Hand Stitched by Elves

'Ten Men...' flyer and ticket details

2011-03-23T16:21:00.002Z

The one where Frank finds out he doesn't know everything

2011-03-23T16:15:00.002Z

You may have picked up in a couple of my previous posts that Two Bins Towers doesn’t always reverberate with harmony when designers come to visit. As a breed, they’re usually the opposite to me in most of their habits, practices and philosophies, and this makes me nervous around them. I find it hard to ‘click’ with a designer. I’m uncomfortable with the fact that they always seem to have ‘designed’ themselves pretty comprehensively (usually as frighteningly accurate clones of Jocelyn Herbert – why??). To a jeans-and-trainers man, that kind of sartorial cohesion is alienating.

However, life is nothing if not a learning curve; an opportunity for ones ideas and preconceptions to change.

I have a designer for the re-vamped production of ‘Ten Men…’ (or ‘Ten Men – Rebooted’ as it will never, ever be called). She is young – I’d think around twenty. We met in London to discuss some design ideas. Mainly mine. She seemed to understand what I as driving at, and have a good grip on the themes of the play itself. So far so good.

A week or so after our meeting, she emailed me. The basic tenor was that the ideas I’d proposed, the basis on which we’d agreed she would work, weren’t right. She referenced my own text to back up her case (how chastening it is to have someone put you right on words you’ve written yourself) and outlined a very persuasive argument for changing our thinking on the design. Her replacement idea is much better. I mean, a few thousand miles better. Which is why she’s a designer and I do what I do instead.

Do 20-year-olds do that these days? I’d’ve never have had the bottle at her age. It’s impressive that she had the self-possession and the courage of her convictions to push back. She knew she was right. And now, so do I.

Close, But No Cigar

2011-03-23T12:49:00.001Z

As a result of October’s production of ‘Ten Men…’, I’ve recently brushed shoulders – fleetingly, theoretically – with mainstream success. An opportunity that fell out of the sky, and looked for a while like nesting in Two Bins Towers, eventually took flight again for good.

It started with a phone call from the manager of our venue in Brighton. “Some American bloke has been trying to get hold of you…” I was clueless as to who this might be, (other than possibly someone from 59E59 in New York calling to say “we found your talent underneath some mouldy old dustsheets – do you want it back?”) but I rang the Los Angeles number that had been left for me in order to find out.

I can’t do the details here (it’s sensitive) but the voice at the other end of the transatlantic phone line was unmistakeably British. Specifically English, actually, managing to be both enthusiastic and reserved in that unique Home Counties manner. Cool and geeky in equal measure. Which is in itself a trick that manages to increase both coolness and geekiness. A former BBC man, as a Google search soon revealed. This made me trust him somewhat more than I would otherwise have done, which is absurd given that Aunty Beeb is crammed full of vain, aggressive, self-serving, bullying arseholes (“in my opinion”, for legal reasons).

However, Home Counties Man (hereafter known as HCM), who I quickly decided must surely have thin-rimmed spectacles and a fine collection of Jermyn Street ties, seemed genuine and honourable and – I know this is an odd word in context - kind. He worked, as it turned out, for a movie company in the US. More frantic Googling informed me that they made very, very good movies indeed. Movies I like. Movies with big, famous people in them and budgets greater than all the money my friends and I combined will ever earn.

They were “interested in the subject matter”, and had seen a review of the show online (thank you, eternally, to Bella Todd, then of Latest7 fame). HCM asked if he might see a copy of the script, on an informal, no-strings basis. I agreed. Well, he sounded kind.

He liked the script. Suddenly it was ‘doing the rounds’ at the company in the US. We talked further, about the possibility of them staging the show in London and the US – they have a couple of things happening on Broadway at the moment, so are well versed in theatre production as well as film. Our conversations soon reached the money-where-your-mouth-is juncture, and (it seemed to me, at least) things were very finely balanced in terms of which way a final decision might go.

To HCM’s great credit, things didn’t meander into nothing, as they so often do in similar situations. The final decision, taken after numerous communications, lay with his boss, a successful Hollywood producer (in my mind a cigar-chomping, bear of a man). It came quickly, after a rather agonised weekend’s wait.

With a clear and unequivocal finality, Le Grand Fromage, he say no. His reasoning, while mundane, unromantic and utterly prosaic, did make perfect sense. The production wouldn’t fly commercially in the US, he thought. I can see his point – I’ve described it numerous times myself as quintessentially a studio show, the epitome of Fringe. He was right.

