Day two: just as eventful but not up as early!

James and I were sat in the canteen til twenty past nine with everyone outside the stage door waiting and completely lost track of the time, but that was us after that, quite apprehensive about the schools we were visiting today, like I was yesterday but in a different way. Had all these nightmares last night, delayed like - coz most of us had bad dreams the day before yesterday. I'm a day behind!

James was playing his harmonica in the van this morning on our way to Hillpark, our third school of the tour. Hillpark was awesome. The venue was ideal, the audience was brilliant and the discussion was easily the best so far. Neil came along to join us there this morning, and we had time for a warm up in the acting area before the pupils arrived. This morning had to be one of our best performances yet I think. "Pure thug" didn't get a laugh today, although the very start of the play did, when James is about to deliver the first line - everyone seems to find that really funny. (Why??) Like I said the discussion afterwards was great; the pupils just opened right up to us and were totally genuine, and the teachers got involved without us even asking them the teacher question.

When we did ask that, although they were reluctant to answer it, one of them offered a new solution: counselling. Which could mean many things. For instance, the teacher could have counselled James herself in a way, without passing him straight on to guidance or whatever. Even just having a counsellor available to talk to may have made a huge difference to him. You never know.

After our performance at Hillpark a good few pupils approached us to tell us how much they'd enjoyed it which was lovely - then it was a quick turn around and on to Govan High, which was obviously a bit of a contrast. We were all actually so worried about it, but it turned out fine in the end, the audience weren't the greatest we've ever had but theatre's like that! On a positive note, during the discussion we came across a point no one's made before - if you can have kids at sixteen, why do you need to be eighteen to drink?

That pretty much covers today, we've only got one performance tomorrow so we'll let you know how that goes. Looking forward to it as ever - luvin' this week so far!

Claire