A break in Georgia for Captain Corelli's Mandolin

After a magnificent opening, with a ten minute standing ovation, the company took a well earned rest. Theatre programming in Tbilisi is based on presenting a wide repertoire of shows so any single production rarely plays more than a couple of performances a week. With a four day break the company went exploring. Here Mike Maran describes his adventures

Georgia is a glorious patchwork of old and new.  The old town in Tblisi is a ramshackle collection of  tumble down tenements leaning against each other punctuated by piles of rubble where buildings once stood that couldn’t wait to be demolished, criss crossed by alleyways that are beautifully restored with art galleries, carpet bazaars and open air cafes where you can sip Turkish coffee and smoke a water pipe.  It would take months to explore this beautiful country.  We have made a start with three fabulous days out.

Day 1.



Bodbe Monastery



The first trip was to the tomb of St Nino in Bodbe Monastery, convent building near Signaghi which is about 100km  east of Tblisi,  We took the metro from the centre of Tbilisi to the eastern outskirts and there we found a minibus which we hired for the trip.  The wheels on the bus went round and round but only just.  We squeezed ourselves into the seats and set off eastwards over the cobbles and pot holes without any suspension.  People pay good money at fairgrounds for a five minute ride like this.  We got far better value and had two hours there and two hours back.  What fun! 

St Nino came to Georgia from the Holy Land bringing Christianity in the fourth century.  Georgia is intensely proud of its Christian roots which go back to the very first years anno domini and St Nino’s remains are housed in a beautifully restored convent  which stands in manicured lawns shaded by cypress trees.  I knelt and kissed her tomb with the other pilgrims and looked at the sacred items for sale in the gift shops.  There is none of the tackiness here that you find in Rome or in Lourdes and the air of sanctity is not eroded by clerics greedy to turn a quick buck.  The icons are bought and sold for their sacredness.  Nino was the only female among the early disciples  Most of the women in Georgia are named after her.  There is no point in calling out, ‘Nino!’ backstage.  At least half a dozen women will answer your call.

Then we moved on to Signaghi.  Some of us felt like we were in Italy which is hardly surprising because it is a hilltop town and all the new building was in the old style – as they say in Italy, ‘Dov’ era, com’ era’ – where it was and as it was.  No attempt here to graft modern architecture onto an old walled town.  Much of the building here is new but the design is centuries old and there is a sense of stepping back in time.  I think of Edinburgh and buildings that I remember from my childhood that were demolished and replaced by something entirely different which have themselves been taken down and replaced again by something  different which may very well not be fit for purpose before I die.  Many of us who live in the present inhabit an ever changing urban landscape.  Here you may live in the past. 

The museum here is home to the paintings of Nikolai Pirosmanashvili (known as Pirosmani) who depicts scenes of life on the land growing and tending the fruit and vegetables and animals that supply the tables of Georgian feasts.  I have never been in a Georgian restaurant that doesn’t have at least one reproduction of a Pirosmani canvas on its walls. 

And so to our feast.  The restaurant is at the edge of town and our table on the terrace looks over the valley below to the Caucuses mountains some 50 kilometeres away to the north.  At first I thought they were clouds in the sky  but once I got used to the light I could see the summits were snow capped.  This is a giant wall of Himalayan proportions and forms a natural boundary between Russia and Georgia.  

Roger (producer), Nino (puppeteer), Mike
Tony, Roger (actor), Jill

If only Russia would see it that way!  In generous moments Georgians drink toasts to the culture of their northern neighbours which gave birth to the glory of Chekov and Turgenyev.  In other moments Georgians ruefully observe that Christianity got no further than the Caucuses and that the lands further north are uncivilized.  Our view of the mountains was matched by the meal, plate after plateful of Georgian cuisine wich I washed down with Cha Cha – which is similar to grappa.  We ate goat in honour of the star of our show, vegetables dressed with walnut sauce and bread stuffed with cheese.

Then it was time for the bumpy ride home.  I brought my headphones and CD player with me.  Living in the past?  I hadn’t listened to Dave Milligan’s ‘Unusual Suspects’ yet though he gave it to me months ago.  The first track blew my hair off!  I never got to hear any more as I passed the headphones around the minibus and the others heard it – one at a time – and they bopped all the way home.  Nothing to do with the pot holes.

Could it get any better?

Yes.

