And so our Edinburgh adventure begins. I am writing this on the train up to Edinburgh. We arrive in 1 hour. The train is packed full of theatre types; a tiny fraction of what Edinburgh itself will be like, as apparently (they say this every year) this is the biggest festival yet. Some of us have had the privilege of travelling first class. Others had to slum it in second. Everyone around me is asleep, after a very heavy final week in Ealing. We said goodbye to the Questors on Saturday, as we did our final dress rehearsal before the epic challenge of loading up the van began. It feels really strange to not be there any more, after basically living there for 5 weeks. Tech was long, very long, I think we all knew how technical the show was, but I don’t think any of us were quite prepared for just how painstaking the process would be. But as the hours went by (and many a custard donut was consumed) all the different elements began to fuse together and a very detailed, beautiful and complete theatrical world started to emerge. In the rehearsal room, you kind of get used to things as they are, using the rehearsal props, getting used to saying ‘when we get the projection/costume/hat/sound effect we will know how this scene will work’, getting used to the occasional afternoon sun that would beam down right in the centre of the room making everyone squint and sweat a little. Then suddenly, tech begins and you are thrust into a totally different world. A scene that you thought you knew pretty well suddenly plays completely differently when it is underscored a certain way, and moments that were marked through in rehearsal suddenly turn out to be the most beautiful due to some pretty gorgeous lighting. The creative team have lifted the show into a different realm. Also a real test to see if what worked in rehearsal would work in tech-some things were excellent, some things immediately had to be reworked, altered, or cut. All credit to the cast, who rolled with everything that was thrown at them! Orla’s eye for knowing what needed to change to make a scene work was brilliantly accurate, and it was dead exciting to see her give a note that would immediately fix a scene, or a problem. Such a luxury to have this time to tech the show, the thought of 5 hours in Edinburgh to do everything is a bit ridiculous.

Cut to: Day 3 at the Edinburgh festival.
The world of the Fringe is upon us. As I write this a group of about 15 students, all dressed up in full on wedding dresses, load up their bags with flyers, ready to hit the Royal Mile. Once we had arrived, we all made our way to our student accommodation (very central), our first port of call was of course to go and nose around the venue. We were greeted by the stage manager of the Kind Dome and he very kindly let us have a quick look at where we will be performing for the next month. There was a real air of focused calm around the whole of the Dome-everyone was working on something or other, a hive of industry! It feels really nice to be here as everything is still being built, instead of being chucked straight into the madness, we can kind of grow with it, which is lovely. A short summary of where we are at includes a first night dinner in an Italian restaurant, where we ate much food and drank much wine alongside some rotting pirates and skeletons hanging in cages above our heads (a bit of a strange theme for a restaurant, but there we go) and Lionel Blair (our first celebrity spotted. Can it get better than that?), a wild goose chase around the various Pleasance venues as we attempt to locate our posters (nowhere to be found. Mystery.), the odd hair cut, a bit of haggis on a hangover, and then 5 hours of tech, from 7-midnight. Which was epic. Time was spent working out a method to get the set up and down in 20 minutes. I feel like I watched a small miracle emerge last night. Lets see what happens in our dress rehearsal today…….audiences come in tomorrow.