Pamela

At 10.40pm this evening, just as I'd decided to take a break from an entire day sitting at the kitchen table orchestrating music, just as I'd sat down to watch an episode of Ru Paul with a plate of rice and vegetables, an entire river of water burst through the middle of the ceiling in our sitting room. It then started pouring down the walls. We ran into the loft and found that it was also flooding through one of the windows up there. It was like a scene from the Poseidon Adventure. I was Shelly Winters. Nathan was Pamela Sue Martin. Typical. You spend a day busting a gut and award yourself an hour off, and spend it mopping water off the floor, and trying to rescue possessions which are in the line of fire. Or, more specifically, in the line of flood...

It wasn't the nicest thing to happen, especially as I have another two hours of work to do before I can go to bed, but I suppose worse things happen at sea. And in Chelmsford...

There's nothing else to report. I've worked solidly since 9am. I make that sixteen hours under headphones! No wonder my tinnitus has returned.

Abbopoly

It's been another long old day which started with a car journey down to Pimlico with Llio and Nathan. They were heading to rehearsals for Beyond the Fence and I was booked in to run NYMT auditions at Westminster Under School less than half a mile away. It was funny to think of the two sessions running simultaneously.

We met some great kids. As usual. I was running the singing sessions. I don't really have any filters when I'm in these sorts of situations and tend to say some pretty outrageous things to the auditionees. I hope they have fun, however, and that they learn from my bizarre ramblings. We finished one session a little early and were able to run a Q and A, which I was pleased the young people really used to ask questions about the industry, largely about auditioning.

The only former Brasser in today was Laura, who was our original lead actress, Eliza. She sang I Make the Shells, which was fabulous to hear. It's funny: when someone sings a song from the actual show they're auditioning for, it's quite hard to think of anything to ask them to do again differently, so we simply sat back and enjoyed the experience. Poor Charlie the pianist got his knickers in a twist having to sight read the song in front of its composer. I didn't help matters by stopping him twice: once to slow him down and once to correct a mis-read accidental! He's a brilliant pianist, though. I was watching him today and marvelling. He plays really loudly which really gees up the singers.

We went from Pimlico to North London for an evening playing ABBA Monopoly with, of all people, Stef from the alternative rock band Placebo. Stef, like the left-field psycho-balladeer John Grant, is an unlikely fan of the Super Swedes and we owe the evening to a chance conversation we had when I lent him my cello for a gig where I told him my friend Jim Zalles had sent me details of a version of Monopoly with ABBA songs instead of street names. Stef instantly went out and ordered it, and the invitation to play it came a couple of weeks later.

We had a blast and met some wonderful people many of whom had seen our wedding which was rather lovely. It's actually the first time I've ever finished a game of Monopoly, and, quite rightly, Stef and his partner won, although, at one stage, it looked like we had the game in the bag. It's amazing how quickly fortunes can change in that game!

It's been quite refreshing to have a full day off from Beyond The Fence but we will have to work very hard tomorrow to compensate. Band rehearsals start on Tuesday, and there's still a bewildering amount to do!

Bomb alert!

As we walked down to the tube this morning we realised we were being pursued by a rather handsome robin. He hopped onto a fence, then a car bonnet, and eventually onto the pavement in front of us, seemingly entirely unfazed by two giant humans staring right back at him. I'm a big fan of robins. I like the fact that they remain loyal to the UK all year round, and stay with us through thick and thin. I get irritated by these flighty creatures who naff off to Africa whenever it gets a bit chilly. I also like the fact that robins are genetically programmed to be inquisitive about humans, so if you ever have the sense that you're being followed from branch to branch by one of these delightful creatures, the likelihood is that you are.

There are many theories as to why this might be the case, most of which revolve around the fact that robins know that we keep our gardens neat and tidy and that we have a tendency to regularly overturn soil which offers them a plentiful supply of worms. Sparrows are apparently the same, but tend to be more skittish than their prettier cousins.

Far more interesting than all of this is the fact that British robins are considered the friendliest robins in the world! Fact! Non-migratory birds will often evolve very differently on an island like ours than they will on a continental land mass. British robins have apparently evolved to be more inquisitive than robins anywhere else on the planet. Perhaps us Brits spend longer gardening or have a larger percentage of cultivated outdoor space. Perhaps we're just nicer to robins.

So, when you're next out for a walk in the country, keep an eye open for a robin, because he's almost certainly watching you!

I saw an advert on the tube today for the Emirates Airline, which is the cable car which, for some unknown reason, runs from North Greenwich tube to Royal Victoria DLR station. Can anyone please explain to me why I might want to go from North Greenwich (that's the O2) to an obscure dockland development in East London? Surely a cable car from Greenwich Village to the O2 would have been a) more useful and b) more of a tourist destination?

I took the Victoria line down to Pimlico this morning, and was a little startled when our train ground to a halt in the tunnel outside Victoria. We could hear an announcement drifting out of the station which informed us that "due to a reported emergency would all the passengers leave the station immediately." The carriage went silent and the colour drained from a hundred faces. For about five minutes we held our collective breath, wondering if smoke would suddenly start drifting through the carriage, feeling like absolute sitting ducks, before the tube hurriedly passed through the station and deposited us all at Pimlico.