Day 2



Chateau Mere



The next trip was to Chateau Mere, the Winiveria winery near to Telavi an hour and a half to the north east of Tblisi.  The winemaker is a patron of the theatre and a benefactor. A gigantic, cheerful man who is hugely pleased with his chateau.  When I saw how the tables were set I knew we were in for a treat.  You see tables set like this, you finger your wallet, it feels it too thin,  and you move on to somewhere cheap and cheerful.  Nothing cheap here and all of it very very cheerful and a gift.  What a meal!  There’s a lot of wine in Georgia but not all of it is made by a master wine maker.  He also makes cha cha.  Yes, I am inordinately fond of this spirit and I know a good one when I sniff it.  There was a huge help-yourself decanter at the door to the dining room on a platter with salted toasted sunflower seeds and walnuts to dip in honey.  I wasn’t sober when I sat down to dinner. 

There were  decanters of the very best red and white wines on the tables with dishes of salads and vegetables and cold chicken followed by barbecued pork, followed by singing and dancing, and more cha cha.  I lost track of whether I was drinking or dancing the cha cha and ended up by a table of Georgian singers answering them with a less than sober rendition of ‘My Love is Like a Red Red Rose.’  Our director, Levan Tsuladze was with us.  He’s a big man in every sense.  He has a lot in common with Carlo and Velisarios.  If you don’’t know what I mean read the book – or better still, come and see the show.  What I wanted to tell you was that we travelled in a minibus that was big enough for him and the rest of us and this was the Rolls Royce of minibuses.  No pot holes on the way to the winery and on the way back to Tbilisi we didn’t drive on a road at all  – it was a magic carpet that floated on a sea of cha cha and wine.  And just in case you’re thinking – don’t these guys ever do any work? – the next day we did a show.  Our Corelli, just like its cast, is becoming well oiled.

Day 3

And today was another day off.  We were taken to the Turkish sulphur baths.  There’s a whole complex of them above a sulphur spring of very hot water in the old town. 

It was here that I learned the meaning of Tbilisi– ‘Hot Water Here.’  Legend tells us that the king who founded the town was out hunting when his falcon brought down a pheasant and when the king’s dog retrieved it the bird, which had fallen into the water, was cooked.  Levan explored the different baths for us and chose the most appropriate ‘hole’.  Well, that’s what I thought he said.  He meant to say ‘hell.’  I thought of Dante, ‘Abandon faith all ye who enter here!’  In we went and stripped off and presented ourselves, naked virgins, to the Turkish bathmasters.  We soaked in the very hot water – no, we cooked.  And when we were parboiled the Turkish bathmaster tenderised us. 

Gus is the young warrior among us and he bravely went first and got slapped and pummelled and stretched.  When I saw the way his masseuse was manipualting his limbs I had to cry a note of caution about the torn cartiledges in my knees and the shoulder I dislocated during a performance of ‘The Little World of Don Camillo’ in Chelmsford.  He let me off lightly.  He slapped me around as I lay on my tummy and then turned me around and did it all over again.  He had a fine disregard for my tender parts and just got on with the job.  Nobody else yelped or flinched and neither did I.  Afterwards we sat on leather armchairs wrapped in white towels and like Roman senators we put the world to rights. 



Levan, Gus, Tony, Tim, Zura, Mike, Crinkie
at the Turkish Sulphur Baths

Levan then took us to a nearby café for beers and Chibureki.  They were like the little khingales that I love, which are small parcels of pasta filled with meat or cheese.  These were much bigger parcels of pasta filled with meat and cheese and these ones were deep fried.  Turkishly bathed and Georgianly fed we felt like a million dollars and if I had that kind of money I would have bought the saddlebags I found in the bazaar on my stroll home through the old town.  They were very old, heavy, woven carpetbags – beautiful tapestries.  I want them for my scooter.  Tim, who has come out to join us from the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, is a biker and I told him about the saddlebags.  They’re for a donkey but hey!  Donkey, Vespa, what’s the difference?  Well, speed for one thing.  Tim was concerned that I might set off down the M11 with my saddle bags flapping in the wind more like Dumbo the flying elephant that Travels with a Donkey.  I’m not convinced.  I’m as stubborn as a mule and if I still feel like a million dollars tomorrow I might go back and buy them and maybe trade in the Vespa for a donkey.

Standing ovation for Captain Corelli's Mandolin

The magic of theatre! At midnight on Tuesday people were still changing lights, completing the set and doing running repairs on puppets. But at 8 o'clock on Wednesday a packed house at the Marjanishvili Theatre settled down to see the opening performance with high expectations and those expectations had to be met.



