Final Night

Mutterings continued.

Last performance of Butler tonight. The cast party will be held at Dr Rance's place. The same Dr Rance who washed and dissolved one of the vital props last night. *sigh* Actors!

Boring old food shopping this morning; also bought some clothes, including a very nice embroidered cheesecloth top.

And in case you were wondering:

"Great excitement in Wigan, meanwhile, where the local Observer is convinced that the long war of attrition over the lucrative question "where is Gromitland?" has finally been solved.

"Plasticine Pair are from Wigan," the paper announces definitively after considering and dismissing rival theories that Nick Park's heroes, whose new film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is just out, may really be from Preston or Leyland.

The animator has always been cagey about the landscapes that influenced his creation of 62 West Wallaby Street, much as the inventor of Postman Pat, John Cunliffe, has always slapped down claims by beautiful valleys in the north that they are the real Greendale.

It's a good attitude to have, because it shares the tourism booty around rather than focusing it on such places as Summer Wine Town, Holmfirth, or the old set of Emmerdale, the former sewage workers' hamlet of Esholt, near Bradford.

But now the Observer has spotted a clue amid what it calls "all those wonderful, fleeting details and references that make the films so special." What is it? The paper says: "As the camera pans across the dashboard of Wallace's car, an A to Z of Wigan can clearly, albeit briefly, be seen." The film company's spokesman, Arthur Sheriff, then goes as near as anyone yet has to confirming the claim.

"Being non-specific has been a deliberate policy because it would be unfair to pick out one town or city, and it allows people all over the north to draw their own conclusions and recognise a piece of their own home towns and cities. But Nick has now said that it is Wigan that has influenced the setting more than anywhere else. That is as far as he will go."