Late May - early July (Audley End, Maelstrom, TFXV, HCP, York, Tower) and 'the road less travelled'.

Jul 05, 2010 00:42

The Victorian gig at Audley End House went okay. Kind of odd, kind of fun, kind of boring, depending on the weather of the moment.  I'm glad that there were other people I knew working there, as it gave me places to drop by during my quiet moments, but am most glad that the Past Pleasures folk didn't mind my hanging out with them despite not actually being there to work alongside them. Meant I could use the dressing room rather than changing in a tent, gave me food snaffling rights and gave me evening pub and restaurant company.

The first two days of June were reserved as prep time to get ready for Maelstrom and Southsea. I didn't manage to get done everything that I wanted, but that's more down to local amenities than anything else. Still, internet shopping for the win (and it does please me to put down a castle as the delivery address).

Maelstrom was a lot of fun. I hardly seem to leave the Lower City area these days, much less the Flembic Camp. I got out maybe or three times all weekend. I hear tales of some fortification or other, but this could merely be an elaborate hoax for all I know. I seem to get all the rp I can handle (if not more) within an easy stone's throw of the Upper/Lower city threshold.  My real life is currently an unrelenting sequence of characters and costumes so Maelstrom is fast becoming part of the usual summer blur, but moments that still stand out include:-
  • The proto-'erotic yoga show' and the thoughtful silence of the many who watched it.
  • Getting a few minutes to practice music for the evening ball and realising that, actually, this was going to be really rather good. Bonus smug points for realising that the less-soundproof-than-we'd-sometimes-prefer issues we encountered at the last event would this time actually be working in our favour. Toe-tapping tunes on period tunes wafting though Flambard on the afternoon air?  That'd be coming from the Lower City, thank you very much.
  • The Lower City tent of enormity and the fact that it still wasn't enough space for the night time bacchanalia.
  • Being told that I was a bastard when it came to 'Truth or Dare'. Not entirely true. Just when it came to mysterious, masked strangers who ought to know better than to join such games below stairs...
  • "If it looks like it's going badly, just wop out a tit."  Advice, it transpires, that can be applied to many situations. 
  • The attention that Lady Enigma got at the masked ball.
  • The perfectly dramatic storm!
  • Hearing that Jean de Winter had been arrested but had managed to escape from a guarded tent that was surrounded by dozens of onlookers. What a guy! His legend is assured.
  • Introducing Caterina Flambardi to some denizens of the Lower City and the exchange "Where's Ti- Uh, Letitia?" "She's lying down for a while." "Is she working?" and Caterina's perfect reaction...
  • The Fidelian trial also stands out, but not for good reasons since I considered it poorly done both IC and OOC.  I'll freely confess that a principal reason for my annoyance at the wrongful arrest of one of my group members stopped me from getting an early start on OOC take-down, but I also have to say that I thought we were all years past the days of LRP trials that drag on for hours on end. If the people you are insisting on roleplaying with have to go OOC to go to the loo or take on water or food, then you should bloody well realise that realise that you are doing something wrong. For all that I'd like to take a stance of "well, that's the Fidelian/Teacherite way, I suppose", the actual result is that I'll avoid their justice system for reasons of extreme OOC tedium rather because of anything I can readily rationalise IC. I think I would actually rather be beaten with sticks than have to go though that again.
For all that getting clear of site and away to Southsea suffered a three hour delay, the journey itself was smooth enough. Bit of a bugger to get to site and realise that a cast member's rucksack had been left on site, but that was resolved the following day by the very kind offices of penguin_worship . Week 1 saw excellent debuts by Ben Stevens, David Peck and  die_fleiderhat who very quickly became an integral part of the whole thing.

