The humble question mark

Bowing pleasantly, it never means to be obsequious,

but words will flaunt themselves with flair and fashion,

spelling out new forms of confusion

for the humble question mark.

What?

Impartial, but never as important as a line of lovely letters,

deftly jiggled or dashingly scrawled across the scroll

(but that was an age before)

or the screen

(times new roman has never looked so neat)

it’s always the end of the line for the humble question mark.

Who?

Silent presence,

crook of the bold and the quizzical,

the querulous and the combative,

the angry and the anxious,

the aged and the young, but not the loving.

The lovers never trouble the humble question mark.

Why?

Speech was a gift that grew without roots

and floated on damp breath to warm ears and fertile minds,

but tied to the page it needs sculpting and teasing,

guiding and preening, pacing and breathing

to find true feeling. Is this what gives meaning

to the humble question mark?

Where?

I’m everywhere,

can’t you hear me?

can’t you see me?

can’t you feel me?

cried the humble question mark.

When?

Just ask and I’ll be there.

New look, new work.

A foray into energy journalism has sprouted shoots,

the news instinct (squirming, worming, burrowing)

is growing...

Thus, it begins.

Up to date: March!

To get us nicely up to date... March!

Season's Greetings at the National. Yes, Christmas is long gone. No, it didn't feel out of Season. Set: a cross-section of a family home. Script: a cross-section of holiday misery. Snorts a plenty.

Electro-Late night, Museum of London. A walking, talking android. My wildest BSG dreams answered. Almost. (Plus gorged on the historical displays.)

Book club at The Chocolate Teapot, Esher. Inaugural session, on The Hare with Amber Eyes. Takes me back to studenthood. With the added bonus of yummy scones.

Recap: February!

February!

Black Swan at Odeon. Darren Aronofsky's dark, modern fairytale. Ballet with bite.

Band of Horses at Brixton Academy. Beautiful, but soft (and best) opening song ruined by a heckle. Shame.

Recorded "Joan's Hymn" poem for the Valentine's Day Sunday Joint on East Leeds FM, Leeds. Ace. Listen Again at http://www.elfm.co.uk/


Bang Said The Gun at The Roebuck, Angel. Stand-up poetry with a speedy, competitive open mic sesh. Mmm.

West Ham SMASHING Liverpool 3-1. Theatre doesn't get much better than that.



















Whatsonstage.com Awards Concert 2011. I snapped Sheridan Smith, Simon Callow, Lee Mead and a handful of other thespy types. For more of my shots for WOS see pics 1-15 here.



















The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the Donmar. Chirpy, damned funny musical. Clever audience involvement had me howling.

January!

Let's kickstart March twenty eleven (and twenty eleven itself) on Through The Ivy, a quick photographic/audio/written recap of Jan, Feb and March.

January!



British Sea Power at New Slang, Kingston upon Thames. What a treat.




















Improvathon at Hoxton Hall. Mammoth. Exhausting. Probably better than sex.


A Flea In Her Ear at the Old Vic. Fast-paced farce by Feydeau. Hilarious.

Cindy Sherman Exhibition, Spruth Magers. London. Bold, chameleonic character photography.

Rolf Harris' A Midsummer Night's Dream-themed exhibition. Feat. Lily Cole as Titania.

Belt Up: Vaults Ahead of the Pack

A dalliance with the Edinburgh Fringe darlings at Southwark Playhouse

The echoing, vault-like (and sometimes bloody freezing) spaces at Southwark Playhouse are a good match for Belt Up theatre company. Accustomed to the battered, abandoned space at C-venues in Edinburgh that has been christened the Squat by fond theatremakers, it must seem like a home from home (from home).

For a second year running they are staging something at the theatre tucked around the corner from London Bridge tube station; last year they brought two, and this time they're presenting a third. Will it make a hat-trick of innovative theatre?

At this moment in time, I can't pass comment, seeing only two of the three shows, Lorca Is Dead: Or a Brief History of Surrealism, and Quasimodo last night. Kicking off with the first, Lorca has all the hallmarks of a Belt Up classic: the guided audience input, mad bursts of activity hot on the heels of spotlighted pinnacles of tension and grief, which are themselves undermined with blasts of dark humour descended from Python-esque surrealism.

