, but this one particularly caught my eye. Not just because of the location and the line up of top directors, producers and casting directors taking the course, but also because the course culminates in a showcase on Monday 23^rd April. I don’t have any further details as yet, but you can be sure they’ll be on the site as soon as I do.

It was an early morning as we had to be there at 10am and it’s a long journey. I got up at 7:30am, which, if you know me is quite a feat in itself. I left at 8:30am and got there just on time. There are 18 people altogether and we begun with the usual introductions and name games, then spent the rest of the day working on improvisation. I’ve done classes on improv before, but this was a different approach and was very interesting. I was actually a little disappointed at first that I didn’t know anyone there (read about my run of coincidental meetings below), however, about 30 mins into the class someone arrived late and it was one of the guys from the cast of ‘The Man Who Knows’ - the musical I did last September – So I was smugly satisfied.

It’s been a fairly typical week, but there have been a couple of things worth mentioning: On Wednesday I was instructing period boxing for the LSW’s (London Shakespeare Workout) new tour of ‘Black Atlas’ about the black prize-fighter Thomas Molineux. The production tours from 18^th Feb to 5^thApril. More info can be found at : http://www.lswproductions.co.uk/BAtour.htm. I did the same for the production’s first performance last year. It is very good and if you have the time I suggest you take a look.

Yesterday I began training in Latin & Ballroom dancing! “How random!” I hear you say. Well it’s actually a new company that train dancers who, when ready, are ‘hired’ out as partners at dance classes (where there tend to be many more women than men). They also provide trained dancers for corporate events and parties. Find out more at http://www.simplydancingpartners.co.uk. I have had some experience before so I wasn’t a total beginner fortunately. I had a really good time and I’m looking forward to learning more.

Still more birthdays: Tomorrow Nigel Herman and Tuesday Warren Levine. Happy birthday yet again!

Saturday 3^rd February

www.danstyles.co.uk is 2 years old! Yes another year has passed, and it's been a long one (in a good way). There have been many changes to the site in 2006, some things have taken a little longer than expected and I am currently working with my designer to re-create the whole site, this should ‘tidy' things a little better and make everything much more user friendly. I held back on the video and voice clips as I wanted to get everything together at once, which required a bit of work and I was just too busy last year, but that is one of my main priorities this year and should appear soon. I'm also going to try to illustrate the diary and perhaps some of the other pages with relevant photographs.

I've been amazed with the amount of traffic that goes through the site. I know many friends, that I don't see very often, will take a look at the site to keep up to date on what I'm doing; Hello to any of you reading now. Additionally, employers and clients from just about every line of work I do whether it's acting, personal training, fight directing, promotions, etc, will almost always take a look at the site, and many times it will be something on the site which catches their eye and incites them to get in touch.

If anyone from a similar line of work to me is reading this and you do not have your own website, I highly recommend it! My provider is Web-At-Work Ltd (http://www.web-at-work.com) and you can make orders via http://www.cheapdomainnames.uk.com.

This week (Thursday 1^st) also marks a year since I had my laser eye surgery. I'm quite used to it now, however, I did get very excited while away in York because where I was staying there was a clock on the other side of the room to my bed and when I woke up in the morning I could tell the time straight away (without fumbling for my glasses). It's the simple things that make the difference. It was also nice not having to mess around with contact lenses before putting my make-up on for each show.

The Urdang classes are going well, as did the medieval event last week. Coincidently my Nan turned up that night with a group for a friend's 70 th birthday! What are the odds of that? Quite amazing! Fortunately I didn't make any mistakes and kill or maim any one.

I forgot to mention last time, the dancing went well too. I did six shows in the end, and considering I didn't have any proper rehearsals (and my first show was the first time I'd done it on stage) I was quite proud of myself. Even some friends that came to see it were impressed.

I've been to see a couple more shows recently, one last week was a collection of excepts from new musicals, some were by Nicola Jane Buttigieg, who also wrote ‘The Legend of Beowulf', which I performed in last year. She is very talented and I'm looking forward to getting involved with her next project see the Travesty Players website for more info. There were also many of the Beowulf cast there, which was nice, and again, coincidentally, a girl who played Snow White in Simon Barry 's production in Southport (where I spent some time in rehearsals 10 weeks ago). Yet another coincidence happened the next day when I passed another girl from the show (that I didn't know before) by Chancery Lane tube, who happened to be going to a singing class nearby.

On Monday I went to see We Will Rock You (for the second time). I think it's a great show and I've got a friend (Twinnie-Lee Moore) who started in it last September. We worked together on a youth production of Wizard of Oz. I was assistant director and she played Dorothy, at the age of 16. She was amazing, and now only 3 years later she's singing and dancing in the West End. I'm so proud of her! I went for another friend's birthday, so happy belated birthday Olivia-Sian Evans (Princess Yasmin).

I've just had my first one-to-one personal training session since getting back, and will be working to get that rolling again very soon. If you would like some help keeping up that New Years resolution see the Personal Trainer page . My circuit training classes in Kennington will also be re-commencing next week, more info on the Classes page.

I'm really looking forward to a new course I start next week called ‘Shot to be Seen', run by the Actor's Studio at Pinewood Film & TV Studios. It concentrates on film and television acting and also looks at castings and showreels. It's ten weeks long and culminates in a showcase. I don't know any more details as yet, but as soon as I do they will be on the site.

Finally some more birthdays (I told you there are too many): My step sister Lisa on Tuesday 6^th and my flat mate Paul on Thursday 8^th. Happy Birthday!

Well that's about all my news right now; I said I'd not stopped. Some other things in the pipeline and I may be about to start a new filming project, but more on those things once they are confirmed.

Tuesday, 23^rd January

After 8 weeks away from home I'm now back in London and re-adjusting to a life of tubes, Oyster cards, tourists, bad air, frozen pizza and no money. However, I've not been back 48 hours and I've not stopped. I travelled back from Runcorn overnight with Simon (the Panto producer). He lives in Enfield , so he took me as far as Wood Green where I could get a night bus home (I love night buses!) I was home by about 5:30am and in bed by 6am. I slept till 1pm then went to visit Urdang Dance School (see below), and then on to a rehearsal for another new job as a knight at a medieval themed restaurant in St Katherine's Docks. I'm rehearsing a fight routine all this week which I will be performing on my first night this Saturday. After that I returned home to make a start unpacking my things. Today was my first day at Urdang. I taught 3 circuit training session, one after the other and I'm now utterly exhausted. It was a lot of fun though; the kids are great and full of energy. I'm really looking forward to my next day on Friday. Straight after that I went to see a friend from ‘Beowulf' doing another new musical called ‘It's all Make Believe' Upstairs at the Gatehouse. I was pleasantly surprised; it was very well put together, a good cast, set, script and was an excellent showcase for all involved as it really utilised everyone's skills. It finishes this Sunday so if you get the chance go take a look.

Plus some more birthday mentions (I have far too many friends having birthdays now). Today – Joanna Russel and last Sunday – Ami Dodd; Happy Birthday both of you!

Tuesday, 16^th January

Well I'm back on form again; my knee has been improving slowly and I've been rehearsing myself into the dance routines over the last few days (a big thank you to Joel, Raph, Lisa, and the rest of the red team dancers for helping me). Tomorrow is going to be my first performance! I'm both excited and nervous; though I have done choreographed dancing in shows before, it's been a few years now since the last time I did anything, so I really want to prove (to myself more than anything) that I still can. Anyway wish me luck!

It's also my friend Lizzy's birthday today, so Happy Birthday! While I'm on the subject it was my Mum's birthday last week too. Happy Birthday Mum!

Monday. 8^th January

I'm sorry to say, today has been a bit of a disappointing day. I was supposed to be starting rehearsals as a dancer in Cinderella, in Runcorn, today, but I injured my knee on Saturday and it's hasn't healed enough to do the show. I'm going to stay up here though and help out getting the show on. I'm also going to see some other pantos with the producer and take some time out to relax. The show here opens on Thursday and stars Simon Grant a CBBC presenter, Kamal from ‘Big Brother' and Stuart Wade from ‘Emmerdale'. It runs until Sunday 21^st – Perhaps I may be able to join the show before it finishes.

I have had some good news recently as well. As of the 23^rd Jan I will be the fitness instructor for the Urdang Academy – A dance school in London – I will be teaching circuit training/body conditioning to their first and second year students six times a week. It's very exciting, if a little nerve-racking. I will be looking after a group of twenty five 16+ year olds, which seems nothing compared to the hundred (give or take) 8-21 year olds we work with on the summer schools, so I think I can manage.

Monday, 1^st January 2007

Happy New Year! Today not only marks the first day of 2007 but also the first day of the last week of Panto. I'm sorry to see the end of this run; it has been very enjoyable working with some amazing performers. Michael Starke (Brookside & The Royal), Syd Little (Little & Large) and Gareth Oliver are very talented comedians, each of them taking the show to new levels and almost incomparable to last year. It has been wonderful to be able to watch them and learn from their example. The entire company, both on stage and off, most of whom I've worked with before, have been a great team and I hope we will stay together again next year. Socially the company have had some lovely evenings together; our New Year party last night was one to remember. It started for me at about 9pm at a house party organised by one of the crew and what a party! There was a marquee in the garden with a disco, lots of hot and cold food and copious amounts of drink. At 11:30 a group of us walked to the Minster (York 's Cathedral), where many people gather to see in the New Year. Just before midnight we got separated in the crowd and I climbed on top of a bin to try to see where the others were. I spotted them as the Minster bells rang 12 o'clock and so I spent the first minutes of 2007 stood on top of a bin with a friend of Livvy (Princess Yasmin). We then gathered together again, shared some champagne and returned to the party. The rest of the night was a blur for me and today the others took great pleasure in filling me in on my drunken exploits.

So what does the New Year hold? Well before looking forward I shall recap:
Last year (2006) was certainly a busy one, the busiest year of my life in fact. It started with the last week of panto in Torquay followed by another two weeks in Runcorn, during this time I started my plans to produce a film version of my script ‘Consequences'. Back in London and on 1^st Feb I had laser eye surgery, my first big investment of the year, and a decision I'm glad I made as it has changed my life. A few days later I met and confirmed my Director for Consequences and the film preparations went into the next level. Over the next couple of months we booked our cast and crew, we went to Brighton a couple of times and began rehearsals. I also worked on a Lord of the Rings Fan Film, a music video and a photo shoot. On the fitness side of things I did quite a bit of work for Alpro and Holmes Place . On April 3^rd after a hard and stressful couple of months we began shooting Consequences. We finished just a few hours ahead of schedule – NB: I recently received the final rough cut from the editors, as soon as I get the time I will have a look at it to see what I want to do with it next.

My next major project was The Lambeth Riverside Festival, which would also be the site for the first stage production of Consequences, and the planning was soon underway. In the meantime I worked on another two independent films: ‘The Other Side' in which I played a drug dealer and ‘Relentless' where I was a police officer. I did a promotion for Pirates of the Caribbean as Captain Jack Sparrow, a couple more modelling shoots and some background work on ‘The Amazing Mr's Pritchard'. The Kennington Fete in May proved to be an excellent promotion for my circuit training classes, which finally started to grow, I did some more corporate personal training work for EDF Energy and started preparing for a fight choreographer role in a new film ‘Boxing Day' (which was scheduled to shoot in November, but has now been postponed to 2007). On July 14^th and 21^st Consequences was finally performed on stage to, what I considered to be quite impressive, audiences of 30 and 40 respectively and received some excellent feedback. My other events at the festival were not so successful; however I did get my face in the local press with our local MP when I demonstrated some new outdoor fitness equipment in Kennington Park .

