SINGAPORE – Traveling to the so-called “flyaway races” in Formula One can be a big adventure on its own. Most of the Formula One paddock travels by air to the races around Europe, but traveling to the far-flung races, like this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, can be far more interesting.
The flights are so long and the target dates for arrival and departure are so tight that the F1 travelers always meet up with each other on the flights, in the airports and in the hotels. A lot of F1 people came here via Dubai, as the Emirates flights were cheap and good.
I met with several Formula One journalists, and sat up all night from midnight to 7 AM, in the Dubai airport talking with a colleague. My second flight stopped briefly in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and there a man boarded and sat in a seat next to me who turned out to be a very interesting theater producer and director, although he referred to himself more as a packager of shows – no doubt out of modesty. His name is Toby Gough, and he put together one of the shows that will happen this weekend at the race in Singapore as a sideshow to the race.
There is a strong package of performers at the Singapore GP this weekend, in fact, in the many stages set up around the track. Among these performers are Shakira, Linkin Park, Rick Astley, Shaggy and Boy George – who must be “grandfather George” by now. Gough has created a show called Bollywood Express that will perform on Friday and Saturday. It is a 45-minute song-and-dance show of Hindi music, showing at the Esplanade Outdoor Theater.
Gough had produced a successful show elsewhere called “Merchants of Bollywood,” so this was a natural extension. The way he explained it to me, he packages shows for various venues around the world. Although he is British, his family has been in India for 300 years. Definitely a little modest, Gough did not tell me half of his show business exploits, but they are impressive, as this Gough bio on this “Bollywood Express” Web site link outlines.
“During the Bosnian War, he entered Sarajevo a sewage tunnel to co-direct an Opera with the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra,” it says. “He created an African version of Julius Caesar, which toured through East and Central Africa, directed Kylie Minogue in Shakespeare’s The Tempest on a beach in Barbados but now its Bollywood, past and present that fires his fertile imagination.”
I had intended to catch up on the sleep I did not get in Dubai, but with the talk with Gough, I only managed a little cat nap at the end. It turned out that we had a common friend in Paris as well, whom we have both known for some 30 years.
Waking this morning in Singapore and walking along Clarke Quay towards the metro station that would take me to the circuit, I suddenly encountered the final travels of the Lotus Renault GP team. They were making the last leg of their journey from their factory in Enstone, England on an old fashioned looking ferry boat through Singapore itself. They were dressed in team uniform and taking the little ferry from just outside their hotel to the paddock of the race at the Marina Bay circuit.
Thinking about how I might be able to pick up another interesting story and bum a ride at the same time, I asked the team member who was handing out little ferry tickets to the team if they had an extra one for a journalist. But the guy didn’t. So I took the long way to the track. I might check out that ferry system tomorrow, however, and see if it is open to the general public. Somehow I think it was a Lotus Renault GP express.
I did managed to pick up a little bit of video footage of the team boarding the boat, however.