Romania, an Actor Remembers.

The following is a diary I kept on a 2003 Northern Stage tour of Animal Farm in Romania. I have listed the hightlghts below and provided many easy escape routes in order to pander to the goldfish attention span of people like myself who are bored easily and readily distracted by bright shiny objects

We went again in 2004 with an Ionesco play 'The New Tenant' which was directed by Gabor Tompa the Artistic Director of the Hungarian State Theatre
in Cluj. We once again visited the Sibiu International theatre festival which is very good and I encourage you to go next year if you have no pressing commitments and can get the time off work.
I have added my diary from this trip as well for no other reason than it pleased me to do it.
There are no links out of this one as life is too short .


  • Cacti
  • Toilet accident
  • Spender.
  • Urinating in a public park.
  • Post office confusion
  • Queenieness.
  • Young men in togas.
  • A Disappearance.
  • James Bond.
  • The balls on the King's horse.
  • Bare breasted vampire dancers.
  • Four lettuces and a bunch of spring onions.
  • Peat lumps
  • Phone embarrassment
  • Clarinet/Bong confusion




    Thursday 29/5/03

    We arrive at Bucharest airport where women in smart clothes stand by the travellators handing out free vouchers you can spend in casinos, thus giving me my first opportunity to say 'nu multsumesc' and amuse the Romanian bloke in front of me for what I'm not quite sure are the right reasons. Bucharest is hot and I'm nervous, being not in Western Europe any more and therefore bound to be shot or in some way mistreated any minute.     A large man with a palsied face stands next to us at the baggage carousel, which is decorated with a tray of small cacti in pots. Our passports are gratifyingly stamped, and we walk through the doors to be met by a nice young woman from the British Council called Anka. We exit the terminal and walk to a less nice and less young minibus pulling a trailer. Various Romanians are attempting to help us. Shorts are pulled out of suitcases and donned. We are very excited and loud. We all pile onto the bus. One of the helpers appears not to be an official member of the welcome party as he is demanding money. There is a bag of bottles of water on the back seat. We set off through Bucharest.
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    The suburbs are unlovely and full of apartment blocks that look like the kind of thing I could knock up in weekend with a mate. We are soon on a road so badly potholed that we slow to a crawl to negotiate what appear to be bomb craters. We smile at men taking advantage of the speed restriction to wave car stereos and mobile phones at the passing traffic. The landscape is flat and derelict, women in headscarves hoe crops in vast fields, horses pull carts with car axles, eventually we pull onto a normal motorway type arrangement and relief is palpable through the bus. We stop at a roadside services where Sophie buys her own weight in seed and nut based snacks and a gypsy child of about six wanders around begging by holding up a photocopy of an official form in a plastic cover. I give her some pistachio nuts and she regards me with a look that tells me I am another disappointment she will have to endure. I try to salve my conscience by imagining that her parents have sent her out to tear at our heartstrings. It is working.     Peter, Alan and I escape to a truly awful toilet block and I manage to piss on my shorts. I pull my shirt out over the offending spray pattern to avoid the pitiless mockery Mark Lloyd will no doubt spend the rest of the journey indulging in should he discover my shame.
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    We arrive in Pitesti and swap trailers in a McDonalds car park. We are convoying with a group of Hull university students also going to Sibiu in what frankly looks like a better coach. A group of scarily feral gypsies stare at us and some begin begging. We hide in the van and pretend not to notice. A rumour spreads that they are sniffing glue.

    The scenery improves hugely after Pitesti, beautiful houses nearly all with grape vines and elaborately constructed roofs, small crosses by the roadside, Anka explains later that they mark where people have been killed. The road gets twistier, the hills get higher, the woods thicker. We pass some gypsies in horse drawn carts covered in plastic sheeting. We pass a great looking roadside eatery and Alan leads the cry of 'Why can't we stop there?' We are assured the driver knows a place, the scenery gets more beautiful, it gets darker and we pull up at the restaurant in the pouring rain. It's by a lake and has a row of small chalet type things behind it on the lakeshore.     We sit in an open sided cabin and peruse the menu and the waiter. Our opinion is that he looks like a young Jimmy Nail. Anka assists in the ordering process and beer wine and brandy are drunk, especially by Mark Lloyd who is by now working on a series of puns on the name of our British Council representative. 'Anka's away,' 'Haul Anka', 'Slip Anka' and 'Drop Anka' are all shoehorned into the conversation as we eat various grilled meats with chips, mashed potatoes, polenta and salad and Alan begins to wax lyrical on what will become a recurring mealtime theme, the glory of the Romanian Tomato. No one orders the tripe soup.

