Best of British:- from Balmoral to Bonheiden, BE

Our second shownight on the Balmoral (British night) went very well; the crowd suitably up for flag-waving and singalong classics.... and so it continues here in Belgium!
Two nights of Best of British in Bonheiden at the GC 't Blikveld - marvellous... another wonderful theatre in Belgium, great staff, great technicians, great food to eat... & a splendid full audience.

First night has gone off swimmingly - perhaps that adverb is too apropos as yesterday's fantastic midsummer weather has turned to drizzle and rain...

We are staying down the road at Mechelen, at Het Anker Brewery (there are bedrooms too)! I do hope other bookers are reading this & realise what a top idea it is for all our future dates... This place produces the best dark beer in the world... I think I shall have to taste quite a bit of it, just to make sure...

PS: It was good to leave the Balmoral to come home at Gibraltar on St George's Day in the glorious sunshine (with wind!)

Balmoral cabaret

Our first pair of shows has gone very well; we have lost our anonymity here on the Balmoral, a ship of the Fred Olsen line.
Wonderful hotel at Sharm el Sheikh, and then we boarded for a quick trip up the Red Sea towards the Suez canal, which we traversed in convoy, starting at 5am; two members of TLQ got up to watch this (not me!)...
Singing Caravan in the cabaret has never felt so apropos...
We had an excellent day exploring ancient and modern Alexandria... very enlightening.  We saw where the ancient lighthouse used to be (now the Citadel); did not see the new library... next time! (if only the ancient one had survived...
Lovely size of ship, great staff and an excellent atmosphere, despite these people having been on board for over 100 days already!
Next shows are tomorrow on British night.... altogether now...

Land of Hope and Glory,
Rain stops cricket at Lords,
Red buses and Shakespeare,
John, Paul, Ringo and George,
Tea and Monty Python,
Let's all join the queue,
God knows where we're going,
But we'll muddle through...

© Julian and Maggie Forsyth

Le Show in Fayance

Fabulous outing for Le Show in Fayance (just a bit west of Nice in the south of France)... despite BA's best/worst efforts.  Clearly bringing my manifestly obviously-labelled bag over to Nice airport was more than they could bear... and having failed thus there was no chance of its seeing France before our show.
Luckily my orange overalls were already in Fayance, but we had to share other costumes... which did rather cut down on costume changes!  So the two-tailed, two-tuxedoed quartet was born...
The good people of Fayance took this in their stride, although it did make Moise (the light guy) laugh!

Suzette Forever had its usual effect & much fun was had... and of course being in France, and under the auspices of Jean-Marie Gardon, there was much excellent food and drink (especially enjoyed the rosé)

(For those who wish to know, my bag is presently labelled online as en route to Nice by Monday am, which is nice, as I have been home for over 24 hours... hopefully on Monday they will see my emails and/or hear my calls suggesting their parentage is in doubt...)

On the flight home, we were joined by England manager, Roy Hodgson.. of course, we all had a long in-depth natter together about Rio!