Monday, January 7, 2013

My Creative 2012

In much the same way that I committed my summer holidays to paper at school every September I've decided to cast my eye back over what I've done in any creative capacity over this last year. With the nature of this industry being so fleeting and inconsistent it's easy to feel one has nothing to show at the end of a hard working year. So, in order to avoid that, it's nice to remind yourself what you have actually managed to achieve. I don't know when in life you're supposed to reach which particular milestones. Personally I feel that, at 25 years old, I'm way behind in establishing myself an actual career but, on the other hand, it's possible that doing it the long way is doing it right. Either way, although I believe that I should be earning my living solely, or at least mainly, through creative endeavours I'm not judging this year's success on financial reward because frankly I'm not there yet. I include this information because, although it's not strictly anyone else's business, I promised to be honest about my work here and this is no exception. 

So, first things first, I don't think 2012 was as jam packed as it could have been. I definitely intend to increase my pace in 2013 but here are a few of the things I did end up doing.
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As regular readers of this blog (or anyone who has probably ever met me) will know, I run a comedy club with my business partner Sam Gardner. We opened in January 2010 in Canterbury, Kent and have been running clubs and a variety of other comedy events ever since. 2012 was quite a unique year for the company. For the first half we ran as per usual with monthly clubs at our resident venue The Parrot and two or three times per term at The Attic on the University of Kent campus plus Chatback Kid's Hour at The Gulbenkian Theatre. We are very lucky that our audiences are enthusiastic and loyal but it's still very hard to make a living in live comedy, especially when we were both working numerous other jobs and living in separate cities. We took a six month break before we realised two things. Firstly, we missed the gigs like hell and secondly we were being inundated by Kentish residents asking where the shows had gone. That's all the encouragement we needed to relaunch again in September! So that's the crazy ride Chatback had in 2012. Obviously the initial issues had to be addressed and we didn't shirk that. To this end there'll be a few changes in 2013. Keep your eyes peeled! 

Our audiences come to our gigs with open minds and wanting to be amused. This means we get to invite so many interesting and exciting acts to perform at our shows, faces both familiar and unknown, to showcase the incredible array of talent currently on the circuit. At the bottom of this post you'll find the websites of all the acts we welcomed last year, please do go see anyone who takes your fancy. One last note: A wonderful side effect of struggling under our ever growing workload this year was the  support we received from all the local arty types culminating in the creation of our amazing Chatback marketing team. Many lovely UKC students have stepped in to give us a bit of a lift just when we most needed it but special note must go to our core of helpers Soph, Daphne, Grace and Faith. Special note must also go to Daniel Tollady for his tireless design work and to Andy Jeffs for his pre-show music extravaganzas at The Attic gigs.
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In 2011 I wrote, directed and produced a play at the Edinburgh Fringe. It was the true story of a pre-op transgender lady called Rachael Jones who I met in Indiana where she lives, and runs a cafe, on the Bible Belt. The ethos of the cafe is inclusivity. It's motto is 'Everyone is welcome, no exceptions'. I was entranced by this and by Rachael and her sunny optimism. The play was a solo piece and was performed by actor Graham Elwell. I'm very proud of the play but probably just as proud of the logo I painstakingly scrawled into a cup of coffee. That's why that, and not the official poster of the show, is stuck here for all to see. From the start this has been a collaborative project. My family have been super supportive and we've run this theatrical operation like a family business. Mum on Stage Management, Dad on FOH and internetting, Grandma on publicity! Even the sister starting facebooking about the show! In 2012 we added Faith (remember her from Chatback!?) into the Stage Management division and we took the play to two festivals:
These were really good fun and, in many cases, educational! We got the chance to meet many other writers, actors and performers peddling their wares and, when we weren't rushed off our feet, we went to watch their shows too. So I have Dublin to thank for introducing me to Collin Clay Chace and his beautiful Rock 'n Wrestle Roadshow and Brighton for Andie Davidson and her poetry book RealIsations and Greenwich Theatre's Lillies boys and their gorgeous production. We also performed a fundraiser at Central School of Speech & Drama's Embassy Theatre in aid of Gendered Intelligence,  a charity that uses the arts to educate on the topic of gender. The show was packed full and they even created a mini Rachael's Cafe in the bar area selling cookies, cupcakes and wine! 
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WRITING
Rachael's Cafe was my debut play and it still has a fair bit of work that needs doing to it. Between 2011 and 2012 I learnt more about how to edit, rewrite and workshop a play so that the  performances in Dublin and Brighton were markedly different to their debut in Edinburgh. This gave me the confidence to have a crack at writing a little bit more. As a result there are numerous notebooks and untitled documents on my computer harbouring bits and bobs of attempted masterpieces! I suppose the semi-success stories so far are:
1. Keeping my blog up to date-ish. In 2012 I wrote 40 blogs as compared to 24 in 2011. 
2. Writing for TheGayStage.co.uk as their featured playwright specifically about the gap between GLBT and mainstream theatre.
3. Writing the first few drafts of a new play which is being workshopped this year with The Comedian's Theatre Company. 
4. Reviewing theatre and comedy for the Camden New Journal
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 LEARNING
I hope that in 2013 I attend more classes that are specifically directed towards what I want to be doing but I'm glad that I got quite a variety in 2012. 

