Monday 8th June 2015

In my final year at college, studying theatre, we were told to write and direct our own play. I can’t quite remember what the criteria were, but I know that we were required to come up with at least ten minutes. In a response that was to typify the majority of my writing since, I found it difficult to keep mine from sprawling over half an hour.

That play – which would have been produced in the spring of 2001, I think – was generally well received (certainly it was very well acted). It was a murder mystery with four actors playing four parts each, and – although I didn’t get the chance to write this – the chance of four different endings. It was therefore almost inevitably called ‘Four Play’. I did consider a whole lot of other titles before going for the pun, but nothing else sold the concept quite so well. A lot of the humour of the piece was inspired by watching far too many screenings of the Tim Curry film Clue (which also had multiple endings, and a frenetic, breathless final act), the acidic humour of Mad magazine, and – now that I think about it – an experience I had on another play in a previous drama course, back in Croydon.

I was in a farce called An Italian Straw Hat, and found myself playing two fairly sizeable roles: an aging grumpy old man, and an immaculate, humourless waiter. I’d like to think that this was to explore my very obvious and significant range as an actor, but it’s more likely that there simply weren’t enough men to fill the parts. I don’t remember it as a particularly joyous production – more skewed towards bombastic performance rather than acting – which, even in a farce, is leaning towards tedium. But there was one moment where I had to leave the stage as the grumpy old man, and then return as the immaculate butler in roughly the same amount of time that it’s taken you to read that sentence.

Much of my ego obviously got a kick out of this – managing to switch between two entirely different characters, as well as a complete costume change, in under 40 seconds. In the event, I’m not entirely convinced that anybody noticed the effort I was putting in, and that includes my fellow cast members. I’ve chosen to conclude that that proves just how devastatingly impressive my character switch was. Or something.

So, anyway. All that was in my writing DNA in early 2001. In the week of the show, the course co-ordinator took me aside and mentioned that a student on another theatre course hadn’t gotten around to writing the hour long play that she was meant to for the Edinburgh Fringe that summer. Each year, a select few of the college were able to ride of coat-tails and get a show on at the fringe. Except that this girl didn’t actually have a play finished. ‘And this,’ my course co-ordinator intoned, ‘is fringe material.’ He asked if I’d be interested in taking the ‘Four Play’ up to the Edinburgh Fringe. I was, despite never having been up there, and not truly appreciating the magnitude of the offer. However, the lazy playwright got wind of this idea, and pulled out all the stops to hack out her play (which I increasingly now think was the whole point of my job offer). Her play went up to the fringe, where it was reviewed with the classic line ‘the worst thing on the fringe this year’ (which, as is the contractual obligation, they blew up to a huge size and plastered it all over their posters). ‘Four Play’, meanwhile, was liked well enough that the cast repeated it the following year (after I’d left the course) for a revival. A shaky video of that exists somewhere. I always knew that I’d want to write the play again to full length, and establish the four different endings. However, as is often the case when somebody does a drama course, I entirely avoided acting for about seven years. Once I’d moved down south, I scoped out a few local drama groups, most of which at that time had no interest in producing new work (and certainly not one from a writer they didn’t know). One of the most promising was the New Venture Theatre, and so eventually I posted my colours there. I knew that I’d still have to play the long game -  there was no way they were going to offer a directing / writing gig to someone they’d only just met – and so I had a couple of fun years as actor, and directing a short play (by Mark Wilson) for a new writing showcase. After a while, I felt able to submit my proposal for a production. I’m sure that there were probably a couple of people who raised eyebrows at the idea of a writer directing his own work (quite often a pretty strong signal of self-involved self-satisfaction) but somehow I managed to get it through the gate.

And for the second time, I was blessed with an excellent cast, and a truly amazing back stage crew. There were around 120 complete costume changes, and on some nights, it felt like half of those changes took place in the last twenty minutes. Most audience members seemed to have a great time, some said that the play clearly had a future beyond the confines of amateur theatre, and many gently pointed out that it was a bit long. On this last they were absolutely correct.

So, while it needed a pretty savage edit, even people who had criticised the length said that it didn’t really feel that long – it was just, in order to make the whole thing commercially viable, it needed a chop. This was true, and I was content to leave it alone for a while as my mind attempted to solve the problem without my interference (due to the complicated nature of the set up, it was never going to be as simple as, say, cutting the third scene – each moment was stacked on the other like a house of cards). Meanwhile, almost in passing, someone asked me if I’d heard of a thing in London called ‘The 39 Steps’. I said that I hadn’t, and the conversation drifted elsewhere.

In the five years since, I have of course heard of ‘The 39 Steps’, and I’m aware of the similarities  between that production and ‘Four Play’: both are period pieces where a limited number of actors play multiple parts. It seemed like someone had got to the joke before I did, so I was intrigued enough to check out the London show to see if ‘Four Play’ was a lost cause, or if it was entirely different.

Well. It’s not entirely different. I found myself in London recently, and had a chance to see ‘The 39 Steps’ for myself. ‘Four Play’ does indeed share a very central gag with 39 – that there are four actors (why did it have to be four?) playing lots of different parts. A lot of the joy of both plays is that they are fringe shows done big – unashamedly punching above their weight, and we can see the actors working hard just to keep up. There’s even a joke in both plays that is essentially the same, when the script ‘cheats’ with an apparent fifth cast member in order to facilitate a plot point. Understandably, I spent much of the production squirming between enjoying the show and seething with annoyance. Seems like I can still switch between personas really quickly.

I did some homework to see who had their original production first, and – perhaps surprisingly – I was actually pleased to discover that ‘The 39 Steps’ had beaten me to the punch, in their original fringe production, by about four years. I think I’d rather that than the alternative: that I’d written and produced something, and then did nothing with it for nearly ten years while someone else managed to get in first. That would have been upsetting.

And yet. Although there is clearly a lot of shared DNA, there are marked differences. 39 delights in the impossible task of creating a Hollywood movie on stage, complete with planes, trains, and car crashes. ‘Four Play’, on the other hand, gets overly complicated by getting trapped by its own form and set up: actors aren’t able to arrive on stage as one particular character until they have the opportunity to leave the stage as a previous character, and as a result there have to be additional narrative quirks to facilitate the entrances and exits, as well as some humour coming from the actors/characters forcing the others on stage into ever quicker and more difficult changes.

The humour in 39 (I would claim) is also slightly broader: they have fun with breaking the reality of the staging once or twice, and the joke I spoke about earlier, the one about the fake fifth cast member, is actually somewhat different. In ‘Four Play’, it occurs relatively early in the text, and is reasonably subtle: all actors are on stage, interrupted by a knocking on the door. They are momentarily confused before shrugging it off and continuing. We didn’t explain the gag any further (it’s the first time the play implicitly references the number of actors), and I knew each night that if the audience laughed right away, then they’d got the gag, and we had them for the rest of the night. And so it proved. In ‘The 39 Steps’, they lampshade the joke a lot more, having an actor yell out in frustration ‘This is meant to be a play for four actors!’ (again, why did they have to have four?). The audience enjoyed it, but I felt it laboured the joke. That said, it was an indication that, no matter how much ‘Four Play’ and ’39 Steps’ appear to have in common, they are actually quite different.

However, I’ve spent a lot of time since undecided if I want to be all depressed about the whole thing – throw it all away – or take comfort in the fact that there’s clearly a market for this kind of thing. Nowadays, it’s all about the money: when I was able to produce ‘Four Play’ the first time round, doing it with a local theatre group – complete with its own studio space, etc, easily saved me thousands. Now, if I was going to produce it myself, it would be beyond me. So I consider the possible thought processes of any potential producer – will they react with ’39 Steps already did this,’ or ‘if people liked 39 Steps, they’ll love this! ..’

In the end, I rather think I’ll strap myself in, complete the edits, and then hawk it around to any possible interested producers or agents. Because, after all, I rather like this script. And after all, if ’39 Steps’ really did get to my idea of four actors playing multiple parts, I can take comfort in the reality that we can’t possibly have been the first.  

