Drama St Mary's

Staging Religion.

2012-01-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

Last morning in Rome. We walked to Santa Maria della Vittoria to see Bernini's famous statue of The Ecstasy of St Teresa. The small church was crowded and it was a bit like queueing at a bar, shuffling forward, moving into gaps, before finally arriving in front of the sculpture.

The most noticeable thing was how theatrical the whole composition was. Less a spontaneous moment of joy and much more a careful scheduled erotic display, complete with voyeuristic witnesses (members of the patron Cornaro's family) peering over the edge of a box carved into the side wall. The angel's left hand tenderly touches the nun's dress, almost pulling it aside in order to hit the spot. It's as clear a representation of the staging of faith as I've ever seen and it makes me wonder at the place of mystery in such a clearly choreographed and artificial arrangement. The orgasm is for every bodies benefit. The release, the passion, the little death enjoyed by a clamouring crowd.

The special effects continue. Natural light falls from a skylight above, but this is reinforced by a background of thin metallic bars representing the the sun's blinding rays and pulling the eye into the central arrangement. There is no contradiction here between a miracle and carefully stage managed moment of scenographic action. I still find it impossible to see religion, like theatre itself, as anything other than a persuasive metaphor. It might help reveal a truth, but it can only do so through a mask of artifice. The Baroque masters understood this more than anybody.

We headed over to the Vatican Museum, more on the off chance, than with any hope of avoiding the queues, but it was a slow day and so we found ourselves quickly within and able to explore for a couple of hours. Once again I was charmed by the Carte Geografiche and the Museo Pio-Clementine, but disappointed by the cattle market in the Sistine chapel - where a loud speaker blares out pleas for silence in six different languages. Good to feel with time against us that we'd only time to scratch the surface.

And so a quick dash back to the hotel to pick up the luggage and off to airport for a bumpy early evening flight home. Term starts tomorrow.

Posterity and Silence.

2012-01-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

We started the day by taking a Metro down to the Protestant Cemetery and sat for a while by Keats' grave. It's a peaceful place, under the shadow of the ancient Pyramid of Caio Cestio, just far enough from the city centre to deter most tourists. It's still strange to see the steady trickle of pilgrims come looking for a moment of private communion at the graveside. Nobody seems entirely sure what to do on arrival. Most take a couple of pictures and walk off slowly. The link between the poetry and the city is equally strained. Keats was only in Rome for the last three months of his life, and he spent most of that in bed fighting the tuberculosis that would eventually kill him. Perhaps he was the first pop star. The cemetery cats stretch, blink and wonder what the fuss is about.

We headed through Testaccio back to the river and crossed over to Trastevere where we ducked into Santa Cecilia to see the graphic altar sculpture showing the Martyr's semi-decapitated head, stitched unconvincingly back onto her body. She had a difficult death. After her Roman persecutors had failed to drown her in a bath, they hacked away at her head. She sang throughout the three days it took her to die, and subsequently became the patron saint of musicians. It's pretty grotesque.

We crossed back to the North Bank and walked through the narrow Trevi streets up to the Keats house by the Spanish Steps and spent an hour, as darkness fell, amongst the books and letters. There is one from Oscar Wilde, recalling his distress at visiting the young poet's grave and attacking the over-literal memorial hung on the wall alongside. It brought to mind the sonnet he wrote after attending the auction of Keat's love letters. Pop stars and patron saints always need sentries to protect their enigma.

These are the letters which Endymion wrote

To one he loved in secret, and apart.

And now the brawlers of the auction mart

Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,

Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote

The merchant's price. I think they love not art

Who break the crystal of a poet's heart

That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.

Is it not said that many years ago,

In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran

With torches through the midnight, and began

To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw

Dice for the garments of a wretched man,

Not knowing the God's wonder, or His woe?
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Life and Death on the Tiber.

2012-01-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

An early morning stroll north through the Piazza Della Repubblica and onto the Via Veneto, home of Harry's Bar and La Dolche Vita. There's little left of Fellini's neo-realism fifties fantasy now, just some posh hotels and a traffic jam. Still the street provides a tree-lined approach to the Villa Borghese the one genuine green lung in the whole city.

There are several ways to tour the park, pony and trap, golf buggy, bicycle. I chose to just stroll heading past the Galleria Borghese towards a small cafe by the lake where I lingered over my book and double espresso, before carrying onto the small Museo di Villa Giulia where some of Rome's oldest artistic treasures - including the amazing Etruscan 6th century BC Sarcophagus of the Spouses lives. It's an amazing sculpture - the couple reclining against each other, smiling softly. Their hands animated as though there lives together had been filled with continual conversation. This is a husband and wife who found continual delight in each other's company. Two and a half thousand years later they're still going.

I carried on through the park into the Flamino district and followed the Tiber as far as the Stadio Olimpico, surrounded by the ugly fascist architecture of the Mussolini years. It still comes as a bit of a shock that, unlike in Germany, these monuments to a discredited ideology are allowed not just to stand, but to maintain a sense of significance. How inhumane the heroic stances are. How chillingly clinical the cool marble, black lettering and unforgiving vertical lines are. What a contrast to the expressive beauty of the Spouses, who lie happy in each others arms barely a mile and a half away. Some things remain out of the hands of demagogues.
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Augustian Rome.

2012-01-02T09:31:00.000-08:00

We started the day local with a visit to Santa Maria Maggiore, over the road from our lodging, sitting proudly atop the Esquiline Hill. The church is built on a ancient temple dedicated to Juno Lucina, the goddess of childbirth. As power moved from the emperor to the Pope so, a basilica was raised and the ground recommissioned in honour of Virgin Mother. It's one of the seven chief pilgrimage churches in Rome. In the apse is a gorgeous 13th century mosaic featuring the Coronation of the Virgin, by Torriti.

For all the beauty. The building left me feeling cold. It's affluent and lavish in the extreme - but the pilgrims today, shuffling around looking in at the sumptuous Cappellas, housing ancient Popes beneath Baroque fancy, seemed somewhat underwhelmed and anxious to move onto more familiar sights.

We left and walked on towards Nero's Domus Aurea built by the tyrant in AD64, mostly on land destroyed during the famous fire which had failed to interrupt his music lesson. So hated was Nero that after he died the people of Rome quickly filled in the mansion and grounds, to try and eradicate all memories of his reign. They did such a good job that it took another 1500 years for the house to be rediscovered. Sadly for all it's epic history - today it was closed!

We crossed the road, past the Collesium and onto the Palantine, where we spent the rest of the day walking from ruin to ruin trying to piece together the history of the Roman empire from it's earliest foundation to Republic to Empire. Legend suggests that Romulus and Remus disagreed over which hill to build the city on. Had the Gods chosen to create Reem rather than Rome building might have begun on the Aventine Hill to the South. As it is the Palatine is the spiritual home of the city.

On the North West flank of the hill is the relatively modest house of Augustus - Julius Caesar's nephew, who eventually revenged his uncle's murder, destroyed Anthony and Cleopatra's love locked ambitions to take full command of Rome and become the first real Emperor. The house contains some spectacular frescoed rooms. It's a strangely intimate, almost poky, dwelling for the most powerful leader in the Western world.

We crossed the Horti Farersiani to seek a vantage point overlooking the Forum and spent some time in this elevated position understanding the layout of what was once the very centre of civilisation. Here the Via Sacra winds it's way past the temples of Venus and Vesta, of Saturn, Castor and Pollux. The huge footprint of the long destroyed Basilica of Constantine and at either end the arches of Septimus Severus and Titus stand proudly, acclaiming returning triumph.

We finished the day winding our way through these monuments, each step evoking a long forgotten world whose power and influence continues to echo through the ages. The American senate, the Westminster village, our systems of law, economics, defence and justice can all be traced back to the administrative principles that were drawn up here all those centuries ago.

Rome at Night.

2012-01-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

Fireworks in Milan for new year, a lazy morning, farewells and then an afternoon flight South to Rome. Night was falling as we pulled into Termini and trundled our suitcases down the Via Cavour to our budget hotel.

The night was clear, so, after dinner, we went for a walk heading down to the ancient centre and stood overlooking the deserted forum, imagining the bustling industry of Imperial days. We climbed the steep Capitol steps past the statute of Romulus and Remus into Michelangelo's elegant Piazza del Campidoglio where Marcus Aurelius points out over the tightly knitted streets around the the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona.

Cribs are everywhere in Rome. Created with pride, maintained by families and communities over generations. Each layered and flavoured with local jokes, colour and character. The one in the Piazza was particularly impressive. The Lazio shepherds and fishermen preparing a simple feast of sage infused Saltimbocca and filetti di Baccala. The stable itself was hidden in the midst of a Roman ghetto. Oblivious of cataclysmic event, life carries on within the narrow streets. A flaneur's dream, a maze, as if a simple turn at an unknown corner might bring you face to face with the nativity.

We headed down towards the Campo de Fiori stopping for a stoop of red wine in the eccentric Bartaruga on Piazza Mattei, overlooking Bernini's playful Fontana delle Tartarughe. This is my favourite part of the city. Intimate, flourishing, lively and accessible. There are easy smiles and a lingering sense of festive spirit. We headed onwards through the Campo and onto Piazza Navona, where a huge Christmas fair was in huge spring. Hear professional crib constructors can purchase anything they like from Holy family, to sheep, camels, elephant as well as a range of different mosses and lichen with which to roof your stable.

And so we slowly headed back to base, past the Trevi Fountain up along the Viale delle Quarttro Fontane, down the other side and home to bed.

Winter Treasures.

2011-12-29T02:41:00.000-08:00

With Christmas over, Eleanor and I are in Italy to catch up with friends Paola, Paolo and their growing family. The wonderful Margarita was born in April, a chubby, smiley little sister for Mario.

Milano is a lovely Winter city of thick fog, cobbled roads, trams, theatrical Christmas displays still sharp in the designer shops of the Quadrilatero and the smell of roasted chestnuts on every corner. I've been coming on and off here now for over twenty years and it always feels familiar and welcoming. Both of us have a fair amount of reading to do for the new year, so we've spent quite a bit of time in the city library, but in between times we've taken to bikes and freewheeled around the town from church to coffee shop and coffee shop to church.

We couldn't get a timed ticket for the Last Supper in Santa Maria Delle Grazie, but did spend some time exploring the Sant' Ambrogio basilica, which is just at the end of Paola's street.

St Ambrose is the patron saint of the city and his ghoulish remains lie, dressed in fine vestments in the crypt of the church. In life he was said to be so eloquent that bees used to fly into his mouth, which must have been terribly annoying, especially during sermons.

Perhaps the most interesting attraction in the complex is Sarcophagus of Stililcho sitting proudly under an ambo, off centre in the nave, from where it hasn't moved since it was carved in 385. It's a thing of beauty indeed with sculpted scenes from both the old and new testaments including naive representations of Christ handing St Peter the keys to heaven, teaching his apostles and holding the last last supper, offset with fabulous birds and beasts from myths and legends. In all my previous visits I'd never come across it before. A little treasure chest in the middle of the city.

Christmas Carroll.

2011-12-27T02:39:00.000-08:00

It's been a relaxing Christmas spent with family in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. Midnight mass in the lovely village church at Appleford and then a couple of days in Devizes and Salisbury catching up with some reading. Marking has been temporarily suspended and left in a pile back in London.

I've spent a few days trying to make sense of Lewis Carroll in preparation for the Alice project with Level 2 Applied Theatre students begin work on in January. We're not sure yet which direction the work will take. We could just work from one of the several theatrical adaptation of Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass already published. We could adapt ourselves or we could look at doing something a little different which might take us into Carroll's biography and philosophy?

In many ways I'm most attracted to the latter option. Re reading the original stories is fun, but the dialogue feels, predictably stifled and difficult to work with. I think there's something exciting to discover in Carroll's love of photography. He was one of the early pioneers and their is something in his love for capturing, framing and fixing an image that seems to me vital to understanding the Alice stories and in particular the romantic fear of the death of innocence that he perceived children experience as they grow up. Through the Looking Glass itself is a story premised on optical reversal. From the initial idea, Carroll introduces young readers into conundrum after conundrum reversing time, merging space and defying logic. All of these are philosophically linked to the time frozen click of the photograph and to the desire to be ever young.

How do children build memory? or nostalgia? Do adults experience a child's childhood differently to the child themselves? To whom does it belong? These are all fascinating questions that go beyond the simple rites of passage stories of a girl falling down a hole or stepping through a mirror. Can a community play encompass all this?

Matilda.

2011-12-20T02:34:00.000-08:00

Off to the Cambridge to for a final theatre visit of 2011 and a chance to finally catch up with the RSC's acclaimed musical adaptation of Roald Dahl's Matilda.

Aided by Tim Minchin's brilliant songs and Dennis' unsentimental script the production is everything a West End musical should be. Funny, warm, witty, dynamic and most importantly full of wisdom and moral certainty. It's a rectifying tonic against the dumbed down juke box nostalgia that seems to have flooded London in the last decade or so.

The young cast relish the world that's been created for them. A wonderful playground of a set that turns the iron gates of Cruncham Hall into a climbing frame the bookshelves of the library into a never ending kingdom of mystery and exploration.

There are great performances throughout - including some of the best child acting I've ever seen. Paul Kaye is excellent as Matilda's money grabbing father Mr Wormwood, twisting his languid body and outrageous quiff in serpent like challenge to the upstanding brilliance of his well read daughter whilst Lauren Ward is perfect as the goddess of effective nurture Miss Honey.

It's Bertie Carvell's terrifying portrayal of that hideous, child hating, Miss Trunchbull that really steals the show, however. Our first encounter of her is at her desk where she sits facing a subversion proof bank of CCTV screens, choosing which 'maggot' to victimise next. Her hammer throwers shoulders hunched high as she looks for any threat to her pristine machine run world. Later her malevolent sadism is given full throttle when she stretches ears, launches unsuspecting pupils into space and tortuously forces young Bogtrotter to finish every crumb of an enormous chocolate cake.

There are always forces of evil to overcome in Dahl's stories and the joy for children is in seeing the perpetrators of misery crash and burn and so it is here when the revolution breaks out the whole audience unites to send the monstrous headmistress into unforgiving exile.

Demons banished and Schools out. Everybody headed home animated and laughing, grateful perhaps that no Wormwoods' or Trunchbulls' are around to ruin their Christmas.

First Round of Interviews.

2011-12-19T02:42:00.000-08:00

Today was our first round of Drama St Mary's interviews, looking at applicants to join us in September 2012. It's still a little early to know exactly how the tuition fees are effecting prospective students, especially as after a slow start there's been a rush of applications in the last week. One theory suggests that school leavers are being really careful over their five UCAS choices and that this in turn has meant that forms are being submitted later, once the round of open day visits has come to an end.

What is true is that nearly all the students we saw today had very high predicted grades. This has been a steady trend over the past four years. A sign perhaps that our reputation is growing and that academically gifted students who want to marry a practical training with a University education are increasingly considering us alongside more traditional conservatoires.

Of course there's no guarantees that triple A grade students can act and ultimately we're looking for students who have a spark of something and want to learn how to perform. Still it's exciting to see that we're now seen as a credible alternative to the Drama Schools and that our constituency, at least in terms of applicants, is shifting. In the long run this can only help drive up standards. High flying students tend to make greater demands on lecturers, but in turn lecturers really enjoy working with motivated and talented students. It takes a bit of time to create a culture where expectations are high once achieved though, everybody benefits. With this in mind we've revalidated all our programmes for next year and have upped the practical component of the course to stay in stream with Central, Rose Bruford, E15 and the rest. Again we're strongly promoting employability. We want our graduates to leave, full of ideas, heads screwed on, ready and willing to work.

Auditions went well and we ended up making some firm offers. It'll be interesting to see how many take us up. This first cohort of auditionees are likely to be in high demand, but St Mary's really does have something unique to offer for those who are committed to the idea of becoming an actor.

War Horse.

2011-12-16T02:38:00.000-08:00

Tonight a rare trip into the West End with Eleanor to see the transfer of War Horse at the New London Theatre. It's amazing that this show has been going for four years now. I first saw it in its initial Olivier run back in 2007 and was keen to see whether with a new cast and a successful Broadway transfer behind it, the wide eyed magic that marked those first performances still remained. It's easy for long runs to turn stale as actors and technical crew struggle to find the motivation to keep the work fresh and optimistic.

For the most part War Horse is still the show it was. John Tams beautiful folk ballads still haunt the work leading the expectant audience into the story and of course the dexterity of Handspring's exquisite puppets still take the breathe away. We watch and marvel at Joey's every move from wilful foal, to reluctant work horse, to captain's charge, journeying from Devonian village to the battlefields of France and back again.

This time round I was struck by how ambiguous the ending is with Albert riding his beloved mount wearily home. It's neither triumphant nor for all the earlier action sentimental, just the end of the war and a new chapter. Unusual in many ways for a children's story. No resolution or symbolic return. Just the reality of a devastated community.

The only downside to the commercial transfer is that the not so cheap, cheap seats at the New London really do restrict your opportunity to sense of the majestic Devonian landscape and the wonderful moment when Albert first rides Joey fast and loose across the Moor is lost to all but those who've paid top dollar.

Cinderella.

2011-12-15T02:37:00.000-08:00

Off to Richmond Theatre tonight to enjoy their yearly offering of pantomime. Matcham's crimson chocolate box is the perfect playhouse and really comes into it's own every December when the frocks are dusted down, the backdrops hauled up on the flies and the cast settle in for the month and a half run. This year it's the turn of Cinderella. Lite on reality TV celebs and high on variety entertainers it was heart warmingly traditional and rather brilliantly played.

Gary Wilmott stars as the ever amiable, best of best friends, Buttons delighting in warming up the children as he confides in them of his love for Cinderella, charmingly played by Kellie Shirley. Hard not to feel a little heartbroken when she reveals that she loves him 'like a brother.' Still with the resilance of the playground he's quick to bounce back and is soon doing everything in his power to get her to the ball.

His show driving energy is well supported by Graham Hoadley and Paul Burnham as the ugly sisters Beatrice and Eugenie, who, like their royal namesakes work their way through an desperate amount of implausible costumes, each more outrageous than the last.

Together they form a devastating double act as cruel as they are ridiculous. They left the audience roaring in disapproval and delight.

There are local gags, Shetland ponies, camp choreography, a perfectly acted slosh scene and Jenny Eclair tottering around as a rather out of place fairy Godmother, all of which contributes to a blissful evening of high octane, joke filled, routine rich, joy.
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Three Blind Mice.

2011-12-12T02:37:00.000-08:00

Our friends from Cardboard Citizens brought their hostel tour onto campus this evening. This year's play Three Blind Mice written by Bola Agbaje was set in social housing flats and focused on the stories of three tenants, each of whom lived on a different floor. Bola had created a neat artistic conceit by turning the joker figure, played by veteran artistic associate Terry, into a mouse who moves between the three floors, looking for crumbs. The parallel between this precarious existence and the challenges of living in social housing were clearly drawn.

The rest of the company Shara, Helen, Jonathan and Andre, have all at one time or another found themselves homeless but thanks to the company they've skilled up, found work and are all looking confidently into the future. They've been on the road for a couple of months now and are clearly loving the play.

As in previous years the students watched the stories carefully, each one ending at a particular moment of crisis, they then took it in turns to swap in for the play's protagonist trying to build towards a better ending. The second half of these shows are always great fun as the actors relish creating believable antagonists and the audience try and deconstruct the complexities of the issue.

In contrast to last year tonight's show was a low key affair. We're into the last week of the semester and many students have half an eye on their final submissions and packing up for Christmas. Still there were some interesting interventions and for Applied Theatre students in particular, and the night did give us the chance to see the countries leading exponents of forum do their stuff right here in St Marys.

Heigh Ho the Holly

2011-12-11T02:36:00.000-08:00

A really seasonal evening in the Great Hall of Ham House with a concert of sixteenth and century music played on period instruments by the wonderful City Musick ensemble who combine their research into the 'waits' - professional musicians employed by towns and cities to play at civic ceremonies and in exceptional circumstances to keep the hours - with gorgeous playing of sackbutts, cornetts and bagpipes.

The evening interspersed carol and wassailing with carefully chosen secular readings, mostly centred on music making, from Shakespeare to Hardy delivered with charm and wit by the treacle voiced actor Andrew Harvill and we in the audience snuggled up in the appropriately freezing hall for an hour of wonderfully evocative entertainment that really ushered in the festive season. Sounds and stories from the past reminding us that in the ever changing world of consumer must haves the spirit of Christmas has essentially stayed the same.

Afterwards we were taken through the upper rooms, through the gallery and past the substantial library to the orangery for mulled wine and hot mince pies. Outside the wind blew up and December rain began to fall. It mattered not a jot. The holidays are fast approaching.

Showing the Money.

2011-12-09T09:42:00.000-08:00

There's some funny business going on with the Olympics. The budget for the opening and closing ceremonies has, overnight, leapt from an outrageously high £40 million to a potentially culture changing, if it wasn't all going on a couple of media friendly spectacles, £80 million. How the British Theatre could do with that kind of handout. What incredible investments it would be able to make for the future? How many local underfunded community initiatives could seed themselves on a fraction of this?

Earlier this year 154 arts organisations had their funding stopped as part of the Arts Council settlement which saw a real-term cut of 29.6% in the budget over the next five years. Many of the companies had track records dating back years if not decades and, although the new funding structure optimistically set about to freshen up the arts through the promotion of innovation, it strikes me as incredible that a two hour meeting in Whitehall can sign off this amount of money - which would fund the National Theatre for five years or the keep Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in business for 40. The Riverside Studios in Hammersmith had all of their £500,000 annual grant withdrawn this year. That's 1/160th of the money now going on the ceremonies.

In the main, with a few grumbles, British theatre accepted the cuts, perhaps recognising the need to contribute to the belt tightening exercises going on across government departments. How offensive is it just eight seven months later to have to bear witness to such a frivolous waste of money?

The rationale, of course, is very simple. The ceremonies are the showcase moments when the world watches us and the money spent is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions of pounds of investment coming into the UK from the games. How much of this money finds its way back into the creative industries is never mentioned.

