All photos by Darren Bell except where indicated.Spotted in the crowd... “Omigod, isn’t that...?” gasps Rose, my fellow Park Friend, clutching my hand as she searches for the name. “Over there, by the door. In the velvet dinner jacket!”&ldqu…

Am feeling inspired. My dance teacher Shanie always said "don't be tired be inspired" and I think his daily mantra has stayed with me. I've had a very long few months behind me working on putting together the Gala, proposals, building a company, making decisions with Jez about the build, all sorts of stuff that sounds fun but put together can also be very tiring. Sure it can be tiring but the thrill of securing our Education Floor - thanks to incredible kindness and generosity of so many people just keeps me going.  I'm also in a wonderful position w…

Pictured below, dear reader, is your Writer in Residence's normally workmanlike (workwomanlike?) right hand as you've never seen it before - and as you won't see it again for sometime.  The Park team is getting its collective glam on for tonight's impossibly starry celebrity extravaganza that will be the Park Theatre fundraising gala.  Hosts and guests include Sir Ian McKellen, Jeffrey Archer, Patrick Stewart, Maureen Lipman, Tom Stoppard, Ruth Jones, Stephen Daldry, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tamzin Outhwaite, Celia Imrie, Tobias Menzies and Romola Garai.  Wish…

For anyone lucky enough to have a ticket to the gala on Friday, make sure you get your hands on a few strips of raffle tickets while you're there.  The Park Theatre team has been buzzing around London all week, collecting unique and often very unusual items for the auction and the raffle.  The neighbours raised a few eyebrows as I accepted a massive box today from Tracy Rose, who has designed a hat to mark the birth of Park Theatre.  I've also got several piles of signed books waiting for a new set of shelves, and photographs of a wonderful cottage on the west coas…

With only 9 days until our Gala I'm totally wired. Gail and I stayed up late last night working on the program. There are more little surprises that we'd like to have on the night - this means more coordination and planning and execution. It probably wouldn't seem so big of a deal expect for the fact I'm trying to get through lots of proposals - this means reading lots of plays - as many are new plays. Everything requires full attention. So I guess my default position is to go into a hyper mode where I feel like I'm working super fast. Well was nice to check in with y…

As you probably know, we have an extremely exciting auction lined up for our gala, to be hosted by Lord Archer.  Just to get you in the mood, we'll be doing a small pre-auction auction, of one very special lot that can only happen on one evening.  It's worth looking out for over the coming days, but in the meantime I can give you this little teaser: it involves a personal tour around one of the most interesting buildings in the world, with one of the greatest actors as your guide...

Park Parties are a particularly good breed of party. Not only can we style it out on a roofless, windowless building site in the depths of Winter in our building-site chic attire (short skirts, woolly tops and steel-toe capped boots); we also have an amazing amount of energy for them allowing us to keep going even after a long day.  A lot of this comes from the adrenaline of just talking to people about Park Theatre, and our genuine passion of being involved. Parties are essential to our fundraising but also to our bonding as a family and a way of getting to know our supp…