HELLO MICHAEL, GOODBYE GIUSEPPE

Michael finally made the long, loooong journey to this side of world for a whirl-wind visit, which included a week spent on his own in Malaysia where he got his SCUBA certification.

Though we only had a short time together in Singapore, we made the most of it. I dragged him, willingly, along to all my favourite neighborhoods and haunts. Shopping, eating, sight-seeing, eating, drinking, eating, lounging, drinking, eating....it was exhausting and so much fun.

Michael shopping at a "departmental store"

Wild Boar Ham with Pecorino

Beer break in The Arab Quarter

Fresh taglitelle with Marsala sauce and truffles

Sunset Cocktails

Michael's new favourite breakfast from Wild Honey
Mango-stuffed French Toast

The furniture room of the Dali exhibit
at The Art Science Museum, Marina Bay Sands

Natalie Wood joined for dinner at Graze

Michael is back home now, slowly recovering from the jet-lag and the massive food and alcohol intake.


Our dear Head of Wigs & Make-up, Giuseppe, has left us. He is now in London starting his new job as Head of Wigs & Make-up for The National Theatre. On his last day, there was a small pot-luck dinner for him in the make-up room between shows.

Lou & Giuseppe using wig lace to dust the pavlova with icing sugar.
How's that for ingenuity?
Lou makes the best pavlova on the planet. I devoured a huge piece just before my big solo number in Act I. Not the smartest decision, but certainly the tastiest.

Rowena's cake masterpiece

Lyall put together a fantastic farewell video for Giuseppe. He spent days collecting photos and taking videos of people saying their goodbyes. He then spent the entire weekend editing in the dressing room between scenes.

The tissue in the ear is to keep the earphone from getting covered in blue make-up!

Ciao Giuseppe
We will miss his antics almost as much as we will miss his plentiful opinions.

Even with Giuseppe's departure, and the various other comings and goings of people on vacation or away from the show due to injury or illness, backstage life continues to be a never-ending circus.

Jamie (Timon) has gone soccer-mad and the outside of his dressing room is starting to look like a sports bar.


I found a pair of sunglasses on Rowena's make-up table and decided they'd be useful for a bit of Sunday night silliness backstage.

I couldn't resist this pic of the ever-useful backstage shopping cart.

Emma, our physio, has this pic on the wall in her treatment room.
Lion cub sleeps with meerkat.

As well as the backstage entertainment, Singapore continues to entertain me in all kinds of ways. There's a 'bird man' who sometimes hangs out on the mall in front of a Bhuddist temple near my house. He usually has love-birds and small parrots who happily sit on top of thier cages chattering at pedestrians.


Always remember, Singapore is the land of "NO". No smoking, no jaywalking, no spitting, no durian-eating and, in the case of the universal bar sign below, a very specific "NO".