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Director Andy Burden takes a few minutes out of his busy schedule to tell us what’s happening in the count down to the opening night of The Adventures of Pinocchio...

Most actors tell me that I approach directing in a different way to most other directors. I like to run around being a big kid with the cast. From what I have seen of other directors on The Culture Show, they speak in the hushed tones of a vicar and are very intense about their literary knowledge.

OK…  Pinocchio is far more complicated than mucking about in a rehearsal room: I sit down and problem solve with the technical team, throw around ideas with the creative team and talk extensively with the Tobacco Factory about how it is going to work. There are many things to keep a tab on as the huge number of people involved with the show come together to produce a damn good night out.

The actors are doing a great job – lots of ideas, some fun characters, lovely physical moments – and it’s all still in a state of flux as they play to get the very best out of the script and themselves. The design team are making some lovely bits of set - a visit to Green Ginger’s Puppet Place was so exciting – the whole team working manically to create a brilliant world on stage, and the stage management team are working like creative borrowers, turning up with costume and props – or, in the stage manager’s case, with constant reminders for me to finish on time.

As I walk around the theatre everyone is “up” for Pinocchio: the box office team are taking sales that are equalling the record-breaking A Christmas Carol two years’ ago, he administrators are totally focused on the show, and the marketing team are doing a fabulous job getting the word across the region.

Then I am back in the rehearsal room, working with Pete to bring the best out of the music, working it into the action and letting the action develop new possibilities, frantically cutting and re-ordering the script with Toby and constantly working with the details of the set design with Harriet. The play starts to come to shape and we start to make firm decisions and pin things down as we enter the final stage of rehearsal.

We are all keeping joyful, keeping trying new things, keeping it fresh and exciting. You see, I think rehearsals are four weeks of getting wrong. As long as we get it right on the first night, everything will be fine.