The tour started on about
June 13th, with an event and a signing in Bath. It went to
the US and to Canada, then came back to England via Holland, and it
finished in Scotland at the end of August. I signed about 75,000
books while I was on tour, most of them copies of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. Six weeks on, I came back to the UK and did a mini-tour
for FORTUNATELY, THE MILK. It was the appendix of tours, the last
bit. Even so, it had a few of my favourite moments of the year, in it
and one of my favourite evenings ever.
My first day in the UK, I went to the opening night of THE LIGHT PRINCESS, Tori Amos's beautiful musical, at the National Theatre. It's a fairy tale, and is about feminism, ecology, and the importance of showing and having emotions. It contains some amazing performances, beautiful songs, and flying (and floating) effects that are jaw dropping. The audience loved it, and gave it a Standing Ovation. I came out certain that it would divide the critics, and the papers the next morning were mixed – the Daily Mail's reviewer gave it one star and described the audience who had loved it as “weak minded”, the Daily Express gave it five stars and said:
(All of these photos from this great photoset I found on Flickr.)
My first day in the UK, I went to the opening night of THE LIGHT PRINCESS, Tori Amos's beautiful musical, at the National Theatre. It's a fairy tale, and is about feminism, ecology, and the importance of showing and having emotions. It contains some amazing performances, beautiful songs, and flying (and floating) effects that are jaw dropping. The audience loved it, and gave it a Standing Ovation. I came out certain that it would divide the critics, and the papers the next morning were mixed – the Daily Mail's reviewer gave it one star and described the audience who had loved it as “weak minded”, the Daily Express gave it five stars and said:
With shades of panto, ballet, circus and opera as well as musical theatre, this bonkers but beautiful fantasy defies categorisation. Amos has said that any man taking a woman here on a date is guaranteed to get lucky afterwards. I’m not the best judge of that kind of thing. All I know is I’d go again tomorrow, and again the day after that.I thought it was magic.
Ian Lamb, Bloomsbury's Children's Books
Publicity Honcho, had set up several really enjoyable events. They
began with a literary lunch at the Savoy Hotel, which reopened in
2010 after a three year long remodel. The food was wonderful, and
between courses I wandered around with a microphone, talking about
the book, reading from it and answering questions. This was only the
second of the lunches, and I don't think that any of the people there
were Savoy regulars: the ones I recognised were all regulars from
signings and events, most of them looking a bit nervous and
intimidated. The Savoy staff were really nice.
I was on SATURDAY LIVE, the BBC Radio 4
Saturday morning show, along with a comics creator, a Rock Manager,
Tori (and elks), and a former Yeti. It was a delightful 90 minutes of
radio. I forgot to talk about FORTUNATELY, THE MILK.
(You can listen to it here.)
(You can listen to it here.)
I went to Cheltenham, and talked and
signed at the literary festival there: 400 people queued up
afterwards, most of them in the rain, and I felt very guilty indeed.
I met Marcus Brigstocke for dinner – the first time we'd talked
properly since we did the commentary on the DVD of A SHORT FILM ABOUT
JOHN BOLTON, my short film in 2002, which Marcus starred in. From
Cheltenham to Manchester, where I did another book event and signing,
less formal and significantly less rained on.
Up first thing the next morning to do
the BBC Breakfast Show (the segment is up here, but you may need Tunnelbear or equivalent to watch outside the UK). Normally Breakfast TV book spots are an
excuse for the interviewers to not talk about the book, but the
presenters (and their children) had read and loved FORTUNATELY THE
MILK, and asked me about it, and I made up for not having mentioned
it on the radio. (The Amazon rating went up from about 240 to 12 in
an hour, for the curious.)
That night was astonishing: I gave a
speech on behalf of the Reading Agency. It's about reading, and about
libraries, and about our obligations to the world and to the future.
Before the speech, I sat in my seat, and I looked down at the words
I'd written to say and was consumed by a strange form of stage fright
in which none of the sentences that I looked at seemed to make any
sense. In a kind of awkward terror I got up and delivered the speech,
and somehow it all made sense and all the sentences were sentences
after all: it worked.
It's been widely reported, and
published in edited form in the Guardian, and people everywhere have
started using it to explain to other people why books and libraries
and such are to be protected and endorsed, which is a wonderful
thing.
The next day was the best day of all.
It began early when my wife, Amanda, flew in to the UK to surprise
me. And, because she knows me, she texted me the day before to let me
know she would be surprising me at that night's performance of the
whole of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK at the Westminster Central Hall.
I had spent a few weeks gathering
together a motley and wonderful band of performers to help with the
night's entertainment. In addition, Chris Riddell was going to come
on the stage with me: I would read, and he would draw.
It was amazing, and I was amazed.
About 2,500 people were there. The
tickets had sold out immediately – we could have done an event
twice the size. My only regret was that there could have been more
kids in the audience.
Andrew O' Neill was our master of
ceremonies. T.V. Smith and Tom Robinson played two acoustic songs
(and played pirates and such); As the story started Chris Riddell
quick-drew amazing illustrations; Siobhan Hewlett was a pirate queen
and stole the show; Mitch Benn stole it back with a song about Lady
Pirate Captains; Tasha Hawley and Niamh Walsh were ponies – and got
a round of applause from the audience – and Niamh returned as a
wumpire; Lenny Henry brought the house down as a special surprise
Dinosaur Space Patrol T. Rex, and asked me twitter questions. Then
Amanda came on and played her Ukulele Anthem with final lyrics
rewritten to be about FORTUNATELY THE MILK. And then it was all done.
Chris Riddell draws...
TV Smith and Tom Robinson perform THE THIN GREEN LINE
Mitch Benn, Andrew O'Neill, TV Smith, Niamh Walsh, Tash Hawley, Siobhan Hewlett
Mitch, Tim and Andrew do a very important plot dance. Lenny Henry and I do not dance.
(All of these photos from this great photoset I found on Flickr.)
I cannot thank any of these people
enough for a perfect night.
(In the background, making things work
for us and for the 2500 people, were Andy Quinn from Foyles, Alex
Rochford from Time Out, and their respective teams, the lovely and
talented Holly Gaiman, and the extremely terrific Kelly Fogarty who
helped make everything easier and took the following wonderful backstage
photographs.)
Labels: breakfastry, Fortunately the Milk, Mitch Benn, nine photographs, photographs, radio, The Light Princess, Tom Robinson, TV Smith