If it is really true that we need to sell an impression of Britain at the start of the games then why not do what innovative British industries have always done take a more eccentric less orthodox approach. Celebrate the legacy Britain has given to the world of sport which has been to make up the rules. Sure Sydney, Athens and Beijing threw millions of pounds on unrepeatable vacuous displays but I'm not sure monolithic grandeur and grandstanding is really a Great British characteristic. Even at our most imperial our Victorian ancestors scorned the building of huge monuments and instead invested in infrastructure and administration. It's no coincidence that Big Ben the most recognisable British landmark is a clock.

So this is my plan for an opening ceremony. Families across the UK are invited to apply for £10 grants with which they then host one of the 12,000 or so athletes, inviting them round for a cup of tea and a biscuit. How they entertain their guests will be up to each family. The athletes wouldn't have any choice where they were sent, but BBC and Sky outside broadcast teams could report back from all over the country, promoting all of Britain in the process. It'd certainly be a way of both making the games less London centric and wouldn't it be great to see Usain Bolt settle down to a brew and a custard cream in Rochdale or Dorking or Mertyr Tydfil?

In these professed days of austerity and localism I wish the organising committees of the games had the courage to save money, humanise the games and find a creative British solution. Sadly, however, energy, dynamism, kick arse youth and lots of firework glitz will no doubt flood our eyeballs when it all kicks off next summer.

I can't help but feel it's like burning money outside a soup kitchen.

Oskar.

2011-12-08T00:52:00.000-08:00

The Physical Theatre Level 3 students put on their final year production in the Drama St Mary's Theatre tonight. They'd adapted Jonathan Safran Foer's wonderful novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close into a fast paced and charming show eponymously named Oskar.

There were some terrific performances, particularly when the company kept things simple and allowed the story to tell itself rather than - as can be the case, early on in the training - pushing too much in order to make sure we get it.

Oskar lost his father during 9/11. He was one of the many workers who jumped to their deaths from the upper reaches of the World Trade Centre. In order to try and make sense of what has happened he projects a mythical status on a lost key in an envelope and hunts all over New York to find the owner and unlock the secret that he's sure his Dad has left him in order to cope.

The story itself twists towards the end and the expected happy ending, never occurs. The turns out to be just a key and although Oskar does reunite it with its relieved owner, the optimism he had invested in the key's meaning proves futile. Instead another story begins in the mind of our hero; a story in which could be reversed so that his Dad might fall from the ground upwards, flying high until he reaches the window ledge of his office before ducking inside to wait for the planes to retreat from the building, putting the fires out. The protective sanctuary of the imagination might not be able to turn back time, but it is ever creative at finding ways to make sense of the senseless.

The Haunted Child.

2011-12-03T00:52:00.000-08:00

To the Royal Court to see Joe Penhall's new play The Haunted Child which opens next week. It was great to see so many Drama St Mary's students there, having taken advantage of the Court's reduced student rates and the chance to grab a Saturday night preview.

The play itself was well worth the trouble. Young Thomas has his world torn apart when his absent father Douglas returns home to announce that he's abandoned his job as an engineer and has joined a religious cult whose main belief is the renunciation of worldly ties. Thomas' ever patient Mother, Julie, tries in a vain attempt to return to normality, to explain her partners increasingly erratic behaviour in terms that her son will understand, but the battlelines are drawn from the off and it's quickly apparent that Thomas is going to be asked to take a side.

There is a really Oedipal feel to the drama as Penhall explores the territory between idealism and responsibility. In one chilling moment Douglas, played brilliantly from calm to storm by Ben Daniels, tries to persuade Thomas that he is the reincarnation of his grandfather calling into question who, in the scene, is the child and who the man. It's a moment of sinister manipulation that subtly suggests that men struggle to make adequate room for the development of their offspring. In this respect the play is a study of masculinity in crisis.

Sophie Okenedo's Julie provides the ballast for the family and it's her desperate attempts to keep domestic stability in the face of a new order that wins the audiences hearts and minds. She is fairly flawless as the forgiving heroine of the piece that celebrates the security of structured normality.

Penhall's work is uneasy and tense, whilst asking serious questions about the nature of parenthood. It's made for a profound and thoughtful evening.

The Business End.

2011-11-30T00:51:00.000-08:00

We're getting to the business end of the year now where lecture classes begin to look more directly at the assignments and students begin the switch from idealistic consumers of new knowledge to pragmatic foragers for good grades.

For some pathway Drama students essay writing is really tough. Our focus on practical training means they're only really producing 6,000 words a semester and whilst many are grateful that the bulk of their time is spent in rehearsal rooms rather than libraries, it does mean an additional pressure that the joint honours students, who produce essays every fortnight, don't have.

This can lead to a mean approach with students looking to find out the minimum they have to do to pass rather than embrace the assignment as an opportunity to research and develop further their own unique interest in a field. The one off assessment also encourages a kind of conservatism, borrowed from their schooling, of believing that if clear guidelines are followed, high grades are guaranteed. There is some confusion when lecturers feign vague on this matter or answer student questions with further questions.

Overall though I do sense in the Level 1 and Level 2 classes that I teach a slight shift and the beginnings of an understanding that turning over your essay is the tip of a much more impressive ice berg. Reading plays and going to see theatre may exercise different creative muscles to physical and vocal workouts but are just as vital in developing an understanding and cultural security about the profession. Drama students seem to work more naturally from the inside out, finding expression for their experience. It soon runs dry though if they're not investing the other way. Looking at the world beyond themselves and storing their discoveries for the future.
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Political Cabaret.

2011-11-25T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Level 2 Applied Theatre students performed their second political cabaret of the semester in the Dolche Vita this evening and tried something a little different. For the first half hour they provided us with the usual fare of review sketches, topical songs and provocative takes on contemporary events both within and beyond the University; all well received by an appreciative audience.

The second half of the show, changed tack. The students had teamed up with a writer from the Professional and Creative Writing degree who'd written a clever short piece set in the Starbucks, opposite the Occupy London site by St Paul's. It called for different skills from the performers and demonstrated how quickly good theatre can fabulate to shine new truths and fresh perspective on real events. This is a possible new direction for the work.

The evening ended with a short forum play looking at sexually transmitted disease with Natalie jokering. I was unsure how this might sit with the other work, but they played it with a light touch and brought exactly the right sense of playfulness to allow the audience to explore the issue. It provided a prototype for a longer piece of work.

Political Cabaret has been running for two years now and is beginning to establish itself on the Drama St Marys calender. It'll be interesting to see what the students made of tonight's variations and how that effects the work in the future.
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The Meaning of Feste.

2011-11-24T00:31:00.000-08:00

We watched Trevor Nunn's film version of Twelfth Night this evening as part of the Shakespeare on film season I'm running to supplement the Early Modern Drama module. Filmed in and around the beautiful Penwith peninsula in Cornwall and set in the early years of the nineteenth century, it's a version that's grown on me over time.

I've often thought of Twelfth Night as the pivotal play in the entire canon. A moment of revelation for Shakespeare as a writer. The moment, perhaps, where he simultaneously becomes sure of his place in the world and his impending mortality. Nothing he wrote before was as tightly structured and nothing he writes afterwards is as freewheeling.

The key to my mini-theory is Feste who seems, particularly in the last moments of the play to be as autobiographical a character as Shakespeare wrote. His final song, which starts so clearly to lay out the ages of man, seems to loose heart after just four verses - compare this with Jacques in As You Like It, written just a couple of years earlier, who finds seven distinctions in his All the World's A Stage speech.

The song ends with a passionate statement in which personal ambition is resigned in favour of self-knowledge. The focus is shifting from virtuosity to craft.

'A great while ago the world begun

With a hey, ho the wind and the rain

But that's all one, our play is done

And we'll strive to please you everyday.'

Shakespeare was 38 when he wrote that and staring into middle age. The sixteenth century had come to an end. Within a year Elizabeth had died and England was once again thrown into religious and political uncertainty. His later works, all written under the new patronage of James I, would reflect a desire to provide intellectual and philosophical succour to the Jacobean world order. Illyria was the world that he left behind.

The Comedy of Errors.

2011-11-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

To the National to see The Comedy of Errors starring Lenny Henry as Antipholus of Syracuse. It's a rip roaring production played out with enough chutzpah and sense of fun to give even the most cynical theatre goer a good night out.

Director Dominic Cooke sets the play in a composite place somewhere between the West Indies, North Africa and Mediterranean Europe. He has a Romanian band thrown in for good measure. The openning section where the Syracusean merchant Egeon lays out the back story uses the full glories of Bunny Christie's inventive set, to create a vast poetic story board. A visual trailer for what's to come.

And what's to come is very good with Henry, who won rave reviews for his Othello a couple of years ago, revelling in the comedy. He has presence, a sense of ease with the language, great timing and, of course an anarchic spirit of irreverence. It made me wonder why we don't encourage more of our stand up comedians to take the comic roles in Shakespeare. Rickie Gervais as the Porter ? Frankie Boyle as Lear's fool? Paul Merton as Touchstone? or even Tim Minchin as Feste? If it hasn't hasn't already happened I'm sure it won't be long before James Cordon is offered Bottom. It just makes sense to put audience pleasing specialists into these roles.

Elsewhere there is some marvellous support from Chris Jarman as the other Antipholus, Lucian Msamati and Daniel Poyser as the Dromios and stealing little moments, the wonderful Claudie Blakley and Michelle Terry as tottering wag-esque sisters Adriana and Luciana.

This isn't a show that reclaims or reinterprets the play for our times. In many ways Cooke's production is a classic rendering. It doesn't half leave you with a smile on your face though.
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Tales from a Sea Journey.

2011-11-21T03:12:00.000-08:00

Our old friends NIE returned to the Drama St Mary's theatre this evening with their new show Tales from a Sea Journey. It was lovely to see them bring their peculiar brand of Post-Brechtian clowning back for a new generation of students to enjoy. It was wonderful to see ex-student Kieran back, playing a brave Norwegian sea captain.

Unlike their earlier trilogy, which sought to dramatise the cataclysmic history of twentieth century Europe by telling the stories of three families, this new show focuses more directly on the way stories help us to pass time, to form communities and to dispel our fear of loneliness. Whilst it lacked the political bite of previous work there was a metaphysical dimension at work here.

The company created the show a year ago when they spent ten days as passengers on a container ship travelling from France to Guadalupe in the West Indies. Each member of the company was asked to take along three stories and a couple of songs for the rest of the actors to learn. They fused this process with observations and tales from their own adventure. The result is a wickedly funny, kaleidoscopic treat of tentative offerings, songs and fables, made poignant by the ever present awe inspiring vastness of the Ocean. We're tossed and turned from moments of gloriously silly slapstick to sublime majesty.

As in previous work NIE stand to assure us that stories are our real solace, inspiration and the only thing we can genuine offer in the face of the unfathomable mysteries of the deep.
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Collaborators.

2011-11-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

To the National Theatre to see John Hodge's witty new play Collaborators, intimately staged in the Cottesloe. The play, based in part on truth, centres around the relationship between the dissident writer Mikhail Bulgakov and Josef Stalin, brilliantly played by Alex Jennings and Simon Russell Beale.

It's 1938 and Bulgakov's new play about the life of Moliere has been declared subversive and withdrawn from the stage. In a Faustian pact to get it back on, he takes a commission to write Young Josef, a hagiographic play celebrating the dictator's impeccable revolutionary credentials. Unfortunately the writer's artistic sensibilities make the task impossible and despite some nasty threats from Mark Addy's blackly comic secret policeman he finds himself struggling to make the first night, scheduled for Stalin's surprise 60th birthday party.

Stalin, who of course, doesn't do surprises, steps in and arranges a series of secret scripting meetings where he delights in swapping roles with Mikhail, typing up glorious scenes from his heroic past whilst temporarily handing over the reins of the USSR, to his adversary.

The leading actors are superb. Russell Beale's Stalin weaves easily between avuncular openness and childish impatience - under which we sense a monstrous ego held short. Whilst Jenning's imbues Bulgakov with the painful realisation that principle has pragmatic parameters and the tired disappointment of a man who, taken off guard, has fallen a little for the devil.

Nick Hytner and Bob Crowley create a surreal, constructivist universe, where dreams, desires, fictions and startlingly reality mix in full absurdist glory. It all made for a dark and delicious evening, designed to puncture any optimistic belief that art can flourish in a totalitarian system.
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We Are Three Clever People.

2011-11-18T11:43:00.000-08:00

Are there some stories that essentially can't be dramatised? Last May I had an uninspiring evening at the Richmond Theatre watching Shared Experience explore with little dramatic punch the relationship between the Bronte sisters and their characters. Polly Teale's script had strong intent in that it showed how fantasy helps us escape claustrophobic circumstance but having made its point the play faded.

Tonight at the Rose in Kingston it was the turn of another acclaimed touring company Northern Broadsides to find a way into the dark and lonely world of Haworth Parsonage with their production of We Are Three Sisters. Again it made for a long night.

In someways the piece is a triumph of conceptual elegance over good storytelling. Writer Blake Morrison and critic Susannah Clapp realised, over dinner a decade ago, that the Bronte sister's story had some obvious parallels with Chekhov's The Three Sisters. They floated the idea to Broadside's Artistic Director Barrie Rutter and a script was developed.

It's a bold idea, but it's realisation lacks conviction. Essentially it's Chekhov's play (without soldiers) set in rural Yorkshire, but the doggedly enforced biographical detail needed to replace Olga, Masha and Irina with Charlotte, Emily and Anne and unsubtle grafting of fact and fiction felt incredibly self-conscious and at time even precocious. Charlotte, searching for a publisher, stares out and parodies Irina's famous lines on Moscow with a cry of 'To London! To London! To London!' A looser relationship between the two stories would have allowed the audience to enjoy making their own connections.

I really admire Susannah Clapp, both as an editor and critic. Barrie Rutter has forged a fantastically muscular, no nonsense approach to classic plays through Northern Broadsides and Blake Morrison's eulogies to his parents are amongst the most poetic memoirs ever written; but something about this meeting of minds has served to flatten what could have been an interesting restaging into a rather predictable academic exercise.
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Nandos Education.

2011-11-16T06:46:00.000-08:00

Spent much of today in City College, Brighton with first years Ami and Megan, delivering a talk and chatting to sixth form students about the courses here at St Mary's. It was a really good experience and something that, in the scramble, to ensure our courses are full next year we need to do more of.

Although it's still not really clear how the rise in tuition fees has effected recruitment, not just nationally, but for individual institutions and programmes, the one thing that is clear is that seventeen and eighteen year olds are being much more careful about choosing their options.

In the last few years I've often asked potential applicants who've turned up for open day how many similar events they've been too and, with some notable exceptions, the answer has always been 2 or 3. This year, however, it's more likely to be 7 or 8. One girl I spoke to at the last evening had been to an impressive 22.

Last year the Universities had the luxury of a competitive market to work in. The number of Gap year students feel dramatically as school leavers tried to get a place on the old fee scale. This year, with applications down, the choices are all with the students and the onus is on us as institutions to offer attractive and worthwhile courses. Already this is making itself felt in St Mary's where a new marketing campaign 'you said, we did...' is encouraging students to claim entitlements from the institution.

Whilst student experience needs to be at the heart of most decisions a University makes there is a crude theory that all of this will drive up standards across the sector. The more students pay, the logic goes, the more they will demand. But it's the nature of that demand that matters and it's romantic to think that the primary drive of the young is value for money. In many cases I think undergraduates are driven by appetite and for educationalists, if you'll excuse the pun, that's difficult to swallow.

Education is a challenge. Learning new ways of thinking, making connections between disparate disciplines and subjects and absorbing fresh knowledge takes personal investment and willpower. The threat of a consumer driven sector is that students believe they are paying their lecturers to do this work for them and repackage it all in dumbed down, easy to access forms. Paying more doesn't necessarily mean you'll go for the healthy option. Given the choice many students will head for Nandos every time.

Juno and the Paycock.

2011-11-14T11:41:00.000-08:00

A smashing production of Juno and the Paycock at the National this evening with Ciaran Hinds as a brilliant Jimmy Boyle commanding every inch of the Lyttelton stage. In some ways the character is an Irish cousin of Rooster Byron, admirably played by Mark Rylance in Jerusalem, over the river, a larger than life fabulist whose enjoyment of life's journey leads him into huge trouble and eventual bankruptcy.

The play is set in the civil war that followed the failure of the Anglo-Irish treaty talks and brilliantly captures the political indifference of a family caught up in desperate acts of survival. The fighting outside the peeling tenement flat is mirrored by the ongoing battle between Juno, played with stoic fortitude by the impressive Sinead Cusack, and her delusionist husband.

The supporting cast is uniformly good. Clare Dunne is pitch perfect as Juno's daughter, carefully balancing the pragmatic need to find a suitor who'll take her out of poverty, with a fading notion of romance and Risteard Cooper, an Abbey favourite making a rare appearance in London, is terrific as scrawny scavenger Joxer, constanly searching the corners for the means towards a next meal.

At times the production is lit with breathtaking beauty, which adds an epic quality to the social realism, but never detracts from the underlying sense of watching lives lived at the very edge.

This is a company completly in tune with the demands of the play and working as a natural ensemble, whose precision and sure touch, draw the audience in. The attention to this kind of detail is a hallmark of director Howard Davies' work. It makes watching plays easy.

Allegiance.

2011-11-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

Spent the day in University preparing for the evening's rehearsed reading of Mary Kenny's play Allegiance a fictional re imagining of a meeting between Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill and Irish Republican Michael Collins that occurred in October 1921 in which both men outline their positions politic and personal and look for a way to progress the Anglo-Irish Treaty Talks. I'd been asked to play Evans, Churchill's butler.

It was a fascinating afternoon watching the speed with which Matthew Marsh, playing Churchill and Colm Gormley, as Collins went about the text. On paper the play had seemed rather expositional, a lesson in history and biography, rather than a lithe political poker game, but as the afternoon went the texture of the piece was teased out, the changes in strategy noted and slowly a more interesting architecture to the play emerged.

Beyond ten or twelve lines of introduction my role was chiefly to fill up the drinks. Mary, who was in the audience for the show, makes it fairly explicit in the script that the men's trust for each other grows the more they put away. Certainly at times when the negotiation became entrenched Churchill's tactic was to pour another drink and carry the conversation into personal territory: love, children, common ground.

It's strange to act again. I haven't done anything on stage for years and in the end I was just relieved not to have sent the accumulating brandy glasses flying.

Its No Joke!

2011-11-09T04:47:00.000-08:00

Off to Lost Theatre in Lambeth this morning to see It's No Joke! The Comedy School's TIE show dealing with knife crime, which has been touring the borough over the last few weeks. Today a fifty strong group of year 6s from a local school were brought in.

It's a good show, eschewing shock and sentimentality and instead using humour, broad characterisations and fast paced storytelling to cover the ground. At the end the kids hot seat and offer advice to the characters - including the victim (who always gets asked what it's like to die.). The level of questioning really demonstrated how much had been learnt.

It's No Joke! has been on the road for three or four years now and gone through several recasts. The latest incarnation stars Danny Morgan on his first job since graduating from Drama St Mary's last summer. It was great to see all of the hard work he put in over three years being rewarded with an opening gig and he was really good value. Light, charismatic and confidently in control of the audience, particularly as he jokered the Q & A at the end. Keith seems impressed with him so hopefully he'll be considered for future projects.

The First Actresses.

2011-11-06T05:55:00.000-08:00

A morning lecture at the National Portrait Gallery by way of introducing their new exhibition The First Actresses, a fascinating collection charting the rise of women on the stage from their first appearance in the 1660s to their glittering ascendancy through the eighteenth century.

It was a fascinating talk focused mostly on the competitive way in which the eminent but formal Joshua Reynolds and the more natural flowing Thomas Gainsborough sort to gain commission from the actresses of the day for academy portraits. It was the start of a real move into respectability. Up to that point Gillray and Hogarth had reinforced the popular image of actress as whore with a string of satirical cartoons; but by the 1770s a counter revolution led by David Garrick ensured that performers such as Mary Robinson, Dorothy Jordan and Sarah Siddons were viewed as artists in their own right.

The exhibition itself is fairly small, and a bit overpriced, but it does offer a coherent sense of theatrical history and some startlingly comparisons in the way in which these early celebrities were depicted. My favourite picture was of the beautiful but tragic Elizabeth Linley, whose promising career was brought to an end at the age of nineteen, when her new husband the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan - made jealous by her popularity and concerned his own reputation would be compromised insisted that she retire from the stage. She went on to manage the books in Drury Lane and died at just 37. Gainsborough's painting captures the loneliness and boredom of an out of work actress. She looks past us now trying to remember a happier time, when her gaze engaged. Restless hands idle in her lap. She's absolutely still whilst the wind temptingly provokes her to act by gently ruffling her clothes.

Anonymous.

2011-11-05T01:50:00.000-07:00

Went to the cinema to catch Anonymous Roland Emmerich's frankly bonkers film which suggests that Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford was the real author of Shakespeare's work. If you can get past the nonsense of the thesis, ignore the moment by moment chronological inaccuracies and relax into the swashbuckling silliness of the conspiracy theorists world, then it's quite a fun night out.

I thought Vanessa Redgrave was wonderful as the aging Elizabeth I, returning beautifully to second childishness. Her performance every bit a match for Judi Dench's Oscar winning cameo in Shakespeare in Love. Whilst Rafe Spall gives us a believably magpie-esque Shakespeare, a sharp, live wit with an eye on the main chance. What he lacks in Latin, Greek and Italian travel, he more than makes up for in opportunism, charisma and imagination. I saw no contradiction between this lustful, life loving, optimist and the poet philosopher of our popular imagination. Why shouldn't a grammar school boy create King Lear, Hamlet, Richard III? He also knocked out Falstaff, Bottom and Christopher Sly.

I suppose I've never been that interested in the authorship debate. For what it's worth I think Shakespeare was probably a wonderful writer, but the first folio only appeared seven years after he died and I've no doubt that by that time the parts had been refined, honed and road tested by his surviving colleagues in communion with the demands of the audience. Actors wouldn't have worried too much about the authors posterity, but rather there own survival. They'd have kept what was popular and re improvised moments that didn't grip. Think of the play as a performance rather than an script and it soon becomes possible to imagine the collaborative forces at work. A terrific synergy that leads to 'genius.' I suspect Shakespeare gave his companies great material to work with, but in truth the canon stands less as a monument to one man's achievements and more to the increasingly democratic and enlightened spirit of the age.
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Twelfth Night, Political Cabaret & Fasymmetric Theory.