Sunday 7th June 2015

We're about a week and a half away from our next Cast Iron theatre night, where we put on six or more short plays from local writers. They're usually brand new writing, or very new writing. We had a bit of a challenge this time round, because the dates of the last Cast Iron had to get bumped a bit, and then we had the Brighton Fringe swarm into view, which means that we've had less time (and less actors and directors) to play with: basically, we're having to do about six weeks of rehearsals in roughly 12 days. It's obviously a bit stressful, but everyone seems like they're coping. You'll be able to see for yourself in the middle of June.

 

It was pointed out to me that one of the reasons that I set up Cast Iron was for purely selfish reasons - in other words, to get my own stuff on stage. And that this was something I'd entirely failed to do: in the first year of Cast Iron, I had only put up one play for performance - which ended up getting a lovely review in the local paper. All the rest of the time, I hadn't taken advantage of the situation that I had set up for myself, and had let other local writers get all their stuff on stage. Which of course is lovely and the whole point of the thing, but if I'm not even nepotistic enough to exploit the fact that it's me who decides what scripts get through and which don't, then I really am missing a whole bundle of tricks.

 

So I am attempting to get a bit more galvanised with the works in progress. There's some pretty good stuff cluttering up some old laptops and the like, and stacks of paper that need to be re-edited, saved for prosperity, or simply burned. Perhaps the latter in some cases. Having a new laptop is a Godsend. When I was writing Four Play and The Snow Queen, both (different) laptops had a habit of freezing at annoyingly productive times, and getting stuck on a single punctuation mark. Considering I was writing these things pretty much in my lunch breaks, it's a wonder I got anything finished at all.

 

Time will always be the enemy it seems. One job that I have delayed on thus far is getting round to people to tell them (if they have indeed asked for feedback) why their scripts haven't made it through to this round of Cast Iron. Mostly it's benign reasoning - in other words, it's not because the writing is actively poor. It's more to do with the fact, sometimes, that we don't currently have access to the very specific type of actor that the script is indicating, or that the text is written to be somewhat more cinematic than a fringe studio theatre can provide. In this regard, running a short play night is teaching me almost as much about writing plays as actually writing them.

 

Tonight, we return Iron Clad Improv back to the DukeBox Theatre. We were at the Cricketers during the Fringe, but it will be lovely to get back to our spiritual home (three years old this year!). I've been doing lots of reading up with exciting new text books - including a UCB Improvisation manual, which is proving fascinating. The sessions start at 7.00pm every Sunday, and the theatre is at the back of the Iron Duke pub. In the meantime, I'm also running acting classes at the New Venture Theatre every Monday in June. At the moment, we're looking at script work, and the different ways to approach a text.

Sunday 31 May 2015

Tomorrow, I start a new series of acting classes at the New Venture Theatre, for all the Mondays in June. Before, the classes have mainly been centred around improvisation and confidence in performance, but this time around, we're going to have a look at script work. There's a line that I now quote in my classes - and annoyingly, I can't actually remember who I'm stealing it from - that goes something like, the script is just the blueprint, not the final product. This is something I think a lot of us could afford to bear in mind a lot more keenly.

 

Obviously, we should have a lot of respect for the writer's words - hell, I write myself, I know how much time, effort, and low level depression I put into an average script - but I notice that a few actors and directors feel really handcuffed by a script. Sometimes, admittedly, that's the playwrights fault, when the script is too exacting in its directions, saying that an actor should exit stage left when there's no real reason for the actor to leave in that direction. I remember a good chunk of rehearsal time being sunk because two characters were meant to be having a private conversation, but another character was in earshot. That third character had no more lines, no more narrative relevance, and was clearly not meant to be on stage anymore. But the director refused to have him leave the stage, simply because there was no stage direction dictating that. They were allowing the story to get trampled over by a stray LX cue.

 

But I like the idea of a script being your starting point for a production, rather than the end game. For many that's obvious - nobody pays £70 for a West End show simply to pick up a copy of the text and read it in silence - but like many obvious things, simply re-stating it in slightly different language makes us reassess and realise it anew. Plus, if the script is any good, it can certainly put up with a little punishment. Shakespeare is particularly good at this, and it's one of the reasons why his plays still get performed 400 years later. You can rip them apart, dress them in Gulf War fatigues, and make them continually relevant to the audience watching.

 

Obviously, not everyone agrees. I remember talking with a director as they prepared to take on Romeo And Juliet. He was keen to do an entirely original, refreshing production, unlike any that had been done before. I mentioned that I'd enjoyed the 90s film version (the one with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio), at which he sniffed, and muttered: 'That's not Shakespeare.' I knew then that this was a conversation that wasn't going to last much longer, and in any case, I didn't quite understand it, coming from a man who habitually did all his Shakespeare productions in non-Elizabethan dress. If you're going to make such an absolute criticism, at least commit to it absolutely.

 

Anyway. Five acting classes at the NVT in June, all to do with fear of script, and using it as a blueprint. I've got one more Iron Clad Improv class (tonight) at the Cricketers in The Lanes, and then we're back to the DukeBox Theatre from next Sunday.

 

Writing has been going well this week, but I'm mournfully aware that I've just had a week off. Check in this time next week, and you'll see if I've kept up my word count.

 

Acting Class details here and improve drop-in details here.

Sunday 25th January 2015

Pretty good session at Iron Clad Improv tonight, with three new people (all of whom took a loyalty card, so in theory that's a pretty good sign). While the Sunday night sessions are for all intents and purposes drop-ins, meaning that anyone can rock up on any Sunday, or indeed miss out on any number of Sundays without losing out or getting lost, I do try to have some sort of soft 'umbrella theme' stretching over a period of roughly four weeks or so every so often, in order to focus our minds on whatever improv challenge or problem that's currently cropping up a lot in class. So far this year, in the first few sessions back, we've mainly just been doing short form stuff in order to ease ourselves back into the groove, which has been fun. Now things are beginning to click back into place, and it looks like (with not a great deal of surprise) that our focus in the first part of 2015 will be a return to basics on the so-called Three Rules Of Improv: listen/say yes/commit. 

I find these three rules of improv endlessly fascinating. They are always the same, and yet at the same time, constantly fluid. I find new things in them roughly three times a year, the more I act, direct and write. They are both as bluntly simple as they first appear, and vastly more complicated. They mean just what they say, and are always changing. Yes, I'm aware that this sounds vastly pretentious, and I'll probably be able to explain myself better once I get my groove on with this blog and write entries more regularly, but generally I think what I'm saying about improv - and by extension, writing, or acting, or directing - really, any kind of storytelling - is that you can't get to the end of learning how to do it. Once you've 'worked it out', you're screwed, because of course, once you've learned all there is to learn, you can no longer be taught. For me, teaching (and learning) about improv is much like going into a darkened library with a candle. With the light of the candle you see this book, and that book .. and you read those, and find them delightful. So you pick up a few more. And a few more. And because the library is dark, and because you've only got the candle to light your way, it takes you a while to discover (and this you will constantly forget) that the library is vast, the perimeter far far away from your reach, the candle lighting the here and now, and simply suggesting what has passed, and what lies in the future. 

This weekend, we've been getting the last few entries  for our next Cast Iron night, which will be at the end of March. This means we have to read the plays pretty damn quickly, in order to get them cast and assigned to a director, hopefully before the end of this week. All this while trying to finish my own ten minute play, this for the NVT evening of short plays, the deadline for which is this week. 

