I spent most of the morning watching the clock. Ellie texted me to say she’d forgotten all her lines, every single one, and Monty B texted me to say I should bring my dark glasses to the hall because he’d dyed his hair again and it had gone very wrong! We arrived at the hall at five, got changed, and then ran through a couple of scenes and songs to warm up. Everyone was so excited and it was difficult to believe the day of the show had actually arrived after practising and practising for such a long time. Julian had totally transformed the stage and it looked incredible. During the week he’d come in with a few guys from his work and painted the walls dark grey – covering the turquoise and the fish completely. On the back wall he’d painted a window frame with a silhouette of a city skyline, and to the side of that, an old-fashioned spiral fire escape and some tall, grey gates. Somehow he’d managed to get hold of these manky old mattresses for us to sleep on and he’d built a special area for the Jelly-Skulls with loads of spiders’ webs and eyeballs and things hanging from the ceiling.
