Aight.

Hello my neglected blog.

So still not many things out of the ordinary are occuring here, we've had less cancelled shows over the last few weeks. Unfortunatelt though a few days ago my collapsing lamppost stunt was condemned by the park maintanence crew as the hinges have finally given up the ghost (we all saw this coming due to the flimsy nature of the metal that had been used), problem is no-one knows when it'll be fixed so for now it's been secured in the upright position and instead of falling towards the crowd i simply slide down it. Boring i know but there is no other way down from the balcony where I make my entrance.

In a couple of weeks Jason (Wolverine) returns to England for about a week for his brothers wedding. This leaves the rest of us with no days off until his return so it's going to be a tough finish to the high season. After that though we're into September which sees the park closing for 3 days a week for the 2nd, 3rd and last week of the month. This is when many people are going travelling and sight-seeing, the two American girls have booked themselves a trip to good old England and Phil (Magneto) has also booked some foreign adventures. I'm personally looking forward to September as my Brother and Sister-in-law are coming out to visit which is great. I wont be leaving Germany in this time but might get the chance to explore a bit more of it :-)

Anyways, thats a few weeks away yet so for now we're knuckling down and keeping the 3 shows a day pace. I'm going to a gig in Oberhausen tomorrow to see Slade, that should be fantastic :-D

Till next time!

P.

Rainy Day Post.

Alright everybody.

So its been a good few days, we were celebrating just the other night as Ocean, cheif Shaolin, became the father of a little boy back in China :-) Both Mum and Child are fit and well and Ocean can't wait to go home and see him! So yeah, we had a massive party it was the first time we've really socialised all together, the Chinese guys often say they can't afford to go to bars etc with us so it was nice to party in the house and generally get along with each other. I'm sure some photos will emerge that a few of us may regret, it was a good party!

Currently we have Brad (one of the high-ups for Mirage) and a film crew recording the shows and tomorrow we expect to film some special shots inbetween the shows. Mirage always manage to put a good looking promo-reel together so I look forward to seeing what they do with the footage they've collected so far plus tomorrows activities whatever they may be.

high season continues to provide us with large Audiences most of the time, the weather has become quite unpredictable with heavy showers and storms between bright sunshine and blue skies, people never seem to be deterred from visiting the park though, didn't realise it was such a popular attraction.

That about wraps it up for now, soon i'll be able to tell you about the filming we're doing tomorrow and what extra stunts or fight scenes we might be required to do!

P.

good morning.

Hello all.

So on Tuesday I went to the Kung Fu class that our Shaolin monks have been running at the park. It was an intense workout and i'm seriously feeling the effects on my muscles but I intend to keep going and getting my stamina etc up :-)

Shows have had a few glitches lately, just the usual things like the flame grill not working. The show had definitely had an air of consistency to it these last few weeks which is a good thing. High season continues to give us big audiences, particularly the second show each day. A few days ago we filled the theatre and people were being turned away at the entrance, first time thats happened!

We have some mirage representatives in Germany at the moment, they came to watch the shows yesterday but I dont know if they'll be suggesting any more changes to the show or if they're just keeping an eye on the progress we've made.

Right I must dash, have been a bit lazy with the blog recently but i'll try and fix that in the next week or so and keep you up to date!

P.

hallo.

Alright readers.

So it's another day off for me today. Completely tidied my room, how dull! Was good to give my muscles a rest and catch up on some sleep though.

We've had a few difficulties recently with the show as an increasing number of FX were being very inconsistent. The moving car hadn't been working for a weeks and the flame grill and collapsing balcony were malfunctioning quite often.

Earlier in the week we started the first show and about 10 seconds in we noticed a problem with the sound track. Shortly after we had all realised backstage the techies gave an announcement that they'd be restarting the show. However the next 3 attempts at starting the show all ended the same way and the show was eventually cancelled. We spent the next few hours of day waiting to see if the problem had been fixed but when it got to 3:30pm, the time they let the next audience in, we were told that there was still no solution and if it carried on then we might not be doing shows until Saturday (the earliest date that the one person who could adjust the sound-board was available). Amazingly though, about 45 minutes later our cheif techie had managed to isolate and solve the problem so we managed to do the 3rd show.