It turns out it was an unexploded Second World War bomb which rather like. I often wonder how often these "unexploded" bombs actually go off. Are they an actual risk or are the authorities being too cautious? Nathan later told me that his work colleague was also in the station. The escalators suddenly stopped and everyone started running about in genuine terror.

Whilst we were in rehearsals today, another set of actors were attending auditions in another one of the rooms. I think they were being seen for a touring Shakespeare play because they all seemed a bit worthy and there was a lot of shouting coming from the room they were in! It strikes me that classical actors do nothing but shout at one another in rather damaged husky voices. The kids love it.

I was attempting to orchestrate music from the show in something of a panic this afternoon, and took myself to the quiet kitchen area for a bit of head space. This happened to be where the Shakespeare hopefuls were hanging out. One, a typical RSC type, wanted to be the centre of everyone's world. He talked to anyone who'd listen, and when he saw I was trying to write music, he hovered behind me and started whistling... When the other two actors left the room he started singing (as it happens, rather beautifully) and then reading his lines out loud. Before long, the inevitable happened and he attempted to engage me in conversation about what I was doing. I answered his question quickly and politely before disappearing under headphones to continue with my work, only to realise he was asking me more questions. He sounded like everyone on Midsommer Murders.

Still up...

It's been a long old day. It's 1am and I'm still working on arrangements having been in rehearsals all day, essentially scoring. Reading the newspaper articles about the project you'd think computers had done all the work. In fact, the Mail today said that the man entirely responsible for the music was the guy from Durham responsible for the "Android Lloyd Weber" programme. He was part of the team, of course, but it takes a lot of work to breathe life into the material his computers have been spitting out. The Mail said that Nathan and I had been solely responsible for lyrics... Which was wrong in itself. A significant amount of lyric content in the show is computer derived. The Guardian article, which so much subsequent journalism has been based on was actually fairly comprehensive. I'm not sure why people have run with the headlines without managing to get the facts right. Sometimes it feels like we're putting in an awful lot of work on the project just to be seen as silent partners or ghost writers. Introduce me to a computer programme that can even get close to orchestrating a West End musical and I'll happily eat my computer-generated words.

The rehearsals went well today. Apparently the cast worked late into the night last and broke the back of the harmonies in the last few songs in the show. There are a lot of harmonies to learn, that's for certain, although I wonder whether perhaps they allowed themselves to believe the task ahead of them was slightly more complicated than it actually is. With Sondheim shows and pieces like Angels in America and London Road out there, I think there's a fairly well-established president for musicals which are a bit of a vocal roast! I think the trouble is that there are only 8 main singers in the cast, which means there's nowhere to hide in an ensemble. Everyone has to be fierce and that's really scary. They are doing brilliantly, however. I think this will prove to be one of the strongest companies of actors ever assembled. Each performer is utterly unique. When they stand in a line, I guarantee you won't know which one you want to watch the most.

Right. I better try to go to bed. I'm up very early in the morning to continue with this non-stop process of orchestration. There is light at the end of the tunnel. There has to be. The first band rehearsal is on Tuesday!

The Pond

She's a bit nippy today. I went out for beans on toast in the late afternoon and could swear there was frost in the air. Yet again Southwood Lane has been blocked off as a result of gas works, which makes me wonder whether the whole neighbourhood is destined to explode in the biggest peace time disaster to occur on British soil. I like to go big with my doomsday scenarios.

I have not gone in to rehearsals today and instead have stayed home to work on arrangements in a quiet atmosphere. I am working on a bitch of a song, which changes time and key on numerous occasions, so it requires a great deal of thought... And a shed load of notes! The target is to finish the song and have another one started before heading off to Dalston tonight where the lovely Philippa is celebrating being suddenly very old. Quite how I managed to get so old that people in my school year are celebrating their 42nd birthdays I'm not sure, but here I am. Older. No wiser.
...
I didn't make my target. I got to the last chorus of the song and then completely froze, totally unable to finish, feeling I'd written everything I needed to write in previous choruses! I started another song because a change is as good as a rest, but then it was time to go.

Dalston is a funny old place. The shops on the Main Street are universally stocked with things I would never want to buy. There's even a 98 pence shop! That's deflation for you.

We bought Philippa a little gift bag and filled it with a random set of presents. There was a candle with a depiction of the crucifixion on it, two plugs, some silk flowers, a pair of plastic medals, a "Happy 30th birthday banner" and a no entry sign with handy screws to fix it to the wall... She was suitably bemused.

We celebrated her birthday at The Pond, a Hawaiian restaurant which is owned by Hilary and Rupert. The food was exquisite. We had a sort of taster menu, which means lots of different plates of food are brought to the table for everyone to dive into. The vegetarian dishes were the last to arrive, so I was beginning to panic, but they were well worth the wait. I had celeriac with mushroom and samphire tempura and a whole heap of glorious vegetables. Hawaiian food, it appears, is definitely on the South East Asian taste spectrum with a hint of American... Probably almost exactly what you would expect!