Scattered amongst the small tables and footstools in the shabby-chic bar at the Playhouse, the Company introduce themselves to us as Salvador Dali, his wife Gala, Andre Breton, Rene Magritte, a host of Surrealist figures playing with the conventions of time and place. Progressing with the audience through to Breton's huge living room, they begin to act out the death of their companion Federico Garcia Lorca: play within a play within a play, and probably within another play, is exactly how actor-playwright Dominic J. Allen likes it, as I discovered when I interviewed him about the show at York Theatre Royal earlier this Summer.

Populated with familiar characters from art and literary history, Lorca is an intriguing, invigorating and irreverent production that surprises with some brilliant lines on what it is to love, and to be human: a Belt Up show with substance as well as distinctive style.

Viewing Quasimodo later the same evening, perhaps it was too late in the night, too soon after a long week at work, to fully appreciate. A subterranean tale (via Victor Hugo, as its posters parenthesise) Quasimodo is work of a different consistency and pace.

A compact cast of four to Lorca's eight, a chillier space with clusters of candles and whispering masked creatures, we are in neo-Gothic territory, heightened language and exaggerated characterisation almost taking its cue from Commedia dell'Arte. The Hunchback of Notre Dame's plot is familiar to most, gypsy Esmerelda bewitching virtually every man in Paris with her beauty, and crucially, her kindness.

Slices of the dialogue are a shade hyper-theatrical, and when the oft-used line, "I've loved you since I first saw you," pops up, it's usually time to head for a redraft. Nevertheless, it's structurally a very strong adaptation of Hugo's novel from one of Belt Up's founders Jethro Compton, with stacks of atmosphere, and fine turns from all concerned.

The word 'ambitious' is perhaps the most disheartening any creative can read, with a ringing, patronising quality if delivered in the wrong way. I know exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end of that choice adjective. But Belt Up's ambition should be feted, and now that they are set to spend some time learning the ropes on some of York Theatre Royal's shows this year, they can use such experience to move in yet more enticing directions. Don't miss the beginnings of something special.

Downton Abbey's destiny: a slightly whimsical take...

Wheelies, Mustard Pots and Hot New Haircuts

Inspired by my fellow blogger, Jack of Hearts, I've come up with my own ridiculous version of Downton Abbey: The Second Series. Enjoy.

My prediction is that Downton Abbey becomes a hospital for wounded soldiers, so that Thomas can come back and try to rule the roost, after saving the doctor's life in the trenches and getting all chummy with him. Then he'll wreak havoc with Mr Bates' life again. Bates stayed at home because of his gammy leg, and begins directing all the extra farming, while Anna becomes Chief Land Girl, (or is this from the wrong war?) and eventually discovers that Mr Bates' wife is really locked in an attic in a London room, fed only on pineapple and plantains. She spends four episodes with this dilemma simmering away, and eventually thrusts a garden hoe at Bates, taking out his one good leg, and leaving him wheelchair bound. He takes to chasing her about the grounds and performing wheelies to impress her.

Meanwhile, Daisy takes on a new life as Head Cook for the wounded, slowly getting her own way with Mrs Patmore. William writes to her, confessing his secret love and admiration for Daisy, but it's too late, and by the time she gets his letter, he's already back at Downton in a stretcher, blinded by mustard gas (or is this, again, the wrong war reference?). Daisy, driven barmy by the cruel irony of the situation, forcefeeds him mustard until he is left a shivering wreck, only calming in the presence of his beloved horses. Eventually, they will be reunited (when Mrs Bird hides the mustard pot for good...)

Lady Sybil has a passionate, politically themed tryst with the attractive Irish chauffeur, and when she chains herself to the gates of Parliament and disgraces herself in the eyes of snobbish London society, Branson proposes whisking her off to his homeland. But she is committed to the cause, and becomes bosom friends with the Pankhursts, eventually marrying Branson in a secret ceremony with Christabel as a witness.

Robert, Earl of Grantham goes off to war as an officer, along with Matthew Crawley, and their bond strengthens even further, until one day Robert is taken out in the Battle of Ypres and Matthew is left to drag his dying body out of the line of fire. As he utters his last breath, the Earl tells him, "Look after Mary... She's a silly little madam, but she loves you..." He presses a pair of his prized, elasticated Downton boxers into Matthew's hands, and slips into death.