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    The remainder of the drive to Sibiu sees everyone falling asleep, but not me and I go and bother Anka and get her to translate 'All animals are comrades' which involves the use of the word 'Tovarashe' which no one has used much since 1989. We drive along the mist-shrouded banks of the river Olt and I am thrilled that there are bears, wolves and eagles in the mountains around us.

    Alan's desperation for the toilet marks our entrance into Sibiu at about 11.15pm. We stop near the theatre and in order to prevent the visiting English director announcing his presence at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival by urinating in a public park, a nice man escorts him to a nearby hotel where dignity can be preserved. We go on to our hotel, the Imparatul Romanilor, where Liszt stayed according to the guidebook. I have my own room, I sense discontent among Mark Lloyd. We head back downstairs to be addressed by the people from the festival. Irinell, a large friendly girl with militaristic tendencies is explaining the awful consequences of not wearing your Sibiu festival lanyard thing. The kitchen has remained open for us and we troop in, (some of us anyway) eat more meat and off to bed.
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    Friday 30/05/03

    The morning is spent wandering round Sibiu, which is beautiful. It has a large square, (called 'The Large Square') with a big seventeenth century Romanian church, and a small square, (called 'The Small Square') with an earlier Saxon church roofed in multicoloured tiles.     Phrase book in hand I stand for twenty minutes in what has every appearance of being a post office, my perfect Romanian request for stamps when finally made prompting a reply leaving me in no doubt that the post office is next door and I am wasting their time. I wander. Sibiu is indeed lovely, a large central pedestrian street full of cafes and ridiculously beautiful women leads me back to the hotel where Comrade Irinell has ordered us to be at noon to eat. Fran, Becky, Pete and Sophie are the other takers for lunch. Our new guides are two students Eliza and Bianca, the former dark haired and blue eyed the latter almost completely Irish in appearance. Us chaps behave as older married men always do in the presence of attractive women in their early twenties, but the food cometh not and Bianca begins to fret at Romanian inefficiency and how shameful it is. Taxis fail to turn up as well, deepening her irritation. I explain that even at the haven of order that is Northern Stage, tiny administrative hiccups are not unknown so not to worry about it but she has a temper to go with her hair colour. I shut up.

    We walk to the theatre, which is small and very nice. The set is up, the peat is down, and there are Romanian made pallets, a bath and a real piano. Time, though, is not on our side and the placing call descends into queenieness, Mark Lloyd just edging the afternoon's grumpiness championship with a big shout at Alan. The windmill goes up and the gun doesn't work so I slam the piano lid and Boxer gets garrotted.
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    We go on at seven to a packed house. The show goes down well; my Romanian line gets a laugh, which I choose to believe is due to the brilliance of my delivery. We take, on Alan's advice, four curtain calls, getting flowers from an elegant woman in a gold dress on the second and calling Alan on stage for the fourth. He takes a stately directors bow and we come off to no showers and many young men in togas distracting Andy from the task ahead of him. There is a reception at which for no good reason I can see they play Vangelis very loudly, free beer is drunk and I end up talking to a semi pissed Romanian journalist who explains Vlad 'The Impaler/ Dracula' Tepes to me and then slags off the peasants and everyone who's not a Romanian aristocrat. People are impressed with the show; Anka says nice things, the British Ambassador, a small posh man in a red tie, says nice things. A Russian woman says nice things and invites us to Moscow. Alan is happy and expansive. We move towards the Large Square and fireworks. There is a festival atmosphere, The evening ends in a 'Rock Bar' full of the universal longhaired girlfriendless young men in Sepultura and Metallica t-shirts you find all over Europe. Mark Lloyd is taken hostage by two of them and told 'your c*ck will eat well tonight'. He escapes. Much merrymaking is indulged in, Alan being in the thick of it. A club is mentioned, the reality of beer at 50p a pint is establishing itself loudly so I slope off early along with Anka, Sarah and Rebecca who is celebrating her birthday by feeling ill.