Snow Queen, Christmas 2014 (review)

 What do you get if you cross a Victorian children's story with Narnia, 'Frozen', Hogwarts, feminist ideology and Christmas? You get 'The Snow Queen', a glorious updating of Hans Christian Andersen especially written for the New Venture Theatre by Andrew Allen. Following the seriousness of Barbarians and the witty froth of Hay Fever earlier in 2014, 'The Snow queen' offered something completely different.  It was the first production for young people for a considerable time and it employed perhaps the largest cast ever seen on a NVT stage. Twenty one actors, actresses, bird and reindeer only just accommodated themselves in the Theatre Upstairs but they had enormous fun with a musical play that transcended most of the usual categories and earned the NVT manifesto of 'community theatre'. 
Was it just for young people? Two nine year olds in our row loved every minute, and laughed and giggled all the way through. They especially liked the crow and the reindeer and they all jumped with pleasure when violent bangs scattered snow everywhere. They told me it was better than anything on TV. They would have loved to have been on stage. 
But few children would have been old enough to understand Allen's hilarious EasyJet instructions on the riverboat, or the chavvy, stroppy girl-power burglars. Neither might most nine year-olds appreciate an ornithological 'caw caw' from the crow as synonymous with 'cor' from 'cor blimey' representing an extreme enthusiasm for practically everything. Simple philosophy was demonstrated by the Flowers who believed most problems could be buried in the earth and that plants needed tending ... towards the positive. Puns flew as thick and fast as the snowflakes: I particularly enjoyed the 'fly-lingual' crow and an enormous 'ass..piration'. 
Old and young found the modern geeky Princess funny in her boots, stripey leggings and metal chainwork. Obviously, she had the fluffy dress somewhere and she married the handsome prince, but she wore the trousers - literally. 
It's a story written by a bloke but really for girls, about girls. Men don't get much of a look in: they are a reindeer, a crow, a susceptible  boy or a soppy prince. There isn't a hero among them. Even the two rather nervously inept soldiers are girls. Chelsea Newton Mountney played Gerda with a beguiling mixture of savvy innocence and naive courage. For some reason known only to her, she protects her childhood playmate Kai who is determined  on self-destruction with the Snow Queen. Matthew Swan made a brave stab at being really stupid, but he couldn't help being a charming young actor in the CS Lewis 'Edmund' role with Narnia's White Witch. I was captivated by the sinus allergies (to snow, mostly) and permanent sneezing of the Queen's courtier Kirrily Long, a genuine comedy talent and necessary foil to the icy horror of Shonali Rodrigues. It was a relief when Gerda's love melts the Snow Queen: the darkest Victorian tales needed a moral and here it was - Love Conquers All. Trolls Annique Tate-Doe, Lisa Feldman and Emma Ruggins were comedically agile, sharing the palm for feisty girl power with robbers Milly Roberts, Lisa Caira and Alanna Manwaring. The hierarchy of Spring and Summer were scene stealers, although Samantha French was especially, transatlantically, hilarious.   
Mark Green made a very fine crow (Andersen uses a Raven) with some picturesque wing flapping and a great deal of very charming enthusiasm. Cor! Jeff Moody's Reindeer was a sorrowful creature under the frozen thumb of the Snow Queen, his mobile face expressing complete gloom to great comical effect. 
The list of production team in The Snow Queen programme is almost as long as the cast, but particular mention must be made of writer/director Andrew Allen who wrote the script and nearly all the songs. Musical direction was by Alanna Manwaring and Lisa Caira, and set design by Mark Green and Isabel Aidalbery. 
Rod Lewis passionately believes in the value of amateur theatre as a community enterprise. Nothing could validate his conviction better than this production of 'The Snow Queen' with its broad appeal and enormous cast. Everyone involved must have had a terrific time, on and off stage. And the audience young and old went home melted and happy with a song  in their hearts! Cor! 

Wednesday November 5th 2014

So, here we are then: just one month until the first night  of The Snow Queen. Back in March, it was just so many scribbles on scraps of paper. Now it's a cast of twenty-five plus. I'm still slightly giddy at how it's all turned out.

Don't get me wrong; strictly speaking, it hasn't turned out yet. There's still a month to go after all, and all sorts of special effects to sort out, as well as recording the music (a chapter of accidents has meant that our original musician isn't able to provide the music for us, which, if the show wasn't already in  a pretty good place, would be feeling us with fear and panic. As it is, however, the songs have sounded pretty damn good acoustically, so I'm inclined to think that we're in a good space no matter what happens). But there's genuine chemistry between the cast, some really lovely performances, and all manner of people working behind the scenes (occasionally literally) to ensure that this will be a very special show.

On this Friday, we've arranged a photo shoot on the Brighton Pavilion ice rink (snow / ice - c'mon, we wee going to pass up an opp like that?) which really begins our countdown to the show. Early next week, we get the cast into the space, and at roughly the same time the set will begin to be built. (I keep saying to anyone who will listen that I had genuinely intended to do a show that was simply two actors, in a black box, no set. Nobody ever believes me). We're hoping to lay some tracks for the songs next week or so, and at around the same time we invite the youth theatre section of the NVT to join (making the cast numbers bubble up around the 30 mark: next time - 2 actors in a black box. Honest.)

It's all getting far too exciting, and I am in equal parts eager and terrified by what the next month will bring.

Saturday 4th October 2014

Wonderful rehearsal during the week for The Snow Queen.  We introduced a couple of the songs to the cast, all of whom seemed be on board with it from the get-go (there was even a bit of foot tapping, which is a pretty good sign). At the start of this year, I didn’t know that I was going to be writing a play, much less a Christmas play, much (even more) less one with songs in it. I have no sense of tune or rhythm, so this was a pretty hubristic move on my part. But I seem to have managed to write a decent batch of songs with most of my dignity intact – or at the very least, I’ve managed to surround myself with enough people who are able to spot the tautological errors in my lyrics and nip them in the bud before less forgiving eyes see them.

I imagine this is the same for anyone who writes a song, but there is something very humbling and actually disconcerting about listening to a group of people sing something that previously was just a collection of words on a page, wrestled from my sleep-deprived imagination. Of course, I have previously already had people perform words that I’ve written, but that’s always been prose, and –as far as I can remember – always directed by myself. There might have been an occasion that someone else has directed one of my plays, but if there is, I have managed to forget it. Whatever way you read that, it doesn’t say a great deal for my relationship with my own ego.

I guess another reason why I was so fascinated and discombulated by hearing the songs was that I hadn’t had any involvement whatsoever with the music. As I’ve indicated, with absolutely no degree of self-deprecation, but a decent dollop of actually telling the truth, I don’t have any real musical talent whatsoever. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that the songs I’ve written are terrible (PLEASE COME TO OUR SHOW), but I can’t write a single note of music. It’s lucky then that I find myself working with two fantastic women who have been creating original music for the songs. They give my songs credit, if that makes any sense.

I suddenly realised (if I hadn’t already realised it at some other point in time, and then promptly forgotten it) that I seem to always take on projects that will frankly terrify me. I don’t say this as some kind of humble brag (well, maybe I do a bit), but more as a slightly confused observation of wonder. The fact that I’m adapting The Snow Queen, attempting to do something vaguely unique with it (of which more another time), and sticking some songs in it is ridiculous, to say the least. Good ridiculous, I hasten to add, but still. One of the (many) things that was breaking me out in cold night-sweats was the songs. Since I (and I know I’ve banged on a lot about this, but there’s a point, honest) have very little previously measured talent in that department, it was certainly a thing that, if it all stuttered and coughed up blood, could be well levelled at me as fair criticism – reaching beyond my natural limitations. But I’m not entirely sure that there’s anything wrong with that. Why play safe?

We have yet to go through all the scenes, but once we do, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster. Not that I’m trying to have a scene with a rollercoaster in it (but now that you mention it ..) I’m asking for quite a bit in the way of special effects and props (the snow alone is giving people pause), and we’re very soon going to be starting a crowd funding campaign (yeah, it had to happen eventually), and there’s an atmosphere of something very special around the corner.  Frankly, I can’t wait. 

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 .. 

Tuesday 29th July 2014

Going through the sixth / seventh / eighth draft of The Snow Queen. I don't even know anymore; the drafts have all sort of blended into each other; fixing the problems in one as I reprint out the next, printing out the next knowing already that such and such a scene has to be swapped with another, except that there's no real way of doing that yet ... and at least three characters haven't been fully sketched out yet .. All the usual stuff that happens around this time of the rewrites. 

