Hello and welcome to these introductory notes for The Invite – we’re glad you’re able to help us celebrate. It’s our friend, Harley’s birthday.

I’m Rosie and I am in my early 30s, I’m a white British woman (she/her) and I’m about 4ft9. I have short ginger hair and a fringe. I have burgandy dungarees and I wear orange converse. I like to be organised but I get stressed out sometimes which means I move and speak quite quickly.

We’re meeting at the pub, and Harley doesn’t know anything about it. All our friends will be here too, and we’re going to share some of our stories with you. They’ll introduce themselves in a minute.

So it’s an open space here, and we’ve arranged the seats in a circle because we want you to feel part of it! If you’re sitting on the front row, we might ask you to help us out a little bit, but feel free to say no if you don’t want to!! There are 4 walkways that we use to come in and out.

At the back there’s a platform where the band play. There are 4 of them – Jez on keyboard, Connor on lead guitar, Lorraine on bass and Matt on drums. They can be quite loud! They’ll also describe themselves soon.

We’ve kept it simple, but we bring furniture in and out, which helps us go to different places. We’ve got a small square table that online influencer Chillie uses to make her delicious bakes. It also takes us to a book club café, and on some dates with Noah. We use 4 upright, wooden chairs too.

Brian’s bar is a portable circular structure on wheels that we move in and out. It’s like a dark wood-panelled doughnut, with 4 wooden posts holding up a circular roof. There’s just enough space for 1 person to stand in the middle of it. Dotted around the pub are large speakers. They are made of wood and they have round mesh panels on the front. These are actually light boxes and send different coloured lights out into the space throughout the show. Brian has a wife called Babs, who died. He thinks about her often and imagines her talking to him in torchlight. He really misses her.

We’ve got a clothes rail that we wheel in when we’re with Chillie, talking about fashion, or with Ed when he’s choosing what to wear when he comes to the party.

We’ve also got creative captions. These are projected on a curved fabric banner. The fabric is hung above the band, a bit like a birthday banner.

I’m getting myself quite stressed about wrapping Harley’s present. Chillie makes it look so easy, but I don’t. I sometimes drift off into a fantasy world and think about how I’d like things to be, but then I have to come back to reality.

I don’t know about you, but my mind can jump all over the place – and we definitely do a bit of that here. So this isn’t a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, it’s more of a patchwork of stories.

So I’ll let the others introduce themselves..

I’m Brian, a bartender being pushed out of his pub. I am a white man just under 6ft high, in my 40s. I have grey-ish long hair that I wear in a bun with a matching grey beard and bushy grey moustache. I’m wearing a brown leather waistcoat, a shirt underneath and brown trousers.

My name is Chillie, and I’m a black British woman (she/her) with black hair in her mid 20s. I’m bubbly and confident and people can see that on me. I am wearing bottle green velvet trousers and a flowery top that buttons up with loads of coloured flowers.

Hello, my name is Ed, I’m in my 30s and I’m a white British man. I have short dark brown hair, I’m average height and I am assistant store manager and take responsibility in my job so at work I’m always on the move. I’m wearing a white shirt and a suit jacket.

Hi I’m Noah, I’m in my early 20s, I’m a white British transgender man. I wear glasses that help me read my books. I have lots of tattoos on my arms and I have two eyebrow piercings. Each tattoo has a significant meaning to me and my piercings, although painful, I love. I’m wearing my favourite coloured shirt which happens to be yellow.

Hi, I’m Harley, I’m in my mid 20s, I’m a white British woman and a wheelchair user. I prefer to keep my time with people limited, I like being present and calm, appreciating what’s around me and moving slow. I use my headphones to keep me there, although the inside of them is breaking which I thought might be uncomfortable but actually doesn’t feel any different. I have long dark blonde hair, and I’ve tied the top layer up. I am wearing greeny bluey dungarees with peace signs all over them.

Hi, I’m Jez, I’m in the band and can be found sat behind the keyboard. I’m in my 50s, a white quite thin man with greyish hair which I love. I am wearing an orange checkered shirt and greeny grey trousers. Oh, and I love to rock and roll.

Hi, I’m in Connor and I play guitar in the band. I’m a white male in my mid 20s, I’m wearing a green checked shirt, skinny black jeans and black chelsea boots with small guitars in the elastic which I’ve been told reminds people of my daily wardrobe.

My name is Lorraine, I play bass guitar and keyboard in the band. I’m a woman, with long brown hair and I’m mixed race. I’m normally bubbly and grinning.

Hi, I’m Matt, I’m a 54-and-a-half-year-old ginger man. I’ll be playing the drums and cymbals in the band, a little bit of keyboard and generally watching over everything. I’m a laid back 6ft tall gentleman with unscripted horror behind his eyes.

Hello I’m Alison. I’m a white woman in her late thirties, with dark blonde/light brown hair which reaches down to my shoulders. It will be up in a ponytail. I wear glasses that are almost bronze in colour, they are rectangular glasses. If I were to come on stage as understudy I could be any of the six roles. I understudy the entire cast. I ought to be wearing a sage green boiler suit.

We’ve also got an imaginary dog called Wallace and an imaginary cat called Pebbles.

We’re glad you can join us and we’re looking forward to meeting you. We’ll come out and chat when you get here so do say hello!