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    Saturday 31/05/03

    There is a merry nine o' clock leaving time today but there's a delay as Alan has apparently checked out and disappeared. We sit in the minibus (a nice new Mercedes one) and fret. Alan appeareth not. The tech crew are getting pissed off and there are some spectacular hangovers; Pete, Mark and Raj all look like road traffic accidents and Sophie is incandescent and swearing at Alan's lack of presence. And then, Lo! Alan appears in our midst having not checked out but been asleep in his room. He is also mobileless, somehow having misplaced it during last night's revels. A trip to a Gypsy village is abandoned and we set off towards Cluj.
    More lovely countryside, Alan goes rapidly downhill on the journey, we pass more horses carts and toiling peasants. Sophie needs the toilet every 70 yards or so and we stop at a roadside cafe and watch Balkan green lizards scurrying in the undergrowth as Alan vomits an ill advised pear juice into the Transylvanian sewage system. We stop again in Turda, a town with an amusing name, a majority Hungarian population and a nearby spectacular gorge with 1000 ft high cliffs and eagle owls, which I will never see.

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    Cluj proves to be a city of wide streets and grand architecture and lots of Romanian flags everywhere, the 'Mad' Mayor Gheorge Funar's subtle attempt to remind the Hungarian element that this is Romania. All the park benches are painted yellow, red and blue as well. The Hotel Sport is large 1960's Soviet James Bond type place with five clocks in the lobby set to international time except London has stopped. The rooms are fine; mine has a balcony over looking central Cluj. I sense further discontent among Mark Lloyd. I collapse on the bed and drift off, awaking an hour later to discover no one about. I walk into Cluj through a leafy park and emerge opposite the Hungarian Theatre, which is draped in a large Animal Farm banner. I walk on towards the Piata Unrii, which is the central square. Sophie and Raj appear in response to my text whimpers and we go and have coffee and fabulous cake ordered by me in phrasebook Romanian and by Mark Lloyd in shouted English, which irritatingly appears to be just as effective. The woman gazes at us impassively. Rebecca orders a Latte believing herself to be in Starbucks and an old crusty bloke comes in and starts shouting and banging the counter top. Sophie and I stare straight ahead in heroic English fashion.
    Cake eaten we go and have a look at the heavy metal album cover of a statue to Hungarian hero bloke Matthais Corvin which has recently been the focus of the Mad Mayors attempts to have it removed by beginning a spurious archaeological dig in front of it. Mark Lloyd helpfully draws our attention to the size of the balls on the King's horse and the fact that its tail looks like Mozart has stuck his face up its arse. He inspects the King's knights for genitalia but is disappointed. We enter the huge church of St Michael which dates from 1350 and is full of music. An old Hungarian man informs us it is a requiem by Duflefe, a Hungarian composer I decide against claiming I've heard of. It sounds fantastic. We go and have photos taken in front of Corvinus' birthplace which is flying a French flag for some reason.

    Back
    We return to Hotel sport and have a rest. There is talk of a vampire party, whatever that might be, this evening, but we end up going to a restaurant called Hubertus where we eat Romanian wildlife and drink Romanian wine. Bear, venison and wild boar are all served up and the meal ends with apple fritters served on a silver twig held up by two other silver twigs. Alan is pleased with the whole thing generally and picks up the tab. Peter and I walk back, not bothering with the Dracula night, something we are to regret as it will feature bare breasted vampire dancers and an unscheduled fire when plastic cobwebs catch alight. Colin was scared we learn later

