40 Dei - Friday 20th March

We had a good group meeting straight after warm up; we’ll take a whole week off over Easter as the group are owed quite a bit of TOIL. One or two worried about momentum being lost but on the whole when people considered the next 7 months; 30-odd shows in 6 weeks, rehearsals for other plays for the international theatre festival we’re hosting, 5 months on series 3 of Love Patrol, then this seemed a last opportunity to recharge.

I asked how many people wanted dental check ups. 8! We had to prioritise who was an emergency and who just had a long term nagging problem. Actually as much as affordability (see yesterday’s blog), it’s also a matter of sugar intake, which is very high. Had an interesting chat not so long ago with an HIV specialist who confessed that he was surprised in some Pacific countries that he was never told by people ‘You’ve been saying that HIV will wipe us out for the last 20 years, but we’ve still only got 5 cases.’ Whereas type 2 diabetes continues to sky rocket. …as it does in many parts of the world, I know. One of the painful ironies of attending funerals of people who have had diabetes here is that it is standard practice to bring to the family of the deceased large amounts of white rice and sugar to help feed the number of grieving relatives who come to stay with you.

Didn’t quite reach the end of the play as we had agreed to give the afternoon over to a run through of the first half. To my surprise this started very well. The first 20 minutes were excellent…and then it nosedived and everyone knew why. We have some tough talking to do next week. An awkward decision has to be made.