Chiswick House and Dreams of Summer.

Had a good meeting this afternoon with Sarah Finch-Crisp of English Heritage at Chiswick House about the possibility of using the grounds as a venue for next summer's Community production. She was very positive and I think this could be a very fruitful partnership.


After the success of the work with Richmond Council and the National Trust at Ham House last year we're looking to move our expand our schools' programme into Hounslow. The plan would be to run drama, design and storytelling workshops across the borough's primary schools using the sessions to help create the quest play which we'd script, rehearse and produce in the grounds next June.


I think the key is to design a story that excites children enough to go on an adventure with the chief protagonist(s). This is the common element in so much children's fantasy literature from Alice in Wonderland through to His Dark Materials and Harry Potter and the confusing Arcadian layout of Chiswick park, even as it undergoes a £12 million refurb and is full of bulldozers, offers ample opportunity to create an epic journey. It's choca full of stuff! A wilderness, stone Sphinx, an amphitheatre, formal gardens and a lake with a sturdy classical stone bridge as a crossing.


The artist and satirist William Hogarth bought a small house next door and The Beatles filmed a promotional video for Paperback Writer here. If it's good enough for them...


Sarah's keen that we should try and encourage the schools we work with to visit the site prior to the performance and it might be a neat idea to try and work in situ with the children rather than asking them to commit their thoughts to paper or Dictaphone, as we did last year.


Clumping through the muddy leaves it's exciting to begin to project a show here for eight months time.

The house's most famous occupant was Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, who is the subject of the recent film starring Keira Knightley. I guess I should go and see it!

Winter comes to Twickenham

The weather's changed. It's cold, dark and rainy. Twickenham though is a great place to hole up on weekends like this.

There is a fantastic circular walk along the river. From Twickers you head down Cross Deep, through Radnor Gardens and along Strawberry Vale til you get to The Anglers.

Here you cross Teddington lock, onto the Surrey bank and following the current back towards London come through the Ham lands, past Ham House and Petersham nurseries (were they make fresh peppermint tea) on into Richmond. You can cross the bridge here and take the Middlesex bank back into Twickenham, past Marble Hill and Orleans House, down the foggy lanes to The White Swan and the sculptured river nymphs in York Gardens.

From here you can go and snoop around the artists studios on Eel Pie Island or head for dinner on Church Street. All in all it's a good six miles and providing you take in a couple of the pubs on route is a perfect Sunday afternoon.

I've done the walk in all seasons, but wrapped up warm, in crunchy leaved Autumn always feels the best and on a cold day arriving for a glass of wine in a warm place with warmer friends is as close to Eden as it gets.

The End of Everything Ever

Another Friday and another show in our newly refurbished theatre. This week NIE brought their beautiful The End of Everything Ever - the third part of the European diaspora trilogy that they've been developing since 2001.

This is the story of Agathe Rosenbaum and her journey on kinder transport from Berlin to England in 1938. It's completely told from her perspective giving us the honesty and charm of a child caught up in confusing world events. Despite the menacing backdrop of the Krystallnacht this is a show full of humanity and humour.

The work played last year at the BAC and NIE have recently returned from an off-Broadway run in New York, next week they begin a European tour, so it's wonderful that they found the time to bring the work onto campus.

The mood in the theatre has changed - maybe the material, maybe the act of passing through a posh foyer, or most likely because the show was so fantastically tight - but this was an intelligent and mature audience. They didn't just whoop and holler indiscriminately at the end, as has sometimes been the case, but warmly applauded. There was a post-show Q & A with the companies director Alex Byrne, which everybody stayed for and engaged in.

These are small signs, but very encouraging.

Gambon Mischief!

Had a lovely evening at the Duke of York's watching a playful preview of Pinter's No Man's Land, which opens next week. The main delight is watching Michael Gambon and David Bradley deliver a virtual masterclass in acting, ably supported by Nick Dunning and work in progress David Walliams.

