Sunday Herald - First Timer's Diary (2)
Week One has been hard on our thespians' immune systems…and their livers.
James Grieve
11 August 2002

We've been struck by a mystery lurgy. Australian playwright Vanessa - whose play it is we're producing - had barely exited Edinburgh airport before the climate gripped her Bondi Beach accustomed body in a fever. Actor George was next, and the domino effect spawned tag-team sneezing showcases in our living room that would draw choreographical acclaim on the Royal Mile.

Everyone we've met has foisted advice, in the hangover cure vein, from the sensible to the incomprehensible.

"Bananas," shrieked one apothecary, while George was snorting tiger balm from a bowl of boiling water. My Mum says we should stop getting drunk till four every morning, but that's just killjoy.

"Don't listen to them," I proclaim authoritatively. "Just drink lots of water."

Cue despair when the next day's papers announce the something rotten in the state of Scotland is flowing from the taps. "Tap water blamed for sickness epidemic," scream the billboards as I career back to the flat with a crate of Evian and a stomach pump.

The nice man upstairs is less than enamoured with his new neighbours. He popped down on our second day to say a friendly hello and humbly request we remove our poster from the front door. The depiction of a blood splattered kitchen knife was not, apparently, conducive to our respectable surroundings.

He was soon back with a list of requests, including comprehensive soundproofing of all walls, doors and floors, a preference for Debussy over DJ Shadow and an insistence we didn't "rehearse" at four o'clock in the morning. "I wasn't sure whether to call the police," he explained, to rather labour the point.

The rehearsal in question, as far as we could remember, was actually a drunken brawl over distribution of marmite on toast, but our dear neighbour evidently thought we'd interpreted the knife scene a little too literally.

If only he knew our hardships! With cash haemorrhaging from every wallet, the maintenance of our drinking problems had necessitated urgent pruning of the shopping list. We've stocked up on 'value' supermarket fare, variously daubed with reassuring statements like "This range offers real value", or, "Despite this product being entirely devoid of taste and boasting the texture of stewed plywood, the fact it can be purchased with the coppers you've harvested from between Cowgate's cobble stones means you have absolutely no recourse. You scrubbers".

Our meals are now so comprehensively doused with condiments that we settle down each day, lip licking, to a small hillock of rock salt spouting lava ketchup.

Still, we're bearing up, buoyed by the success of the show. Having been overjoyed to get anyone at all to come and see it on our opening night, we're now on the lip of a wave. Audiences are growing and the critics - thus far, touch wood - have loved it. The blood, sweat and tears are forgotten when you're Pick of the Day in The Guardian.

[Third Installment]