The day after that we arrived to work and were told that all the problematic FX in the show had been fixed, the car, balcony and flame-grill were all functioning well so we had a very good day of shows then.
Unfotunately theres a lot of tension between people in and involved with the show at the moment but that doesn't belong on my blog so I wont elaborate. Hopefully we'll continue to have fully functioning shows and big audiences over the weekend at that might help things along.

Till my next one ya'll!

P.

Day off update,

Hello all, so todays my day off and therefore a good time to update!

We've recently lost internet in our greenroom hense my lack of regular updates, hopefully we should get it back soon.

So yeah, we're well into our high-season routine now. 3 shows a day as standard, on the weekends we're on standby to do 4 or more, it hasnt happened yet but you never know. The shows remain pretty consistant, recently though we had a show where the biggest moving part of our set (the "iron" bridge that Storm arrives on) failed to work. What's meant to happen is that she appears, fires a few lightning bolts at Magneto who then lifts the bridge about 8 feet up and tips her off it. It's quite a long procedure, about 15 seconds for the bridge to raise and tilt. Not too long you may be thinking but when the bridge doesn't work it felt like an eternity before we could move on with the show. Anyway, turns out it hadn't been plugged in... nice.

So today I finally got round to opening a German bank account with the help of one of my new German friends from the other Stunt Show in the Park. When I asked if there was anything I could do in return she said "well today I play the girl out of the audience role and I need a pretend boyfriend to sit with". Normally she just asks someone from the audience as they walk in but she says it's always easier if it's someone you know. So I agreed and we went into the park. Met her at the beginning of the show and about 10 minutes in they call for a "volunteer" and she gets selected. She's then asked if she's here with anyone and she points at me and I get told "say goodbye to your girlfriend!" Everybody laughs and the pretence is a good one. That is until people sitting near me start asking questions along the lines of "is she part of the team?" and many things in German. People did get a bit suspiscious when I told them i was English but it becomes pretty obvious it's all a setup when she starts doing dangerous stunts on stage :-p

So that was fun, didn't actually go see the x-men show, the one time I did sit in the audience I was plagued by some of the regular audience members who kept taking photos of me, didn't really fancy doing that again.

Anyway, that about covers it for now, we're on a slightly different schedule for the weekend so im going to chill out for the rest of the day and make sure i'm well rested for then.

Catch you later!

P.

must dash...

Hello all, very quick update before I go out. We're going to a party tonight, will be celebrating the halfway point of the contract. 15 weeks out of 30, so time for a knees-up.

Shows have been pretty consistent recently, we had our pyro-technic budget reduced from 90 Euros a day to 60 meaning we've lost some of the least important explosions from the show (in my opinion they were all important but nevermind).

Second show today was fun though, we had another CO2 explosion but this time I was the one holding the cannister. As the "electric transformer" (really a big heavy foam cylinder) explodes off the wall it's meant to land on the stage and take no further action in the show. However, it has recently taken to bouncing off the floor straight towards me and it's a pretty hefty thing too! Yesterday i got pretty good at watching it and then side-kicking it away as it bounces towards me but today it bounced very low and flew into the CO2 gun that I was holding causing the hose to sheer and the entire high-pressure contents of the cannister to start spraying out with some ferocity. I leaped like a startled Gazelle out of the way and kept my distance until it had emptied itself (which took a while!)
The techies have said they'll be altering the angle at which the transformer gets fired so hopefully thats the end of that little problem.

No more 2 day shows for us anymore, it'll be 3 a day from now until we close give-or-take. On the plus side we've had a full crowd on a couple of occasions now so that's always good :-)

Will be updating again next week.

P.

and recently...

Hello all, just a brief detailing of the last few shows for you...

As far as I recall Sunday wasn't too bad. I do recall that in one show one of the CO2 guns wasn't working from early on, it was the important gun as well, the one thats used by Gambit to give the other X-Men their powers back. During the show we were exchanging advice to see if we could get it working but to no avail, so about halfway through the show I heard Aidan say "i'll use the other one". Now the other one is left on the wrong side of the stage so like a pro Aidan ran over and left his staff on the ground in time to spray the X-Men with it. A couple of minutes later I go over to where Gambit had left the staff and think "oh blimey, he's going to need this in a bit" so I casually pick it up and throw it to him. Pretty good improvisational skills dont you think? So yeah that was Sunday.

