This has been the time of my life and I have so many people to thank :

Martin Taylor – A friend, a playwright and also one of the first people to read No Strings in its original form.  He liked it, he critiqued it,  he directed it…Thank you – you’re awesome!

Mark Westbrook – My acting coach who trained me for the past two years.  I wouldn’t have been here without you  – thank you!

Stephen & Donna – For the amazing music and soundtrack for No Strings.  I can’t imagine it without it now.  It is an integral part of the play – thank you!

Amanda & Iain who came all the way from Brighton to see it and ended up with a weekend I don’t think we’ll forget in a hurry – thank you!

Rachel Blackburn – A good friend and a PR guru.  She managed the Facebook and Twitter accounts and promoted the show every step of the way.  She was also the most calming influence in a mega stressful 3 weeks.  I totally didn’t stick to my rules about staying away from social media and reviews, but you helped keep me sane.  Thank you!

Martin Nickolls, John Johnson, Nick Wilson, Ryan Buchanan, Alan Bissett – Thank you for being my anonymous men.

Martin Butler – Thank you for being my anonymous man and everything else that went with it.  Really, thank you!

Mum & Dad – Thank you for making me think I could x

Bryan – your support and pride meant everything x

John – Ah, wee bruv…you’ve been there every step of the way.  You know everything and have been there for me, celebrating with me one minute and then talking me down from the ledge the next.  I especially appreciate you wanting to feed a particular critic to pigs. Thank you x

Silva – You made me believe x

Lynn – You rock x

Alice, Joe, Heather & Cal – thank you for making it possible for Kirstin to juggle everything

And to all my friends and family that supported me through this amazing, amazing experience – THANK YOU!

But the last thanks must go to George and Kirstin.   We talked about this a year ago and we made it happen.  I can’t imagine having this experience with anyone else but you two.  I am going to miss our dinner, tea and bruises and then warm up, but I also know this is only the beginning for us.  Love you both xx

Damn, the music is playing…if I forgot to thank you, I didn’t mean it. x

It’s over.  I’ve loved every minute of it.  I’m heartbroken.  I’ve spent over a year working on this and before I could even give permission, someone else decided, that’s it, dream over – final curtain call.

It was everything I had dared hope it would be and everything I feared.  I’ve been criticised by people and then praised to the highest 5 star level, sometimes on the same performance.  I’ve struggled to pick myself up and then thought,  f*ck it – I am doing this, you are not.

Tonight was a performance I’m proud to be my curtain call.  We enjoyed it, the audience loved it and it was just slick.  I can’t believe how much we’ve progressed these last 3 weeks.

We had a lovely post-show dinner/party with lots of champagne and wine.  I will miss my No Strings family so much – we’ve just grown closer and shared stories that must never be aired – ever – again – ever! We have gone through an experience together that most people never do.  No one can take that from us.

I don’t know what else to say except, I don’t know what comes next.  I hope this is not it.  I have felt so alive these past 3 weeks, as if I knew where I fit in life. This is the life I want to live.

August 7-29…I didn’t think August 7th would ever come and I sure as hell didn’t think August 29th would ever come, but here we are.  One more day, one more show and then “snap back to reality, oh, there goes gravity”.

Part of me will welcome not being on public display, open for the world to criticise.  But the other part, and the largest part, will miss this life terribly.  Before I started, I wondered what the reality would be.  I maybe hoped it wouldn’t be everything I hoped, because then my “real” life would make more sense.  That hasn’t happened.  Even the bad bits have made me fight harder.  At no time have I thought, God I wish I was back at the day job where I know what the hell I’m doing.  I didn’t know what I was doing and I probably still don’t, but I’m still learning every day and I find it so frustrating that it’s coming to an end without me knowing all the secrets – how everything works.  Every day has brought more and more things to learn about production, advertising, the reality of acting every night and the amazing friendships that build up with your fellow cast members.

Tomorrow will be a tough one.  But I hope we go out on a performance we are proud of.  Looking forward to the real champagne in scene 6 (I really have come to detest Schloer) but most of all looking forward to relaxing with my No Strings family.  I’ve got the steak and red wine prepped…let’s go out on the performance of a lifetime.  xx

But I was.”

