by Gillian Kirk

The Stuff I Do (yippee)

Wonderful week last week, with lots of goodies coming at once.

On Tuesday, I reviewed Michael Boyd (former RSC Artistic Director)’s new show, The Open House, for Bristol 24/7. You can read the review here.

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The Open House, Theatre Royal Bath – photo by Simon Annand

Then I popped on a train, feeling all intercontinentally high-flyin’, wrote my review on the tracks & when I woke up (some sleep happened somewhere), I was in King’s Cross on  my way to the C21/Script Angel WritersRoom, which ran as part of the International Drama Summit at Content London 2017.

Very merrily, my latest TV pilot spec script – written in a 10-day deadline frenzy in September – was highly placed in the C21/Script Angel Drama Series Script Competition. And this is how I won a place on this full and excellent day.  In three groups, we developed a new show from concept to pitch. Each worked closely with an experienced show-runner: Versailles’ David Wolstencraft; Follow The Money’s Jeppe Gjervig Gram; False Flag’s Maria Feldman and Shades of Blue’s Adi Hasak.

The 9-6 day seemed like it was eaten whole in one big bite: Have we finished? Where did it all go?! 

That’s in no small measure due to a cracking task-led structure, but also a bally marvellous working group. So often,  writers work in holy isolation but here we had to listen, respond, respect and hit a deadline with a goodie. (What do you mean, “did we?” Of course we did!).

Anyway, it was yet another of those weeks where I stand, grin and kalloo-kallay my lucky stars to be able to do the stuff I do. I saw and reviewed great & thought-provoking theatre (heading to London in the new year, I believe) and worked with a great international group of merry writers and producers. And we all learnt from our group’s ace showrunners, Jeppe Gjervig Gram & Adi Hasak, with the sharp and steady Hayley MacKenzie of Script Angel’s hand on the tiller.

What a cracking week.

 

by Gillian Kirk

Review: Christmas Eve

I’ve just reviewed the new Daniel Kehlmann show at the Ustinov, Theatre Royal Bath, for Bristol 24/7. In short, this was a tough review – I wish with all my heart I could have written a happier one. Click the pic to have a read:

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Patrick Baladi & Naimh Cusack in Christmas Eve at the Ustinov, Bath – pic, Simon Annand

by Gillian Kirk

1 year on; 3 new screenplays & a magic cauldron

Ha, make em laugh, eh? More like, make yourself laugh. I just spotted an old post from a year ago: The Awful Art of Unwriting. It’s a confessional, where I admit to not having done a new spec screenplay (as opposed to a play) for about 5 years.

In the last year, I’ve written three: one comedy pilot (30 mins) and 2 dramas, an hour each.  They’re each still being polished in their own way, and one of them is under the radical surgeon’s knife, but blimey, it’s really worth a backwards glance from time to time.

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Various other projects are still in the cauldron – not least the quantum 2-hander & the glorious, audience’s darling, Glitter Knickers – so if you have a time machine/  magic wand/ producer/ magic money tree, you’re very welcome to drop me a line…;)  And meanwhile, new things start to sizzle for theatre and screen (oh, boy, and how….)

Watch this space!

by Gillian Kirk

No new stories? Then you’re never alone!

Way, way back, many moons ago, I spent a disproportionate amount of my degree studying fairy tale, folk lore, myth and language. A very lucky soul, I was.

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Morgan Le Fay, Frederick Sandys, 1863/4, Birmingham Museums & Gallery

I ended up examining  the evolution of one character in particular – Morgan le Fay, King Arthur’s half-sister. A powerful woman in every version of the tale, she morphed from pre-Christian tri-partite fertility goddess (Celtic Morrigan), to an evil, conniving force of darkness. Over the centuries, society’s attitudes to women changed, as Christianity spread, and as things like the Marian Cult of the Virgin Mary took hold in scriptoriums (remember, back in the day, the monks were the publishing houses!).

And so, as Christian men took over, the earth-mother became a demoness. The other significant woman in Arthurian legend, Guinevere, herself changes during the story from sweet virgin to unfaithful wife.

As my own tale morphs and grows, and I constantly learn about the importance of story-making and -telling, I’m reminded again and again how, fundamentally, stories are universal.  No matter the surface differences between Peppa Pig, Greta Expectations and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, a closer look will find the parallels: regardless of age or culture, we all want and need our story medicine – we just take it from different bottles.

So if there’s nothing new under the sun, that should remind us: our tribe is always out there.

  • As a writer, that might goad you to keep writing. You’re not doing it for you – it’s for the people who need that story.
  • As a reader/viewer, remember to try some new stuff, regularly and not just on the screen. Just as your own tale keeps growing, so others are sharing theirs for you to enjoy.

