Bangkok Diary

17th September

Another busy day for the Company. A relatively early bus to the theatre for class followed by the first performance of the day. Other than one minor hiatus with the revolving stage (a Situation we are used to dealing with) the performance went very well and this afternoon’s cast was Hironao Takahashi as Peter, Desire Samaai as Wendy, Darren Goldsmith as Mr Darling/Captain Hook and Ginnie Ray as Mrs Darling.

All week we had been promising Mr Uberoi’s wife Damira that she could fly and Adam and Jez from Foys agreed to fly her after the matinee today. She took to it immediately and her training as a professional dancer showed through as she flew across the stage beautifully. She really enjoyed herself and we also agreed to fly one of Mr Uberoi’s daughters and his son in law.

We were informed that the Crown Prince’s Daughter (the King’s Grand-daughter) had decided that she would like to come to the performance this evening. We would like to think that this last-minute decision was based on positive comments from our opening night performance. As this was an informal visit the protocol was relatively undemanding.

One aspect of performances in the Bangkok Festival that I haven’t mentioned so far is the fact that performances start exactly on time and if the interval is agreed at 20 minutes a clock is set at the side of the proscenium for 20 minutes and counts down. The performance then resumes on schedule. A great idea to have such discipline I guess. I hope they would break this if the scene change was taking too long! All performances start with the King’s Song – a beautiful theme and harmony written by the King Rama 9 personally - and followed by a welcome message and a list of sponsors in both Thai and English. They also have the most innovative ticketing system that I have ever come across and they produce miniature credit card like tickets with the sponsor’s logos, seat details and messages about no photos and turn off your mobile phone etc. Flowers are also presented by one of the Festival Sponsors to the four leading dancers of the performance.

This evening’s performance also went extremely well and had an excellent reaction from the audience. It looked near to capacity. David Nixon and I sat very close to the stage for this performance and it was great to see the detail that the dancers put into the performance that you don’t always appreciate from further back. This evening we returned to the cast from last night but with David Kierce as Captain Hook. The audience reaction was rapturous once again.

Sadly this was the last evening for the Company as although we have a matinee performance tomorrow, they will be flying home overnight. Everybody made the most of their last night in Bangkok.

Mark Skipper
Northern Ballet Theatre Chief Executive