Lady Edith becomes a force to be reckoned with, utilising her already well honed letter writing skills to preach to the Sunday papers about the need for mechanising all the farmsteads in Yorkshire. Sir Anthony Strallen sees the letters, and is moved to propose once more; when he reaches Downton in his new motor, however, a telephone call he receives there gives him orders: he must go to the front. This leaves Edith crushed once more, and in a fit of rage, she runs to her sister's room, and sets fire to Lady Mary's hair, singing it to her shoulders.

Lady Mary has been pining for Matthew, and unfortunately for Edith, takes the enforced new hairdo in her stride, fashioning it into a chic bob, which slowly takes London society by storm. By the mid-1920s, she becomes a style icon, and worshipped for her modern attitude to men: "Take them to bed, or leave them!" she is deliciously rumoured to have declared, having earned enough money through appearances at public events to support herself.

Dora, Countess of Grantham, mourns her husband, and takes to spending forlorn hours weeping at his graveside with Violet, attended by O'Brien. Dora's ladies' maid has become a true penitent, and devoutly religious, intending to offer her life to the cloth once her mistress finds a replacement. This plan is scuppered when Thomas returns, and threatens to spill the beans. Blackmailed into perpetuating Thomas's wicked scheme to get Matthew Crawley into bed, O'Brien eventually throws herself into a river, after filling her pockets with soap and stones.

Isobel Crawley takes charge of the hospital arrangements at Downton in the absence of the doctor, and runs a tight ship. She gets into difficulties with Mrs Hughes' approach to over-ironed, over-starched sheets. "It's simply not necessary. Neat and clean is all they need be!" Mrs Hughes is nearly tempted to clear off altogether, but her ties to the house, and to Carson, are too much, and she stoically remains.

Gwen becomes a wealthy young lady as the telephone company's secretary, and fields off many offers of marriage to become a strong, independent woman. When the war ends, the loss sustained during the war has changed Downton for ever. The estate is in a right old pickle. So Matthew decides to become a gherkin merchant, using the empty stables - all the horses long since taken off for the war effort - as a storage depot, and the profits he makes in the specialist food business during the 1930s enable him to restore Downton Abbey's estate to its former glory. Lady Mary has always been partial to a bit of gherkin, and on a visit to her dear Mama is unable to resist a bite of Matthew's pickled goods. Their passion for each other is rekindled, and the final episode seems them marry in the Downton Village Chapel, followed by an overwhelmingly raucous party. However, the celebrations aren't set to last for long.

A dashing guest at the party, Victor, invited by Lady Edith after entering into correspondence with her on noticing her regular contribution to the Sunday papers' Letters section, causes a stir. His German cousins have sent him a book by a young Austrian politician who is rapidly gaining popularity. Lady Edith elopes with him, and the only trace of the guest is a copy of Mein Kampf on his dressing room table.

The star, the moon, the lamppost and the car; or Photography vs. Poetry

I've been wondering for a while now what distinguishes photography and poetry (and in a broader sense, writing): two elements of my life that are crucial to how I perceive and interpret the world around me.

Short of channeling Roland Barthes (a la Camera Lucida) mid-blog, what fantastical conclusion can I have reached?

Striding home from the station after a long day stalking the streets of London, in search of art (the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill) and socialising (a lunch date with the Jack of Hearts), I whipped out my camera to take this shot of the star, the moon, the lampost, and the car. Each light sources of completely different scale and level, distance and dimension, on the Earth. In the darkened October evening, I was struck by the appealing constellation of these four diamonds of light.

This may seem like a rather long pre-amble to what I've set up to be a 'battle', a discussion that could easily lead to spilt blood, a literary deathmatch like the ones regularly seen in London, L.A. and cities across the globe.

But like all good stories, I reckon you need a little detail, a little extra imagery, to add to the picture. I've always been one for an extra flourish. Robert McKee, writer of near-seminal screenwriting text, Story, would probably be turning in his grave right now - if he were dead, that is.

Simply put, photography is the expression of an interest in the outside world, an external fascination, and an open receptiveness to patterns, images and people, that once captured, serves as a reflection of those points of focus, subjects, and objects. Once captured, that awareness of the outside world forms a critique and a relationship with it.

It is governed by a sensitivity to things alien to us, which nevertheless enable us, along with the photographer, to understand things familiar to us, the external informing, educating, contrasting and consoling the internal.

