A Smorgasbord of Delights

Since last I blogged it’s been something of a rollercoaster ride for me – incredible highs and devastating lows. I’ve always sort of preferred life to be like that but I have to say that this last couple of weeks has been pretty white-knuckly, even for me.

To begin with the highs – first off, I attended the IETM spring plenary conference in Stockholm from 14^th to April. IETM (Informal European Theatre Meeting) is an organisation that has been going for over 30 years and pretty much does what it says on the tin. It brings together theatre makers and producers from all over Europe to foster collaborations, co-productions and sharing of ideas. This was not only my first time of attending but also in some senses my ‘coming out’ as a solo artist. I’ve never been particularly good at networking and ‘selling myself’ so I was especially nervous. I arrived the night before conference was due to start and began my stay with a run around one of Stockholm’s many islands – always a great way to orient yourself and arrive somewhere.

Then I was into the maelstrom. And ... I loved it. It was very tiring and a bit full on – not being usually the most excessively of sociable people I probably met more people in those four days than I normally do in six months. The great thing for me was that each conversation was not about ‘Sell! Sell! Sell’ but simply about conversation and connection. The theory being that true collaboration and sharing comes out of genuinely open conversation and not hard sell.

Amongst the highlights were one of the most bonkers pieces of theatre I’ve seen in a long time by a company called Institutet – Comte D’Amour. Inspired by the horrific Josef Fritzl case, this was four blokes in their pants and nappies going absolute shitstorm bonkers for three hours – with cover versions of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ and ‘Wicked Game’ thrown in for good measure. It was mostly over-the-top, pretentious and silly shite but there was a forty minute section in the middle of it where one of the cast in particular was basically fucking himself up – physically, emotionally, in every possible – which was bordering on genius. The trailer below does it no justice whatsoever ...

There were work groups and seminars and talking/talking/talking. The personal highlight for me was that I’d applied to present the One Eyed Man Project in a Brainstorm session and had been successfully chosen. 20 minutes to share the idea and get people’s feedback on it. I decided to treat the presentation exactly like a show and not prepare for it in any way. After all, I have been thinking and talking about the project now for well over 18 months. If I can’t talk about it off the cuff for 20 minutes then the prospect of me performing in like fashion for 75 minutes twice a night is a slim one. It went really well. My questions were related to presentational style, some content (which at this stage I’ll keep from you), and mainly how to interact with audiences before, during and after the presentations. I think the time is ripe to look again at how we share performance work with audiences and how we – performers and audiences – interact throughout the process. For example, is it possible for people to book tickets for a show without knowing where the venue is until the day? Rather like an illegal rave? Leave your mobile number and we’ll send you a text an hour before the show. Similarly, is it possible for a show to be announced on the day – for example if a huge global or national event makes it ripe for a show that day – and people to still want to come? My ultimate dream is to have a large enough network of people who have seen the shows in the past and engaged with the community aspects of being an audience that they could even ask me to do a show at the drop of a hat! Is all this simply pipe dreams? At this stage probably yes – but in the future, who knows? Anyway, the brainstorm was great, I met lots of people who loved the ideas behind what I’m up to and were really encouraging about it.

So, after lots of drinking and talking, and a bit of sightseeing, I left Stockholm on Sunday 17^th to fly home and begin ‘rehearsals’. The only fly in the ointment was that my legs and feet had started to really ache whilst I was in Sweden. I put it down to having bought a new pair of boots which I’d worn every day and too much standing around drinking and talking ...

How wrong could I be ...

The plan was to meet up with my collaborator on the project, Gareth Clark, down in West Wales for an initial week of discussions and sharing before getting into ‘rehearsals proper the following week.

Best laid plans ...

Below is the first of hopefully many mini docu-drama-mentaries on the process. Hope you enjoy it.

I bloody didn’t ...

Cheers,

Phil

Fail better.

So, the preparations are now well underway. Venues are booked, tickets are onsale, audience numbers have been decided upon. I need to look into getting some public liability insurance apparently so that if one of my audience unexpectedly keels over and dies, then I’m not to blame and can’t be sued into oblivion. I’ve even had some little business cards made which have the OEM project and this very blog written on them. It’s all going really well.

Apart from one tiny fact that I keep forgetting ...

This is supposed to be an experiment. It’s not supposed to be a show.

Oh shit ... I keep thinking I'm actually producing a show. I'm not. I'm performing a series of very public performance experiments.

So, the question I need to keep asking myself is what exactly am I setting out to do here and why – oh God, why? – am I doing it before a paying public?