At the moment, I'm far too close, scaling the sheer cliff face of the script to know if it's actually any good or not (I'm going to have to have another sweep of the original Hans Christian Andersen before I do too many more rewrites, that's for certain). But on one thing alone, I appear to be in pretty good shape. Currently, I have almost all the story that I need to tell down on paper - in about half the pages that I need. This is very good news. The last script I produced clocked in at over two hours. People didn't mind too much, but they didn't mind with the qualification that, yes, it was too long. Plus, this is a kid's show. There's no way that I'm going to be able to get those kids to sit still for a hour and a half, let alone over two. I was initially slightly concerned, because as well as all the actual plot and narrative stuff I'm writing for this thing, I'm also writing songs (yeah, I know. Shush). I thought that perhaps that once I'd come up with the songs, there would be room for only the lightest and flimsiest of plots. I've been watching a lot of Disney, to see how they get away with it. Turns out there's a lot of swinging from tall buildings. 

The other thing that's been a bit of a challenge this week is the casting for our next batch of short plays - for CAST IRON 3 - in September. We always knew that we would lose some of our regular company this time round, to the likes of Edinburgh, summer holidays, and 'a life' (yeah, me neither), but it's been a particularly tough call in terms of casting and the like. I think we've almost got it sorted, but it has meant that our various casts have significantly less time to rehearse their plays. 

Tuesday 18th March 2014

Not long now til the deadline for our second round of submissions for Cast Iron, our semi regular night of new writing for the theatre that we've set up in Brighton - actually, at the DukeBox Theatre. I've had a couple of submissions come in during the last few days, and look forward to reading more. We're already coming to the end of rehearsals for the first batch of plays, which get performed on Saturday 5th April (there'll be a link around here at some point). Despite my best intentions, I'm in one of them, and - still - the lines aren't quite there yet, although I'll concede that they are more well learned that I think they are, if that makes any sense.

For the first night, we're premiering eight new plays, which is a pretty tall order. We've got people directing one play, appearing in another (or two others), while writing up another. In some cases, this is while holding down normal things like jobs and families, as well as rehearsing for their Brighton Fringe shows. This has clearly been a bit exhausting for everyone, not least because of trying to wrap their heads around the logistics of sorting a batch of rehearsals that people can all attend at the same time - while attending a completely different rehearsal elsewhere. 

Partially, that's the reason why the number of accepted plays this time round will be slightly less - possibly seven, probably six. That's slightly less pressure on me as the reader, but also slightly more pressure on each playwright, with literally two less spaces to fight for. In any case, the deadline is this Friday, although if people were to give me the heads up that they're still working on their final-no-honestly-it's-nearly-finished draft, then I'm sure we could find a but of elbow room over the weekend. 

The acting classes at the NVT have been going really well, ever better than I hoped. I was trying for something a little bit different with this series of classes, and was initially not quite sure if I could pull it off, since what I was trying to achieve was a little more nuanced than the classes I have previously delivered for the New Venture Theatre. But everyone seems to be getting a real kick out of it, and it's been gratifying to see performers dig deep and find new reserves within themselves. Apart from anything else, it's been humbling to see so many people come back week after week. There's a fair chance that I might redraft this series of classes as a course of workshops elsewhere for people who weren't able to make it this time round. 

I suppose the main excuse I could throw up for not having quite learned my lines for the short play night is because all my line learning facilities have been powering up for The Crucible, which is the Brighton Fringe production I'm involved with. Thankfully, the lines for that have been a bit of an easier ride (although I'm no way near to being totally signed off of the script just yet). It's a really interesting production, told in a promenade style, and will be performed in a church. I'm told that tickets are already beginning to sell, despite the fringe still being over a month away. It's a great cast, and that's important: a real company feel that makes rehearsals feel like really productive, fun, and pleasingly hard work. It's actually a pretty difficult atmosphere to pull off: I've been involved in a couple of shows where the grumpiness within the cast has broken out into open hositilties. Which, let's be honest, isn't the greatest way forward in a rehearsal. 

The part I'm playing is something of a challenge, if only because of my somewhat preconceived ideas, and how almost literally everyone else has played him: like many Arthur Miller male characters, he's something of a bear of man, at least figuratively, if not physically. Although the physical aspect is something I'm very aware of: I'm a reasonably slight man (although almost a foot taller if I simply stop slouching) and there's a good few cast members who are easily taller than I am. It makes me acutely aware of how I appear on stage, within the context of the play. Having said all that, both as writer and director, I've always been interested in playing against the expectation. I'm just somewhat startled to be playing it myself .... 

Thursday 13th February 2014

You know how it is. You're going through your day to day life, minding your own business, when you find, much to your surprise, that you appear to have set up a theatre company quite by accident, when you weren't really paying attention. I'm still not entirely sure quite how it happened. It's not as if I haven't already got quite enough to be getting on with, what with the improv classes happening every week, and the longform course starting next month (don't worry, the plugs will get less coy and subtle soon enough). But it seemed the right thing, and the right time for it all to happen in. 

When I say that I don't quite know how it happened (because, hell, after all, who sets up a theatre group by accident?) I'm not being faeustious. Well, not by much, anyway. I do know that I was involved, as an actor, in one of the Ten Minute Plays at the New Venture Theatre last year. I had submitted a play which didn't get accepted, and I honestly will never be able to tell you if I was piqued enough by that to start thinking about setting up an event where I - and others - would have other and more often a chance to submit work of our own. Well, regardless of what the catalyst was, and what my intentions were / are, that's exactly what happened next. It certainly seemed (to me, at least) that in Brighton, there appeared to be remarkably few events that promoted new writing in theatre. I'm sure there are a few, but it seems that they are sporadically littered throughout the year, and if that's not the case, then the attendant advertising and social networking ain't up to much. 

I'm very lucky in that I'm somewhat surrounded by a good number of passionate and talented people, a good few of whom were also in the NVT production of Ten Minute Plays. Some of them, I'd worked with in A Beginning, A Muddle, And An End (last years entirely improvised play that we produced for the Brighton Fringe), and it would appear that at least a couple of them are willing to work with me again, which is to their eternal credit. If all that sounds like a stumbling attempt at a humblebrag, well, then, I'm not going to disagree with you, but let the record also note that there are also a few people out there who have clearly decided that they'll never work with me again. 

So, somewhat on a whim, I voiced this vague concept of a probable idea that I almost had forming in my head. I'm used to that; I'm a would-be writer, I talk about the possibility of ideas annoyingly much more than the doing the hard work of actually getting those ideas on paper. What I'm less used to is the moment when a few (more than a few, in fact) like minded people voice their agreement on said idea and have questions like 'when do we start?', 'can I send in my play?' and 'cool, I'll bring the biscuits'. Actually, it may be that I'm being fanciful with the truth on that last one. What the hell. It might get me a couple of biscuits. 

So a couple of months ago, it was somewhat overwhelming to be surronded by a gang of creatives, all there for the same purpose. The concept is simple and clear. Ideally, a person will write a play, direct another, and appear in a third. Now, that won't always work, simply because sometimes a play won't get through to the acceptance stage, or someone's confidence doesn't lie in direction, or simple, base logistics (not every play will feature a cast of exactly one person, for instance). But that's the template we're working on, and so far it's working pretty well. Of course, the planning is a nightmare, since everyone has to arrange their rehearsals so they don't clash with each other - and since everyone is involved in everyone else's play, that's almost impossible - but I'm hearing good reports back. We intend that there will be batches of new writing four times a year (with perhaps an extra one thrown in as a Halloween special) and largely speaking, I'm more excited about the process than the final production. Not only is it a lovely atmosphere to meet up and work in, where the idea is that nobody's actually in compeition with each other - ideally, you'd turn up with your half-baked idea, show it around , people will either dislike it, or love it, or like the idea, but let you know that your dialogue / plotting is crappy - and it just means that if you're a nervous, new writer, you don't have to go it alone. The most gratifying part of this process so far have been the people who have taken the time to let me know how pleased they are to finally have an avenue for their writing, that they haven't before quite had the courage. If that's all I end up achieving with this accidental theatre company - well, that would seem to be a good trade. 