2011-11-04T01:49:00.000-07:00

A busy day. After tutorial I headed off to meet the Applied Theatre first years at The Orange Tree, where Henry had invited us to provide the a dress rehearsal audience for an anarchically silly Twelfth Night, which he's been putting together with a group of four actors. It's wonderful to be able to get into rehearsals and the students really enjoyed the privilege. Next semester it'll be their turn and I hope having this opportunity will at least have helped them see how much fun work for young audiences can be.

After the run through the cast tried out a short workshop on us to demonstrate how Shakespeare creates different voices for his characters. We ran 'If music be the food of love' just using the vowel sounds... 'eee ooo eee ooo ooo' to show Orsino's open romanticism and then 'Have you no wit, manners nor honesty?' playing just the consonants ' vvv nnnn wwww tttt mmm nnn ttt' to reinforce Malvolio's lack of grace and patience. It was very smart. A great, accessible introduction into the text.

Rushed back to campus to interview Keith for Making Theatre. Much of the discussion focused on how tricky some actors find Stand Up. The suggestion was that to begin with they 'act' what they think a comedian should be like never really letting the audience into themselves.

'Comedy is the great leveller,' he said 'but if you're going to play it you've got to be prepared to come down to meet the crowd.'

From there we headed over to the Dolche to catch the second years perform the first Political Cabaret of the semester. Some really clever material on facebook and a couple of really well crafted songs. Interest in this work has grown from last year and the room was packed to the rafters. The students just seemed relieved to have got through it but it was a really good first attempt and hopefully will have given them confidence to write with even more freedom next time round.

The day ended over in the theatre watching the Theatre Arts production of Fasymmetric Theory, a really encouraging first play from Level 3 student Kat Evans who's put together a Martin Crimp like montage of slightly disconnected scenes, parodying our obsession with beauty myths. It was very exciting to see a student play getting a full production. The cast and director did an admirable job in showcasing a promising talent.

Battle Cries.

2011-11-03T01:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight's screening in the Early Modern Drama series was Olivier's glorious Henry V which still carries all before it in technicolor glory. Commissioned by Churchill it was made in 1944 as a morale boosting pageant, its release timed to coincide with the Normandy landings.

The film starts with a beautiful panoramic view of London, the silver thread of the Thames snaking its way past the towers and steeples of a city at rest with itself, in perfect harmony under William Walton's score. In we zoom to the playhouse, the great globe itself where bustled preparations for the afternoons matinee mirror the industry of preparation for the invasion itself. Everybody is involved regardless of class, gender, age. All united in readying themselves and the space to receive the play.

Soon it's on us. Leslie Banks' muscular chorus pulling us into the comic clerics conversing in the minstrels gallery above the stage. We follow their exit to the backstage world where make up is applied, costumes dusted down, and actors poise ready for their entrance.

The camera fixes here watching knights and page boys process onto the stage, set now for Henry's court. Then a beat. A second of empty frame and forward with one tentative step comes Olivier, not as a mighty God anointed King, but an actor, a nervous man with a slight cough, trying to get a feel for the house.

He is us and we are him, waiting for our cue. It's a brilliant moment of levelling. The messages are clear. Heroism is a human possibility and our duty is to act.

One of the most moving things about the film is to watch these our actors working in concert. George Robey, the great star of the Victorian Musical hall and friend of Henry Irving, plays the dwindling Falstaff. The pioneering Australian dancer Robert Helpman provides a comic turn as the Bishop of Ely, Matinee idol Robert Weston plays Pistol. Esmond Knight, himself blinded, earlier in the war, takes up Fluellen. Max Adrian, who would go on to be a star of the formative RSC, is an enigmatic Dauphin, John Laurie, an eminent Hamlet in his own right, but most famously remembered as Private Fraser in Dad's Army plays Scots captain Jamy and George Cole, who later found fame as Flash Harry in the St Trinian films and Arthur Daley in the eighties TV series Minder is a fresh faced boy. Most remarkably Renee Asherson, who played Princess Katherine, is still alive at the ripe old age of 96.

Any acting company at any moment of history will have a spread of youth and experience and one of the most magical things about the theatre is this sense of continuity. Olivier casting stars from the past and the future. This band of brothers united in a common cause and captured in a brief moment of time.

Church and State.

2011-11-01T01:47:00.000-07:00

After work I headed into town, met up with Eleanor and went off to have a look round the Occupy London site outside St Paul's. We'd gone to see a debate at the Cathedral about the radicalism of Jesus' mission, but on the back of two resignations and the continuing fears about safety and public disorder, the event was, ironically if unsurprisingly, cancelled. The church has really missed a trick with this one. The worries seem to be more about how having a lot of unwashed hippies on the doorstep will effect box office takings in the gift shop rather than engaging with the larger questions surrounding the increasing gap between the rich and poor.

So with the doors of St Pauls firmly closed we instead spent some time in the camp. It's an impressive set up. The largest marquee has been given over as a space for free lectures and seminars. An impassioned debate about public space was raging. During the day a full programme of events are publicised outside, offering everything from talks on the geo-political challenges of the next decade to placard making workshops. Next door is a small library where members of the camp swap books and supporters of the protest bring regular donations.

A little way along an avenue of pop ups is the makeshift media centre where three bespectacled men sat furiously typing responses to the thousands of supportive messages coming in from around the world. The tent is a geeks haven of wires and laptops, all illuminated by a single light bulb run from a noisy mini generator. Next door are the kitchens where huge metal cauldrons bubbled with veggie stews and coffee is handed out to all visitors and beyond that a jam tent, complete with a piano and a couple of broken stringed guitars.

At the centre of it all a small gazebo works as a control point. Lists of needs - food, literature, equipment is scrawled up on a whiteboard, whilst new supplies and donations are registered and distributed. New arrivals also check in here and are either allocated a plot or a place in one of the existing tents. And, as long as this is a fun and diverting place to be, they will keep coming. The headache for the authorities is that for many protestors the Occupy site isn't a necessary discomfort. Its a real social alternative to homelessness or destitution. It won't be easily shifted.

At one end of the camp guarding the entrance to Paternoster Square stood two police officers, refusing to let anybody go near this privatised area. They were, for the most part, ignored.
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The Grand Guingol.

2011-10-31T01:47:00.000-07:00

The first of the Level 3 Theatre Arts shows at the Drama St Mary's theatre tonight. A turn of the century evening of chilling horror in homage of le infamous Theatre du Grand Guignol which opened as an intimate candle lit 200 seater in the Pigalle slum of Paris in 1897. A place of dark shadows and hidden corners.

The theatre spawned and specialised in a new gruesome genre employing naturalism to graphically reenact moments of murder, mayhem, insanity, tragedy and trauma in front of an insatiably voyeuristic audience. A typical bill of evening fare would include five or six short stories all ending horrifically. Victims were normally drawn from the lower class. Prostitutes, criminals and street urchins were all routinely slaughtered in ways designed to at once thrill and disgust the audience. The very fact that these characters are both powerless and dispensable produces a frisson of taboo breaking excitement.

It's a psycho-physical environment that the immersive theatre specialists Punchdrunk have in recent years seemed to be nostalgic for. A place where we're all complicit in the lust and gore whilst simultaneously harbouring the secret fear that we might be the next to feel the cold steel of the butcher's cleaver about our neck.

It was fascinating to see the students explore a form that has all but disappeared from the theatrical landscape and although at times it was tricky to understand whether they were attempting to accurately reproduce the style or merely parody it there was certainly enough in the four stories they offered to keep the audience engrossed for the entire evening. What better way to spend Halloween?

Carlisle to Settle.

2011-10-30T01:46:00.000-07:00

Last day of our break in the North. We walked the mile or so out of Kirby Stephen to the railway station which lies half way down the Carlisle to Settle line - often described as the most picturesque train journey in Britain. The station itself stands proud looking down on the Smardale valley. In recent years it's been lovingly restored and a small team of passionate volunteers and enthusiasts maintain it for the many tourists and locals who take huge pleasure travelling through the North of England.

Kirkby Stephen lies slightly up the line from the impressive glories of the Ribblehead Viaduct but there was still plenty to see. We kicked off our boots, warmed our hands on steaming mugs of tea and coffee and, faces pressed close to the window, headed up through the evocatively named villages and hamlets of the Eden Valley: Langwathby, Kikoswald, Armathwaite, to our arrival in Carlisle.

We changed here and took a short hop back down to the waiting car in Penrith; where after an impressive Sunday lunch we started the long drive back South. For all yesterday's battles with the elements we're almost half way to Robin Hood's Bay.

Drenched in Westmorland.

2011-10-29T01:45:00.000-07:00

The day started promisingly enough. We picked up supplies in the village shop and headed out across the fields to where a concrete footbridge crosses the furious M6 and onto the next stage of the walk. The path to Kirkby Stephen looks to be fairly straight forward on paper, but soon after we'd past the quiet hamlet of Oddendale the sky turned black.

For a few miles it was bearable. We made our way onto Ravensworth Fell, crossed an old roman road, waded through Lyvennet Beck, where Charles II rested his army en route to the Royalists final defeat at Gloucester and followed a dry stone wall round to an old cairn which reputedly marks the site of Robin Hood's Grave.

It would have been fantastically interesting but all the discovery and wonder was beginning to wear thin as the weather deteriorated and the cold winter rain lashed in, getting underneath our clothes and soaking us to the skin.

Eventually we made our way to the road and cadged a lift in a minibus full of Glaswegian young offenders, having a cracking lager infused jolly in the countryside; their harassed probation officer sulking at the wheel. They dropped us at The George in nearby Orton, where we had lunch thawing out by a roaring fire. Outside the weather seemed to be brightening so we wrung out our socks and set off again.

For the first few miles everything was more or less back on track we followed lanes, skipped stiles and made our way steadily across the peaty fields to Sunbiggin Tarn, a desolate spot, miles from anywhere. It was here, predictably, that the skies opened once more.

Shelter was a good two miles off in Newbiggin, so we gritted our teeth, put our heads down and ploughed onwards across Ravenstonedale Moor. By this stage the weather was so rough that we couldn't even refer to our sodden, pulped guide book and we quickly became lost amongst the sheep. Eleanor helpfully reminded me that Lear, made mad by the storm and the onset of hypothermia, began to take his clothes off in similar circumstances, a new threat that until that point I'd not considered.

Putting safety first we found some farm tracks and followed them over the hill and onto a lane leading down to a solitary farmhouse. The farmer, unfazed by our adventure, was kind enough and pointed us back towards the village, some two miles East of where we'd ended up.

Newbiggin, he promised, owned a public telephone box and with no reception to be had on the Moor there was no alternative but to continue. Wrinkled as prunes we squelched our way along the road, finally arriving just before eight o'clock. A call to a local taxi firm put us out of our misery and so drowned and defeated we arrived less than triumphantly in Kirkby.
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Farewell to Lakeland.

2011-10-28T23:55:00.000-07:00

Up early to carry on with our Coast to Coast walk. We caught the 108 bus from our lodging in Penrith and followed its picturesque route along the western edge of Ullswater down to Patterdale to recommence our walk with a steady climb heading south out of the village towards Angletarn Pikes.

The sky was clear and it wasn't long before we were high enough to enjoy commanding views back towards the Helvellyn and adventures past. Higher we climbed scouting around the tarn itself, following a dry stone wall past Satura Crag, through a peaty field to rest by a gate and share out some fruit pastilles in celebration at completing the first 50 miles of our journey from St Bees. Against every prediction we've had wonderful weather all the way

Another short climb took us around the Knott and onwards for a glorious view both of the old roman road leading up to High Street and down the Straights of Riggindale to Haweswater, a once gentle lake, now turned into a huge reservoir, capable of quenching Manchester. From here a short walk took us to Kidsty Pike - the last obstacle of Lakeland.

We lingered for a few moments taking stock of the brooding mountains to the West that somehow we'd found a way across before turning East to stare across the more gentle gradients of the Westmorland Plateau to come; the landscape rolling far away to the Pennines on the horizon.

We pressed on, descending through Kidsty Howes to Haweswater edge and followed the shoreline for several miles, noticing the fells fall away to be replaced by a gentler terrain before arriving at the village of Burbanks, built especially for the workers who helped flood Mardale some eighty years ago.

The light was fading now as we began to cross the fields towards our ambitious overnight stop in Shap. We made it to the charming Rosgill bridge which crosses the Lowther and here decided that rather than lose our way in the dark we should follow the road in, forsaking the ruins of the old Abbey. Beside hunger had begun to set in.

It didn't take long before we were offered a lift by pensioner Flo, who was concerned that Southerners might not be easily visible, and gratefully driven the final mile and a half to the comforting delight of a boots off, good dinner and a raging fire at the Greyhound Inn.
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The Lost City.

2011-10-27T00:32:00.000-07:00

Partly inspired by an excellent BBC documentary on the history of ceramics Eleanor and I stopped off in the lost city of Stoke on Trent en route for another couple of days Coast to Coast walking. It's a fascinating place which, possibly because of the large number of service stations on the M6 between Birmingham and Manchester, few people turn off to visit.

And first impressions are of slow decline. Sentinel chimneys standing idle, a canal with no traffic and streaks of rust running down redundant iron pipes that have long since stopped carrying the water needed by the factories. We parked the car and walked across James Brindley's revolutionary canal interchange which links the Mersey to the Trent to the old Etruria works where a young entrepreneur Josiah Wedgewood based his burgeoning business and placed the potteries firmly on the map as the world renowned centre for ceramic production with endorsements from all the crowned heads of Europe and commissions across the globe. The canal was championed by Wedgewood to ensure his pots could be transported smoothly. Too many were broken on the bumpy eighteenth century roads. The site is chained and remarkably quiet now.

After lunch we went to search out signs of industry and took a advantage of a free tour around Emma Bridgewater's factory, half a mile south of the city centre. It was quite inspiring. Whatever you think of her stuff, and I find it a little twee and nouveau nostalgic, she has certainly done the town a great service by resurrecting a pottery works here. All of her stuff is produced in the factory and 200 local craftsmen and women are employed to turn out over 30,000 pieces a week. From small beginnings 25 years ago the turnover is several million pounds a year. Mood in the factory was good, the royal wedding and the diamond jubilee have provided a couple boom years, which everybody hopes will stay.

'Whatever else the recession makes us forfeit,' said our amiable guide, 'people will always needs cups and plates.'

Bridgewater's firm feels the right size. It's working at capacity, but there are no plans to expand and threaten the familial feel of the enterprise. It's a very British brand in a very British setting. Stoke though could do with one or two other returns. I was surprised to learn, given the morning stroll past derelict buildings, that more pottery is manufactured in the region than anywhere else in the world. Still the unemployment figures are dangerously high and the skills that have sustained Stoke for over two hundred years lie, for the main part, dormant, waiting for a renaissance.

Early Returns.

2011-10-23T01:12:00.000-07:00

Troubling article in The Sunday Times today about the fall in applicants for HE courses. Universities across the country have been bracing themselves for a reduction in the number of students seeking a place in 2012, but it's been a bit like staring into a dark cave, with nobody knowing for sure exactly how the rise in fees will effect school leavers. This week UCAS will publish figures up to October 15th - which was the deadline for Oxbridge (received wisdom suggests that 10% of all applications are made by this date.)

Early returns from some London institutions suggest a dramatic fall. Goldsmiths suggests a 34% decrease and City University are looking at a 40% drop. St Mary's own speculative figures, taken from open day visitors, suggested that we were holding up (but of course there's nothing to suggest the old ratios between visitors to applicants or offers to undergraduate take up will sustain in the new world.)

I still think that Drama St Mary's have got it right by focusing on creating degrees that take the best of the Drama School and merge it with courses which, for want of a better word, explore and analyse creativity, through active problem solving. Very few of our graduates go onto academic careers, but many do get work in the theatre industry and nearly all of them leave with an understanding of the need to create opportunities for themselves, rather than waiting around to be recognised and discovered. We hope this dynamic approach to promoting a new breed of resourceful, self motivated practitioner will help us to avoid the coming storm. Let's see.

Unlucky?

2011-10-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

A really difficult night at the National watching Mike Bartlett's new play 13 which is about to go to press at the Olivier.

Bartlett, who's yet to turn thirty, is often heralded as a new hope for British theatre. A playwright who can capture the drama of the new world, where communication is as likely to happen by tweet, text or skype as it is by prolonged face to face dialogue and where the technology exists for people to form intimate relationships even if they never actively share the same space. I very much wanted to like it; but unfortunately I found it patronising, complacent and trite.

As with last year's hit, Earthquakes in London, Bartlett's new work is big on ideas. Amongst many other things a messiah like figure, former philosophy student John reappears after six years in the wilderness and begins teaching a doctrine of belief in belief at Hyde Park Corner. Simultaneously a modernising Cameron-esque Tory prime minister, played with Thatcherite authority by Geraldine James, weighs up the moral responsibility of an invasion of Iran. Whilst her friend, John's former lecturer Dr Christopher Stockley, a tweeded atheist in the Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins mould, delivers public lectures on the pre-eminence of Western culture. The three character's are linked by Simon, the Prime Minster's son, John's best friend at Oxford, who tragically died jumping of Magdalen Bridge on May Day.

Slowly, and completely unbelievably given the obvious sentimental psycho-babble that he speaks, John begins attracting crowds of upwards of half a million people to his daily orations which have moved from abstract ideas to a more concrete anti-war stance. His evolving popularity eventually forces the Prime Minister to meet him in Downing Street for a reunion and private talks.

For all the intercut dialogue, flashing lights and the weird, hugely expensive set - a towerblock size black cube that performs all kinds of configurative tricks - it's this scene between a young idealist, his atheist former lecturer and the Prime Minister that is the most interesting allowing as it does an ideological and informed debate between received authority and naive idealism to take the stage. This for me was the kernel of a better more intimate and sensible play. It's lost in the vast swathes of the Olivier.

I'm always mindful when writing reviews of work that I don't like that I might just not be getting it. In the mid-nineties I remember critics almost unanimously blasting Blasted, partly because they failed to grasp the bold innovation in form that Sarah Kane was proposing. Some of them later apologised.

Perhaps I'm just too stuck in a concept of makes good theatre to be able to see the merit of the play, but I'm convinced that the A-level and undergraduate students who packed out tonight's preview deserve a greater intellectual challenge than this pseudo-profound attempt to provoke youthful rebellion. There are real causes, real problems and, I hope, real solutions for young people to take a lead in finding. A work like 13 gives the impression of being radical and uplifting, but ultimately it's earnestness does nothing but reinforce the consensual and compliant nature of early twenty first century politics. For all the imposing threat of the enormous black cube this show is, I suspect, as meaningless as a house of cards.
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Jumpy

2011-10-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

With Eleanor to the Royal Court this evening to see April De Angelis' new play Jumpy which stars Tamsin Greig . It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, a smart play and some wonderful acting.

Greig plays former Greenham protester Hilary, who's just turned fifty. She's on the verge of being made unemployed from her job working in an Education Support Unit, is struggling to maintain an active sex life with her calm but unambitious husband Mark and most pressing of all has lost the ability to communicate with her teenage daughter Tilly.

Whilst Tilly negotiates her own private path through her late teens, refusing parental intimacy; Hilary is left anxiously longing for new meanings and adventures to make herself feel attractive and needed as she heads towards senior status. What will she have left once her daughter flies the nest? Moment to moment Greig beautifully finds the edginess of a woman who feels the best is passing without a fanfare.

Elsewhere the acting is uniformly good but it's worth highlighting the wonderful cameo from Doon Mackickhan, as Hilary's old University friend Frances, who believes that performing your gender is the best way to feel valued and is retraining as a burlesque dancer in an effort to ironically deconstruct the male gaze. The results are, predictably, hysterical.

De Angelis writes with touching care, gentle parody and a great deal of humour, seaming brilliantly the intergenerational divide, to create a poignant portrait of both the achievements and disappointments of eighties feminism. This isn't theatre to shatter the world, but rather to remind us all of our touching ridiculousness as we struggle to deal gracefully with change and the passing of time.

Ian Redford Comes in for a Chat.

2011-10-14T04:47:00.000-07:00

Ian Redford joined us for Making Theatre this afternoon full of stories and anecdotes from his long career, in particular working with Max Stafford Clark and Out of Joint. Once again the students were full of questions and the session flew by.

Two things re emerged from last week's session with Dennis. First of all the idea that you needed some kind of special key to enter the theatre profession - (Ian objects to the word industry) - a rich benefactor, an Oxbridge degree, a family member already in situ. Ian, like Dennis, was clear in his belief that theatre maintains a proud tradition of democratic and meritocratic involvement and that whilst theatre makers do require intelligence, it's not necessarily academic intelligence.

The second question was one about self-belief and confidence. Ian had revealed that particularly as a young actor he'd often felt inferior to his colleagues and fellow professionals. This seemed to strike a cord with a number of the year group. Izzy asked him how he'd overcome it. Ian stood in thought for a few seconds, screwing his face up before carefully answering :-

"Imagine you've got a little man on your shoulder who keeps whispering in your ear - 'You're no good, why are you even here? Why don't you just go home.' Now if that were really true wouldn't you try and get rid of him. Wouldn't you eventually just tell him very forcibly to 'fuck off!' ? Well that's what you've got to get good at doing."

After the session Trevor joined us and we went for a cup of tea. Half way through Ian got a text message letting him know that Michael Boyd is going to step down as artistic director of the RSC. Ian had been in line to play Belch in a forthcoming production of Twelfth Night for the company, but then had a call explaining they were taking the play in a different direction. He's curiously waiting to see who has been cast.

'Well, well, well,' he said.

We asked him who he thought would get the job. Scholarly Greg Doran, who missed out last time. Rupert Goold, boy wonder and scourge of the traditionalists. Marianne Elliott, who hasn't had a dud for many moons. Dominic Dromgoole, who's given The Globe a boisterous new lease of life?

Ian shook his head.

'David Farr. It'll keep everybody happy.'