Moving straight into another show the following day I began rehearsals for ‘Little Shop of Horrors' in York and then onto ‘Summer Holiday' in Runcorn after a brief trip to the Edinburgh Fringe. Six days later I began work on a new musical ‘The Man Who Knows' which played at the GBS theatre, RADA and straight after that another new musical ‘The Legend of Beowulf'. Amongst all that I managed to fit in various promotions and crew jobs as well as a photo shoot for ‘Trial and Retribution', a tiny role on a new TV series called ‘Cape Wrath', a dancing job for Orange/Siemens, an enormous re-enactment of the ‘Battle of Hastings', and a corporate event as a passenger on the Titanic. In November things slowed down a little and I tried to use the opportunity to relax and catch up with myself. Which brings us back to pantomime and the present day.

So what next? Well I'm very pleased with the amount I managed to do last year and I had some wonderful experiences and learnt some valuable lessons all of which I would like to do again in the future. No doubt the biggest project was Consequences (both film and stage versions) and at the time it very nearly killed me, however as these things always do, it turned out all right in the end and I enjoyed it all very much. I learnt a lot during that time, mostly what not to do, and if I ever take on anything like that again, I hope it will be much easier.

At the moment I'm not even sure what I'm doing next week. I have a few options, some of which I don't have any control over and have to wait and see, so I can't make any decisions just yet. Other than that I don't have any immediate plans. If nothing comes up I think I will start the circuit training classes again in February and I'd like to do some more fitness courses in the near future. I would like to create a showreel as soon as I can so that I have examples of my work to send to agents and casting directors. My main goal this year is to get myself an agent, but that's much easier said than done. The boxing film will be starting again later this year and possibly another film that was postponed from last year. I will also continue working on Consequences and try to get a full run somewhere in London as well starting a new project when I find the time.

I think I've gone on long enough now so I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year. I hope you achieve all the goals you set yourself.

Wednesday, 20^th December

Today is our first day off in the run, so I've had a good long lay in and then went out to do some Christmas shopping. We've been running for just under a week now and it's been going very well, so well in fact we've had to cut 20 minutes from the show to make room for all the new jokes. I'm having a great time here, and now we're open we're doing a lot more as a company outside of the show, we've had some lovely meals and some fun nights out. I will include any appropriate photos when I'm back.

Because I'm up north this year I'll be able to get to my Mum's for Christmas, which is nice. I can also go out in Liverpool on with my friend Dave from School on Christmas Eve. I'm not sure what I'm doing for the New Year yet. A lot of people have friends/partners/family coming up so they're doing their own thing. There are a few parties around town so I've got plenty of choice and then I might invite a few people back to my digs until the wee hours of the morning. Anyway I doubt I'll have chance to write again soon, so I will take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thursday, 7^th December

I'm finally here – Panto rehearsals have begun and we open in a week today. We're a few days into rehearsals now and it's been excellent! The cast is wonderful – the funniest company I've ever worked with – we've had non-stop laughs from day one, it's a wonder we're getting anything done, but we're actually doing really well. I'm the assistant director on the show too, so I've been doing all the blocking over the last three days. The director ( Simon Barry ) was with us today and he's very happy with what we've done. So all's good!

It's great to be in York at this time of year, it's a beautiful, idyllic, city. I've done shows here many times but always in the summer, so it's nice to be here for Christmas.

Tuesday, 14^th November 06

Not really that much to say at the moment, but it's less than two weeks till panto so I expect I'm not going to have much time to update very often after that.

It's actually been one of my quietest weeks of the year. Last week was so hectic I left the weekend fairly clear to catch up with myself, but I didn't expect to have so much free time afterwards too though. I'm not doing absolutely nothing; I've actually been quite pro-active and managed get things done that I've been putting off for a (very) long time, such as organising my taxes and tidying my room – not quite finished that one yet. I'm working on the choreography for the final fight in panto, which should be a good one, and just trying to tie up any loose ends before I go away. I'd like to get to the theatre at least once this fortnight as there are a few things I'd like to see at the moment. Tomorrow I'm meeting Lil from the stage production of Consequences and we are going to talk about development and what our plans are for the show, then I'm going to see Simon (the producer of the pantomimes) to help him in his costume stores. Then another quiet few days apart from the usual circuit training on a Thursday evening.

Next week I'm not doing a lot, but I expect most of the week will be taken up frantically preparing and packing. I finally leave on the 26 th to start rehearsals in Southport the next day. My rehearsals don't actually start until the week after, but I travel with Simon to help at some of the other venues first. We will do a few days in Southport , which is showing Snow White with Curly (Kevin Kennedy) from Corrie and CBBC's Kate Heavenor. Then down to Hastings for a few more days to work on Cinderella with Sophie McDonnell, also from CBBC, and Home & Away's Irene (Lynne McGranger). After that I'll be travelling back up north again to York to begin my own rehearsals on the 4^th. I can't wait, these last few weeks always drag. I'll then be doing that until 7^th Jan 2007, and after that I should be going onto another show opening in Runcorn as a dancer – so I'd better get those muscles working again.

If all goes well (and I manage to save some money) I'll try and give myself a little holiday after panto, somewhere foreign… and then… who knows what the New Year will bring?

Sunday 5^th November 06

Happy birthday to me! Today I reach a quarter century, twenty five years since I came into this world with a bang of a firework. And what a twenty five years it's been. Don't worry, I'm not going to go into some long winded reminiscence of my life.

I'm now at my Mum's in Liverpool , I decided to come home for the weekend and spend my birthday with my family. It's been quite a varied weekend; I came up on Friday and relaxed all evening with my Mum, my brother, my step dad, my step brothers and two of my step nieces. On Saturday, I went to see the Borat movie with my Mum and brother. Not exactly the type of film I'd recommend going to see with your mother, but very funny. If you haven't seen it and you're not easily offended then do check it out. Later on we all went to see a firework display. And then headed in to the city centre for a meal and to meet my other friends. We had a nice Italian and were joined by my flatmate from London , Tom; some dancers from panto, Emma and Michelle; Michelle's partner and my friend, Dave, from school. Our group then progressed onto many bars and clubs, minus those too old or too young. Those still standing at the end of the night rolled home at about 5am (I'm not even sure exactly what time it was). Today I managed to crawl out of bed at noon, open my cards and few presents (sadly they seem to get fewer the older you get). We had a nice roast dinner and then my mum and I went out to visit more relatives. I'm now sitting in front of Lord of the Rings on the new 36” HD TV; very cool!

It's been an odd week. The post show depression set in right after Beowulf and I've been feeling a little sorry for myself. It's not helped that the two films I was supposed to have been doing this month were postponed and I don't really have much to keep me occupied at the moment. Anyway I'll get over it. I just need to keep busy. Trouble is to top it all I'm skint too. Still, I have panto to look forward to; we have a great cast and York is a beautiful city to be in over Christmas. In three weeks I will be leaving London to begin rehearsals and then I'll be away for eight weeks, which should be enough to settle the boredom.

Sunday 29th October 06

‘The legend of Beowulf' is over, the Geat warriors have loaded their longboats and are returning to their homeland across the sea, but no-one is leaving empty handed. This show has been another great experience to me and a different one too. This has probably been the smallest role I've played in a stage production this year and one I have had to put in an equal amount of concentration. When playing a smaller, background, role it is still important to keep in character. The principals might be acting/singing their hearts out, but if there's someone sitting behind them scratching their arse it lets the whole thing down. And it is a whole different discipline too, it's having to act, and fill the scene with ‘business', but without drawing attention to yourself. The audience's eyes will wander naturally, but they shouldn't be drawn to you when someone else is ‘in the spotlight'. I particularly enjoyed filling my time on stage - which was actually quite a lot considering I say very little - with business. I managed to develop an entire love story with another member of the cast without us actually saying a line to each other. The moment when we exchange gifts at the end of the show was a real tear jerker.

Not only was it a great show to do, it was also a fantastic company; everyone was so friendly and talented too. There were no inflated egos and no time wasters, everyone worked really hard. And we played hard too; our last night party lasted until about 9:30am this morning! So to any of you that may happen to read this: keep in touch and I hope to see you again soon.

Thursday 19^th October 06

It's just over a month since my last entry, so I've got lots of news. Warning you in advance this could be a long one, so go get a cup of tea and make yourself comfortable…

I'll start where I left off; The Legend of Beowulf. Only a few more rehearsals to go and we open in a week today and as usual there seems to be so much still to do. In fact as I came into it late there are still things I've not done at all. On top of that, each week they keep finding new things for me to do, which is all very nice, but a little overwhelming. Having said that, I'm rather glad I've got more to do, as I was getting a little disheartened thinking I was just going to be an extra voice in the background. Now I've got about three fights and even a solo bit, where I also do some fancy sword play – cross your fingers I don't drop it! I'm getting to know the company a little better now too, everyone is really nice and last week some of us ended up having a ‘quick drink' together that lasted 6 hours. For information on how you can see the show go to the News & Events or CV pages.

I had some sad news recently; the Boxing film I've been preparing for, which was due to begin shooting very soon, has had to be postponed for technical reasons. It is unfortunate as I was really looking forward to it, however looking on the positive side, it does give me more time to prepare and I will continue to train until we shoot early in the New Year. I'm actually really enjoying the training; I've been meaning to take up another combat skill for some time, though I had planned on doing something more martial. It's a really good workout and I can see myself getting better each week – especially at the speed ball, I'm determined to perfect that (it's harder than it looks).

A second disappointment came today when I found out that another independent film I was about to start shooting, was also postponed. This one is called ‘Stories of Love: Times Apart', I was to play a soldier on leave in London during WW2, who meets a woman who has somehow travelled back in time from the 21^st century. We fall in love just before she disappears back to the future, sounds a bit cheesy I know, but I like it. Think ‘Goodnight Sweetheart' with the roles swapped. Anyway that won't be happening now until next year either. My earlier concerns about taking on too much have now completely turned around.

The last few weeks have been odd in that I've had periods of not really knowing what to do with myself (there's always something to do, though I don't always want to do what needs doing) and then periods of not stopping – literally! Just in the last four weeks I've had at least 4 nights I've not slept, plus this one – I've got an early start in the morning.

I had a photo shoot at Twickenham film and TV studios a while back. It was for an episode of Trial and Retribution, one of the characters is a big sports fan and I was posing as a rugby player to be blown up to poster size and put on his bedroom wall. So keep your eye out for that one.

I had an unusual job a couple of weeks ago. I was called at short notice to go to Newport to be a dancer for a Sony Ericsson/Orange corporate event. Of course I said yes, but I was quite nervous as it's actually been a little while since I did any professional dancing. The event was designed like a circus with lots of acts involving the audience throughout the evening. I was there with another girl and we were put into orange 70's outfits – which looked really funny, plus it was my first time in high heels – I was in agony by the end of the night – We were the last act and had to get up and do some 70's dancing for the audience and then get everyone to join in. Well it wasn't that much different from the Party Bus . I had a great time, despite my feet, and the client was really impressed, which is what counts. I'm supposed to be getting some photos so I'll put them on the site when I do.

Last week my friend Twinny-Lee started in ‘We Will Rock You' at the Dominion. I haven't been to see it yet, but I hope to soon. I'm really proud of her as she's only 19 years old. I've worked with her in shows in York when she was younger, the last one she did she played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (for which I was assistant director). She was 16 then and after singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow' there wasn't a dry eye in the house. All the best for the show Twin! Funnily enough she is also friends with the girl I worked with in Newport!

Last week I had a friend from Torquay stay with me and we went to see Little Britain Live. It was very funny, though too short. There was also a lot coming out of character and improvising which made it different from watching an episode on TV. I particularly like the set, (not because the show was boring, I just notice these things) which was on video screens at the back, but everything moved as if it were being pushed on and off, there were even practical doors in the screens and occasionally a pre-recorded crew member would come and pick up a piece of digital set which had fallen over; very clever.