What’s more, HCM had behaved in a way one wouldn’t necessarily expect, if the stories we hear from ‘Showbiz America’ are to be believed. He’d been the perfect gent, enthusiastic and clear at first, then magnanimous and generous when the coup de grace came. Of course, I may revise my judgment when my jokes start appearing in his movies, but I honestly don’t expect that to happen.

My reaction to this disappointment surprised me. Mainly because it didn’t feel like a disappointment at all. An opportunity I had done precisely nothing to engineer had come a lot closer to becoming reality than I’d expected it would, and a very successful international production house had blown some magical Hollywood smoke up my derriere for a bit. What’s not to like? It was a shot in the arm, a validation, an enormous encouragement to re-mount the show with some proper budget and a greatly improved ‘spec’.

In short, it made me take my work seriously. And I can’t put a value on that.

Underneath the Arches

2011-03-23T10:47:00.001Z

This year’s Brighton Fringe features a couple of Two Bins productions – Ben Keyworth’s new play ‘Cuckoo’ (so wrong, it has to be right) and a re-vamped version of my own show ‘Ten Men – The Lives of John Bindon’. Since the latter production ran in October, there’s been a lot of ‘traffic’ around it, from film people as well as theatres, and the re-run will, I hope, help turn encouraging feedback into solid offers. The work everyone has done on this deserves a long life.

You can tell when a show has ‘legs’, by dint of one criterion – people offer to contribute to its development and future success. Out of the blue, audience members (often expert professionals in their own right, of course) become potential collaborators. Enthusiasm turns into a tangible output.

One such collaborator, who saw the workshop version of ‘Ten Men…’ back in October, is film-maker Martin Malone. Among other appealing ideas, he offered to create a 30-second trailer for the show. I almost bit his hand off.

So, a couple of weeks back, I found myself under a railway arch in Hove, watching Matt Houghton reprise his terrific work as John Bindon in front of a camera. The results looked astonishing, as much a testament to Martin and his DOP as it was to modern technology. I’ll post the trailer once it’s edited.

It occurred to me that film-making has been democratized enormously by technological advances. Cinema-quality work can be produced on equipment costing no more than the average family holiday, or a second-hand car. Film-making skill is of course a necessity in order to produce work of the highest quality, but science and technology have raised the bar considerably in recent years.

Are there any similar advances taking place in theatre production? I don’t know of any, other than a gradual quality in the improvement of lighting equipment since the ‘70s, which has meant that stage make-up is almost obsolete now (and let us thank God for that).

Theatrically, what is going to be The Great Leap Forward? It would be good to hear your thoughts...

'TEN MEN' photoshoot...

2010-09-10T17:26:00.005+01:00

With thanks to the legend that is Ali Tollervey...

Through the Pain Barrier

2010-09-10T17:11:00.002+01:00

I think I might finally have done it.

The great envy of my theatre-directing life has been to witness those rare calm, controlled and emotionally stable directors going about their 'thing' in perfect tranquility. No self-doubt, no sleepless nights, no wrangling with personal demons. Soft, pliable shoulders and a fully functioning sense of humour, even at 'tech' time.

Paint the opposite picture, and you have an idea of what I used to be like in the final throes of rehearsal. The muddy waters between rehearsal and performance can run tempestuous, and all too often in the past I've all but capsized.

Not this time.

I vowed after the toxic levels of tension involved in my trip to New York with Red Sea Fish last year never to allow myself to get into that state again. I genuinely lost my marbles for a while. Well, two months actually.

After several conversations on this theme with people cannier and longer in the directing tooth than I, I realised that existential and mental 'struggle' do not equate to better work. Giving yourself an awful time in the pursuit of excellence does nothing but alienate others and debilitate the one person who needs clear and rational thought - the director.

'Ten Men - The Lives of John Bindon' opens in five days time. I have pursued with concertedness my new policy of, actually, caring less. By doing so, things are working as they should. I'm sleeping, enjoying myself, and above all BEING EFFECTIVE.

Artists of all persuasions are prone to the belief that something cannot possibly be truly worthwhile if they haven't suffered for it. I think it's one of the gateways to maturity as a creative person to acknowledge that this is utter balls.

It only took me twenty years...

The Birth of Scuzz - The Final Edict...