Yesterday we awoke to another scorching hot day but about 10 minutes before the audience were due to be let in the theatre the sky became practically black with a massive storm cloud, within minutes the wind had become so ferocious that there was debree flying all around the park. All the rides were shut down and as a result we lost power in the theatre meaning no first show. There was nothing anyone could do so we spent the day just waiting for the next show which went just fine.

This morning we got off to a usual start, I had a bit of a dodgy entrance as I lost balance on my front handspring and therefore lost my footing for my brief fight sequence, everything went ok but i'm sure it will have looked a little sloppy. The show carried on and we got past Nightcrawlers entrance before suddenly the lights went out. Now we've been told from previous occasions that the lighting is linked with the special effects and once the lighting has reset the pyros and FX simply wont work. We carried on for a few seconds before the soundtrack stopped and we heard our techie calling the show off. Now in England this probably would have lead to a lot of boo-ing from the crowd but German audiences are a bit more respectful than that so they all left without making any fuss.
The second show went well except for Gambit's rising flame grill which got stuck on it's way up and consequently didn't fire (thank god for some of the failsafes we have). Talk of sabotage has quietened down as we now have a heavy security prescence at the theatre but the question of "was it ever sabotage in the first place" is still in a lot of peoples minds. Guess we'll have to wait and see!

It's my day off tomorrow so I intend to have a few beers tonight and chill out all day. Lovely :-)

P.

Me and my big mouth.

Well I think I officially jinxed that show, after saying how we'd been trouble-free for some time.

At the end of the show when the snow and rain machines are going, Gambit throws down his stick and 3 huge plumes of fire erupt from 3 manholes in the stage. However, in the last show we noticed that one wasn't shooting any fire up, instead it was just swirling around and when the other 2 shut off the hole remained burning. A brief moment of "uh-oh" occured before Aidan and myself grabbed both Co2 guns and used them as impromptu fire-extinguishers, succesfully putting out the blaze. It's strange, this is my 3rd stunt show ever but the second time that I've had to put out a fire on stage.

Now the main problem we have is that it looks like this was not an accident. There has been talk of Sabotage flying around the park for a while now and we feel we've been the victim of many accidents that just can't have been fluke incidents. There is currently an investigation going on to get to the bottom of this but every time we go on stage now I worry about everyones safety, the people rappelling from the ceiling, those who stand by pyro-technics, everything has potential to be very dangerous especially if it's being tampered with.

As it stands we will be doing the 3rd show today but without the flame jets. Particularly annoying since there are lines in the show about using the fire but what can we do? It's all pre-recorded and the park dont want us cancelling shows.

Certainly hope this is resolved soon, will keep you up to date with any developments.

P.

Guten Tag

Hello all, blimey has it really been a week since I updated? My apologies. Time seems to be moving quite quickly now that we're so set in our ways.

So where were we last time? Oh yes, the lamp-post had broken and I was going to try something different. Well it went ok but looked really awkward from the audience point of view, I was miles away from the explosions that were going off on the balcony and the whole thing just looked a bit weird. Fortunately everything had been repaired for the next morning and it was business as usual.

It's also been a while since we had to cancel any shows, it was becoming a rather too frequent occurance, every occasion was due to something technical though, still no performer errors.

The heat has reached a pinacle today, we have a lot of people coming up to us after the shows asking if we're hot, the Germans don't seem to understand the premice of "ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" so we just have to be polite and say yes, we're very hot indeed!

3 shows today, high season should be starting the week after next. We've been told to expect 3 shows a day all week round with the possibility of more. We're all secretly hoping that 3 will be enough, we're yet to perform to a completely full theatre and would much rather do 3 shows to a full house than 4 shows to a smaller crowd.

If anything exciting or interesting happens i'll be here to let you know!

Px

Alrighty then.

Hello all, update time.

So things have been going pretty well of recent, the weather was really becoming a factor towards the end of last week. This current heatwave has meant that we're tiring out during shows and risking dehydration, particularly those in muscle suits which are essentially padded duvets. No-one has fallen foul of dehydratiuon or exhaustion yet though.

Yesterday I received the employee of the month award which was nice, I got a big mirage entertainment bag and a bottle of Bishops Finger ale, which our show manager had to go to an English shop in Koln to buy. Much appreciated.

First two shows today went very well. The park are doing a promotional day, something to do with one of the German bank groups. The second show today was specifically for people utilising this deal and they got a warm-up guy to get the audience cheering before the show. The crowd were very good and we got a very long round of applause at the end of the show.