Also last week I got the ‘Consequences' group (stage version) back together to read through my latest, and quite considerably edited, draft. Everyone liked the new changes and the whole thing paces much better, plus there is now much more drama and tension in act 2. My next step is to re-send it to producers and theatres and try to get a full production up and running sometime next year. If you would like to know more go to the ‘Consequences' pages or email me on newwriting@danstyles.co.uk.

If you thought I'd gone on enough already, I'm not nearly finished yet… last weekend saw probably one of the biggest events of the year… well for me anyway. If I asked what was important about the 14^th of October, I wouldn't expect many people to know the answer. 17 days till Halloween? 22 days till bonfire night (and my birthday)? 72 days till Christmas? 79 days till 2007? 4 months till Valentines Day? All true but not the right answer. It is a 940 th anniversary… get the calculator out… 1066… what's that? The Battle of Hastings ! Well there you go, you learn something new everyday. Yes the 940 years since the very day William the Conqueror from Normandy invaded England , with an army of 10,000, and fought King Harold's, tired, 7,000 men on Senlac Ridge. Approximately 4,000 re-enactors travelled from all over the world to re-create the battle which shaped this country's history from then on.

I travelled down on the Saturday (14^th) morning – I had intended to get there the night before and camp over, but I got carried away with things at home. I got kitted up, including buying some authentic shoes, and made my way to the top of the hill. I was on the Saxon side, which inevitably meant I was going to die, but I wasn't going to go without a fight. I had my sword, my axe and my shield by my side and as we marched onto the battlefield I looked down at the army of about 2,000 soldiers, archers and knights amassing at the bottom of the hill. Just to the left of the Norman army were the public spectators, 10,000 of them, which gave a real authentic view of what the original army must have looked like all those years ago. The Armies were divided into Left, Right and Centre. I was positioned at the right end of the centre army, which was lead by King Harold himself.

After the ceremonial blessing from the priest, the moralising speech from the King and the general chanting and taunting at the army below, the battle began with a volley of arrows from the 180 plus archers. It was an amazing sight, looking up to see hundreds of arrow shafts rising up into the air and then descending amongst us. Despite the arrows being blunted with large rubber tips, they could still do some damage if they hit you in a delicate place and I had to remind myself to put my shield above my head to avoid a similar fate to poor King Harold. They fired about 10-15 volleys altogether and when they finished, it was an amazing sight of over 1,000 arrows sticking up out of the ground all over the field.

Next came the Cavalry charge, which unfortunately, due to safety reasons, wasn't much of a charge and once they were in front of our lines the horses were generally to scared to come close enough for us to engage with the riders, however they did get braver later on.

After the horses came the infantry, who would walk up the hill, under fire from the few archers we had, and then charge into our front line in an effort to break through. But we held fast and they soon retreated back down the hill. This routine of Archers, Cavalry and Infantry continued for what seemed like an hour (but probably more like half – fortunately, un-like the original battle, which lasted all day).

However before too long I heard a rumour going around that the big offensive was coming when the Normans would push through and annihilate us. The Norman Infantry advanced slowly up the hill and we prepared our shield wall. This time there would be no fancy show fighting, which had been padding out the time up to that point, this time it was to the death! When the Norman left were approaching our fellow men at arms to the right (remember their left is our right) we turned our attention to protecting our flanks. We were probably the weakest part of the entire army, as all the other units were about five ranks deep, ours was only two and we had a big gap between us and the Saxon right. We managed to pick off some of the Normans from the end of their line as they attacked to our right, but they soon got wise and they expanded their line to face us too. Just as we were starting to face strong resistance from the side a shout went up that the Norman centre were now upon us. They charged into our shields and pushed us back, I braced myself behind my shield and the people behind me braced up against my back, the attackers to the right began to push too and I was practically suspended between the steadily compressed bodies, unable to move. I took a spear to the upper arm and managed to squeeze back to the second rank to play wounded – as is the policy in these large battles – I caught my breath and gave myself time to recover from my stabbing then inserted myself back into the front line. By now there had been many more deaths on both sides and our ever decreasing unit was being enveloped. Yet again there was a battle cry from the Normans and they rammed into us, as I stepped back to take the force of the charge I found I had about four dead bodies under my feet and nearly fell over, we were tightly packed on all sides and at that point I realised the people standing behind me actually had their backs to me and were also fighting people in front of them. We were almost completely surrounded! It was also at this point I thought I heard shouts in the distance that Harold was dead!

Panic started to set in and more people disappeared from our line, I managed to kill the person in front of me just as the guy to my right was hacked down. This gave me some space to get myself out of certain death and I ducked back through the falling bodies until I found a slightly more open space. Fighting here was less dense and just as I was getting my bearings I was aware of something bumping into the back of my helmet. I turned around to face an enormous horse's thigh. The Norman cavalry had managed to break through and actually get around the back of our army and pick us off from behind. Fortunately for me the rider, on the horse I was practically trampled by, was already engaged with someone else. There were also another two knights nearby. I avoided them too and found a small group of Saxon warriors being harassed by individual Norman infantry. There were about six of us and we stood shoulder to shoulder in a circle with our backs to the centre, fending of any one coming too close. Was this it? Were we the last men standing? I asked myself. I couldn't see anyone else fighting any more, we were completely surrounded. “The last stand” I said to the others, they nodded in agreement and then together we shouted “For England!”, before we could make our heroic foray into the enemy, one of the units advancing on us suddenly said, “Saxons! Join us.” But then just as we made it into their lines they were attacked from the rear and fell apart. Again I managed to make a lucky escape, taking only a cut to the leg, which forced me to limp towards the barrier at the rear edge of the battlefield. It was obvious we were being slaughtered; we had been pushed as far back as we could go.

I found myself amongst a group of dead bodies, or at least mortally wounded, who had probably been pulled to safety from the chaos of the battlefield. I found someone handing out water and had a much needed drink. After a quick look around the area I found another small band of Saxon warriors. We joined forces and moved out to face an advancing Norman infantry unit. Some of the Saxons screamed out and threw themselves, kamikaze style, into the front line, sending Normans flying, the others seizing this advantage went into single combat. This all happened so quick, by the time I'd realised what happened I could no longer tell who was on my side, and as I approached I faltered trying to choose my target correctly and debated whether to risk killing one of my own men. This was my mistake, out the corner of my eye a Norman solder descended on me and slashed me across my chest. I'd had just enough time to get my sword around his shield and slash his stomach behind it. As I fell I felt a strong pride that though I was dying, at least I'd taken him with me.

I lay on my back and pulled my sword to my chest with the honour of falling in battle, sword in hand, and I pulled my shield over me to protect me from stray weapons and hooves. I could still hear fighting but in less than half a minute a cheer went up all across the Norman army. They had won. The English had been defeated, Harold was dead and the England would have a new King.

Wow! That was an experience I will never forget. The rest of the day consisted of getting dinner – vegetable stew and fried chicken with mashed beans – and then sitting around the campfire telling jokes and sharing stories. Later on we went to the beer tent where a live band was playing and some topless (male) Saxons had turned a section of the marquee into a mosh pit. Out side were fire jugglers and people playing agility games with each other. When everyone from my group began to peel off to bed I went back to my ‘plastic' tent, pitched on the lumpiest ground on the site (like it had been ploughed twice, in different directions). The following morning I got myself some bacon, sausage and bread for breakfast, then packed everything up again and returned to London in time for rehearsal of Beowulf – even further back in time.

Well congratulations if you've got this far, I hope the story was worth the effort.

So what is there to look forward to? Well, we open Beowulf next week. I can see things getting quite hectic and stressful over the next few days as it feels like there is still so much to be done. But I'm sure it'll be ‘alright on the night'

Panto season is soon upon us and I will be returning to the role of Abanazar in Aladdin at the Grand Opera House in York . With all my plans in November now postponed until next year, and nothing in-between to look forward too, I am now quite excited about starting. We have some great funny men, including Michael Starke from The Royal and Brookside as the Emperor of China and Syd Little from Little and Large as the Genie of the Ring, plus some old friends Andrew McCarthy , Jamie Furbie and Sam Coulson playing the Chinese Policemen, Livvy Evans playing the Princess and Christina Featherstone, from last years show, as Aladdin, plus our choreographer Penny Howarth.

I think I've gone on long enough (nearly 3 pages long), so I'll leave you with that to digest.

Sunday 17^th September 06

Out of one show and into another. I can't believe my luck at the moment! Last night we finished our last performance of ‘The Man Who Knows'. It's been a worthwhile experience, and though I won't go into all the trials and tribulations we had to face along the way (and there were quite a few) I've really enjoyed it. It was quite an emotional ending (despite the fact we all live within a few miles of each other), It's been a tough couple of weeks and the cast became very close, nobody cried though if that's what you're thinking.

This morning I went to an emergency audition to fill the place of someone who'd dropped out of a show that I auditioned for earlier this year. I got the part and stayed to rehearse for the rest of the afternoon! So in less than 24 hours I finish one show and start another and I'm doing my 4^th musical in less than two months. It's amazing! It's very different from ‘The Man Who Knows' though. It is called ‘The Legend of Beowulf', which, for those of you who don't know, is an old Anglo-Saxon poem about a heroic warrior who kills an evil man-eating monster. The music is rock-opera; similar in sound to the big epic musicals, such as ‘Les Miserables', with powerful, ensemble numbers. The period is right up my street and I'll get to do some sword fighting too. It plays at the Cockpit theatre, near Edgware Road at the end of October (see News or CV for more details).

Wednesday 6^th September 06

For the first time in a month I'm actually writing this at my desk at home, and not on a train. I didn't expect to be writing again so soon, as last week I was pretty certain I wasn't going to have anything worth writing for a while. But I'd barely been back a week, when out of the blue I was cast in a concert performance of a new musical called ‘The Man Who Knows'. It was all a bit last minute, I went to the audition/rehearsal on Friday and was asked to stay, we had another rehearsal on Saturday and one on Monday before opening on Tuesday evening. It's been a stressful weekend and on Monday night my head was positively swimming, not to mention my voice being worn out. It all came together though last night and we now have another 11 shows to go. If you'd like to see the show go to the News section for more information. The closest thing I can compare the show to is ‘The Wizard of Oz', but not as surreal. There are some really good musical numbers (19 in total) and a story with a moral at the end.

Despite things getting a little hectic again I'm not complaining, as it's just what I wanted. I'm certainly not bored anymore, it's really good experience for me, I'm learning things all the time and it's a nice company too.

Sunday 27^th August 06

Yet again, I'm on the train, hey that rhymes! Coming back to London for good now, well until next week (have to go back to York on Saturday for the panto dancers' auditions). No performances now for a little while and I must admit, I'm already feeling a little bit of the post show blues. I don't quite know what to do with myself next week. However saying that, I'm going to try to see a show tomorrow night, I'm going for a drink with a group of friends on Tuesday, and I'm going to a writers' workshop on Wednesday, plus I need to get stuck into boxing training, not to mention catching up with the last 8 months… and tidying my room. Still I know I'm going to get bored.

Of course the show! Well as usual it was all alright on the night – just! There were a few hairy moments when seconds before I go on I find something hasn't been pre-set and I have to leg it around back stage to find it and then get on stage panting. Despite my previous moans about being bored during rehearsal, I did really enjoy the performances. I love playing comedy roles and our audiences were with us all the way. I actually rarely stop throughout the show, if I wasn't on stage I was changing (I had 9 costumes altogether), or running around looking for missing set and props, by halfway through act 2 I was dripping with sweat (sorry for that image). Another show, another success!

I've mentioned before I'd like to put some video clips on the site and now I've got quite a few recordings of things I've done recently, so once I get around to it, you will be able to share some of my performances. For now you'll just have to take my word for it.

