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!