Thursday 27th June 2013

Right, where were we? The last time we spoke, I was deep in rehearsals for the completely improvised play that I'd been directing, 'A Beginning A Muddle And An End,' I'm not stopping for long here today - at least, I don't expect to be - so for now, I'll simply say that the show, for the most part, seemed to be very well received. 

Well, for the most part. There were a couple of people who clearly hated it. There were also a couple of people for whom improv wasn't exactly their thing, and the production did absolutely nothing to shake them from their beliefs. But they still found the time to hang back and vocalise their admiration for bravery of the cast who threw themselves onstage (sometimes quite literally) with no idea what the hell was going on (again, quite literally). In fact, with this particular person I'm thinking of, I might well be assuming wrongly that they didn't exactly like improv; I'm just reading that into their lack of effusive praise about the actual show. But they were at pains to praise the dedication and cajones of the cast. In many ways, it was this praise that meant more than any compliment regarding clever or funny storylines that the crew came up with. 

Oh, and there was one more section of the audience that didn't exactly warm to us. (by the way, I should point out that the show went very well. There were lots of people that were giddily excited about what the cast came up with. It's just that this particular blog post is about the less flattering elements of the audience). These people had a problem with the show not because they thought it boring, or ill-prepared, or incoherent. In fact, they thought the exact opposite. Rather too much so. In other words, they thought that our improvised show wasn't in any way improvised. 

OK, on one hand - our first reaction, indeed - was to take this as some kind of compliment: the idea that everyone was so-damn-slick that it beggared belief - literally, that it was unbelievable - that anyone could be quite that smart to come up with this stuff without some kind of process or plan. I can understand it, to some degree. As audience members, we're primed to see a structure in our stories - sometimes, literally, a three-act one (a beginning, a middle, and an end, if you will). But, since at least two of our un-believers had actually written reviews taking us to task and, in the case of the particularly bad-tempered one, pretty much accused us of breaking the trades description act, I had been advised by many to exercise my right of reply.  I had been reluctant to do this, simply because a director replying irritably to what's essentially a negative review can come across as a crate of sour grapes. But when our in-house reviewer also raised an eyebrow at the possibility that the show was made up, I was persuaded. 

I won't post my reply here just yet - I'll wait to see if it gets printed in the NVT newsletter first. But the writing of it reminded me that audiences really like to see their improv performers sweat. It can't look too easy, otherwise it just gets drenched in what is, for me at least, one of the cardinal sins of bad improv, a sin that you are capable of even if you're excellent; that of self indulgence. 

Well, more on that another time. The coffee shop I'm stealing internet from closed twenty minutes ago. 

Wednesday 22 May 2013

My back started to give in today. A viscious twinge, that actually stopped me in my tracks on my way to work. For a moment, I almost had to double over. That hasn't happened for a while - in fact, the last time was when I was in the later stages of rehearsals for Medea last year, when, for about twenty minutes, I had to give my director notes from a sitting position, almost unmoving. But here's the thing. There's an app called TimeHop, which sends you a message occasionally to remind you of what you were doing (or at least, what you put as your status update) on this day a year, or two or three years ago. I just got today's text, and it turns out the last time my back locked up was exactly this day last year. Of course, it could have something to do with the last minute stresses of directing, but Medea wasn't until the end of June - almost a month away. The fact that my back twinged on the same day, a year apart - before I'd make enough of a connection for it to be psychosamatic - is a bit odd, really. I'd happily declare it as an entirely meaningless coincidence, but I've seen enough films to know that it must be a glitch in the system. Any minute now, I'm going to wake up. That feels appropiate, actually, since right now, I just feel half asleep.

Rehearsals continue to go well for A Beginning, A Muddle And An End, and we continue to learn stuff about improvisation even in this last week of rehearsals. (Oh, yes - it's the last week of rehearsal: you should really be getting your tickets right about now - https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/search/searchEventDetails.asp?sid=&returnPage=promoter&event_id=35283 ). Much of it is reaffirming what we already know, like the fact that we've got a pretty unique - and very challenging - set up in terms of the long form improv that we're attempting. Most troupes (read: sane troupes) will have a cast of four, maybe five. Sometimes just two. Occasionally even one. A show with nine - count 'em, nine - performers, all jostling for stage and story time, is a great testament to each improvisers skill and generosity. When I consider that a couple of them had rarely (or never) improvised before, it's genuinely breathtaking.

I've already known this for a while, but I won't be directing next year, or at least I don't expect to. It's a process that takes up a shocking amount of time, and I've not been able to see anything in the last three Brighton Fringes by sheer dint of being busy with my own productions. I'll always be greatful to the New Venture Theatre for allowing me to indulge some simply manic and entirely risky ideas. When people - management commitees, fellow directors and writers, and indeed the actors that you are responsible for - give you their trust, it's an empowering thing. Not just for you as the director, but also for the person giving the trust. I'm not saying as a director that you're always right - or even often right - but when someone has faith that you want the best, then - even if you both make a couple of mistakes along the way - you get to the best a helluva lot quicker.

Monday 13th May 2013

I've only seen one thing in the Brighton Fringe this year, and it might well be the only thing. The trade off is pretty good, since that one thing is excellent - Bitch Boxer (coming back to the fringe at the end of the month), but I'm acutely aware that it's about the third fringe in a year that I haven't been able to see anything. Time just vanishes. Of course, at this time of the year, I'm normally working on my own production, which, even if I feel like I'm not attending to it as well as I should, chews up all spare time and energy with the full force of a particularly nasty patch of quicksand. I've already decided that I won't be directing anything next year, at least not in the fringe. It seems to consume a vast amount of energy and emotion for something that I do outside the day job, in the evenings, where it's bundled up roughly and inefficiently, bursting at the seams. See, I have no idea what that's meant to mean. You can see I'm tired. 

However, we're on the home stretch now. This is the final couple of weeks of rehearsal (if rehearsal is an accurate description, which it isn't) for A Beginning, A Muddle, And An End. Up until now, my crew has consisted pretty much entirely of me. This is nobody's fault but mine - it's down to me to get hold of a production manager, lighting designer and the like, but I haven't been able to find the time to get anybody - because a good deal of my time outside rehearsals has been taken up with the sorts of things a production manager might take care of .. you can see how it can become a effortlessly self-repeating circle. Luckily, I've managed to bless myself with a new production manager just this weekend (nothing like leaving it to the last minute), and hopefully that will stave off the otherwise certain event horizon in which I wonder why things haven't been done in the production, before realising that I've somehow expected everyone else to read my mind. And, yes, I'm aware that professional directors with a full production team are guilty of this trait as well, without ever thinking that it is actually a guilty trait. 

By the way, my cast are doing nearly impossible things. Not actually impossible things, because that would be, well, you know. But nearly impossible things. It's a cast of nine performers, all sharing the space with each other, each having to boldly tear off a strip and sail down a narrative that is - quite simply - made up as they go along - while, at the same time, bending to the need of the other performer - to eight other performers, who will doubtless each have at least six different ideas as to where they think the story might be going. I'm learning as much as I ever did about the craft of improvisation. It occurred to me this week that the very first thing I did for the New Venture Theatre was a long improvisation performance, although I'm not precisely sure that I ever referred to it as such in the time that we did it. Somewhat surprisingly, I'm not even entirely sure that I even knew that it was long form. Certainly, in that performance, which only had about five days of prep, and then - thrown in at the deep end - things seemed a helluva lot easier. This time, it seems like a much bigger mountain, and that time, I was one of the performers (I'm staying off stage this time, for various reasons, which I might chat about on a later blog entry). 

I suspect that at least part of the reason why I find the long form so overwhelming this time round - even if I'm not in it - is because last time round, I was going in blind. I really didn't have any idea what the hell was going on. And naivete is a significantly underrated state of grace: if you don't know that a thing is impossible, or at least smucking difficult, then you're much more likely to wade in with much less concern about the cuts and bruises you might earn before the experience is over. That time, I was simply reacting, responding - not overly concerned about creating a coherent narrative, just reacting honestly to what the hell was going on. As anyone who's done more than one session of improv - long or short form - will attest, that's a great place to be in, improv. You can be too intelligent in improv, and your imagination, your smarts, aren't always your friend. 