In opposition to this, I would place writing, and I use that sweeping title to work my point through, although I'm sure there will be a mineful of contradictions and exceptions to it. Writing seems to me as an elucidation of things internal, a mine of its own, welling up with nuggets of emotion, veins of belief and slowly formed (and forming), crystallised notions of human nature. Writing seems to draw deeply upon the self, in order to demonstrate, dissect and decipher what is beyond the direct sphere of knowledge and comprehension, everything that is unfamiliar, alien or external.

Viewing poetry and photography in this binary fashion, it seems that the process of these separate disciplines is the crucial point of divergence.

The roles of those actively engaging in the two pursuits are different: is the photographer a 'documenter', and the poet, the writer, a 'pyschoanalyser'?

Clearly, there are nuances and subtleties beyond such blanket terms, and I'll need a little more time to think about that; but until then, it's time for dinner. Before I depart the blogosphere, Ill finish with a story, or maybe a poem:

Why did the star, the moon,
the lamppost and the car
meet for dinner one night,
disparate as they usually are?

What intrigue, what magic
could anchor their orbits
in one place, at one time,
without heavenly writs?

The star was incensed,
The moon confused,
The lamppost impressed
And the car bemused.


Flashing past, red lights large;
Soft, orange glow cast;
Rotund, pale face full;
Pin prick, light years fast.

One lens open, intrigued, calm,
Two eyes steady, alert, keen;
Tentative finger, tense, ready,
One brief moment. What will it mean?

So you think you're a Nature lover? Think again...

"Nature."

"I love Nature."

"I'm a Nature lover!"

What does that actually mean? We box up Nature into diary-sized bites, we squeeze it into a walk in the woods, a picnic at the park, a stroll along the beach.

We view Nature through our television screens, conservatory windows; from the security of the sofa, or the car seat, or the train carriage.

We indulge in Nature.

We watch a sterilised grotesque: a creepy centipede scuttering in the darkness, a dung beetle rolling itself through the low-lit living room, the swallow swooping up to the ceiling, until the red button, and bed time.

Aliens and creatures of science fiction craft themselves in elements of Nature to frighten us, because we don't know it well enough, because we don't know it any longer. Oceanic tentacles loom from outer space; soil-clogged claws snap from the great unknown in the sky, vines untouched by secateurs extend, tendril by tendril, into our horrified imaginations.

David Attenborough is no substitute for a life lived in the great outdoors.

One in a Few Thousand: Ai Wei Wei's Sunflower Seeds

At the beginning of the week, I thought that a visit to the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern would be relegated to the realm of commonplace cultural experience. Thousands upon thousands of punters were set to sit, stroll, crunch, play, think, snooze, on the 100 million Sunflower Seeds carefully crafted for Ai Wei Wei's new art installation, as commissioned for Unilever's annual exhibit.

However, the gallery's decision to prevent members of the public from walking across the sculpture has leant my trip on Tuesday to the Tate a greater significance. It appears I am now only one in a scant few thousand.

The decision was taken, according to the Tate website, "in consultation with the artist," and I would love to have been privy to that particular conversation.

"Yo, Ai, you know that monumental piece of art that 1600 skilled artisans have been solidly working on for at least two years? The one that's meant to represent the power of people who have access to the internet in China, and therefore the growing potential for a challenge to the censorship of the state?"

"Yes..."

"Well, apparently, it gives off... er... Dust."

"Mmm."

"So, we're going to have to shut it down. With immediate effect. No one can walk over it. No one can run their fingers over the hand crafted porcelain seeds. No one can sit on it, as they would sit on a beach or a park, and spend a tranquil moment in thought. No one can traverse the border between art and the body, and find a new understanding with the simplest of tactile pleasures... Sorry about that."

Honestly. If "repeated inhalation" of dust "over a long period of time" were a problem, then just slap a time limit on the thing. Have a big ol' annoying buzzer rationing the time spent admiring the art. Enforce obligatory face masks upon the public. Give each visitor their own giant bubble, a Truman Show-esque fish bowl suctioned to their shoulders. Go on. Suffocate us.

This is a ridiculous reaction, that warrants a serious consideration of the things we value in life. To adapt the truism, a little bit of dust never hurt anyone.



Photograph: "Life Line", after Ai Wei Wei's Sunflower Seeds

Twitter Tanka

So.... It's about time I popped up some more juicy poems. This one I've put up at the request of a delightful teacher from Scotland who heard me poetry busking as part of the Ilkley Literature Festival this Saturday. Here goes....

