The Weight of a Good Kit Bag: Ten Backstage Essentials That Earn Their Keep

There is a moment on every tour, usually somewhere around the third get-in, when you look at your kit bag and realise you have been carrying a hairdryer around the country for no reason.

The cull that follows is brutal. But a small number of things always survive, because they have already proved themselves — on a wet Tuesday in a Victorian theatre with one working radiator, or at 11pm in a loading bay with a van that will not start. Here they are, in no particular order, with the reasons attached.

1. Gaffer tape, and not the cheap stuff

The single most borrowed item in any company. Cable runs, temporary fixes, a corner of set that has started to peel, a poster that will not stay on a dressing room wall. Buy the proper matte black cloth tape that comes off cleanly; the bargain roll leaves a sticky ghost on a painted floor and the technical manager will remember your name for the wrong reason. I also carry a thin roll of white spike tape, because marking a position on a dark stage with black tape is a hobby for optimists.

2. Throat lozenges you actually like the taste of

Not a substitute for technique, a warm-up or a sensible amount of sleep. But on a two-show day in panto season, with a cold snap outside and dry air inside, they are the difference between powering through and croaking through act two. The glycerine ones are gentler than the fierce menthol jobs. I keep a tin in the bag, another in the dressing room, and one in the coat pocket for the walk to the stage door.

3. A headtorch with a red filter

Get-ins and get-outs happen in the dark, and wings are darker than anyone who has not stood in one imagines. A small headtorch means both hands free and no fumbling for a phone. The red setting matters: it does not blind the deputy stage manager, it does not blow your night vision, and it does not turn a quiet scene change into a lighthouse. Tape over the button so it cannot switch on inside your bag.

4. A sewing kit with black thread and safety pins

I have watched a dresser rebuild a costume in ninety seconds with two safety pins and a hair grip. It was one of the finest pieces of live theatre I have ever seen. A basic kit — black and white thread, a couple of needles, small scissors, hooks and bars, a metre of black elastic — weighs almost nothing and buys you enormous goodwill. The spare hooks and bars are the bit people forget, right up until a fastening fails in the middle of a quick change.

5. Blister plasters, not the cheap ones

New shoes, long walks between digs and the theatre, and a get-in that involves more stairs than the venue's website suggested. Hydrocolloid plasters stay on through a show and a shower. I keep three in the bag at all times, because the person who needs one is never the person who brought them.

6. Rehydration sachets

Hot theatres, two-show days, a radiator that only has one setting. Water alone does not always cut it, and the sachets fit in a jacket pocket. Blackcurrant is the civilised choice. Coffee is not hydration, whatever the green room would have you believe.

7. A small notebook and a pencil

Pen does not work in a pocket that has been next to a stage for six hours, and a notebook is faster than a phone when someone is giving you notes at the back of the auditorium. Mine is full of things that made sense at the time: the name of the person who runs the local café, the fact that the upstage door sticks, the running order of a shortened version for a school matinee. Pencil also rubs out, which is the whole point of a touring notebook.

8. Spare blacks

One plain black tee, one pair of black socks, one pair of black trousers that will not embarrass you under a lighting state. Venues differ, but the expectation does not: if you are asked to move something in view of the audience, you should disappear. Socks are the item that goes missing most often, usually into a washing machine in a Travelodge. Carry two pairs. You will lose one.

9. A lint roller

Velvet, wool coats, black costumes, and digs with a resident cat. It lives in the dressing room, not the suitcase. There is a particular kind of quiet humiliation in walking on with a costume covered in someone else's pet, and a lint roller is cheaper than a reputation.

10. Earplugs

For the load-out, the sound check, the shared cottage with the person who snores, and the motorway services at 6am. A small thing that makes a long day shorter. Buy the soft foam ones in bulk and leave a pair in every coat you own.

What the Bag Says About the Tour

By the last night the kit bag is a record of where you have been. A safety pin from a venue in the north, a notebook with three different running orders scribbled inside, a roll of tape nearly finished because someone borrowed it at every single stop.

Pack light where you can. But pack for the things that actually happen: the broken fastening, the dark wing, the long walk to the digs, the dry throat on a two-show day. The best kit bag is not the fullest one. It is the one where everything in it has already earned its place.