Mr Pooter closes his Diary

The Diary of a Nobody ended its run at The Spread Eagle in Croydon on Saturday bringing the production to rest (for the time being). The plan is hopefully to work towards a larger tour in the Autumn.

A great time has been had by all involved and our audiences have really seemed to enjoy it; we've picked up some particularly strong reviews and feedback. It's been so enjoyable to observe audiences chuckle, guffaw and roar. Who knows, this may mark a departure from my usual territory of drowning babies, killing dogs and storing bodies in bath tubs, which for reasons unbeknownst to me, seem to lack in humour.

Mr Pooter takes his diary to Croydon

Tomorrow (Thursday 20 February), my adaptation of The Diary of a Nobody begins its stint at The Spread Eagle in Croydon, ending on Saturday 22.

 

This play was a commission from FRED Theatre and enjoyed a successful first run at The Old Joint Stock Theatre back in January. A fantastic review from Selwyn Knight was summed up with: "This adaptation certainly stands up to scrutiny and comes highly recommended." 

(Full review:

http://www.thepublicreviews.com/the-diary-of-a-nobody-old-joint-stock-theatre-birmingham/)

Whether you're a fan of the original or you just want to see whether you agree with the above, do come along.

For more info and to book tickets, follow the link below:

http://spreadeaglecroydon.co.uk/theatre

Brand New Ancients

For Valentines' night, I took myself to see the woman above, Kate Tempest. I've followed the poet/playwright/performer's rise within the industry for the last couple of years, but never had the opportunity to see her live; I saw her play, Hopelessly Devoted, at The Rep in September (but not her in person) and, unfortunately, I'd already done my trip to last year's Fringe before she arrived there. But in November, much to my delight, I realised she was appearing at the Midlands Arts Centre and quickly booked my ticket for Brand New Ancients. This is a show she's been touring for the last year to wide and critical acclaim; an epic, lyric, narrative poem (as she calls it). It was indeed epic, and beautifully lyrical, with a gripping and mesmerizing narrative which built in scale, impact and complexity, the sounds, the scenes and the characters done beautiful and captivating justice by Tempest's vocal skill. All her interests and abilities were brought together in one to produce this gem; hip-hop, rap, spoken word, the beat and rhythm of which was enhanced by the presence of a live band creating an atmospheric underscore to her story.

As I said, I've been intrigued by Tempest and her work for a while and I've watched pretty much every YouTube video of her performing and being interviewed and read almost every article. I knew from this that she was a great character; eccentric, lively, humble, funny and down-to-earth. Having now seen her live, that initial observation has been confirmed. Before starting the performance, Tempest spoke  for a few minutes; about how much she loved Birmingham and the differences between Brum and the Big Smoke, seeing Prince a few weeks prior, and the fact that it was Valentine's Day and the impact she thought that may have on the story she was about to tell. I speak for myself, but also most likely the whole audience, when I say that we were made totally at ease by her presence and were immediately drawn to her infectious personality and zest for life and words. This was only emphasised by Brand New Ancients itself and the evident passion for mythology both old, new, our own and the existing, language, character, people, the ways of the world, our actions, our inherent flaws, our chances and our capability to change.

Whether it's Brand New Ancients or something else, I urge you to go see this woman very soon!

A play for Valentines Day

As it's Valentines Day, I thought it was appropriate to recommend a play with an appropriate title: Love Song. Now there are many plays with this name, most notably the one by Abi Morgan in collaboration with Frantic Assembly, but I'm referring to John Kolvenbach's 2006 work. It's a fun, witty, intelligent and heart-warming tale of love, loss and complicated relationships. The play's world premiere was produced by Steppenwolf Theatre Company (a favourite of mine) and their European debut on the West End starred Cillian Murphy and Neve Campbell.

Love Song is a surprising and fulfilling read so do find a copy and add the play to your other Valentines Day conquests (whatever they may be...)

The first post of (hopefully) many...

So...prior to this, I've had quite a few attempts at maintaining a blog but I haven't really succeeded. This is another shot at it. Here we go...

A lot is going on at the moment, which seems to be the case all the time. PhD work is ever-present and I've been teaching quite a lot and procrastinating quite a lot.

Last week, I was involved in a staged reading of The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd; I was completely out of my comfort zone, performing very old, very daunting language to a lecture theatre full of discerning and judgmental first year undergraduates. It was an...interesting...experience, if nothing else.

Also this month, I spent a rather embarrassing hour (which felt like a few) posing in a prop door frame for publicity photos to be included in the postgraduate prospectus. I looked awkward. I felt awkward. Overall, an extremely strange experience. But the photos came out alright; these professionals can do wonders with some strategically-placed lights and an Apple Mac (that sentence would have been nothing without the product placement).

The Diary of a Nobody (a novel I adapted into a stage play) had its debut run at The Old Joint Stock Theatre in January (NB. if you haven't been to The Old Joint Stock, you must; it's a hidden gem). We had an extremely positive review which was...'nice', and all the performances went really well. The project saw me back working with FRED Theatre whom I've worked with a lot in the last two years since meeting their Artistic Director, Robert, whilst I was studying for my MPhil in Playwriting. I'm looking forward to a few more performances of the play in Croydon and then, hopefully, I'll be asked to write something new for FRED in the near future. Fingers crossed!

Once I've made a noticeable impression on the first chapter of my PhD thesis, I can return to a bit of writing. My last play, 2 Degrees, which debuted at the MAC as part of Capital Festival 2013 is crying out for my attention so that Robert (yes, the same Robert) and I can start thinking about a more substantial tour. I gained some strong feedback from the initial performances, so I hope that we can build on it and make something special. We can only wait and see if that's the case, I guess. Watch this space.

And watch this space (if you're inclined to do so) for another post. I will try my utmost to remain consistent with this whole blogging thing this time round. I CAN DO IT!