Rosie Goes to see James in Frost/Nixon in LA
Its a Rosie Ramble! yes - here is my take on the 4 wonderful days of seeing James on stage again
Disclaimer: This ramble is my version of what I saw, heard and said during the time at the performances of frost/Nixon. I make notes at the time and I do remember things but i’ts not going to be completely accurate as things happen fast, a lot of things are said in a short time and everyone remembers different things. I'm remembering to the best of my ability, but I may not always get who said what and when correct every time. Remember, I'm in the presence of James when a lot of this happens so it’s not surprising that my awareness and accuracy goes out the window. Just be thankful I can construct a reasonable coherent sentence at all and not just a series of squeaky noises, low moans and some drooling....!!
Rosie goes to see James in Frost/Nixon for LA Theatre Works
So, here it was in April, and my first trip to the US this year. This trip had been booked since we first heard that James would be appearing again for LA Theatre Works back in July and so was greatly anticipated. I flew out to LA via Detroit, and was met at the airport by Patti and Adrian as we were all staying at Patti’s house.
THURSDAY
I wasn't really much company the first night but we ate and caught up. Adrian was sleeping on the sofa bed in the lounge and the following morning she and I lay on her bed and watched “3 Inches” on Patti's TiVo whilst Patti served us breakfast! We were terrible houseguests but she didn't seem to mind!
We left early to go to the James Bridges theatre as we still have to find exactly where it was and what the parking was like. It was a good hour and a half from Patti's house and I was trying to concentrate on the route as I was going to be driving it the next day. We found our way into UCLA easily and there was a parking lot right by the theatre. As we were very early there wasn't much parking and we had to drive about a bit to find some. Having finally parked, we checked out the theatre which at this time was still holding classes, and then explored the campus a little bit and found somewhere to eat. It really is an amazing campus, there were sculptures everywhere and beautiful trees and grassy bits - and we only really saw the top corner. It must be very inspiring to be a student there.
We went back to the theatre and we were still there before anybody from LA theatre works, so we sat and admired all the film posters around the foyer. Before long a couple of people I recognised arrived, including the lovely Michael who is in charge of audience services. He remembered me and was really pleased to see us back. They love that we come so far to see James perform.
They were setting up tables and getting ready for the evening performance. I recognised Tom Virtue who was playing Nixon when he arrived and other actors gradually trickled in. And then James arrived and he looked great! Really, really good. His hair had some definite curly going on at the front and he was already dressed in his ‘costume’ - a grey pinstripe suit, blue shirt with a white collar and complete with cufflinks. (For the performance he later added a tie) He seemed very happy to see us, there were hellos all round and he stopped briefly to talk. I said he looked great and he replied that we all looked fabulous as he worked his way round hugging everybody that was there. Showed us that he had “cufflinks and all” on his shirt as he had to be smart to be Frost - which he said in an English accent. He told us that the guy playing Nixon was fabulous, really great and that he had done the Pentagon Papers on tour in China. The one he was going to do? I asked and James replied “yeah, but I took something with more money...!” with a grin. He said he would see us afterwards, he would come out. The curls were falling down a bit over his forehead, and he looked so good. His skin was clear and his eyes were shining - he really was kind of glowing!
We sat and talked and more people arrived including Patricia who waved hello as she was passing through. Maybe 15 min later she came back into the foyer so several of us went to greet her. We hugged and I wished a belated happy birthday for the previous day (I said I would have posted on Facebook but I was on a plane all day!) I introduced her to Adrian and a group of us then stood and talked with her. Patti asked if she had had a hand in improving James's dress sense, since he was looking a bit smarter these days and she said she had a bit! Left to his own devices, he'd go and buy about 20 vintage T-shirts. There was general conversation about guys dress sense - everyone agreeing that they were mostly the same - and Becky said that James thought shopping at the mall was selling out, as he has been known to say in Q and A sessions. Patricia agreed "it's that hunter/gatherer thing" so it looks like she's heard it all before too! She is so pretty, really beautiful and so very sweet and chatty. Asking her about her new Facebook page as Jasmin, was she still known as Patricia? She said yes, Jasmin was her stage name. She was persuaded to use that by her acting class as it sounded better than Patricia. What does James call her? Patricia or Patty or sometimes Bird. Quite a few of us misheard her at this point and thought she said Bert, which made us all laugh (imagine this gorgeous woman called Bert!) and she assured us it was the feathered kind. We said how cute they were in the video she had done, it was adorable. Patricia said it was a pretty spontaneous thing they had recorded in the week - she asked James "shall I put something up?" to which he said yes, and stopped eating his dinner to join in!