The answer to the first half of that one has been covered quite a bit in previous blogs but I will address it here since I’ve only gone and raised it again. I want to move forwards from the kind of performance work that I’ve been doing over the last few years, both alone and with Volcano. The interaction with the audience that somehow transcends traditional boundaries without simply turning into a free-for-all discussion. The subject matter being decided amongst us on the evening and during the show – without somehow setting myself up to be Ross Noble. The idea that I can be totally open, vulnerable and present in front of an audience and that is rare enough and strange enough to provide the basis for an experience. I’m looking to see if I can create a new working methodology that allows me to make theatre at the drop of a hat about and for the people I’m presenting it to.

It’s an experiment. I have – genuinely – no idea if it will work. I actually have no idea what ‘working’ means in this context? If it’s funny, does that mean it’s ‘worked’? If it’s moving/boring/profound/silly, does that mean it’s worked? If people feel that somehow they’ve had value for money for their £3 ticket price, is that a sign of success?

Or has it 'worked' if people have had an experience of whatever kind that has interested them and been unexpected and out of the ordinary and challenging without being pretentious? But does that mean it’s failed if it is pretentious?

There it is. The key word.

Failure.

By acknowledging, both to myself and to an audience, that it could very likely be a failure I’m speaking about the elephant in the corner. Experiments have perceived and hoped for outcomes but often they don’t achieve them. The Bunsen burner farts and gurgles and the test tube explodes. Or nothing happens at all. And the scientist takes his findings back to the drawing board and starts again. But an experiment is not seen as having failed if there are things to be learnt from it. You change the key ingredients and conditions and you try again.

Can you see how this might apply to what I’m attempting to do?

I will be doing two offerings per night – at 7pm and 8.30pm. The reason for this is simple. If the first experiment fails then I don’t have to endure the agony of waiting 24 hours to try it again. I have to get right back in there with a different group of people and see what happens when the essential ingredients change. But I can’t guarantee that the second offering of the evening will ‘work’ any more than I can the first. I’m trying to bottle lightning here. And let me be clear, this isn’t being done out of any bravado or bloody mindedness. I love theatre. Always have. And because I love it I want to push at the boundaries of what it can do and play around the edges. But I do it with a due sense of respect and fear. Theatre as we now know it has taken millennia to evolve. Maybe it’s reached its apotheosis. Maybe it has peaked.

Or maybe not ...

The second part of the above question should be easy to answer now also. Why do this in public? Because a performer without an audience isn’t a performer at all. I’m trying to have a conversation – as all performers are – and the experiment is reliant upon the raw materials of performer and audience meeting together in a space. I need an audience in order to conduct the experiment. The ticket price of £3 was arrived at since I feel that offering something for free (my first instinct) automatically suggests to people that what will be offered is worthless. So, £3 seems like enough to ask for people to make a commitment and be bothered to come. It's certainly not to make a profit. And, of course, I do worry about offering value for that commitment. But for all that I’m going out on a limb, I have been doing this job for 20 years. I can always fall back on a knob gag or a Shakespeare speech ...

The upshot of all of this is that I am utterly terrified of what I’m about to embark upon. I could fall flat on my arse 36 times and be embarrassed to my dying day whenever anyone mentions this project. I could be utterly dull and boring and people could be furious with me. I could simply be ignored.

In short, I could fail. But isn’t that risk what makes it so exciting? And what is failure anyway?

This week, as part of my ongoing preparations I have been reading a terrific book by the comedian, Stewart Lee, called ‘How I Escaped My Certain Fate: The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian’. Lee went through something of an epiphany with his work several years ago, falling out of love with it and quietly giving up performing around the time he became involved in ‘Jerry Springer – The Opera’. After the furore surrounding that show – all of it unnecessary and overblown in my opinion – he returned to stand-up and quickly became a must see. And why? Because – love him or hate him – and many people do both – he was risking failure with the work that he presented. He risks audience alienation (and often succeeds in achieving it); he risks boredom, irritation, repetition; he breaks from the stage and roams the auditorium; he allows himself to fail. And his work is thrilling and strange – and yes, irritating and boring – as a result. I saw his show, 90s Comedian, when it was recorded at Chapter in Cardiff – below are a couple of sections of that act. If you’ve never seen him live, I really recommend it. The sensation of being in a room with him and his audience as he dances on the edge of utter failure is quite something to see.