Gambon, playing the alcoholic recluse Hirst, is a unique actor, a link back to a grander style, but somehow he has the ability to cloak his poise, power and treacle rich voice in a display of effortless credibility. Bradley supports magnificently as the birdlike Spooner, rarely still, never silent, moving surreptitiously behind the other characters as he looks for the right opportunity to inveigle his way into a permanent position in the household.

The show has already had a run at the Gate in Dublin and there's a sense that the production is ready for the press a few days ahead of schedule. This became particularly evident in the second act when Gambon repeatedly tried to use his right leg to make Bradley corpse. Bradley defended admirably and the result between the two great actors was an honourable draw.

It's the second Rupert Goold show to open in the West End in the last month and he's now in rehearsal with Pete Postlewaite for Lear in Liverpool, has Romeo and Juliet coming up at the RSC - as well as the new version of Oliver! at Drury Lane.

I sat next to him for the first act ... but he disappeared after the interval, which made me wonder whether he was usefully using the time. Perhaps he went to knock off an adaptation of War and Peace in the foyer or an ice spectacular musical theatre version of the Koran in the broom cupboard?

No space or text is safe from Rupert just at the minute - but I guess whilst the sun shines it's time to make hay.

Gambon, seeing the empty seat in the stalls, did just that!

The Mousetrap Foundation.

A new initiative from The Mousetrap foundation who once a month block book a West End venue and offer the top price tickets for £10 to Drama students in Higher Education. This is always followed up by a post show discussion with actors and creatives from the production.

All you have to do is sign up via the website...

www.mousetrap.org.uk/

...and you'll be kept in the loop for these special events. This month the Foundation have manged to get tickets for Six Characters, No Man's Land (see image) & Ivanov (all shows which would otherwise would be impossible to get access to this cheaply.) The tickets are subsidised by business sponsors and large multi-national companies.

Easy to do and well worth getting involved.

Now or Later

Went to the Royal Court last night to see the wonderful Now or Later by Christopher Shinn.

The play is set in an American hotel on the eve of a sweeping Democratic election victory; but even as Ohio and Florida declare for Senator Roe (played by Matthew Marsh, looking uncannily like Howard Dean) his aides are negotiating furiously with his fragile Ivy league educated son (the superb Eddie Redmayne.)

John Jr's drunken antics, aimed at satiric protest, (dressing up as Mohammad and simulating sex with a friend dressed as Pastor Bob) have been caught on camera and the 'Islamophobic' images are virulent spreading across the Internet.

At first this set up appears trite, but Shinn gives us enough authentic character detail both to buy into the counter factual histories of the protagonists and to follow with some sense of inevitable dread the repercussions. Towards the end of the play the new President, minutes away from receiving the phone call from his defeated opponent and struggling to keep his son out of the press, receives news of riots breaking out in Pakistan.

It's a morality play in the strictest sense with John Jr, receiving increasingly high profile visits in his room - from two aides: Marc, a Jewish man and Tracy, a black woman versed in the civil rights struggles of the past, his Hilary-esque mother and in a final Oedipal battle his father.

Each of the vistors try and persuade John to issue a statement of regret to curtail the growing crisis - all this set against the fast moving back drop of a massively significant Democratic recapture of the White House.

It's a brilliant, timely, debate about ideologies, extremism, parenting, civil rights, freedom of speech and responsibility.

Now or Later's run has been extended until November 1st - which, of course, bangs the final performances right up against the Obama/McCain election on November 4th.

This is a very important and well made play.

Class Enemy

This programme about East West, a young Sarajevo company who performed a contemporary adaptation of Nigel Williams' 1978 'Class Enemy' at this year's Edinburgh festival. The documentary argues for the importance of bringing anti-social behaviour and trauma onto stage. Art holding up a mirror? Voyeuristic? Cathartic? Informative?

Who are the audience for this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dvlr2/

Applied Theatre and Drama in the Community Students please have a watch.