Spring Board!

It's been a really good week.

Probably the busiest week I've had so far this year. Work wise. Monday took me north to Sheffield to spend the afternoon with Mum before spending the night lodging at the Premiere inn Sheffield prior to a days work on Tuesday. This hotel proved what I have said (and said and said, unfortunately) more than once in my blogging. As long as the basic level of facilities is provided, and the room is clean, then in a hotel it is all down to the service. The Premiere Inn Sheffield on Monday evening cost £46 for a large double bedded room which had a very nice chaise longue from which to watch the television. Yet what made it were the staff. From Julie the receptionist who checked me in and dealt with a problem with the booking with a smile and an efficiency that was absolutely brilliant, to the unnamed woman in the lift who said hello and welcome to Sheffield, to the student who was working part-time in the restaurant in the evening and chatted to me while I was having dinner as she brought me my dishes. They smiled. They looked happy to be working there. It made the difference. It made me put a good review on trip advisor and it meant that if ever I had cause to stay in Sheffield again, the Premier Inn would figure in my thinking.

Tuesday was a day working with people who manage call handlers for NHS Direct. Confidentiality prevents me from telling you more, but it provided me with one of the funniest moments it's been my privilege to endure in about 18 years of corporate role-play. Tears were running down my face.

When we meet face-to-face remind me and I can tell you in confidence just exactly what it was.

I had an interesting job on Thursday when I was part of a government commission rehearsal. This involved questioning high-ranking officials and professionals within the National Health Service who will soon present the case to the public at a variety of public meetings for various changes in the way a particular aspect of the health service is managed. I was asked to pose difficult questions to them and give them a rough time. I’m sure there are some of you who think even now “Oh God Paul, you must have found that so difficult". It might have passed you by but I do enjoy a little bit of intellectual debate and an opportunity to combine this with what is laughingly referred to as my acting talent provided a stimulating afternoons work. Topped off by having to head to a casting strangely being held in some rooms above the garage in East London. I'm only hoping that the choice of venue for the casting doesn't reflect the level of budget for the whole show, That’s if I'm lucky enough to be offered it, of course.

Friday and back in a rehearsal room. Eight actors preparing a 12 min piece for a fundraising dinner for a charity next Thursday evening. At 10 in the morning we just had a basic script,  props which had been sent and nobody really knew each other. By 6 pm that night we had the shape of a 12 min piece that tells a great story, and should engage an audience, even one who is sitting at an expensive fundraising dinner and wondering how soon they can leave. It's what I love doing best and to watch actors interacting with each other, creating, and working my ideas into reality was an absolute joy. We’ve got another day of it tomorrow, Monday and then the event takes place this Thursday. I'm sure we'll all have a ball.

I must be getting to a certain age, because one of the nicest things that happens to me in my diary is having lunch with girlfriends. Being a lady who lunches! This Wednesday I had lunch with the delightful Miss Janet Ellis and the elfin Miss Elly Brewer. This followed a 2 1/2 hour board meeting at the Actors Centre. I have sat on the board of the Actors Centre now for the last 2 1/2 years and at times I found it a less than stimulating process. In the last three months however my attitude seems to have changed. The Board are now playing a vital part in running the centre as we are trying to appoint a new chief executive and a new general manager. The chairman of the board is also stepping down after 10 years solid and excellent service and we have been approaching people to fill that position too. No one was more surprised than me therefore when at this weeks meeting one of the long-standing board members proposed that I should be the new joint chair of the centre. What was even better was that one of the reasons that was given for my being able to take up the position was that I was one of the “younger members" of the Board. In the period where I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I'm now 54 that was the complement that tipped things in my favour. So I've accepted and from sometime in late April or early May I will, with the actress Harriet Thorpe, become joint chairman of the board of the Actors Centre London. It's a position I'm proud to occupy, and having recently stepped down from any work for the children's charity Scene and Heard, and seemingly having less and less to do with the National youth Theatre of Great Britain these days, here is a cause which I can now give my full attention, and hopefully might give me some of the sense of fulfilment I feel has been lacking of late.

This week's busy too. Rehearsals, trips to Manchester and Bristol, a charity evening for the delightful Miss Sophie Ellis Bextor and a couple of auditions.

Spring is definitely in the air!