2010-09-10T16:22:00.002+01:00

And the winner is... the venerable Martin Bryn Nichols, whose suggestion for edict 10 of the Scuzz manifesto reads:

"10) All of the above shall be done with beauty and with truth."

Which is a marvellous notion. It also undercuts the rather unromantic stipulations that precede it. It'll do nicely.

The Birth of Scuzz

2010-08-21T14:16:00.003+01:00

The time is right. The hour has come.

In these days of brutal cuts and nationwide thrift, the era of the Theatre of Poverty is upon us. Let's face it, most of us work in that particular genre permanently - it's just that we may have to welcome to the ranks a few practitioners who normally create their budgets on something other than the back of a fag packet (the mythical 'spreadsheets', as believe they're known). Welcome to our grimy fold, ye people-who-do-things-properly.

Brotherhoods need rules. They establish common ground and foster creative likemindedness. They also keep out the wrong-headed (think of the Danish Dogme cinema movement of the '90s - let all those using artificial light be hanged!).

Let us bring order to the Theatre of Poverty. Let us grant it a manifesto.

All great movements have a manifesto; womens' suffrage, The Black Panthers, The Clifton Hill Preservation Society... and so do movements that lack any semblance of greatness whatsoever. Therefore, here is mine: It shall forthwith be called The Scuzz Manifesto.

A Scuzz production must fulfill ten essential edicts, which are laid out on this day as follows:

1. Scuzz theatre happens in venues that accomodate no more than 200 people at once. The more uncomfortable the seating is, the more Scuzz a show shall be.

2. The content of a Scuzz theatre production will feature a socio-political theme relevant to contemporary Britain (racism, gender difference, class division, wealth distribution...). A portrayal of a mother's dilemma at whether to send her child to a Kensington creche or stick with the nanny for another year is NOT a socio-political theme, it's a dinner party conversation.

3. Scuzz practioners accept that expletives should be embraced and celebrated as integral to the language of modern Britain - they ARE big and clever. This principle will be reflected in any truly Scuzz text. Bad language is at the very heart of all that is Scuzz, and those that eschew swearing shall be branded as nothing but bigots. We WILL exercise our unalienable right to be absolutely foul.

4. A Scuzz production will NOT engage the services of a profesional theatre designer. Other strands of design are acceptable - a professionally designed poster, for example, is great to have, but we Scuzzers will not fight battles with stage designers over a £750 lampshade when our marketing budget is half that. There's nothing wrong with Argos. All Scuzzers will turn their backs on those perpetuating aesthetic snobbery.

5. A Scuzz production will last no longer than two hours (including interval). I'm a theatre person through and through, and even I don't want a show to be longer than that. Long shows are a disincentive to the sporadic theatregoer.

6. Scuzz has no tolerance for singing or dancing on stage. It's silly, quite frankly. Leave it to karaoke bars and nightclubs. And the hugely un-Scuzzy West End

7. A Scuzz play has a strong and active narrative. It is not reflective in nature or tone. In other words, THINGS HAPPEN in Scuzz plays.

8. Scuzz plays will contain very little metaphysical language, asbtract speech or romantic imagery. For example, the line "The moon; my mother. I am bereft, adrift like the stars that surround her." is 0% Scuzz. Anti-Scuzz, in fact. If it sounds like a dream you once had, we don't want to hear about it.

In contrast, the following exchange (courtesy of venerable Mr J. Butterworth) is unequivocally and completely Scuzzy:

POTTS: "My piss is black."
SWEETS: "It's the white ones. Don't eat no more of the white ones."

9. All Scuzz plays have jokes in them.

Edict 10... is up for grabs. Get your thinking caps on - the best suggestion will be added to the list now and for all eternity!

Blessed be the Scuzzy.

Notes on character

2010-06-02T13:24:00.003+01:00

INT. REHEARSAL ROOM. DAY.

ME: "I think what's required in this exchange is that we see George relent. It's difficult for him, of course, but I think Maria eventually wears him down."

ACTOR: "Relent? George? In front of Maria? Wow... sorry, I don't think the character would do that."

ME: "Oh, OK. Can I just double-check that with him?"

ACTOR: "Um... how do you mean?"

ME: "I'd like to ask George whether or not he would relent in this situation. Is he around?"

ACTOR: "Ah... nnnnope...."

ME: "Precisely. You cannot possibly say what George would or wouldn't do. The reason for that is simple. George doesn't exist."

