Last

In the words of Big Star, "This sounds a bit like goodbye: in a way it is, I guess". There have been a few goodbyes this week: it's a long winding-down process rather than the crescendo we all somehow expect. But this is the way a tour ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.

That said, our show always did end with a bang; and this evening was more emotionally charged than most of us were prepared for. We've all said goodbye to a lot of jobs and a lot of people, but this was significantly harder than usual. (I wrote much of this before the fact; and, unsurprisingly, it's not quite as predictable as I'd anticipated. Even in its closing minutes, this job proves impossible to pigeonhole.)

All that now remains to say is thank you: to the 400,000 people who came to see any of our 342 shows in 31 towns; to the friends and families that supported us; to anyone who read this blog, and to those who helped it to be read.

Curious Incident will continue, of course: in London, in the U.S.; most likely in places not yet negotiated. But my involvement with it ceases now.

When I started this blog, I posted this picture as an indication of what lay ahead. It seemed implausibly daunting.

Now the map looks like this; and I feel both pride and exhaustion.

I've said pretty much all I have to say about this play over the last forty blog posts. "Pride and exhaustion" just about sums it up.

End of the line.

All change, please.