Hugh speaks... travelling to Edinburgh

Hello! I am very happy to write this blog. We have embarked on a short tour of STORY OF A RABBIT in the UK, five months after our tour in the USA. It is really good to be performing this show again. I really do enjoy it. Aled said, "it’s like visiting an old friend."

We'd like to say a big ‘thank you’ to everyone who has joined us so far – in Eastleigh and Cambridge - and to say we are very much looking forward to meeting our audience in Edinburgh, Leicester and Plymouth later this month.

Right now I’m travelling to Edinburgh by train. My favourite kind of transport. We’ve been through gentle rising fog and blinding bursts of sunshine. It’s remarkable to think how this ball of a planet is enveloped in so many weathers. My brother once left a leather football in the garden throughout the whole winter – when my father found it in the spring, it was deflated, sagging and discoloured. "Luckily this planet is not made of leather," Aled said and we all laughed and then imagined we were part of a giant’s game of football in Brazil. Then Tom said, "In a way, Pele is a giant."

I haven’t been to Edinburgh outside of festival time. Neither has Aled. "It’ll be the same but different," he said. "It’ll be wearing it’s winter coat," he said as he looked out of the window at Newcastle. "While Sydney is putting it’s shorts on, Edinburgh is pulling on a thick jumper," said Tom. Then he said, "I wonder if we could knit a giant jumper for Pele and present it to him as a gift at the next World Cup. A nice golden yellow one trimmed with green." Aled said we probably could but he’d be unlikely to wear it because the World Cup was taking place in South Africa and it’d be too hot.

As we get ever closer to Edinburgh I’d like to use this opportunity to say another "thank you’ to the Sydney Festival for inviting me to present 360 in January. I’m really looking forward to it.
Goodbye for now.

Hugh Hughes

[I found this lovely photo on Flickr by laurencea taken during a London to Edinburgh train journey. I'm guessing it was during the snow we had in January this year. Thought it illustrated Hugh's blog nicely. Simon]

[pps. we've just had this lovely review come in for Story of a Rabbit]

Hugh speaks... Different Journey, Same Direction

Posted by Hugh Hughes (travelling from Cambridge to Liverpool)

Travelling from east to west across Britain today made me think of the journeys other people have made in this direction. The phrase, 'go west young man' sprang to mind. It made me think of cowboy films and the whole western movie genre and the music that went with it. Before I knew it I was in a wagon, pulled by horses, galloping across the Prairies, with some medicine in the back and a gun strapped to my hip. And it made me think of some of the extraordinary stories of people trying to cross the Berlin Wall, to escape a political regime they felt oppressed by. I was driving through Checkpoint Charlie with a false moustache and someone hiding in a false-bottomed boot in the back of the car.

In comparison my journey was calm and peaceful, especially as the M6 Toll helped me by-pass Birmingham and avoid heavy traffic.

This freedom I was experiencing dawned on me. I was not driving into unknown territory, anxious about what I might discover and I was not fleeing a country, leaving loved ones behind, hoping not to be caught and imprisoned. I was driving with an open mind, ready to take in the countryside as it rolled by, able to imagine. I was surrounded by space. The warmth of the sun and the colours the light illuminated were dazzling, the music was cheerful and my voyage became a technicolour dream. Everyone waved at each other from car to car. All travellers had their windows open and listened to the same radio station. The cars found auto-pilot and in our hands-free luxury we could lean back as we sped safely down the motorway, taking in the sunshine, relaxing and tanning ourselves as the cool breeze swept across our bronzing bodies. Life was perfect. Undisturbed and joyful. Moving at a pace, from east to west, under a blue sky without a care in the world.

The amount of lives that are lived, the amount of east to west journeys that are made – each one so different, even if their direction is the same.