The banner outside
the Marjanishvili Theatre



When I say 'packed' I mean packed. Every seat was taken, extra seats were added at the end of each row (would never be allowed in Britain) and then yet more people stood alongside them. Add to that the several television cameras filming bits of the show and a number of press photographers (would never be allowed in Britain) and you begin to get an idea of the sense of excitement.

A Tbilisi opening is a very special kind of evening. The cream of Georgian theatre turns up to see the work of a colleague and Levan Tsuladze, our director, is one of Georgia's leading artists so a new show by him is always eagerly anticipated. The interest of the media is very high making it difficult to walk round the theatre foyer through the ranks of television and radio crews interviewing the audience before the show, during the interval and especially at the end.

Levan has a tradition of watching a first night from the lighting box with colleagues and a bottle of whisky. Each positive response from the audience is rewarded with a drink from the bottle so he judges the success of the show from the the level of whisky remaining in the bottle at the end. Last night he went on to the second bottle!

The audience don't have whisky to show their appreciation; they just get to their feet and applaud. And applaud. And applaud. The standing ovation went on for over ten minutes but even then they were not satisfied. When the curtain finally came down the audience moved backstage to continue congratulations on a one-to-one level. Eventually they left and the company was able to move on to their celebratory party.

And what a party! A Georgian 'supra' is a feast beyond imagination. The restaurant table was groaning with food when we arrived and that was before any of the hot dishes arrived. Food just kept coming and when there was no space on the table they just piled dishes on top of each other. Vakhtang Kakhidze, who composed the incidental music for the show, was appointed 'Tamada' - toastmaster - and he kept the wine flowing with toast after toast.   Compagnia Finzi Pasca, who are performing later in the festival, joined us as guests and did an impromptu acrobatic show on the table, much to the consternation of the restaurant manager.

A great night all round. The show plays again tonight but then the company have a much earned, but unexpected, four day break. Unfortunately our scheduled performance in Yerevan has had to be cancelled because a landslide has taken away a large section of the Tbilisi - Yerevan highway. A great pity, but after four weeks of non-stop work the rest will be welcome.

Gamarjoba!

Today's Sunday 2nd October, which means we're due to open Corelli in a little over 72 hours. Nevertheless, we are currently enjoying our first morning off together since arriving here over three weeks ago. We'll be back in later on of course - and we've been warned that tonight could be a late finish - probably something in the region of 11pm.

The show's looking pretty good. It's still being chopped and changed and everyone is having to stay extra alert since the language barrier among other factors means you may just have to roll with an alteration in the moment. But it's all to the good, and there is a palpable feeling of trust in the air that Levan's overall view is both sound and one that we can't possibly share from our viewpoint on the ground.

I had an opportunity yesterday to see 'My Hamlet' - a Marjanishvilli show with one actress and five puppeteers. Absolutely fantastic. I was so pleased to get to see it. Tight and funny and sharp and clean. They had the actress disappear through a mirror. Twice. And both times it was a surprise and totally seemlessly executed. Really inspiring stuff.

We passed a landmark earlier this week. The halfway point! We are now able to say that we'll be home in less than three weeks. We've a job of work to do before even thinking of packing up of course, but it does make it easier to imagine that in just over a fortnight, we'll be home.

In the meantime, though, we're all trying to stay fit and focussed and ready for whatever each day might chuck our way. We're tired and homesick but there's a really great work ethic in the room and it's making for an exciting show.

Roll on Wednesday!

Roger DB's blog #3

Still hot and dry - the rain that has been predicted has held off, although the last few days have been very overcast.

Rehearsals continue to be completely absorbing, and the script and story details are in constant flux so close attention is the order of the day. As a rule we have three hours or so free in the afternoons to lunch, learn and relax before the evening rehearsals. Even walking back through the streets you start to notice butterflies, dragonflies, cicadas, small groups of House Swallows and, in the evening, a number of large bats high over the rooftops (no, we're nowhere near Transylvania!). Two or three Common Kestrals seem rather wary of persuing the bats, but there is a charming family of Laughing Doves regularly haunting our area, so tiny and neat and fearless enough to walk literally up to one's feet. Perhaps the grandest sight was a group of Eagles (probably Lesser Spotted) miles high abouve our nearest ridge, effortlessly soaring on their 6ft wingspan and drifting eastwards in the bluest of skies. Magnificant!