Sunday 20^th August 06

On the train again; this time a rather unexpected trip back to London. I had a phone call on Thursday about a casting in London tomorrow, and to be honest I was a little reluctant to go all the way down to London (and miss rehearsal) for one casting, but then about an hour later I got a call about another separate casting, and thought ‘oh well I guess I should’, so here I am. At the moment I’m just over half way through rehearsals for ‘Summer Holiday’. I play Jerry (the lead girl’s agent) and pretty much all of my scenes are with Stella (her mother). I’ve done the show before and though we are making things slightly different from last years show there’s still been very little to do as our scenes are quite short and sporadic within the main story – vital to the plot of course – but it does make things quite boring, and we’ve spent more time doing nothing than acting (and that includes going over bits on our own, but there’s only so many times you can do that). Anyway I’m not complaining, it’s a refreshing change to the non-stop work over the last eight months.

These past few weeks have actually been a very nice ‘working’ holiday. Despite moments of being desperately bored, I’ve tried my best to relax. And I have enjoyed myself too, my last week in London was brilliant; just wandering the parks and the riverside and meeting friends, then there was ‘Little Shop of Horrors’, which was a lot of fun, and a nice company to be with, then there was the Edinburgh festival, which was certainly an experience I’ll never forget (read below), and now I’m staying at my Mum’s just outside of Liverpool while we rehearse, and will open next week.

I am aware that it’s soon going to be over though and I don’t have any plans after that, so I’m hoping something comes up soon. I’ve been trying to keep working on consequences. The film is now at the rough cut stage, and now I need to contact everyone who will be working on polishing the final film – sound mixing, music, foley, voice over, colour correction, etc. There’s still so much to be done! I’ve also been making small adjustments to the play and I’ve sent out a few scripts to people who have shown an interest so far. When I’m home again I will follow up any contacts I’ve made and see if we can get a full production out there. I’m not sure about starting anything new just yet, I think I’ve still got enough on my plate at the moment and I’d like to develop a few ideas first. But maybe next year…?

Of course there is one other thing that I will have to work on when I’m back home – I mentioned on 2nd July that I had been asked to fight direct for a boxing film – well I’ve been doing a little bit of work on that while I’ve been away (using my brother as a punch bag) and I will have to get some fights sorted over the next few weeks to start rehearsing. I also had some good news last week that the director would also like me to play the lead. I’m really happy with that and it makes things much easier for the choreography too as I only need to teach one side of the fight. That should begin shooting in October, I don’t know how long it will take, but it will probably be over a few weeks. So going back on what I said earlier about having no plans, I guess I do!

Finally well done to everyone I know who did well on their A level results on Thursday. I don’t know anyone who didn’t do well, but I’m sorry if you didn’t, just keep your chin up!

Wednesday 9^th August 06

I’m on the train back to London now, so though I’d use the time to tell you about my trip to Edinburgh. I ended up going with Andrew and Jamie from the ‘Little Shop’ cast. It was all a little spontaneous and unplanned - we didn’t even have anywhere to stay – but we went with an open mind. We saw 5 shows altogether, some really good, some not so good and some plain weird, but enjoyable all the same. I had intended to see two shows that some friends were putting on, ‘Starcross’d’ and ‘Breast and Burgers’, both were enjoyable and had some good performances. We also saw some surreal poetry, which I wasn’t quite prepared for, and if I’d known what we were going into I probably would have changed my mind. But still I’m sure it was interesting if you’re into that sort of thing. We saw two musicals: one called ‘Urinetown’, which I remember being on Broadway when I was in New York a while ago, and it was doing really well. It was actually really good and very funny, I’m looking forward to it coming to London one day. The second was ‘Bat Boy’, which was in the West End recently and had received mixed reviews, but everyone I knew had enjoyed it. Unfortunately I was quite disappointed; the plot, which was pretty odd to start with, gradually went into the realms of the ridiculous. At the point we discover that this bat boy hybrid (think spiderman), who was found in a cave at the beginning of the show is actually someone’s son, Andrew unsubtly shouts “So she had sex with a bat?”, we all laughed, but 5 minutes later we find out that basically she did! The performances were OTT, save the male and female leads, who made efforts to retrieve any sort of credibility for the show, but sadly it wasn’t enough. The venue was also very hot, which didn’t help with concentration levels and it was a great relief to be back out in the fresh air.

We got out of the show at about midnight and then went to see if we could catch some late night stand-up, but disappointingly everything was sold out, so we went to a nearby German themed beer tent. As we sat outside and the temperature dropped we started to get a little concerned about our lack of accommodation, we finished our drinks and went onto an indoor bar, where we had a couple of drinks and a dance. Earlier in the day we’d been given some vouchers for a club with some drinks offers on them, so at about 1:30am we went down there. It ended up being a cheep night, with 3 for 2 on beers, 2 for 1 on spirits & mixers and free shots. The club was open until 5am so we had a dance until the fatigue set in, then we sat at a bar on another floor and chatted with some girls who were in a show at the festival.

At 5am, with no-where to go and no-where to stay, we decided to walk down to the seaside. But at the bottom of the royal mile (the long road that runs from the parliamentary buildings at the bottom of the hill to the Castle at the top) we saw a mountain, which we then decided to climb a little way up and look back at the view (and we weren’t even drunk). Each time we got a little way up, we changed our minds and wanted to go a bit higher, much to the exasperation of Andrew, who we had to stop and wait for every five minutes. We also discovered that what we thought was the top from the ground, was actually only about two thirds up, since we got that far we might as well do the whole thing. Jamie and I used all our remaining energy and ran up the almost vertical, rocky slope to the summit (which was 250 meters above sea level). We got to the top at about 8am after 2 hours of climbing and rested for a while taking in the amazing 360º views of Edinburgh. It took about 40 minutes to get back down the other side; running most of the way and rolling the rest.

We got back up to the top of the royal mile by about 9am and had a full Scottish breakfast (same as full English, but with haggis) and then went to the castle gardens and fell asleep on the grass for a couple of hours. We woke at noon and went for a walk to kill some time and wake us up before our next and last show. After the performance we had enough time to walk slowly back to the train station and have a sleepy journey back to York. We were all utterly exhausted, but had a brilliant time and are already talking about doing it again next year. Perhaps we’ll find somewhere to stay first though!

As if all that wasn’t enough Andrew and I then went out again, after lunch and a shower, and saw ‘Buddy’ at the Grand Opera House. It was a brilliant show and certainly woke us up again, but we still managed to get to bed at 11:30pm and I had a well needed 14 hours sleep.

I’ve got to get back to London now to catch up on everything I’ve missed for the last few weeks – emails, post, bills, etc, and then on Friday I’m back on a train up to Liverpool to start rehearsing for Summer Holiday. So I’m sure I’ll be writing again soon.

Sunday 6^th August 06

…And another show comes to an end. It’s been an enjoyable couple of weeks and a nice holiday for me. We had our last performance last night, which typically was our best performance, so everyone finished on a high. We stayed out for drinks and laughs last night as various friends and relatives who’d seen the show gave their congratulations, and after people gradually filtered off to go home, the remainder of us went on to have a dance in a local restaurant.

Right now I’m sitting in York Museum Gardens next to the river, just chilling out. I’m going to stay up north for a little bit longer and catch up with a few friends. Today is my day to relax, recoup and re-evaluate. Tomorrow I’m going to travel up to Edinburgh with Andrew (McCarthy) and take in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I know a few people doing shows up there so I’ll see a few friends and enjoy the theatrical atmosphere for a while. After that I’m coming back to York to see Buddy and then I’ll probably go back home for a day or two to catch up with emails and post and bills and stuff. Next weekend I’ll be coming back up north, but this time the North West, to my Mums and on Monday (a week tomorrow) I’ll start rehearsals for my next performance as Jerry in ‘Summer Holiday’, which plays at the Runcorn Brindley Theatre from 24th-26th August.

That’s as far as I know for now. I’ve yet to see what September will hold.

Before I finish I would like to congratulate Olivia-Sian Evans, Sam Coulson and Andrew McCarthy who have all recently been cast in Aladdin at the Grand Opera House, York, and will be performing alongside me this winter

Thursday 27^th July 06

I’m trying to find an alternative to learning lines for a little while, so I thought I’d write a little. Rehearsals are going well, Little Shop of Horrors is one of my favourite musicals and I’m enjoying it every minute of it, I’m trying to resist the desire to play all the parts. The company are great and we’re all getting on well too. Today we did a staggered run on stage of everything we’d done so far, for some of us it was the first time we could ‘try out’ our performance in front of the rest of the company, and there were some bits I was watching for the first time. I must give particular praise to Andrew McCarthy (my stage manager from last week) who is playing the dentist and had everyone in hysterics during his solo. As I know some of the rest of the company will be reading this I want to say a big hello to Livvy, Sam, Hayley and Jamie, who have specifically asked for a mention, and everyone else in the show too. Break a leg for next Wednesday!

Saturday 22^nd July 06

It’s late Saturday night and I have to stay another night at home as I missed the last train to York because my Taxi to the station was half an hour late. I’m understandably a little annoyed at this as it means I will be missing more rehearsal time on ‘Little Shop’. Anyway as I had a bit more time on my hands I thought Id write this before I go to bed.

I’m pleased to say last night's show was another brilliant success. I don’t have the exact numbers, but I believe we had over thirty people in (more than last week), and again had some industry professionals in to see us. The audience was very different this week too. Generally it was a younger audience than last week and they were much more vocally engaged in the whole play – they laughed a lot – it was actually a little disconcerting at times as they seemed to find some of the most tense and uncomfortable moments funny, even more than last week, but as long as they were enjoying it, I don’t mind, and that seemed to be the overall consensus. There was much more fun this time and it was satisfying to me to hear people laugh at the bits I’d intended to be funny.

It had been slightly unusual to come back to it after a week, as we hadn’t been through since the first performance. We met yesterday afternoon and talked through a few changes I wanted to make based on last weeks comments as well as my own observations. They were only subtle differences – I didn’t want to throw us by changing too much – but I think they worked well. There were many more of our (the cast’s) friends come to see this performance so it was nice to finish with a genuine and warm audience. We even got a standing ovation from a portion of the audience – I think they were all Richard’s friends. I don’t think there were any mistakes this time, oh but Lil did get mine and Richard’s character names mixed up, and at moments where she really didn’t want to call us by the wrong name, but she covered it, so no-one really noticed. At the end of the show I opened our champagne prop and we each had a glass to celebrate a successful, if a little too short, run. We had a nice drink with everyone afterwards, with many of our friends staying behind. We (The team) all said our goodbyes to each other, which was a little sad, but I’m sure we will keep in touch, and perhaps even return to do a bigger run in the future.

Today was a very long day. Last night Andrew, Tom (my flatmate) and I went on to a local club after the pub closed, and by the time we got in home I think it was about 3am. As Andrew and I still had things to do back at the venue before, amongst other things, we decided to just take a couple of hours to relax and then go straight back to finish off. So at about 5:30am we went back. Fortunately we had actually cleared a lot more than I’d hoped so we didn’t have too much to do. We took down the lights, packed away the last of the props and prepared the furniture that needed to be returned to their owners. We finished with a little time to spare so decided to get some sleep before getting everything out. We probably managed about 2 hours sleep, curled up on the furniture on stage. Then at 10am Andrew took back the lighting equipment we’d borrowed, and then went on to Kings Cross to catch the train back to York and begin rehearsals as soon as he got there. In the mean time I arranged a van to come and pick up the remaining bit’s and pieces. It turned out that we didn’t need to take everything that day, so I was able to leave a few things, and got home by 11am with everything done. But there’s more… I then had to change and repack my bag for another fitness event as I had been asked to demonstrate a new fitness trail in Kennington Park. Despite the lack of sleep, I managed to find some energy and enjoyed the whole thing. I got to meet my local MP and mayor and had my picture taken with them for the local press, which was nice.