IdeasTap: This is a great resource for creatives. They run a lot of free sessions that cover so many different bases. I attended a puppet workshop where we learnt how to manipulate different everyday objects such as socks and carrier bags. I went to Zena Edward's 'From Page to Performance' where we practised writing techniques for creative self-performed work. I attended a couple of sessions of the 'Down to Business' course where we learnt about running a creative business, grant funding, loans, equity and more. 

Masterclass at TRH: These are free (for under 30's) masterclasses held at the Theatre Royal Haymarket where actors, writers, directors and others from the film, tv and theatre industries come to share their expertise. This year I saw Danny DeVito with Thea Sharrock (click for review of this session here: Danny DeVito) and Alan Yentob the Creative Director of the BBC. 

StageOne New Producers Course: This is a three day course that you have to apply and be accepted for. It's run with a view to developing new commercial UK producers. We had masterclasses and panel discussions with so many shining stars of the industry including Michael Lynas, Neil Adleman, Julian Bird, Ros Povey, Vicky Graham, Becky Barber, Andrew Treagus, Joseph Smith, Nicola Seed, Blanche McIntyre and more. We covered producing, general management, contracts, writers, directors, actors, devised pieces, intellectual property, budgeting, raising capital and so much more. 

Si Spencer 'The Script Doctor's' writing class: I attended this five hour session at the Hen & Chicken's Theatre. It covered the aspects of writing such as plot points, character development, dialogue etc. I really enjoyed it. Si was friendly, interesting and fun to listen to. 

BBC at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 'Writing for Radio & Theatre': This was a really interesting session held at the Fringe this year and run by the Artistic Director Orla O'Loughlin of the Traverse Theatre. 

I still maintain that much of my most effective learning takes place by watching theatre and comedy shows, by reading and by keeping my eyes and ears open. 
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ACTING
Woefully little this year. This is really no one's fault but my own. I'm listed on Spotlight still but a combination of taking on too many roles on other shows meant that auditions and the roles themselves never really had a place to fit in. For the performances of Rachael's Cafe in Brighton and Dublin I added in a very small role with about six lines at the beginning of the play which I played. This wasn't created so I had the chance to shine or anything! It came out of something practised in rehearsal and worked better than anything else we'd tried. So I did that for a couple of weeks and then again in London. I also filmed a short segment as a presenter for an online company's viral.
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TEACHING
On Fridays I go to an organisation in Hackney called Core Arts where I work as front of house and teaching one-on-one sessions on Interview Technique and Communications Skills for people with mental health problems. Core Arts is an organisation which uses the arts to both break down prejudices about mental health and to engage their members to help them express themselves and develop skills. They have recording studios, music lessons, MIDI suites (I think I got that right), an art studio, stage, poetry writing classes and more. My sessions focus on developing the skills so that members are able to communicate with and express themselves in job interviews, housing or benefit queries and meetings or sometimes simply on a day to day basis. It's a pretty cool place and it has helped lots of people. 
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Dan Simpson (Poetry Team Captain)
& Paul Sweeney (Comedy Team Captain)

