From the depths of the pit

Coming to you live from the orchestra pit at the Peacock Theatre... It's finally London show week for the panto, so a full day of delights is lined up. It began with the sound check (an enormously lengthy exercise where each instrument plays into its allocated mic for a couple of minutes while the sound man pretends to adjust the levels. I say pretend, because ultimately only the electric instruments can be heard in the final mix) at 11.30 this morning. We're now at 2pm and have reached song number two. It is likely to be a long day, enlivened only by the consumption of too many sweeties, the odd game of Scrabble (well, that's the french horn section anyway) and the reading out of snippets from Heat magzine (thanks, Dan).

The rest of the band has already done one weekend of the show a couple of weeks back in Glasgow, but I was doing concerts so couldn't make it. That was a shame, because the trip away is normally the sweetener for doing the London run. Not that the London run isn't fun, but combining it with attending credit meetings during the day is likely to be somewhat knackering. The fascination of spreadsheets and conference calls, fairly thin to begin with, dwindles entirely away when one is spending the evenings bopping along to Alphabeat..

Ok, I confess I'd never actually heard of Alphabeat. In fact, I reckon I've heard of about two-thirds of the songs this year (a pretty good ratio for me), but even so I know from experience that I'll find myself hearing some of them in shops and bars over the next few months and startling companions by going "aaaaaah! THAT's how this one goes!"

Right. I suppose I'd better go. Take That coming up...