It was so lovely to see Philippa, Moira, Rob, Fiona et al, and brilliant to catch up with Oliver and Lucy who have to be two of the nicest people in the world. Happy days.

Philippa got very drunk at the end and told me at length what a special person our Meriel is and how she feels Meriel is suddenly going to rise like an all-knowing angel.

We came home via the Archway roundabout, which is soon to no longer be a roundabout. They're turning the whole area into a pedestrian zone, cus God knows everyone who visits Archway wants to sit on a bench outside a charity shop eating their sandwiches at lunch time. Some evenings I might suggest to Nathan that we go for a promenade down there. Or not. There are certain places which just don't want to be glam'd up, and Archway is one of them. Apparently we're due eighteen months' traffic chaos as a result, which will undoubtedly badly affect us up in Highgate.

Dancing on the silos

Today started like some kind of scene from a cartoon in a tube so packed with people there were seemingly disembodied limbs and bits of human body in every inch of space. The merest little shuffle would open up another game of Guess Who. Whose arm is around my waist? Whose hot breath can I feel on my neck? Please tell me that's a banana in a bag pressing against my thigh...

As I stood, like a baked bean in a mini-tin, I imagined the panic that would ensue in such a crowded space if there was a fire or a terrorist incident...

We changed trains at Euston and had to wait on the platform as the doors of three tubes opened up but were so jam-packed not a single person was able to get on, which meant that the station platform got fuller and fuller, significantly raising the risk of someone being pushed into an on-coming train. The tube network is a horrifying mess in the rush hour. Some poor bastards with 9 to 5 jobs have to deal with this nonsense on a daily basis. It's inhumane.

It was all worth while, however. Today the cast and artistic team of Beyond The Fence got on a big bus with a film crew and drove down to Greenham Common. We were joined for the excursion by my mate Penny, who is a former Greenham Common woman and was on hand to answer any questions the cast had which were triggered by walking around the hugely atmospheric location.

It has been one of those golden days. It was raining heavily as we left London, which made us all incredibly uneasy, but the clouds cleared as we hurtled along the M4, and with the exception of one quick shower, the weather was beautiful for the rest of the day. It was a little chilly and quite breezy, but the sun shone relentlessly: a message from the universe, we decided, that the project is meant to be.

We were given the opportunity to go into the restricted area around the silos where the nuclear missiles used to be stored. It was an incredibly eerie experience. At one stage we were able to walk into one of the darkened tunnels within the silos which were the exact spots where the weapons were kept. Heaven only knows what it must have been like for Penny. These silos (which look like medieval tumuli) represented everything she was fighting against. They were a symbol of evil. A reminder that the world was not at all safe...

I felt proud to have Penny there, and the cast really valued her presence. I was also reminded how proud I feel to be bringing the story of Greenham to a group of people who knew very little (if anything) about it before we engaged on this bizarre and wonderful journey.

We ran up the grassy slopes to the top of one of the silos. They're a good twenty or thirty meters tall, so the views up there are incredible. You can see for miles. At one stage, I watched the two little girls in the cast skipping across the top of the silo with CJ who plays a woman called Mary in the show. It seemed such a natural sight and so bizarre to think that, 25 years ago, they'd probably have been shot for doing that.

I did a little impromptu photo shoot with Llio in some long, tall, straw-like grass. Her red hair and blue eyes looked extraordinary against the yellowing backdrop.

At one stage the cast danced on the tops of the silos, just as the women had done on New Year's Day, 1983. I stood at the bottom of the silo and looked up at them, silhouetted against the sun, laughing joyously and singing When the Saints Come Marching In, and I felt a rush of deep affection and happiness.

After lunch we went back to "Green Gate" the only original gate and section of the old fence still in existence. It happens to be where our show is set, and also the gate where Penny lived when she was protesting. She showed us where the tents were and we sang a number from the show to her, which was a very magical moment for me.

She took us on a wonderful walk along the perimeter fence away from Green Gate, through a glorious silver birch forest and past a series of little streams to a place where she set up "Emerald Gate" to keep a closer eye on a pair of silos which were situated a long way away from the others. She set the gate up with three women and they remained there around the clock for many months. Hearing her stories inspired everyone so so much.

As we walked back to the bus, the sun began to sink in the sky, and all the silver birch trees started glowing orange.


We've had an incredibly magical day. One of those days I doubt I shall ever forget.

Men arriving

This will need to be brief. It's 1am and I've only just finished work for the day. I have orchestrated one and a half songs today, which feels like a good place to finish. There's not much else to say apart from that I'm totally knackered. We've been moving keys about to suit the singers a little better today. The slightly peculiar thing about writing for an ensemble of women is that, in order to make them sound rich and full, you have to push them to sing both very high and very low. So finding the right keys for songs is both very important - and fairly tricky when your songs cover large ranges.

The men in the cast came into rehearsals for the first time today and it subtly changed the energy in the room which was very interesting to watch. Thrilled to report that two of the cast are first language Welsh speakers, so I was able to enjoy listening to them speaking Welsh to one another.

That's all I can write. My bed awaits. See you tomorrow...