The last thing I did this year was to collaborate on a project with Dan Simpson (spoken word poet, compere of The Word House) on an idea we've had brewing for a while. Basically Dan works with poetry, whilst I work with comedy and, for the most part, they get pretty different audiences. This struck us as weird because ultimately they are both spoken word and they are both art forms. So many people see comedy as boorish and performance poetry as dull but the truth is that they are so much more diverse than that. We wanted to unite the two audiences. We wanted to shatter preconceptions. So we made it a competition! Stand Up & Slam! is a format somewhere between a poetry slam and a traditional comedy club line up. We have two comperes, or captains, one of whom is a poet and one a comedian. They mock battle with each other, create the 'friendly' sense of competition and introduce their team members. A number of rounds follow which will see one comedian and one performance poet perform ten minutes of material each. The winner of the round is determined by audience applause. For our first show we also had a headliner in the shape of comedy poet Tim Clare. The show launched on December 8th 2012 at The Gallery Cafe in Bethnal Green and was kindly supported by Apples and Snakes. The audience were wonderful and enthusiastic, all the acts top notch and, I'm ashamed to say, poetry beat comedy 3 to 2. Here's to next time!
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SHOUT OUTS: 
Chatback and our comedians
Dr George Ryegold - http://georgerye.wordpress.com
Carys Nia Williams - http://www.carysniawilliams.co.uk
Daniel Tollady (Designer) - http://danieltollady.blogspot.co.uk

Rachael's Cafe
LittleFlyTheatre (Rachael's Cafe website) - http://www.littleflytheatre.com
Graham Elwell - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2937698/
Dublin Gay Theatre Festival - http://www.gaytheatre.ie
Gendered Intelligence - http://www.genderedintelligence.co.uk
Lillies & Greenwich Theatre - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdSsNJOtZD0
Collin Clay Chace/Rock 'n Wrestle Roadshow - http://juhamusic.com/Juha/The_Rock_N_Wrestle_Roadshow.html

Writing

Learning
Masterclass at TRH - http://www.masterclass.org.uk

Acting

Core Arts
Core Arts - http://www.corearts.co.uk

Stand Up & Slam
Apples and Snakes - http://www.applesandsnakes.org

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Friday, January 4, 2013

Comedy is Subjective. Newsflash!?

Why is stand up comedy such an unreliable art form? How come a comedian can absolutely smash it at a gig on Monday night and die an anguished comedy death 10 metres down the road on Tuesday? Why is a joke deemed hilarious by friends in the pub suddenly completely lacking when delivered at an open mic night? Why does a comedian suddenly feel the need, mid-show, to edit or ad lib part of a set that was working fine over the past three months? And really, how is it that the 8pm show is nothing like the midnight show at The Comedy Store, London!? It's the same acts! It's the same material! 

The answer is simple: The success of a joke, of a comedian, lies solely in who's listening. 

It's part of why people gaze admiringly at comedians, those loveable ego-driven funny machines clutching a pint to their sub-par physiques, and declare breathlessly 'You're so brave!', 'It's the hardest job in the world', paramedics, soldiers and fireman instantly swept to the side. 

The same happens in real life. Yes, real life! Some people are naturally the more amusing jokers, some just happen to have found friendship groups that enthusiastically enjoy their wit and wry observations whereas the rest of us just assume that we're not funny. And maybe we're not. But if we look a bit closer we'll see that many of these successful jokers are not nearly so funny when removed from their group-with-built-in-comedy-fans or that they have a hit/miss ratio on par with many professional stand ups depending on their company, the time and the event. 

It all depends on who's receiving the joke. My sister has a very dry sense of humour. Unless I whip out a corker any joke I ever make will always be met with a disapproving glance and a distinct lack of laughter. My best friend will most likely be in hysterics but she's a compulsive giggler and wants to be amused. That makes a big difference. So I might be utterly unfunny, I might be the comedian of the century (it's unlikely yes). The truth is that it depends on who's listening. Also on how drunk they are.

It's a basic truth that comedy is not always funny. Or not always funny for everyone. Look to improvisation and you'll see a clearer illustration of how the power of comedy lies in receiving feedback from audiences, from keeping alert and developing in response to the audience's level of appreciation. This is how newbies with one good joke and twenty minutes of crap can end up honing incredible sets that speak perfectly to his or her generation of fans. This is why Michael McIntyre worked the circuit for years before becoming the only comedian in the list of highest earning arena tours 2012. 