Twitter Tanka

The modern counterpart
to outmoded ancestors
travelling the globe twenty years ago.
Who clutched bulky lenses,
and brightly greeted sulky Brit defences,
with flashbulb grins,
smooth, rounded chins,
on long legs thin.

This decade's bunch are a savvier breed,
moonlighting as tourists,
surfacing at night
to sate their social networking needs.

Click, load, click, refresh;
chasing you, as arrows touch.
Night's blue. Two minds meet.

They send each other tanka over twitter:
two loving lines repeated,
plus two more,
their retweeted characters
cursorily read by scores of followers,
their secret language shared,
and spread
from island to island of late night laptop lovers,
networks of glowing firefly faces
peering as screens to understand
their spinning thread
of conversation.

Click, load, click, refresh.
Chasing you, as arrows touch.
Night's blue. Two minds meet.

Waltzing into Oblivion with... The Mystery Jets

Pitching up two hours early outside Kingston's Hippodrome on Thursday night (just to nab a cheeky spot at the front of the queue) proved unquestionably worth it: The Mystery Jets at New Slang were phenomenal.

With a Seventies' flavour, aided by their stylish array of floral-patterned shirts, The Mystery Jets imbue their 21st century tracks with an infectious mix of bounce - Flash Me A Hungry Smile had us jumping and cooing along (I also love that its opening is a bit like the creepy music in 28 Days Later) - to the old school romance of Melt, with its intoxicating sentiment and stunning lyrics: 'There's an invisible line where your body meets mine, and crossing it feels like a drug'.


Replaying it in my bedroom, I've waltzed myself into a dizzying heap upon my duvet. They're right - who needs noz when you can feel like this? If only we could return to the days of fantastic dance halls, where innovation and dream found expression in the experimentation and elaboration of simple dance moves, instead of the inane booty-shaking two-step attempts taking place every weekend in booze-fuelled OceanCrasher across the country.

Then we could all waltz and whirl ourselves into delicious oblivion, to our hearts' content. In proper tribute to the music - new and old - that we love. Until then, our Dreaming of Another World is relegated to the bedroom.

Photos by: Vicky Ellis (MEEE!)

I enjoy this... thought on oft-repeated phrases

From Roger Ebert's piece 'My old man', a warm, engaging chunk of writing about his father's life with a bit of his family history thrown in too. Ebert's observations about day-to-day living in the 50s and 60s are fascinating. I like this piece, because it reminds me of the catchphrases I recycle (a Green girl at heart, clearly), and reassures me of their necessity!

'Every single time my father beheld this sight, he said exactly the same thing: "They fill you up before you even get your meal." Then he would glance at me, to signal that he knew he said it every time. That's how I gained a lifelong fondness for repeating certain phrases beyond the point of all reason. "For this relief, much thanks," from Dan Curley, via Hamlet. "Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart," from John McHugh, via William Butler Yeats. "A wee drop of the dew," from Bob Zonka. "Irving! Brang 'em on!" from Billy Baxter. "Tip top." These and other phrases are not tics, they are rituals in the continuity of life.'

Roger Ebert, http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/03/my_old_man.html

I enjoy this... article

I really enjoy this idea of marriage, and love, as an art:

Figes points to Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving: "Loving is an art, just as living is an art," he writes. "If we want to learn how to love, we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art, say music, carpentry or the art of medicine or engineering."

From this article below!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/20/the-myth-of-wedded-bliss

Women in Culture - swept under the proverbial carpet?

Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci...

Where are the female painters in this list?

And hang on... Where are women in our cultural history at all?

I'm listening to 'In Our Time' with Melvyn Bragg on Radio 4, about the lasting influence of artist and biographer Giorgio Varsari's revolutionary 'Lives of the Artists', which he published in 1550. The only female speaker on the programme, Evelyn Welch, Professor of Renaissance Studies and Academic Dean for Arts at Queen Mary, University of London, commented upon the lack of inclusion of women artists in contemporary accounts of art. A point which could probably be applied to the entire recorded history of human innovation and artistic endeavour.

The idea strikes me, perhaps unoriginally, that it isn't the absence of prodigious female talent that prevents women from taking the spotlight in our cultural history, it is the biased coverage that doesn't showcase their talents.

Not a new idea, but sometimes the old ideas take their time to fully percolate the grey matter; a branching element of the point that History is written by the winners, the conquerers, the powerful, the wealthy.

Which of course, equals Men. With a capital 'M'.

