Sunday 3 February 08 Get-in day. The set is the entire contents of my living room - sofa, armchair, table, chairs, lamp, pot plant, ironing board, guitar. Paul, the man with a van, arrives late - inauspicious. But once he turns up, he's a great help and interesting company. We drive across a sunny, early-Sunday-semi-deserted London, half the contents of my flat loaded in the back. We're heading towards the Jermyn Street Theatre and the most daunting, exciting experience of my life.

We unload, carry the furniture through the bowels of the building and the adjoining bar, and then into the theatre proper. The stage is empty. The building manager, an affable guy, chats away as I get everything in its place. Within five minutes it's done - my living room on the stage. It's a strange feeling. Alone in the empty theatre, I take the guitar out of the case and play Sit Down, singing along badly. I wander downstairs to check out the dressing rooms. There are two - one for me, one for Amy (Amy Rockson www.amyrockson.com, who plays Adele); they're a little ragged but spacious. Further up the corridor is the set storage and set construction room, strewn with paints, props and all kinds of paraphernalia.

Amy arrives at lunchtime. I run through a couple of scenes with Amy watching. This is it, there's no going back. Oh shit.

By the end of the afternoon we've done all the lighting and most of the audio cues - I'm pleased. In the dark, intimate theatre, the changing lighting transforms the set and lends each scene its own character. It's bright and clinical for the scene with the consultant, soft and nourishing for the tenderness of Adele's days. I go home thinking we might just pull it off.

Monday 4 February 08. As soon as the theatre is open I'm in. I run through some of my scenes. When Amy arrives we rehearse the long opening scene. We've been through it many times and we're both pretty comfortable with it. This is our only full day in the space before the show opens, so we run through the scene in full until we've blocked it out. The layout of the theatre works to our advantage. As Adele (played by Amy) enters the bar, Amy can actually walk into the theatre, through the audience and onto the stage. With the lighting and audio effects and the props - and hopefully the acting - we're suddenly in a bar.

Justin quickly works through the script putting in his prompts. There are quite a few issues with timing - phones ringing, knocks at the door, footage projected onto the back wall - which are critical. I hourly envisage cock-ups - me picking up a phone that isn't ringing, the projector breaking down, lighting transitions that don't happen. Suddenly the piece seems a lot more complicated. Tomorrow night the theatre will be full - or half-full. Maybe it'll be empty - I kind of hope it is. Maybe then we can go home. Little waves of panic wash over me like a musical refrain. By the time we have to leave the theatre I'm tired. Some things went well, a lot of things went well, but mistakes have crept into some of my scenes and I know I'm a little monotone at times. Amy suggests changing the tempo of my delivery in a couple of places. I try it and it works. The scene is transformed. I leave happier, and scared. Very scared.

Tuesday 5 February 08. Opening night. I slept terribly. Coming into the theatre I wished I was going shopping or going to work like I imagine everyone else is. I get out of the tube (underground railway) at Piccadilly and get a sandwich and Lucozade from the now familiar Tesco (supermarket) opposite the theatre. We've got all afternoon to rehearse. We're going to squeeze every minute from it.

All goes well until 5 o'clock. Amy and I run through our scene a couple of times. We've already decided to stop at 5.30. You can over-rehearse, and we need to keep our energy up. If we're not right now we never will be. And then something happens. I do something I've not done before. Ever. Not in the rehearsals, not in the last two days. I completely dry up. I don't just forget a line, I go tharn, like a rabbit caught in the headlights in Watership Down. I totally freeze, my brain locked up. I look at Amy, about the only thing I can move is my eyes. She's looking back at me, waiting for the line. She shouts 'Line' to Justin. He gives me a prompt. I apologise and we carry on. I'm red under the lights. Sorry, I say again after we've finished the scene. Amy's gracious and we go for one last run-through. I've made a mental note, in fact it's not so much a note, more a knife-stroke through my brain, to remind myself not to stumble over the offending line. It's fine, I sail through it. Until it strikes again. Exactly the same. I'm dying on stage. Crap, crap, crap. Amy feeds me the line. 'I won’t do that again', I say. 'If that happens, we just have to carry on', she says. I feel so bad. For Amy, for the show. What if I do that tonight, in three hours' time? What was I thinking to write a play, to produce it, act in it?