It's a truth that's been covered by the success of TV panel and 'live' roadshows that edit down sets until only the laughs remains and any unnecessary awkwardness is quietly removed. TV audiences then feel disappointed when a live comedy show contains jokes that fall flat on their faces or sink without trace, when the laughs don't consistently come at neat five second intervals nor does every comedian end his set on a high note. The comedians are now the 'new rock stars', the untouchables who define what is funny and it's very hard for up-and-coming acts to live up to that in person. 

This isn't another rant about TV killing comedy. Panel shows, roadshows, they all have their place. I watch many of them myself. And while I'm not trying to encourage new talent to enter the industry, it's hard and pretty oversubscribed right now, I would like to ensure that clubs remain where comedians can break out new material, can try to do or say something innovative and where people are still willing to listen. Because, at the end of the day, comedy only matters if someone is listening. 


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Sunday, November 11, 2012

The Work/Life Balance OR How to Eat Without Selling Out

"Ah, poor so & so," goes the familiar refrain. "Always wanted to be an 'artist', always got the lead roles at school but since we left university he's really been struggling. He can never afford to come out with us and is always couch hopping, can't pay rent. Oh no, I don't envy him at all". 

I heard some variation on this recently and, let's be honest, this isn't an alien situation for many of us. The divide between my 'artist' friends and my 'real job' friends is growing ever wider as each post-Uni year passes. For me it's been two years since we graduated and the latter are now already starting to amass savings, eye up mortgages and nestle in on the lower but sturdy rungs of the career ladder. They are generally starting to create fairly structured lives for themselves that include regular socialising, holidays, partners etc. On the other hand, the rest of us seem to be flitting around attempting to create some semblance of a personally chosen and shaped existence. 

Life for creatives (and, as different creative disciplines spawn a variation of routines and demands, I'm going to focus on actors here) can be quite difficult to impose any sort of order on. Acting roles come in dribs and drabs, sometimes they'll contract you for a few months at a time and sometimes for just a few hours. Opportunities can be few and far between for long periods of time and then, like the proverbial buses, they'll come one after the other in quick succession. This means that actors need to be ready and willing to take up said opportunities at any moment. Keeping in mind that there is already a dearth of work available for the sturdy, dependable employee it's even harder for actors to find jobs flexible enough to provide regular income alongside such an unpredictable routine. Yes, actors may need to 'suck it up' and wave bye bye to the concept of a 'comfortable' lifestyle but not being able to afford rent and a tin of beans is when things start to get a bit debilitating. 

For example, simply to cover my (extremely reasonable) rent, travel card and basic food bills I need to earn a few hundred pounds a month. This is before we factor in that I, like many others, own a car, pets and often need to pay for clothes, make up, prescriptions, postage stamps etc. And in order to give myself every opportunity to make my way in an oversubscribed profession I need to be able to be available at a moments notice, work on profit share, go on tour and find work soon after a contract ends. Easy peazy, lemon squeezy. 

At university I did a course called Working in the Profession where we were encouraged to try to find 'actor-friendly' jobs. These include the stereotypical waitressing and telesales gigs but, to be honest, drop out of these jobs one too many times and you'll still find yourself in a bit of a pickle. I think some people really do get lucky and there are jobs where employers will be understanding enough to try to work around you if they can. In my experience however the tougher the job market gets the less an employer needs to be concerned about working around your schedule because, frankly, there's always someone ready to take your place. 

