The Songbook of Judy Garland

There's nothing better than opening up the The Scotsman to find that interview you organised  with Lorna Luft is a double page spread in the paper. 

Playhouse Party Times!

So this is what an Edinburgh Playhouse night out looks like. We had food and lots of drinks in Basement, and then headed to Three Sisters for lots more drinks, dancing and even some karaoke. I've pretty much avoided karaoke my whole life, but last night I really enjoyed it. I think I may have my found my calling in Spice Girls karaoke tracks. 

The whole night out was great though, and I'm really lucky to work with such an amazing group of people. And this weekend, I get to celebrate moving to Edinburgh with them all over even more drinks and dancing at mine. 

(Thanks to those people who took photos last night

so I could steal the best ones from Facebook for this post)

February Times!

I feel like I haven't been blogging nearly as much as I'd like to, even though it was one of my resolutions for 2015. So I figured I would just do a little February update, and then try to blog more throughout March.

This month, I signed the lease on my new flat in Edinburgh. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to finally be moving in a couple of weeks. It's something I never thought I'd want to do, but now I can't imagine moving anywhere else. The best thing about the flat is that it's only a 10 minute walk from work. In theory, this should mean that I look better for work, but I have feeling I'll still be sleeping in and rushing around.

Things have got  a lot busier at work now that our 2015 programme has really kicked off. We had Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in for a week with Amelia Lily, Lloyd Daniels and Matt Lapinskas.

I only managed to catch the last 10 minutes of the show, but it got some good reviews and gave me my first cover of the year -

Last week, Dirty Dancing opened for a three week run. We had STV down filming for The Fountainbridge Show, and then we took the main stars from the cast onto the roof garden of The Glasshouse Hotel for some photos for the Evening News and Herald.

So that's my update for February. I'm sure it could be longer, but I'll have a lot more to say next month.

Playhouse Staff Party

 

Last night, it was the Edinburgh Playhouse staff party. Since I don't live in town, I managed to get a really good rate at Royal British Princess Street Hotel. The hotel rooms have recently been refurbished, and have great views out over Edinburgh.

I slightly disappointed by the lack of bath, but the room was really nice and the perfect place to spend a relaxing Sunday afternoon.

It's been a while since I really dressed up, so I decided to give my Topshop sale dress a chance to shine. I'd been after it for months, but always thought the £68 price tag was a little bit too much for a dress I probably won't actually wear that much. Then I found it in the sale at the start of the year for just £35. I took it as some sort of sign it was meant to be, and bought it straight away.

The hotel also has a great bar called Juniper attached to it that we had some lovely cocktails in before heading to Voodoo Rooms to meet everyone else for the party.

As per usual, I took lots of photos at the beginning of the day and none when the party actually started. I'm sure one of these days I'll be able to take photos the whole time. Well i'd like to hope so anyway!

So I guess this is how 2015 is shaping up so far at work. Wicked is still here until the first week in January and then we've got some great musicals over the year like The Bodyguard, Shrek and Dirty Dancing. There's some really good music gigs too with Paul Weller and Nick Cave both performing here in the first half of the year. And I still get to work on comedy shows because Alan Carr, Billy Bailey and Kevin Bridges are all making an appearance.

What A Wicked Week It's Been!

It's finally happened. Wicked has arrived in Edinburgh. I figured with that in mind, I should try do a post about what actually goes on the average week of a Press Officer. I say average, but I've never actually had a week like this before. And if I'm honest, I don't know when I'll have a week quite like this again. 

Wednesday night was opening night, and we decided to turn the area around the venue into our own little Emerald City. 

So with opening night out of the way, it was time to focus on Thursday's press night. The day started really well when we discovered the photocall from the day before had made lots of the papers, including some nationals and the front of the Edinburgh Evening News. 

The press night itself was the usual type of thing, just on a much bigger scale than I'm used to. We ended up with around 80 press and celeb guests, so we had a lot of tickets to give out and lots of journalists to meet. It was also a good chance to catch up with some people I haven't seen in a while too. 

I only managed to see the last 15 minutes of the show while we were waiting with the photographer to do the curtain call photos. I missed 'Defying Gravity' earlier in the night, but i got to see 'For Good' and I think that might actually be my favourite song of the show. After the show, it was straight backstage to do some photos with Susan Boyle for the Friday's edition of the Edinburgh Evening News. 

Once the photos were done, it was straight up to the Assembly Rooms on George Street for the after show party. 

Most of the night was spent making sure all the cast photos were taken when they arrived. We did manage to get good photo of the old/new press and marketing department and then stop just before midnight to celebrate Pam's birthday. I ended up leaving the party at 1am, which is pretty early by my usual standards, to catch up on sleep ahead of Friday's Wicked meeting and STV coming to film for the News at Six.

(Me, Pam, Alan, Audrey, Sam and Catherine)