So, here’s the point really – David Cameron and his ilk would have us believe that all art must be successful in order to justify its existence. And how do they quantify 'success'? If it is not universally liked and accepted by all then it is valueless and should simply not exist. But this view doesn’t work. The greatest artists the world has ever known were often failures in their lifetimes. They pushed the boundaries of their artform and challenged the conventions of their day. In my own small way, this project is my attempt to do just that. Pretentious? Quite possibly. But as an artist, the right to fail is all I have.

I hope you’ll come along and watch me walk the wire. I may fall flat on my arse.

Or ... who knows?

‘Ever tried? Ever Failed? No matter.

Try again. Fail again.

Fail better.’

Samuel Beckett

Keep well.

Phil

PS - Tickets onsale via Taliesin Swansea and soon Sherman Cymru Cardiff.

http://www.taliesinartscentre.co.uk/performances.php?id=309

http://www.shermancymru.co.uk/performance/drama/oneeyedman/

Follow me on Twitter @manoneeye

and Facebook: The One Eyed Man Project

And please leave me any comments or thoughts you may have on the project. I’d love to know what you think.

Taking my place in the world - and wearing myself out!

Hello there,

Back again after a long week away from home on a variety of courses and meetings with lots of people. I spend most of my day and life working alone in my office as I am doing now - typing away - so the experience of being in front of lots of new people and being seen by them is an odd one and actually takes a huge amount of energy. That combined with travel and trying to get back into my running and I'm bloody knackered!

Anyway, what have I been doing and how does it all apply to the One Eyed Man?

First up last week was a group facilitation course in London run by ICA.

http://www.ica-uk.org.uk/

I don't really think that I'm going to necessarily be applying all the skills that I learnt on this two day course directly with audiences but, for me, part of the reason for doing OEM in the first place is to relate to audiences differently. Not to see the people who have come to see the show as either enemies or friends but rather as fellow human beings. As an actor and performer for the vast majority of my life I've spent a huge amount of time in front of audiences and I've found that my attitudes towards them have got a bit stale. Either it's the 'oh, there's not a lot of them, that's disappointing' - or it's the 'oh no, a schools audience, time to become a crowd controller' - or 'they don't seem to be having a very good time' etc etc. You get the picture. The relationship between performer and audience is a subtle and fascinating one but I'm so bored of the gladiatorial notion of 'us' versus 'them'. Over the past few years working with Volcano I've really started to have conversations with audiences in a way that I never imagined possible.

So, the group facilitation course offered me new possibilities of working with audiences dealing with and drawing out different subjects. I have a hunch that I will pursue until I end up proven wrong that audiences themselves can decide the subject up for discussion during an offering of the OEM. The tutors on the course threw up their hands in horror at this and I may well be on a hiding to nothing but I'd definitely like to see if it's possible. What do we - as a collective who have come together on this one unique occasion - and who have been alive today in the world - want and need to talk about? What needs to be said?

The other thing that really hit home on the course is how many people are about to be made redundant. The course was made up of a lot of people who all work for a particular publicly funded charity - and they were all there because come the end of this financial year they're out on their ear. That's only one of the reasons why I'll be going along to the March for the Alternative in London this Saturday ...

After the course, I had a couple of days off in London and caught up with my good friend, Natalie Haynes, a very gifted and funny stand-up who I got to know whilst prepping Hitting Funny several years ago. She offered me some great advice and thoughts on what I'm trying to do.

And then I attended a two day workshop on Public Speaking lead by John Dawson.

I know what you're thinking ... why the hell would he need public speaking lessons? He's an actor, a performer, he's experienced, he's been on stage thousands of times, he went to RADA, for God's sake ...

Yeah, all that's true - but every time I went on stage ... I was being someone else. Even if it was an exaggerated version of me. I have never stood in front of a room full of people and simply been myself. In fact, I'm sure if you ask most actors, they will say their greatest fear is public speaking. Why do you think all award acceptance speeches are so shit?

So, last Saturday I took my place with eight other people and we stood up in front of each other in small room and shook like Tasmanian Devils and panicked and OD'd on adrenalin. Much of what happened I can't share with you because the room remains confidential and rightly so. But, my God, the bravery that people showed in getting up there and being seen. And, at bottom, the issues for everyone are the same - lack of self worth, fear of failure and ridicule. Everyone in that room shared that and shared support as we looked out at the faces of people who felt just like us. Here's the room empty -

Looks a piece of cake, right? Only 9 chairs and John, the teacher? Well, I can't remember feeling so scared as standing up in that room.