I got home again at about 2pm, now I could actually start packing my suitcase. I pretty much threw a bunch of clothes and things in a few bags but I still only just managed to finish in what I thought was enough time to get to the train station for the last train to York – I was wrong. Even though I’d allowed extra time in case of traffic or something, the taxi was too late and I arrived 2 minutes after the train had left.

So here I am, the next train is at 9:15am, so I’m off to bed now to catch up on some sleep and then dive straight into rehearsals for my next show. I must say it’s a fantastic feeling to be going into another acting job.

I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to update next but I’ll certainly let you know how the shows go.

Wednesday 19^th July 06

It's not been long since the last entry, but I've just had a nice bit of feedback from the show, so I wanted to include that:

“An excellent play - it holds together very well as a dramatic piece of writing, and the ensemble is good. There was nice work from the actors and the direction was well paced. I think you have a good future as a writer - particularly for quality fringe, so keep at it. A commendable performance.”

My week since Sunday has been pretty much the same. Monday I had to go back to the venue to move some things. After that I decided to go swimming and then I had a walk around London , being a bit of a tourist. I even took some photos on my phone – although they didn't come out all that great. I went through St James Park and found places I never knew were there, then I went into Trafalgar Square and sat by the fountains with my feet in the water and got soaked every time the wind blew. I then walked down Villiers Street to the Embankment and went over the bridge to Waterloo . I sat on a bench there on the river side and had a bite to eat and then walked back up to Victoria , via Westminster , to meet a friend. We wandered back down to the South Bank and had a meal at a lovely outdoor restaurant next to the Oxo Tower . Another brilliant day!

Yesterday, I went to meet my friend Simon, who had been to see the show and we talked about that a lot and also about a show we are about to start work on together next week. Today I had planned to go boxing again, as my hand is much better now, but I got up too late (I'm aloud, it's my week off!), so I've just been catching up with some things, making preparations for Friday, the weekend and going to York. In about 45 minutes I have a singing class so I'd better go and get ready and I'll try to get a quick update in before I go up north, after our next show.

Friday 16^th July 06

We did it! The show was brilliant. It's been a stressful week, but we pulled it off and everyone was really impressed. We had an audience of 29 which was more than we'd hoped for and everyone who spoke to us afterward gave very good feedback.

It wasn't without its hiccups either; on Monday I found out the lighting rig we'd been promised had been condemned! I spent the next day trying to find a solution, ended up borrowing some film lights from one of the film crew and hiring in the dimmers and cables. Fortunately I found a stage manager – Andrew McCarthy, a friend and young actor from York, with some technical experience – he arrived on Tuesday so he help me and get all the extra bits and pieces. It's actually quite ironic that Andrew is working on this production as he was the first ever person to read the script, before it was even completed. I started writing ‘Consequences' sometime around the beginning of July 2004. At the end of the month I was doing a show with Andrew and one day, in-between shows I asked him and another actress to read the first scene, which I'd only just finished. Two years later (almost to the day) and he's manning the desk at the back of the theatre, controlling the sound and lighting for the first ever production.

Also on Tuesday I managed to confirm the sound system from a local pub (The Three Stags, on Kennington Road ). Wednesday was back into rehearsals. This was our first time with the full set, costumes and props – all of which I'd brought in on Monday night – so we did a staggered technical run, while Andrew got used to the sound system. That night we rigged the lights, which took six hours, then Andrew and I went home exhausted and I tried to tie up any remaining loose ends before crawling into bed at about 5:30am .

Thursday was our official technical run, and after getting through some initial sound problems we did a good run with both sound and lighting. I tried to get to bed as early as I could on Thursday night, and as I'd left my laptop at the venue , that was a little easier, though I still managed to find things to do until 1am. On Friday I had a fitness event in the morning doing health checks and advice with a local GP . I had to be up quite early for that (hence trying to get an early night). I went straight from that into rehearsals, which were going well until 2 hours before the performance one of the sound cables packed in. I had to go back to the pub to enquire about a replacement and amazingly there were a couple of musicians having a drink there, who offered to loan us the cable. I had a thousand things running around my head, ‘have we done this?', and ‘did we remember that?' But at 7pm I managed to remove myself from producer mode and back into actor mode to begin preparing myself for the show.

I think it was the best run we'd done. The audience was the final piece of the jigsaw and made everything complete . It wasn't without mistakes mind you ; I didn't see it myself, but I heard that Richard had a hilarious fight with the ironing board in scene 3, and there were some minor skipped lines, though there was nothing that fazed us; even Richard managed to stay in character as he wrestled with the props . It was also very interesting as the audience laughed at places we least expected - some of the most tense and emotional scenes – I think that says something about English humour.

At the end of the show most people stayed behind to give their comments, all of which were complimentary. Plus we had 2 agents, a casting director and a producer in the audience, who were all very impressed.

Anyway yesterday was my first day off from the project for about three months and I did absolutely nothing work related. I got out bed in the afternoon, caught up with some personal emails and then went out to meet a friend for a beer in Leicester Square . We then we on to a salsa club to do something spontaneous and had a really good time. When I got home I chilled out in front of a DVD and went to bed – a thoroughly brilliant day!

Wednesday 7^th July 06

I'm just about to go off to Manchester this evening to work on a promotion for ‘Pirates of the Caribbean ' over the weekend. I'm really looking forward to it as we get to dress up and just act like pirates all day and say ‘Aaaaggggghhhhh' a lot! Hopefully I'll get to see the film while I'm there too.

Only 1 week today until the show! We've had a good week of rehearsals this week. We've got most of the props at the venue now (the set will be coming in on Monday) so it's nice to start seeing things take shape and we've managed two full runs without any prompts, which I'm really proud of as we still have another 4 rehearsals before we open. Early next week we will be looking at working the costume/set changes into what we have and then on Thursday and Friday we should get at least two full technical dress runs. I've been hearing from many people that have already, or will be booking tickets, so if you're one of them, thank you very much for your support. If you haven't got around to it yet call 0207 8200 555 between 10am-6pm, Mon-Fri.

I was a little bit silly on Tuesday: I mentioned earlier that I've been asked to fight direct a boxing film. Well on Tuesday I was at a local boxing club near me doing a bit of training and I managed to sprain my left wrist. It didn't feel that bad at the time, but by the end of the day I was in agony. I had it on ice for most of the day and wore a support all of Wednesday, when I took it off that night it was about twice the size. It's actually getting better by the day now. I have the manoeuvrability back in my fingers and most of the swelling has gone down, but I still can't grip or carry anything with it. Some of you may be thinking ‘why don't you go to hospital?' Well simply because I just don't have the time at the moment. I've spoken to a doctor friend about it, and I know how to look after it, so I don't want to waste 3 hours sitting in a waiting room. I'll see how it goes over the weekend and if it's not improving any more then I'll get it checked out.

So I'm on track at the moment, fingers crossed (on my right hand anyway). If I don't update over the next few days, I'll certainly let you know how the show went at the weekend.

Friday 2^nd July 06

Things have been quite productive since my last entry. Over the weekend and the beginning of the week I spent most of my time in front of the computer catching up with things. It was a hard slog, but it was worth it as I've managed to cross a lot off my ‘to do' list and this weekend has been a little more relaxed.

Rehearsals are going really well; Lil was an excellent choice and after getting to know her a little more she is actually very much like her character. We've completely blocked the show now so it's just a case of repeating, remembering and fine tuning from now on. The postcards look excellent and we've just set out about 150 of them to various industry people inviting them to come and see the show. It's less than two weeks now until we open. If you would like to see the show, the dates are the 14 th and 21 st July starting at 7:30pm. It will take place at the Lambeth Mission, 3-5 Lambeth Road , London , SE1 7DQ (near Lambeth North Tube and the Imperial War Museum ). Tickets are available from the Lambeth Riverside Festival Office on: 0207 8200 555 at £5, (£2 concessions, £4 groups 5+).

I have just watched the first edited scenes of the film (and the first footage I've seen). It's looking really good and I'm pleased with the quality of it. I think we have about a third done at the moment and our deadline for the rough cut (to go to the London Film Festival) is the 14 th July, so there's still quite a bit to be done, but so far so good.

Yesterday I had a meeting for a new production I will be working on. I have been asked to fight direct for a short rock opera film about boxing, in the style of Tommy. I will be choreographing all the fighting with my friend and colleague Marco Rossi (who you can see in my gallery fighting me with a broadsword). Filming wont actually commence until October, but we have to prepare and start teaching the actors over in the next couple of weeks. I have started going to a local boxing club to do some research, which I'm really enjoying (though the first time hurt for a couple of days afterwards). I will add more info on that soon.

The 2006 Lambeth Riverside Festival launches in a week and other than the play I will also be offering free circuit training classes on Thursdays 13 th & 20 th July (for more info on circuit training click here ); free health checks with help from Dr Raj Mitra at the Lambeth Walk Group Practice on Friday 14 th July between 9am-11am, and at the Kennington Park Fitness Trail on Saturday 22 nd July from 12pm to 3pm. I am also repeating the competition to win 4 free personal training sessions, to enter click here .

So almost everything is coming to a head very soon. Come back soon to see how I'm getting on.

Thursday 22nd June 06

Today has been our second rehearsal with our new Ami – Lil Binham – and we have no regrets about our choice. She is very talented and very easy to work with too, so rehearsals have been quite fun and I’m always looking forward to the next one. I’ve just finished working on the postcard print for the play and I should have 250 copies delivered on Monday. I also had a long evening with Justine (Production Designer) working on the film poster and press pack, we’ve finally finished the poster and made some good progress on the press pack so that should be done before long. Both pieces of artwork will be uploaded as soon as my web designer gets the time.

Thursday 15^th June 06

It's been rather eventful over the last couple of weeks and a little bit stressful, but today I've managed to tie everything up and look forward again. Unfortunately I have been having communication difficulties with our director and as there were decisions to be made and no-one to make them, I finally came to the decision that it had gone on long enough, so she will no longer be working on the production. Simon Bonner (our director of photography) will be taking over as associate director, and this morning we got together to meet our new editors. The post production is now being taken over by a multimedia company called Dirtface (www.dirtface.co.uk). They have previously worked on short films, music videos and indents for MTV. ‘Consequences' will be their first feature.

Today we have also (finally) cast our Ami for the stage production. We had to have another round of auditions yesterday and we'd agreed that this really was the last chance as time is running out. Fortunately we found someone – Lil Binham - and as of Tuesday we will be rehearsing with a full cast again. Still haven't found a stage manager, however I'll be looking into that in more depth over the next week.

I went to see a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream on Tuesday evening, at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre. I've never been there before, it's a beautiful location, went you enter it's like walking into a fairytale, and it's the most ideal location for the show. The stage is amongst a grove of trees, with two small mounds on each side and one large one in the middle, all covered in grass. I was really enjoying it and after the interval I moved forward into some empty seats near the front. About 5 minutes into the second half it started raining (for the first time in something like a fortnight), and it got heavier and heavier and I was sat shivering in a short sleeved shirt, until a voice came over the PA system telling the actors to leave the stage and would the audience shelter in the café area, shortly afterwards the show was cancelled. It's a shame as there was a bit I really wanted to see at the end. My ticket is still valid though so at least I can go back another time.

Now I've sorted both the ‘Consequences' production teams I'm preparing for things to really take off; there is still quite a bit of work to be done on the press pack, and I now need to re-write some of the credits; I will be getting weekly updates from the editors so I need to keep on top of that; and Simon, Parvez and I also need to discuss how we want it to finally look. For the stage production I'm still looking for a sofa and a stage manager; I've got to figure out how to make sugar glass (fake glass that will break safely); and I need to start sending out invitations to producers, theatre companies, agents and casting directors.