    Sunday 1/6/03

    The morning arrives with a loud Romanian man shouting things over a PA set up in the park to thousands of children bouncy castling and doing children's fun day stuff. After breakfast I meet Gabor Tompa, the director of the Hungarian theatre who has a slow smile, a beard and sleepy eyes. He translates 'all animals ...' into Hungarian for me, He whisks Alan off and I wander in past hordes of Pepsi sponsored Romanian kids and go to an address I've found in the yellow pages in my room, a musical instrument shop at Maniu Iliu 4 or something, which turns out to be a beautiful yellow painted courtyard near the central square, It's closed. I seek out a further address which is out of the centre a bit and which when found turns out to be a house with no trace of shopness at all. It is also closed.
    On my way back and old man driving a large cart passes me, he stops a bit ahead of me, winds the brake up at the back of his cart and goes and whispers softly to his horse which he kisses before walking up the road. He heads towards what I discover is a market, full of head scarved women and chain smoking men selling huge piles of strawberries, day old chicks, rabbits, cockerels, four lettuces and a bunch of spring onions, cheap tools, watches, shoes and perfume, I return to the centre and visit the Art gallery and fail to look at Art but instead sit in the shabby beauty of the baroque courtyard where there is a cafe.
    Back
    The placing call in the Hungarian theatre goes smoothly, with no hissy fits or tantrumness. Mark Lloyd throws peat lumps at my head during my big speeches. I retaliate brilliantly. He creeps up behind me and fills my trousers with peat. The theatre is wonderful; a round auditorium with a domed roof in the middle of which is a large and elaborate chandelier thing that looks like a huge bejewelled crown, or as Mark Lloyd puts it, the bottom of one of those alien ships out of Independence Day. The whole theatre continues the Clujean theme of faded splendour, gloomily lit dressing rooms, nicotine stained walls reeking with atmosphere, I think it's the most beautiful theatre I've ever worked in.

    Alan has us walking behind the rear set wall to cast huge high shadows across the back of the stage as we enter, a moment I have no doubt will be his favourite bit of the show. The show goes well, the windmill collapsing fabulously on the rake, we do five curtain calls and get more flowers but we have to give the basket back. Alan gives a passionate and moving speech at the reception afterwards but Gabor Tompa's address suffers from having to compete with Mark Lloyds phone going off in the jacket he has left on some chairs behind our host. It goes on for ages and I finally shuffle forward and turn it off; pointlessly, because by now everyone's got used to it and now they all think it's mine and hate me. The true owner grins at the buffet table and quaffs free wine. We schmooze with elegant Romanians and Magyars whilst eating vegetable terrines, and canapes type affairs that consist of circles of bread with circular meat products on top decorated with sweet icing type stuff and large piped blobs of pate topped with olives. Fuller now of free wine, the male cast members are gathering like puppies around Ester, Gabor Tompa's vivacious and attractive 19 year old daughter . The party moves back to the hotel lobby where Sophie and Mark Lloyd plan a James Bond Photo story shoot. The elderly members of the cast wander off to bed and leave the young people to their fun.

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    Monday 2/06/03

    Pete and I return to the music shop in the courtyard. There are numerous fab instruments at small prices and eventually after communicating with the aged proprietor in a mixture of Romanian, German, Mark Lloyd Shouted English and hand signals I buy a nice Romanian violin for a quarter of what it would cost in the U.K. Peter expresses interest in a large clarinet but the proprietor is reluctant to let him look at it, Pete's rock star appearance obviously leading the man to believe he wants to use it to smoke drugs.
    I plan to spend the rest of the day immersed in culture and the botanical gardens which are meant to be good, but after another sit in the Art gallery courtyard cafe, a meal in a recommended restaurant and a futile search for the post office I fill in the rest of the day buying gifts for the children. These consist of a noisy and unpleasant cassette by a Romanian hardcore band for Seth, a Romanian Spice Girls type band called 'Pops'' album 'Bum Bum' for Sadie and a statuette of dubious historical accuracy featuring Vlad Dracula with vampire teeth, blood and evil slitty eyes for Ezra.
    The show goes well again, we do endless curtain calls despite the loud protests of Mark Lloyd and go off to Insomnia, a very trendy bar in the yellow courtyard recommended by Ester Tompa, it looks great but we are weary and soon descend the urine fragranced staircase for the hotel and bed.





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    Romania May 28th - June 4th 2004.