She was saying she was still finding her way around Facebook and that Britney was teasing her about being so behind the times. I giggled and put in "Facebook - its so last year!" And she giggled too and agreed. Magie told her she needed to go on Twitter and was explaining how she could link it to her Facebook. Patricia was definitely interested (and Magie is Queen of Twitter and so knows what she's talking about!)
We then went into the theatre to take our seats, and Magie who was on Facebook up to the last minute spotted that Patricia had already posted on her page thanking all the “Marsters Sweethearts” for coming out to see her hubby in the play! We loved that title, so now we are all Marsters Sweethearts.
Although this was a new theatre, the setup was just the same as the previous two LA theatre works performances I have been to. All the actors sit on the stage for the entire performance, coming to the microphone when it's their turn to speak. For this first performance I was sitting on the end seat to the left of the stage which was where the actors came in from and it was a good seat as none of the microphones or other actors standing at them blocked my view of James. He looked really happy to be back on stage again.
The play was good! I thought I might find it a bit dry and wordy- but it was riveting. Being British and too young to remember the events of the Watergate scandal and what it was really all about, it was quite an education for me and it's made me want to look up more about what happened. James was right - Tom Virtue playing Nixon was amazing. He had a wig on so even looked like him and the voice was brilliant. And James was superb - he sounded like David Frost. Not so much of the definitive way in which he talks, though it was more obvious when they got to the second half of the play and the actual interviews, but I could hear touches of the way he emphasises words. James had a lot to do and was standing up at the microphones for a lot of it though quite often not speaking. Not that that's a problem as he is always so wonderful to look at. If he wasn't speaking he was always looking up over the microphone into the middle distance so you could see the emotions playing across his face. It may be a radio play but James and most of the others were acting with their whole being, not just their voice.
Magie and I were able to move over to a more central seat in the second half, which gave us just as good a view only more straight on. James noticed this as he came on for the second half and gave us a quick grin.
The second act was even better. There were quite a few laughs in it actually, more than I thought there would be, and James had some emotional bits to work with, which were great, especially the phone call between Frost and Nixon. It was seriously good and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Afterwards, we all lingered in the foyer as all the actors had to come through the same way as usual. They were surprised to be greeted by James fans and asked for autographs, and impressed that some of us had come so far to see the play! Then James came out still in his suit and tie and there was much huggage all round! When it was my turn to talk to him I got a lovely hug with an added squeeze at the end and then, as he signed my programme I asked him about the Frost way of speaking and how I had heard touches of it in his performance, did he see the actual interviews? James said some of them are YouTube so he studied them. They didn't want it to become a caricature of Frost so he didn't imitate him, just tried to get the rhythm of his speech. I said I could hear it, especially in the second half and he had it. I then got to take pictures of a happy James (but had to use flash as the light was awful, and made extra difficult by all the film posters causing reflections) chatting with everyone and signing programmes. He ended up joining Patricia and it was so lovely to see them together, they are so sweet - Patricia played it up a little bit for fun, leaning on James's shoulder. I was able to get a few shots of them together, including a lovely one of James kissing her, though I missed the one of Patricia kissing James as the camera was too slow! They looked so happy - as soon as Patricia got next to him, James's arm slipped round her automatically even though he was talking to someone else at the time, it was an unconscious act - just adorable. I hate all the crap that gets speculated about them, you only have to see them together to know they are just fine. Enjoy their happiness with each other because it is adorable - the rest is none of our business.
Shortly after that they left (holding hands) and the rest of us followed. It was a great first night and Patti, Adrian and I talked and reviewed all the way back to Patti's house, remembering all the things we noticed.
FRIDAY
We weren't quite so lazy today and actually got up. Patti let me loose with her car to go to the grocery store with Adrian and we managed to get lost very quickly! We did find our way back again though and it was all good practice for me driving. (I just have to remember those wide left turns and turning right on red always makes me a bit nervous as you can't do the equivalent in the UK.) We bought steaks and Adrian grilled them outside - yum!
