Diary of a Gossip: The British Tour

The British Tour
The Ego Weeks 
Newbury, Newcastle, Norwich, Plymouth, Coventry and The Blue Mountain Coffee Shop and Holiday Home, East Dulwich

Entries for Tony Bell's tour diary will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.*

            “Pride comes before a fall”, so sayeth Anne Widdicombe on her Strictly Come Dancing exit last series. This sage advice from a fellow foodie went completely ignored, I am ashamed to admit, as I stepped forward into the dry ice, naked to the belly button, arms to the adoring millions at Newbury six weeks ago. Idolatry is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Now I know what James Corden felt like in One Man, Two Guv’nors, or Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock, or Marlon Brando in Last Tango in, erm, I mean, Godfather Three. You see, I’m all over the place. Fame has hit me hard, and I haven’t come down to earth yet. You’re going to have to scrape me off the ceiling, like so many Waitrose ready meals.

Diary of a Gossip: What is this thing called culture anyway?

What is this thing called culture anyway?
Week One, Part Two:   February 2012 
Perth, Australia

Entries for Tony Bell's tour diary will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.*

            Wow. Nothing for eight months then two in three days. My blogs are like buses, bugger all when you want them, then three at once. Well two, actually. I’m not planning any more, so don’t panic. I won’t have time now I’m on my Antipodean diet/fitness/life routine. The “diet” bit means swap meat-and-two-veg for detox juices six times a day. “Fitness” means wait in the foyer until someone comes down for a run, or a gym session, and tag along – there are fourteen of us so that in theory is fourteen sessions a day. Oh, thirteen, because one of those fourteen is me. The “Life” component is half an hour chanting a day – it’s based on the Buddhist idea but draws on school detention for inspiration. I say – “I will make use of my time in a positive, constructive, maybe self-obsessed, way” – as many times as I can while listening to side one of “Dark Side of the Moon.”

Diary of a Gossip: What happens when Peter Pan turns fifty?

What happens when Peter Pan turns fifty?
Week One:   February 2012 
Perth, Australia

Entries for Tony Bell's tour diary will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.*

            Of course it’s not week one, it’s week nine, or even nineteen if you count rehearsals, but for me it’s ground zero. Truth is, this whole tour has hurtled along without a moment to catch breath. Yes, I’ve lost more possessions, and more valuable ones, than I did this time last year, though it’s close. A computer, two bikes, six months contact lenses, and two pairs of gloves, as opposed to an ipod, an iphone and two pairs of glasses. And yes, I’ve finally done my tax for the last two years, having incurred three separate fines and two “grow-up your nearly fifty” warnings from the revenue, and, unnecessarily, my accountant, but as for the plays, the comaraderie, the trips to new bohemias like Brighton, I’ve had no time to really absorb any of it, let alone write about it.

Giggling is a Fact of Life

Today brings a new entry in Nick Asbury's Guardian tour diary. This one has a bit on Propeller's time in Cheltenham, but mostly it's about giggling and becoming family with the company.

-cs

In case you missed it...

Nick Asbury has begun a blog for The Guardian on his experience with the current Propeller tour. The first post, back in December, talked about the company's formation and the ensemble experience while his latest looks at their recent trip to Girona (including a brush with the law).  [e]

Diary of a Gossip: Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Tony Bell will be keeping a blog during Richard III and Comedy of Errors, sharing personal insights into his experiences with the tour. Entries will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
Week Eight, A Big Plane to the Big Apple

Okay so I haven’t blogged for a few weeks, a few venues, and a few cities, but I’ll go back and write the ones I’ve missed when I hit the five star hotel room I’m headed for. That’s if I can remember what happened. The memory isn’t what it used to be. Like skin elasticity, tolerance of cheap mattresses, and hope of a film career, it fades with age.

Diary of a Gossip: The truth about Chris Myles and the best legs in showbiz

Tony Bell will be keeping a blog during Richard III and Comedy of Errors, sharing personal insights into his experiences with the tour. Entries will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.

“The truth about Chris Myles and the best legs in showbiz”
Week Seven, Coventry (with a bit of Norwich)

Two blogs ago I wrote about living with the Abbess in Coventry – not the Cathedral you understand, and not the real Abbess, but a terrace with a camp bed, and the cross-dressing icon, Councillor Kennedy, formerly known as Chris Myles. I’d like to move on to Norwich now, but I can’t yet because I left a bit of my heart behind with Chris, (as well as a Pilates DVD and a rainbow sock from Help the Aged).