However, when I went to reset my lamp-post I noticed that the safety cable attaching it to the set has become severely frayed, to the point that I refuse to use it again until it is replaced. So we were left to devise an alternative, someting that got glossed over when we first mentioned it. After a quick discussion about options it seems the best thing to is climb my way over that part of the set to a nearby ladder. To make it look a little more exciting i'll be jumping from quite high up the ladder into a shoulder roll (I knew that Parkour training would come in useful one day!)

So we'll see how it goes, hopefully it wont be long before the cable is replaced, tomorrow is my day off so if I do break my leg it can have a day to heal :-P

Bye for now!!!

Update

Howdy folks, just a quick update on the last few shows.

Show 1 yesterday: We had a new techie running the show so were told to be aware for slight mistakes with sound effects etc. He actually did pretty well for a first attempt and the only mistakes were noticible to us on stage and probably not noticible to the audience.

Show 2 yesterday: Well we were all in our places backstage, the pre-show music ended and the backstage light got brighter signalling the beginning of the show. However it quickly became apparant that there was no music, only dialogue coming out of the speakers. There's no way the show would work like that so without even setting foot on stage we went upstairs and the show was cancelled.

First show today: Unfortunately cancelled again, this time the show was running fine to begin with but at the point where Wolveine repels in and the action starts (i'm sitting in the wings watching the stage) the curtain dropped and there was a distinct lack of Wolverine. I waited for a couple of seconds but it was clear that Wolverine wasnt there so ran backstage to inform the techies that we were missing a character and the show would have to be stopped. Well the music continued to play to a baffled audience before an announcement was made saying the show was cancelled. Turns out that the glove needed for the Wolverine repel had been knocked off the walkway, making it impossible for Wolfy to come down the rope.

So here we are, with a very long gap before our next showtime, thank God the weathers nice eh!

P.

Allo.

Oh dear, goodbye England from the world cup, going to be annoying putting up with all the smug Germans, at least until Friday when they get beaten by Argentina!

So the weekend went fine, a couple of glitches in the shows but nothing serious. Huge audiences on Saturday afternoon, maybe the biggest since we opened which is always good for us on stage.

Back to the usual 2 shows today, the weather is really playing a part now as it's been so hot, having to be very careful about running the risk of dehydration and exhaustion but we get plenty of time to rest and recover between shows so we're all taking it easy.

Not much else to report except I seem to have aquired a groupie, added her on Facebook because we had some friends in common but it turns out she is just a crazy fan and is emailing me saying she wants to talk after the shows, signs all her emails "Your Jacqueline". It's quite funny in a creepy sort of way so that's my entertainment for the week!

Til next update!

Px

Ay 'up.

Afternoon all.

Well it's Friday and also my day off so hopefully the shows are running well today.

Not too many disasters to report on since the incident with the CO2 tank. Wednesday was the first time that Gareth played Magneto and he did very well considering he hasnt had to play that part for 5 weeks or so.

World cup fever is still very prevolent here, Phil, Gareth and myself went to a little bar to watch the Germany game that would determine if they would be playing England this week. It was quite funny trying to act inconspicuous as we got very excited every time Ghana looked as if they would score, fortunately I dont think anyone noticed us and as it turned out Germany will face England on Sunday. We're not busy when the game kicks off but we have our last show of the day at half time, we're expecting a very small audience indeed but will be able to run up to the green room in time to catch most of the second half. It's going to be pretty bad if England lose as we wont hear the end of it from all the techies and crew but hey-ho, maybe we'll win and can gloat at them for a while!

So back to work tomorrow and the usual weekend schedule of 3 shows a day, the weather has been brilliant recently but as a result we come home exhausted every day, still, it's good practice for the high season which looms ever closer!

Will update you all again after the weekend unless anything spectacular happens In which case i'll update sooner!

Px

Post number 40.

Hello all.

Well yesterday was quite funny. Our first show began at 1:15 and started off as per usual, however about 7 minutes in a noticed from my backstage position that the lighting was wrong, we were in pitch black and i could see that the lights weren't running to their usual programme. Just as i was climbing down the ladder to see what was going on the wholw show stopped and i heard our lead technician over the mic announcing that the show would have to be cancelled due to technical reasons. So I didn't even make it on stage in the first show :-P

Show two ran normally and was free from any disasters but we'd all been in since 11:45 and without doing the first show the energy levels werent particularly high, but still, it went fine and we were told the sound issues wouldnt happen again.

