Dashing around up north

Having not been up north for a fair while it was nice to make it up north at long last. Following a late night drive up, Saturday was a very late start, but I think we all needed it. Mum and I ventured off to Preston (exciting I know!). With a quiet weekend I naturally fitted in a few events so managing to meet a few actors, as well as catchup with friends in Preston. In particular we met Danny Sapani, who Mum and I had seen in ‘Les Blanc’ (remember that show dear reader?). He was very chatty and I think surprised just how much of his theatre work the two of us had seen. After catching up with a few of the other guests we headed across to Manchester, well Salford (not the same place!). After enjoying a relaxed pizza (the meal not the pizza was relaxed) we found out seats in The Lowry. Stephen Fry is currently on tour with his one man show about the Greek gods entitled ‘Mythos’. Due to his vast knowledge of the gods he has split it into three parts, but sadly we only managed to see the last part. Despite that the show was absolutely fantastic! His retelling of the myths and interlinking of each myth made for a fascinating evening, as well as entertaining and surprisingly visual, despite the fact that it was just him sat in a chair. Afterwards (yep you guessed it), we stage-doored him and he was nothing but charming, with time for everyone.

Having met quite a few interesting people on the Saturday I was Birmingham bound to meet one more person, something of a radio and Who legend, Ysanne Churchman. She very kindly agreed to meet with me back in November, but this was the first chance that I had been free and in the area. She was nothing but a joy to meet and talk to about some of her work, having worked on so many fascinating series, a lot of which were well before shows I am more familiar with and an awful lot of radio and TV firsts. After an utterly charming lunch with her, I headed back to Cardiff having had a very busy, but interesting weekend talking to all sorts of actors (maybe that’s just my normal weekend, you tell me dear reader).