But the most amazing thing was the progress that everyone made, bar none. By the end of the weekend there were budding stand-up comics in that room, and people who had seemed like they wanted to disappear a day or so earlier took their place with pride and dignity.

It was the most amazing course and the lessons I learned from it will feed directly into my work in OEM. Here's a short clip of John Dawson talking about his work -

I heartily recommend his courses to anyone who would like to feel more comfortable speaking in front of people.

http://www.speaking-infront.co.uk/

So, with all of these new lessons and adventures in mind I headed to Caernarfon in North Wales for the third Emergence event curated by my partner Fern Smith. Yet again it was a brilliant day with some incredible speakers and left me with a real passion to want to talk to people about what's happening to our world. After all, look around you - Japan, Libya, global financial catastrophe, cuts and more cuts, Yemen, Israel - it can so easily seem as if we're all doomed. And I believe we have to start talking about it and recognising - to borrow from a total shithead - that we're all in it together.

There you go. Lots of great food for thought. Now, here comes the advert part -

If you've read this and would be interested in seeing a show and communicating more with me then please don't hesitate - leave me a comment here or on the Facebook group - The One Eyed Man Project; or on Twitter @manoneeye

Swansea dates are now on sale -

18 - 20 May - Upstairs at Noah's Yard, Uplands

1 - 3 June - Foyer of Civic Centre, Oystermouth Road

15 - 17 June - Junction Cafe, Blackpill, Oystermouth Road

Available from the Taliesin box office - http://www.taliesinartscentre.co.uk/performances.php?id=309

Cardiff venues are still being finalised but the show is now up on the Sherman website - http://www.shermancymru.co.uk/performance/drama/oneeyedman/

So, join up, let me know your thoughts, what you'd like to see, what you'd like to talk about, if you think I'm out of my mind ...

And I look forward to standing up in front of you and being seen.

Thanks John.

Keep well,

Phil

 

The world shifts beneath us

Hello there -

I hope that you are okay and that anyone you may know is Japan is safe and well. The events there over the last few days have been a kind of reflection of the thinking and reading that I've been doing on the OEM project since last I blogged and I wanted to share a bit of what I've been reading with you.

So, I finished Tony Allen's fantastic book on public speaking at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park and I wondered where to go next. My partner, Fern, has been on her own very strong personal journey over the last year as Clore Fellow for Wales 2010 and she has been reading a huge amount and going on a zillion course on one thing and another. Generally in the past I've been the kind of bloke - typical of my sex and upbringing in Yorkshire - who poo-pooed the notion of spirituality and anything other than what I can see or fix with my own hands. And that would be all fine and dandy if it hadn't proved to be totally unworkable in my own life! I found that I couldn't fix anything or hold anything still with my own hands - I had no control whatsoever, least of all over myself or my work. And so, after skidding along the bottom, emotionally, spiritually, physically for many years, I determined to live better. And so, the OEM project is not simply for me about theatre or performance or about experimentation. It's also about learning how to live better in the world and how to be spiritually true to myself and my fellow man.

So, with all this in mind my next book to read was by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown - Coming Back to Life - Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World.

No, wait. Don't go ...

See, that would have been my exact reaction too. "Oh for fucks sake - what is this specious new age bollocks? Can't I just eat my pie and watch the telly and not be bothered with all this crap." Amd I suppose I felt that way for a long time until I realised very strongly that 'just eating my pie and watching the telly' really, really wasn't making me in any way shape or form happy ...

So, the book is a description of how the authors believe that the Industrial Growth Society in which we live is fundamentally destroying the planet and us along with it and that what we need to do to change it is to actually speak out loud about our grief for what we are doing and to own that grief and then effect change. What they refer to as 'The Great Turning.' It's an incredible body of work that they are doing and, whilst it makes my rationalist, cynical self fight the rampant heebie jeebies, it also really spoke to me about what I feel and what I think a lot of people feel and it hit the bullseye in terms of one of the aims of the OEM project.

And now a story to illustrate this: Last week, my partner, Fern, and I took up an invitation to attend a conference at Millenium Stadium in Cardiff hosted by the Welsh Assembly Government under the banner of Sustainanbility and Business. Fern has been curating and leading a series of fantastic Emergence events about sustainability and the arts so she went along. And why was I there? Other than she'd forced me to go? Because I genuinely do feel that we are living beyond our means - but not financially - in terms of resources. The world is all we have - there's no second one standing by. But we're using the second and third ones already. I was curious to see whether the business community were really interested in sustainability for any other reason than it might be profitable.

