Friday 26th September 2014

So, that's the first week of rehearsals done for The Snow Queen. And it feels like we've already got a fair bit done. I'm trying to go in softly to begin with, and have relatively few rehearsals when I call everybody. Frankly, there'll be enough time for that later in the production process. What's already so pleasing - so exciting - is the amount of charisma already bubbling off the stage. Everyone seems to be perfectly pitched opposite each other, and finding little nuanced moments that I didn't think of writing. Hell, when this year began, I didn't think I'd end up writing a musical, (or to be exact: a play with songs in it) but it's odd how things turn out sometimes. I mean, I don't have a musical bone in my body (actually, I do: it's my femur, and you can use it to drum out a mean solo on some Led Zep, but the downside for me is that I have to be either dead or an amputee), and I've managed to hack out some lyrics. Let's be honest - in a couple of cases, those lyrics are almost literally hacked out. They initially sounded clunky and and straining, and I've greedily availed myself of any help that I could in order to get them purring like an engine or a head of state on the phone to a smary Prime Minister. We've got most of the songs in some kind of working order (we're gonna have another meet about it tomorrow), and I still need to fix a couple of basic problems in certain lines (apparently, I refuse to accept that singers quite like to take a breath every 560 seconds or so), but it sounds like we are in fairly good shape. 

Newsjack came back this week. It's the open-door submission radio show that pretty much anyone can write for. I've had my eye (ear?) on it for a couple of years now, but never submitted. Actually, that's lie: I did deliver a sketch a couple of years ago, which, if I remember correctly, was a Life On Mars sketch that put Gordon Brown in the Sam Tyler role. Yes, I know. But generally I haven't tried writing anything for the show because .. well, because I'm not sure that I know how. I'm not being self-deprecating. I'm genuinely fascinated and somewhat awed by sketch writing. I don't quite k kw how it works. I love good sketch comedy, although I'll concede that the definition of good sketch comedy varies wildly from audience member to audience member. And lest we forget, Big Train (the one that usually gets mentioned in conversations like this is about 15 years old now. I find something very attractive and seductive about a good sketch. A novel is a strange and exciting journey, a stand-up is a bottle of wine with a great friend who shares much of the same opinions as you, and a sketch - a sketch is that piece of cake that makes you emit inappropriate noises when you consume it. A good sketch (for the most part) is  delightful, small, unique (I knew someone who used that phrase on their dating profile). All my favourite sketches have got from me first, a bark of laughter, then a hiss of jealousy: that idea was so clever/beautiful/simple .. It was there for the taking, for years and years .. and someone got there first. 

A friend of mine tagged me in a post this week, suggesting that I write for NJ, which is prompting enough to do something I guess (we all write a lot better if there's someone waiting over our shoulder). The fact is that I'd already tried to write a couple of one-liners , and then my Internet failed - I was trying to send emails from my phone, but my email wasn't playing fair. I'd had lots of phone time with the lovely people at EE (not Phones 4U, they weren't returning my calls for some reason) before it became apparent that I had apparently exceeded my Internet allowance. So, the readers of the slush pile at Radio 4 Extra were spared my inane ramblings for at least another week. 

I listened to the show as it aired, however, at least partially out of research: what was the house style? What exactly was the sort of joke/sketch to get through the gate? I have a sad suspicion that this is the mood that most of the listeners attend the show: not simply punters, but slightly earnest would-be writers listening stony-faced as they try and crack the code. I'm not judging: as I've said, I'm one of them. There were a pleasing amount of gags that made me laugh out loud (and at least one that made me jealous that they'd got to the joke before I did: one about Phones 4U employees and their contracts), but I'm still not really any the wiser as to what makes a good sketch. But if I can get at least one joke through the gate .. then I would consider myself at least holding the foot of the ladder. Not the first rung. That'd take some more time yet. 

Wednesday 24th September 2014

Last week was the first read thru for The Snow Queen. I only realised during the evening that a significant number of the cast were there on a lot of faith - they hadn't seen a script at audition, or even when being offered a part. (They should consider themselves lucky: some of my casts haven't seen a complete script until halfway through rehearsal. You think I'm kidding). 

It was a lovely night. Obviously, as director/writer, you're hyper-sensitive to the mood of the room, anxiously scanning the faces to gauge the reaction of everybody (particularly when they're not reading, and simply listening to others), but it seemed to me that everyone was generally positive, even allowing for my manical paranoia. The play itself seemed to whip along at a fair pace - a good sign if that's happening on the very first read thru - and no scenes sounded like they outstayed their welcome. 

A couple of lines still clanged in my ears, dialogue that just snagged like a jagged nail on a jumper (lines  like that one, for instance), but they seem to me to be easy fixes: a word here or there to get everything breezy. And it's encouraging to know that all of the actors are already finding the character within their characters - in a play like this one, even though it's not actually a pantomime, it's really important (to me at least) that each character, even those who might only be on stage for a matter of minutes, have the potential to be the absolute favourite character of some kid in the audience. 

Despite my very best intentions to keep things simple (no, honestly - don't laugh), there are still a good number of technical demands on the show, not least a number of snow effects. To their credit, the team on Snow Queen (Team Queen?) have not yet ran away screaming, and are clearly thinking hard about how to get me what I want, or at the very least a decent facsimile. It's all very humbling, and prompts in me a desire to look like I know what the hell I'm talking about. We've had a couple of rehearsals proper since then, and I'm keeping them fairly small and simple - the big rehearsals with twenty-plus (?!?) won't start really untill next month. We've got a couple of issues, like the image that's in my head for the Snow Queen's throne, and the fact that, while we have the music and lyrics written, we've just lost our best chance of someone to arrange the music. It's not that surprising, really - its quite a challenge to find someone who's prepared to give up lots and lots of hours of creativity and talent for no money whatsoever. 

Actually, scratch that - it's what the New Venture Theatre (and many other non-professional theatres up and down the country) are absolutely brilliant at. Obviously, a good few of us - such as the actors and directors - are reasonably guaranteed of some degree of praise at the end of everything. Generally speaking, people don't tend to go out of their way to praise the set. Indeed, if they do, it's usually an implicit criticism of the production. So I'm reasonably confident that we'll be able to solve our musical quandary (I must be, otherwise I wouldn't be happy talking about it on a public blog). 

Tonight's rehearsal is with Gerda and the Robber Girl, both of whom I'm rehearsing with for the first time - Gerda partially because the actress is already deep into rehearsals for another production which goes up in about a fortnight, so frankly, that tends to be her priority at the moment. I'm really looking forward to tonights session, and seeing what everyone does with the roles, particularly as I've altered the characteristics somewhat from the Hans Christian Andersen original. But then, I had to do that once or twice in the adaptation ..