Day 11 - The First Night - Blackwood Miners

I arrived at the car behind the Parry Williams building in Aberstwyth ready to leave for the first show. I was clutching my carefully crafted Glen Gould style Blackwood soundscape CD, created using almost every single one of the last 48 hours of my life, only to be told that "we probably don't want to be listening to that". It wasn't phrased quite so politely. I saw the last two days flash before my eyes and managed to stifle several primal urges. Crying out of context can make one look a little strange and to be honest crying whilst trying earnestly to explain why someone should listen to your CD is reminiscent of a scene from X-Factor. Following the tearful tantrum I figured that I would feel much worse if they actually listened to it. The awkward painful listening. There would have been 18 minutes of it. Better that they never heard it I conclude. Though later when asked "so, what is Blackwood like?" I couldn't help thinking...

My three companions, Andrew, Carl and Adrian, two of whom are my supervisors, are writing a book about the opening year of the National Theatre. I was in good company. Very good company. And having spent the last week ceaselessly recording everyone and everything I regretted very much not being able to record our conversations during the journey down. The Sat Nav didn't want to take us to Blackwood and when we finally arrived Andrew's Iphone was convinced that we were in the next valley along. We left the car outside KFC next to a van labelled with dangerous chemical warning signs. We briefly flirted with the idea of chicken in a bucket. Thankfully this was just flirtation.

Directly before the show I was approached by a sprightly older lady in Wetherspoons who asked if I was with the national theatre people across the road. I answered yes. She went on to tell me that Boyd Clack is their real national treasure. Meanwhile Carl was at the bar trying to buy a bottle of sparkling water. The second time in two days that I have heard someone ask "you're not from round here are you?" Yesterday it was the Soduko wielding hoodlum from Ystrad Mynach.

The show, which I now have to write a thousand words about, finished at around 9:30pm, just in time to make it to the Indian restaurant across the road. The lamb curry was good. This is worth noting as my previous experience of lamb curries has been akin to eating a real leather upper shrouded in overly spicy onions.

Then we were back on the road again. Losing ourselves only once on the return journey.
By the time we made it back to Aberystwyth I was a shell of myself, bones aching, eyes hurting and head unable to process complex thought.

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