Tbilisi traffic is something I'll find it hard to forget. Every other car is a taxi, and a minibus passes every 15 seconds or so, and all of them stop on demand wherever they happen to be. Cars pull out to overtake and block the oncoming lane. Horns immediately blare forth, and what seems like total gridlock somehow magically returns to normal. A manhole cover disappeared from the middle of the road at a busy intersection. A bus became immobilised with a wheel stuck in the hole, and when the bus has been cleared away, two leafy branches neatly marked the still gaping hole until 36 hours later a replacement cover arrived. No-one turned a hair!

Gus enjoys the international festival in between rehearsals

So here we are again! Another Tuesday night rolls in and I thought it might be time to drop another line or two. We've now been here in Tbilisi a whole fortnight. So that has the rare symmetry of meaning exactly two weeks in and four (or one calendar month) to go. I've often thought in the past that I was well used to going away for work. After all, whenever I've been offered a job, it's almost always meant packing a bag for a few weeks. This one's different though. We're much further away and for significantly longer than usual. And that's tough. I think we've all cracked the Skype phenomenon now and it's truly amazing to have technology like that at your fingertips, but it can't possibly substitute the real thing. Anyway, I'm sure it's no surprise, but I miss my Amy more than I can describe in any blog.



Mandras the puppet

 That said, I think we've all done some really good settling this last week. Personally, I'm now taking advantage of the odd afternoon off to see if I can get myself safely lost in the city. Annoyingly, not quite managed it yet. All roads seem to lead to Freedom. - Freedom Square, that is. Though I'm sure the broader meaning's true too. We're well into the second half of the play, which I'm sure we're all pretty glad about, since we open - like it or not - two weeks tomorrow. And I've had the chance to see some of the wide array of international theatre available in the festival. To be more specific, I saw an, erm, interesting Woyzcek at the Georgian Music Centre. The generally young crowd couldn't seem to decide if they were thrilled or horrified at the sight of the naked breasts and man-on-man snogging. As I said, interesting. And then last night we saw George Mann give his one-man Odyssey at the Music and Drama Theatre. I don't know - or care - if anyone else shared my reaction, but I was transfixed. Totally without clutter. Clean, clear, entertaining and exciting. I'd happily go again and was so grateful and pleasantly surprised to come across it at all.

Anyhoo, that's all from me for now.

Maybe more this time next week - the big fat HALFWAY POINT!!!

Gus.

Music for Captain Corelli

It’s one thing to have specially composed music for a show but there can’t be many regional theatres that have that music being played for them by a full symphony orchestra. But when the music is written by one of Georgia’s leading composers, who also happens to be the Chief Conductor of the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Djansug Kakhidze Tbilisi Centre for Music & Culture, you can expect something a bit special.



Vakhtang (checked shirt on the right) and his daughter Natalia
(who plays Pelagia) during a break in rehearsals to celebrate
puppeteer Anna's birthday 



Vakhtang Kakhidze (Vato) was born into a musical family and graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory as a composer in 1981. He went on to study conducting with his father, world famous Georgian conductor Djansug Kakhidze. He has since composed music for ballet, drama and film as well as symphonic pieces for the concert hall.

His work with Levan Tsuladze, director of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, includes the award-winning Lady With a Dog (Duruji Prize 2009) and Decameron (2011). He twice won the Georgian Theatre Union Award for best music composed for drama performance (1998 and 2005) and in 2010 was awarded the Shota Rustaveli Prize, Georgia’s highest arts honour.

His daughter Natalie (Nato to her friends) took a different path after originally studying music and decided to concentrate on theatre. She made an immediate impact and now regularly works at the Marjanishvili and also the Royal District Theatre in Tbilisi. She was Levan's first choice to play Pelagia - indeed she was cast before any of the other actors in the play.

In this short interview Vato describes the process of composing music for the theatre and his working relationship with Levan.

The orchestra is busy preparing for the Autumn Tbilisi International Music Festival but found time to record music for the Captain Corelli. The festival itself opens on 20 September with Chinese conductor Tan Lihua conducting Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No 3 (soloist Tamar Licheli from Georgia) and Sibelius Symphony No 1 as well as Tibetan Dance Music by Ke Jie Fang. On 24 September Vakhtang conducts his orchestra in a programme of Gershwin with George Mikadze on piano.