It never quite happens as neatly as this, of course, but the conversation above is a distillation of many I've had over the years.

The issue of what constitutes 'character' in drama and 'character work' in a rehearsal room has come up again in recent weeks. I shall now set down my long-held belief on this subject, once and for all, as 'hard copy'.

When rehearsing a play, there is no such thing as character. That's right: from an actor's point of view, it doesn't exist.

Performing a written text involves, basically, the necessity for two things and two things only - the text and the performer. In other words, a man or a woman speaks words that have been written down.

At the fundamental level (before staging and performance issues come to bear) there isn't anything else. Actors who talk about 'the character' often behave as if there's some 'spirit' or 'being' floating around waiting to be tapped, analysed or utilised. "Finding the character" simply isn't possible. There isn't one.

Of course, plays are populated by heavily proscribed 'people' who have textually specific predilictions, preferences, weaknesses and strengths. We have to honour and interpret those 'facts' in the best and most honest way we can. But the temptaion for actors (and too often directors) is to fill in the gaps in ways that don't help the performnces or the production.

I'm now going to surprise many of you who know me.

I really like the TV show Glee. Yes, I know, I can't stand musical theatre and have poured scorn on it for two decades. But I think Glee is great.

You may think this statement makes no sense in the context of my other opinions, of what you know about me. But it's my honest and true opinion.

Imagine I were a character in a play. A musical-theatre-hating uber-grump with macho pretensions and a history of directing sweary man-plays. An actor playing me could very easily describe me as "the sort of person who would throw something at the TV when Glee came on." 100% wrong, as it turns out.

My problem with the term "character" as it's so often used in rehearsals, is twofold.

Firstly, the kind of reading-between-the-lines presumption that goes on actually promotes a lack of depth in performance. Actors create rather restrictive 'tram lines' around their performances based on assumptions they needn't make. They limit what's possible - ref. my completely out of character Glee love.

This happens simply because they ask the wrong question. There's no "what WOULD" the character do. Substituting the WOULD for a COULD makes the world of difference.

My second frustration with the way many actors describe character is that it can acts as a prop for their own neuroses. Now; I've been an actor and can testify how hard it can be to maintain ones mental health working in the profession. It's a very, very tough life that can take its toll on self-esteem like nothing else. But all too often actors protect themselves from having to move into unknown territory simply by using the "my character wouldn't do that" defence. Often, what they mean is "I'm not comfortable doing that." I sympathise... but you need to do it anyway.

Don't get me started on "I need to find the right shoes..."

Reviewing the reviewers

2010-06-02T13:18:00.002+01:00

A particular trend in reviewing Brighton shows has been developing for the last few years, and has reached an absurd zenith in the past month.

I’ve been perusing the reviews for the shows in the recent Brighton Festival and Fringe – online as well as print – and it seems to me that there is now an almost total lack of objectivity in the way shows are evaluated.

There is a bewildering preponderance this year of four- and five-star reviews, to the extent that these ratings are now bordering on the meaningless. By what criteria are these productions being evaluated?

Reviewers need to make a keen distinction between how much they’ve enjoyed a particular offering, and its innate qualities. These two things are not the same.

Shows in The Brighton Festival Fringe have long been characterized (generally speaking) by a lack of any serious design aesthetic. This is partly to do with budgets. Most productions are fairly ramshackle affairs visually – set design, wardrobe and lighting are given scant attention.

These elements of a production are of course key, and not simply a “nice-to-have-but-it-doesn’t-really-matter”.

How, then can shows with such rudimentary features be getting four and five stars? They are four and five star shows compared to what?

Consider dreamthinkspeak’s Before I Sleep at the Co-op. The production has rightly been lauded in the local and national media (five stars from Lyn Gardner in The Guardian). Entirely correctly, in my view. At its centre was a wonderful idea, beautifully and thoroughly brought to life: casting, lighting, staging, props, costume, video and audio elements, the backdrop of the building itself. All perfect. One had the sense, walking through the alleys and vast chambers of the crumbling Co-Op, of a unique and detailed vision that had been fully realized in every single respect.

Now consider a (fictional) three-hander above a pub in Brighton. The writing might be occasionally inspired but also rather wonky in places. The actors are wearing their own clothes, and struggle manfully with some of the less navigable longeurs in the dialogue. A black drape serves as a set (as useful in covering up the unsightly walls as anything else) and the five lights available go up and down, prosaically, on cue. In short, half of the production simply isn’t there – it’s beyond the finances or skillset of the producer, and of course that’s a perfectly valid excuse.