It was my turn to learn the route to the theatre, so I did the driving. LA freeway traffic was not as bad as I thought it might be I just had to get used to so many lanes and people overtaking me on both sides! With three of us in the car I was able to use the carpool lane which helped, but then it was fun getting across five or six lanes when I had to take an exit on the right! I found all the exits and turns and got us to the theatre with plenty of time to spare. Consequently we were the only three there when James arrived. He was trying to get something to eat from the caterers outside the theatre and waved at us through the glass doors. He was held up talking to a few people for a while but then came in and sat down on the spare chair at our table by me. It was lovely - he stayed and chatted with us for about 10 minutes. The first thing he said - in typical James fashion coming out with something utterly random - was about the game app he had downloaded and was addicted to and it was costing him sleep! I can't remember the name of it but Patti was looking it up on her tablet. And I got to listen to his voice and look at him from close up for a long time - and he was looking amazing - he is just so beautiful. Almost larger-than-life, I am always amazed when I see James for real because although pictures of him are wonderful, they don't bring across his animation and vitality which are so much part of him. What is it about James's eyes? They sparkled and shone and I was mesmerised!
Managing to form a coherent sentence, I asked him if Patricia was coming to that evening performance. He said no she was attending the premiere of one of the short films she was in (James couldn't remember the title and nor could I) which was great. He was very happy about how her acting was going and said she was getting a bit of interest and the odd nibble from the right people, which was really good news. He was obviously very proud and supportive of her. He also talked about how well Sullivan was doing writing music and working on an album and that he was probably going to go touring with the very good school jazz band if he got in.
We showed him the photos for the previous evening of him and Patricia on Patti's tablet and he loved them and then said he better be getting backstage to get ready. He stood up and moved over to me so I stood up as well and got a lovely hug. He then moved round to hug Adrian and then Patti, who said that the following days matinee would be the last performance she could attend as she was going to her daughters graduation immediately afterwards. James said she must be so proud and that he had a while to go before that happened to him. We joked about her leaving me with the car and doing all the driving, and it was my first experience of driving in LA traffic, to which James said as he was walking out that he wouldn't drive in the UK to save his life! As he went through the doors I asked if he would be coming out after the show and he called back that yes he would.
The play was excellent again, with a few very minor changes. They used the screen behind the actors to sometimes put up pictures of the actual events through the play and there was one of Frost and Nixon arriving for the first interview and you could see that the shirt he wore was very like the one James was wearing with the white collar. And you could see how Tom Virtue really looked like Nixon. He just got better and better!
Maybe it's because I'm so familiar with James's acting and the various roles he's played, I couldn't help but see touches of both Spike and Captain John in his performance! When Frost is chatting up Caroline on the plane to LA, there was a definite hint of seductive Captain John (Adrian pointed that out!); and the quietly determined bits in the second half sounded very like Spike. Tonight was when James made his only real mistake of the run - he thought he had finished and had put his script down, when he still had one scene to go and so was caught unprepared when he suddenly realised he had to be at the microphone. Luckily he didn't have any long speeches to say in the scene, mostly just responses and he seemed to know it pretty much by heart anyway and it sounded fine, though I think he left a little bit out. We were all willing him on to get through it, and he did.
As I turned to leave the theatre I was delighted to see Mark, James's friend who’s been coming to a lot of conventions with him recently, was there, which I hadn't realised before. Didn't expect to see him until next week in Calgary so that was really nice, though apart from a hug and delighted exclamations on discovering he was there, I didn't really get to speak to him much.
When James came out into the foyer, the first thing he said was about almost messing up the end of the play. He felt awful and thought it was very unprofessional of him - but he really did think that his part was over! There were quite a few people staying on to see him so after more hugs he moved round to do autographs for other people and I just followed take pictures. He didn't stay that long, said he had to get home to the family and so left with Mark. Some of the other actors lingered and one, Jonathan Nichols, said he had been at school with James and his laugh was so familiar and took him right back!
Driving home proved to be a bit exciting, as the road construction they were doing on the 405 freeway meant that the exit we wanted was shut for traffic and so Patti had to direct me a completely different way back. That and driving in the dark with quite a bit of fog around made for an interesting journey and I was a bit worried in case the exit was closed again the following night as I didn't know the other route back and would certainly have trouble finding it in the dark. Adrian and I might well be spending the night in the car on a side road!
SATURDAY
Today there were two performances of the play, a matinee and an evening show, the first starting at 3 PM. So we started off a lot earlier today. I did the driving again with Patti not giving me any directions so I could find the way my own which I managed to do until we got up to the 405. There we hit traffic and the exit for the 405 was stationary. Patti then proceeded to direct me round various backstreets trying to avoid the hold-up, but there seemed to be fallout from whatever had happened on the 405, and at one point we ended up in a queue of cars that moved about 6 feet in 15 minutes. Patti was checking the traffic situation on her tablet trying to find us ways round which, with a bit of ducking and diving, she managed to do! We came up through UCLA and arrived at the theatre from the other direction, still with time to spare. And it looked like everybody else was going to be caught too, though everybody made it in time.
