Fulham Palace

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene…

... or in this case Fulham. Finger-crossing seems to have worked for the sunshine, but the startling addition of a new enemy — flight paths, flight paths, and more flight paths. This venue makes us realise the ridiculous frequency of budget airlines shooting their machines across London’s skies. Not a minute goes by without being punctuated by a big fat carbon footstep. I’m training it everywhere I can from now on.

We park the caravan in the gardens of Fulham Palace, which is a very nice house but calling it a palace is possibly a little generous. Ironically, there’s a private masked ball going on in the building, and warming up on the marble floors of the palatial hallways draws some funny looks from the guests.

In the scene before he fights Tybalt, Mercutio is offered a glass of champagne by a mischievous audience member, which he delightfully works into his act. After his death I manage to crush it underfoot on my way out, which makes for a happy accident. The Nurse and Peter seem to be stealing more and more food from the audience during the ‘prick o’noon’ scene, and we’re all jealous of their success by the time interval hunger-cramps kick in. Romeo gets some spanking new boots for his return from Mantua, which all the boys and probably the girls are envious of.

Elizabeth had recommended sharing with the audience during Paris’ ukulele scene: excited phrases such as: “I’m getting married today!”, and briefly bantering with them as I approach the stage gets a nice laugh and helps set the scene for his disappointment at Juliet’s ‘death’. The challenge of playing outdoors —judging distances from venue to venue etcetera— is having some entertaining side-effects: I misjudge an entrance and end up having to sprint in order to get onstage for the Romeo fight, almost corpsing poor Benvolio (“Here comes the furious Tybalt back again…?”). Drama school never taught the fine art of running and acting furious at the same time.

As I walk around the palace for Paris’ song scene I spot a straggler on the phone and cheerily warn her she’ll miss my wedding. She hightails it back to the play. The space doesn’t feel great – not particularly impressive visually nor vocally, but the audience are the most appreciative of Mercutio’s sense of humour so far. Filthy Londoners…

Everyone is glad to be back in town. Mostly on account of getting some laundry done, methinks.

Perri Snowdon

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