Separately we go for some food and to collect out thoughts. I walk up Glasshouse Street and find a veggie-burger place. I eat my food mechanically. Inside I'm tearing up. My stomach isn't so much knotted as strangled. I constantly want to go to the loo but there's nothing there. My insides have been excavated. At 6 o'clock I consider pulling out - going back to the theatre, finding Amy and explaining how I feel. I'd pay her, of course. I'd apologise to the theatre. They'd have their money. I would be embarrassed and ashamed but it wouldn't be cowardly, it would be the best thing. And it wouldn't be the end of the world. In fact, it would simply be me cancelling a play that probably no-one will come to watch, and if they do they'll wish they hadn't. Yes, I'll call it off.

I can't. I've invested too much time and emotion. I've been a hermit for three months, living and breathing the play. It's a story dear to my heart. And Amy has put in so much time. Down in the dressing room I steel myself. Amy and I reassure each other that it will go well. I pace around the dressing room rattling off my lines. Five minutes before I go to the wings. Amy leaves to follow a circuitous route to the front of the theatre ready to take her cue outside the auditorium. I feel sick. I expel a cloud of empty wind. Waiting in the wings I can hear the chatter of the audience. I recognise a voice. Background music is playing, and the audio track of bar noise. The lights come on. The audience suddenly fall silent. I walk onto stage.

And it's fine. The nerves fall away. The audience is appreciative and we get laughs in all the right places. In the quieter scenes there is a hush. I wonder if people are taken aback that it's such a harrowing subject. Wooden Ted and Mr Shark seem to go down well. An hour and five minutes later, it's all over. We've done it. No hitches, no forgotten lines. Amazingly, it's all gone according to plan. I scurry off to the dressing room, elated, dizzy with relief and pleasure. Amy's happy and I'm glad I didn't let her down. I know that in the hour I was off having my burger she was walking around wondering what the heck she'd got herself into. I think she's probably as relieved as me. I go for a quick drink with friends who'd come for the first night. When I go home I'm still buzzing. I get a few complimentary texts. I call my mum and get an early night.

Wednesday 6 February 09. Second night. Before going into the theatre, I go for an early morning swim which has become a routine. I realise that I've got into habits which I now can't change. Not to go swimming or drink a bottle of Lucozade in the theatre is to invite disaster. With each length of the pool I run through my dialogue. Even though first night went well I want to get a few scenes under my belt. Again, no great problems. At 3 o'clock my stomach starts. It's like a cement-mixer with nothing to mix - just air and nerves churning over and over. Backstage I have the same popping and fizzings as last night. Amy and I have our little good-luck exchange, then she sets off. I put some anti-shine powder on my forehead, do 50 manic press-ups, and line-run my longest monologue.

Almost immediately, it's apparent the atmosphere is different. The audience is about the same in numbers (it averaged 35 a night) but is much quieter. The scenes that play for laughs don't come off as well, and in the poignant scenes such as the funeral speech the silence is almost too much. I see someone I know in the audience. Until then I'd managed not to pick-off faces or catch eyes. It throws me and I fluff a line. 'Not only is she very beautiful, she's also very pretty.' Pretty was supposed to have been funny. I press on and soon forget it. There are no other mistakes and there's applause at the end, but when we meet backstage Amy and I are both a little muted. I hadn't fully understood how the mood of an audience can so readily and immediately affect the actors and influence the performance - I'd underestimated the dynamic. 'The curse of the Second Night', says Amy. I nod and hope tomorrow will be better. I feel weak with tiredness like the sudden drop of blood sugar. It's the come-down after adrenaline, a numbing cold anti-climax. I go to bed wishing I'd never started the whole damn thing.

Thursday 7 February 08. Third night. I'm right back at square one. Whereas after Tuesday night I was on a high, now I feel flat. I go over all aspects of the play again and wind myself into a tizz. Before lunch I circle my empty living room, looking out at the passing tube trains. I notice vaguely how hollow all my lines sound, the words echoing off the walls and bare floorboards. I arrive at the theatre just after lunch. There's nothing to be done, it's too late to change anything, we just have to put last night behind us and press on. Nothing a bottle of Lucozade won't sort out. And some more bad guitar playing. It's peculiarly reassuring each time I arrive at the theatre to see my living room laid out on stage. I sit on my sofa and look at Wooden Ted.