Nearly all the other actors had arrived by the time James got there (they were recognising us all now and saying hello when they came in) - he was running late and he apologised, saying that he couldn't stop, so we just got a drive-by wave as he zoomed through pretty much. He was again dressed in his costume when he arrived and was looking as good as ever.
I was sitting in my left corner seat again for the matinee (and I was highly amused to see that the entire front row for this performance consisted of James fans!) the same place I was for the first performance and it’s a great place for being spotted as the actors all walk past you. I got an eyebrow wiggle from James when he was coming off after the first half, and again with a grin at the end of the second. The play was no less riveting today; it just seemed to get better and better with each performance. None of the actors really came out after this performance, it seemed they were all going to be having dinner together before the evening show - but Patti did get to see James briefly as she had something to give him before she left.
So Adrian and I took Patti to LAX - the 405 had cleared up by now. Less than half an hour to get there from the theatre and we dropped her off with no problems, but it was sad to as we wouldn't see her again before both Adrian and I had left even though I was going to be around for another week. It was strange to wave her off and still be there with her car - very trusting of her to leave it with me, the foreigner, to drive and with the small town girl navigating! We carefully followed her directions back out onto the freeway and got back to the theatre in another half an hour and were able to park back in the same spot (so we didn’t have to pay again!) and still had plenty of time to grab something to eat before the evening's show. We were always worried that we were going to get stuck and be late back - not that it would really have mattered missing any of the play as we knew what was happening!
Yet again, the play just seemed to get better and better. I was never bored, it was always interesting each time I saw it. Everyone was really getting into it now and Tom Virtue was so good and together with James, they were just excellent. The phone call in the second half was definitely my favourite part. Playing the depressed and despondent Frost, James had real tears in his eyes and his whispered "oh God, oh God" really twisted at your gut - talk about great acting! Then a slightly drunken Nixon on the phone, a real turning point in the story as Frost realises he's got something to work with. Brilliant performances from both of them. For a lot of the scene James wasn't talking but was looking up into the middle distance with all the different emotions passing across his face, from despondency through to steely determination. It was incredible to watch, especially his eyes. James is so good on stage; it's a total joy to watch him, quite different from seeing him act on TV. I would so love to see him in a full play in costume on stage, that would really be something, but I also feel lucky that I have been able to see him in this and the two other plays he has done for LA theatre works in the last three years.
There was a little reception after this evening performance by "Brits in LA" which seems to be a group of expat actors as it was run by Joanna Whaley (who played opposite James in She Stoops to Conquer and was Lady Macbeth) and everybody was invited. All the actors came out to mingle and James did come and talk to us first but then felt he ought to mingle too. We were delighted to see him of course and I got another hug which was lovely, and I jokingly asked if he was still in Frost mode. He stuck his chest out, thrust his chin forwards and stood up taller saying "Yes of course" in his Frost voice. And then he relaxed and exclaimed "No, thank God!" with his head tipped back in relief!
He needed to go and mingle so we didn't get him for long, but I followed so I could take photographs and it was interesting watching him work the room, going up to everyone in their different groups, shaking hands and introducing himself. He seemed to charm everybody pretty quickly with his relaxed chatty style. I got some nice pictures but he didn't really stay long, though some of the other actors did and I took quite a few pictures of Adrian, Magie and Monika with them. I talked to Jonathan Nichols and it turned out he was at Julliard with James and both of them had dropped out ("best thing ever!" was Jonathan's opinion) and he had done a lot of voice work locally because of his Julliard training, so we talked Shakespeare. I also managed to tell Tom Virtue how incredibly good his Nixon was, which he accepted with an almost shy nod of the head - he seemed such a quiet and unassuming man off stage!
Driving back in the dark without Patti, I was really worried that we were not going to be able to get back onto the 405, and as we drove over the bridge I was looking and I couldn't see any cars turning down the exit. But in fact when we got there, it was open which was a great relief and I was able to drive back to Patti's without incident (apart from every now and then asking Adrian "did we pass that on the way here?" as things didn't always look familiar from the other direction in the dark!)
