I’d intended the first week of my sabbatical to be a transition from work to sabbatical, time out and absorbing myself in others’ creativity… To this end I planned to go to the Ordu International Children’s Theatre Festival on the Black Sea coast of Turkey. Hope Street took Drogo Island there. The play was scheduled for the second day of the festival, which meant that we could watch the rest of the shows in the festival and I could take time out to meet with other companies and relax…

Not so. I arrived in Istanbul to a flurry of sms messages: Katie and Dave, two of the actors, were ill. Katie in hospital with suspected food poisoning. Not so. It was appendicitis. By the time I was on my transfer flight, she was undergoing an appendectomy. (Dave was OK, just a touch of man-flu). Instead of arriving in Ordu to help with the technical rehearsal, my first stop was a florist and then the hospital. Katie was doing well, keen to perform at the end of the week… As if.

The other news to greet me in Istanbul was that the theatre company from Algeria had been involved in a coach crash: 13 in hospital; one unconscious for several days.

Shows were cancelled, the programme was rearranged and the municipality and Tobav (festival organisers) spent much time visiting artists and delegates in various hospitals 170 km apart. Incidentally, anyone fearful of being admitted to a Turkish hospital, don’t be. Katie was well looked after, the hospital staff were terrific and the place was scrubbed spotless.

To cancel Drogo Island wasn’t a consideration. So thanks to the hard work of Dave, Jan and Rachael - Bronagh, who’d come out as assistant director and technician, was rehearsed into Katie’s part. And techno-phobe Peter took on the role of sound operator and of running the tech. We managed to see all the shows in the festival between us and rehearsed for three half days. Where did those days on the beach go…? We got one tan-fastic day on the beach - on the last day of the festival. Our technical rehearsal finished at 3am; the first performance was at 11am the next (same) day. The show was a success and all credit to the actors for their sheer graft and flexibility.

There was a mixture of shows from international groups, including Lithuania and Germany, and from theatre companies from Turkey. The Algerians made it to one performance and took a bow and were the life and soul of the welcoming party.

For me, it was a variation to the usual work I do now and it was a challenge for all of us. Nothing went according to plan, but at the end of the day does it really matter? Go with the flow and make the best of it. Keep things in perspective. When people (usually arts managers) tell me how bad things are, and how such and such a person has done this or that to offend them/scupper their plans or whatever, I often use the phrase - “did anyone die”. It’s my (ironic) way of saying, “get things in perpsective”. I was pleased we all got to the other side of this troubled festival and to be able to say that no-one died. It could’ve been so different.