North

Curious Incident is about lots of things. Childhood, parenthood, love, perception. One of the phrases that gets the most use is "see your world differently". There's nothing like a long national tour to help you see your own country a little differently. Leeds, where we are this week, is a city in the North; right? Well, yes. Except that we travelled over 200 miles south to get to it. I remember feeling acutely, back in February, that anyone who thinks that Stoke-on-Trent is even faintly northern should try driving there from Newcastle upon Tyne, as I did. It took four hours. We stopped halfway, for lunch, in Wakefield.

There are a couple of points here. One is that, when you do this much travelling, you start to feel immune to distance (particularly if you fly or don't stare out of the train window; actually, as long as someone else is driving). In my experience, long distance travel is like long distance running: the key to getting through it is denial - a deliberate wool-pulling over the brain that prevents you from considering just how much distance lies ahead. No marathon runner in their right mind would say to themselves "1 mile down, 25 to go". That way madness lies. You look at the next mile, the next bend of the road, the next train stop. The end of the journey comes later (this may even have something to do with progress and lack of awe: something I touched on last week).

The other point is that this business is very London-centric. Time and time again, people ask me if this tour is coming anywhere near "town". Occasionally I rather facetiously respond that, yes, it's going to over thirty different towns. Just not London Town, which is of course what they assume the word means to everybody.

So, yes. If you live in London, Leeds is The North. Stoke's getting there. But, as they told us on the first day of rehearsal, this tour is about the National Theatre doing what it should be doing: being national. London theatregoers may think that this play reached its maximum interest and influence 2-3 years ago. I could show you around 10,000 people in each town we visit who would beg to differ.

Next week we'll be in Aberdeen. I knew that that's the furthest north I've ever been in the UK; but, looking at a map, it appears to be the furthest north that I will ever have been in the world. Hopefully I can think of something to say about it.