And as the changing depiction of Morgan showed how “society” (the story writers and publishers, reflecting an increasingly male-led world) viewed women who had power, so our stories reflect the way we want our world to be, and how it is. Which means, ultimately, that if we don’t say it, publish it, produce it, watch or read it, it canot be heard. 

For those who like delving deeper in such things, both TV Tropes and the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Fable Index can lose you several hours down the rabbit holes of linking themes, motifs, lessons and characters….Just remember to come back!

 

by Gillian Kirk

Tales From The Midden

I’m doing The Artist’s Way all over again, straight after completing the 1st go-round.

And now, just reading The Artist’s Way for Parents, I’ve had an inspiration.

JK Rowling said she only got Harry Potter writ because she did no housework. One of the many reasons she has my huge respect.

My inner police-people are too uptight for that, though. I can’t focus in a midden. So I’m going to adapt that and do something lots of others who work at home / write / create might have thoughts on-  ZERO small chores are allowed to interrupt my day.

At some dedicated point – with my 6-year old helping – it will be “maid time”, when the “maids” come in (us) & we do the jobs that olden-day “staff” would have done. Until they come, it doesn’t happen. We play, make, create, talk, mess things up.

That way, the niggling guilt can stop AND a wee man gets to contribute to making his home a place that we make nice together. Wish me luck…!

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by Gillian Kirk

9 1/2 weeks. OK, 12. But I couldn’t resist.

If you were born after maybe 1975, you might not get it. But if you’re roughly my age (a grand forty-four and a half) you might now be hearing a dodgy John Taylor* theme tune and getting memory-whiffs of a tousled, sweaty Kim Basinger staring in a confused fashion at all the identical rows of white shirts & black suits in Mickey Rourke’s wardrobe and well, watching things on a projector. 9 1/2 Weeks was basically the forerunner to both 50 Shades… and Sleeping with the Enemy. But I digress.

What I meant to say was that between Mother’s Day & Father’s Day, I’ve done 12 weeks of The Artist’s Way. And jotting it down because the last post was helpful to some people I like. And doing it all has been so helpful to me that I’m starting all over again. pexels-photo-127968.jpeg

If you are interested in this for yourself (it’s basically a refresher / CPD / spring clean for any one, no matter who creative they want they are / want to be),  you don’t need or want a list of my “achievements”, or some wondrous “before & after”s. They’re my things, and while you might kindly say, “oooo, ahhhh”, that’s no good for you!

What might encourage you, though, are these things:

  • I don’t crave “success” for what I do. While I still very much want an audience for my work, I know it’s unequivocally because I want to engage with people, move them, make them feel less alone. Not because a large audience / exposure is a success. It ain’t necessarily so, as the wonderful Ella & Louis sang (go on, have a listen while you read on).
  • I’m just excited & inspired by others’ successes & by great work – and I’m 100% envy-free. When I see any good work in any form (music, theatre, TV), or hear anyone I know do well, my reactions are “clean” – like a happy kid. I want to applaud, cheer, halloo – and there’s not an atom of envy. Yep, with a foot-shuffling blush, I know there used to be. A bit of a “gah, I wish I could…”, nothing nasty, nothing against the bod or the work, but there was a “what about me? when will I…?” And now it’s gone, which is bloody lovely.  Instead, now, I cheer it all, and am just excited to be in the same game, playing in my corner, too.
  • I’m excited by creative risk, after years of keeping my head below the parapet. That’s probably not uncommon for anyone, artist or not, after domestic abuse – as in my case – but it might also be the case for anyone who’s been shamed / mocked / belittled/ blacklisted for creative risks – or just felt like they crashed & burned! That could be from a teacher years back, or your agent never returning your calls. Confidence can be fragile, but creativity depends on confident splash-splash-splosh! I know in my heart that playing safe isn’t playing at all.  It’s just people-pleasing and boring and really not me!
  • I’m kinder, lighter, and excited about the future. I’m working with a wide range of new collaborators on early-days ideas, working out what we might like to plant in the ground. Some of that’s theatre, some film or TV. Some is community, and some is business. But they are all connected, with no false divides.

I hope – if you’ve heard about The Artist’s Way, and wound up here, this is helpful. Or if you’ve never heard of it, your curiosity is piqued. For some, it’s about removing “blocks”, for others, it’s about getting out of a rut, that old rut. Some feel like it’s a spring clean to bring back their lost playfulness. Others, that it’s peaceful self-care, meditation and self-strengthening. Here, it’s all of that (and yes, stuff has happened. Big stuff has happened, and more is happening. But that, dear friends, is another story).

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*YES! Exactly! That John Taylor, from Duran Duran, going solo for what was basically a soft-porno. And ye gods, sorry, Mr T, it was not a great song. I still have the 7″.

Really? Oh, ok. Don’t say I didn’t warn you – it’s a bit 1980s rude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5OBXJ2AxSA