Turns out they weren't - and yet ... So, we arrived to find a sea of grey suits - men and women - all representing private business in Wales. Many senior figures from the WAG spoke to us - Jane Davidson AM, Minister for the Environment, Sustainability and Housing gave the keynote address and sang the praises of Wales and Welsh business as being well ahead of the game. Steve Howard, the newly appointed Chief Sustainability Officer for IKEA spoke about the huge opportunities sustainability presents to business. And the first question from the floor? "This is all well and good but what about growth?" I nearly wept. Economic growth - making more money than you spend or invest - is the watchword of businesses and governments worldwide - and nothing about it is sustainable. Clearly there would be no 'grieving for what we are doing to the world' here.

Or so I thought. After hours of repetitive powerpoint presentations all of which showed how brilliantly business was dealing with the issues we were siphoned off into smaller groups - hopefully to actually talk about things. Nope ... a representative of British Gas told us how delighted they were at enabling people to become managers of their own energy needs rather than what British Gas actually needs to be doing which is changing its name to British Wind. Then, finally, a discussion was opened and my saviour arrived. A big guy - big in body and voice - spoke up. He worked in the oil industry he said and he loved it. Always had. But he had to tell everyone in the room that we are simply fiddling while Rome burns. At best estimate we have forty years of fossil fuels left. And then its gone. And we are simply not changing the way we live fast enough or comprehensively enough.

And it was like someone had finally spoken about the huge elephant in the corner and the sense of release in the room was palpable. And then it was back to the same old backslapping and fiddling ...

What's my point and how does this relate to theatre? Well, it seems to me that Joanna Macy and the Big Oil Man are making the same point. We have to talk about it - together in groups as large as we dare. We have to share our fear and our panic because the change is real and it is coming.

But how do we talk about it? I'd like to leave you with a couple of things to watch that have been inspiring to me. I read my book on Shamanism and I wondered if that's what I should do - get myself into an altered state of being and talk to the spirits and share their wisdom with my audiences. But somehow that just doesn't feel real and authentic for the world we live in today. Because, no offence, but I believe in people not Gods. I want to talk to people and look them in the eye and let them share what they need to. So, here's a couple of YouTube vids that have been really inspiring to me in different ways.

The first one is by the fantastic researcher and storyteller Brene Brown - she talks about her findings related to vulnerability and shame. I loved watching this and immediately got hold of one of her books. She's great and this kind of presentation is what I'd like to aspire to.

And then a friend recommended that I watch this video of Keisha, Little Grandmother. She's a shaman of the old school who clearly strikes a powerful chord with many, many people around the world. The fact that I agree with some of the things she says doesn't take away from the fact that she gives me the absolute screaming heeby jeebys. This is not what I want to do but I can understand why people like it and feel the need for it.

I'd love to know what you think about these two styles of presentation because, fundamentally the message behind them both is the same.

This week I'll be attending two courses - the first on Group Facilitation methods and the second on Public Speaking. I'll report back on them next time.

Keep well,

Phil

P.S. I know a lot of people can't stand her books but this speech by JK Rowling at Harvard in 2008 is also one of the most inspirational things I've ever seen. Check it out.

Random scribblings

From my notebook as I read Tony Allen's fantastic book - "A Summer in the Park: A Journal of Speakers' Corner. All of these thoughts are useful to OEMP - but exactly how remains a mystery -

A humanist congregation.

No suspension of disbelief in the park. No fourth wall.

Stay in the present and in the room.

The cross-over between performance, play and real life.

"Think before you speak ... and speak slowly."

"I may disagree with what you are saying ... but I would die for your right to say it."

Disturb the comfortable, comfort the disturbed.

Question and answer mode - mixed ability shaman.

Relax and pay attention.

"Having moments, finding the lateral, addressing the now and delighting in being alive."

When in doubt, tell the truth.

Be first to make light of seriousness. Be first to censure messing about.

There's always a next time ...

Social intercourse.

Stop when you're winning before it fizzles out.

Mellow, soften, play.

The laughter associated with schadenfreude has a quality all of its own.

Any questions?

Dynamics? Attitude? Material? Diction? Timing? Fancy a drink?

No one pulling you on mistakes makes for a slow learning process and an arrogance that can lead to demagoguery.

Self deprecation - a vital tool.

Free speech demands the involvement of individuals free enough to express themselves.


There you go. Make of that what you will. I certainly did.

P

Public thoughts on public thoughts

End of week two - nearly - of prep and research for the One Eyed Man Project and lots of thoughts to share. I've given myself an arbitrary ten weeks of research and prep before going into four weeks of rehearsals - quite how I rehearse a show that will be improvised from scratch every single time is at the moment beyond me but nevertheless ...