Quite often, improvisers, experienced or first timers, will get concerned that their story doesn't really make sense, that it's meandering with no sense of direction, floating off into the wind. And, yes, of course that can happen, but lots of times - I'd say almost eight, even nine times out of ten, concentrating on making the plot clearer, giving it the ol' three act story arc treatment - is not going to do anyone any favours. It will always look false. It will always sound false and forced, dry rusty brakes screaming in protest. We panic that what we say has to be vital, and important - particularly if it's the first scene (the first line) in the play. But it doesn't. I'm pretty sure that most of Pinter's first lines are, on the paper, pretty banal. It's the attitude behind them that give them the import (and allow them to be re-evaluated after the fact). We don't talk in exposition, and whilst it's true that stories (plays, improv, films, whatever) are not exactly real life, there's no reason to speak in exposition there, either. Just because it's wise to only say what's needed on stage, and not to babble, it doesn't follow that every single thing spoken has to have the motive of story behind it. This is a complicated idea, much more complicated than I have the intelligence to voice here, because it might suggest that you're allowed to say things that have no purpose, which isn't the case at all. But neither should you be declaring that it's your plan to take over the world with a cabal of syphilis infected monkey rabbits. Even if - especially if - it's clear that your character's main aim is to take over the world with a cabal of syphilis infected monkey rabbits. It's like the acting advice that's most famously attributed to Michael Caine in Educating Rita: just because your character is drunk, doesn't mean that they want everyone to know it. As a performer, you say everything with a purpose. But your character does not have to mean everything they say. 

Which (sort of) brings us back to simply reacting, responding. If the only thing your characters are discussing is making tea, then there's an attitude behind that. Maybe one person is always making the damn tea, and resents that fact. Maybe the other character never makes the tea because they're convinced they are terrible at it. Why? Maybe they think they suck at everything. Is the other character, and more importantly, the other performer, aware of that? Do they (the performer) ask why - at least in their head? How do they react to this new found piece of information? It's this that drives the plot along. As improvisers, we don't really have to worry about plotting out a perfect plot that. In real terms, that's not improvisation, because we're laying down a safe path through the woods to follow. If we simply react, and respond, and throw out - gift out - our responses with verve and energy - then the story will look after us. Story is an awesomely strong beast that simply requires feeding and a loose leash. It doesn't need to be told where to go; it will smash us on the head, go through our pockets, steal our change, and gallop away down the road, laughing loudly. All we need to do is hold onto the leash, tight. 

And listen. 

Monday 6th May 2013

In the final few weeks of rehearsals for my Brighton Fringe show, 'A Beginning, A Muddle, And An End'. Well, I say my show, but it really belongs to the cast. Whatever happens now, it's a really remarkable achievement from everybody involved. Embarking on an entirely improvised, narrative play is a pretty big ask at the best of times, but when you consider that a couple of my actors hadn't really done any improvisation of any description before embarking on this production, the work that they're doing is genuinely brilliant. 

Not that it's any easier for improvisers who have had a lot of experience. In fact, it can be even more difficult, because it's so easy to get stuck into one particular 'method' of improvisation, simply because you know that that works, or indeed because that's the 'right' way to do a scene. Which is ironic, really, because that's almost the opposite of improvisation, since, in theory, you're not leaving yourself open to new untried methods of telling a story. So I'm grateful to my cast for continually throwing themselves into the dark, and seeing where the story leads them. It shows a humbling amount of faith, if not in myself as the person who claims to know what the hell he is doing as director, then certainly in each other as fellow performers. In each rehearsal, watching, and working with these improvisers who, in some cases, are learning certain improvisational techniques for the first time, I find that I too am learning more and more about improv. 

The DukeBox Theatre has a full programme during the Brighton Fringe, so I debated for a while about whether or not I should give Iron Clad Improv a break for the month of May. It's still a relatively young group, though, so I decided that I wanted to keep the momentum going, although there was always a risk that the numbers would drop slightly in a new location. I'm glad I did keep it going, however, because although it is true that the numbers dipped slightly on our first Sunday over in Hanover, it was a great session, and bodes well for the rest of the month. 

I keep meaning to upload a couple of essays and reviews on classic and nu-Who (Doctor Who, in other words) before this season ends, as there's a couple of theories that I'd like to put forward before they become proved / disproved onscreen. I have an odd little theory that links The Great Intelligence (the current Big Bad) to stories dating as far back as the very first season. I may be reading too much into things that have been (or indeed haven't been) seen onscreen, but then again Steven Moffat is a fiendish little showrunner. Hope to get those reviews / theories uploaded before the end of the week. 

Another thing I need to try and get done as soon as possible is a couple more short stories. There's a competition coming up for entries for ghost stories, and I happen to have a couple of ideas that would suit well. I've now got this long list, in date order, of upcoming competitions, which is very useful for focusing the mind. Nothing like a deadline or two for galvanising the procrastinating writer. There's a couple of other reasons too. Firstly (and probably most important), it means I actually have a reason to finish that story before getting distracted by that other shiny story. The excellent Chuck Wendig puts it very well, suggesting that you shouldn't cheat on your first idea by messing around with the new, sexy idea. Be faithful to the first one. Put the effort in. For someone like me, whose hard drive is littered with a hundred and six unfinished ideas, this advice is invaluable. 

Perversely, however, the other reason to actually finish these stories (or ideas, or whatever) is in order to come up with new ones. As writers, we're often concerned that we're going to run out of ideas, that the well is going to run dry. But I'm increasingly not convinced that's quite the case. Actually, we need to use up those ideas, chew them up, spit them out, make way for the new stuff. Which will come. Otherwise, we're just screwing around with the same old stuff, pushing our peas around the plate, becoming ever more bored with the lack of flavour, and losing the energy to come up with something new. 

Well, that's what I think today, anyway. Tomorrow, it'll probably be something about a gluten free diet, and women who wear too much kohl on their eyes. (I have no idea). 

Saturday 6th April 2013

I'm probably two, maybe three drafts away from the final draft of a story I'm working on called 'Broom Handle'. If I'm lucky, it's only one draft. When I had the idea for the story, it seemed really simple. And, actually, it is: the idea itself is quite a basic one, and shouldn't require too much in the way of complicated add-ons. But because the concepts aren't that simple for the characters themselves, I need to be a bit clever about how I'm telling the story, a cleverness that's currently hiding from me. Over the last few drafts, I've begun to hate this story. Not actively, not with real passion, not even so much that I consider the writing (and re-writing) of it to be a genuine chore .. but certainly enough for me to question if the story is actually good enough. And, by extension, if I'm good enough as a writer. 

Again, this is why it's useful to have deadlines. If I'd been writing this story a year or so ago, pretty much at any point in my history, there's a damn good chance that I'd have given up on it by now. After all: what's the point? Who's actually waiting for this story? No-one. (actually, that's a bit of a lie: two friends have asked to read it when it's finished, because they quite liked the sound of the idea behind it). It's so easy to let a pretty good idea wither and die even before it's finished. That's any idea: whether it be for a short story, a film - or even a little blog like this: if you don't get the damn thing down as quickly as possible, even if it's not particularly good, then there's a very good chance that nothing will get written at all. Of course, that's a major factor in itself: so many things don't get written because they are not perfect in their first incarnation. Then the inner critic gets disheartened, dials back, and thinks that they'll do better if the first running jump is much better. What happens, of course, is that there are lots of running jumps, quite a few bad stumbles, and then: nothing. Nothing actually gets finished. Writing (as well as anything I do, like acting, directing, improvising, whatever) seems to be a journey of constantly re-learning the same things, over and over. You can have twenty years in the same discipline, and still, in that twentieth year, re-realise with evangelical fervour the thing that you learnt in the first day. For me, in this past year, it's been this: it really is irrelevant if I write every single day. Even if I'm producing, say three thousand words every single day: that doesn't matter. Sure, it's relevant, but those three thousand words a day don't really add to the pile if you don't do one simple thing: ACTUALLY FINISH. 