Tuesday 6^th June 06

This has been my first full day off in over 2 weeks and as usual I have a thousand things to catch up on. The EDF Energy promotion was exhausting; It held up to it's name and we spent all our energy. I've been catching up with sleep at every opportunity I get, but today I must get things done. It was a lot of fun, I was working with a great team and we became quite close over the week – so much that we all got really ill (nothing to do with kissing though) and I'm still recovering now. It was also very hot and we were outdoors for about 10 hours each day. I had lovely pink arms after the first day, I'm now nice and brown (on my arms, face and legs at least) and I've got rid of the dreadful sleeve lines too.

Yesterday we had another rehearsal for ‘Consequences' the play. It was just Richard and I (with Max) working on the scenes we do together. We are auditioning for a new girl to play Ami tomorrow. I'm hoping we can sort it soon as we only have five weeks until our first performance. I'm really enjoying working with Max. I've seen all his shows and have been very impressed and I'm glad to finally get the chance to work with him. He's very organic in his methods and really encourages feeling the moment. He's getting some really good performances out of us and we're playing with ideas about the characters that even I hadn't thought of.

The Production meeting last week didn't go as planned. The director and exec producer couldn't make it and there was very little the rest of us could do. We had a little discussion and then called it a day. I've got to find another editor as our current one is finding the workload a little overwhelming (as he is also preparing for exams and has to earn a living too) and needs someone to take over. Plus I'm looking for a Stage Manager for the play – any suggestions get in touch .

Other than all that, I've just been getting up to the usual bits and pieces that keep me busy and earning some money.

Saturday 27^th May 06

Phew! It's been a hectic week this week. I got a last minute call on last Sunday about a production I'd auditioned for. It was actually a TV project called The Plot. I had read the script and thought it was really good, but I'd been having trouble with my phone line at home and almost missed the audition. Fortunately they hadn't found what they were looking for and on Sunday I was offered the leading role. It meant I had to make some major changes to my plans this week, and I've been making lots of train journeys back and fourth as well as many early mornings and late nights. Today (or actually yesterday – it's now about 4am) was the last day of shooting. I've got to go to Brighton early this morning for a promotion, so rather than go to bed I'm just going to catch up with a few things for a couple of hours. Anyway back to the film. It was about a plain clothed policeman – Christian (me), who is gradually getting closer to the drug dealers that killed his father, but he doesn't like what he eventually finds. It's been an eventful shoot over four days, the crew are all really cool and know what they are doing. It's another new experience for me as in other films I've done, I've either been called in for just a few days as a supporting role, or all the actors are involved for the whole production, whereas on this I've been involved as the single lead throughout and other actors have come in on odd days as supporting roles. It was odd, but nice.

I went down to Brighton on Tuesday to take part in a workshop with a casting director who had approached me earlier through the Shooting People network. It was very interesting and we also managed to have a chat about working together in the future. We are going to meet again properly in London soon, so fingers crossed!

The Kennington Fete last Sunday went down really well, it was so much busier than I'd anticipated and I ran out of publicity within 2 hours. I had a lot of enquiries about personal training and my circuit classes and this Thursday I had eight newcomers, which is brilliant! Unfortunately I've had to cancel next week's class because of other work, so I hope it doesn't affect people momentum.

The play has had a temporary hiccup as our actress has unfortunately had to leave us due to other commitments. We are in the process of finding someone else. However I have confirmed Max Lewendell to Direct. Max is an old friend (and ex flat mate) of mine. He has directed three plays previously on the London fringe, each to critical acclaim, his most recent, ‘Albert's Boy', receiving the Time Out Critics' Choice.

On Monday we are having a film production meeting to see how the editing is coming along. I still haven't seen anything and I'm looking forward to seeing something then. The poster is really looking great now, we are just finalising some finishing touches, but it should be finished very soon. I will upload it on to the site as soon as it is.

I'm doing a promotion over the next 9 days for an energy company, they are using a fitness/energy take on their campaign and I will be overseeing the ‘Energy Exchange Zone' where participants must ride an exercise bike, row a rowing machine, or pump and water pump, for one minute, to create energy to fill a giant battery. We are doing Brighton Festival this weekend (starting in about 4-5 hours) and The Bath and West Show all next week. I sounds like fun, so I'm quite looking forward to it. I'll fill you in when I get back.

Friday 12^th May 06

Although quite a slow week generally, I've managed to make some quite big steps. I have now confirmed a stage production of 'Consequences', which will run, as part of the Lambeth Riverside Festival, from 7:30pm, on Fridays 14th and 21st of July. It will play at the Lambeth Mission on Lambeth Road, which is across the road from the Imperial War Museum. Richard and I will continue in the roles of Gareth and Peter, but sadly Christina has other commitments, so we will be joined by Natalie Izgol playing Ami. Natalie was one of our short-listed actresses in the initial auditions back in March. We were very impressed with her audition and I'm glad to be able to offer her something eventually. Also making the journey from film to stage is Beth John our make-up artist, who did a fantastic job in the film, Justine Wilson will be working on our production design and publicity again, and last but not least Martin Neafcey, our 'Making of.' producer, will be following us around again, catching all our embarrassing moments and mistakes. I will update with more of the team once they are confirmed. I wish I could use more of the crew from the film, but the play is going to be produced on a much smaller scale.

Our first rehearsal is on Monday and I'm looking forward to getting back into it again. Plus I have been making some improvements to the script, so I am interested to see how they work. Once things get moving I will include all the details of the play along with the film pages, so you can see how we're getting on.

In the meantime I've been getting lots of promo jobs coming in over the next few weeks, which is good, including some really fun sounding ones too. I'm going to be going to Brighton and Bath in a couple of weeks for an energy company. I will be getting back into my fitness hat and joining in with people on a treadmill and exercise bike to teach them how energy works in our bodies. I'm doing a Baywatch themed corporate fun day soon (but don't ask me what I'm doing, because I don't know).

I'll also be getting involved in the Kennington Fete on Sunday 21st May. Which will be a good opportunity to offer some healthy living advice and checks, while promoting my classes and personal training. The event will take place in Cleaver Square, off Kennington Park Road and will include stalls, food, tombola, tug of war and many other things.

I may have a bit more news on some other developments next week so keep I'll keep you posted.

Friday 5^th May 06

Well not much to say really but, it's been a couple of weeks since my last entry and I'm just updating some other areas of the site so I thought I might as well stick something in.

For the past few weeks I've been back into the promotional work. Lately I've been driving a branded van around London, which, apart from getting a bit sweaty in the hot weather, has been a pretty cushty job as that is really all I have to do!

Things are still moving slowly on the film front. We had a marketing meeting last week to discuss publicity artwork and press packs. We had some really good ideas between us and I'm looking forward to see what our designers come up with. Other than that, the edit is plodding along, I haven't seen anything yet so I'm keen to get a look at something soon.

I've almost confirmed a venue for the stage production at the Lambeth Riverside Festival in July. I will update as soon as I know when and where.

Unfortunately our plans for a public showing of the film will have to go on hold for a while, as many of the Film Festivals we are applying to will not accept anything that has had any prior screenings. Again I will let you know when and where you can see it first.

In other areas of my life; my circuit classes are finally starting to pick up since the strange lull after Christmas. I will be doing two free classes at the Lambeth Festival again this year along with health checks and another personal training competition - more info available soon.

Acting is quiet at the moment, though I do have some auditions lined up over the next couple of weeks. My next confirmed performance is at the York Grand Opera House, playing Mr Mushnik in 'Little Shop of Horrors'. This is one of my favourite musicals so I'm really excited about it, plus, you may already know, I've done a few shows in York now, so it'll be nice to catch up with some old friends too.

So that's all my news. I'll try to find something more interesting to write next time.

Saturday 20^th April 06

Yesterday I confirmed a couple of DJs from Juice FM - Brighton 's main commercial radio station - to do some voice clips for the film, when the characters are listening to the radio. The DJs are Guy Lloyd and Andrea Fox who present the Saturday and Sunday morning show from 7am-10am. You can find out more about them and Juice at http://www.juicebrighton.com/index.html .

If you read my last entry you will know that I also shot the student film 'The Other Side' last night. All went well and I thought the crew was really professional. The guy I was beating up had some pretty nasty makeup and I got blood all over my hands cos I had to pick up his head at one point. The poor guy had to lie on a dirty cold floor the whole time and get knocked around by me, while they filmed us from about 5 different angles. I kept asking him if he was alright, I was pulling all my shots, but he looked so nasty I guess I felt I had to ask. The coolest bit was the location: it was a huge warehouse in Peckham, and it must get used for raves some of the time. There were different rooms and levels and platforms with ladders going up to them. I was already imagining great scenes and amazing stunts and fights using the different floors and vast space. I think I've found my next project!!!

Today I've just been back to our location to collect the last of our bits and pieces of set, props and costumes, so my room, which I tidied this weekend, is now back to the state it usually is, with clothes and bags and papers all over the floor and my bed. Had a chat with a few more people about doing some more voice clips too, as we need some TV spots as well, plus I've been contacting a few bands/music producers about providing some music, so I will be including all their details in the production pages and links to their own websites for you to find out more about them.

Don't forget you can now read all about the film and the project's background, see production photos, team lists and biographies, and lots more information by clicking here. These pages are being constantly updated as we get closer and closer to finishing, so keep checking our progress and look forward to more photos, cast and crew interviews, behind the scenes footage and very soon the trailer!

Looking Forward: A rough edit of the film is scheduled to be completed by the beginning of June and will be sent to other departments who will begin work on sound, music and digital design. This will then be mixed into the final cut which should be finished in July. The production process then starts all over again for a preview of the stage version also in July - which we hope to tie in with the DVD release. Up to now enquiries and submissions have been made to some London fringe theatres, that have specific new writing programmes, and Production Companies with regards to producing full run later in the year.

Wednesday 12^th April 06

It’s been a little bit odd the last few days. I’ve just been sitting, twiddling my thumbs and not really knowing what to do with myself. I know it’s not nearly finished yet and there’s still a lot to do but most things are out of my hands now. The editor is currently backing up all our footage and then will get stuck into making a rough edit. My production designer is working on artwork and publicity while my co-producer is working on press/marketing packages for festivals and distributors. I’m just trying to keep up to date with everything and provide them with anything they need. Once the footage has been backed up, I’ll be looking after it, so I may be able to get some little sneak previews on the site. Don’t forget you can see more about the project on this site by clicking here.
Other than all that I’ve been quite enjoying some rest. I went to the theatre last night with my friend Ami, who has just been accepted into Central School of Speech and Drama, which I was very proud of. We went to see ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ with Christian Slater. It was fantastic, a great story and a really good cast - Christian Slater was fantastic. I missed it the first time it was London last year so I was thrilled it came back. It’s only on for about 7 more weeks so go and see it now!
Got a rehearsal for yet another film tonight. This one is a student film called ‘The Other Side’ about Tai who moves to London from Vietnam. His friend, Dien, helps him find work and somewhere to live and before long he gets involved in drug dealing. When Dien gets into debt with a couple of dealers he takes all of Tai’s money and makes a run for it, leaving Tai to face the angry, and violent, dealers. I play one of the dealers, who finds Tai and beats him up (I told you I was being typecast). We shoot next Wednesday.
No more news now. I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend.

Sunday 9^th April 06

We did it!! Shot, wrapped and in the can!! I’ve just got home after our wrap party and I’m a little bit tipsy so I’m not going to embarrass myself by writing any more. I just wanted to let you know how we got on. YES!!