I thought I had the perfect job. I was pretty smug. I work as a tutor, it's well paid enough that I didn't have to do a great deal of other work, I have some degree of flexibility and it's only a couple of hours a day. I thought this meant that I would be in the uniquely beneficial position of having the majority of the working day entirely free for writing, doing admin, auditioning and the like. I was obviously aware that an early evening job would potentially affect any theatre auditions I might get but I figured I'd deal with that when it came to it and that, since no theatre work was immediately on the horizon, in the meantime I'd be earning an okay amount of money. But no job is really that flexible. I realised pretty quickly that I wasn't really going to be able to get odd nights or weeks off very easily and that taking a few weeks off to do a single (potentially unpaid) theatre job would mean I'd probably be out of a job. Telling myself I was still in a pretty fortunate position, I've stayed in this job for over a year now. I haven't at any point stopped working on creative projects but I've certainly shied away from auditions that would demand any sort of commitment to theatre runs or shooting schedules that would interfere with my hours. Soooo...yeah. I've avoided pretty much any performance work for over a year. I only just realised this. I've done other things with that time of course. I've written and produced a play, run a comedy club, taught classes at an arts organisation and I've been sensible with regards to being able to pay the bills. But I wonder if I've been a little too cautious and focused on only the immediate Work concern and left my personal equation rather unbalanced by putting the Life I want at risk. 

The other day a friend asked me if I'd heard of a particular theatre company. 

"Oh yes," I replied. "They're pretty well known". 

"Yeah, I thought so," she said. "The guy who runs it went to school with my brother. Apparently he was struggling for years, doing the 'artist' thing and they all felt rather sorry for him. Suddenly everything seems to have changed all at once and now he's doing really well." 

It's nice to hear a happy ending to the story and it makes you realise it doesn't have to all go to plan from the very start. But it seems you do have to put yourself on the line before that can change. So, if I believe in those sort of things, perhaps that was my sign. 
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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

'Hedda Gabler' at The Old Vic

I've always been a voracious theatre goer. Recently I realised I'd been lagging a bit. This is partly due to my brain's ever growing, infuriating habit of attempting to analyse every single second of a performance from the points of view of an actress, a writer, a director, a producer but rarely, unfortunately, a theatregoer. It's a good activity to learn to watch something critically but it's also very disarming when you really just want to sit back and be entertained by the incredible actors on stage in front of you. Whereas I didn't mind spending my available cash on theatre tickets when I was enjoying the productions I suppose I've become a little less inclined to shell out £10, £20, £30 and upwards for something that I'm not going to be entirely present at. Comedy shows I have continued to frequent, partly for work purposes, partly because they're more affordable and mostly because I'm better at losing myself in the often quickfire presentation of language and well constructed jokes. I'm still experiencing art, still being entertained and still learning from others. Theatre tends to demand a little more patience and it's that I'm lacking at the moment. 

But I've missed theatre. Oh how I've missed it! It's not only my passion but it's also part of the fabric of both my childhood and my entrance into adult independence. It's always been what my family do by way of entertainment or celebration, and it's always been what I spend the greatest proportion of my paycheck and my available time doing. Tonight, as part of the Stage One New Producer's course that I'm starting, I had tickets to see Hedda Gabler at The Old Vic. So it was the perfect time to head back into the auditorium. 

This isn't a review by the way so I apologise if you've read this far and you're expecting me to launch into a critical spiel. Like I said, tonight was more about watching the play as a theatregoer. I'm very interested in what theatre is for in today's modern world. I wanted to be able to assure myself that there is a point to wanting to spend my life in theatre for something other than amusing myself and my own passions. So yes of course I have all kinds of things to say regarding the performances and the set and the direction but I don't want to mull over all that right now. I just want to think over what the essence of the piece was and what it did for me. Sometimes I feel that film can tell dramatic stories in a way that is more affordable, accessible and convenient for people nowadays than theatre can. I know that musicals and comedy still can't be replicated on screen to the same effect but plays, which depend far less on the 'live' element, are a different matter. It's my biggest concern about the theatre but tonight it remained unfounded. 

I can't imagine watching Hedda Gabler on screen. I can't imagine feeling as transfixed, as involved in a character's life and immediate future than when I'm sitting directly in front of them. It's that feeling of being physically close to the actor but so far from the world they're inhabiting. It's being able to see their tears, their sweat, being aware that not only the world they've constructed but even their actual presence on the stage can all be broken in one fell swoop if, for example, they stumble on a line, a piece of furniture or any number of things. If I wasn't convinced by now, the unexpected, beautifully executed suicide of Hedda resulting in the sudden, dramatic spattering onto the glass screen in front of the audience, did so. For that second I was 100% in the theatre quite simply being affected by someone else's dramatic choice turned into reality. So I conclude: having characters on a live stage being watched by a broad variety of audience members all at the same time is society's most wonderful, effective and communal way of telling stories and sharing ideas. 