I wonder if he's right.
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Rural Rites in Midsummer Night's Dream.

2011-10-13T00:44:00.000-07:00

We had our second screening in the Early Modern Drama season this evening with Adrian Noble's RSC version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which mixes Jungian symbolism with images from Victorian and Edwardian children's literature to create a visually sumptuous and occasionally surreal child's eye view of the play. It's an urban vision beginning in a town house nursery before opening out into an imaginative forest where solid wooden front doors replace trees and electric light bulbs stand in for stars.

Surprisingly for all the modernising I found the production highlighted Shakespeare's descriptions of a rural England, lost deep inside his memory, where goblins and sprites are real and signs are taken for wonders. Behind the dandified fairy kingdom lies a simpler, less stylistic, truth where the benevolent sun and moon watch over us, keeping time and revealing change.

I don't know of a play that ends so beautifully. With the married couples safely tucked up in bed Puck, Oberon and Titania return with their train 'following darkness like a dream' to bless each corner of the house.

A new adventure is beginning, but we're not invited. As the fairies trip away to do their nocturnal deeds, Puck turns to us and politely begs our forgiveness and his own release. The mysteries of the night do not belong to us.
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Milton's Tweets.

2011-10-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

For over 400 years the Gresham Lectures have been part of the cultural life of the city of London, paid for by an endowment set up in 1597 by Sir Thomas Gresham. Every year over a 100 fascinating free talks on every subject imaginable are delivered by an impressive range of academics. It's a very civilised institution.

Tonight at the Museum of London Alice Beer gave a fascinating insight into the dissidence of two titans of the seventeenth century: Walter Raleigh and John Milton, attended by a cheerful and motley crew of Londoners, mostly on their way home from work.

Beer suggested that whilst Raleigh used his incarceration in the tower (he was there for most of the last fifteen years of his life) to carefully put together his history of the world, subtly using ancient stories from Babylon and Mesopotamia to draw critical parallels with the Jacobean regime; Milton found that the rapidly developing print culture of the mid seventeenth century provided him with the wonderful opportunity to fire off pamphlets with all the regularity of the tweet. A passionate advocate for the Commonwealth. Beer, a round head herself, compared Milton's role, after the overthrow of the monarchy, to that of the social net workers who helped galvanise the clean up operation after this summer's riots.

By the end of his life Milton was a somewhat discredited figure - although pardoned for his earlier tracts he was never reconciled to the restored Stuart family. He died blind, but still writing, dreaming and shaping of a new kind of religious toleration that would sow the seeds for both the glorious revolution of 1688 and in the longer term set in principal some of the philosophical tenants adopted by the nascent Whig party. A fore run of our own form of liberalism.

Dennis Kelly & Saved.

2011-10-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

A very full day. Dennis Kelly came in this afternoon to talk to the Level 1 students about his work. It was a brilliant session full of wisdom, insight and candour. Over the last decade Dennis has, perhaps more than any other writer, been on the money. Osama the Hero - a play in which a vigilante group take revenge on a young man they believe has terrorist sympathies was produced at Hampstead just weeks before the 7/7 bombings in London and more recent work such as Love and Money and Orphans seemed to anticipate our loss of trust both in institutions and accepted moral authority. In many ways Dennis, although he'd probably strenuously deny it, is one of the writers fulfilling theatre's ancient and role: warning of things to come.

We ran class like a platform session at the National. I asked a couple of general things and then turned to the students who brilliantly and hungrily filled the next hour and a half with thoughtful and fascinating questions.

Dennis in turn responded with patience and great humour teasing out each comment and thinking fresh about each point raised.

He suggested that one of the reasons his plays worked was because he was an average guy, who thought average thoughts. He figures if something interests or concerns him, then it's likely to concern a fair few others.

'I'm not a moral person,' he said 'I don't really think I can teach anybody anything. I write good people, who I understand and then I put them into terrible situations and see how they react. I think the definition of a good writer is one who can write characters into impossible situations and then write them out the other side.'

After the lecture I hurried over to the Lyric, Hammersmith to see Sean Holmes' production of Edward Bond's groundbreaking sixties classic Saved. It's the first London revival of the play for 25 years. Drama St Mary's old girl Monsay plays the part of Liz, a small role, with one decent scene, but, having had some time of to have a baby, it's great to see her back on stage. The gal done good.

Steph O'D was also around and it was wonderful to catch up. She's stayed on at the theatre after assisting on Blasted last year and is currently in rehearsals with Filter for the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream which comes in in February.

Saved itself is a cracking play and the revival in post-riot London is a timely reminder of the social problems that creating a deficit culture provokes. There have been huge material gains for all of us since the 1960s, but the intellectual emptiness and moral vacuum at the heart of the story rings as true now as it did then. Consumerism has not enriched us and the outcome of allowing a culturally impoverished underclass to evolve, as both Bond and Kelly are quick to remind us, is invariably violent.
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A Dish of Tea with Doctor Johnson.

2011-10-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Out of Joint brought their successful show A Dish of Tea with Dr Johnson to Drama St Mary's tonight. The first play in our Autumn season with our old friend Ian Redford playing the title role.

The show itself is a fairly straight forward adaptation. Johnson is brought to full life through both his own writings and the observations made by his trusted younger companion James Boswell, played by Luke Griffin. Occasionally scenes are punctuated by Johnson's own dictionary definition of ideas and things, but in the main this is a biographical homage to one of the most bullish minds of the 1700s.

As well as playing Boswell Griffin trundles through a host of other supporting roles each one throwing into relief a different shade of Johnson's own personality. Flora MacDonald delights him, George III makes him servile, Goldsmith and Garrick bore him, Joshua Reynolds draws his scorn and Hester Thrale breaks his heart. Whilst these quick shifts do little to allow us to see the inner workings of these eighteenth century celebrities the device does make for good storytelling. I sensed again some of the students could have done with a guidebook to help them understand the historical importance of each of Johnson's encounters.

Ian himself was fairly magnificent finding real moments of charm and vulnerability to punctuate the bluster. I found myself becoming increasingly aware of Johnson's brilliant childishness and petulant refusal to deviate from his own carefully crafted view of the world. Each syllable of his argument drenched in the Lichfield burr, adding a tonal sense of melancholy to a man at the peak of his intellectual power but unsure of his value to posterity. It was a truly touching performance.
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Robot Minds.

2011-10-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

The second in the series of lectures organised by the Philosophy department this evening this time turning attention on ethical issues surrounding the creation of artificial intelligence. It was given by Murray Shanahan who is a Professor for Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College.

Murray's contention is that within the next few decades the technology will have advanced enough for us to accurately create a computer programme that can accurately reproduce the 4 million or so neurons that go up to make a mouse's brain. In effect, we could one by one replace those neurons in the brain with artificial electrical charges, the culminative effect of which would be to create a new brain. If we were to do this would the mouse still be a 'real' mouse?

At what point, as we develop these 'new' brains do we say it's immoral to 'test' or 'destroy' them. If we're capable of introducing the concept, or more realistically the sensation, of suffering or pain into an artificial intelligence then will we still have the right to control or dismantle it?

It seemed appropriate to having this Frankenstein-esque debate in the Waldegrave Drawing room, with Walpole's house, a major aesthetic influence for the early Gothic writers, visible through the window. Darkness fell as we began to contemplate a world where scientists had computer designed an intelligence with enough plasticity in it to be able to grow and learn beyond our control. The romantic imaginations of the eighteenth century are beginning to find a tangible shape.

Indian Summer.

2011-10-02T00:48:00.000-07:00

The last few days in South West London have been glorious. I always think St Mary's is at its best this time of year with the pale Autumn light, lengthening shadows and dry crisp piles of leaves building up in the piazza. Walpole's house, now fully restored to its bright white colouring, absorbs the pink sunsets beautifully. Cycling up to the campus - all feels well in the world. This is a marvellous place to study.

Beyond our little paradise Richmond and Kingston were both full to the brim this weekend with Londoners out on a final summer jaunt before the colder winds of Winter sweep in. The towpath was crowded with children, dogs and couples hand in hand, the parks covered in picnickers.

Late on Sunday, with all the work for the week ahead planned, Eleanor and I went on a long bike ride around Bushey Park, which lies just south of Teddington, about a mile from campus. We took a circular route coming in at the north entrance and heading down Christopher Wren's grand Chestnut Avenue before turning eastwards on the more rural Cobbler's Walk toward Hampton Wick Gate.

Cobbler's Walk is named after a local shoemaker Timothy Bennet, who in the mid 1700s managed, through the courts, to establish a public right of way through the Royal Park, much to the consternation of the local ranger Lord Halifax. When asked why he'd gone to the trouble and risk Bennet replied that he was 'unwilling to leave the world worse than he found it.' A memorial dedicated to him and all those who follow his creed lies by the gate.

We swept south past the Diana fountain and back up through the woodland gardens to our starting place. It's rutting season in the park and the stags, like prehistoric monsters, could be heard calling, braying and roaring from every corner of the park.

There have been stories of a particularly aggressive sixteen pronged 'beast' this year whose been terrorising the many photographers who come to take photographs - although the truth is probably that with the hot weather more people than usual have come to watch the rituals and a few have got too close. Keeping our distance, fully aware how much, to a shortsighted stag, a pair of handlebars might look like the antlers of a rival, we carefully made our way out of the park and headed for home.

The Dystopia of Richard III

2011-09-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

An evening screening of Richard Eyre's film version of Richard III as part of the Early Modern Drama module. It's brilliant proving, if proof be needed, that Shakespeare's understanding of the human condition transcends time and space and helps us unveil the universal truths that allow us to unite under the broad term of humanity.

The War of the Roses were only three generations away from Shakespeare. Only eighty years separate the real king's death from Shakespeare's own birth. If not a living memory then there would certainly have been stories, songs and myths from the wreckage of that time in the same way that our generation still have a cultural sense of the trenches, the Somme and Passchendaele.

Eyre sets his production in the interwar years and imagines what would have happened in that long weekend had Britain itself been conned into National Socialism. Ian MacKellan superbly judges Richard as a charming Mosesly-esque figure, eyes on the main chance, driven by a desire for adulation and power. Jim Carter plays Prime Minister Hastings as a bluff squire in the Stanley Baldwin mould. Maggie Smith plays Richard's mother, the Duchess of York as Mary of Teck and Annette Benning's American Queen on the make, Elizabeth offers all too clear parallels to Mrs Simpson. The growing importance of the RAF is also given credence through Edward Hardwicke's Stanley, who heads up this service and effectively brings Richard's reign to an end by switching sides before the Battle of Bosworth and bombing the King's camp into the ground. It's a counter factual history that makes complete sense.

The film enjoys a certain amount of witty and dystopic cinematic references beginning with a cruelly shattered homage to The Dambusters. The Lady Anne scene is straight out of Brief Encounter and Dominic West's wholesome Richmond gives a great audition to be the first James Bond.

It's a masterclass in concept direction. The idea that old stories can be used to help us understand new truths. Linking the past with our modern sense of ourselves.

The Museum of London.

2011-09-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

A day at the Museum of London looking in particular at some of the restoration artifacts. It's a brilliant museum and a fantastic resource. I just wish it were larger.

I'm beginning to turn my mind to writing something on the reformation of a theatrical scene in London and the friendly, for the most part, rivalry between Tom Killigrew and William Devenant, who were awarded the two exclusive royal patents to build new playhouses and start up companies. Charles II's own love of theatre not only endorsed the new age, but made it absolutely essential that anybody who is anybody be seen there. It's a classic tortoise and hare story. Killigrew, who'd loyally spent the 1650s in exile with the King set to work at once with a prolific output of work, hiring all of the best known actors from the days before the commonwealth and resurrecting the rhetorical style of the Jacobean and first Caroline period.

Devenant took his time, explored and pioneered European staging effects and recognised the importance of the scenic to the bright new age of show and light. When his Opera opened a year behind Killigrew it caused a sensation with the King himself switching patronage.

All of this of course is beautifully and gossipy recorded in Samuel Pepys diaries and after I'd finished at the museum I took the short walk east to Seething Lane where he lived for the large part of his adult life, and the parish church of St Olave, where he worshipped and prayed forgiveness for his many indiscretions. High above the alter stands a bust of his wife Elizabeth, mouth slightly open, eyes unblinking. She died young and Pepys distraught commissioned the sculpture to look down on him once a week, keeping him in check, reminding him of duty. It didn't work very well. I suspect Samuel enjoyed feeling guilty a little too much.

The Veil.

2011-09-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

A strangely lacklustre evening at The National Theatre watching The Veil, Conor McPherson's new offering. It was only the first preview, so perhaps it's unfair to judge too harshly, but that in comparison to the haunting beauty of previous work The Weir and The Seafarer, something felt amiss.

Set in a dilapidated country house in 1820s rural Ireland an uncertain future faces aristocrat Lady Lambroke and her family, haunted both by the rapidly radicalisation of the rural poor on her estate, and the ghost of her dead husband who hung himself by jumping off the mantelpiece in the grand hall. Debts and fears riddle the house and even the arrival of the defrocked Reverend Berkeley and the discredited laudanum addicted poet Charles Audelle, a strong double act from Jim Norton and Adrian Schiller, to escort Lady Lambroke's seventeen year old daughter Hannah to England, marriage and potential salvation, only provokes further problems as Berkeley attempts with some success to raise the ghosts of the past.

So a supernatural Chekhov? I'm not sure. Like Chekhov McPherson allows his characters lengthy monologues in which memories, speculations and mysteries are unearthed and the plot structure mirrors in conscious detail The Cherry Orchard. At times though it drags terribly with McPherson's own direction tending towards staged tableaux which stifles rather illuminates the dynamics of the play. The love of a good ghost story, so effective in McPherson's earlier work, seemed here to be wasted, clumsy and irrelevant compared to the background Catholic uprisings and Berkeley's discovery of Hegelian philosophy.

At the curtain call I couldn't help feeling that I'd rather missed the point. It's a long evening and at this stage seems to lack the hook to justify the meandering. I hope things are sorted out before the press night.

History from the Bottom Up.

2011-09-26T05:47:00.000-07:00

We're into the second week of lectures now and in the main the students seem focused, happy and curious about the work. In London Theatre Now I've been trying to set out a brief context for our current scene by offering a swift history of theatre in London from the first Shoreditch playhouses of the 1570s to the present day.

It's a difficult journey for some of the cohort to go on. Dates, events, monarchs, plays, actors and buildings running parallel as separate but interlinking narratives. I sense I go too fast, as we rush thorough the Jacobean age to the interregnum, the restoration, the glorious revolution, the eighteenth century and onwards ever onwards into the realism of the Victorian age, bourgeoisification, matinee idols, American influences, commercial musicals and long runs.

I know in some ways my teaching style is old fashioned, favouring, as it does the belief that a chronological understanding gives us the clear outline from which all our subsequent observations might be made. Looking out into the auditorium I can see some furrowed brows.

So why is it so important?

Well, for me, having this knowledge provides a sort of route map that helps avoid stupid mistakes or assumptions. It's a form of security that offers order and a fixed point from which to begin to explore. A base 'given' from where we can look at what was and might be possible.

Later on, as they read and research, I hope the students will redraw the map, deciding what the key moments really were, determining history in such a way that prioritises their own politics and sense of progress. For now though, I sense, the most important thing is simply to establish some past events as a common vocabulary.

For all the impossibility of trying to cram 450 years into a two hour lecture, I thought the session began to provide a shape to things that with further reading might come more into focus. Remember it's only one way of many to tell the story.

Jesus in Jeans.

2011-09-24T02:24:00.000-07:00

To the National this evening to see, or perhaps it should be to hear, Bach's St Matthew's Passion given a fresh new staging by Jonathan Miller. It's a deeply humanist reading, taking the score from the formality of the raked church choir and plonking it into a rough and ready workshop where the singers in rehearsal baggies wander in and out of the space, occasionally joined by solo musicians whilst simple props hint at our unsophisticated understanding of God's glories and the poverty of our response. It has an air of humble spontaneity that perhaps allows us to listen to the story afresh. All this endeavour is almost spoilt by staging the work in the vast, restless and occasionally muffled Olivier, but the beauty of the music and the wonderful voices triumph.

There's a popular tradition in the British theatre of being informal with the bible. Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar made the word of God trendy for the 1970s and The Globe's recent production of The Mysteries crucified Jesus in blue jeans and a white T-shirt. Whilst Miller's work follows the everyman approach and eschews religious hierarchy in favour of a more democratic presentation, it, more than any of the other examples, succeeds in appearing natural and unforced, as simple, sleek and nerveless as a band of travelling players rolling into a strange town and setting up in the market square. No nods, no winks, just the best way to do the job. This is a production that, in every way, places faith in simplicity.

Philosophy and Drama.

2011-09-21T22:59:00.000-07:00

A fascinating lecture this evening at university by Peter Worley who runs The Philosophy Shop, a group dedicated to introducing primary school children to philosophy, with remarkable results.

His method, as common to many pedagogic models of early year training relies on a practical and playful exploration of ideas based on the children's experience and understanding rather than asking them to learn 'knowledge' or a 'history of ideas.' In this respect it mirrors the ongoing debate amongst drama teachers. Do we prioritise letting children explore imaginative worlds of structured play or do we focus on exposing them to tradition and technique?

Peter was very clear that at A-level the focus seems to be on testing short term memory with questions such as 'Explain and illustrate two criticisms of idealism' which although interesting enough as a research topic, rewards those able to regurgitate others ideas rather than form their own. Does this form of training encourage emerging philosophers?

Instead he proffered a different way called the Sibelius Model which suggests that the present accepted tradition for teaching philosophy (and I would argue many other subjects) at Higher Education can be compared to the repetitive musical form of Beethoven's Fifth symphony. Dun Dun Dun DAH!!!

An alternative to this might be to consider the rhythm of our lecturer/ student exchanges and attempt to develop, as Sibelius did, a symphonic form where unrelated fragments of idea, conversation and thought meander and interplay, allowing the more familiar themes of the discussion or argument to be changed by either or both parties. Hard to assess, but incredibly liberating to our thought process.

The difference between these two pedagogic forms, Peter suggested, was that in the authoritarian Beethoven analogy the main themes have already been worked out whereas the melodic nature of the Sibelius allows us to work towards discovering and reinventing these themes. It's a braver form of engagement, partly because the results are so inconclusive and unpredictable.

In all of this I was struck by how good directors work with actors. In their discussions, dialogues, intuitive guidance and occasional expert support they work for all the world in this symphonic way. By contrast poor directors enter the room already knowing what they want to get out of the actor and determined to force him or her into delivering it. I left wondering whether we can find a way to bring this kind of poetry into our assessment led culture?
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National Treasures.

2011-09-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

A day on the Southbank. Patsy, Matt and I were at the National Theatre early to set the first year students off on an induction treasure hunt - designed to get them a little more acquainted with London as a theatre city. The route took them across the river, up through Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Piccadilly along Shaftesbury Avenue into Covent Garden, down Drury Lane and off along Fleet Street to St Paul's before crossing back to The Globe and a finish at Shakespeare's favourite watering place The Anchor in Southwark. We thought it would take them about three hours to get round, but by the time we'd set the last team off, browsed the bookshop and made our own leisurely way down river to the pub the pace setters were already waiting for us with their completed answer sheets. The single greatest resource our students have is London itself. It's important they get familiar with its museums, galleries and theatres as quickly as possible.

Stayed up in town and managed to get a £5 standing ticket to a preview of the new Mike Leigh play Grief, which doesn't open until next week. As ever with Leigh's work, the play is delicately textured and beautifully paced. The cast are growing into their work and trying to find the balance in time for first night.

The play is set in 1957, where war widow Dorothy is trying to bring up her rapidly changing teenage daughter Victoria, in line with the imagined wishes of her dead husband. Meanwhile her older brother Edwin faces up to retirement from the Yorkshire Insurance company after 45 years of uninterrupted service.

The suburban house they share is a still place, books line the shelves, small sherries are drunk at the end of the day and a card table is brought out for a treat. Meanwhile in the background the Soviets put a dog into space, early computers are developed at Manchester University. The sixties are beginning to gently tap on the windows.

All this is superbly acted by Lesley Manville and Sam Kelly in the lead roles, with admirable support from a sparkling ensemble. It has the feeling of a gorgeously constructed piece of chamber music.

Leigh, the conductor supreme, carefully controls the minutiae of these shifts and leaves us wondering which of the many small acts of resistance from the siblings leads to the play's ultimate tragedy. Progress here is evolutionary, growing from tiny changes to recognised routines. It's a small challenge to the pervasive, and perhaps arrogant notion, that the future is in our hands.
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Begin Again.

2011-09-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

A first meeting with the freshers this afternoon and a chance for us to set out our stall for the coming year. I really enjoy this first session it always takes me back to my first day as an undergraduate looking round at the others in the room and realising that they were going to play a very importnat part in the next few years of my life.

Drama is, in some ways, an odd subject at University. It doesn't sit easily in the academic world and yet every year thousands of school leavers apply to take up a place. The crucial difference I guess between our discipline and the more traditional curriculum is that students are so reliant on each other to achieve. Of course the quality of debate in seminars is important, but few other subjects actually rely on teamwork. It's helpful to be in a good cohort.

Each year group has it's own personality, but the key early on is to create a positive culture based on punctuality, investment and hard work. Pride in the work comes soon after, but only if these intial building blocks are put in place. We really believe the best thing to do is to start work and learn quickly to enjoy the surprise of surpassing your own expectation.

We've no idea how these new students will fare. Looking out at the auditorium of faces it's impossible to know what's out there. The future director of the National? An Oscar winning actor? Award winning playwrights? Groundbreaking designers? Theatre Managers? Agents? Administrators? Fund Raisers? Producers? Critics? It's day one. Everything is possible.

The Number 10 Courier Service.

2011-09-12T04:26:00.000-07:00

The new students have arrived and suddenly the place comes alive again. Lovely to see the 2nd and 3rd years coming up to the Drama corridor to check their new timetables and help out the new recruits. It won't be long until firm friendships develop.

This afternoon Matt and I had our first meeting with level 3 to kick start their third year company module. They get an office, £250 quid start up and off they go making theatre, booking venues, touring their work. Next week they'll present their plans for the year and from then on the stabilisers really will come off as they try and bridge the gap between the safety of the University and the realities of surviving as freelance practitioners. It's an exciting, if nerve wracking step forward.