There’s nothing especially ‘wrong’ with this show. But it absolutely must be evaluated by the same criteria as, let’s say, the magnificent dreamthinkspeak production. These two offerings cannot possibly stand shoulder-to-shoulder in terms of how they are evaluated. But, according to many Brighton reviewers, they do. It’s ridiculous.

I'm seriously concerned that the Fringe has become horribly self-referential. Its productions are compared not with the world at large, but with its other productions. And we don't need any more fuel on the 'Brighton is completely up it's own arse' fire, thanks very much.

Transplant the ramshackle effort I constructed earlier. Move it to a well-respected London Fringe venue (BAC, Finborough, Arcola, Soho). Get it reviewed. Read those reviews and weep, I'm afraid.

Only by judging each production by the standards of the very best theatre will Brighton’s reviewers win back their credibility. If young (and skint) companies want a motivation to improve, they must be compared fairly and squarely with funded / profit-making theatre.

The Fear of the Solo

2010-05-15T10:21:00.005+01:00

I've started writing 'The Bindon' - a monologue called Ten Men, about the late John Bindon (actor, bodyguard, hired muscle and chum to Princess Margaret). Matthew Houghton will perform the piece in September.

I've not written drama - aside from some adaptation work - for the best part of a decade, and I'm enjoying it tremendously. But I'd forgotten how the solitary nature of writing 'ups the ante'. The responsibility of deciding what ACTUALLY GETS SAID is far greater than working with those words 'after the fact'. Matt is, I suspect, also feeling the chill wind of Doing It Alone.

It'll be strange, working with a single actor for the duration. I've never done that before. Will he get sick of the sound of my voice? Will I run out of creative steam in the face of watching the same man say and do the same things for weeks on end? If we disagree, how do we vote on what to do? How rocking can an after-show party be with two people there?

John Bindon himself, a man reportedly "not pugnacious as many people assumed, just completely unafraid", would probably tell me to get on with it and enjoy myself in the process. I'm with him.

After Party - a triumph of the ill.

2010-05-15T10:05:00.003+01:00

This year's Two Bins show in the Brighton Festival Fringe is Ben Keyworth's play After Party. This is the first of our productions I've not been directly responsible for, the show being in the capable directorial hands of Nick "Shane" Warnford. I've tried to keep my nose out of its business - which is right, respectful and proper - but that was tougher than I expected.

The upshot: a complete sell out, an Argus Angel Award and the offer of a transfer to Up That Big London.

I should stay away more often.

Congrats to the AP team. It's astonishing how often a production with a panoply of teething problems, birthing pains and sheer shitty luck turns into a roaring success. Sometimes it feels like a pre-requisite.

In my experience, some of the easiest shows to direct have been the most forgettable. Do we need to feel the struggle in order to redouble focus? Does the best creative work always emerge from discord and adversity?

Casting in stone?

2010-02-08T11:27:00.005Z

Having now cast the rehearsed reading of Our Mutual Friend (taking place on February 28th) I've been mulling over my 'selection policy' for productions.

The timescales for the rehearsed reading are ridculously tight - 90 minutes of material to be brushed up into some sort of shape in just under two days - so, understandably, I've opted for actors I trust to work quickly and harmoniously. In other words, I've placed as much faith in who they are as what they can do.

I thought about this. And what occured to me most forcibly (in addition to the fact that this is a superbly talented group) is that I've cast a certain type of actor. Again.

Broadly, in my opinion, actors are either 'analysts' or 'feelers'. Of course no-one fits this neatly into any category. There is overlap everywhere. But I think it's pretty easy to spot who has which tendency, and almost straight away.

Ages ago, I was an actor myself (MANY aeons. My career ran in almost perfect concurrence with that of Vanilla Ice, so I have no memory really of what it feels like to do it any longer). I was very much an analyst. I have, of course, a preference for casting actors of this type now I'm a director (I can "relate" more easily and therefore work more quickly), and on review I realise that probably upwards of 90% of everyone I cast is clearly in the analyst bracket.