Yet another quote from the play that has come true during these 3 weeks.  In this case, I was holding my breath about The Stage review.  We’ve had great reviews and brilliant audience reactions, but this one meant everything.  I knew the top critic, Natasha Tripney, had been in.  I had stalked her shamelessly on Twitter asking her to review.  She never replied and I assumed it was not going to happen.  I found out a couple of hours before Tuesday’s show that she was going to review.  Per the pact, I didn’t say anything to George and Kirsten, but I was nervous.  The audience was perhaps the worst we have ever had.  It was small, only around 15 and they were silent.  No reaction, whatsoever!  We finished up and our tech, Jack, had to start the applause – never a good sign.  Our anonymous man, Martin, said, “God you guys had to work hard tonight”.  But bizarrely, we were all happy with our performance.  What happened onstage was pretty damn perfect.  We seemed to crack the build up of tension in scene one and George was so in my face in scene 6, I struggled not to show any fear.  So, how does that play out?  You have a critic who is judging your performance.  Where does the audience fit into that?  I was expecting the worst and I knew it was going to hurt.  Not only was she someone I respected, but she was also the only female critic who had reviewed the show.  Guys like this show, but women really like it.  I wanted a female critic to review it.  Careful what you wish for…

I found a lovely garden today, unexpectedly, just off the Royal Mile – Dunbar’s Close Garden.  A lovely wee oasis to escape the craziness and the crowds.  I was there at 2.15pm and I checked our Facebook page.  I saw a glorious 3 Star review from The Stage praising the show, the writing and the acting.  I’m not ashamed to say that I sat there and cried – tears of joy, but mostly relief.  I hadn’t realised I was holding my breath, but I had been, waiting for a moment of validation.  The play wasn’t shit. She liked it.  She described it as, “an engagingly twisty piece”.  Her criticisms were few, but fair and I’ll address them.

But for now, I’m breathing…”great big gulps of life”.

If you haven’t seen the show, then you won’t get the significance, but tonight was number 17.  It was significant and one of our best.

“I don’t want to be number 17” is true…I don’t want this to be our 17th show…I don’t want there to be 3 left. How did that happen?  I think back to the terror of the first show and I now love the positive adrenaline that has become normal before every show.  We haven’t become complacent, far from it, we go out with a charge that we know it can be even better – we can be better.  Onstage we challenge each other to be sharper, react more…(I still stand by my decision to pull out George’s leg hair!) The frustrating thing is that the things we have learned over this past 3 weeks are shaping the perfect show.  I have rewritten, we have reblocked, we know what needs to be done.  The show is just getting polished every night and that is only possible with the 17 performances we have done.  How do you get that learning without doing  it?  I guess that’s why shows do month-long previews before they open in the West End.

So, in conclusion, those of you who are seeing us in our final 3 shows are seeing us and the show at the best.  We are fighting every step of the way for excellence.  We may not get there, but God are we trying.

Tonight was the first night of the final week.  So much has happened, so many experiences, so much I’ve learned.  Now, if we could only start again in a couple of weeks time we would be perfect!

But this is what it’s all about.  I came here thinking I knew how it would be.  I had no clue.  I didn’t know how you had to jostle with your venue for poster space, fight for audiences against 3000 other shows, somehow make your show stand out.  We have been really lucky though.  We’ve been at 50% or more capacity every night, when apparently the average fringe audience is 4!

The show tonight was again very different.  Onstage it was once more stifling and at one point I saw trickles of sweat run down George’s face!  It felt like a good one though.  Two weeks in and we are still finding new stuff every performance.  I love that.  Saying the lines the same way every night would bore me to tears and having George and Kirsten on stage with me and responding differently every night just makes it so much fun.

I had my cousin Lorraine there, who is like a wee sister to me.  She has heard all the rehearsal stories  and knows all my fears and insecurities.  It meant everything that she liked it and her friends did too.  Kirsten had her daughter and boyfriend there and they have spent hours running lines with her, so it was brilliant to hear them say how much they enjoyed it – Alice is particularly fond of scene 6 when Jamie gets his comeuppance!

5 more performances to go and I am determined that they will be our best yet.  We may or may not have had a reviewer in tonight and I do hope for a good one.  But those guys don’t define this show.  The audience does that.

Tonight was really lovely.  We had a sellout performance and we all had people in the audience that we knew and loved.  It was a good show, albeit a very sweaty one!  It was stifling when we set up in an empty theatre, but then add the audience and the stage lights and we were melting away to a greasy spot. I think George may have to do some washing this weekend as I think half of my face ended up on his (previously white) shirt!

I’m feeling quite contemplative tonight though.  We had a great night and I had a brilliant after show with friends/family and then back at the flat with Kirsten.  I can’t shake this feeling of it all slipping away though.  I finished the first draft of No Strings one year ago, almost to the day, and I know that in a week’s time, it will all be over.  I know I need to focus on the positive – and I do…but, this has seriously been the best two weeks of my life. I just don’t want it to end.