I imagine that different translations and productions of Hedda Gabler would shed light better on some aspects of the play than others but in this instance I didn't feel particularly enlightened about womens' rights and position in society, despite it being a fairly major issue in the show. However I felt a lot more educated on what it meant to be human and, more specifically, what it meant to be a human struggling with life. The script felt modern, the dress code and societal structure old fashioned, but the main feel of the show was timeless. All the things I learnt about the characters were, I felt, totally relevant to my life and my world.  George Tesman and Thea Elvsted reminded me of the sort of people who, though mocked or found dull, are loving, stable characters. I've met so many different characters in life and I'm always transfixed by this sort of person. They are, due perhaps to their sturdy morals, routined existences or simplistic thinking, often found unexciting individuals and excluded from various social circles and activities. However they are also so often the kind of person one really appreciates later in life as such qualities become more important in others. George Tesman particularly epitomised this in this production because he was simultaneously an awkward, easily mocked buffoon and a centered, capable presence in the centre of much chaos. While he bored Hedda she was very clear that it was him that was keeping her anchored to life. This trade off of qualities is neither the perfect scenario nor a particularly nice way to look at life but it is realistic. In society people lean on those who are stronger, flaky people marry sturdy partners who keep them grounded, centered older women become agony aunts. 

And this is exactly where Hedda and Loevborg come in. Both are drawn to the other's exciting but unstable and destructive personality. While they both find the stability and security they crave with George and Thea, they are so clearly entirely reliant on these individuals to keep them functioning. Hedda Gabler is such a fascinating character because she's so flawed. While it's easy to discount her insistent pleas that she wants to be happy due to her manipulative nature, it has to be admitted that it's not quite as easy at that. Her marriage to Tesman is a major indication of her attempt to set her life straight and find happiness and, while she's a terrible flirt, at no point during the play is she actually unfaithful to him despite her boredom. But it's this flirtation with danger, with keeping the fiction of herself as a free spirit going, that leads her along the precipice to return to Loevborg and, ultimately, her own destruction. Perhaps I'm discounting the importance of the position of women in society at the time of the play, perhaps without all these restrictions hemming her in Hedda would have been fine but I came away from the play feeling that she, like Loevborg, was just that kind of person. The kind for whom life is just harder than it seems to be for other people, the kind who would rather create a world of drama and difficulty with themselves as the main character than to roll up their sleeves and join the real world as an equal. None of these characters are perfect, they all have their pros and cons and they're all delightfully, and sadly in some cases, very human. Whether these characters strike a chord with the way someone is feeling themselves or whether it reminds them of an individual they know this play isn't demanding anything, it isn't telling us what to do, it is just chronicling life and its people. But it's good to know that, under the guise of a fascinating story and a good night out, theatre really is saying something important. 
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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Poem - Grandma

Today I went to a wonderful masterclass called From Page to Performance run at IdeasTap Hub by Zena Edwards. It was especially for writers who create work that they want to perform themselves on stage and about creating that unique voice, finding out what you want to say and how best to say it. I am most inspired by writers who create realistic, human character based pieces like Alan Bennett and Alecky Blythe but I'm aware that I'm still at a point that I'm constantly influenced and distracted by all different styles and forms of writing. While this is quite clearly a huge roadblock for me in moving forward as an artist I felt that I could at least take advantage of the positive aspects of my thirst to adopt the feel of the writers I most admire. So, while my focus is really writing plays that are either verbatim or at least quite realistic, I thought that since I was about to do a masterclass with a poet I'd try my hand at a form of writing that thrills me to the core whenever I hear someone really nail the sounds, beat, narrative and character that defines the perfect performance poetry for me. So last night that's what I did. 

I learnt that I'm not a natural poet. I'm not musical enough to hear the sounds, to understand the ways that words go together in the way that poets can. I don't see the world in symbols or metaphors and, too often, I dump subtext in favour of plain expression. But all these things affect the quality of my usual work too. They hamper my ability to create theatre that suggests and entices rather than tells and demands. So I reckon I should keep having a go. Because even if I don't end up as the next great poet perhaps it'll be the best writing exercise I ever did. 