Saturday 8^th April 06

Had a really good day today. I must admit I was a little sceptical about the amount we had to do today, but we did it! We even spent about 2 hours doing nothing waiting for it to get dark. Most of the action in the film occurs at night so for all the indoor shots we’ve simply blacked out the windows and shut the curtains, but as we were filming some shots outside today we had to wait until at least 7pm for the light (and shadows) to go down. The interior scenes we had to catch up on today were done so quickly we were finished by about 5pm and so had to kill about two hours before we could continue. We even shot a scene that was scheduled for tomorrow.
Friday was also a productive day. It took us the whole time to get everything done, but everyone was very efficient and did a really good job. We even improvised one scene between Christina and I – an argument where I try to convince her that she should be with me and not Gaz. We had been struggling with some of the dialogue, so the Director of Photography suggested we try improvising and I actually think it was better that way. We both knew our characters well enough and we knew the key points of the scene, so we found it quite easy, plus it was much more spontaneous as we didn’t know what each other was going to say. We did a few takes while the cameras just followed us around.
We’ve done so well we are going to have a much shorter day tomorrow. We only have the final scene left to do and it all takes place within about an hour and only uses 2 locations so we don’t have any time consuming changes. We are going to start at 11am and should wrap (finish) by about 4pm! And that’s it!

Thursday 6^th April 06

I’m actually home early today because I had to do a circuit training class at 6pm and after I finished my crew told me not to come back and to get some rest. So I’m feeling quite odd at the moment as there isn’t much for me to do and it’s been my first free evening for a long time. Up to the point I left today, it was all going very well. We’ve been doing the scenes when Gaz gets back from hospital and Ami tells him about us sleeping together. This is where Richard had to have some cuts and bruises on his face and we also had to make him a cast for his leg. Over the last few weeks we’ve been trying to get hold of a real cast, but couldn’t find anything suitable. Then I came across some foam which we could wrap around his leg and foot and cover in bandage. Well we tried it on last night and it looked great! Richard also tried out his crutches for the first time last night, which was hilarious. We were both in stitches as he fell into walls and down steps and all the time he kept forgetting that his broken leg wasn’t really broken!

Yesterday was a difficult day as we were filming all the small bitty scenes, which meant lots of set changes, costume changes, hair and make-up changes and so we all really had to have our wits about us as to what was coming up next. We did really well considering, but it was all a little to much to do in the time scale so again we had to finish a little behind schedule.

I’m a little bit worried about what we’ve still got left to do so for the next couple of days I’ve suggested we do longer hours to try to get everything done. The schedule on Saturday is fairly easy so we can use the rest of that time to catch up with everything we’ve missed so far as well as doing the exterior shots when it’s dark outside. Fingers crossed!!

Tuesday 4^th April 06

Just finished our 2nd day of filming and so far so good. Yesterday was a long day; as to be expected we started a little later than scheduled, due to some unforeseen technical problems, but we got back on track and finished only slightly behind schedule.

It was a particularly long day for me because I actually went on to do some more filming later that night with a company making a music video. It was a lot of fun actually; they were using a jib (or a crane), which is a camera mounted on the end of a huge long arm. It’s a great piece of equipment as you can get some amazing high angle and sweeping shots. I was playing a thug (I think I’m being typecast – I’m really not like that) and got to beat the s**t out of a bouncer and then finish him off with a baseball bat. I also got to drive an Audi, which was cool. It was a good shoot but bitterly cold - for some reason spring has gone away again – and we didn’t finished till 1am so I was knackered. On my way home I realised I’d left my bag behind, with my door keys, my diary, my script and production notes, I have cried. Luckily I had one of the crew’s phone numbers, so I’ve just been to get it back.

Today was a good day too. It’s still taking a while to set up, which I hope doesn’t become a regular thing, but we are getting some really good footage. I wasn’t involved in very much today so I took the opportunity to prepare for the next few days. I’ve have been trying to distance myself from the production side though and concentrate more on acting, it’s difficult because there’s so much going on we’ve all got to be one step ahead, especially me, but when I’m doing a scene I shut everything else out. I’m thrilled with Richard and Christina too; I’ve worked with them both before, so I knew they could act, but I’ve never seen them do anything like this and I think they are doing a great job, I’m really enjoying working opposite them.

I haven’t mentioned up to now, but we’ve had a guy following us around for the last few weeks doing a behind the scenes documentary. He’s been at some of the rehearsals and will be at some shooting days throughout this week. He’s been getting interviews, footage of the actors in make-up, sets being dressed and scenes being filmed. He will be editing all this independently and the finished product will be included on the DVD. We also have a photographer attending various days and as soon I can I will get some of his photographs on the site.

Saturday 1^st April 06

It’s Saturday night and we start shooting on Monday and I’ve just had a terribly stressful weekend. At 3am Friday morning I received an email from our make-up artist telling me he’d been offered paid work and he wasn’t going to do the film. I spent the rest of that morning scouring the internet and leaving messages with every make-up artist I could find. I’ve been working at the Vitality show in Olympia this weekend so I was making phone calls whenever I had a break and then doing more work through Friday night into Saturday morning preparing everything to take to the location. Fortunately I found a replacement – or two – today, two make-up artists called Beth John and Jay Arick. They couldn’t do the entire week themselves so they will alternate with each other giving us at least one person there at a time. The other day I also confirmed a producer who is going to work with me during post production to promote the film to festivals, competitions and distributors.

This evening I’ve been over to the location, kindly assisted by my Dad, to take all the props, food, costumes, set dressings, equipment, etc. I hadn’t realised how much I’d collected, but it all filled my Dad’s Ford Escort hatchback with the back seats down! So everything is there now, the make-up stress is over and tomorrow I’m going back to the location with our Production Designer to set everything ready for the first day. Now I’m going to get a good night’s sleep!

Friday 28^th March 06

Today was our third and last rehearsal plus we’ve also done some preliminary shooting. But before I go into that I’ll update the last few days, which have also been quite eventful. Yesterday I confirmed our location, a flat in Manor House. Richard, one of the actors, has just moved in and just in the nick of time. I’ve been aware he was moving for a while, but he’s not had much success until now so I wasn’t holding out for anything. Fortunately he found this place, and it’s just the kind of flat we’ve been looking for – inside and out. The kitchen is a little small, but that is only a minor gripe and easily worked around. So now we have everything attached and confirmed.
Back to today; we used this morning to run through lines and get them nice and slick. This afternoon we talked about costumes, props and various other things. I arranged for our make-up artist to come over and give Richard a makeover.

He also did some tests for the cuts and bruises which Richard we will need in one of the scenes. At 4pm Richard, Christina and I went to pick up a car I’d hired, we then met Ana and Luis (Director of Photography) and drove down to Brighton. Unfortunately the journey took a little longer than I’d expected, due to traffic, so once we arrived we only had about an hour of daylight left. We quickly went down to the beach were we took some really good pictures with the remains of the old Pier in the background. It was actually quite a nice day, but the wind was so strong it was so cold and our fingers were numb. We went straight on to a chippy to warm up and then went down to the other pier. We weren’t allowed to do any filming there, but we could take pictures. I’ve just had a look, and they’re really good. Some of the pictures we took today will be used in the opening credits for the film and some will go into our press pack to promote the film to festivals and distributors.

Once we had enough photos we went along the high street looking for a suitable road to film half of a phone conversation between Ami and Gaz, as Ami returns home from University. In the meantime I went looking for a nice bar/restaurant where we could film some footage of the three characters out for Pete’s birthday. As is was about 11pm on a Tuesday night most of the restaurants were fairly quite and we found a very nice looking one called ‘Grey’s Restaurant’. The staff were very friendly and happy for us to film there, we even had the Manager, James Earl, waiting on us – Thanks James! – This footage will also be used in the opening credits. Quite a successful day altogether, I hope it all works out like this – only five more days till principal shooting.

Going back to the weekend again - On Saturday I was working on another film. I got involved through Youngblood as the Director has worked with us before. It was a Lord of the Rings fan film – a prequel to the trilogy about the events around Aragorn’s Birth – called ‘Born of Hope’. I’m a big LOTR fan and was thrilled to get an opportunity to work on this. We were filming in an authentic Anglo-Saxon village, called West Stow, near Bury St. Edmunds. It was an amazing location with real period houses. We began doing some dialogue between two of the actors and I was being used in the background. Later I was asked to teach some of the actors some fighting moves. They were only doing friendly fights so it was fairly simple stuff. I then went off the get into costume as an Orc. The costume was basically a mishmash of material, leather, fur and metal. It took a while to get into it, but once it was all on it looked great (I’ll try to get hold of a picture for the site). We then filmed some sequences where a group of Orcs were attacking the village (trying to kill Aragorn’s Father, Arathorn). In one shot I’m chasing a girl, who I catch up with and cut down right in front of the camera – the girl was actually played by my Production Designer on ‘Consequences’, who is also a big LOTR fan and is working as a set dresser on this film. In my last shot I ambush a young boy, but his father surprises me from behind and runs me through. I had a thoroughly good day and wish I could do more, but all their next shooting days clash with ours. If you want to find out more about the film, ‘Lord of the Rings – Born of Hope’ visit the website at www.actorsatworkproductions.com/bornofhope.htm

Thursday 23^rd March 06

Had our second rehearsal today. We aren’t going to have many together due to everyone’s work commitments, so I’ve been trying to learn my lines all this week. Some of it came to me fairly easily but the majority is still a bit vague, especially the bits I have only recently written. Other than that the rehearsal went very well. As we haven’t yet confirmed a location we used my flat for the rehearsal and got the opportunity to work out the moves we will use in shooting. From my point of view it’s very strange working in an enclosed space like a flat, as most of my experience lies in theatre, and most of the film/TV work I’ve done has been either at exterior locations or studio based. It’s also a bit surreal acting in my own flat.

Only 11 days until we start shooting and so far things are going well, considering. The location problems have put us back a bit, but we’ll catch up. This week I’ve been concentrating on props and wardrobe, I’m starting to make lists, with our production designer, of the costumes and props we’re going to need and where we’re going to find them – I’ve decided we don’t really need a wardrobe supervisor as it’s not going to be hard to find anything. We still don’t have any financial help, but as long as there are no surprises, I think we’ll manage. Keep watching this space for more updates.

Wednesday 15^th March 06

Things are really moving now and there's less than three weeks until we start shooting. Today was our first rehearsal, this was simply a chance to read through the whole script together and talk about the characters; their personalities, motivations and other stuff us actors like to think about. It went very well and by the second read through it was already sounding like a well rehearsed piece. The next challenge is to learn it! Yesterday we had a meeting with a director of photography, who has now come on board. We also met with two producers, who are interested in working with us, but wanted to make sure they could commit their time. If they can it would really take a lot of the workload from my shoulders, plus they have many good contacts that we would benefit from. They are getting back to me soon, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. Other than that most of our crew are now attached.

What do we still need?

We are missing a hair and make-up artist, and a wardrobe supervisor. I'm not too worried about these positions as we can always speak to a college, but we would rather have someone from recommendation. If you can fill one of these roles, or if you know some one who could, please do get in touch. Email Dan
Our main location fell through today, so we are back to the drawing board on this one. We are looking for a 2 bedroom flat or house. Nothing too modern or too old, and not very messy either. Again if you think you may have (or know someone who has) what we're looking for, please let me know. Email Dan
Finally the biggie! The budget for the film is small, but it is being entirely funded out of my own pocket at the moment. We are still approaching all various angles of funding but have not yet secured anything. If anyone has ever wondered what it would be like to be the Executive Producer of a feature length film, then look no further! Any amount from £10-£1,000 will be a great help and will go a long way. Email Dan

If you are interested in being involved in the production in any way other than the above, send me an email and tell me what you can offer and I'm sure we can find some way of working together. In return for any services - or even recommendations - we can offer food and expenses if working on the production, a credit in the film, publicity opportunities for your business/company (if you have one), a copy of the finished film, including a behind the scenes 'making of' video, and complimentary tickets to attend any future screenings or performances.