Analysts say things like "why I am doing xxx at this point?", "oh, that makes sense" and "I don't understand this bit". They're hooked on language and its meaning. Feelers are concerned with the inner life, and how they can access it - "I can't get under the character's skin". Analysts seek a lot of input; feelers like to be left alone.

Each approach cuts to the basis of why someone chooses to be an actor in the first place; either a) to understand someone else's view of the world and present that accurately, or b) to experience being 'someone else' as fully and completely as they can.

Not long ago, I asked a playwright about the meaning of something he'd written - a piece of physical action. "What forces xxx to do that at this point?". His answer?

"I don't know, and it doesn't matter."

I can think of no worse answer to that question. I suspect the writer was trying to tell me that he'd written something instinctive and 'felt' and beyond the prosaic boundaries of boring old 'explanation'. I ain't buying that. Without meaning, it seems to me, nothing has any point whatsoever. It's all very well to be 'feeling it'. But feeling WHAT? And WHY?

I don't really know how to work with actors who are predominantly instinctive in their approach. My shorthand - my mode of communication - starts and end with analysis and explanation. I need actors to know what they're doing and why they are doing it.

What implications does this have for the shows I produce? Does this make for logically sound but rather 'detached' productions? Do I miss the emotional 'heart' of things? Should I mix things up a bit and cast more 'feelers'?

We all have our prejudices and preferences. I'd love to hear from someone in 'the other camp'...

Work in progress...

2010-02-01T13:59:00.001Z

(Image by very kind permission of Stephen Taylor)

Rehearsed Reading, 28/02/10

2010-01-29T08:07:00.004Z

Please email me if you'd like an invitation to the rehearsed reading of selected scenes from Our Mutual Friend. The event takes place on Sunday 28th February at The Brunswick in Holland Road. It's invite-only, so you'll need to get in touch if you want to come along!

Bak 2 Skool

2010-01-29T07:50:00.005Z

It's been a week of learning: The Caravan symposium last Monday (a mixed offering in truth, but simply having those people in the same room was interesting and instructional) and a fascinating offering from US Producer Ken Davenport (I subscribe to his daily email at The Producer's Perspective.)

Here are the five top things I've learned this week about being a theatre producer (which I now need to admit I am, by default). They all ring true to me, and #3 might become my catchphrase. OK, it's no "Ooooh, Betty" but it works for me.

1) If you want to be a producer, get some cards made and call yourself one - you are what you say you are.

2) Never wait.

3) The world is run by people who turn up.

4) People don't buy into projects, they buy into people.

5) Remove the word 'fair' from your vocabulary.

Rehearsed reading... choices choices!

2010-01-07T11:14:00.002Z

My next project (unless something small and perfectly formed lands in my lap soon!) is going to be an epic. A full production is probably 12-18 months away, and the pre-production phase is already underway.

The show - or rather shows, as the production is in two separate parts - is upwards of five hours in length and will need a minimum of eighteen actors. Not an easy sell, to producers or theatres. It's Russian roulette commercially, as the second 50% of seats sold are dependent of the first 50%...

I've sent the script to a number of people I respect and trust - actors, producers, theatre managers and Lit Crit types. Interestingly, the actors get it immediately, and the others... don't quite.

So I've decided a rehearsed reading is in order. The reality of the show is a lot simpler than it might appear on the page, and I need to get that across to administrators, funders, producers etc.

This is first rehearsed reading I've ever organised, so I'm starting from scratch.

The 'spec' is as follows:

- A listed event on the Brighton Fringe 2010.
- Free to attend, and 'open' to the public during rehearsal time as well as the actual reading itself.
- We'll dramatize an hours' worth of the script - the first hour in its entirety. (The problem with selected scenes is that you have to explain what's hapened in the gaps - very time-consuming in this case!)
- We start work on a Saturday morning - a dozen actors, maybe - and perform the reading twice on Sunday evening.
- Some rudimentary bits of furniture, a dozen hats, and a box of 20 random props.

Is there a better way of doing this? If you've tried similar events before, I'd love to hear what works and what doesn't...

It's time Brighton backed itself...

2010-01-06T13:55:00.000Z

While "up the smoke" recently, I once again heard the age-old taunt of the Londoner: "Brighton's for people who can't hack it in London. It's all mouth and no trousers".

How objectionable! He was a friend however, and so was spared subsequent fisticuffs.

To some degree, he was right, of course. Given the number of artistic types that live down here, and the great ideas for various creative projects one hears on a weekly basis, relatively little actually gets done. It's maddening.

