This Is Not A Wedding - On Tour 2019
After a long break at the beginning of 2019 which included gardening, maths courses, the Amazon jungle and lots of children’s theatre, we embarked on our biggest tour to date. We performed This Is Not A Wedding 18 times in 16 different venues, having an existential breakdown in each one and winning over hearts and minds with our catchy performance style of defiance and desperation.
Photo by David Lindsay, design by Split
4th - 5th September, ARC Stockton
11th September, Gala Theatre Durham
13th September, Northern Stage
17th - 18th September, York Theatre Royal
19th September, Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham
20th September, Square Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax
30th September, Hartlepool Town Hall
1st October, White Swan, Alnwick
2nd October, Saltburn Theatre, Saltburn-by-the-Sea
3rd October, Arts Centre Washington
4th October, The Witham, Barnard Castle
8th October, stage@leeds, Leeds
10th October, University Theatre, Bath Spa University
22nd October, The Arts Centre, Edge Hill University, Liverpool
28th November, The Bay Theatre, Weymouth
29th November, Dorchester Arts
This tour was a little bit different however, as resident Gracefool redhead Rebex decided to take a step back to focus on a new idyllic life of planting vegetables and building clay houses in the Swedish countryside. After some initial separation anxiety and worried arm flailing, we remaining fools set about finding a team to support us to undertake the mammoth tour.
We turned to the marvellous Esther Siddique to step into Rebex’s shoes. Oh my were we lucky. Esther not only took the bull by the horns and learnt the work in a very, VERY short space of time but she brought pizazz, style and a mountain of laughs to every show. And, whenever we had a break and she had to return to America, she regaled us with tales from her New York life. Now we are going to put into all future contracts that if you work with us you must be able to tell a good story during long days and nights on the road.
Keeping us all together was the wonderful João Maio . As rehearsal director, tour manager and all round organiser, João kept us sane, made the piece sharp and ensured we actually took breaks! Without him, we wouldn’t have been able to focus on being performers and actually focusing on giving a great show wherever we went - not a mountain of emails and other things required of you when running a company. Downside is we now can’t do anything without him. We’re keeping him under lock and key forever in the Gracefool costume store.
He’s handy with a tape measure.
Finally, our amazing technical team helped us to get This Is Not A Wedding back up on its feet. Fabulous lighting designer Elanor Higgins (who we still can’t believe we have working with us) came up to re-light her beautiful design, whilst Molly Jefferies took the reigns on the majority of the tour dates. Molly dealt with the vastly different technical resources of all the venues, got the show looking snazzy with sometimes the most minimal of lights and worked longer and harder than us all. Special mention to the brilliant Becky Heslop who stepped in for Molly and Elanor on the last two dates!
It’s been a very different year for us with big changes to navigate around, but we’ve loved performing This Is Not A Wedding for you all. Who knows, it may be back in the future…
And as we say goodbye to Rebex and to Sofia, as she too embarks on a new life full of mathematics and merriment in the land of Sweden, it’s been great to reflect on how much we’ve achieved these last six years. It’s been challenging and crazy and a slog and amazing. We’ve done some incredible things together. Here’s to exciting new chapters!