Today has the same show schedule and the audience will be arriving in 10 minutes so im off.

Catch you later people.

Px

Lo.

Alright readers.

So yesterday my parents came to visit me. Was great to see them, we went to a few places around the local area and had a general catch up. They're in the park today and have watched 2 of the 3 shows so far, should have some good photos and footage.

So as for the shows:

Show 1 highlights: All started off well until Gambit struck the CO2 cannister on the back of one of the mutants, it sheared a valve at the head of the cannister and the entire contents began to spray violently from the top, causing the guy to trip forwards and graze his knee. He was very lucky in my opinion, if that CO2 had been spraying his skin then he'd have ended up with serious burns. Anyways, he's ok but is taking the rest of the day off.

Show 2 highlights: A very successful show actually, little bit of audience reaction when Magneto came on stage which is always good. No technical or pyro faults and no performer errors either, lets hope this last one will be just as good!

P.

Easy Friday.

Alrighty. So today was second Friday in a row where we only had one show. The show time was 1.15, fifteen minutes before Germany kicked off their second world cup match so we were expecting a tiny audience, we were however quite surprised to see an avergae amount of people for a weekday so put on a good show. Just before curtain up Aidan (Gambit) and i had a little boxing sparr, not uncommon, but this time he managed to give me the perfect dead-arm and right up until my entrance i could hardly lift it. Somehow managed to muddle through without wiping out in the tumbles, must get him back for that! :-P

So tomorrows a day off for everyone due to a dance competition in the theatre, tonight we'll be watching the England game at Aidans appartment then going for a few celebratory/conselation beers in Dorsten. My parents arrive in Germany tonight and will be picking me up tomorrow to spend the day together, will be good to see them :-)

Next update might be sometime Sunday which, i should imagine, will be a busier day with 3 shows on the schedule. See you then!

Px

And so...

So first show over, reasonably successful except our "repaired" rotating car failed to rotate. Upon inspection it turns out it just wasn't pre-set properley so hopefully we'll see it work in this coming show.

Finally got some good footage of me as Cyclops, i'm also planning to do some Parkour in Kirchhellen to give me plenty of new show-reel material.

Next show is in an hour and a half so i'm going to enjoy the sun and eat some lunch!

Catcha later.

Px

Briefly.

Hello all.

Been a pretty un-eventful week show-wise. Pleased to say I haven't landed on my arse again. We're about to do a show with the big boss of the park in the audience so have been asked to pull out all the stops, to be honest there's very rarely any problems caused by performers, just technical issues with the FX so really it's just business as usual for us.

Weather continues to be lovely, when we first started I was freezing backstage since I don't have to wear a muscle suit, now i'm very glad I'm not wearing one as it gets pretty warm on the stage.

Have got Gareth filming the show today so can hopefully get some decent footage of me in action, might start piecing together my next show reel soon. Happy days :-D

Will report on show 1 later on.

Byeeeeeeee!

*ahem*

...

In show 2 today i tripped over a Chinese and landed my handspring on my arse...

...bugger.

P.

Sunday, sunday, sunday.

Hello folks.

I realised the other day that all the times on my blog posts are all messed up so please ignore them. It's currently about 3:30pm on Sunday and we've just finished show 1 of 2. A lot of the new changes have been applied but with that has come a few technical difficulties. Yesterday we were off due to the Shrek premiere, turns out that in order for the cinema screen to be put up our stage had been completely ravaged and many of our on stage props had been taken down. Consequently this mornings technical run through highlighted that loads of effects weren't working anymore. We were told that if the show was going too badly they'd pull the plug and cancel it. So the show began and started off ok, up until my entrance, whereupon i stepped out on the balcony and it fell immediatly leaving me awkwardly poised by my lampost trying to shoot the laser. I managed to scrape it together and rode the lampost successfully. However it became quickly apparant that the entire sound track was far too quiet and we struggled to hear our audio queues for the rest of the show. I've also had 2 lines added into the show and wasn't told what they were so i had to face away from the audience and try to blag it. I've got the new lines sat in front of me now and am doing my best to commit them to memory but it's not easy.

So the next show is in an hour and a quarter, hopefully some of the technical issues will have been resolved but we may be in for another trying run.

Here's hoping for the best!

P.