Sunday 12^th March 06

Had a little field trip down the Brighton today. The film is set in Brighton, so Ana (my Director) and I went down to do a little reccé, gather some research and get a bit of footage to use in the film. The production designer was planning to come too, but unfortunately she's come down with the flu, which is probably worse because she's not long come over from Australia! Anyway it was a good trip, and we even planning another one in a few weeks, this time with the rest of the cast as well to take some photos for our publicity.

Friday 3^rd March 06

Just a quick update on how things are going on the production front. We held auditions today for the third and final cast member. It was a very difficult choice, but we ended up choosing Christina Featherstone, a girl I had worked with in Panto last year. She also worked with Richard, so it's nice to all be working together again. Working behind the scenes we now have a production designer, editor, foley artist, continuity and script supervisor. We are currently following up a lead about a location and still looking into routes to get some funding. The next few weeks will see the beginning of rehearsals, plus we will continue to find crew, a location, funding, and start thinking about publicity, screenings and festivals.

Thursday 23^rd February 06

Wow! It has been quite an eventful few weeks lately. I'm coming towards the end of the Alpro/Holmes Place activity, which has been fairly good, talking to people about health and giving away free goodie bags. I've been penciled in for another activity after this one for Alpro head office in Northampton , it's involving personal training, but that's all I know, so more on that another time. My eyes are really great now, haven't noticed any problems and I'm really beginning to accept now that it is real and I'm not just wearing contact lenses.

But now for the BIG news: The week before last I confirmed a director to make my 'Consequences' script into a film! We've had a few meetings since then and are well underway on pre-production. I spent most of last week re-formatting the script, as it was written for stage, and if you didn't know the two formats are quite different - to the point that the script is now twice the length in pages to the stage version. I also had to cut quite a lot of dialogue as on screen you can say much more with a look or with body language that on stage. So where are we now? Well we have two out of three actors (My friend Richard and I) and will be auditioning for a girl next week. We have confirmed a director, assistant director, production designer, sound operator and an editor. We still need a director of photography, lighting operator, camera operator, wardrobe, make-up, and a production assistant - so if there is anyone out there please do get in touch!! We are looking at commencing filming around the 3^rd April for about 2 weeks. We are already contacting sponsors, festivals and distributors to hopefully get some exposure and we've 80% confirmed a screening at the Lambeth Riverside Festival in July!

I've not given up on the play either though. At the same time I'm looking into funding and contacting venues to try to get at least a three week run sometime in June/July. We have already been asked to do a 1 week run at a Lambeth fringe venue in July, again for the Riverside festival.

Watch this space for more info and where/when you can eventually get to see it.

To read more about Dan's background in writing go to Interests. For more about Consequences click here.

Friday 3^rd February 06

It's not been that long since my last entry but this is a special occasion! Can anyone tell me why? Answers on a postcard to. no, sorry today is 1 year since www.danstyles.co.uk first went online. It has certainly come a long way since then, and it doesn't end there: I have many plans for the site in the future, After much re-designing work, soon (hopefully) the site should be getting a brand new image and many new pages for your perusal. Look forward to more photos from shows and events, including a page dedicated to photos from my mobile phone - get a little more insight into the things I get up to. I'm collecting some video and voice clips from various performances and demos for a new media page. I am including some more information on my personal life, so you can get to know the real me, as well as more detail on the things already mentioned in the site now. There will be a guest book for you to write your messages and comments on the site. Plus for those of you that are visiting on a more professional level, I am compiling a list of links to some other very interesting and potentially useful sites that I have come across in my own searches. I hope to get all of this up and running in the near future. In the meantime your feedback is very much welcomed and appreciated. I'd also like to say a big thank you to those people who've been working on the site for me and made this all possible:

Web designing: Geoff Stilwell
Photography: Simon Barry, Geoff Stilwell, Andrew Ankers, John Clarke and Tony Hutt

Just quickly, now I've started, I'll update the last week since I got back to London . First and foremost, as I ended my last entry, I have now had the Laser Surgery on my eyes and I am fine. It's really wonderful and it hasn't actually dawned on me properly yet. Some things are still a little hazy around the edges, but that will go as my eyes heal. At my check-up this morning I was told I have perfect 20/20 vision and it may even get better than that. I won't go into the details of what actually happened as I may put some people off - it wasn't very comfortable - but it was worth it and I think I'm going to appreciate it more and more as I go on.

What else? Well apart from meeting up with some friends from Panto - yes we're missing each other already - I've been quite active in getting things rolling with regards to my play. I've had a few meetings and some more still to go with people who are interested in getting involve and we are currently working on the best way to really begin. It's still early days yet but I'm hoping that I'll have something confirmed and in the pre-production stages within the next month or two.

That's all I've got time for so I'll let you know how things are coming along soon.

Monday 23^rd January 06

We've finished! This is it, the end of panto. It's been eight weeks since I left London to start rehearsals and now 2 venues, 57 shows, 342 rubs of the lamp and 456 'It's behind you's later it's all over. It's certainly been an eventful couple of months!

Torquay ended wonderfully with our three last nights out: the first I ended up spending all night in casualty with our, very drunk, wardrobe mistress who broke her ankle while flirting with a club DJ, the second we discovered a bar where you pay to get in but the drinks are free all night! It was like some dodgy, rich guys, party and the police were going to raid it any minute. We met a 7 foot something guy - he was just massive - and a girl who said my evil character was really sexy! Plus later that night my brother, who was staying with me, threw up over a bouncer (fortunately he actually had a sense of humour). The third night we went back to the bar, but this time we got in free, so we didn't spend any money. Craig got to stand on the bar and pour Tequila into peoples' mouths and Penny (the dance captain) and I danced on a podium to Dirty, Don't Stop Me Now and Greased Lightening, which we actually won a prize for! By the time we came to the end of the run we were all shattered.

The week after, we opened in Runcorn on Thursday 12 th Jan with two shows. We continued to do two shows every day (except Monday) until the following Sunday. It was pretty tough going and the first week I wasn't feeling very well at all. I managed to be good and look after myself though and by the last week I was feeling full of energy again.

Our last night in Runcorn was also very funny starting with a party at the theatre, where we met the mayor amongst other people, we then continued in a local pub, which did a lock in for us. Everybody went and there was much reminiscing, chanting of catch phrases that we'd acquired along the run, and some people even made speeches. Before we knew it it was 2am and we then went on to John Clegg's (Wishee Washee) house. We stayed up for as long as I remember until people pretty much slept wherever they landed. The morning after (yesterday) we got up, had some breakfast in front of 'American Idol' and then went into the theatre for our last two shows.

It's always sad to leave; you are on such a high, and make so many really close friendships for what seems like such a long time. But it does get easier every year. Besides as a good and wise friend of mine always says "you have to finish one thing before you can start something new". So we all said our goodbyes. Some of us will keep in touch, some of us may not speak until we next work together and there are some people I expect I'll see before the end of the week! I made some very good friends this year and came much closer to some old friends. I really enjoyed the whole thing both socially and professionally. I was a great part to play and I'm hoping I will get to stay with the show, which means I could be spending Christmas in York this year. But that's still a long way away.

Finally what does the New Year hold for me? Well I'm very relieved to have some more work with Alpro lined up throughout February. It's another health and fitness campaign where I'll be driving around visiting Holmes Place gyms and talking to their members about their diet and activity as well as promoting the product. I also have a few auditions over the next couple of weeks, which will hopefully lead to other things. But my most exciting appointment next week, above all else, (probably more exciting for me than anyone else really) is at the Laser Eye Clinic. I've finally saved up the money and made the decision to have my eyes treated at last and I can't wait! I've been looking forward to it all through panto - No more glasses! No more contact lenses!

Monday 2^nd January 06

So here we are in 2006! Another year been and gone so fast. How was it for you? For me I guess its been quite productive in the sense of preparing myself for the future. All you need to do is look back over this diary to see how, but in brief the year started as I began the 4 months qualifying to be a personal trainer. I jumped straight from that into the Lambeth Festival as Health and Fitness Co-ordinator, and following that began a contract as a Health and Fitness Adviser for Alpro on their national town centre campaign. The year also saw the launch of my circuit training classes, which are constantly growing and begin again for the New Year in three days. I made some very good contacts in my area and also some further afield, all of which I hope will continue to be valuable assets. On the acting side things have been a little quieter, at least for the first few months anyway. This year I've performed in two short films, a music video, a commercial, a chat show, three fight displays and a fight video, two plays, a musical and a pantomime. Not all that bad really when I look at it like that, but again, more importantly, last year introduced me to some useful contacts which will help me in the future.

So do I have any New Year's resoulutions? Well not really, just to do more of what I'm doing and hope that 'big break' isn't too far away. I have a batch of new publicity for the personal training and circuit classes ready to got out and I also need to follow up a few leads. I'm currently trying to produce a voice-over demo CD and I would like to get a new set of photos and a showreel done soon. Again there are some leads that need following up and I also have to put some attention into getting my play off the ground. I've already been offered a few days playing at this years Lambeth Festival in the Summer (more on that another time), but I'd really like to get it on the London Fringe in the next few months. If you happen to have any knowledge on getting these things on please do contact me!

There you have it. Now here's where I get to know about some of my visitors; why don't you send me an email and tell me about your 2005? Any interesting resolutions? Any exciting news? How was your New Years Eve? Mine, by the way, was good fun. The whole panto company went out for a meal together, which Craig (from Big Brother) almost turned into a food fight. After the meal most of us then went on to the main Torquay club ' The Venue ' and saw in the New Year. Richard (my best mate) and I were actually the last ones to leave at about 3am. Plus, I even got spotted by someone who'd seen me in panto! Very flattering, and actually quite amazing as you'd barely recognise me with my make up on!

I'd better go now cos I'm actually getting ready to go out again. Well we do have a day off tomorrow after all. So I'll simply say HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Diary for 2005

Diary 2007

Tuesday 1st January 2008

Friday 14th December

Tuesday 4th December

Thursday 8th November

Tuesday 2nd October (back in London)

Monday 20th August

(Day 100, Tour Day 68)

Wednesday 1st August

(Day 81, Tour Day 49)

Wednesday 25th July

(Day 74, Tour Day 42)

Saturday 21st July

(Day 70, Tour Day 38)

Tuesday 17th July

(Day 66, Tour Day 34)

Wednesday 11th July

(Day 60, Tour Day 28)

Tuesday 10th July

(Day 59, Tour day 27)

Sunday 1st July

(Day 50, Tour day 18)

Thursday 28th June

(Day 47, Tour Day 15)

Monday 18th June

(Day 37, Tour Day 5)

Sunday 27th May

(Rehearsal day 14)

Thursday 17th May

(Rehearsal day 4)

Saturday 12th May

Friday 4th May

Wednesday 25th April

Friday 20th April

Tuesday 3rd April

Saturday 3rd March

Sunday 11th February

Saturday 3rd February

Tuesday, 23rd January

Tuesday, 16th January

Monday. 8th January

Monday, 1st January 2007

Wednesday, 20th December

Thursday, 7th December

Tuesday, 14th November 06

Sunday 5th November 06

Sunday 29th October 06

Thursday 19th October 06

Sunday 17th September 06

Wednesday 6th September 06

Sunday 27th August 06

Sunday 20th August 06

Wednesday 9th August 06

Sunday 6th August 06

Thursday 27th July 06

Saturday 22nd July 06

Wednesday 19th July 06

Friday 16th July 06

Wednesday 7th July 06

Friday 2nd July 06