Long, long rehearsals at the moment for Medea, and with every day, a change, whether it be in designing the light, the set, or, however implausibly, the cast. Despite the panics and concerns, I still remain very confident about the end product. I have a great cast and crew, a collection of people who are sensitive and emphatic to the needs of each other and are aways supportive. There have been a good few times, I don't mind admitting (well, come on, it's not like anyone's really reading this yet) that I haven't really known what the solution was to a particular problem scene. But I've always felt comfortable that my cast were able (and confident) to wait patiently while I sorted through a few possibilties, some of them clearly insane and unworkable, and at least a few that I doggedly stuck with for more than a few rehearsals, before coming up with the solution that worked. Which, in more than a few cases, was the idea that one of the cast had gently suggested in the first place.

Anyway, we're hurtling toward production week, and the first night is on 16th - just over a week away. Last time I checked, the last night had already sold out, and the Tuesday was down to just one ticket left. You can check up on the current sales here: http://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newventuretheatre. There's at least a chance that we might be able to release extra tickets closer to the time, but no promises.

All of which means that I didn't get much of a chance to see a great deal of the Brighton Festivals this year, which is a real shame - at the very least, I wanted to check out the new pop-up venue The Warren, which by all accounts was a lovely edfringe type place, and of course ended up winning a Latest7 award for best venue. In fact, the main thing I saw over the fringe was a production of 'Antigone', in which the audience mainly consisted of cast members of Medea having something of a busman's holiday. While it had merit, I found that I much preferred a production from years ago, back in Croydon, directed by Richard Vincent, and featuring Holly Sullivan in the title role. I'd love to tell you that my bias was just that - bias, blended in with a healthy degree of nostaglia, but I think the earlier production really was the better one. Although one of my clearest memories of that production was my mother in the audience, panicking throughout the evening that I'd been beaten up. Somehow, she hadn't cottoned onto the fact that I was playing a blind seer, and the dark patches around my eyes were simply stage make-up, and not massive facial bruising.

In the meantime (as if I have meantime right now) I'm writing a ten minute play for the Brighton And Hove Arts Council for their 'People's Day' in mid-July (the day, in fact, that the Olympic Torch is carried through Brighton). It'll start rehearsing as soon as we get out of Medea - so, only for a week or two - and will be performed somewhere near Pavillion Gardens in Brighton on July 14th. If you have any interest in being involved as an actor, please get in touch. It will be a very quick turnaround - a few rehearsals on a few eveinings, and then one single performance. I've already had some interested parties get in touch, and while I sort out the actual characters, etc, it'll be good to know if there's any other interest from elsewhere.

Good Ghostwalk last night. You can never really tell how it's going to go down from night to night, but last night's crowd were a fun bunch, full of banter and making all the right noises. Last week, I went to see one of my colleagues (Julian) do the Walk, and was somewhat put out to see that he had about forty or fifty with him that night. The most I've had so far this year is about thirty. I mean, I know (at least I think I do) that the general public don't spend time poring over the Internet to check which particular Ghost Walker they're gonna get, but it's still somewhat disquieting, and indeed, far too easy too take it all far too personally. I was also (as was the purpose of the visit) comparing and contrasting Julian's delivery of the stories to my own, and was pleased to see that our styles were sufficiently unlike each other so as to make such comparisons pointless. I did, however, find myself thinking 'he's a bit too good' somewhat too often. I always flattered myself that I don't do jealousy. Maybe I'm getting old. Perhaps I should kill him, that'll solve it.

Anyway, tonight, I'm stopping off at the NVT for their night of Short Fiction. I shouldn't be there at all, because I have a dinner engagement in Hove to get to (get me, being all sociable. I'm sure it's not the sort of dinner party on Hove you might be expecting. There probably won't be any hummus, and we'll probably only discuss Caroline Lucas once). But I will make a brief stop at the New Venture Theatre, and it's entirely egotistical.

You see, I'm having a short story of mine being read at the theatre tonight. As impressive as that might be (and I am impressed) it pales in light of the fact that I've actually finished a short story. This is pretty much unheard of. Like many people who laughably call themselves writers, I have far more ideas than I actually finish, and there are rather a lot of ideas that are still sitting around there in the upper attics of my mind, waiting for a final resolution.

I seem to be in the early stages of a bit of a creative kick at the moment, which is truly lovely and exhilarating, and I suspect it has a great deal to do with the fact that I don't really have enough time for it. I've always assumed I could get a lot more writing done if I just had a lot more time to myself (in fact I still do, of course I do, just chuck me twenty grand for the next year or so and well see, shall we?), but it also seems true that I've been knocking out more writing in the past month than I have done for a while, and I've only really had sections of fifteen minutes at a time with which to do it. As you might imagine, I find deadlines concentrate the mind wonderfully. Although I'm still not convinced that I've managed to give my story a suitable ending. You can judge for yourself tonight and tomorrow at the NVT, and tickets can be booked here: www.ticketsource.co.uk/newventuretheatre
There's plenty of other excellent stories from local writers, so there's stories for every taste, and the curator of the evening, Sarah Charsley, is an exceptionally lovely host, so it promises to be a lovely evening.

In the spirit of me seemingly only finding time to write when I don't really have time to write, I will be writing (and directing, I guess) a ten minute piece for the Brighton And Hove Arts Council to commentate the passing of the Olympic Torch through Brighton. More news on that once I've actually gotten around to writing it.

Which I haven't yet.

But, as I've mentioned, deadlines can really focus you.