Matt himself has had an exciting summer with the Foreign Office requesting a copy of his verbatim play developed at Drama St Mary's, The Robben Island Bible, to give as a gift to Nelson Mandela for his 93rd birthday.

Matt was back in Indiana at the time and had to hurriedly FedEx the script from Indianapolis. A few days later Matt's having a coffee downtown, picks up a copy of the Indianapolis Star and sees a picture of David Cameron handing over a bag of gifts to Desmond Tutu. So he speculatively sends off an email to his contact at the foreign office to make sure his present also arrived safely - only to find that the present in the bag was the play itself. Apparently the plan had been for David Cameron to present the gift in person, but had, had to fly back a couple of days early and so left it in the care of the Archbishop.

You couldn't make it up could you?
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The Legend of Lucy Lightfoot.

2011-09-11T05:38:00.000-07:00

Back in the Isle of Wight for the weekend and a visit to the cul de sac village of Gatcombe and its 13th century church dedicated to St Olave. In the sanctuary at the East end of the church lies the carved wooden effigy of Edward Estur, a crusader night who died in Palestine in 1303. His feet lie crossed on the back of a faithful dog. His eyes stare into the middle distance, lost in the timeless thought. An angel sits behind his right ear, looking over him. Nobody knows how the knight ended up in the church.

In the early nineteenth century Lucy Lightfoot, a local girl, who lived just over the down in Bowcombe began to attend services at the church. She was gorgeous, with flowing black hair and an easy laugh. Many tried to win her hand and many failed. Lucy never felt ready to take a lover.

Often though, after service, she would stay on in the church and sit in the sanctuary next to the knight, staring at him and stroking his face and apologising to him. The villagers began to take notice of her strange bond with the effigy and gently teased her for it. All she could do was shrug her shoulders and say that she found him unbearably beautiful.

Then one morning - the 13th June 1831 - to be precise, whilst out riding Lucy was caught in a huge storm, prompted by a total eclipse of the sun. The sky turned black, the winds blew huge and the rain began to fall. Frightened by the encroaching darkness she rode hard to the church, tethered her horse and sought refuge inside. It was the last anybody ever saw of her.

Two days later George Brewster, a local farmhand, noticed the horse looking scared and famished, still tied to the lynch gate. He raised the alarm and a search for Lucy was started - but to no avail. Her family were devastated.

Years passed and then in 1865 a distinguished Medievalist scholar Samuel Trelawney came across a document dated 1297 recording how the King of Cyprus had been in London recruiting English knights for the sacking of Alexandria. One of those volunteers was Edward Estur and, accompanying him to Cyprus went a dark haired beauty from Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight going by the name of .... Lucy Lightfoot.

They parted at Larnaca. Lucy vowing to wait patiently for his return. Edward sailed bravely on but sadly with the battle raging and the town repelling all advances, he took a blow to the head, suffered severe amnesia and was transported straight back to England to convalesce. Lucy waited for three years and then, believing him to be dead, married a Sicilian fisherman. She never returned to these shores. At least not in her first lifetime.

If you're ever in the Isle of Wight take a little detour to Gatcombe and look hard into Edward Estur's unblinking, far away eyes. Plucked from the past he could tell you a secret that would untangle time - if only he could remember it himself.

Dream Kitchen.

2011-09-06T02:32:00.000-07:00

To the National to see a preview of Arnold Wesker's superb fifties drama The Kitchen. It's a fantastic reminder of the way in which, for a brief period, British playwrights had a fascination for the sociological and economic structures that held our country together.

Set behind the scenes at the Tivoli restaurant an international cast of chefs, cleaners and waitresses work together to try and keep the 2,000 covers a day flowing to the customers out front; their co-existence only made possible by the economic need they all have to survive in London. There are tensions. Peter and Hans are on a post war reconciliation exchange scheme swapping British and German chefs, Max the butcher wonders whether the gas chambers weren't an efficient way to get rid of criminals, Paul is trying to find some peace and quiet in which to piece his life back together after a failed marriage. Others deal, thieve, flirt, swear and somehow keep it together despite the heat and stress of their work.

The play is marvellously balanced with each individual story spun gently like a plate to create a dizzying impressionistic effect overall. Wesker's genius, mostly through the sure fire way he controls the tempo, is to ensure none of these stories drop and we're left in no doubt that beyond the rituals and routines of survival, that each worker is in search of the space in which to nurture their own dreams.

At times Bijan Sheibani's direction works against this. Time is made oddly relative, frozen at moments, slowed at others, which although suggesting that some of the characters are on the brink of sanity, occasionally impedes on the flow of the text. This is most apparent in the wonderful set piece service at the end of act one where flying waitresses, and choreographed dance undermines the sheer breathtaking ability of the kitchen staff to deliver the volume of food demanded by the customers. The spectacle is there already. The embellishment unnecessary.

For all that the revival is timely and I was struck by how contemporary this play, about migrant workers negotiating between cultures whilst working in the service of the invisible affluent, remains. As a metaphor for the symbiotic structures that capitalism provokes it works brilliantly.

The anarchic ending offers no solution, but, in its own way, makes a political and humanist statement every bit as powerful and challenging as Nora's infamous door slam at the end of Ibsen's A Doll's House. Both are masterpieces of the well made play.

Mo-tivation.

2011-09-05T00:22:00.000-07:00

It's a big year for the University in the lead up to the Olympics. Our new multi million pound sport centre named after the famous Polish Goalkeepr John Paul II opens later in the month, the summer months saw visits to campus from both Sebastian Coe and Usain Bolt and we're now busy making preparations to host athletes from China, Ireland and South Africa in pre-games training camps.

The biggest boost though came yesterday with local hero and former student Mo Farrah racing to gold in the 5000 metres at the World Championships in Korea. It's great news - particularly after the disappointment of being pipped at the post in the 10,000 metres earlier in the week.

Mo is a remarkable man. Before he headed off to Oregon last year you'd have seen him doing laps here most mornings (he does about 130 miles worth a week) and no matter how early you cycle in, feeling like the first person in the world to rise, you know full well he's been out there for an age. No alarm clock on five minutes more snooze for him. The dedication in itself is inspiring.

Mo's going to have a lot of pressure on him between now and next summer and the win probably catapults him into superstar status - Channel 4 were on campus first thing this morning filming clips of the running track for a forthcoming documentary - but St Marys has been a good home for him. He's rapidly becoming our big medal hope for 2012.

September's Here Again.

2011-09-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

So off we go again a new year to look forward to. Ten years ago I started my MA, twenty years ago I was entering my final year at University and thirty years ago I was heading for my first day of secondary school. If you stay in education Autumn always seems to be the beginning of things.

After work I went with Patsy over to Commodity Quay in St Katherine's Dock to see the first night of the new National Theatre / Headlong production of Decade a kaleidoscopic exploration of events both during and since 9/11. The piece has been created by nineteen celebrated writers from both sides of the Atlantic including verbatim pioneer Alecky Blythe, TV Historian Simon Schama, Mike Bartlett, Samuel Adamson, DC Moore, Abi Morgan and Christopher Shinn.

On one level the collaboration appears mouth watering but, as we headed past 11pm, I began to wonder whether the editing process wouldn't have benefited from some Cameron-esque tough love. Some of the material just isn't well conceived, much of choreography lacks polish and whilst the best of the writing sparkles and shines the jumble of voices and impressions seemed to leave the audience exhausted. The applause at the end was strangely muted.

But it's certainly worth seeing. There are great performances throughout, most notably from Emma Fielding, Charlotte Randle and Tobias Menzies and some of the speculated scenes carry real weight and poignancy. 9/11/2001 was certainly a day of incomprehensible chaos and confusion. Along with everything else I remember being aware that for the first time in my life events were moving quicker than the media could and that much of our understanding of what was occurring came from mobile phone images, last second texts and an explosion of disbelief. As one character rightly points out it was like being suddenly thrown into a disaster movie. What Hollywood had imagined as catharsis New York experienced as reality. 'What would you do? Jump or fry?'

What surprised me watching a response ten years later is that we're still in the forensic process of honouring and listening to every voice. Perhaps the production was being honest in refusing to move away from democratic impressionism? Perhaps the number of collaborators make it inevitable that we'd only receive fragments from an imagined history? Perhaps it's just still to recent to do more than honour the memory? Time may not be able to heal everything but this show couldn't half do with someone making a decision to knock half an hour off it.

Gods at The Globe.

2011-08-30T00:57:00.000-07:00

To The Globe for an afternoon as a groundling, catching two shows. First up was a fun filled, rumbustious Tony Harrison version of The Mysteries, full of theatrical tricks and lively invention. The always impressive David Hargreaves played God - blunt, plain talking and often impatient. His only solace against the misdemeanors of mankind a cup of strongly brewed Yorkshire tea and the chance to put his feet up in the shabby armchair from where he oversaw creation.

There are some stunning set pieces. The Massacre of the Innocents full of genocidal horror, the 2nd Shepherds Play finely tuning broad farce with the poignant announcement of the nativity and the casual conversation of the workmen nailing Christ to the cross, whilst deciding how to wager for his cloak, all served as excellent reminders of the way in which the Medieval writers skillfully implicated their audience into shows of awe and wonder. Here the word is truly made flesh and we are held responsible. This is not voyeuristic theatre. We're present and forced into decisions at every turn.

Back in the evening to see a new comedy The God of Soho by the Scottish dramatist Christopher Hannan. Feisty and hectic it felt a bold choice for the venue and to begin with the audience struggled to get a grip on the broad humour and slightly surreal version of heaven and hell presented before them. Essentially the play is centred around three love affairs God -played this time by Parklife legend Phil Daniels - and Mrs God are slowly losing it, but keep a fond banter going meanwhile their daughter the Goddess of Love spurned by a New God comes down to Essex to see if she can regain her magic. Here she ends up watching the tender but self destructive relationship between celebrity it-girl Natty and her musician boyfriend Baz who in turn are struggling to find the formula to become nobodies that might enable them to put their own egos aside and be blissfully happy together.

In reality it's all too much for two and a half hours - but there's some great lines, beautiful moments and in the end a powerful, if self evident, truth about the nature of love is laid bare. I'm not sure you need much else from a day at the theatre.

Melody and Sound.

2011-08-28T05:41:00.000-07:00

A reunion of the Rutland company over at Tina's to reflect on the show and tentatively think ahead to some future projects. It was lovely to catch up with everybody and have a chance to feedback on the work. It was a very interesting discussion. For all the positive experiences and outcomes generated during our time in the Midlands there was much to sift through and learn from.

Chris felt that in someways we'd failed to understand the space. In the pre-planning we'd assumed the water itself would be the main stage with the slope of the shoreline providing a natural rake to spectate from. In the event the huge tents placed at right angles to resevoir gave too clear a suggestion to the audience that the event was to be situated there. It was an uncomfortable surprise for many to have to angle themselves round to see the show on the water.

Anami talked about the dangers of site specific work where the landscape - including the architectue imposed by the show - can end up devouring the very meaning of the space. The tents were beautiful, but their size and elegence in many ways drew attention away from the live performances and, arguably, the wonderful mechanical structures that were created to tell the story.

Kate R. suggested we were in an uncomfortable half way house somewhere between a theatre piece and a festival event. In so many ways the logisitics concerned with safely producing an event of this scale dictated artistic decisions. With more time and greater understanding could the event have shaped itself around the theatre rather than the other way round?

There was much talk about the true value of the work. There is alway a tension between the aesthetic purity of theatre art and inclusive participation. It's often crudely polarised as amateur v professional - but the truth is more complicated. Community work only really happens once we start to see the act of enabling others as an art in itself. The question on this project was did the community have enough to do? As artists, we carried every decision of significance, but does that matter? Is being part of it enough?

Nick explained that for him the process of composing a show for the community had forced him to focus on melody. In effect he was trying to create a folk experience, where the score, although completely original and specific to the piece, felt familiar and belonged to Rutland. He suggested the more his focus shifted onto a populist and accesible approach the less concerned he became about the precision of sound. Perhaps this is a clever metaphor for the tension inherent in Applied Theatre practice? Chris suggested this was all a part of the pleasure principle. For an audience to have a good time they have to recognise something familiar to grasp or relate too. The role of art is then to lead them somewhere they had know idea that they wanted to go.

Chasing Shadows.

2011-08-26T05:11:00.000-07:00

Off to Camden with Carolina to see Chasing Shadows at the People's Theatre. The show, playing as part of the fringe festival, been put together by former Drama St Mary's student Nyasha under her new company Tilt The Table and featured five of our current undergraduates. It's great to see students taking the initiative and finding ways to publicly expose their work beyond the safety of the campus.

The dance based piece told the true story of Carolina and Ny's friend Ed, a South African musician who has Tourettes. The piece looked at his relationship with his Dad, his teachers and his music, ending happily when he meets Emma on a tube train and is invited to join her band. It's a simple and tender story on overcoming adversity, with some imaginative choreography.

At present it runs at forty minutes and although we get a great sense of Ed's biography and spirit of independence I wanted to know more about Emma, played with great humanity by Beth Rudkin, who only arrives for the briefest moments to save the day at the end of the play. If Ny can find away to intertwine her history into the plot she may well find some further moments of hope and beauty that will counterpoint Ed's story of struggle and humiliation.

I hope they'll find the time to develop it further. It's a solid prototype that needs texture and a few twists.

Drama and Maths.

2011-08-20T02:49:00.000-07:00

Beginning to look forward to the new semester now. Things have changed quite a lot at University over the summer. Both Paul and Sue have left the department and Michelle is on sabbatical until Christmas, which means a reorganisation of teaching and responsibilities. As part of the reshuffled I'm teaching Early Modern Drama for the first time at Level 2, which I can't wait to get stuck into. I'm also picking up London Theatre Now, an induction module for Level 1 and overseeing Making Theatre, which I hope will give students a chance to look in depth at the different approaches current practitioners have to the act of creation.

I'm retaining the second semester community project and am hopeful that Ham House will once again host the event. I've got a couple of ideas already, but most of this work is developed in consultation with the students, so at this point I'm just scribbling on the back of an envelope.

One idea is to create a journey based roughly on Lewis Carroll's Alice stories that would lead the audience through a series of encounters in the Ham lands to a finale at the house itself. We could either adapt Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass or create our own adventure, filled with new characters and problems. I'm wondering whether we couldn't link in with some local schools and use the drama to help explore the Maths curriculum. Could we create a scene that teachers the principles of probability, algebra, geometry, trigonometry etc? Or perhaps find a way to personify time and space, enabling a very human introduction into the world of physics?

My own understanding of both disciplines is remedial to say the least. I always struggled at school with the abstract and conceptual notion of pure ideas. I desperately needed to understand exactly how the work I was doing could affect me or those around me. It was too big to be necessary. Now I'm much older I find the patterning of maths and the sheer imaginative leaps that physics calls for fascinating. I wonder whether a cleverly devised show couldn't entice younger children into a more curious approach?

To help get the ball rolling I've been reading a brilliant book Alex's Adventures in Numberland by the journalist Alex Bellos. It's a systematic explanation both of the history of mathematical thought and of the applied uses that even the most speculative number games can offer. It's certainly food for thought.

Stourhead.

2011-08-15T02:48:00.000-07:00

Summer is moving fast and it's only a couple of weeks until we'll be back in University full time, making sure everything is in place for the arrival of the new students in mid-September. After the excitement and jet lag of Malawi, Hong Kong and Rutland I've been using the time to read and plan for the new semester, punctuating time at the desk with a few more localised jaunts.

August isn't a great month for theatre in London. The new stuff all premieres in Edinburgh and the established shows maximise their profits by charging top prices for the tourists who are persuaded that a trip to London isn't complete until you've forked out £60 to see Phantom of the Opera. It's a good time to take a break from the capital.

This weekend I headed west to Wiltshire and had a lovely couple of days mooching about Calne, Bath, Bradford upon Avon and today, again making use of the National Trust pass, down to Stourhead on the Dorset border.

Before he came to Ham House, Gary was property manager here, and has written the definitive guide to the house and its incredible landscaped gardens. He's been encouraging me to make a visit for a long while.

I wasn't disappointed. Inspired by the Italianate utopias of Poussin's paintings the land rolls over hills and bridges, weaving a path between lake shore and dense woodland. At every turn temples and towers framed from grottoes and glades. It's all rather breathtaking. A longer walk around the parameters of the estate offers a less delicacy, but wonderful views from the folly of Alfred's Tower and a gorgeous walk through Six Wells Valley to the medieval St Peter's Pump moved here from Bristol to mark the source of the Stour.

It began raining so I headed back, taking in a quick detour to East Knoyle, where Christopher Wren's father was rector at St Mary's church and where the architect was born in 1632. The family were staunch Royalists and Christopher Wren senior fell foul to the roundheads who not only removed him from his position during the Commonwealth, but also destroyed the ornate alabaster reliefs depicting old testament stories that he'd crafted in the knave. He died before the restoration and never lived to see St Paul's Cathedral built. A v-sign to puritanism if ever there was one!

To Napier's Yard.

2011-08-10T02:47:00.000-07:00

Things seem to slowly be coming under control, which meant that despite a cancelled dress yesterday tonight's show could go ahead. A couple of the cast dropped out, preferring to stay in rather than venture out onto the streets, but most of the company gathered early to try and cram in some last minute rehearsal before the audience arrived at 7.30pm.

Lines were reallocated, a couple of work experience students were swiftly kitted out in stove pipe hats, waistcoats and given half an hour to learn a couple of verses, but the overall feeling was one of fun and defiance.

The cast set themselves at strategic points along the Thames path. A couple of lads in hoodies on push bikes cycled up and down before finally finding the courage to ask what was going on. I guess in the age of flash mob the line between civil disturbance and street theatre has narrowed significantly. They seemed happy enough with the idea of a play and decided to hang on to watch.

There was a decent turn out and Claire launched us off at the gates of The Space conjuring an image of the ship towering above the rooftops, blocking out the evening sun as it rose from the dock across the way. Rav picked up the story describing how the West Ferry Road would have looked back then, before leading us on to Donna and Charles and Rada. Each member of the cast adding a little more of the story as we inched closer to the old yard.

Using side streets and back passages the cast overtook the audience so that when David and Pete guided us round the corner, the whole team were revealed frenetically working in the space. It was a wonderful sight.

The Leviathan project has been great fun to be around. I wonder if it might be a the basis for a larger piece of work.

Disruption.

2011-08-08T04:44:00.000-07:00

Back in London and things have kicked off over the weekend. A stand off in Tottenham turned into a mini riot, which spread last night to Enfield and Hackney and by this evening several pockets of London seemed to have been taken over by looters.

It made it hard to get to Leviathan rehearsals we had to gingerly pick a route through South London to Tower Bridge - with news coming through all the time of problems in Croydon, Lewisham, Peckham and Clapham. All seemed quiet on the Isle of Dogs, but a few of the company arrived feeling worried and gloomy about the night ahead.

It's a strange situation feeling that London is on the edge of rebellion and unable to prevent the spread of violence and theft as it moves like a wildfire across the city. Something unreal about it happening on the doorstep.

Adam worked the company hard tonight - to finish putting the show down, ready for tomorrow night's dress rehearsal and to begin with all seemed to be going well. Unfortunately about an hour in Teresa got a call on her mobile to say that rioters were gathering on the corner of her road just a couple of miles north from us in Bow. She made her apologies and went home to protect her house.

Although we carried on, the mood had changed. Most of the company wanted to stay and work but there was a creeping feeling that things were going on beyond the rehearsal room that we'd all do well to be aware of. We finished at 10pm and drove back to Ham, via a number of diversions, sirens wailing all around. Adam will make a decision in the morning as to whether in the current chaos the project can go ahead.

The Tennyson Trail.

2011-08-07T04:47:00.000-07:00

A full day to enjoy and with the weather set fair we decided to take the Tennyson Trail which takes a high path from Carisbrooke, in the dead centre of the island, to the westerly most point at Alum Bay. The trail is named after the famous poet, one of the many eminent Victorians who gravitated here after Royal family had set up home. Their patronage revolutionised the island in the second half of the nineteenth century changing its status from agricultural backwater to holiday destination for the rich and famous.

We followed a footpath up onto a chalk ridge overlooking the ancient castle, where Charles I was imprisoned, and headed off with the Medina river and Cowes clearly visible in the distance to our right. After a couple of miles the path descended into the glories of Brighstone forest - dappled light, inviting trails and footpaths, mature trees and wild flowers. After barely an hour the path rose again and we emerged on the South side with a full view of the long stretch of coast leading from Chale right along to Freshwater visible, a bridleway took us to Mottistone Down, from where the whole island can be seen. Remarkably we barely passed a soul.

With time and weather on our side we decided to use our National Trust passes and detour to Mottistone Manor with its magical Elizabethan garden a mile or so off our track. The house itself is still in private residence, but it was wonderful to be here in the height of summer with the bees buzzing around the scented flower beds and the warm breezes blowing gently in from the channel.

Off again for the next stint over Brook Down to reach Freshwater Bay - home both of Tennyson and the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, whose home Dimbola Lodge, has recently been rescued and turned into a museum dedicated to the early days of picture taking.

The land narrowed now, giving us the false sense that our journey was near completion, but a steep climb up to the monument of Tennyson Down revealed our destination as a couple of miles further on.

With aching feet and the light beginning to fail we set out on the final leg to the Needles Battery and the coloured sands of the collapsing cliffs. Downhill with blisters to the car in Totland, giving us plenty of time of make our way back to the ferry and home.

Osborne House.

2011-08-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

A chance for a weekend away and so we caught the early morning ferry from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight for a cheap and cheerful get away and a long planned visit to Osborne House, Queen Victoria's favourite home high on a hill in East Cowes.

Soon after they married Victoria and Albert bought the house as a place to where they could retreat from the stresses and strains of courtly life. Albert, defying his Gothic credentials worked with the design Thomas Cubitt to create and Italianate palace - apparently the view across the Solent reminded him of the bay of Naples.