I don't share enough of my writing either here or on stage. I'm not yet confident enough. But it's the only way to pave the way forward so, without further ado, here is last night's attempt.

Grandma

 My Grandmother is a woman you don't fuck with
If it seems common as muck to start an ode to a well-respected older person
By cursing
Then please forgive me
But you will see that she
Is hard to encapsulate
In mapped out daily thought or conversation
And, as so often is the case
When all trace
Of carefully constructed thought through language
Escapes me
Due to an over effusive dose of emotion
I revert to words that I know emerge at such times
To mean something that is otherwise
Indescribable

If youc an live to eighty-six years old
And still see off colds
That have full-grown men licked
You must have tricks
About how to live this life
Whether that's as someone's wife
Or child or mother
Or lover
And we, young women as we are,
Should clamour round, from near and far
To hear
Your stories loud and clear
To take our lessons
And count our blessings
That here in front of us
Is proof 
That regardless of life's crazy ways
If we can find the truth 
That we are living for
That we are driven by
And stick to it
With both sass and charm 
Then there is a chance
That we will come through unharmed
And continue on in this merry dance
Until someday we too hear some young person say 
'Well, isn't she amazing!?'
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Broadening My London Horizons: Polari - My first night at a Gay Literary Salon

It's so often said that it's almost boring to repeat it. But I will. 

'London is full of wonderful cultural activities and events to see or do no matter what your tastes or budget.'

It's true. I imagine it would be impossible to exhaust your options of things you could experience. When tourists come to London this is one of the first things that hits them.  But for those of us who live here, and particularly for those of us who have grown up here, we see London less as a cultural hub and more as our, albeit large, hometown. We become accustomed to certain people, certain areas and certain forms of entertainment and get locked into our own little worlds and routines. For me that means working, spending time in North West and Central London mostly and watching theatre and comedy. Those are the things I do. I could write you lists of what's on in the West End, fringe theatres and comedy clubs that go on for pages, but I wouldn't know where to start if you asked me where to see a new band play a gig or where you could watch some sort of sporting match. I just wouldn't have a clue despite the fact that people make near pilgrimages to this very city to do those very activities. Actually it can be quite overwhelming to try to start all over again with a new form of entertainment and learn where best to go, when and how. 

However, once in a while, a new friendship or a work event or an ambitious first date will introduce us to something we wouldn't have dreamt of doing (if we knew it even existed). And we might be intrigued, bored, enticed, thrilled, who know's what, by this new experience. Whether we end up adding a new cultural love to our roster or not, at least a brand new bit of London will now be within our reach. Which is why this Monday was so interesting for me. 

Over the past year I've met all kinds of people related to the different artistic activities I've taken part in and through them I have experienced aspects of London, and life in general, that are brand new to me. Through looking for companies to advertise in my programme for my Edinburgh show Rachael's Cafe (about a pre-op transgender lady living on the Bible Belt in the USA) in 2011 I met Alex Drummond who advertised her book Queering the Tranny. Alex, in turn, introduced me to Andie Davidson who runs Bramley Press which published the book and I met up with her when she came to see the show in Brighton. This Monday Andie invited me to watch her read from her book of poetry RealIsations at Polari, the gay literary salon at the Royal Festival Hall on London's Southbank. I must admit I doubt that this is an event I would ever have booked to see without such an invitation. Not that I wouldn't expect to enjoy it but I just never really came across it and, if I had done, I might've felt that it wasn't necessarily directed at me as an audience member. While this is of course entirely in my head I know it's the way that a great number of people would naturally feel about not only this event but also others that are clearly directed at and serve a particular sector of society that we don't feel we belong to. 

But the whole point of this blog is that this is the wonderful thing about experiencing London through the eyes of others, who are not necessarily Londoners. Polari was like an exciting little world I'd just discovered, like an intimate gathering of literary geniuses and fans ensconced in a friendly little room but right in the centre of London! Up and comers like Andie were on a mixed bill with steadfast names in the business such as Jake Arnott and Stella Duffy. There was poetry, historical fiction, occult novels,  a reading from a book with steamy sex scenes that was accompanied by a live reenactment (to some degree), episodes from a serialisation in The Gay Times which started out life as a screen play and then a novel before its move into the newspaper...It was like story time for grown ups, like live audio books, theatre and comedy all mixed with a pop-up bar and bookshop. I can't imagine it's for everyone, I won't deny I was blushing at a few choice moments, but if you like any combination of poetry, novels, storytelling and theatre I'd wholeheartedly recommend Polari. There was something incredibly nice and honest about people simply reading and an audience listening with no soundtrack or flashing lights or set. It was up to the quality of the writing and the delivery of it to shine through and it did so so very brightly. 
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Saturday, October 20, 2012