Alongside his original music composed for the show, Vato has put together a soundtrack of music from the Mediterranean combing the sounds of Greece and Italy. Levan, the director, is very keen on using music in his productions, underscoring the action and heightening emotional moments. Music ranges from Orthodox Church chants to folk music, 1940s popular music and opera - and of course Tony Casement, who plays Captain Corelli, has been busy learning to play the mandolin!

These two clips show the string section of the orchestra laying down tracks for the wind section to add their contribution at a later time. The recording took place in the orchestra’s own magnificently restored concert hall but apologies for the sound quality here - the recording was made on a simple Flip camera - but you can hear the music in all its glory when you see the production.

A double episode from Mike Maran's rehearsal blog

Things are hotting up in Tbilisi where the company are in rehearsals for Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Things are also hotting up in Colchester where bookings have now passsed the 35% mark. The show opens in Colchester on 27 October and runs through until 12 November so make sure of your tickets by calling the box office on 01206 573948 or book online at the Mercury Theatre website by clicking here. Performances in Tbilisi will be on 5 and 6 October as part of the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre. Full details are on the festival website here

Today we have two instalments of Mike Maran's rehearsal blog:

Woke up this morning…da da da da dum!

It rained during the night.  This is day ten and last night’s rain was the first to fall since we arrived.  All the wonderful fruit and vegetables growing in the market gardens around Tblisi drank well last night.  So did I.

Our team is growing.  We began with 6 puppeteers and now we are ten.  It’s a labour intensive project.  Six puppeteers manipulate two puppets and I had written scenes that required three. To be perfectly honest, I never had an upper limit in my mind and would have been ready to go back to the drawing board and remove the goat or the pine martin from a scene although it would have broken my heart to fire the pine martin.  Anyway the pine martin had nothing to worry about because, manipulated by one puppeteer, it was good value. 

Levan, our director, wanted crowd scenes, but crowds of individuals.  So when Corelli arrives the Cephalonians line the street to give the Italians an inhospitable and sullen welcome.  Corelli, an actor played by Tony, asks Limone (puppet) the way to the town hall.  She hides behind Velisarios (another puppet).  Corelli crosses the road and asks Father Arsenios (puppet) where he can buy a map of the island and the priest gives him a cold shoulder.  The communist (puppet) lays down a Greek flag, the royalist is there too, other villagers, and a jeep full of Italian soldiers, - all of them reacting to what’s going on.  Ten puppeteers handle this.  And so we are ten - not six.  Nino (puppetmaker) has more costumes to make and Roger (producer) has gone back to the UK to rewrite the budget.



Birthday girl Anna with Director, Levan Tsuladze



One of the new puppeteers celebrated her birthday so rehearsals finished early to party in her honour. The Mercury Theatre actors bought her a birthday cake and so, of course, did all the other puppeteers so there were two enormous cakes. We sang Happy Birthday to Anna in Georgian and in English and then we drank toasts to her.  The whisky flowed.  When Tony had to leave to get back to the flat for a Skype conversation with his children another bottle of whisky was opened for a toast to his children, and when Jill got up to leave another was opened to toast stage managers.  And when another bottle of whisky was opened there were only five of us left and we toasted each other until it was done.  And they weren’t just bottles – they were litres. 



Irina, who's helping with puppet costumes and Crinkie,
puppeteer,  celebrating Anna's birthday.
Clearly neither of them alcoholics



Levan’s (director) definition of an alcoholoic is someone who stops after two or three drinks.  That person is thinking of himself and the acholol – so he’s an alcoholic, unlike those who stay till it’s all gone, caring nothing for the alcohol, they drink for each other.  They are not alcoholics.  I rolled home well after midnight feeling no pain.

Then it rained.  Roger (actor) who shares the flat says the night lit up with sheet lightning and thunder.  I missed it all.

Today’s rehearsal was long – we ploughed through pages of script and the goat stole the show.  First of all Roger, playing the Italian quartermaster, eyes up the goat for dinner.  Then when Corelli arrives the goat nips his finger.  The goat has the same puppeteer as the pine martin and this man has a genius for bringing animals to life.  Then the puppeteers take over the story completely as Velisarios and Carlo smoke together, the Italian jeep is sabotaged, and then blows up killing the young Italian soldier.  Corelli (actor) has to write to the young boy’s mother and weeps as the goat looks over his shoulder.  It is heartbreaking.  There won’t be a dry eye in the house.  Dr Iannis’s (that’s me) special friend today is Father Arsenios (puppet) but when he come knocking on my door with gossip about my daughter and the mandolin playing Italian captain I have a right go at him and send him and his tittle tattle packing.  But, of course, Father Arsenios is only saying what everybody is saying and, however cross Dr Iannis is with the priest, it’s blindingly obvious to him too.  And so the die have been cast.  Mandras has gone off to the mountains to fight for Greece and the enemy is living in his fiance’s house.  Things are going to get worse, a lot worse, better they get better.

