TOUR LIST 2010

This was the year that our silent movie show Cliffhanger! went global, with performances in Macau, China in May and then in Gwacheon and Gwangju, in South Korea in October. Both trips went brilliantly well, with enthusiastic audiences and great hospitality. But it nearly went horribly wrong from the very start.

Despite all our experience of performing in Europe, we had never before arranged the air freighting of our equipment, with all the potential hazards that this entails. But back in April things were going well: we had arranged the visas, invested in some large wooden shipping containers, paid for the air fares… and then the Icelandic volcanic dust cloud shut down all the airports across Northern Europe! It was just one week before our equipment was to due to leave, and we thought the Macau trip was over before it had even begun.

Luck was with us, however. The wind changed direction, the skies became safe once more (we hoped), and everything went according to plan. The set arrived safely followed, shortly after, by the rest of us. The Macau Arts Festival crew were fantastic, friendly and well-organised, and we had an amazing experience.

We performed on three consecutive evenings to enthusiastic audiences in a densely-populated square in the north of Macau. The weather was overcast, the humidity was incredible, and none of us could sleep because of jetlag! It was a great experience, though much too short, and we even managed to grab a couple of days’ holiday on the island of Lama, next door to Hong Kong. We couldn’t stay long however, because one week later we were in Paris performing Cliffhanger! followed by a trip south into Spain, to the beautiful city of Vitoria Gasteiz, with The Station.

Next came another long haul to Normandy, followed by an 18-hour drive to the northern tip of Denmark to catch a ferry to Norway, to the charming town of Porsgrunn. Macau, Paris, Spain, Normandy, Norway in successive weekends – we were exhausted, and it was only the end of June!

July took us to Dublin, then once again to Normandy, on to Germany, back to Normandy, east to Picardie, overnight to the UK (Skegness and Gloucester), back again to Picardie and once more to the UK for our first-ever appearance at the Stockton Riverside Festival – 21 shows in 24 days in four different countries. It was that sort of summer. Here we must put in a mention for the fantastic reaction we received from audiences in both Skegness and Stockton. These were never going to be the most picturesque of our 2010 venues, but the public were as friendly and enthusiastic as anywhere in Europe.

August was spent, mostly in a daze, performing mainly in France (La Vendee, Thonon, Vichy, Paris, Laval, Caen to name a few). We swam in Lake Geneva, rode the Thunder Mountain ride at EuroDisney, visited William the Conquerer’s castle, and the magical Mont Saint Michel (the twin, of course, to our very own St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall) so it wasn’t all hard graft.