I have a confession.  I think I’m in love with Edinburgh.

I’ve always been a Glasgow girl.  I grew up in the suburbs in Lenzie and knew without a shadow of a doubt that Glasgow was best.  It was gritty and real…You want culture?  It’s right here.  You want stunning buildings and architecture?  Just look up.

God, but seems I’m a turncoat…I love Edinburgh.  I love the castle. I love the palace.  I love the parliament (yes, controversial I know).  I love the new town.  I love the old town.  I love the cosmopolitan buzz of the place.  I have a flat in the middle of the old town and I take cobblestone roads through 16th C alleyways and it is all so normal, so perfect.  I love thinking, I need some copies, I’ll just nip down to the shop 2 minutes away  I need some middle eastern flat bread – 30 seconds away. Organic orangutang friendly peanut butter?  Yep, right around the corner.

From a performance perspective, tonight was probably the best yet.  We didn’t know anyone in the audience and that seemed to free us.  Critics are lovely when they give you 5 stars (Oh, did I mention The Sun did that today?!)  but what really gives me a buzz is the guy who came over to us tonight to say how much he had enjoyed the show.  He didn’t need to do that.  He didn’t know us.  That means everything to all of us.

This life is fitting me like a warm onesie.  I always appreciated Edinburgh before now, but had never succumbed to her charms.  I’m now smitten and I am happier than I think I have ever been.

Glasgow, I will always love you, but…

Today is one I won’t forget.  I saved a life, my husband saw me cavorting with another man and our best man played “anonymous man”.

So rewind…I finished my day job and it was another gorgeous Edinburgh day, blue skies, sunshine and people with milk bottle legs happily roasting to a lobster pink. Perfect day to saunter down to Holyrood Palace, lay out and read my book. On the way however, a cyclist was clipped by a passing car and went over the handlebars landing on his head.  A quick look and I realised I was the only one there.  Shit!  I need to do something.  Just as I’m considering the reality TV shows that will undoubtedly guide me through this experience, I realise that the traffic that is coming round the corner will not see this guy in the road, so I jump out like a maniac and hope that we won’t both be killed.  It works.  Lots of beeps, but no impact.  Tom ( as I learned later) started to stir and in my best  “Casualty” voice I say, “don’t move!” He ignores me. I was hopeful as he looked ok, then he turned his head and it was gushing…all down his shirt, splattered over his face.  Oh God, I was out of my depth and started to feel queasy.  Thankfully some lovely and much more helpful people joined me and I could do the sensible job of calling the ambulance.  I think the ending is good…the ambulance came in minutes, a lovely American guy stemmed the blood and Tom was taken off to hospital.

After an eventual relaxing afternoon in the park, it was back to work.  My husband who had been in the US for 4 weeks was going to be in audience with our good friends Nick and Rachel. He has read every iteration of the play and has backed me all the way, but still, this was the first time he would see it in the flesh – as it were!  So picture this…the first time I see Silva after 4 weeks, is him in the audience, watching me with another man.  Nope, not awkward at all! And to crown it all off, our best man, Nick, played the cameo, “anonymous man”.

You just have to put it to one side though and focus on what you need to do.  I heard him laughing, I felt his stares, but I knew he was with me.  And then, it was over and he loved it. I’ve said before that this play means everything to me, but it also only exists at all because Silva believed in me.  He has always told me to write.  Said I could and should.  Thank you, I love you x

(PS, please shave your beard!)

just so, weird, amazing, challenging and life-changing. My life will never be the same after this.  Two weeks ago, I had no way of knowing how this would feel.  Would they hate us?  Could it be as good as I had ever dared imagine or would the demons swoop in,  suck up all my hopes and then laugh as they did so?

We are now 9 performances in and that seems insane to me.  One thing I’m learning is the power of the audience  When they are with you, you are invincible; when they’re quiet, you’re guessing and vulnerable – are they enjoying it?  Why didn’t they laugh?  What I’m also learning though is that the onstage experience is not necessarily the same as the audience one.  They might be quiet, but they are still following us and enjoying.  We’ve had some of our best audience reviews from “quiet” nights.

Tonight the Scotsman was in.  That scares me.  Wish it had been Saturday when we sold out and the performance was charged. That’s yet another thing I’ve learned…you don’t control this stuff.  They don’t ask permission to be there.  They can turn up on a Monday and you need to deliver the same performance as when the audience is zinging.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring good reviews and if not, I guess the learning will continue!