More from South Africa

Over the last couple of weeks, members of the Northern Stage team have been in South Africa taking part in an exciting Summer School project. Like last year's South Africa trip, we're keeping up with goings on through a series of blog posts. Stage Manager Andrew Stephenson reported back to us about his 'interesting' journey:

"Leaving Newcastle was a little daunting as we were setting off to a country that I for one felt that I knew very little about, to work with a group of professional artists of whom I knew nothing about. I met Mark (Calvert) at the airport at 11:00 am on Saturday the 22nd of August 2009 - this was to be the start of a very long journey, the length of which I think we had both under-estimated; I am taking the liberty of speaking for Mark when I say this, it was probably the longest day of our lives .

So we are checked in, got through passport control and the usual machines that beep and scan you, and after our first airport wait fulfilling the obligatory airport obligations like spraying a few aftershaves on each other and trying on a pair or two of sunglasses its 13:30 and time to fly in our united Emirates Boeing 303-777 bound for Dubai . We settle in to our seats with still quite buoyant spirit at this stage, Mark has the window seat but he does allow me to take the odd glance through it to look at the tiny world 36000 miles below. After watching a couple of movies, devouring the inevitable airplane food (lamb curry that arrives perfectly packaged in a little rectangle plastic box accompanied by some sort of chocolate thing in a small plastic round box and a few other bits in variously shaped plastic boxes), hurtling through the skies at about 560 mile per hour it takes us a mere 7 hours to reach Dubai where we land and disembark.

After passing through another set of beeping machines and having our passport photos sniggered at, we are in Dubai International departure lounge for our second airport wait. It is the middle of the night, I am not sure of the exact time as to think in three time zones (British, Dubaish and South Africanish) is beyond me so I let Mark take charge of the timings; I do know that this time we have about four hours of waiting. More aftershave, a few applications of expensive rejuvenating eye, face and hand creams, a pint of expensive lager, a walk around, another expensive pint and a cheeky Burger King Chicken Royale later and it's time to get on the second flight.

We are now 13.5 hours into the trip. boarding the plane and being ushered past the business class seating area with the business class people sitting in their fully reclineable armchairs does dampen the spirits somewhat when you know what's waiting nearer the rear of the plane, the economy class with its seating arrangements that are designed for the shorter and narrower-than-average human being - we find our seats settle in and before you can say Jumping Jack Flash we’re heading for Johannesburg. More movies, some rather uncomfortable upright sleeping, a chicken curry for breakfast and 8 hours later we are in South Africa, you would be fooled to think that we had made it to our final destination at this point, but no we still have to make the final flight to Port Elizabeth or PE as it is also known as.

It's now about 21.5 hours since we left home, we have to check in at the British Airways desk as we were unable to check straight through at the begining of the journey, however this does give us a bit of welcome variation on what had become a waiting lounge routine. Checked in and what’s a few more hours waiting here or there, we get the final flight to PE. By this time I have to say I my international exploring spirit was ebbing, my conversational skills had hit rock bottom, my eyes were too dry to read, my battery on my Nintendo DS Lite had run out, I felt dirty and smelly after having on the same clothes for what felt like two weeks (I would suggest popping a few clean things in ones hand luggage so that a costume change can be executed if anyone is make the same trip in the future). I managed to get the window seat for this flight - we flew over the most amazing landscape it looked like baked clay so dry, vast and lifeless which had been folded, gouged and scraped to make one of the most expansive and inhospitable looking habitations imaginable. I did wonder how Bear Grylls would get out of the middle of that alive.

We arrive at PE airport about 27 hours after leaving Newcastle, more beeps and then we head for the carousel, our spirits are lifted to see Erica (Whyman) and Mark Lloyd waving at us through the glass in the arrivals lounge as we wait for our luggage, and we wait and wait and wait... the bags have not made it to PE. This was not such a huge problem as it could have been as they are put on the next plane which will be landing a few hours later, long term disaster diverted , short term disaster not diverted, as clean clothes for the show we are being taken to see in one hour would have been a godsend. We are taken to our apartments and freshen up the best we can with what we have, its not the end of the world and it was a great pleasure to be able to go and see our first South African piece of work which was performed in the Port Elizabeth Opera House, a grand old theatre which actually pre-dates Newcastle’s Theatre Royal by about ten years. It’s too late now to write about the show and do it justice now, so I will sign off for the night and will send the next instalment soon."