Getting a creative project off the ground is extremely difficult in this day and age. Funders won't give you the steam off their p*ss, and that's not really their fault - for the next 18 months at least, the UK is spending its Arts money on twelve-year-old backstrokers in the hope of some serious flag-waving fun in 2012.

But this shouldn't stop Brighton from putting itself on the map (theatrically, I mean) far more often - and more strongly - than it does. The City's cultural life shouldn't start and end in May every year. The Fringe, marvellous though it is of course, does give the City's creative output a rather unrealistic patina.

Sure, there's plenty to do and see all year round - The Theatre Royal, Komedia, Pavilion, Concorde 2, and a number of other culture-holes... but how much of the stuff we see there is generated in Brighton itself?

We have the personnel, and the will, to up the ante significantly.

For Brighton-based artists and companies, access to the City's larger / better venues is hugely expensive, and very difficult even if one does have the money to pay the hire. Last year, I was told by a theatre in Brighton that it 'no longer really does theatre' even though I was willing to stump up a flat rate hire. And despite the fact it was... um... a theatre. Unless a company is happy to take an almost guaranteed financial loss, a run at one of these places is ill-advised.

At present, Brighton has no professional producing theatre. Unlike Stoke-on-Trent, Dundee, Chichester or any number of smaller cities and towns in the UK.

Why not? Might we be able to change that?

A small, pleasant building with no frills, housing an auditorium of 150 seats. A permanent staff of two or three, and some freelance help brought in as needed.... shared by a couple of theatre companies, a regular comedy night, and some live music and art/photography exhibitions. All output to be produced by Brighton artists and companies.

My rudimentary maths (and I will admit to 'rudimentary' being the operative word) suggests this is feasible, with perhaps a little bit of sponsorship and a relatively small start-up grant.

What do you think? Click the poll thingy on the right-hand side of this page to vote...

Brits Off Broadway 2009 - thanks...

2010-01-06T13:24:00.000Z

Just a quick note to put on record how warmly and generously we were received by all at 59E59 Theaters in New York.

Peter, Elsyabeth, Kenny, Paddle, Zach, Charlie, Ginger et al... you do a superb job in the best run theatre I've ever worked in!

For those of you who met Peter Tear while he was in Brighton... he was awarded an MBE by Her Madge in January 2010. Congrats Peter!

(I like to think it was Red Sea Fish that swung it for him - the Queen is a sucker for sweary working-class theatre...)

The Big Apple - strange fruit...

2010-01-06T12:27:00.000Z

It's five weeks since I returned from New York, where Two Bins' production of Matt Wilkinsons' Red Sea Fish ran at the 2009 Brits Off Broadway season at 59E59 Theaters.

For such a young and 'small' company, the invitation to open Brits Off Broadway was of course dizzyingly appealing. As the producer and co-director, however, the experience was rather complex.

I've been unable, since my return, to answer the question "did you enjoy it?" with any economy or conviction at all. I don't know, actually, whether I did or not.

Of course, many of the stresses and pressures were the usual ones: gnawing at fingernails over the daily box office receipts, wanting and not wanting - in equal measure - reviews to appear, fighting extreme tiredness (with the added frisson this time of a five-hour time difference)... you know the drill.

But what made Red Sea Fish stratospherically taxing from my point of view was 'X'.

Those who know me will be familiar (to the point of wrist-slitting tedium, no doubt) with 'X'. I won't elaborate here, other than to say 'X' was... ' an HR issue'.

In many ways, 'X' proved enormously instructional, and in the months to come I'll no doubt thank my lucky stars 'it' came along, such are the lessons it provided. Or perhaps I won't...

So here, without further ado, are my 'Five Monster-Sized Lessons of Red Sea Fish, Courtesy of Having to Work With 'X'':

1) Reputation does not necessarily equal ability.

2) Money is control. And no-one pays for anything 'out of the goodness of their heart'.

3) What drives anything you're directing is your instinct. Don't ignore it. Ever.

4) Collaboration? Be very careful...

5) A surprising number of people don't 'get it'. This will kill everything you try to do. So just move right along without them, or get the f*ck out of there yourself.

Welcome to HSbE...

2010-01-06T11:09:00.000Z

Hi, and welcome to my inaugural attempt at bloggage! It's my intention to share here my thoughts on, and experiences of, directing, producing, and running a theatre company.