Day 11 and today’s rehearsal was electrifying. 

I have lived with this book for twelve years and more, performing Captain Corelli’s Mandolin up until last year in a storytelling musical way in theatres all over the UK.  Pelagia and Corelli inhabit my world.  I know them.  I went back to the book and read it again before making this new adaptation for the stage.  I wrote episodes that we can show on stage that I left  out of the storytelling adaptation, the beach for example where the Italian soldiers dance with the prostitutes and Limone rides on a mine as it drifts ashore – scenes that are better shown than told – and puppetry is a wonderful medium to bring them alive. 

But when two people fall in love it’s actors we need – not puppets.  I never referred to the pages in the book when Corelli tells Pelagia he loves her.  I know them and although I wrote the lines that Tony and Nato spoke to each other this afternoon nothing prepared me for what I saw.  The actors took Louis de Bernieres’ characters off the page and stood them on their feet.  Tony (Corelli), Nato (Pelagia) and Levan (director)  know these people too.  They know the risks you take when you tell someone that you love them – and for Corelli and Pelagia especially – Corelli, the captain of an enemy occupying force and Pelagia, betrothed to a Greek patriot who is fighting for his country.  Tony and Nato took the risks in both hands and the glowing embers burst into flames.  I could not begin to describe that rehearsal for you – and I won’t.  But there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.  And Levan (director) – the man’s a genius – proposes to begin the next scene in the rain with Dr Iannis holding an umbrella, pleading with his daughter to wait until after the war.  I had very little to do today except watch and admire.

I had lunch with Gus (Mandras).  Mandras left the village to go to the mountains and join the partisans and Gus left the theatre to have the afternoon and evening off.  He cheerfully drank two beers while I sipped a bottle of lemonade and went back to work.  Gus went into town with a copy of Hamlet in his back pocket which is more than Mandras can take with him to the mountains.  Mandras is a good fisherman but cannot read or write and one day soon Gus will land the big part that I guess all young actors go fishing for.

Jill Russell (Mercury Theatre stage manager) and I have landed a nice little job. Vato (our music director) is Chief Concuctor of The Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra,  and he has asked us to record the message to the audience before concerts to remind them to switch off their mobile phones.  He wants good English voices (I’m Scottish!) - a male voice and a female voice.  So Jill and I are going to do it for him in a recording studio tomorrow afternoon.  Eat your heart out Sir Ian McKellen!



Roger, Nino and friend, Zura, cheering on Georgia
against Scotland in Oct 07



I notice that Scotland beat Georgia in the Rugby World Cup.  Well, I’m very pleased about that.  But I suspect our producer, Roger McCann who is an Englishman in love with Georgia feels differently.  There are still fond memories here of an international football match in October 2007 when Georgia beat Scotland in a Euro 2008 qualifying match (Roger was there). 

The Tartan Army descended on Georgia in their hordes and watched their team lose before going out on the town.  The locals were delighted by the Scots capacity for alcohol - the Georgian hosts and their Scottish guests fell into each others arms and drank for each other and sang for each other.  You see, Scots don’t only sing when they are winning, and this is true for Georgians too.  Give us a drink and we start to sing.  The Georgians were mighty impressed with the Tartan Army that night and I walk around Tblisi wearing tartan braces to hold my trousers up.

Tomorrow the British will be blockading Cephalonia and everybody is hungry. Dr Iannis suggests that everyone goes to the forest to collect snails.  We are going to rehearse this on stage tomorrow where Levan has arranged a forest  covered in snails.  I have eaten snails in Italy.  My dinner companion showed me how to flick them out of their shells with a toothpick.  You must flick them towards yourself, not your date, otherwise she will get your snails in her blouse.  I learn something new every day.  Gus showed me how to use Skype and we skyped each other across the table at lunch.  Who says the art of conversation is dead?

Ciao! 

Mike