After a first day performance hiccup that was entirely due to a teacher who we reviled for the remainder of the three weeks, all went well. Everyone was awesome (some more so than others, by dint of having tits and/or being on fire) and the week 1 revelation that our fifteenth year there was going to be our last added a definite bitter-sweet tang to the whole thing. For all that it would be the last year, 15 years of Tempus Fugitive at Southsea Castle it is a bloody fine achievement, not a failure.  (I might have welled up a little when the chef at the restaurant we celebrated in on the last night came out to tell us what an excellent time he'd had when his school visited us 12 years ago). We were damn well going to go out on a high, and we damn well did.  I'm especially pleased to have engaged the services of newvani  for a couple of days in week 3 and I'm really looking forward to the fished versions of his TF sketches.

Thing is, Portsmouth City Council (ie, the booker) have been through a lot of changes and reshuffles over the last few years and there were people now in positions of power who had never actually seen what we do at Southsea Castle. Several of them finally came along to watch this year, with the result that suddenly they understood what a quality product they get from us. They're still going to go ahead with turning the castle into a cafe, but suddenly they want us back next year after all... They're about to find out exactly how much money they've been saving by letting us live in the castle rather than having to pay for accommodation elsewhere, but there is still the possibility of TF16 after all. It'd be a very different beast, but it'd still be Tempus Fugitive.

In the meantime, I've been given the impetus to try selling my Tudor/Time Travel education project to other sites. Comes down to it, Henry VIII built dozens of coastal gunnery forts and Southsea Castle is far from the only one that still stands. I'd really like to persuade English Heritage that they should book me at Deal, Pendennis or St. Mawe's.

Of course, in order to make the pitch for those, I need to find the keyboard time. That's not going to be easy this summer, I fear. A glance at my diary tells me that my last actual day off (ie a non-earning day which is not firmly assigned for doing something very specific) was in late April and my next is in mid August (though I fully expect that to change to sometime in October). I'm being kept very very busy at the moment!  I had to miss Russ and Rebs' wedding last weekend due to van issues and the need to wash a mountain of costume and put away all the kit before starting straight back at Hampton Court Palace on Monday. Very very strange to be suddenly doing 1543 at a royal palace instead of 1545 at a coastal defence fort.  The King's love life is a much more important issue than the defence of the realm, the emphasis is on the high status rather than the military and no-one gives a damn about the Mary Rose.  Viscount Lisle makes a 2nd person appearance, however, which always amuses me. Less amusing is wearing multiple layers of silk velvet in this kind of heat, but damn I look good.

I commuted to York for a Trouvere wedding gig yesterday. I can't remember when I agreed to this, but I suspect I was still living in Nottingham at the time. With Paul and Gill on holiday for most of this month, it fell to me to craft/manage the gig, but all went well. Paul and Gill ahd recruited a good team, all of whom I had worked with before, the bookers were quite prepared to take advantage of my extensive wedding experience (ie, do what I suggested when it came to timing/staging) and it all went very well.  Being asked to conduct the ceremony and lead the vows came as something of a surprise, but I carried it off well and reckon I'll suggest to Paul and Gill that they offer such a service for the 'handfasting' gigs (ie, parties after registry office weddings, or those those 'weddings' where the couple don't actually care about their legal status but still want some kind of pomp and ceremony.)

Siege engine work at the Tower of London has also moved into full swing. I started operating those machines at the Tower as a sub-contractor in early May 2009, and that led directly to my being recruited by Past Pleasures. While it's kind of curious to now be one of the interpreters in the same show without the same level of responsibility for the machines,  I suspect it's going to be even stranger in a few days time when I start once again as the 'busier with a hammer than my voice' artillerist in a few days' time.

Still, that's a perfect example of my 'spiral tower' motif - I've always had a fear of 'ending up', but if I'm a level higher and stronger when a circle completes and starts again, then it's all good. And right now? I'm happier than I have ever been. I've worked hard and long (and been lucky in friends and opportunities) to get where I am, but I love my work so very much and have never been happier than I am right now.  I'm not meaning to crow but rather to exhort that, no matter how ridiculous they might seem to others, you should never give up your dreams and ambitions.

Take the path less travelled and have adventures.
Build a store of cherished memories rather than regrets at unseized opportunities.  
Be extraordinary.
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