It's a really moving place, small in scale, reflecting the couple's desire to attempt some sort of domestic normality. Their private rooms have been left as they were including the joint study where they worked together on a daily basis. Victoria's desk, filled with keepsakes and ephemera, raised slightly higher than her husbands tidy and functional surface.

Albert was clearly a remarkable man, an internationalist, with clear views on how young Royals should be brought up. The Swiss chalet, allotment plots, museum of curios and play fort, half a mile from the main house bare testimony to his progressive views on holistic education and his long term plan to engineer marriages between the Princes and Princesses from the great dynasties of Europe was driven by a desire to ensure peace across the continent. With the hindsight of two world wars we can see how tragically it backfired, of course, but one can only wonder whether, had he lived, Albert's benign influence, and assertive search for the best of the world, might have slowed the insular armament of the nineteenth century superpowers.

When Victoria died in the house, bringing to an end the nineteenth century, her son, the new Edward VII, sealed the bedroom for fifty years, to create a shrine, only visited by the immediate family. The house itself was given back to the nation and now stands as a physical representation of a way of life and thought that spread from the two linked desks outwards ever outwards to help create the largest empire the world has ever known.

The Leviathan.

2011-08-01T05:31:00.000-07:00

Work on The Leviathan project at The Space in Docklands continues apace. The group have been meeting every Monday night for the last five weeks finding different ways to dramatise texts, photographs and poems relating to the Great Eastern built just the other side of the West Ferry Road. Tonight Tina came over to give some advice on costuming and to have a look at the work.

The work is marvellously low key. The short walk from The Space to the launch site will be punctuated by short readings from different characters - riveters, royalty, Brunel, dockers, investors etc. who'll pop out to join the crowd as they make their way along the Thames Path, adding expectation and number to the arrival at the wharf itself.

Eleanor has found a description of the inside of the Eastern and a group of actors have been using it to create a virtual tour of the ship. It'll be a true act of imagination, asking the audience to recreate the largest ship ever built in a completely empty space. The whole thing is only going to take half an hour to play, but I sense a prototype for a much more ambitious piece of work.

There is a really lovely feel to the group. No sense of pretension or competitiveness, just a desire to use these sessions to tell stories and socialise. It's amateur work at its finest, bringing different people from the community together to enjoy each others company and creativity.

A Woman Killed by Kindness.

2011-07-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

To the National to see Katie Mitchell's new production of A Woman Killed by Kindness. It's a fascinating production and the best kind of theatrical experiment.

Originally set in 1603 Mitchell sets the production in 1919 - a world of huge uncertainty, regret and shame brought about by the end of the war mixed in with a new sense of purpose and possibility - women's suffrage had been granted the year before. The update not only allows us to focus on the mirrored lives of Annie, whose husband punishes her adultery by turning her out of the home and refusing her access to her children, whilst Susan, trapped and lonely in her brother Charles' house is traded into marriage in order to pay a debt of honour, but makes clear the suggestion that the plays of the Jacobean age have a domestic rigour to them that can make terrifying sense when juxtaposed with the skull beneath the skin violence and cruelty that is only a weak mistake away from us all. The men play cards whilst the women manhandled like pieces of furniture in beautifully choreographed interludes, are punished for missing perfection.

Mitchell is fascinated by the early twentieth century and as ever links links her feminist reading to one of class. Servants scurry mute mice around the set, always hurried, always unrewarded, always aware. It is a patriarchal world and we are left to wonder at the structures that enable so much unchecked destruction to be placed in the hands of monied men.

The show runs at nearly two hours without an interval, but has enough texture to support the investment. This is a recognisable world which rescues the play from the dusty shelves and reclaims it as a serious and contemporary comment on gender politics.

A Day at the Test.

2011-07-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

Early morning rise and off to the Test at Lords. Amazingly with the match in the balance and all three results still possible general admission tickets for the final day went on general sale at 8.30am this morning. It was too good an offer to miss.

By the time I'd got to St John's Wood the queue had already past the tube station and a real sense of excitement was in the air. England needed a further nine wickets, India needed to hold it together and if they managed to bat with a sense of purpose all day it was just possible that might overhaul England's 458 run lead. Also an opportunity, probably a final opportunity, to see the Indian middle order, who since the timely demise of the Australian superstars have grasped the mantle and propelled India into the number one test nation in the world. Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman and Dhoni. Names already assured a revered place in the pantheon of legend.

It took two hours to get into the ground and news quickly spread that thousands had been turned away. The police had even be called to quell the disappointment of those who'd missed the cut.

England looked...well very un-English! Confident, fit, encouraging, revelling in each others success, not dwelling on misfortune or searching for blame, just getting down to work. It's a long time since I've seen a team work like this. After a few tasty overs they got the huge reward of Dravid's wicket, nicked to the ever alert Matt Prior behind the stumps. A sense of possible, despite the formidable batting line up to come, swept across the stands.

Laxman came out and settled down to making some runs. Chances came and went and he stuck around to make 56 before a loose shot swallowed by Ian Bell at mid-wicket lifted us again.

Tails up and Tendulkar in but without the score moving on the overcautious Gambhir was trapped by Graham Swann and so the little master trooped off for lunch a lonely figure.

After lunch he just couldn't get going. England looked young and were everywhere. Runs dried up and the chance of an Indian victory disappeared. Now it was just a question of whether they could block out for a draw - but the bowlers were steaming in. Tremlett like a snarling bull. Broad dangerous every time he turned and Jimmy Anderson swinging the ball in all directions.

Unbelievably to gasps of disbelief captain Strauss put down an easy catch, but it only served to fire up the team and two balls later Anderson got the prize. Tendulkar trudged back to a standing ovation form a crowd many of whom would have secretly liked him to score his hundredth test hundred here. Unlikely he'll ever return to Lords.

No such sentimentality in the middle as India began to rebuild. The rest of the session was frustrating as the new partnership of Dhoni and Raina settled in. Tea was taken with England still needing five wickets.

It didn't take long for the show to get back on the road. Tremlett getting his reward for his tireless running and Dhoni departed to make way for the lower order. Harbhajan played a shot too many and went cheaply. Broad demolished Kumar's stumps and Raina edged to Prior ending his counter of 78 to give Anderson his fifth wicket in the innings. So here we were just an hour after the nervous worry of tea with Broad steaming in to trap Sharma leg before and record a wonderful, wonderful victory against the best team in the world.

Perhaps the times are changing. Perhaps England can become regular world beaters. It'll be giddy at the summit, but today was very impressive, not lucky, plucky, eccentric, bull dogged or qualified, just very, very impressive. Can it be happening?

Craven Cottage

2011-07-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

Without a World Cup or European Championship it can be a long summer for football fans waiting nervously to see if the optimistic words of their manager's pre-season patter have any meaning in the competitive reality of Autumn.

West London is having a footie boom time just at present and any student joining us in September who wants to go and watch a match or two will find themselves spoilt for choice. Our nearest league club for as long as anybody can remember is Brentford - a short bus ride away from the campus. They've made steady progress since winning League 2 a couple of seasons ago and are now firmly established in League 1. The ground is blessed with four pubs, one on each corner. This year however the Bees status as our local team has been challenged by the miraculous rise of AFC Wimbledon, who nine years after having all their players rudely abducted to Milton Keynes are now back in Division 2 and playing at the modest Kings Meadow ground in Kingston.

From Richmond a short tube ride takes you to Hammersmith from where a twenty minute walk north or east will take you to the Premiership glories of either newly promoted QPR or punching above their weight Fulham... and then of course there's Chelsea!!!

Tonight on a balmy evening we drove to Putney, parked up, took a lovely walk through Bishops Park to the old world charms of Craven Cottage, where Fulham were playing Northern Irish club Crusaders in the second leg of a qualifier for the Europa League. Crazy to be playing competitively in July! I'd not been to the ground before and, even with it's agonizingly kitsch Michael Jackson tribute statue, its a brilliant throwback to a puritan age of meat pies, wooden stands and narrow turnstiles. The perfect place to watch football. Remarkably given the sold out oligarchy down the road, tickets were on sale for the first few Premiership games and at fairly reasonable prices as well.

Fulham played well and didn't really have to break sweat to record a 4-0 victory over the Ulster part timers. Still they played some decent stuff, certainly enough for their fans to go home happy, touching the bootlaces on Johnny Haynes' statue for luck and licking their lips in anticipation of the big kick off less than a month away.

The Emperor and Galilean

2011-07-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

A very busy day. Up early and off to Camden for a quick catch up with Keith at The Comedy School and a chance to see what we can do for next year. I'm hopeful we'll be able to run another freshers gig in September and perhaps help out in a more formal way at his Comedy Store fundraiser next Spring. It's hard times in the world of rehabilitative arts and Keith is increasingly looking towards the private sector to deliver his training programmes. He's stayed in touch with three of last years graduates - Steph, Danny and Kadeem and has been offering them occasional work for the company. It's a start.

Down to Westminster Cathedral for graduation. Patsy and Trevor also there in Hogwart style gowns ready for the proud procession down the aisle past beaming parents, best behaved siblings and finally the well scrubbed graduands themselves nervously gathered in the stalls. The service itself is long as each of the three hundred or so BA students come to receive their degree from the Principal - but it's always wonderful to see another batch make their way forward in the world. It was especially exciting for us as lecturers because these were the first cohort of the new degree to pass through. A full circle that's taken five years from the initial planning to fruition today.

In the evening I headed with Eleanor to the National to see a really good production of Ibsen's little known play The Emperor and Galilean. Set in 4th Century Rome, it's a complicated and intellectually challenging piece of work. Julian the Apostate rejects the oppressive Christian doctrines of his Uncle Constantine's court, only to become a tyrant in favour of his own brand of paganism once he inherits the empire. Cut back from an original script of over eight hours to a still substantial three and a half, the play wrestles from start to finish with the rights of individual belief and the parameters of tolerance, especially in an age of evangelism. Jonathon Kent's production leans heavily on contemporary parallels as a recurring film track loops silhouetted images of bombs falling on the present Middle East.

The real star of the show is the wonderful Andrew Scott in the lead role. He is an actor of such quick turn and fleet thought. Nothing is spelt out and nothing is missed. Although this show is probably not starry enough to go down as anything but a solid and timely revival - his high octane intelligence must surely mark him as one of the leading players in London.

Meeting Myself Going Backwards.

2011-07-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

A day of reunion and a chance to say goodbye to the European School, which after over thirty years of operation is closing. About 400 former students and teachers gathered to chat, reminisce and show their own children and partners around.

When it opened in 1978, the school was a bit of an experiment - over twenty different nationalities were organised into five different language sections, working within a curriculum focused on European integration. We were taught to be European citizens first, nationals second. We worked together in a spirit of diplomacy, without many rules beyond the pragmatism of respect. It led to a very lenient, open and generous culture where the only thing not tolerated was intolerance itself. We had no uniforms, were worked very hard, encouraged to run things, listened to seriously, laughed a lot, travelled quite a bit and knew no better. It's a form of progressive education that in the days of league tables, and outcome focused syllabus seems as arcane as the Rubik cube or the Berlin Wall.

Visits to the past are by definition evocative, but in true Proustian style it was the smell of the old rooms that conjured up memories, feelings and reactions long submerged in the intervening years. I walked into the boys changing room and immediately the goose bumps appeared as the excitement and anticipation of the football match to come took over. The dusty hall took me back to final year exams and the secure knowledge that how I performed over a few hours, under conditions, would dictate a large part of the future that I'm currently enjoying and the Chapel; home of assemblies and the site of so many instructions and groundbreaking announcements, which seemed at the time epic in scale.

A handful of my year group were there; Lucy, bringing her three children, came over from Denmark. Jayne brought her husband Steve, stepson Liam and her Mum, who in her day was a formidable chair of the parent's association. John, with his partner Phillipa, expecting their first child in the Autumn an Boris who brought his wife Ruth and their clan of children down from Chester. Alongside these familiar faces, a clutch of siblings brought news of other old friends who for one reason or another couldn't attend - April, Maria, Mehdi, Laurence and Giovanni. It was lovely to have the chance to send them good wishes and remembrances.

More amazing still was the chance to catch up with old teachers. There was my English teacher Mr Campbell, who convinced me that I could write critically if only I stayed attentive to my feelings and honoured them honestly. Mr Hannaford, who somehow managed to keep smiling as I struggled to understand logarithms. PE teacher Mr Wickes, who turned my enthusiastic amateurism into a loyal commitment towards my classmates. Historian Mr Pearce, who gently encouraged us find links and parallels between the past, present and future and finally Miss Lloyd-Jones, whose Philosophy lessons unfolded hundreds of possibilities for looking at the world. She also had a wonderful way of overlooking bad behaviour.

It makes me aware of how subtle great teachers are. What gifts they give - sowing ideas and promoting attitudes that blossom ten, twenty, thirty years later. For all the merry making, there was a sense that our was a golden time of privilege and light. Our world is in retreat now and a more cautious age of accountability has appeared on the horizon. The School may close, but nobody can take away the knowledge that we really were very lucky to have been a part of it all.

Back in London I found a short passage from C.S Lewis' The Four Loves on friendship.

Those are the golden sessions... when our slippers are on, our feet spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life - natural life - has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it?

The Power of the Play.

2011-07-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

We went over to Heathside School in Weybridge this evening to see their school play. It's been directed by former Drama St Mary's student Danielle - who only two years after graduating is acting head of Drama there - and was created using the methods we explored when putting together the site specific quest play The Shrinking Land of Kalku for Chiswick Park in 2009.

Many schools see the annual play as a promotional opportunity. A big musical that entertains the parents, gets some photos in the local press and brings a large section of the school's community together. Danielle's work facilitating a fantasy written by the students and weaved into the landscape of the school goes one stage further in allowing them to re imagine the function of different spaces and produce an escapist metaphor that allows the cast to express safely some of their hopes, fears and concerns for the future. There were over 300 in the cast.

As in so many of these stories - Alice in Wonderland, His Dark Materials, The Wizard of Oz - a teenage girl took the role of the protagonist and we followed her as she tackled and resolved a series of tasks and problems that strange and fabulous characters presented her with. Each encounter a step on the way towards developing knowledge, insight and maturity.

The work is particularly poignant at Heathside because it's the school Milly Dowler attended and where her Mum taught maths for a number of years. The last few weeks, with the allegations of phone tapping coming hot on the heels of Levi Belfield's trial and conviction, have brought back some painful reminders of Milly's disappearance and murder, which have had to be sensitively contextualised by the staff here.

Whilst the play itself didn't deal directly with those events - it was almost impossible not to acknowledge the tribute it played. Particularly in the scene set in Milly's garden where the protagonist, looked into a mirror and asked the reflection what she hoped for from the future. At the end of the conversation the reflection was invited to accompany us. She sadly explained that she'd have to stay where she was, but asked that we carry her dreams with us. Once again the girl vowed not to leave the reflection and promised to stay looking in the mirror, frozen for ever in the moment. Once again the reflection shook her head and told the girl politely but firmly that the time had now come to let go. The cast released red balloons and we were led to the next scene.

The value of drama and ritual in creating a space where we can poetically confront the dark, acknowledge our terror and yet still galvanise the strength needed to carry on living can, with brave teaching, work as well in a secondary school as in any of the world's great playhouses.

Mad Cows and Englishmen.

2011-07-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

Back in the UK the big local news concerns the cows on Petersham Meadow who are now under the management of our National Trust friends at Ham House. Earlier in the year the herd were attacked by a pit bull and although none were killed it put them under a great deal of unnecessary stress and prompted a fair amount of erratic behaviour. Based on the advice of the herdsman Gary and his team decided to remove the cows from the meadow until they calmed down a little and it's this act of apparent cultural sabotage has caused an uproar amongst the locals. In the end a compromise electric fence has been temporarily erected and the cows have stayed put.

This evening a public meeting in Petersham village hall, packed to the rafters with righteous indignation from the political correctness gone mad brigade. Fearing the worst for Gary, we went along to try and offer some support. The meeting was chaired by local councilors who've been quick to jump on the bandwagon and demand the fence be removed.

What we saw was an incredible display of arrogant localism as a string of villagers stood up to remind us of the history of the cows - painted by Turner no less - the nanny state, the insufficient signage, the value of common sense, the threat of health and safety legislation, the take over of the National Trust by woolly do gooding liberals and the collapse of civilisation itself.
Poor Gary battled in vain with a rather limp PowerPoint - including pictures of people who've been gored by stampeding cattle - and a refuted offer that we all brainstorm alternative ideas on large sheets of sugar paper around the room. A suggestion which was met with:-

'I don't want to make this personal but by God you're pushing me damn close!' by one enraged and ruddy resident.

In the end the mauling achieved little. Although the locals did go home with, what I presume for them is, the satisfying taste of blood in the mouths. The smug councillors were applauded for their public service and we took Gary and head gardener Sandra off to The New Inn to lick their wounds.

I wonder if this is the Big Society in action. The hall was filled mostly with elderly professionals, none of whom work in heritage or conservation, but all of whom seemed to want to tell the Trust how to do their job. I was struck that nobody with a young family - who might be grateful that the meadow remains a safe place for children - was in attendance nor was anybody really interested in Gary's strategy to reintroduce the cows and remove the fence. The politicians skillfully wound up the mob and let them loose. Of course any decision that affects a community deserves scrutiny but it's a big worry that as we de professionalise public service work more and more it'll be the easily outraged with time on their hands who set the agenda and force decisions.

It was very ugly.
.

Returns.

2011-07-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

My flight back to the UK wasn't until evening so having checked out I crossed the Salisbury Road and spent the morning looking round the wonderful Hong Kong Museum of Art. There was a brilliant exhibition of watercolour and oil paintings depicting the early days of the colony, which vividly told the story of how, after the first Opium War Hong Kong fell into British hands. It's quite in keeping with this place that it should have been a spoil of a viscous trade war. The British by all accounts behaved disreputably, firstly swamping the commodity market with an inexhaustible supply of Poppy seeds from their Indian colonies and then reacting aggressively when the Emperor, fearful of the damage to both the his economy and nation's health, intervened to try and stop the flood.

So much of Hong Kong's cultural life - the horse races at Happy Valley, the tram ride up the Peak, the ferries that link the train terminus at Kowloon clock tower to the main island, the rattling tram that takes you across the north shore - all have their origin in the early days of the settlement. All are pictured here customs and traditions established in a strange and foreign land.

After lunch I dipped back into the subterranean maze of interconnecting tunnels that surround Tsim Sha Tsui and walked half a mile or so to reappear on Chatham Road South at the Hong Kong Museum of History - where the Hong Kong story lays out in fascinating themed detail a clear chronological overview of the territory. It was brilliantly informative.

Time was cracking on and I only really managed to get from the Neolithic hunter gatherers to the end of the seventeenth century Ming dynasty before the alarms went off informing us of the museums imminent closure. The route round the exhibition is strictly one way and so we were hurriedly ushered through three hundred more years of Imperialism, Colonialism, occupation, transition and the return to Chinese rule where we were politely shown the exit.

And so off to the airport and home again. It's been an amazing and constantly surprising week. I hope it won't be long before I get an opportunity to return.

Island Hopping.

2011-07-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

Today had been scheduled as an overflow day in cases more discussions at HKCAC were needed, but the substantial talks yesterday mean that I've taken negotiations as far as my remit will allow on this visit. Both institutions need to go away and consider very carefully the recommendations drawn up.

With time on my hands I decided to explore a different side of the territories and so after breakfast I walked to Tsim Sha Tsui MTR to catch a train north and west to Tung Chung on Lantau. Tung Chung is one of the newest zones and has really grown up to support the airport just a couple of miles further on. It's real claim to fame however is that it houses the Ngong Ping cable car which rises majestically, carrying its passengers four miles, up into the mountains where the Tian Tan seated Buddha overlooks the charming Po Lin monastery.

It was a breathtaking half hour ride high above the remote hiking trails that pick their way through the lush terrain. We rode peak over peak until in the distance Buddha appeared peacefully gazing across the island. Five minutes later the car reached its terminus and out we jumped.

Buddha is a fairly new addition to the Hong Kong tourist scene having only been here since 1993, but at his feet a hub of tacky gift shops and fast food restaurants have opportunistically appeared. They're quickly passed and after a brief climb you find yourself in close proximity to the statue. Circling the base you can see far out over the South China Sea to Macau and the mainland. I dawdled for an hour or so at the monastery watching other tourists light incense offering to the several Gods, some of whom looked, in contrast to the main man, very severe indeed.

Back in Tung Chong I picked up a bus and headed for the traditional fishing village of Tai O. It was a real step back in time. The village is famous for its shrimp paste and wooden stilted houses that stand proud in the natural harbour. This is the most Westerly point of the colony and very little of the commercial wealth generated in the centre of the city finds its way out here. At the far end of the village, past the tightly packed tin shacks and dried fish stalls, offerings were being made to Kwan Tai, a God of War, who has protected the village from malign influence for hundreds of years. Behind, a huge jumbo jet, roared as it took off from the distant airport.

Another bus took me along the Southern shore to catch the ferry from Silvermine Bay out to Cheug Chau, an island made infamous by the exploits of Cheung Po Tsai, a nineteenth century pirate, whose treasure, so it's said, remains undiscovered in one of the vertiginous caves that cling to the coast. Night was falling now and so I decided to forgo the search and instead had a wonderful seafood hot pot, alfresco in a ramshackle restaurant overlooking the harbour. Hard to imagine that this is less than an hour away from the sleek and gleaming buildings of Hong Kong central. I caught the midnight ferry home.

Hong Kong Communication Art Centre.

2011-07-04T03:51:00.000-07:00

The Hong Kong Communication Art Centre is in the Causeway Bay area of the city, five minutes from Victoria Park and ten from the Happy Valley race course. Public transport in Hong Kong is so efficient, however, that you can be anywhere you want in less than half an hour. Mass transit is cheap, clean and reliable. It's a city that keeps its population moving.

Winston and I were welcomed by the principal Dr William Eng and side kick Herbert, who, should the franchise go through, will be responsible for liaison with St Mary's.

