Dad's Money | Blog

Martine McCutcheon at our first preview

On Wednesday night around forty people came to a cricket pavilion to see the world premiere of Dad's Money. Fantastic to have such a big audience - and the cast did a great job. It's been a huge struggle through dislocation, fracture, and orthopaedic surgery.

Those of you new to the Dad's Money blog may not know that 50% of the cast dislocated and fractured their shoulder in rehearsals. That actor is Martin Miller. I altered the script to give Martin's character the same injury he sustained and he's bravely carrying on with the show in the face of two screws in his shoulder and sensible medical advice. He will be covered by Richard Fry (Bully, Gilded Balloon Turret Room, midday) who will take the role for two performances a week and standby in the event of Martin being unable to perform.

Richard has a beard. This gives audiences the opportunity to see the role of Joe Napper with and without facial hair.

Like almost-namesake Martine McCutcheon in My Fair Lady, Martin(e) Miller is battling on, with the show. We hope that, like Martine, Martin will go on to win an Olivier Award for Best Actress.

So it's been interesting. All the normal pressures of getting a show on with the added difficulty of injury and lack of time. Jerome and Martin did very well at the preview, and we had some great feedback afterwards.

With the preview over, we move on to the detail. Getting the show on a stage was a huge challenge and now we must add the texture that will bring all of these brothers to light. And rehearse Richard into the role of Joe as well. Two casts to deal with - but each actor brings different ideas.

The cast were prickling slightly at rewrites in rehearsal yesterday. It's tricky, writing as well as directing - sometimes I can seek writing solutions to directing problems. But detailed character work with both Joes brought nuance to the new, sparer scene one. It's hard, but it's exciting. This is going to be a great show.

Dislocation

Martin dislocated his shoulder during rehearsals on Saturday the 5th. The paramedics were great when they arrived, but Martin had a long wait for them while in a lot of pain. Arriving at the hospital (King's on Denmark Hill) there was another wait as his shoulder had to be X-rayed before they could try to put it back in. When the OK came, Martin was brave enough to let a tattooed charmer called Matt put his shoulder back in without a general anaesthetic.

They X-rayed again after relocation and unfortunately a small fracture was now visible in the top of Martin’s humerus. It seemed likely he’d need a screw in the bone to reattach it. However, the consultant deemed it unnecessary and we were very happy – surgery would have caused Martin further pain, trauma and recovery time.

Luckily, Martin wanted to continue with the show, so I wrote his character into the script as wearing a sling due to a dislocated shoulder (I’m very creative). That way, he could rehearse the show as it would be performed.

We still hoped to have some of our planned week rehearsing in Somerset. Martin had to pop in to the fracture clinic on the Tuesday, and we hoped to head down to Somerset later that afternoon.

Martin came in to rehearse on Monday. He was in a lot of pain and discomfort, in addition to which he was nauseous from the painkillers, but stuck it out and carried on working. It struck me that, just as any person can get injured, any character could get injured. When Martin started playing Joe with a dislocated shoulder, Joe started using his injury to manipulate his brother. Martin was very gutsy all day. I felt proud to have him in the cast and incredibly guilty this had happened through doing a play.

The fracture clinic on Tuesday brought bad news. It was decided that Martin did need an operation to fix the fragment of bone in place. This screw would then have to be removed in six weeks’ time – causing another period of recovery. Martin continued to think of the show, asking the consultant if he could keep the screw in longer than six weeks, allowing him to finish the Edinburgh run before returning to hospital. The consultant agreed. There were no beds available that day, so Martin had to go back the next morning.

Martin returned to King's just before 7 am on Wednesday and went under late morning. The operation went to plan, but he was feeling pain in the shoulder and missed the consultant on his rounds so they kept him in an extra day.

He's out now, and still wants to do the show. The doctor says there’s no reason he shouldn’t, as long as he’s not required to perform any movements that cause him pain. Our ‘giving the character what Martin’s got’ technique will hopefully take care of that, but we won’t know for certain until he sees the consultant a week on Tuesday.

I very much hope Martin can do the show – he’s very good, he’s my friend and he’s got injured rehearsing it - but of course it mustn’t interfere with his recovery.

I feel very lucky to have such a stalwart man in the cast. I hope he can carry on.