Writing about our visits to Edinburgh reminded me of one of my favourite reviews of my own paltry efforts!

From the Scotsman:

“This is a wonderful comic performance. Were he any drier he would start to flake. Few serious actors today handle the schoolgirl look, much less pink chiffon so well”.

I continue to look for other roles to practise my schoolgirl look. Could Iago be the one? Let's hope the director doesn't read this!

Not since Downfall have I seen something so good as The Lives of Others. It's still running in cinemas and is well worth seeing. A great story with superb performances by all involved.

I can't help feeling jealous that they producing Speed-the-Plow at the Old Vic. It was one of my favourite BSC productions and also marked our debut at the Edinburgh Festival. I just had an instinct it would work at Edinburgh, even though as usual with me, this instinct was based on a distant lack of knowledge, as I had never been to the festival, even as a visitor! But intuition paid off and we were lucky enough to get three 5 star reviews within two days of opening, so enjoyed full houses. The Scotsman called it 'almost perfect theatre', the List said 'these actors take Mamet’s diamonds and buff ‘em till they shine like angel’s tears'.

The Dice House was our second visit to Edinburgh and that ended up in the West End, so I should really have taken our production of Collision to attempt a hatrick, but I was fightened off by the huge amount of work involved in each visit.

Collision is coming out as a film shortly - but like Speed-the-Plow, I doubt I'll see it - the memories of our own productions are too precious.

I'm stupid like that!

It's always dangerous to have a clear idea in your mind about what you're looking for from a cast, but I have a clear idea in my mind for TREASURE ISLAND.

I am looking for a cast that look genuinely like pirates. I would like the audience to wonder where on earth we managed to find such a group of people. I have visions of Simon saying to his Mum "can we meet the actors after the show?" and Mum finding 327 reasons why they have to go home straight away.

Of course finding ten men who look convincingly like pirates, who are also going to get along well with each other and be fabulous to work with, could be hard.

But what I am desperately trying to avoid is the cast that look like ten actors trying to be pirates. There's something so intriguing about the characters in the book that it would be such a shame to stage a pale imitation of the sort of men Stevenson was writing about.

The hunt begins in 10 days!

I think I must be the quintessential Actor/Manager.

There can't be many actors who have enjoyed being on stage in DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD as much as I did for the last three weeks, who would also be so happy to be back in the office in Regent Street to pull together the organisation required for our next four productions.

What do the office tasks involve? Finalising the poster for TREASURE ISLAND (and a great poster it is too!) pushing through the marketing plans for TREASURE, OTHELLO and DANNY, sorting out budgets, beginning the casting for TREASURE - it's the whole shabang!

Next week it's back on stage in Nottingham with DANNY before a final performance as Dad in Richmond on 19th June. Will you be there?