The capital 'M' strides across the ruled line of writing, on two legs, leaving 'W' waddling in its wake. Yes, if you place the two together, they form a neatly symmetrical figure, but look where that doodling unity leaves women. On the bottom.

Men, with a capital 'M', because how else to capture the strength, vitality and natural grace of our gender counterpart? As opposed to Women, with a capital 'W', to capture the sturdiness, solidity, and dumpy, uninspiring half of the human race. Woman, the sex with less wit, humour, intelligence, agility, and initiative.

If you didn't know better - if you read the history books - this is the space that women naturally occupy. (Natural is a word that far too often justifies men in their discussion of gender dynamics: Men are naturally funnier, naturally more entrepreneurial, naturally more business-minded. It's boring, and tiresome, and patently untrue. I'll concede that often, men are naturally more able physically, they're faster and stronger, and in that sense, of course, it is natural.)

This sweeping statement on the bias of history books, I'll admit, doesn't take into account some of the creative and pioneering women that spring to mind, who have been represented in critical historical and cultural accounts - Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale, Christina Rossetti, Wilkie Collins, Mary Wollstonecraft, the Pankhursts, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop... (Of course this doesn't cover much of twentieth-century developments, but for the sake of constraints on time, which I currently am spending far too much of on this blog post, I'll omit)

But where are the striking women of culture before the fifteenth century? Before the seventeenth century? In this instance, I can't call any to mind. Maybe that's my fault, but that goes to show that women of cultural significance have not truly penetrated my conscious, have not been as integral a part of my historical education as men, have not existed within the broad base of cultural exchange that I have consumed as a young girl, and woman.

I'm sure that someone with an in-depth knowledge of gender studies in literature and history would be able to articulate this point far better, but I can't hold back from expressing my worry and sorrow for all the women who have been swept under the heavy carpet of History, which they so diligently hoovered/took-out-into-the-garden-and-beat (pick your era) themselves first.

___

In Our Time, with Melvyn Bragg that can be listened to in a podcast at bbc.co.uk/radio4 - follow the links to "In Our Time", feat. Martin Kemp

Fire and brimstone fury in store for the arts under Jeremy Hunt?

"Tough" or smooth - which one of these options is it going to be for Arts funding under the new Con-Dem Nation?

According to Maev Kennedy at The Guardian, new Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt today "reassured those in the arts community who feared disproportionate cuts" with his promise: "Culture will not be singled out as a soft target."

That's reassuring indeed: but the fact that culture could even be associated with the word "soft", surely more suited to toilet tissue than an energising, powerful medium and expression of human existence, is disappointing. It's exactly the deployment of phrase that comes with the depreciation and criticism of subjects like English, or History. In times like these, surely it's the historians we look to for useful comparisons with past fiscal/governmental/societal solutions, and the literature that we love for reassurance and inspiration. (And let's not forget the excessive Media Studies-bashing. It's like hunting used to be, a condoned bloodsport. I pity the poor sixth-formers who take it, just because it interests them, only to have their future job prospects and all hope of credibility battered before they've even reached their AS Level mocks. )

The notion that the arts are "soft" should be challenged as loudly and forcefully as possible. If there's one thing that would do us good as a nation, it would be disspelling this fallacy forever. Surely Billy Elliot's balletic antics have long since provided refutation of this ignorant criticism of culture. Why reduce to squishy pulp, with one four letter word, something that provides millions (let's say, over 60 million?) in the country with creativity and stimulation every year, every month, every day?

And the idea is completely, moronically wrong, anyway. You'd have to be as dense as a tin of baked beans to see the arts as "soft", when you look at the rock-hard political and social power of writing from playwrights like Harold Pinter; poets like Linton Kwesi Johnson; novelists like Charlotte Perkins Gilman; artists like Picasso (Guernica pictured above). Why on earth was art and literature targeted by the Communist governments of China (see the fall-out after the Hundred Flowers Campaign) and Soviet Russia throughout the twentieth century? Because of the steely threat it had the potential to pose. In apartheid-throttled South Africa, literature was pinpointed for censorship, because of its power to challenge, one reason why writers like Nobel Prize-winning Nadine Gordimer were so important in the anti-apartheid struggle.

So where does that leave the arts in the face of a funding crisis, the "tough" times looming, like a suspicious Reuben Starkadder in Cold Comfort Farm, as The Stage readers have been informed today?

