Tipexing ducks and drowning in Dahl – Abbi’s Blog

3 August 2012

On a beautiful August day in 2011 I drove into the small hamlet of Bagnor and had my first sight of The Watermill, I knew right there and then that this theatre is a pretty extraordinary place.

Now almost a year into the job I still find one of the most commonly said phrases to me is “I bet you didn’t expect to be doing that here!” or “I don’t think that was in your job description”… what prompted me to write this blog was one of my colleagues saying that very phrase to me after I helped her tipex and photograph the ducks today (don’t worry the ducks aren’t being attacked by the wardrobe department it was so we could distinguish which had been wormed)!

Never before have I known the complexities of rearing ducks, and never did I expect to know about them in quite such detail. I recently offered to take care of the ducks for a day, if you have been to The Watermill you will know that come May and June the place is running alive with gorgeous ducklings… As I braved walking on to the front lawn with multiple pots of food all marked up for specific ages I found myself ambushed by rather a lot of eager ducklings as I struggled to decipher the difference between the babies, teenagers and orphans… and I thought they just got a bit of stale bread!

The Watermill has a wonderful tradition which was passed over to Hedda Beeby when she took over the role of Artistic and Executive Director; that Hedda must prepare a dress rehearsal dinner for all the casts and creatives the night before each production. Several weeks in to joining The Watermill I had a phone call from her, I was asked to pop down to her office (this was the day before Great Expectations opened)… “I am making an Eton Mess, would you mind hulling the strawberries please?” … and so the tradition was explained to me, and now prior to every show I find myself in the kitchen alongside Hedda chopping peppers, hulling strawberries, dicing butternut squash and on one occasion almost drowning in Dahl!

This dinner sums up what I think is so incredibly magical about The Watermill, the wonderful sense of community that it has, with many of the actors and other staff living on site, the size, the idea of us all mucking in -who can guess what my job really is? From trips to the Garden Centre to running round Waitrose in search of falafel and vine leaves, there are certainly a lot of aspects to my job I never expected, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. What an amazing place to work! I am inspired by those who work here, their energy, enthusiasm and sheer determination and I learn from them every day.

(I am sure you won’t have guessed – I am the Casting and Production Assistant!)
Abbi Pickard-Price

PS Click on the pic to see Abbi in the dress she wore when she took part in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics!