Half a century

My autumn was principally taken up with two long projects – King Lear with second-year students at RADA, a very exciting and probing development, and an opportunity for them to explore and develop their own process; and training as a ‘writer’ with the Living Words programme in Folkestone, working one-on-one with people who have advanced dementia. Intense but extraordinary. I also hosted a celebration to mark the tenth anniversary of Ken Campbell’s death at The British Library; delivered a lecture performance entitled ‘Adventures in the Dragonlands of Theatre’ at Slung Low’s home in Leeds; did another ‘Read not Dead’ script-in-hand reading at the Wanamaker Theatre; and appeared as Jacob Bronowski, reciting his speech from Auschwitz from ‘The Ascent of Man’ over music from Shostakovitch’s Piano Trio, as part of one of Robin Ince’s Christmas charity gigs at King’s Place.
Now it’s classical work for one drama school, impro for another – and a couple of School of Night gigs coming up for the first time in forever, which is exciting and terrifying in equal measure.