Press Night!

By Ollie Lee

For the last two months, there have been two words hanging over our heads, quite literally as they are written in giant letters across the year planner on our wall, those two words; Press Night.

I arrived at the office at noon on Monday the 12^th July, to find the stage door desk a mass of envelopes, letters, cards, tickets and VIP flyers all being paired and allocated by our female assistants. After the brief hellos I sat down and joined the panel, half expecting the conversation to turn to jam and Jerusalem. Just seconds later, one of our producers - Jenny King - entered, pen poised, ready to do battle with the mountain of thank you cards that lay waiting on the desk. I only really mention this so I can say how beautiful Jenny’s handwriting is. If you are anything like me, the mere flick of the pen by Jenny King is enough to make any handwriting enthusiast weak at the knees. Maybe it was that, or more likely, maybe it was just the chaos of the day, but all I know is the next few hours were just a blur in which I seemed to lap the old Eurostar terminal at least 50 times.

At 4:30, Chantelle and I donned our blue ushering t-shirts and after a brief briefing from our beautiful front of house managers Shane and Siobhan, took our places at the entrance to greet everyone as they arrived.

Moments of interest from this vigil are as follows;

- The arrival Nina Wadia (EastEnders) and her family - I’m a big fan!

- The arrival of a stray member of the public asking if we had any ‘extras jobs’ we could offer him.

- The same member of the public sneaking down into the concourse and talking to Nina Wadia, undoubtedly about any ‘extras jobs’ on EastEnders.

- The removal of that particular member of the public...

- Other star struck moments came with the arrival of Sally Thomsett, an original Railway child, and the fabulous Honour Blackman.

- Finally the removal of a second crazy fan...

From a job, which to be honest we weren’t that excited about, we ended up with one of the best seats in the house for seeing the pre-preshow moments.

At 6:55pm we made a quick dash from our ushering positions, and with a lightning fast change of clothes, we were transformed back to production assistants, and at 7:00 were able to take our places in the auditorium and enjoy the show.

Ten minutes into the show and my eyes caught something shining back at me from the other side of the platform. As my eyes adjusted to the bright light against the darkness of the auditorium, I realised what I was being dazzled by were in fact Jason Gardener’s teeth! Even if a little distracting, I was pleased to see he was smiling and enjoying the show.

Unfortunately, Mr Gardener’s teeth were not the only distraction during the evening. Part way through the first act, an alarm started bleeping, followed by a message blaring out for the Eurostar staff, who of course no longer reside here. Not ideal for press night of course, but thankfully, as anyone who reads the papers will know, the reviews of The Railway Children Live at Waterloo have been brilliant!!

We thank everyone who has seen the show so far, and encourage everyone who hasn’t to hurry up and book their tickets!!!