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...
Read MoreThe Whirligig of Time
Blimey. An awful lot can happen in nine months. Another Shakespeare project, on ‘The Tempest’ this time, with Mountview postgrads; re-staging two one-person shows I directed; impro teaching at Drama Studio. These months have been mostly teaching and directing – most recently on Max Dickins’ third play, the powerful two-hander ‘Kin’, which is playing in Edinburgh as I write. But there’s also been R&D at the National Theatre Studio on Nina Conti’s latest project, ‘Dad’s Play’; trips to Amsterdam and Brighton for my first motion-capture work (A virtual reality environment launched this autumn, details still hush-hush for now); and to a very sunny Rome for more teaching with international schools....
Read MoreAnnus Mirabilis
Impossible to understand that it’s already six months since I last posted here. Cosmic Trigger is over, the might Flood project is over, I have MC’d for Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty for the Welcome to the Dark Ages 3-day event in Liverpool (July) and again for their more modest but equally anarchic Burn The Shard event just a few days ago (named for a central event in their novel 2023, the source of all – much of – these events). Somewhere in the middle there I squeezed in 3 sublime, candlelit performances of John Lyly’s The Woman In The Moon at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre. But Flood was so huge, such a massive effort and achievement for everyone involved, it’s the hardest to imagine gone. Hull, beautiful Hull (yes it is) became...
Read MoreAwfully Big Adventures
Since finishing the wonderful fun and games of Peter Pan Goes Wrong in tbe West End four months ago, I’ve been up in Whitby and Hull, getting underway with the first two parts of Flood, Slung Low’s year-long epic on floating platforms (400 air-filled barrels, boats, flames and the hardest-working, most dedicated team you can imagine. Heroes every one). Straight after Part 2 was done at Easter, I scooted down to London for a fuller, stronger reboot of Cosmic Trigger, at the beautiful in-the-round Cockpit Theatre. Magic is being made, and lives are being changed. What an incredibly lucky man I am to have these challenges, and these amazing people to work with every day. Plus a few weeks off after we’re done! Can’t...
Read MoreThe Sea
This spring and summer have been full of big changes. As I left for Yarmouth to perform The Tempest in a unique circus building,a lorry full of my family’s belongings left for another stretch of British seaside on the south coast – Folkestone. After the amazing adventure that was The Fairy Camp Portal in Stratford, I have had the great joy of spending a leisurely summer by the sea exporing my new surroundings, and new life. This autumn a new challenge – the wonderful farce Peter Pan Goes Wrong (back at the Apollo, where Showstopper! ran last year), through til January.
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