Talks were brisk and friendly. We were given a brief presentation and shown some videoed samples of student work. In many ways HKCAC seems a very good fit. They believe strongly in vocational training and in linking academic study with employability. Most of their work is assessed practically and it was clear from the short clips I saw that the students are committed, engaged and work hard at their craft. There are a couple of areas where we need to be careful that a match can be made. The degree is going to be delivered in English and although most of the students in the College are bi-lingual, HKCAC agreed to offer some additional support for those who might struggle, particularly on written assignments. I also felt that some of the physical work was slightly inhibited in comparison to what we'd expect form our students in their final year. This might be a cultural difference, but I suspect there may be a case for a week long induction workshop run by Kasia to help the students bridge the gap from Level 2 to Level 3. Our hosts listened carefully and seemed very keen to make these adjustments.

After lunch we headed further East to a new purpose built art centre from where Dr Eng is proposing the course might be run. It was incredibly impressive. A beautiful 670 seat theatre, 4 excellent rehearsal rooms, 2 dance studios, a cafeteria, Wi-fi ready green room, 3 small rooms equipped with pianos, plenty of storage space, a TV and a photographic studio. There was even a band room complete with guitars, keyboards and drums where either formal sessions or impromptu jams can take place. On the upper floor are seventy twin rooms so that visiting companies can lodge on site. It really was the stuff of dreams. I immediately began to wonder whether it would be possible to bring some of our work out on tour. It also provided a glimpse of the kind of purpose built arts centre that, if we're going to expand, we should be looking to build in West London. At the minute our stock in trade is in imaginative but essentially poorly resourced theatre making. Imagine combining the creativie skills of our students with the resources available to our colleagues in Hong Kong.

We ended the visit with a cup of tea and a shake of hands. CAC are keen to move forward fast, hoping to take a first cohort of St Mary's (HK) students on in February of next year. There's still some way to go in terms of due diligence and quality assurance procedures but I left sensing that this could be a very exciting and fruitful project not just widening Drama St Mary's international profile but also, in the longer term, providing some exciting opportunities for our students to define their own aesthetics and methodologies by working abroad.

Summit Meetings.

2011-07-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

I was up early and back across the bay to catch the jaw dropping Peak Tram which winches passengers from central Hong Kong up an almost vertical gradient to spectacular views at the highest point on the island. Despite the sloping floor it's impossible to stand on the journey, gravity forces you to lean back in your seat and wait for arrival. It's an incredible feat of engineering, made even more impressive by the fact that in its 125 year history it hasn't had a single accident.

From the summit you get a real sense of how the territories map out. Look back down to the familiar north shore and you recognise how condensed the commercial space is. Turn round and you understand how green the rest of the island is. In the distance are other destinations, wonderful weekend escapes, each with their own culture, history, way of life: Lamma, Peng Chau, Cheung Chan, Po Toi.

I only had an hour to catch the views before heading back down and onto the British Council for my meeting with Peter Upton, director for South China as well as consul for education and culture in the region. His office was an air conditioned nirvana from which to escape the midday heat. He offered welcome water and we chatted.

'This region is absolutely ripe for the creative industries,' he began 'In four years time a 200 million pound arts centre in Asia is going to open on reclaimed land in West Kowloon. It's going to turn Hong Kong into the hub for culture and the arts in South East Asia. China are taking the arts seriously and the investment here is impressive.'

We moved on to how a UK University might engage with institutions in the SAR.

'What's really interesting is that every year 8,000 students leave Hong Kong to go to English Universities, but last year only 22 made the journey in the other direction. That's strange and frankly a bit unhelpful for cultural relations. There's real opportunity for internships here as well as partnerships. If you are wanting to link in with the HE sector here you've got to decide what to focus on and offer real quality and expertise in that field. Hong Kong is highly competitive and performance driven. It'll take time to develop relationships, but once you have you'll find genuine loyalty from the institutions here.'

Back at the recruitment fair numbers had dropped off and it was a quieter afternoon which gave me a chance to have a look at the way the Australian Universities were marketing their courses. It's clear that the Creative Industries are increasingly seen as important players in the sector and I was fascinated to see the similarity in approach between a number of the institutions in trying to create a hybrid model of conservatoire/ university which Drama St Mary's has been pioneering in the UK for the last three years.

Packed up and headed back to Kowloon for an evening stroll amongst the herbalists, fortune tellers and open air opera singers of Temple Street. Hong Kong Communication Art Centre in the morning.

Taking the Shilling.

2011-07-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

I was met early by Winston, who is the agent St Mary's is working with to develop international partnerships in the Far East and together we travelled to the Expo hall in Wan Chai for a recruitment fair. The A-level results in Hong Kong came out last week and today was, in the main, an exercise in clearing for those students who hadn't managed to get the grades that would enable them to get into a home based institution.

The hall was packed with English and Australian Universities all keen to pick up students and it was fascinating to observe the process in action. Some institutions offered special deals to student who signed up today, others promised the earth without really asking anything about the student themselves. Nearly all had inserted the term 'International' into their nomenclature. I found some of the strategies extremely bullish.

The fair had organised for me to have two assistants, Kathy and Alice - both studying at undergraduate level in the UK, one at UAE in Norwich and one in Aberystwryth. Neither had known much about where they were headed when they left Hong Kong and both were finding life in the UK to be a bit dull. I asked them why they'd chosen to study in their respective Unis.

'I came to a fair like this last year,' said Kathy 'Aberystwyth looked beautiful. I didn't realise how long it would take me to get anywhere else in Europe. They made it sound like the centre of the universe.'

It's a tricky world. For UK institutions facing huge cuts the international market is a potential goldmine, but in the scrabble I worry that there isn't enough consideration given to the needs, personality or maturity of the students. I suspect some of my colleagues at the fair might judge such an attitude as paternalistic and that students and their families have every freedom to make an informed decision; but I disliked the ease with which potential obstacles such as poor communicative English, lack of geniune understanding about UK HE institutions or weak grades were swept away by the promise of an international student fee coming into the coffers.

I interviewed several candidates mostly for Business Studies or Media Arts courses. It's clear that St Mary's is attractive because of its proximity to London and it's pastoral approach. For parents, sending their children 9,000 miles away security is the main concern and I quickly realised that if we really do want to encourage students from Asia that we need to be certain that we offer a really user friendly induction programme and regular 'how are you doing' tutorials. It's this kind of support that gets reported back to schools, colleges and parents back here. I would even venture to say this is more important than the academic standing of the institution.

We wound up at 4pm, which gave me the early evening to explore the area. Wan Chai is one of the most rapidly developing areas on the Island, with great conference and concert facilities springing up - but it's also one of the oldest parts of the city and tucked away between the main thoroughfares are the traditional lanes and passageways where a more traditional way of living is fighting to survive.

I wandered past the blood stained fishmongers of Shone Nullah Lane onto Queen's Road which led me past the old colonial post office and the Hung Shing Temple into Star Street where my guide book suggested that I could eat at the only surviving Dai Pai Dong stall in the area. Dai Pai Dong literally means Big Plate Stall and has been part of Hong Kong life for many years. The old colonial government granted liberal licences, allowing huge freedom for the holders to create their own menus, but most specialise in one or two dishes. After the Japanese left at the end of World War II hundreds sprang up as the locals picked themselves up and looked for ways to resuscitate the economy. Now, as more permanent structures are developed, only 28 still exist in the whole of the SAR. The one advertised, specialising in coconut toast, had been run by the same family opening at 6am and closing at 10pm, six days a week, since the early 1950s. Sadly in between my book being published and my arrival it too had closed down.

Market Forces.

2011-07-01T03:30:00.000-07:00

A day to acclimatise before work begins on Saturday so I took the opportunity to explore, starting by taking the ultra efficient metro to Prince Edward station at the top of the Kowloon peninsula and then making my way back slowly through the markets and busy shopping streets on either side of Nathan Road.

The walk started sedately with a visit to the Yeun Po Street garden where every day a group of elderly men bring their caged birds for a 'walk.' They hang the cages on specially constructed frames and sit, tears in their eyes, listening to the birds as they sing. Perhaps the music recalls a freedom that they themselves have lost? Perhaps it brings reminiscence of a faded beauty? It's a highly melancholic scene. Around them are market stalls selling more birds in bamboo cages; as well as juicy caterpillars and grasshoppers to feed to their pets as a treat.

I continued on through the flower market to Tung Choi Street where birds give way to every kind of exotic fish you can imagine - all hanging in little bags of water. I'm not sure Hong Kongers love their animals in the way we would understand in the West, but it's clear that they're highly prized. Birds I was told bring good fortune. Goldfish bring great wealth.

Onwards through the cheap clothes in the Ladies market and on to the incense suffocated Tin Hau Temple - dedicated to the God of seafarers - a tiny oasis in the bustle of the city. It was only noon by the time I got here and the Temple Street area only really springs into life after nightfall so, after a swift stop in the Jade market, I headed through Kowloon Park to the harbour and caught the ferry across to Hong Kong proper.

I hadn't realised until I got to the other side that today is the 14th anniversary of the handover of the colony from the United Kingdom to China. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day (HKSAR for short.)

As part of that settlement it was decided that Hong Kong's capitalist system would be free from the Chinese government interference for a further period of fifty years. A 'One country, two systems' principle was agreed. There are 36 years to go.

Each year on July 1st around 200,000 people take to the street to demonstrate, amongst other things, in favour of civil liberties, freedom of speech and universal suffrage. I spoke to one protester who explained that whilst the Chinese had honoured the agreement, meaning these kinds of protests had never been clamped down in the way they might have been on the main land, there was no doubt that slowly the character of the place was changing as each year many thousands of Chinese citizens come and settle in the territory. English is losing its currency as the dominant working language.

'Change is creeping in,' he said 'and we have to ensure that our rights are not swept away.'

I watched for a while and then climbed a steep path in Hong Kong Park for a quick look around Flagstaff House, one of the oldest colonial administrative buildings, and now, fittingly, a tea museum. A short detour took me to another relic of former times - St John's Cathedral - incongruously modest when surrounded by the metal and glass of the modern Mammon worshiping skyscrapers.

The demonstration was in full flow now, filling the streets with people, colour and noise. Tired, I caught the ferry back to Kowloon and from the water watched the impressive pro-Beijing firework display light up the sky.

Eastern Promise.

2011-06-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I headed for the Far East. I'm talking to the Hong Kong Communication Art Centre about possibilities for partnership work with Drama St Mary's. In the first instance we're looking to run our final year as a top up for their Performing Arts 2 year programme - but if we can successfully negotiate that, then there may be more opportunities for staff and student exchange or placement. Over time it could mean we have a well resourced regional hub in South East Asia.

The flight itself wasn't nearly as gruelling as feared and after a fairly sound sleep I woke just as we broke cloud cover and began to descend over the South China Sea - hundreds of tree clad islands, trawling boats and in the far distance the skyscrapers of Hong Kong city. Thirty years ago the plane would have landed in the bay itself, swooping low over the built up residential zones in Kowloon; but now touch down is several miles West on reclaimed land north of Lantau.

Face pressed close to the bus window for the half hour journey into town, startlingly large suspension bridges, impossibly narrow towerblocks densely packed, more going up at every junction, huge ocean liners ploughing through the deep water channels between the islands. Frenetic activity, everywhere.

The eight hour time differential made it quite late by the time I arrived at the hotel just off Nathan Road, but I couldn't resist taking a midnight stroll, to get my bearings and soak up a little of the vibrant atmosphere of the Golden Mile.

I headed towards Victoria harbour, where the Star Ferry provides cheap passage for the thousands of commuters, who daily cross the narrow strait to Hong Kong itself. Turned the corner and suddenly a glittering skyline came into view, flashes of reflected neon tumbling across the water, the sky lit up as bright as day. Only here, from the other side of the bay, do you realise how rapidly the mountains behind the shoreline rise, narrowing the available land and enforcing the vertical. The engineering needed to accommodate the millions of people and thousands of businesses here is very impressive indeed.

Despite the late hour and the humidity, the promenade was crowded with revellers and tourists. I followed it along past the old colonial clock tour and onto the rather kitsch Avenue of the Stars which celebrates, through Hollywood style handprints and pavement stars, Hong Kong's film industry.

It's hard to imagine that it's only 170 years since a naval party first hoisted the British flag over what was then a sleepy fishing village and began the process of colonisation that has, in turn, led to the creation of this tiger city. There's so much I want to find out. It's going to be a fascinating few days.
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Future Thoughts and a Visit to The Space.

2011-06-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

Off the train and back to the day job with a full day of planning with Trevor, Patsy and Kasia in preparation for next year.

It's a fascinating time for Drama St Mary's. The first graduates from the new degree have just gone through with really impressive results. 76% gained either a first or a 2:1 - compared to 54% across the institution as a whole and although we did lose a handful on the way, everybody who stuck the course has ended up with a BA. It's a really good platform from which to build.

Of course good results don't stand for much if they don't help graduates into employment or further study - but the Applied Theatre work in Malawi, the Theatre Arts show case and the really impressive work done by the Level 3 Physical Theatre cohort give us real cause for optimism. There are agents sniffing round and several of the year group have already secured work for next year, often with companies or directors that they've worked with on the way through.

So far so good, but we know that the £8,000 fees give us a real challenge in terms of trying to attract students. It's a heavy investment and we've got to try and make sure that our offer provides something approaching value for money.

Much of the day was spent looking at whether we could move from a four day to a five day week for the students, in order to provide further training opportunities. We are still hamstrung a little by space. Indeed next year the occasionally used Langdon Centre in Teddington has been hired to full time in order to accommodate the curriculum and whereas elsewhere in the University the debate rages about how to design workloads that recognise the students need to take on part time work, we'd prefer to push ahead with a concentrated and extensive programme of work.

For me the few problems we had last year can all be resolved if we pay more attention to the tutorial system we set up this time last year. These are scheduled once a week at 9am and haven't been well attended. We weren't sharp enough in chasing those who didn't make it in and so an opportunity to really communicate new initiatives, advertise ongoing work and nip grievance in the bud, was lost.

Drama is a unusual subject in the academy. Firstly it's vocational and needs a great deal of contact time not just to transmit knowledge and discuss ideas, but primarily to set in place the good physical habits needed to be creative. Secondly, because it's about collaboration, it's imprecise. However near to perfection you personally take your craft, you'll be reliant on colleagues who bring their own experience, flaws and contradictions to the work. Even at its most remarkable it's always a compromise. It's why I think as a unit the 300 or so of us in Drama St Mary's are stronger than any pathway group, cast or individual. We've got to be prouder of each others work, accept the odd duff piece of work and build some momentum to move forward confidently.

In the evening I went over to the Isle of Dogs with Eleanor to meet Adam Hemming, who's agreed to take on the facilitation of her public engagement project. Adam weekly runs a drop in community drama group from his theatre The Space on West Ferry Road.

I don't know this venue at all. It's a converted Victorian church that at one point in its history must have welcomed the ship builders from the local yards into their congregation. It had a brilliant vibe, open, accomodating, with a friendly coffee shop/ bar and a real sense that the community own and support it.

The group do a huge range of activities and have just finished doing a full scale production. Adam thought the project would offer them a chance to do something in a minor key, explore the heritage of the area, whilst also giving him the chance to help develop some ensemble skills with his company.

He's only got six weeks to put something together, but was sure that he could use the resources, documents and old photos that Eleanor furnished him with, to create a small scale showcase on the Great Eastern launch site. It was a very positive meeting.
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Winding Up the Wind.

2011-06-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

A gorgeous day in middle England and for the first time in a fortnight no need to rush into action. Tina, Anami, Kate B, Nick and Nick's wife Natalie decided to drive out to Whitwell to have a lazy late breakfast by the water's edge and to reflect on the last few days. It had a very end of term feel. Tomorrow we all go home.

Most accounts from last night suggest a triumphant although all of us were so deeply involved that it's hard to know. It certainly felt like a strong piece of work.

We headed back to Oakham to pack and tidy the house before an excited call from Chris to say that sunny weather and word of mouth meant the site was filling up quick sent us scurrying over to soak up the atmosphere and to begin the slow process of building into the show. There were smiles all over the site; lots of handshakes, hugs and a real sense of achievement. It's odd that our second night, traditionally anti-climactic, is also our fond farewell to the county and each other.

The only worry was that with almost no wind tonight, that we might lose some of the exhilaration of the sail boats swashbuckling arrival? Given everything that could have gone wrong, it was a pedantic concern.

In the end things worked like clockwork. We had nearly 2000 in the crowd - including Eleanor and her parents who came up especially to see the work. With a satisfying sense of the poetic, the mass, straining for the best view, forced the VIPs to move forward themselves and so yesterday's gap was effectively filled.

Perhaps unsurprisingly I was less connected with the work tonight. It's been a great journey and a fantastic chance to work with some very, very talented people - but my head is already moving forward. It's a strange truth that, for a director, the pinnacle of your work comes before the show opens. Once it's running there is little you can do.

And so When the Wind Blows comes to an end. Lots friendly thanks from the cast, the drummers and the choirs. We headed back to Broccoli Bottom for a party before drifting home to catch a few hours sleep. I'm on the first London bound train in the morning.
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Border Security and a Beautiful Evening.

2011-06-25T04:16:00.000-07:00

Overnight storms had taken out one of the tents on the Normanton site, meaning much of the morning was spent watching a team of technicians wrestle to put get it standing again. As the hours went by the weather began to change and the sun threatened to shine. Perhaps things were going to go our way?

There was a fair amount of nervous tension and so after an early morning run through of duties and responsibilities we dismissed the actors and gave them an afternoon off to relax back at Broccoli Bottom.

Towards the afternoon a VIP tent was set up at the top of the slope looking down into the playing area - blocking many of our exits and entrances. A group of stewards from the Lions club were briefed not to allow any audience to sit between the tent and the staging area in order that an unrestricted view might be achieved. The problem was off course that all of the design and directorial decisions had been made assuming the audience would be right up to the edge of the space. Two weeks of work sabotaged by the desire to protect privilege. It seemed so out of keeping with the generous spirit of the project.

Representations were made but the organisers held firm. Compromises were suggested, but still they held firm. Subversion was considered, but eventually, with our irritation revealed, we had to give in and rush back to the young actors to tell them to break free from the agreed staging and inhabit the newly created gap. It was a destabilising risk, but a critical part of story telling is to decide where you want your audience to be when they hear it. The newly created empty space completely undermined the impact of what we'd created.

The stewards, were as good as their word, enthusiastically patrolling the space, challenging anybody who even thought about taking up position in this tempting vantage point. After watching one of them tell a young family, replete with picnic gear and a buggy, three times where they couldn't sit. I suggested they might like to take a more positive role in finding somewhere where they could. It was so hostile. A really unnecessary gulf.

By six we were in auto pilot. Companies checked off, props and costumes collected, instruments tuned and after a couple of thank you speeches Peter lifted his baton, the orchestra struck up its first notes and the ball rolled.

I spent most of it sitting with young Marcus, who despite never having rehearsed in the space, remembered his part perfectly. Elsewhere I watched from a distance as the teams of actors made cue after cue, working really hard to ensure the show. And then before I'd even really realised it'd started it was over. The final moment of crescendo as the Belle made its way to the horizon, Hannah completed her story and the sixty sailing boats performed their our synchronised dance on the water was beautiful. Tired and relieved I had to fight back the tears.

Arrival of The Fleet.

2011-06-24T03:07:00.000-07:00

Rehearsals moved from land to water today - which meant Fernando and me had a quiet day mainly spent watching the boats on the reservoir try and co-ordinate their tacking under Karen's radio instructions.

There are three main components to this. First of all the Rutland Belle, which once rigged with the osprey, is hidden behind the church. Its appearance into view could, provided we don't spoil the surprise, produce a wonderful moment of spectacle. Secondly we have three green goddesses disguised as silver fish, which will accompany the Belle and finally the sixty or so boats belonging to Sailability - a para sailing club which will be released from a holding dock and provide the grand and triumphant finale.

The pre-show routine for tomorrow is beginning to take shape. Space is now fully allocated, jobs fixed and timings agreed. We're still slightly stretched and are occasionally having to fend off well meaning offers of help from parents and other local supporters keen to take on responsibility for the shows well being. It's a difficult issue with community shows like this. It only works if everybody feels a part of things - but equally there has to a real sense of control from the professional team. The craft is in making very good decisions about other peoples skills and capabilities in order to harness the potential of the collective group. Get it wrong and you're in real show threatening trouble; get it right and the work grows beyond anybodies wildest dreams.

The weather was very difficult today - but in many ways this was a blessing in disguise. If we can make things work in the wind and rain then we should find even the half hearted late June climate, predicted for the weekend, relatively easy to manage. Towards the end of the evening Peter Ashworth, in charge of the young sailors, warned that we might have to abort the ending. We hit fast forward and watched from the shore as the boats rapidly filled the bay, making impressive use of the prevailing wind. It was magic.

The arrival of the flotilla marks the final layer of our show. There's Nick's score, Chris's script - read ever more sensitively by Hannah Gordon, who's been with us over the last couple of days, our land based choreography, the wonderful Sengalese drumming and now the boats. Each of these five elements has been conceived and rehearsed mostly in glorious isolation. Occasionally paths have crossed, but mostly the connections have been made through intelligence and facilitated accident. Even now less than a day away from our first performance we're still spotting the possibilities and making tweaks. It's been a marvellous way to work.

Sightlines Into the Past.

2011-06-23T02:21:00.000-07:00

Most of the day was spent working on the Spanish section of the show. The Senegalese work is so reliant on the students that we can only now tweak in theory, giving careful instructions to El Glayu and Drama St Mary's and hope that they'll communicate in the runs. It's a bit of a Chinese whisper way of directing - but for now it's all we can do.

As for the Asturian horse I'm still worried that we've spent so much time diligently working the blue silk - so that we can unravel and clear to within a bar of the score - that we've rather neglected the beauty of the puppet and are under playing its importance. In the story the horse stands for a symbol of our common humanity. Some of the oldest cave paintings in Europe are found in the Asturias. The Tito Bustillo cave is a major tourist attraction and it's here that our horse was originally drawn a mind bending 20,000 years ago. The accuracy, detail and sense of life in the painting connects us immediately to our ancestors in the most direct way imaginable. The image could have been made yesterday. It seems important as we've released him from the preservation of darkness to meet the osprey that we understand his demands. He is as fresh and full of vigour as when first created. There's a psychology and back story that we're not tuned into just yet.

