Arthur Riordanis touring his musical-comedy-sci-fi-thriller Improbable Frequency- and this time he is keeping a diary.
A play I wrote, Improbable Frequency, is about to tour Ireland, and I'll be acting in it, so I plan to keep a diary: as full an account as I can give, detailing life on the road with a musical which, so far at least, has been a decent-sized hit.
Still, expect some piteous nail-biting as I wait to see if audiences turn up and bitter, perspective-free abuse directed at whole communities when a venue is less than jam-packed.
There'll be self-laceration too as I ask myself why I wrote and then agreed to be cast in a part that involves roughly 40 per cent acting and 60 per cent frantically changing costumes in cramped, dark spaces. Mostly though, this diary will be about travelling and working with a bunch of people, some of whom I've known for decades, and a few of whom are virtual strangers.
We have a great cast lined up for this tour (cue jaunty ragtime soundtrack as a voiceover lists the gang assembled for the heist): Louis Lovett, the mad German guy from Killinaskully, among many other things; household name Carrie Crowley; Sarah Jane Drummey (things are taking off for her in the States but we nicked her back for this); Nick Grennell, who is always up for the same parts as me and always gets them; and Darragh Kelly, whom you all know and love.
The play is already well-travelled and we should be in good shape for the opening night in Galway on Tuesday. I haven't played there in a few years, because I stopped touring shortly after my little boy Aaron was born.
I'M LOOKING FORWARD to seeing all these towns and cities I used to visit regularly. I'm looking forward to meeting up with old friends and seeing vastly transformed old streets, checking out new, purpose-built theatres, and trying to find the perfect pub smoking area (in my view, the more makeshift, the better: a derelict yard all prettied up with a knackered old sofa and a Superser, that's the dream).
Touring a play is a great way of seeing the country. You spend a couple of days or a full week in a town, during which you inevitably meet a good cross-section of people, especially in the pub after the show, and you explore the cafes and bookshops and, in my case, catch up on a writing commission or two.
My first proper tour with a theatre company was in spring 1982. Thankfully, I don't remember much about it. I was just starting out, confident that this was merely the initial step on a short, steep journey to stardom, or at least to an actual wage, and in the meantime, a share of the box office take would do nicely.
It was a little-known play, with a large, unknown young cast, and if shares were small at first, before long, they had become entirely theoretical. Still, a surprising number of people did show up. I guess they figured that if they shelled out for anything vaguely cultural that came to town, more and better would surely follow.
After the show, they would always be unfailingly hospitable, praising our efforts and regaling us with yarns about the fit-ups, and Anew McMaster, and I tried to pretend I knew what they were talking about. It's mainly because of people like these that the country now boasts a vibrant, well-appointed touring circuit.
A CROSSWORD CLUE: "Elf snatch talent? Not likely! (13)".
The central character of Improbable Frequency is a crossword enthusiast turned code-breaker. In the spirit of the play, and as a reflection of the way so many actors pass their days, I may make the odd crossword-related digression. The play also features Flann O'Brien, the poet John Betjeman, the renowned physicist Erwin Schrödinger, and a science-fiction plot involving Nazis, the IRA, and an Irish atom bomb.
If you're looking for searing insights into the human condition, you'll need to look pretty hard, but it's got some catchy songs and a joke or two. It went down well in Dublin and Edinburgh (and at a festival in Thorun, Poland: try singing to a few hundred people who are listening on headphones to a spoken translation of the song: that'll give you searing insights . . .).
I hope it'll be well received this time round, but whatever the response, it's going in the diary . . .
By the way, the answer to the clue is improbability (Imp, rob, ability).
Rough Magic's Improbable Frequency tour starts on Tuesday in Galway, and continues until Dec 8.
Telephone: 01-6719278. www.rough-magic.com