Diary of a Gossip: How to be Northern and Influence People

Tony Bell will be keeping a blog during Richard III and Comedy of Errors, sharing personal insights into his experiences with the tour. Entries will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.

“How to be Northern and Influence People”
Week Six, Sheffield

I know Sheffield was before Newcastle, but I’m running so fast to catch up I’m going backwards (“The clock struck two ere I left and now it strikes one!”)

Diary of a Gossip: A sparkler up the bum

Tony Bell will be keeping a blog during Richard III and Comedy of Errors, sharing personal insights into his experiences with the tour. Entries will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.

"A sparkler up the bum"
Week Five (actually Week Twelve but I’ve had writers block), Newcastle

Here we are again, peeps. Another blog. At last. Quite a lot’s happened since the last one. Christmas, New Year, Comedy of Errors, and a middle-aged actor running naked through the audience with a live sparkler up his arse.

Diary of a Gossip: My body is my tool

Tony Bell will be keeping a blog during Richard III and Comedy of Errors, sharing personal insights into his experiences with the tour. Entries will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.*

“My body is my tool”
Week Four: Girona (still)

Day One

Last night was the European premiere of Propeller’s Richard Third, complete with
incomprehensible Catalan surtitles. Catalan is not Spanish, apparently, it’s Catalan,
and the audience was predominantly unCatalonian, so I was told. Actually, those that
told me were Dutch, though one had Spanish blood, I’m sure of it, my knees shook.
However, despite the lack of audience response during the show, the spectacle of fake
blood spurting all over the place must have held attention, since we came back for six
curtain calls, because we had to, not because we needed to, though I think I do need
to, as often as possible, but we won’t explore that now. To top it all the producers
took us out for tapas, where we drank at someone else’s expense, which meant we
were paralytic.

Diary of a Gossip: What has Elton John got to do with Propeller?

Tony Bell will be keeping a blog during Richard III and Comedy of Errors, sharing personal insights into his experiences with the tour. Entries will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.*

“What has Elton John got to do with Propeller?”
Week Three, Girona


I’ve still got it. My mojo that is. My voice is another matter, but we won’t go
into that now. Let’s accentuate the positive. I know the last blog was a little off
piste, a little ‘bnt’ (‘bitter and twisted,’ not the sandwich, that’s ‘blt’), but it came
from another time, a darker one, before the Richard rebirth. That’s all gone, that
melancholia. It may come back, of course, after three hundred performances of the
same “venomous queen” (Surrey Advertiser), but for now it’s all chocolate and roses,
or anchovies and figs.

Diary of a Gossip: How Richard gave me back my Mojo

Tony Bell will be keeping a blog during Richard III and Comedy of Errors, sharing personal insights into his experiences with the tour. Entries will be posted on the home page, as well as collected in links under the 'Tour Diary' tab.*


“How Richard gave me back my Mojo”
Week One, Coventry


            I’ve got a confession to make. After I left Propeller in 2007 following the Twelfth
Night/Shrew Tour, I fell out of love with acting - which is weird coming from Mr
Method himself. I was obsessed for the first ten years of working with the company. I
didn’t get round to doing the things normal people do when they grow up, like having
a wife, or a husband, or a partner, maybe a kid or two, a car, a pension, a life. I just
forgot about everything else when I was in a production, going to ludicrous lengths
to get into character. When I played Bottom, I broke into Mark Rylance’s office at
the Globe to pilfer his custom-made donkey teeth, so my dentist could make a set for
me. I appropriated an afgan rug from a Brick Lane skip after a photo of Brian Jones
of the Stones in a mink had triggered an idea for Autolyclus. I shaved my hair off
across the top of my head, giving myself a Care in the Community haircut for Feste
(it took a year to grow normal again, during which time I never went without a seat on
the bus). During rehearsals for “The Dream” I left a detailed answer-phone message
for Michael, the designer, about how I thought we could make my donkey penis rise
to attention using a pulley system, only I dialed another Michael, my football team
captain, and left the message on his machine by mistake. His wife got to it first and
never forgave her husband for not telling her about his secret love life. I copped the
blame for their divorce six months later.