Tonight my family are coming. I don't know if I like that or not. Will I throw me? I know it's going to be as strange and scary for them as it is for me. I'm not a trained actor. What kind of hare-brained nonsense has their youngest, little brother Simon, got himself into? And because of the subject, it's going to be difficult for them in places. Ah well. Amy and I knock back the Lucozade, I do my face-powder and press-ups and then its on stage. Just as the second night lacked fizz, tonight it's as if a champagne cork has been popped - and it probably has. Just before going on I can hear my mum and dad and their distinctive laughs. I know they'll have been on the sauce in the restaurant next door, having a pre-show dinner and getting stuck into the bubbly. The audience lap it up. We get the biggest laughs so far. They hoot at the footage, and the silence in the final scenes is palpable in the right way. I hear a few tears. At the end there's a loud ovation. Backstage, we run down to the dressing rooms and I've got the best buzz yet. 'We were cooking on gas', says Amy. Yes! I've told my family that I won't see them as I don't know how I'll be feeling. Even though it went really well I stick to that. It's another of my new routines - go home straight after the show. When the tube gets to Finchley Road and my mobile phone reception kicks in I get a stream of text messages. A few minutes later I'm back in my denuded flat. Mum calls me and says how proud she is. I can hear the rest of them in the background. More champagne. Mum sounds even more girlish than usual.

Friday 8 February 08. Fourth night. Mum calls me in the morning and says that she's going to come and see it again tonight. I say that she doesn't need to. She says that she wants to. She's going to come with a friend, then in the morning she and dad are off back up North. She doesn't remember a word she said on the phone last night! The swimming pool feels like a friend. I wonder what it will be like going back to work. It's a strange life. Now we're a bit more comfortable, we don't go into the theatre so early. I'm not blasé, but I feel I know my scenes inside out, so I decide to go in later. The nerves kick in still at 3 o'clock. I could set my watch by them. I realise when I arrive at the theatre at 6.30 that Amy and Justin were getting a little worried. Brief panic which I don't show. Maybe I've upset the routine. Maybe it's going to be a disaster. What was I thinking coming in so late? Don't be silly, I tell myself. You still have half an hour before you need to get ready. Lucozade.

It's nearly as good as Thursday. Not quite but nearly. There are a couple of tiny tech mis-cues, but barely noticeable. I know where the laughs are coming and which will be the biggest: Amy's 'Why would I want to know your salary?', the karaoke bar, the puppet footage, and Wooden Ted. Another night ticked off. No elation afterwards this time, which is weird as nothing went wrong and it was well-liked. I realise how tired I am. All week I've been sleeping badly. All I have running round my head are lines from the play. When I consider that tomorrow is the last night, I have mixed emotions.

Saturday 9 February 08. Fifth and last night. Saturdays have always carried excitement for me. Today is Saturday excitement laced with the potency of the last night. For the first time in the five-night-run, I'm actually looking forward to this evening. I know now that I can do it. I know that it's not crap. I want to get on stage and deliver a good performance and for it all to be over. Quite a few friends are coming tonight. Roll on 7.30.

It goes just as I'd hoped. Our second-best night. Thursday was the best, but tonight's no disappointment. Once the theatre has cleared, Justin, Amy and I have a bottle of champagne. I can't believe it's over. Five nights and only the tiniest of cock-ups. What a week. There's no time to linger or celebrate as we have to do the get-out. Paul arrives with his van. He enthusiastically asks how it went as he helps us clear the stage. It's 10.30 on Saturday night. Paul helps me load and then unload back at my second-storey, narrow-staircased flat halfway across town. He charges me £30 - he is a saint. I feel guilty and give him more. I open a bottle of wine and bit-by-bit put my furniture back. Slowly my living room takes shape, and with it normal life comes back. The play is behind me. On Monday I'll be going back to work. I'm immensely relieved, very happy, and oddly sad. I've accomplished everything I set out to, made some friends, told a story I wanted to tell and proved something to myself. And in the last week I've learnt a lot about myself. Oh, and I've lost half a stone and now got orange teeth.

Sunday 10 February 08. The day after. Lie in. Lines in. Lines out. Pace around my fully-furnished flat. Go for a swim. Have lunch. Run through my lines. 3 o’clock: stomach churns. Time for the loo. 4 o'clock. 5 o'clock. 6 o'clock. 7 o'clock. Lucozade?

END

(c) Simon Dale 11 April 2009

Simon Dale is a writer living in London. He is a director of Casting Call Pro and Stage Jobs Pro. His first stage play Under Pressure (www.underpressuretheplay.com) ran at Jermyn Street Theatre London UK Tuesday 5 to Saturday 9 February 2008 at 7.30pm nightly.

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