Robert Hugill

numpty was a great favourite expression of one of my work colleagues, back in the day when I worked in IT for a big UK media company.

Before Neil’s show there was one more thing I had to do. Or rather, that we had to do: buy Neil a couple of good but interesting (and affordable) shirts so that he had a selection to choose from over the weekend of the studio opening. I also felt that it would be nice for him to have interesting shirts rather than work shirts, and a couple of good ones. He agreed in theory, but I had been putting the event off mainly because shopping wasn’t something he enjoyed. However Mother appeared

A couple of days after the premiere of Iphigenia, I got a phone call from the theatre’s administration. A simple courtesy call: the cimbalom player Marcin had changed his accommodation and here were the new details. If the woman had left it there, I would have been content. However, with something like glee she shared the reason for the change: Marcin had been asked to leave his existing accommodation provided by Friends of the Theatre because he had brought a boy back to his room. Shit.

Will have to check it out!

Don't think I know the Theodorakis. R

I loved that. There is also a contemporary Welsh play, Iphigenia in Splott!

I truly have no idea where Iphigenia sprung from. I know the story mainly from opera!

I had forgotten what a nightmare Lila was to work with in the theatre. She liked to keep the working process fluid—her description, I might add. Which meant in effect that she felt able to change things at any time. Her cast were terrific and leaned into the working process. The early rehearsals all took place in a church hall near Vauxhall in London, which meant me trekking to and fro each day. But then as the first night got closer, the centre of operations moved to another church hall in

No murder in this story!

Big confession, I have only the vaguest idea what Ed Sheeran's music sounds like, but he seemed a good fit.

“We have to do this?” Neil looked and sounded like a recalcitrant child. “He is your brother and it’s the choir he’s organised. After all, they’ll only do a couple of songs.” He thought. “It’s just... Oaf’s never…” When she’d told me about the open evening that the Centre was having, Mother had warned me that there might be problems arising from Neil and Charlie’s relationship. How she knew, I’ve no idea. But evidently if she ever happened to mention Neil’s furniture making

Following on from the performance of Werther in Sternbach, the festival in Dresden continued to show interest in the piece. The festival was a big one—far bigger than Sternbach, with lots of concerts and high-profile venues, plus smaller, quirkier stuff too. My main contact—Ilse—was relatively new to the festival team, and had been given charge of a new strand to coincide with Christopher Street Day, Germany’s answer to Gay Pride. She and I had met in Sternbach, but had talked mainly abou

Maybe the author didn't quite think things through, or perhaps people are simply inconsistent! I imagined Marty as being upset that Neil had kept his oldest friend in the dark

Possibly! I had not thought of that.

On Wednesday I was just putting some finishing touches to some tweaks to the music for Iphigenia—as well as sketching some ideas for using the music as a standalone work—when my phone went. It was Marcin. He was in Italy and had time on his hands. The airline had misplaced his cimbalom. Not lost. At least they said they knew where it was, it just wasn’t where it should be—at Turin Airport. I commented that he seemed calm about it, and he said that he was resigned, that it had happened