It is such a beautiful day that even the A1 poster for the show, on which my face is E-nor-mous, is bearable, everyone is light of spirit and our lunch at the Yates's is divine. We change tables in the beer garden four or five times - sun obsessives - which is fair enough, given that 50% of us are Martin M Bartelt, Lizard Man, But Mostly Lizard.
We sit in the sun. We have completed our tech, during which I had a go on a machine which changes the lights. It goes up and down and along the floor. It's amazing. I have to wear a hard hat. I can make it go up and down with leavers – it's like the thing fire fighters use. It's brilliant. I go on a search for a postcard of Wolverhampton, to no avail, and we sit in a it of park outside a church, him reading, me working. Then I go for a proper lie down at the Arena Theatre. I sleep across three chairs.
I am a veritable Olympian at sleeping, I pride myself on being able to sleep anywhere, any time. It's a bit of a curse, though, as I fall asleep inappropriately all the time. Only recently I fell asleep halfway through my own sentence. At least I can sympathise with our audiences...
Very soon it's showtime. It's such a great space and a very warm audience - there are some friends and family in, as well as strangers. It's lovely to spend time with the audience before the show. We realise it can be quite shocking for people to see the performer before the show, milling about, having a laugh. We are fanatical about the fact that this show is a piece of theatre. Sometimes people ask whether it is scripted, and we whoop with joy because it's rigorously scripted, directed and – hopefully – acted, yet we hope to give the impression of a friendly, informal, spontaneous chat. If people think that's what it is we have achieved something. But we are playing with theatrical conventions by having me mingle with the audience before and after the show - I enter from the door they use. In spite of all of this we become annoyed and despondent if people suggest this show is not theatre.
My cousins Rachel and Will are here. As usual I feel for my family when watching the show, they knew and loved Kate too and have their own experience of all this. Yet I suspect for Rachel there is the added.... bonus of her father having died when she was seven. They are both very positive, but I certainly am not going to ask them what they think of it all: no point poking the tiger with a stick, as... I'm sure some people would say.
The Arena Theatre have a great space outside the main theatre where we do the Q&A. People ask so many different questions, and so many of the same questions, and we are nearly always asked why we are doing this show and what Kate would think. In case you're wondering, I'm doing it to make money and because it is all I have in my life, apart from my health, my friends, my home.... And what would Kate think? I don't even think what Kate would think: it doesn't matter to me. She is no longer here. I am bereft, most of the time do not want to live without her, but she really has no discernable opinion about this show.
My word, but I miss her opinions, her bad moods, her unreasonable behaviour. I miss her being late for everything, her innate attractiveness to men, the shade of which covered me for the first 33 years of my life, I even miss the fact that everyone always thought I was older than her, despite my being six years younger.
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