    28/5/04

    At the airport I meet Andy and Nicola trying gamely to utilize the quick check-in facilities along with various other baffled travellers. The attempt is abandoned and we stand in a lovely long queue, joined now by the shining morning faces of Mark Calvert, Fransisco Alfonsin and Rob Brown who we learn is a vegetarian. Calvert is muttering "we're all going to die" and "six take-offs and landings" and Alfonsin is adopting an International Travelling Man of the Theatre pose. We board. On this flight I am next to Nicola and all is loveliness and chatting. On the next flight to Bucharest I am between Calvert and Alfonsin and all is grumpiness and fighting for arm rests. Nicola and I are reunited as we fly to Cluj over the snow capped Carpathians, which excite her so much that she loses interest in the D. Day facts I am reading out to her from my book.

    The Cluj hotel Piccola Italia, listed in the guide book as "three rooms and best ignored" is very nice. It has nine rooms; three old ones at the front (old world Romania, high ceilings, cheerfully dodgy wiring and elaborate windows) and six at the back in a modern bit. Andy, Nicola and I are at the front. Andy has a veranda and Nicola's room looks like a New Orleans brothel.
    Joey is not here and was last seen looking forlorn and not a little pissed off at gate 10, terminal 2, Heathrow airport where she was unable to board due to a passport/ticket name discrepancy type situation. The news is that she'll fly to Budapest where someone will meet her and drive her the rest of the way.

    We go to the theatre and assemble at a beautifully set table with Gabor, Anca from the British council (later to injure her back in a bizarre hair washing incident) and Kinga the marketing and literary manager for the theatre. We toast the arrival of us with beer wine and palinka. We drink further, ending up on Andy's veranda celebrating the 32nd birthday of Mark Calvert who is in my opinion, insufficiently grateful for the cigar I thought to buy him at great expense from the airport. The crew are happy and keep holding up bottles of local Ursus beer and saying "thirty pence" to each other.

    29/05/04

    On waking I find on my doorstep Joanna Holden in a condition consistent with having just completed a 9-hour overnight drive over twisting roads from Budapest. She is smiling madly and semi delirious from lack of sleep and is making an unwise attempt to work out how much her p.d.s are worth in English money that will surely end in brain damage. She guides me to breakfast, which is at the back in the new bit and consists of ham and eggs, coffee and large plates of cold meat and cheese.

    I meet Fran and we wander into Cluj to discover the devastating fact that the music shop in the yellow courtyard I patronised last year has disappeared without a trace. Fran drools over shoes and we have a coffee in the 'Roland Garros' cafe, which has a terrace/balcony bit next to the river Sebes. Calvert texts, apparently unable to leave his room for fear of imminent sexual attack. We rescue him and holding his hot wet hand lead him to the theatre where there is a press conference. After an hour of smiling and pretending we can follow what is going on Gabor suggests a restaurant. Fran goes with Alan and Gabor. Mark, Kinga and I are driven by a nice man in a Dacia 1200, the Romanian version of the Renault 12. These vehicles make up about fifty per cent of the cars in Cluj and this fact is causing Mark a good deal of anxiety.
    The restaurant is on a hilltop overlooking the city and is called the Panoramic because it is on a hilltop overlooking the city. We sit outside and wait ages for the food. We watch Alan's head begin to glow bright red in the Transylvanian sun. The food arrives and is very nice.

    Fran, Mark and I walk back down the hill past Alan's palatial swimming pool equipped lodging; 'The Hotel Transylvania'. Fran and I are being sensitive travellers abroad. Calvert finally cracks and demands we stop saying everything is Fantastic, Marvellous or Wonderful every forty seconds as he's had to listen to our sycophantic
    chiming in all through lunch whenever the view was pointed out or Gabor or Alan said it first and it's annoying him as much as the Renault 12s. We desist.
    I have a garlic heavy seafood soup for tea at the Roland Garros and we meet up with Joey at 5.30 in the theatre rehearsal space, a small black room you have to climb a staircase full of ballet dancers to get to. It has a balcony overlooking the river. We do a line run and a warm up which includes playing squares, a vigorous physical game much loved by Gabor and which Alan, despite his large lunch, advancing years and glowing head insists on playing with breathtaking competitiveness and surprising skill. Calvert begins work on a eurodisco song of annoying catchiness and meaningless Spanish lyrics. It remains in my head for the rest of the trip.

