Category: writing
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Devoted & Disgruntled Roadshow: massive
There’s a thing called Devoted & Disgruntled (D&D). It’s for theatre people who love theatre but also get pissed off with it from time to time. It’s a forum, an open space where you gather, raise issues, talk about them, share them. It’s real and online. It’s also on the road. Right now! I spent…
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Absurd journeys
Black Barn at LOST is now over. This dysfunctional circus family, scary siblings, pyromania and (understandable) reclusivity is – for now – a thing of the past. Theatre company tidy carnage did a great job with a sterling cast: Cameron Crighton, Helen Cuinn, Eilidh McCormick and Scott Reid, directed by Alice Butler with a superbly…
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What Dali can, Su-bo can’t? Artist / audience gap
An artist works, gives their sweat and soul to communicate something in a form that is somehow different to the everyday-expected. The audience engages, pays, comes, listens, studies. Different activities. If these two then disagree on the art, whose opinion matters more? Which one defines the “art”? When there’s a jarring chasm between what an…
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Knots: undo, remake, procrastinate
Today’s one of my two days a week to write, toddler-free. And this is the state of my desk. I’m halfway through my first draft of the C4Screenwriting pilot/spec script and found some mega-weaknesses. I’m now trying to weave some irn-bru strength girders through the plot, with the help of Massive Attack’s Heligoland (a haunting…
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Living, unfamous writers: too many of ’em about?
To be fair, if you’re not receiving tax-payer subsidy or other grants that call for you to support writers that live, you can do what you want. But theatre faces a challenge. It’s competing against those guys I mentioned earlier (Cowell, HBO, the West End, film) for audiences. And it shouldn’t just be competing for…
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Catching Up
You (I) run fast through autumn and early December to get that time off at Christmas and New Year, trip up (get the lurgy, natch), sleep a lot and fall madly behind. It has, I realise, become a pattern. BUT! Waving a blazing torch of flaming, rejected, double-side printed scripts, I stride with gumption into…
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High Tide Winter Retreat
6 December already? How did that happen? Terrifying. So I’ll ignore it and pretend I will easily make the year-end deadlines I’ve given myself… Let’s deal with the Now instead. Am back a day or so from the excellent High Tide winter retreat in Halesworth, Suffolk. Sixteen brave scribes [wrighters, rather than writers, we hope]…
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Quickies
Oh, it’s the end-of-year madness, which, like all other things seasonal, comes early. First of all, a massive grins all round as Venue Magazine released its judgement on the year’s best bits, rating May’s 24 Hour Plays at Theatre Royal Bath, run by the great Shane Morgan at Roughhouse as 2nd best play of the…
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A voice is for….?
“Tale Man tell me what’s wrong with my life, am I only here to question? No, sir, you are undoubtedly here to cajole and make suggestions.” Julian Cope – “These Things I Know” – ‘Black Sheep’ album Excellent day yesterday at the Soho Theatre, where they held (yet another) great training session for writers, in…
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Catch
The thing is, too much thought and too little ability to translate that into a regular blog post… A few fragments, then…Fresh from reviewing “Jigsy” – a Les Dennis one-man show at the Tobacco Factory. Last night was the “world premier”, tonight’s the last show! This was great theatre. My review for whatsonstage.com is here.…
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Putting on work = growing as tale-tellers
Well, yes, being a writer is all very well, but you’ve gotta remember (and we can forget!) that it’s ultimately about getting the drama onto the stage. The work can be as beautifully crafted as you like, but audienceless, it’s meaninglessly mute. I spent yesterday afternoon (+ will spend today and tomorrow) with the great…
Gill Kirk, writer 