SUNDAY
Two more performances today only this time at 2 PM and 7 PM. Adrian and I got an early start as we had things to do before we left for the theatre. I wanted to print out some enlargements of the pictures from Friday night to give to James and Adrian wanted to buy him something so we went to the local Wal-Mart only to discover the photo centre didn't open until 10 AM! So we went and had breakfast first and then came back and I advised Adrian on what to buy James, which was fairly easy when we found some mini Star Wars figures in a set, whilst we waited for the photo centre to open
The photo machine could do the enlargements fairly quickly, so whilst we were waiting for them to process we ended up trying on clothes and each buying a new top, and Adrian found a Star Wars lunchbox to put the figures in for James. All this took time and so we were later leaving than we wanted to be but in fact made good time to the theatre. It did help that it was Sunday, but now I was getting more confident I was also driving faster and my speed tended to creep up without me realising!
James was late arriving again (we were joking that we hoped he remembered it was a two o'clock start today!) and came zooming through with his tie flying loose round his neck, apologising for not being able to stop again, so it was another fly-by wave and hello.
For this performance I was one seat in from my favourite corner, sitting between Monika and Magie. And when the actors entered in a line as they usually did, suddenly it was apparent that somebody was missing! The chair next to James was suspiciously empty as Leo Marks wasn't there. The director who had been introducing them was a bit bemused and said that this had never happened before and they didn't quite know what to do! There was a bit of giggling and someone suggested singing a song. James said he was "going to give him so much guff after this" and the director wondered like we had if he had remembered that it was a 2 PM start! Jonathan Silverman stepped forward and started telling the first line of a very corny joke about a priest and a rabbi going into a bar, and Jonathan Nichols suggested that we all, including the audience hid before he came back - which would have been really funny if we could have managed it. Then James said we should all just stare at him silently and did a narrow eyed glare to demonstrate. At that point Leo arrived emerging from the back of the theatre and so of course we gave him a huge round of applause with much whooping as he came down the stairs onto the stage! (It seemed he had a problem with his script and was missing pages so they were hastily printing them off for them!) Consequently this unusual start really seemed to lift the performance - it was certainly the best one of the six, helped by a very vocal and appreciative audience too - there seemed to be a more lot more laughter and the whole atmosphere was different. I got another grin and an eyebrow wiggle from James as he came off after the first act and they were getting a lot of applause.
During the interval all the Marsters Sweethearts who were there gathered outside for a group photograph. The guy that had been sitting next Adrian during the performance had offered to take the pictures and he was happy to direct us to a variety of different poses and take lots of different pictures on various cameras, including mine. He, like quite a lot of other people in the audiences that week were amazed and fascinated that we were all so loyal to James and would travel such a long way to see him perform.
We settled back in for the second act and they called the actors back in - but when the door opened the only person to come through was Leo Marks, like he'd been pushed and he proceeded to stand there and look around wildly before shooting out of the door again! This of course caused a huge laugh and we were still laughing when all the actors came in properly this time - apparently they've all made him do it. So that lifted the performance even more and James and Tom were really superb - James got me yet again with his despondency turning into determination - there were real tears in his eyes again. The audience was wildly appreciative and when they finished and were coming off the stage by us, Magie, Monika and I were telling all the actors especially James and Tom how great they were and we got a big grin from James as he went past.
Because it was between performances the actors didn't come out again as we expected and so five of us went for dinner in Westwood Village which was very nice, a bit like a small town there in LA. We had a little walk around but it had got surprisingly cold and was threatening to rain so we drove back up to the theatre again for the last performance.
It was really sad to see the play for the last time. It had never got boring even when I knew what was going to happen. The performance maybe wasn't quite as good as the afternoons, but it was still as riveting as ever. James and Tom together were yet again the best, totally believable. At the end all the James fans and a few others gave them a standing ovation, mostly I think because we wanted to show our appreciation for all their wonderful work throughout the six performances, rather than just for that one show. I told the director as I was leaving the theatre how good it had been and that the Sunday matinee was the best performance as far as I was concerned and he agreed with me. He said they would mostly use that performance for the recording.
The actors were longer coming out tonight as they were having a post-play drink, so when James did come out it was pretty much just his fans left - maybe 15 or so people. James came out carrying a single rose (which I think they all got - he said he was going to take it back for Patricia) plonked his backpack down pretty much in front of me and announced "I'm going to talk to you all as David Frost as I've got the character now" said of course in David Frost's accent - but he soon relapsed into normal James!