    30/05/06

    We meet at the theatre at 10 to do not a whole lot, as there are technical problems. Joey has her hair cut against her will and Gabor takes us on a small tour of Cluj which includes his flat which nobody lives in and which cost him £600. It has one of the wardrobe-sized heaters covered in glazed ceramic tiles that are all over the place in Romania. We watch for ten minutes as for some reason he tries to light it and we all have private fantasies about having a flat like this in London.
    We go to the Mattei Corvin restaurant and have a light meal. I discover that the soup I ate yesterday was not seafood as I believed, but tripe. Fran pretends he knew all along and adopts an attractive air of supercilious amusement. I determine to recommend the dish to Mark at the first opportunity.

    We return to the theatre where all is still not in readiness and edginess abounds. David the new lighting man is radiating calmness and capability whilst Gabor yells at the house technician in Hungarian, at one point snatching the walkie talkie from David's hand to do so. We run the show without lights and it's not a complete disaster.
    We open. All goes reasonably well. The lighting is faultless despite the fact David has never seen the show before. Gabor showers praise upon him at the after show do where I am so busy stuffing in British council nibbles I spray food all over anyone foolish enough to talk to me. I meet a garrulous and slightly unhinged woman who wants to know where our Artistic Director is as she has a script to show him and wishes to talk to him at length about Transylvanian writing . I am delighted to point him out. She begins stalking him, not easy as he is moving fast and making good use of the available cover. Gabor pronounces the show 'almost not bad' and gives me notes amounting to 'stop bumbling and act better'. There is a going out and having fun movement emerging among the assembled to which I do not align myself as I am too old and bad tempered.





    31/5/04

    I am woken at 6.15 am by the returning revellers and no one comes to breakfast save leading vegetarian Rob Brown who waves away the three hot dog sausages that are our treat this morning.
    I am in high spirits on the walk up to Gabor's house at midday where we are attending a barbeque. Fran is hungover and pretending he isn't so I am able to put my annoying chirpiness to good use. Mark is relatively taciturn, moved to utterance only by the passing Renault 12s. The walk is dry and dusty. We pass a church from which people emerge holding ears of wheat. We pass a football stadium with a steam train outside it.
    Arrived chez Tompa we sit under a walnut tree at a table newly constructed by our host and watch Gabor prod the fire. Tecla, Gabor's wife, hauls plates, cutlery, bowls, drinks, soup, meat and the vegetarian option up the long sloping garden and we make unconvincing offers of help. Sara their daughter toddles gorgeously about the sand pit while her brother Abel looks at us seriously and demonstrates remarkable English language skills for a four-year-old Hungarian. Alan arrives. Joey arrives. The food is brilliant and a lovely time is had by all. Sarah goes to sleep and we tiptoe past her room as we leave. Mark decides to yell loudly back up the garden to Joey who is 'Saying Goodbye' and therefore likely to be another half an hour. Sara wakes.
    The evening show goes better but there are loads of cock-ups from all quarters. I, for instance fail once again to prevent myself casting inappropriate shadows whilst back stage. As we are both dressed the same Gabor gives the non-shadow casting Mark Calvert stern notes for this. I watch, nodding my head in grave concern at my fellow performer's failings.

    There is a plan to go and eat, championed mainly by Francisco. We split up hopelessly into random groups in the grand tradition of people leaving somewhere for a mythical restaurant somewhere else. Mark, Joey, a blonde woman called Judet who translates the show into Hungarian, Francisco and I wait outside the theatre for Gabor who is on the phone to Helmut who is in Munich. Andy rings and says there's only fifteen minutes left if you want to eat in this town on a Sunday night. Fran, torn between a desperate desire to say goodbye to Gabor and a powerful urge to eat and drink wine, kicks bollards painted in the colours of the Romanian flag. Dispirited by this the rest of us wander home. Mark shares my insect enthusiasm on the way back by pointing out a big one scuttling along which turns out to be a cockroach the size of a Renault 12. He bravely tries not to scream like a girl. We sit on the swing seat outside my room and bitch in a reasonable tone.