We ran, with a skeleton cast and crew, on site early this morning and she rather gets lost behind the material. We've also blocked her far to close to Harry's osprey and it all becomes a bit of a blur.

One of the real difficulties is explaining to the puppeteers just how much animation is needed to raise the horse. There is a sense that because they're hidden they're somehow meant to work as technicians - efficient and precise rather than as character actors - full of spontaneity, energy and awareness of the audience. There is no room for diffidence.

It's becoming increasingly apparent how much energy the actors are going to need for the twenty minutes or so they're on stage. Not just in terms of playing to the huge crowd we're anticipating but also to get from one side of the space to an other. Occasionally we're asking them to make 400 metre runs in less than a couple of minutes in order to be in place for another entrance. Hard to nail this in a stop start tech.

By this evening we'd found a way for the horse to make a playful circle of the audience prior to his encounter with the osprey. El Glayu had also begun to warm up and suddenly the horse came alive, full of personality, pride and a sense of himself.

Moving Onto Site.

2011-06-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

We spent the full day on the event site grabbing any opportunity to walk through, time and finalise the scenes in advance of tonight's tech. Being by the reservoir offered opportunities to flesh out some of the key moments and to really understand whether we'd done enough to tell the story visually.

Tina was everywhere, keen eyes looking at ways in we might use flashes of colour - be they on the tropical birds wings or through mass ranks of yellow processional flags - to guide the audience's focus across the space. Every addition, of course, brings fresh logistical problems and at times there was a tension between what I felt we could achieve and the desire to populate the space with banner carrying actors. Charo and Fernando have already been drafted in to lead the crucial process of removing the osprey head from the Belle and bringing it solemnly to land and we're simply down on numbers. Through patient negotiation and moments of rare compromise, however, we did make some progress.

Meanwhile in the near distance Kate, Anami and Stu worked steadily and diligently setting the huge osprey that will sit proudly on the spit in front of Normanton church. The opening chords of the music will wake him at the very start of the show, prompting him to flex his magnificent wings and twist his head to survey the Rutland sky. It's clearly painstaking work, but back on land we get an impending sense that something truely wonderful is taking shape.

At 4pm the children began to arrive. Not just the drummers and performers; but also 300 primary school children who were quickly marshaled into their choir positions. It soon became apparent that the focus of the tech would be musical and so in the end Fernando and I had to take our company to the other end of the site so that we could teach and run our sequences. The two hours flew by and I felt we were working dangerously fast and not giving the young performers any chance to consolidate the direction through repetition. The Drama St Mary's crew were magnificent, however, willingly taking on spade loads of responsibility, encouraging here, correcting there, always vigilant in checking who was grasping the work and who was struggling. By the time the parents came to do the pick up we had at least covered all the ground, even if we hadn't had an opportunity to secure the blocking. One more crack tomorrow night and then a troubling 48 hours before the first show.

Finding the Ritual Journey.

2011-06-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

We beginning to move from improvisation to fixing routines and rituals. A great deal rides on the way the Drama St Marys and El Glayu actors work. They've got to be faultless, confident and in complete control so that we can ask the Uppingham actors and Casterton drummers to take a lead from them. El Glayu are working really hard, but are slightly reluctant to take on the responsibility for setting a consistent standard. I'm relying on them to set the scale of performance and to fuel the show with energy. The younger students will respond, but they've got to have a steer. For Soph, Becks, Vicks and Emma, fresh from The Canterbury Tales it's a familiar demand.

The weather didn't help today. Squally showers disrupted us and we never seemed to get a clear ten minutes before we had to dash for cover in one of the barns. Still little by little we began to convince ourselves that with care, focus and attention we would be able to create something moving and memorable that hints at the pain of leaving home, the resilience of a determined journey and the diplomacy of arrival in a strange land. I'd argue that all stories follow this same path leading from a known past, through a challenging present and onwards towards an uncertain but exciting future; textured sporadically with set back, trial, tribulation and ultimately some form of understanding. Our scenic interpretation is now beginning to parallel the narrated story of the transformation of the Gwash valley into a reservoir and the sung Osprey narratives both of each birds annual journey and the return of the species to Rutland after 140 year exile. The layers of the spectacle are beginning to settle.

There are still a few gaps - but a think we might be able to work with Harry and his wings to fill these. I'm not sure yet we've paid enough attention to showing off the puppets themselves and I'd like to honour the craftsmanship of the designers and makers by simply demonstrating the virtuosity of their creations, to the largest possible audience.

Canvassing Ideas.

2011-06-20T02:32:00.000-07:00

Things have changed gear as we start to move operations away from Broccoli Bottom down to the Normanton site. Overnight Fernando, my co-director in this final run in, arrived with his family from Spain and late this morning Emma, Becks, Soph and Vicks trundled into the farm having driven most of the way up from London with a flat tyre.

First job was to get them housed and settled at a camp site a couple of miles down the road. Karen had provided a couple of tents - but no instructions - and so after an hour's, fairly weak willed, struggle the technicians were called in to try and make sense of the poles, canvass and pegs. It made building thirty foot, animate mechanical ospreys look a walk in the park. Eventually both tents were up... just and although one did collapse later in the day it was possible to start rehearsals knowing that they'd have somewhere to sleep at nightfall.

Meanwhile back on the event site the heavy stuff was brought in. Three huge oyster shaped marquees to house the 300 strong choir, the band and an orchestra were, in contrast to our feeble efforts, assembled embarrassingly quickly to form a structure that, from across the bay looks like the Sydney Opera house. Then the impressive sound system was brought in.

We stayed on the farm and began work on the Spanish section; which breaks down into three sections: the unravelling of the forty metre long blue silk, the arrival of Kasper's horse and finally the dance of the Asturian fishermen, who all have boats on their heads.

Much of our time was spent playing with the material, running it up and down the length of the drive, seeing how fast we could introduce it and remove it from the playing space. Tina oversaw our work and worried that we wouldn't find things so easy exposed on the shore on a windy day.

Fernando took a lead in operations, whilst I tried to do the maths. It's clear that with ospreys, tropical birds, horses, silk and fishing boats to cast we simply haven't got enough participants and that doubling up is fast becoming an inevitability. We'll have to be meticulous about this, particualrly as with no stage management team to speak off anything discarded by performers has to be tidied quickly out of the audiences way. It looks as though every performer will have a sequence of four or five jobs to do. The problem is each sequence will be slightly different and we don't have enough time in the space to rehearse each individually. My notebook rapidly filled with diagrams, maps, speculative timings and cue notes. There's going to have to a huge amount of trust and quite a lot of intuitive casting. Those who turn up on Wednesday looking responsible will quickly find themselves promoted to team leaders. We just don't have huge margins for error.

As evening feel we took our expanded company for a drive round to Whitwell to see the Belle and then continued round onto the site itself, where Sharon gave us a quick guided tour and issued us with security passes. It'd good to start projecting our work into the space. Went to bed still doing the sums in my head. Can we make it work or do we need to trim?

Opening Doors to Shakespeare.

2011-06-19T04:13:00.000-07:00

A day off and so I headed West to Stratford upon Avon for a father's day meal, a lovely afternoon walk around Mary Arden's farm house in Wilmcote and a quick look round the new RSC theatre, topped out last year.

Watching a show in Stratford has always had something magical about it, particularly on hot summer evenings when the audience seem to float home across the Bancroft Gardens in a balmy dream, mesmerised by heroic stories, musical heraldry and the poetry itself. The old art deco theatre felt well suited to its situation, perched on the banks of the Avon. Peaceful, restful, unshowy in itself, but swelling with the history of remarkable performances and the anticipation of more to come. I was keen to see how the new build would work. Could it suggest buried treasures in the same way?

The most striking difference is in how welcoming the new theatre is. Glass fronted with many doors opening up into a spacious foyer which, mirroring the aesthetic principles of artistic director Michael Boyd's productions, soars and carries the eye upwards to embrace the full height of the building. The Elizabethans understood their world on this plane: heaven, earth and hell every bit as clearly as we, trained in tableaux, the printed text and fixed image read from left to right.

An even more vertiginous experience can be had by going up the viewing tower which, adjacent to the main house, gives theatre goers an opportunity to look beyond the rooftops of the town to the fields and hills of Warwickshire. The shape of the land has little changed since Shakespeare's own deer rustling, romantic youth.

Some critics have questioned the wisdom of a second thrust stage in Stratford and the lack of a proscenium arch does make a very clear statement about the way plays will be staged here in the future, but early reports suggest that both actors and audiences are revelling in their mutual proximity.

For the first time I'm going to be teaching a Shakespeare module at Drama St Mary's from September to a group of nearly 100 and so I'm beginning to explore ways in which we can supplement a weekly lecture with more interactive approaches to the plays. One thing I'm sure of is that learning by heart and publicly reciting the text gives students a chance to marvel and enjoy the particular muscularity of the language, so I'm going to call for scenes to be be memorised and performed each week. If the class buy into that we can work as co-educators using the performed excerpts as the basis for our lessons, rewinding them, adapting them, focusing in on key moments, phrases or metaphors. I don't think it's enough to just read a synopsis of the play as homework. I want to bring students much closer to Shakespeare's words so they can begin to sense how much they belong to them. There are riches behind comprehension for those who make the investment.

In a similar way perhaps the new thrust theatre will help to further democratise Shakespeare by asserting a relationship between the stage and auditorium. Will this offer a helping hand to those who struggle to commune with the plays? I hope so.

How to Gain the Trust of Strangers.

2011-06-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

A quiet day at Broccoli Bottom. The designers and technicians using the continued good weather to push on with construction work. Anami, Kate B, Tina and I went round to Whitwell to chat to Matt who runs the Rutland Belle and arrange the logistics of strapping the huge Osprey onto the top deck. It's going to be a tight call as the boat is set to run its regular timetable of sailings throughout next weekend. It'll be all hands to the pump to get things sorted and hidden out of sight behind the church before the audience arrive.

Next stop was the sailing club in Edith Weston where Stu and Kate R have been turning three of the green goddess boats into glimmering silver fish which will accompany the Belle as it makes its way across the reservoir. The rigging takes about an hour to do and there have been a few trials over the last week, but today for the first time things were looking really good.

Rutland at the weekend has a slightly different complexion and, on a sunny day like today, the water really comes into its own with hundreds of cyclists, bird watchers, walkers, sailors and fishermen descending to take advantage of it. Driving around the perimeter it's easy to see why so many of the locals we've met tell us that they never want to leave. Very few people outside of the county seem to know about its existence and in many ways it feels like a world apart; bountiful, rural and rich. The Rutlanders, fiercely protective of their independence and proud of their title as England's smallest county, want to keep it that way.

Back at base a slightly new narrative for the Senegal scene is emerging. For the last couple of days the work has been watched from a distance by Marcus, a inquisitive eight year old, who's staying on the farm with his parents, whilst they look for a house in the area. He's been fascinated by the puppets and rehearsals and inched closer and closer to the action. This afternoon his curiosity was rewarded when we asked if he'd like to be in the show. He wisely told us he'd have to ask his Mum and rushed off to do exactly that.

Within minutes of gaining consent Tina was measuring him up and he'll play a baby tropical bird who, in contrast to the colourful threats made by the adults, will gently approach the visiting Osprey and encourage friendship. His success, carefully achieved, will be the cue for the other birds to accept the new arrival. Diene will end the scene with a dance of his own. We'll rehearse all this on Tuesday but only after he's finished school, changed out of his uniform and had his tea.
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Osprey Training.

2011-06-17T09:52:00.001-07:00

More guests arrive in Rutland. Antonio and Charo, two trainee theatre directors from Madrid arrived to assist the work. They're very bright, positive and full of ideas.

We spent much of the morning sketching out possible entrances and exits and walking through some timings. The central protagonist of the whole show is really the music and our staging has to be precise in order to run to the timings Nick's created in the score. Essentially we have about twenty minutes of action to cover, representing the Osprey's arrival in, firstly Senegal, and then, on his return, in Asturias, before reconnecting the head onto the body of the boat which will set off again around the back of Normanton church pulling the audience's focus onto and reanimating the giant Osprey structure that Kate and Anami have now begun to turn their attention to. We've got the tropical birds to play with for the first section; Kaspar's horse, metres of blue silk and about forty Asturian fishing boat hats for the second.

The problem with precise planning is not knowing quite the number of participants. Everybody has signed up, but until we arrive at the tech next Wednesday we're all unsure as to whether we'll have enough to manage all of the different elements. There's also no crew on the show, so guarding, clearing and setting props, costumes and puppets all needs to be built into our thoughts at this stage.

This evening a reception, surrounded by horseshoes, in Rutland castle to mark the opening of the festival and to welcome the company. It was a low key affair, some wine and nibbles - lovingly themed only in Rutland's traditional colours of green and orange.

Local MP Alan Duncan, carrying a Union Jack umbrella, paid a fleeting visit, the festival's organiser made an impassioned appeal to raise an audience and finally the High Sheriff of the county, replete in knickerbockers and ceremonial sword, made a short speech in which he reminded the Spaniards that one of his duties was to muster men to repel invading armies and that one of his predecessors had done exactly that to prepare for the Armada. Fortunately the Asturians saw the funny side and politely laughed along.

So the first week draws to a close. There's still a slight feeling that we're groping around in the dark and I guess it won't be until the middle of next week that we'll really begin to see whether our ideas and creations have worked. For tonight we were happy to relax with a glass, a couple of speared gherkins and a bowl of cheesy wotsits.

First Past The Post.

2011-06-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

There was a sense of excitement this morning as Kaspar, Sophie and Stu, who've secretly been beavering away in an out house to create an Austrian horse out of wire and mesh, unveiled their creation. We all gathered in the yard in anticipation as the technicians took up their places inside the body of the puppet and then to gasps of amazement and a round of applause out she trotted.

Essentially it'll take four actors to manipulate the horse. Two at the front carrying the weight of the neck, one at the back and a fourth swishing the tail which detaches and dances its own gigs of delight.

Tina watched carefully, for all the world like a championship trainer overseeing the gallops, and then began to issue instructions to test the versatility of the structure. Could it bend to graze? Could it flick flies from its mane? Could it canter? Every second seemed to offer up new possibilities. Eventually it retired so that further work could be done ironing out a few of the minor clunks, but Kasper seemed very pleased with this first outing.

Elsewhere a very serious discussion was taking place about how we manage the osprey's arrival from water to land. At the minute the giant puppet is strapped onto the back of the Rutand Belle, a pleasure craft that throughout the summer ferries sightseers from Whitwell over to Normanton church. The plan is that as the boat docks the giant osprey head will detach, be carried onto land and put onto Harry (who's going to play the bird on land.) At the moment this manoeuvre takes several minutes and involve pins, clips, bungee ties and stabilising mop handles. Anami and Kate took me through the process after lunch. I think the way round the problem may have accidentally been discovered on Monday when, faced with a very public construction job, we forged a ritual to cover our uncertainty. If we work with Diene, Mohamed and the casterton drummers, I sense we could turn a logistical problem into something quite moving and wonderful.

It was back to Uppingham this afternoon and a second opportunity to play with the tropical bird wings. Each one has nine operators and the more we explore the more the it becomes apparent that flashes of colour, dispersion and return to formation, chaos and then order, provide the most visually interesting sequences. A narrative of suspicion, threat and finally acceptance also began to emerge. A cautious welcome to Senegal followed by a riotous display of welcome.

Senegalese Drumming

2011-06-15T02:02:00.000-07:00

Much of the afternoon was spent over in Great Casterton where Diene and Mohamed were leading the first of their drumming workshops with a group of year 10 students.

For the most part the action of the show is determined, in terms of length, by Nick's score, which similtaneously tells the story of the flooding of the Gwash valley in the seventies to create Rutland water and the annual flight of the ospery as it journeys from it its breeding grounds here south via Spain to West Africa.

However, there is one scene, set in Senegal, where the ospery encounters four tropical birds which Nick hasn't written for enabling us to shape a different soundtrack using the drums. The work we did yesterday has already offered some suggestions of the way in which these puppets might move and today was a chance for Diene and Mohamed to lay down some basic techniques and sequences with the Casterton gang that might accompany the dance we'll put together next week.

Already there is a nervous sense that we don't really have enough time with each of these groups. Tomorrow Chris will come out here to consolidate the work done today and I'll return to Uppingham to run the second and final workshop with the operators. Then we'll all meet up for the tech next Wednesday at the event site. The big concern I have is that working in a drama studio is quite different from being thrown into a huge event and thrilling as it's sure to be do we have enough time to get our performers comfortably adjusted to the outdoor site?

However, the workshop today was excellent and the students really focused and commited. By the end of the two hours they'd eight or nine different rythm patterns under their belts which can be improvised and jazzed around with.

Bucolic Bliss at Broccoli Bottom.

2011-06-14T09:45:00.001-07:00

After yesterday's baptism of fire today was really the first time we've had to talk about how we're going to approach the next fortnight and settle into some work. We've hired out Broccoli Bottom, an old farm converted into a series of B&B cottages in Manton, on the south side of Rutland water and it's here - looked after by our hosts Sally and Colin - that we'll meet, rehearse and make things.

The set up is really conducive to creative industry. Tina has set up a sewing machine filled design room. Production Manager Sharon holds meetings, makes calls and deals from a kitchen, whilst out the back, by the stables a team of international puppet makers and sculptors Anami, Kate, Casper and Sophie work industriously on ospreys, fish, horses and tropical birds. The rest of us work in and out of the melee, contributing where we can and making rounds of coffee. My major role beyond directing, is as the designated driver of the minibus, which means any breaks from planning choreography or observing the way in which the wonderful mechanical inventions are coming together is spent running errands or pick ups.

Drama St Mary's is really well represented. Apart from Tina and myself, second year Karen has the daunting task of stage managing the event, whilst third year Stu is here working as a technician and scenic designer. Next week Canterbury Tale veterans Emma, Sophie, Vicki and Becks will join Harry, who's here already as members of the performance company.

Half of the creative team, including El Glayu and the Senegalese boys are living on site; whilst the rest of us are staying in a grand Georgian house over in Oakham

For all the productivity there's a sense that none of us is really sure where we are headed. Chris has been living here for the last nine months negotiating, developing and setting up the component pieces of the show and now it's up to us to pull these pieces together into a memorable and fantastic weekend. The main job at this stage is to try and see what kind of shape the thing might have. My tactic, until I'm slightly clearer about how to effect my scenes, is to buzz between everybody picking up intelligence and passing it on as I go.

We spent the afternoon at Uppingham Community College bringing El Glayu together with a dedicated team of year 10 students to experiment with the way in which the bird wings might move around the space. In essence it's chorus and ensemble work as the component parts of each wing break away and reform in a myriad of different shapes and configurations. At times the group reminded me of Roman legionnaires wielding their shields in battle formation. Although nothing was fixed it was a positive session in terms of establishing a performance vocabulary.

In the evening a few of us headed over to the Methodist chapel back in town to watch a choir rehearsal run by the extraordinarily charismatic Peter Davis, head of music at Oakham. Peter's been working with children from every primary school in Rutland teaching them the eight songs that make up Nick Bicat's score, which has been especially commissioned for the show. Tonight was the turn adult group and for an hour he put them energetically through their places; voices soaring and swaying as he pounded the piano hard and insisted on the precision of each note. Everybody was exhausted by the end. It was a lovely way to end the day.

Starting as We Mean to Go On.

2011-06-13T06:41:00.000-07:00

We're straight in at the deep end. Chris had arranged a fifteen minute slot to perform an excerpt from the show at the newly opened Cube theatre in Corby this afternoon in front of a group of influential funders. All good except of course as we've only just gathered there is no show whatsoever.

A 9am briefing to quickly see what might be possible. We've got the sleepy El Glayu company, two Senegalese drummer, Diene and Mohamed, who are here to teach workshops in local schools later in the week, a prototype mechanical structure of what promises to be an incredibly impressive osprey puppet progressing under the watchful design of technicians Anami and Kate B, a huge red bird's head constructed by Tina and Kate R and twenty year 10 students who've been putting together some tropical bird wings in workshops over the past few weeks.

Visually it's the osprey that's really impressive and once we arrive at the venue we quickly begin to devise a ritual that enables us to move it piece by piece from the wing onto the stage. Its bulk though means that it takes five of us, ten minutes to carry and set the counterweight system that have been devised to keep it stable. The drummers quickly understand the solemnity of what we are trying to achieve, however, and begin to improvise a swelling underscore, filled with anticipation, whilst El Glayu lead the students in a freer processional dance around the stage, diverting the eye and giving protection to the assembling centrepiece. It's done in a blur.

Of course none of us have any idea whether the overall effect looks any good. Kate, Anami, Caro, Alessandro and myself put on some fetching green vests and sun hats and construct the osprey, feigning military precision and pretending all the while we know what we were doing; whilst Diene dances frenetically in front of the bird and the year ten students swoop and shimmy their wings in anarchic confusion. Against worst fears it seems to come off and the funders clap appreciatively. Proof positive perhaps that we live in an age of visual spectacle. Amazing to think most of us had only met for the first time this morning.

York in the Rain.

2011-06-12T15:10:00.001-07:00

Out of Patterdale early and back to reclaim the car in Keswick and a journey back South. We headed East at first over the Pennines to hit the A1 and head down to York for a whistle stop look round. Unfortunately it was bucketing down with rain so we found ourselves running through the streets, up the Shambles, and into Stonegate to see the carved chained red devil and grab a posh cup of tea in Betty's.

By late afternoon the weather had cleared enough for us to walk the walls back to Micklegate, where the heads of traitors were displayed, and make our way back towards the Motorway.

I'd like to spend some more time in York, perhaps if the Corpus Christi project takes off next year I'll have an opportunity to spend some more time this way, trying to trace the route of their cycle. As a town it seems to retain a slightly sceptical view of the renaissance and deep in it's heart you sense it's never quite forgiven the usurping Tudors. This is white boar country, waiting for the medieval period to be freed from the accusation of being a dark age.

Dropped Eleanor at Leicester station and headed back into Rutland, where I'm spending the next couple of weeks working on When the Wind Blows with Chris, Tina and an exciting team of technicians and actors, including El Glayu, an Asturian group, who also arrived today. Just enough time for introductions before turning into bed. Work starts tomorrow.