The day I patted Derek Jacobi's dog.

Mutterings continued.

Friday! I do like these short weeks. Not sure how I'll cope with a full 5 days next week, it's been so long since I've had to put in the full 37.5 hours. Had a very nice lunch with friends at Boccelli's Italian restaurant in South Perth. I had King George Whiting and veggies - superb!

Today's This Time Last Year:


Middlesbrough to Sheffield to see Derek Jacobi in The Tempest at the Crucible. The next time we go to Sheffield I'm taking the bloody bus. Or train. Or anything but driving!! Ash and I have fantasy t-shirts that we intend to have printed up one day - one reads "I survived the Guildford ring road.", another "I saw Richard II at the RSC (and thousands didn't)"- we now have another. "I survived the Sheffield roundabout." Bloody nora! It took three goes of coming in and going back out of town, numerous trips up and down the motorway, and a stop at a service station to ask for help before we finally found the off ramp we needed.

Added to this, Sheffield is undergoing a lot of construction in the centre of the city, resulting in detours and unexpected one way streets. We were exhausted by the time we got to the hotel.

We had a wander around town, a Thai curry at "Eat", the Sheffield Theatre restaurant, a mooch through the theatre shop and then back to the hotel to get ready for the theatre.

Sheffield Theatres.

This was a bumper year for me, Jacobi-wise. I'd seen him in the Hollow Crown in Perth, and was chuffed to see him again so soon. After years of not doing theatre, he is making up for it. We had seen him in Hugh Whitemore's God Only Knows at the Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford in 2000 (a chance encounter with him in the foyer earlier in the day had stripped any pretensions of cool I may have had. I was standing in the foyer when I saw him being dropped at the door. He was waylaid by a couple of fans who gave him a toy hedgehog [the man once said that he quite likes hedgehogs {I think he meant hedgehogs, tee hee} and has been inundated with them ever since.]. I froze and hissed to Ashley, "Come here, come here!!". She ran over, thinking something terrible had happened as I'd gone very white, and I pointed a trembling finger at the door. We stood clutching each other, going "Eeek!" and "What shall we do??", while the lad in the box office rolled his eyes. DJ walked into the cafe, we followed and stood next to him in the queue as he bought a chicken sandwich, memorising every detail of his clothing. Thus endeth the story of one sad fan girl and her close encounter with a hero.)

Where was I? The Tempest! We were delighted to see Richard Clifford playing the evil Antonio. The stage is close to the audience on three sides, with the first row so close you'd have to put your feet on the stage if you wanted to stretch your legs. We were in the second row centre, almost within touching range of DJ. Not that we even contemplated it, of course. Ahem. Act 1 opened with the tempest, of course, which was played out on a bare stage with just a large grey backdrop which billowed and a rope going down into the trap door. Scene 1 ended with an empty stage and the backdrop slowly subsiding to the floor to reveal DJ as Prospero in full regalia. The drop finally ended up being sucked into a book that was on the stage in front of DJ, which he then picked up and walked off with. I was very, very impressed with this!

A young Welsh actor called Daniel Evans played Ariel beautifully. Such a lovely singing voice.

Ash and I have never been ones for hanging around stage doors as we reckon that an actor has given us enough by appearing on stage, without having to deal with fans as well. DJ looked exhausted during his curtain call for God Only Knows. By chance we had to pass the stage door on the way to our hotel (no, really!!) and were gobsmacked to see Richard Clifford standing on the step, talking to someone, while trying to control an overactive Airedale. We'd read an interview with Jacobi in which he had spoken about his Airedale, Bella, and so were pretty sure that this was indeed Derek Jacobi's dog. Richard C then said to the woman that he couldn't stay and chat as he "had to take Bella for a wee!". I didn't have the courage to say anything to Mr C (sad fan girl) but I did make a fuss of the dog, patted her and called her a lovely girl. I asked Ash afterwards if I was glared at for daring to touch the knighted one's doggie but apparently he ignored me.

Tripped back to the hotel where I couldn't resist sending a text message that said, "I've just patted Derek Jacobi's dog. PS The Tempest was great." to The Meadoes who responded, "I hate you and I'm never speaking to you again. Ever." Bonus! Tee hee.