    1/6/04

    Mark and Andy accompany me on a quest to find another music shop. We wander all over the place but none are forthcoming. Mark spots six Renault 12s in a row and to calm him down we go for a coffee in the Art Gallery courtyard. I take them on an 'I've been here before, me' tour of Cluj which consists of the cafe we are now in and the Market where we fail to buy strawberries. We go to the Roland Garros where Mark has the tripe soup and demands some of my postcards with menaces.
    Fran arrives with a beatific smile on his face having spent the last two hours being naked, oiled and massaged with Alan and Gabor. Mark is removing bits from his soup and inspecting them, which is never wise in my experience. I get stuck into my steak and chips, the expression on Mark's face adding savour to every mouthful.

    Sensing an inexplicable desire on the part of my companions for a break from my society I go alone to the botanic gardens after lunch. They are up a hill and it's hot but they turn out to be fabulous. There are even some huge 'xyclopea' iridescent purple bees cavorting around the lupins to add to my pleasure. There is a high steel and concrete tower you can climb to look at the view. I ascend with ease, wondering all the way up where my vertigo is. It is waiting at the top apparently where it grabs me by the throat, turns my stomach inside out and removes my power of movement. I am glad no one is about to see me crawl back down trembling and praying. There are two metre wide water lilies and massive palm trees in the greenhouses and more bizarre (to me anyway) insects. I could have stayed there forever.

    The evenings show goes well we are told. Minor blemishes like me getting my sleeve caught on the door handle during a tricky entrance with a case go unnoticed. Calvert points out that in the shows done so far, my success rate in getting through doorways without bumping into them is fifty per cent.
    The Hungarian actors have cooked for us afterwards, stuffed cabbage with sour cream and chicken. The Hungarian actors are all very good looking. Joey wants to know where the short fat ugly ones are.
    On the way home Calvert sings his song and adds to it some choreography based on an unflattering interpretation of the way I dance that appears to amuse him for some reason.
    I am woken at 3.15am by the return of the crew who have just finished the get out. I forgive them for they know not what they do and they are working very hard which is more than I am.


    2/6/04

    We leave Cluj and drive to Sibiu . After stopping to register at the festival office and collect laminates and lanyards we repair to the large Hotel Bulevard which has the look of a place not quite as good as it first appears. The 1950s eastern bloc chic kicks in on the first floor. My room is alright, but Calvert's is a small dark box from which the crime scene tape has evidently just been removed. He is distressed so I take him by the hand and lead him to the front desk where they wipe away his tears and give him a nicer room at the front with a view of the snow covered mountains. I have a view of a rubbish covered asbestos roof but I say nothing.

    We are due to see Gabor's show 'Jacques' at seven but a quick perusal of the festival guide reveals it is also possible to see shows at five and nine. Accordingly at five I
    go and see 'Oktavjo and Nicoletta' by the Istrian National theatre from Croatia accompanied by Ester Tompa, (now amongst us) and her German friend Johannis. It is in the court yard of the Brukenthal museum and is unequivocally very good indeed. Nine young people leap off a cart and give the telling of a fourteenth century lost love tale their all. Not a moment is wasted. Talent, energy and enthusiasm fill the air and it's very funny.
    We move on to the Radu Stanca theatre for 'Jacques' which features among the cast an actor aged ninety and Gabor's Mum. There are also excellent costumes and masks by a woman called Carmencita who is among our party and the ending is shocking and disturbing.
    Joey joins us as we run over the road to the unprepossessing hall of culture, the venue for the nine o'clock performance of 'Makhaz' by the Abkhasian National Drama Theatre. The pre-show period does not auger well. There is a school play atmosphere. A man in a suit signals anxiously from the wings, someone arses about with the surtitles and a technician scales a lighting rig to pull parcans about. But suddenly it begins. The actors (about twenty of them) come on and it becomes apparent we are in the presence of something very special. Words fail me a bit. Joey and I are both in tears at the end. It is one of the best things I've seen in the theatre.