I think it was doing Nanowrimo last year that really cemented that ethos for me. Now, I haven't yet looked back at the novel that I finished in November (with about thirty minutes to spare), and I'm reasonably confident that it's a pretty shoddy bit of story telling. But I know that it's a pretty shoddy bit of storytelling  and that in itself has been a instructive experience. Just the pressure of finding narrative closure (or a deliberate lack of closure) for my characters demanded of me a certain amount of discipline  that I hadn't always really buckled down to before, mainly because of that old idea that nobody's actually waiting for the story, so it didn't matter - not really - if I didn't actually buckle down and finish the damn thing. 

This year, I seem to have got a lot better at actually finishing stories. Some of them, I even think are reasonably good. So far, fate doesn't quite agree - none of them have been shortlisted for any short story competitions that I've sent them off for. On occasion, I suspect that the story wasn't quite right - either for whatever comp I was sending them off for, or maybe even that the story itself wasn't perfect. I haven't sent off a story that I didn't think was as good as it could be, however. 

So, these deadlines are a real life line. As I've indicated, there's a reasonable chance that if I didn't have a deadline for this story (April 15th), I might have bailed on it quite some time ago, as just so much damn hard work. It's easy to forget, however, that writing - good writing - is supposed to be damn hard work: it's not as if you can just throw one word onto the page after the other without so much as a re-write or checking over to see if it makes any sense whatsoever (like this blog, for instance). It really is - without getting pretentious about it all - an actual craft, and that demands a certain amount of respect and hard work. It can take a very long time to understand exactly what that means. I suspect I'm not even close to truly appreciating what I'm taking on. 

Lots of rehearsal this week for both the Brighton Fringe shows. With Three Kinds Of Me, we're having to do a fair bit of re-write in order to get the balance of the show right for the new space (and the new running time). We always knew that, just because of these seemingly innocuous and irrelevant details, that the show would be very different, that, indeed, it would be about something different, but it's still a helluva challenge to rip up what you've already achieved, and, for all practical intents and purposes, begin again. Well, I say we: all of the work is being done by writer/performer Sarah Charsley, who is doing extraordinarily well. I can imagine how challenging it is to totally re-do something that you are creatively so close to. 

As  well as 3KoM, we've got A Beginning, A Muddle, And An End, the totally improvised show. I'm still debating with format, etc - I don't want it to be too much of a ringleader/circus type improv show, where the 'director' directly addresses the audience and asks them to call out suggestions, because I feel (this week, anyway) that this is not quite in the neighbourhood of what I want the finished product to be. This isn't a judgement call on one kind of improvisation as opposed to another, but I certainly want the audience(s) to have the very real experience of a play - rather than an extended sketch - being formed before their very eyes. This week, we were rehearsing in the DukeBox Theatre, which gave the cast a good chance to experience how it will feel to perform on an actual stage, with light and music / sound. Things are beginning to fall into place .. 

Tuesday 26th March 2013

Another rehearsal for Three Kinds Of Me last night, the first of two plays I'm directing at the Brighton Festival Fringe. Although an earlier version was performed at the New Venture Theatre in October, this is a slightly different beast, adapted for the fringe, which means that we're still at the stage of tweaks and re-writes, discovering what it's all about, Alfie (it's not about Alfie. That was a needlessly confusing diversion). This, I imagine, is to be expected when you have a writer directing a writer in her own script. Certainly, I have to be very mindful that any suggestions or revisions I offer are done so from the mindset of a director, not a frustrated writer (even if it's actually a frustrated writer that's come up with the idea for the revision). I find it endlessly curious how the meaning of a story can change over time, even if you don't actually change the words. A single story can mean something completely different to people depending on when they see it - ie, what year or decade - and what they themselves bring to the story: if they've recently become a parent, or come out of a relationship. The final writer is the audience. I think that's already been said elsewhere before. Probably by somebody able to write the idea significantly more elegantly.

It reminds me of a story that John Cleese used to tell, about the first time the Parrot Sketch from Monty Python aired. The morning after, Cleese was stopped in the street by an admiring fan who told him how funny the sketch was before turning serious and conspiractal: 'So,' the man said. 'It was about the Vietnam War, wasn't it?'

I'm finding meanings in stories a particular challenge at the moment. This week, I have four deadlines for short story competitions all jostling for position. They're all pretty much on the last draft stage because I have been working on them before I had any inclination that I would be entering them for competitions. There is one in particular which I am rather afraid that I'm going to have to rip apart and start all over again, simply because I have no idea what it's actually about. I mean, it makes sense, and has a plot, and events happen one after the other in an attractive fashion, and it's a perfectly pleasant read, but I'm not entirely sure what the point is. I'm cheerfully confident that there are plenty of stories, books and films that have no real rhyme or reason and are nonetheless entirely successful. But I can't help thinking that this story needs a bit of bones under the meat, that it needs to be about something other than simply just the plot. Or maybe I should just bite the bullet, and post the bloody thing off before deadline. If I think it's good enough.

All of a sudden, I have two Ghostwalks this week, which depart from the same place and same time as usual - 7.30, outside the Druids Head in Brighton. This week, it's on Tuesday (tonight, if you read this quick), and Thursday. It's been a bit of a slow season so far, largely to the bitterly cold weather that continues to hang around like the lonely and slightly too sober chap at a party who's still there when all the music has been switched off. Hopefully an improvement in the weather is not too far away now, and anyway, in just a few weeks is the the Fringe.

The other thing I'm doing for the fringe is the entirely improvised show, which is going very well in rehearsals, although we only have one rehearsal this week, which is a bit of a strain. Although it's true that due to the very nature of the show being improvised, there are no lines or moves to learn, it's obviously good to keep the group together as much as possible. Each rehearsal is either adding to the tool kit, or keeping those tools well oiled and sharpened. It's dangerous to let the momentum slip for too long, otherwise everybody runs the risk of getting a bit rusty: a good improv show - short or long form - is all about trust and confidence in everybody else on stage. However, this is the only week that I expect us not to be able to meet regularly. Up until now, it's been like the first fifty seconds of a ride on a roller coaster - that very sharp incline to the highest point when you can hear all the gears working hard to get you to a certain level. After Easter, however: that's when it's full speed ahead.

Sunday 13th January 2013

Well, I now know that I have absolutely no idea how search engines work. I always thought that they were un-intelligent, to use a, well, un-intelligent word. I always believed that they couldn't think for themselves, that they could only do what they were told. This appears not to be the case. Here's the thing. A couple of times a week, I post a link to the improv classes that I run in Brighton. At the moment, I've got two a week, one at the Duke Box Theatre, which is at the the back of the Iron Duke, (that's on Sunday nights, at 7.00), and another one on Mondays, which is at the New Venture Theatre.

All I do is go to the relevant website, copy the address in the address bar, and paste it into my link. Job done. Anyone seeing me advertise my wares on Facebook will click the link, and be taken to the acting class page of the NVT website. Similarly, anyone who clicks onto the link if they find it on twitter will also be taken to the same page. However, despite the fact that I use the same link wherever I paste it to, anyone that clicks the same link if they see it on LinkedIn will find themselves on the website of ... a Christian fellowship in California. I'm not sure I understand why. I mean, I get that there's different organisations on the planet with the same name (there's a New Venture Theatre in Louisiana that I occasionally think the NVT should do some kind of exchange program with, for instance), but it's a bit odd that LinkedIn actually manage to rewire and indeed rewrite the destination code of what was in the original address. I mean, how? As I said, I thought computers were essentially dumb; they couldn't do anything unless they received a direct instruction. Perhaps this is the first sign that they're about to throw over their human overlords. Skynet will achieve free will this year. Or something like that.