Hopefully not in the fire and brimstone fury predicted by preacher Amos in Stella Gibbon's novel; or relegation to an attic bedroom, doomed to mutter about what we saw in the "woodshed" for the next five years.

So please, Jeremy Hunt, do us a favour, either find a better speechwriter, or go buy a thesaurus. We don't want any more of this "soft" nonsense...

You big softie.

postcards from the future

they are blank

stippled with electric impulses

that shoot through our fingertips

transposing time’s tale

across the backs of our retina

by tickling the delicate stems

of our ancestral brains.


(The title of this poem is taken from a Guardian article I've just read, called Roadmap 2050, that can be found here http://tinyurl.com/2fpx2lf. I'm not sure if this poem needs some work. It probably does. Let me know what you think!)

Grand-Daddy Long Legs

His spindly legs will once have been swift and fearless,
Slim knitting needles stepping out with precision.

Now they tread fearfully, delicate, old as his ancient cobweb,
Slip sliding, weakened, across bathroom tiles. Morning, Freddie.

The Seagull at YTR - Is Pierce Reid the new Ben Whishaw?

My ruminations on Chekhov's The Seagull, after a great production at York Theatre Royal, are manifold. Some clear, strong performances from a number of the cast, like Kevin McGowan (Dorn), Julie Watson (Arkadina) and Paul Shelley (Sorin), and in particular from the Royal Scottish Academy of Drama and Music students Pierce Reid (as Konstantin, or Kostya) and Olivia Knowles once she gets into the swing of it (playing Masha).

I was not so convinced by Jessica Bilé as Nina, despite her fresh vitality, but perhaps that's because the character herself annoys me. Her sycophantic, dream-clouded vision of celebrity, in the form of her interest (and even infatuation?) with Trigorin, played with silver-fox, obscure sex appeal by Marcello Walton, struck me as selfish, infantile, and just plain blind. She pays for it with a harsh fate though, so perhaps the outcome of the play is meant to balance out her faults with the suffering she eventually bears.

For those who are not familiar with The Seagull's finale, I won't spoil it, as I'd hate to lessen for others the impact that I felt so strongly; needless to say, however, it truly brought home to me how well Chekhov has crafted the final act, and indeed, the play as a whole. I never quite believed that Kostya had the strength of resolve to carry out his plan, but I was proved wrong, which seemed fitting in the context of the penultimate, emotive scene.

On contemplation of the play itself, I find myself unable to ignore the resonances with Hamlet, and of course, they are spelled out to a certain degree. As one of the directors said in the post-show talk with the cast however (I missed whether it was John Kazek or Hugh Hodgart in my quick nip to the bar), a great writer never lets such references cloud his characters' actions and judgement, they must never be aware of them. Only of their motivation, as people. To paraphrase (as sadly, the dictaphone was not in hand) a great writer has great - in the sense of size - ideas which influence things in a much larger, broader, subtler way. Something I should try and remember, then.

Perhaps nudged by this remembrance of Hamlet, the similarity between Pierce Reid and Ben Whishaw - who groundbreakingly played Hamlet in a 'teenage-angst' fashion for Trevor Nunn's production at (not the National as I mistakenly claim but rather) the Old Vic a number of years ago - presented itself to me. Though there are clear differences - Whishaw's Hamlet seemed more consciously aware of his stroppiness as a tool for extracting guilt from his mother Gertrude, as opposed to the heart-sprung purity of Reid's writerly torment - strong talent nevertheless reinforces the comparison. Is Pierce Reid the new Ben Whishaw? While I hesitate to make such a parallel for the flippancy of a headline, there is surely no harm in predicting success for the young Scot.

This collaboration between Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and York Theatre Royal is something that we should laud and encourage, and I look forward to seeing more of this support for emerging talent across Britain.


Tickets for the last five performances of The Seagull at York Theatre Royal's Main Stage (which include 3 evening shows and two matinees) are available from http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/

Choice gem from my facebook chats: it's a WINNER...

My response to the simple question, "hows things?":

"goood. busy. working on a funding application for barefoot in the park. and musical's got a song structure! as has my set of performance poems. SO everything's chugging along nicely...
like an oversized, pregnant steam engine waiting to burst its guts across the rails."


Where did this come from? I could probably psychoanalyse, and say the steam train stems from my father's love of trainspotting, and the pregnancy from how swollen my brain feels at the moment from the excessive number of activities I'm involving myself in..... But that would ruin all the work of the image in the first place. Dayyym.