    We go back to the Hotel Bulevard to eat while a band play Greek songs over a soviet era P.A. We head to a bar called the Luxemborg in the small square near the Liar's Bridge, so called because if you stand on it and tell a lie it will collapse. I consider getting renowned vegetarian Rob Brown to stand on it and say 'I am not a vegetarian' but he is not about.
    Cocktails are drunk and the Croatian actors are there. I talk to Kinga and we unearth some interesting management parallels between our two organisations. Alan disappears to the theatre where there is a get-in crisis of Biblical proportions brewing.
    We wander back to the festival club, which is in a courtyard behind the Radu Stanca theatre where I shower praise on uncomprehending Abkhasians who no doubt think I'm trying to borrow money.


    3/6/04

    Mark and I go to the Brukenthal Art Museum where we view Transylvanian Art through the ages as well as some huge and elaborate ceramic heaters in the corners of the larger rooms. Mark has been calmer in Sibiu as it has a smaller Renault 12 population, but the museum is generously staffed and this leads him to believe he is being watched by the secret police (although it is I who am unreasonably chastised for touching a table it doesn't say you can't touch.) I search in vain for pictures of fat ugly people I can point to and say to Mark 'that's you'. He gets in first with a portrait of a large woman in a dress.

    We return to the hotel for chicken and sticky rice, (on the festival via some tickets that get torn in half by the waiter.) We are called for five but on out arrival find things not going too well, last night's crisis being the theatre staff wouldn't let us get in after Jacques had got out. However Andy and Nicola are cheerful, Craig the model of a calm Englishman and David, although perspiring heavily, exudes assurance. Even prominent vegetarian Rob Brown, despite his breakfast time statement that he has yet to find a decent salad in Romania, is getting on with it. We go and warm up in the foyer, giving a laugh to passing festivalgoers. The show goes up half an hour late. It appears to be faultless technically, a great testament to the brilliance of the crew (the Romanian element of whom are also doing 'Jacques' so have been working forty eight hours non-stop). We get a standing ovation led by the Romanian Minister of Culture. We go to a smart do afterwards with speeches by the Festival Director and the Head of the British Council. Gabor is smiling like a man who's just had a standing ovation led by the Romanian Minister of Culture. We are invited to Ireland. We go on to a dark bar miles away, eventually ending up at the courtyard club where we do dancing, drinking eating and in Mark's case, paranoia until the small hours.

    4/6/04

    We all pile in the van for the drive back to Cluj. I have a window seat and there is much sleeping going on. I enjoy the Romanian countryside (lovely despite the odd chemical plant or cement works) and the beautiful churches in the villages. Mark Calvert, forced to change seats by the comatose Nicola, is now behind me and instead of improving his mind by drinking in the countryside he is passing through, amuses himself by flicking my ears and removing from them my walkman head phones to ask fatuous questions about the Turda gorge ('Is that the Cheddar Gorge then is it?'). He also makes some preliminary sketches for a cartoon strip he is planning, chronicling my alleged 'bumblings' entitled 'And all Romania fell into a deep, deep sleep.'

    We return to the Piccola Italia and I get a modern room at the back with a tiny television. We repair en masse to the Roland Garros for lunch which is slow in coming. This prompts notable vegetarian Rob Brown into a display of arsiness unseen in these parts since Vlad Tepes impaled a defeated Turkish army on wooden spikes during the Turco–Wallachian war of 1462. The waitress blithely ignores his tantrum and brings compensatory free salad and glasses of plum brandy which only Craig and I are man enough to drink.
    I wander away and spend hours buying presents, eventually going for typical Romanian jewellery for Bev and Sadie and typical Romanian Linkin Park T shirts for Seth and Ezra.

    05/04/06
    Departure day is remarkable for the fact that most of our party stayed out karaokeing all night returning only for the five am leaving time. Kinga also appears at this early hour to see us off.

    And also if you have to ever have to get from Heathrow to King's cross and there's four of you, take a taxi because it's cheaper and it only takes half an hour unlikely as that seems.


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