He started off signing for everybody, saying he would sign first and do photos after - mostly it was either the program or the three plays CD that LA Theatre Works had been selling that people wanted him to sign. The first thing he said as he was signing the first CD was that we all had to go and watch Sullivan's video on YouTube called "Interview with Sullivan Marsters" that he had just posted because "it's so cute!" And then he said "Everybody thinks you guys are great. We had several toasts just now and we toasted you guys!" To which I replied "You could have had the door open so we could hear it...!"
When it was my turn I got James to sign the three plays CD set and told him that it was for a fan in Australia who hadn't met him yet but would in November to which he said "don't tell I'm a prat!" First though I gave him the three photos I'd had enlarged - two of him with Patricia and one of just her. He loved them, he looked at each one, smiling and saying 'wow' and that they were fabulous. I had put the Patricia one on the bottom so he got to it last. He paused looking at it for a moment and then with a naughty grin exclaimed "She's hot!!" I said something about her being so beautiful and he leered a bit as he put the photos back into the envelope saying that she had sent him a smiley text that afternoon "And you know what that means!" as he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Then he added "But okay - maybe not!"
He thanked me for photos and crouched down to slide into his backpack. Becky showed him the picture that had surfaced of him in Godspell back in the 80s with the massive blonde Afro hair. He recognised it immediately and exclaimed with a slightly embarrassed giggle. "Oh no! That's the production I starred in where I didn't want to be famous. That’s Godspell, oh my God! "
Then he added "That hair got me fired! Yeah, from Baskin Robbins. They said it would drop in the ice cream! But there was a woman there with much bigger hair than mine (making the appropriate hand gestures) and they didn't fire her!"
Becky had passed the picture over to someone who hadn't seen it before and her exclamation of "Oh my God, how cute! What an adorable picture!" raised a big laugh and James looked a little bit embarrassed especially when Becky told him it was all over Facebook!
Adrian saved him from any more embarrassment by handing him the gift she had bought that morning saying it was from her and me (but really I was just advising!) and James did a high-pitched "Oooo!” when he saw it “Star Wars! Excellent!" and opened the box on Adrian's insistence.
When he saw what was inside, he exclaimed "Oh YEAH!" and as he picked out the mini Millennium Falcon "oh yeah, that's excellent!" Then picking out one of the little figures (think it was Darth Vader) started saying to it in the voice you use on babies and small animals "You're so cute! You're so evil cute!" which cracked us all up!
"That's wonderful, thank you" as he looked across to me and then back to Adrian. He carefully latched the box shut and murmured "I've got something to pack my lunch in" and then bent down to place it on his backpack. As he stood back up he said "Prezzies! You guys know me so well" then, as he started to approach the next person he rubbed his hands together with glee and exclaimed loudly "Prezzies!" which made me laugh more.
(How does he do that? Always doing or saying something that makes me love him even more?)
He did a few more autographs the people, making sure he'd spoken to everybody and then it was time to take photos so I got to do pictures of just about everybody there with James but when it came to the end and it was my turn there was only Becky there, so I handed my camera to Alessia who kindly took a picture for me. But I did get hugs after and I thanked James for some wonderful performances and said I'd see him in Calgary the next weekend. His face lit up and he replied "oh yeah, right on!" but he said it in David Frost's voice...!
Then he was going, so he picked up his bag, the rose and the lunchbox and Jonathan Nichols who had been standing over by the wall started mocking him about the lunchbox, to which James replied happily "I'm going to keep my lunch in it" and then Jonathan proceeded to verbally abuse him all the way out of the door - "Star Wars? You're a vampire for Gods sake! I'm finding out stuff about you I don't want to know...!" which was hilarious.
So that was it. I said goodbye to Michael and hoped I would see him again soon and then we all left and four of us went back into Westwood Village to get desert. We were parking on the street and so I had to parallel park the car. I don't find that an easy manoeuvre at the best of times and now I was having to do it backwards, in a bigger car, in the dark. I have to say though it was probably one of the best parallel parks I've done in a long time - got it perfect first go. I was rather chuffed with myself!
We ended up having more food than just desert. I don't remember the name of the place but it did its own signature desert of a large freshly baked cookie in a tin with ice cream. I had my favourite cookie - white chocolate and Macadamia - with chocolate ice cream. It was well yummy!
So that was the play over and done which was quite sad as it had been a wonderful few days. I can't explain adequately how great it is to see James perform live on stage; you have to see it to understand. Adrian was going home the next day but for me there were more adventures to come. I was off to spend a couple of days exploring and photographing in Death Valley and then I was going to be flying up to Calgary. That's all to come in the next Ramble...