A Film Actor's 'Right' to Protection

The other night I was watching television and caught sight of a friend playing a substantial role in a fairly major movie. I called him the next morning to congratulate him and, thanking me, he said that he'd been thrilled to work with the stars in the film and had loved the process but absolutely hated how it had been edited. He thought the film had the potential to be so much better than it ended up being. This got me thinking about the lack of control an actor has when appearing in a film over anything but the performance he puts in on set on the day of filming. The reason I've always aspired to work as a performer in the theatre rather than on screen is because, for me, it's an actor's medium. Once the work on the script, direction etc. is complete and opening night rocks up it's the actor's world. Obviously you're playing by certain guidelines but the show is in your hands, you're in control of what the audience sees and what might be created in the moment. With a film the actor's performance can potentially be dramatically altered by the editing process or even last minute changes to the script - think Thandi Newton's complaint when the director of Crash significantly rewrote a scene in the movie after they'd already filmed what would be her reaction to the events of that scene. In her opinion the acting choices she had made based on the original script were no longer as relevant or effective and reflected badly on her as an actress. 

So what rights - bar the initial contract signing and script approval - do actors have? Once we commit ourselves to a project are we agreeing to lend ourselves, our faces, our skills, to become instruments for the filmmaker's vision? It's all very well saying we only choose to get involved with projects we believe in but that's not always an option when looking for work and it's also not always possible to be entirely sure of where a director or producer is ultimately going to go with a project. Keeping in mind that we are all now much more aware - thanks to reality TV- quite how spectacularly editing can change our perceptions of people and events, should we not all be a tiny bit more concerned how our performances can be twisted and turned into something entirely different? Most of us are far too focused on the desperate struggle to actually get cast in a film to spend time thinking about what might happen afterwards. This might be okay with harmless comedies, over the top action films or sentimentally sweet films where, if anything goes off piste the worst that's likely to happen is that we get a bit of flack from reviewers or are underwhelmed with the showreel material we get from it. But what about when a role holds us up as poster people for a political stance or religious belief that we don't represent? Then it becomes a bit more serious than mere questionable acting choices. 

I pick these out as possibilities because they're particularly relevant at the moment after last month when actress Cindy Lee Garcia went to court to sue the filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula claiming she was 'duped' into appearing in her infamous movie Innocence of Muslims, which led to worldwide riots and deaths, and had not been 'aware of its anti-Muslim content'. Her request for a 14 minute trailer of the film to be removed from YouTube as it had 'violated her privacy and endangered her life' was rejected by the Los Angeles superior court judge Louis Lanvin who agreed with Google lawyer Timothy Alger's statement that 'the rights of an actor do not protect that person from how a film is perceived'. 

Now, not having seen the film, her contractual agreement or truly knowing for certain what the endangerment to her life is, it is impossible to comment on this legal decision. However, taking Judge Lanvin's assertion as a stand-alone comment, I ask my own. 'Is this right?' After author Salman Rushdie was issued with a fatwa for writing a book he was offered protection based on how it was perceived. Why wouldn't actors be offered the same rights based on how work they are involved with is perceived? After all they're the ones who will be instantly recognisable to those offended. This is obviously a unique case and it would be silly to blow it out of all proportion since most of the time an actor's concern is that their scene has been unfairly cut or weirdly edited. Unfortunate but the way of the world. However this did all make me stop and think about when it might get a bit more serious. If an actor does choose to get involved with a ground-breaking - whether that be politically, religiously or other - movie or television project and, in doing so, takes an even greater risk than the directors and producers of said project will be doing, shouldn't they then be entitled to protection in the case of a public reaction to it which may result in endangerment to life, death threats and the like? If not then perhaps we should all be committing ourselves only to sweetly flippant projects or all be making our own work. 
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