I'm managing to see films quite regularly this year so far. So far, I've been underwhelmed by the opportunity to see The Hobbit (and I'm getting reports back that it ain't that great), and I get the impression that Les Mis is a film I should really go to see with someone who's really going to be into it, so last night's film was The Impossible, inspired by the events of the 2004 tsunami. It's a very well made film, but I have a good few problems with it, not least that the real life family whose plight we follow are played by white actors. The family is in real life Spanish, as indeed the director, script and film is, despite the fact that it feels quite Hollywood. You'd think that since most of the talent was Spanish, they might have ignored the lure of an increased audience that McGregor and Watts will bring, and avoid the continued 'white-washing' of non causcian stories. It's certainly a film that pays respect to the victims of that disaster, but it still at times feels somewhat exploitative and 'too-soon' in a way that, for instance, United 93 did not. It certainly uses a couple of cheap tricks, like an extraordinarily cute blonde crying child, and, it seems likely, the shifting around of certain events in the survivors timeline to heighten dramatic tension towards the end of the film. It's a emotional wringer of a film, that to its credit never feels like a 'disaster movie', but it still feels like an uneasy option for your local mulitiplex (I couldn't help noticing that, once the credits had rolled, people had left their sacks of expensive popcorn, entirely untouched). The two leads are excellent, but they would probably both agree that it shouldn't be their names over the title: that honour should really go Tom Holland, who plays the part of the eldest son, at the start of the story still essentially short tempered and easily annoyed (in other words, a teenage boy), and to whom the film essentially belongs.

Monday 7th January 2013

Last night's Iron Clad Improv went well, although, to be honest, it wasn't quite as well attended as I would've liked. That's to be expected, though; it's early days yet, both in terms of Iron Clad itself, but also the actual year: it's been a long while since most people have last been paid, and in these dark cold days of January, everyone's just struggling to get through the month. All that said, however, it was as I've mentioned a pretty good start back in the season, with lots of silly short form games.

Tonight, I'm running the first of three long form improv workshops at the New Venture Theatre in Brighton. I'm aware that there might be a few people reading this blog who aren't exactly sure what the difference between short and long form improv. I will probably talk about this another time, certainly as the May performances kick in, but I'm loathe to get into it right now, not because I feel that I'll get it wrong (alright, maybe that a bit), but also because there's so much brittle dissent even within the 'improv community' as to what the 'right' or 'wrong' way to do improv is. There's a well repeated and well meaning mantra that indicates that the first rule of improv is that ..... there's no rules. Which is all lovely and gorgeous and actually something I can get behind, but it's too easily exploited by people who just wanna be a bit lazy, and do uninspired, flabby and unformed improv. I've seen quite enough of that. Hell, I've been involved with enough of that. Double-hell, I've been responsible for enough of that.

Anyway, we're starting three sessions at the NVT for long form tonight, which promises to go well, judging by the amount of interest people have signalled already. At the very least, it's a slightly different reaction to the one I get when people hear what show I'm directing for the Brighton Festival Fringe this year (short version: my cast will rock up to the stage each night with absolutely no idea or plan of what play or even story they're about to perform). To be fair, I got much the same kind of reaction last year when I said I was directing Medea. Clearly there's a part of me that gets off that kind of reaction, and it's useless trying to claim otherwise. Even so, I have tentatively been on the lookout for a 'simple'/'traditional' script over the last couple of months. Or, indeed, being directed by someone else - acting, in other words, which I haven't done for almost a year now, and am just about beginning to miss.

However, in my research today about long form, I spotted an ad for a one-day workshop in London. It's in February, so too late to be useful for my January workshops, but if I can get together the cash, it will be very useful to reassess my own skills prior to directing the May show. Even though I'm not what is sometimes called a 'working actor' (anyone who's seen me on stage might question if even one of those two words are appropriate), but I always enjoy the idea of going back to training, even if it's merely polishing up existing skills. Another persons approach or viewpoint can serve as very valuable. And it's always great to meet up with other people who are going through roughly the same creative things you are.

That in mind, I'm doing another meet up tomorrow (Tuesday) - it's the first one, and I have no idea what it's going to be like. I get the impression it's a social event for procrastinating writers, in which - well, I suppose you can pretty much guess what the aim is. People who should be writing meet up (at the Marlbourgh Pub in Brighton, which has a lovely theatre upstairs), and after sharing hellos and drinks, pull out their various manuscripts, and - well, write. That thing that they don't actually get around to at home, because there's a box set to catch up with, or washing that needs doing, or a cat that needs de-clawing (I don't actually know about that last one). Just being in the presence of other writers silently scratching pen to paper (or fingers to scalp) is a great spur, particularly as there isn't, as far as I know, any requirement to share your work with others at the end of the night.

Currently, I'm writing this blog in my local coffee shop, which always seems to be tuned into the oddest radio station ever. Normally, there's a slight over balance in the amount of Gloria Estefan they play. Today, it seems to be all about the obscure Tiffany songs. Although, if you begin to query quite how I'm able to recognise Tiffany songs if they're that obscure, then I'm not sure I've got a satisfactory answer for you.

Moran And More

Went to see Caitlin Moran this week, at the Old Market in Hove. She's just published her new book, and is doing the whole chat/Q & A/book signing tour thing.

I met her afterward - by which I mean I lined up with everyone else to get my book signed - when we chatted very briefly, and she said flattering things. I'm reasonably convinced that she has a whole list of well rehearsed flattering things to say to people at these sorts of events, but, hell, if she's going to put the spadework in to lie so sweetly, it would be impolite not to take her at face value.

She's a great talker, effortlessly charming and engaging, and has the rare raconteur's skill of managing to spin out what could be a reasonably tissue thin story about a chance encounter on a train into a much more  more  of a brilliant anecdote. In person, she's what you hope every columnist will be in real life: someone you can just prop a bar with for a few hours, line up the G&Ts, and just natter with into the small hours. As opposed to the rest of us, who manage to pummel potentially good anecdotes into over-long bits of dirge. Which I hope to demonstrate daily, with this blog, here.

But despite the fact that Caitlin Moran is quite garrulous, she made a couple of allusions to being quite shy. This was met with some derision by her interviewer, and indeed, those members of the audience who had already read How To Be A Woman, that suggested people didn't quite believe that shyness was something that could be always listed in her top 10 of characteristics.  But to me, it made absolute sense. I think it makes sense to anyone who uses words as some kind of transaction in their career. Obviously, most of us talk from day to day in our lives, but equally obviously, for some of us, words are our currency, whether that be as a writer, an actor, or any kind of public speaker. I think it's entirely possible - and indeed, logical - for someone who spends so much of their lives performing on stage to not want to be even looked at when they're off it. Even if you're appearing behind a microphone 'as yourself', it's not really an accurate version of yourself. At least when everyone's paid nine quid to see you, and is sitting in neatly ordered rows, you know that that's a, if not falsified, then certainly rarified atmosphere. You have an 'in' - these people, you know, are here to see you. If you find yourself chatting at length at the local bar, then the chances are you'll suddenly find yourself panicking that everyone around you is simply waiting for you to shut the hell up. 

Someone who doesn't always want you to look at her when she's offstage, but is magnetic when on it, is Sarah Charsley, whose show, Three Kinds Of Me, ends tonight (and they told me I couldn't segue). It's actually sold out - the last seven tickets have gone in the past hour, as I'm writing this - and last night was extraordinary. The atmosphere in the studio at the New Venture Theatre was electric, and managed to indulge in all those cliches of a roller coaster of emotions - you'll laugh, you'll cry, etc, etc. If you manage to see it tonight, you're very lucky, at least as lucky as I have been to have been involved in the production. The mood in the bar afterward was buzzingly excited, with so many people really insistent that these shouldn't be the only performances of the show. Now, I'm fully aware that this runs the risk of tottering over into hyperbole, and that similar things are often said whenever there's a particularly good production going on, but I honestly think that there's truth in there them statements. We're beginning to think about reviving the production already, with at least the Brighton Fringe in our sights, so if your venue has a few spare performance spots, you know where to get in touch. 

(If you don't know where to get in touch - I mean here. Here is where you can get in touch. I was hoping that I didn't have to spell it out to you)