I'm reading a lot, thinking a lot, talking a lot about the project and ideas bubble and froth in my brain. Firstly, reading - this week I finished the first, key book that has been sitting on my shelf calling to me ever since the idea for this project began to take shape - Shamans - Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination by Ronald Hutton. The title alone gives away a huge amount about what I'm attempting with this work and I should state for the record that I'm not going to pull a David Icke at any point and claim that I'm a) the new messiah and b) giant lizards rule the world. But the notion of shamanic performance and the possibilities of finding a relevant and useful means of doing it in a modern context has long fascinated me.

The true progenitor of the One Eyed Man Project (OEMP for short) was a show I did with Volcano about six years ago called Hitting Funny. A snippet of which you will find by following the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR28ag0ARFg

This was a one man show - 95% scripted and rehearsed with improvised elements and a small amount of audience interaction - that explored my personal fascination with what on earth happened to alternative comedy. When I was young, alternative comedy was the new punk - it seemed perfectly possible to me that the sheer power and force of people standing on a stage with a microphone could fundamentally change the way society functioned. Of course, it didn't and many of them became mainstream household names and the 'alternative' stamp increasingly came to mean less and less until we now have Michael McIntyre to 'entertain' us and the ever more nihilistic and misanthropic moanings of Frankie Boyle et al. But  Hitting Funny proved something to me about the very nature of performance - it seems that it is possible and necessary for performance to shake people up, force them to question, not only their society but the very nature of existence. All performance and theatre of any kind, in my opinion based on nothing but intuition, stemmed from the guy at the tribal campfire who stood up at the end of the day and told stories and went a bit crazy so the rest of the tribe didn't have to. Hence - shamanism.

So, what did I learn that was useful from Ronald Hutton's book? In a word, shedloads. I learnt that Shaman is in itself a portmanteau word that means next to nothing since what 'shamans' actually did varied wildly from performer to performer. The best and most succinct definition seems to be the following -

"A spiritual practitioner who contacted spirits in a public performance for the benefit of other humans."

Wow.

When was the last time you went to the theatre or to see a stand-up and saw something like that?

Now, admittedly, I can't contact spirits no matter how drunk or caned I am - but the basic tenets of what I'm going to set out to do are contained in that definition - Spirtuality. Benefit. Performance.

Certainly what the shamans did had a vital role for their society and, I personally feel, we have never been more in need of performers like this than now. Don't get me wrong, the world has always been on the verge of going to hell in a handcart, but lately we have never seemed to be so close together and yet so far apart as people. So, this project is an experiment to see if it is possible to offer 'shamanic' performances that work specifically for the group of people in the audience at that time - and which speaks directly and specifically to their concerns, worries, fears and needs. As a performer, one always works for the audience but never more clearly than in this case. Hitting Funny - and I know this from first hand testimony - often felt like an attack on the people who had come to see it (even though it hurt me far more than it hurt them!). This work, I believe, will be different and will seek to comfort and heal the audience.



A very useful place to start then was Mr Hutton's excellent book.

I also came up with a perfect description for the shows this week - because 'performance' or 'show' just never felt like the right terminology since the work would be improvised with the specific aim of helping or healing - and so I arrived at this. It's not performances - it's offerings. Semantic bollocks? Quite possibly - but it certainly helps me feel clearer about what I'm doing.

I moved on to the second book on my pile - A Summer in the Park - A journal of Speakers Corner - by Tony Allen. This one was recommended to me by Mark Thomas who knows Tony Allen well. He is one of the godfathers of alternative comedy who worked in the original Comedy Store with Alexei Sayle et al. But his work has veered more towards the discursive and politically motivated and in the summer of 2000 he got a small Arts Council grant to work as an 'advocate heckler' at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park in London. This has long been the stronghold of freedom of speech, based on the site of the old Tyburn gallows and a place where, by law, anyone is allowed to say their piece - provided they accept any heckling or counter-arguments that may be thrown their way. Allen's original plan - to heckle on behalf of those less confident or able - quickly fell by the wayside as he became embroiled in perfecting the art of public speaking. Arriving at Speakers Corner every Sunday with no idea what to talk about but a clear desire to engage people in discussion and debate, he documents his struggles and triumphs. It's incredibly inspirational stuff in my quest to do something similar in a theatre/stand-up context but there are crucial differences. Obviously, the open-air, audience comes/audience goes aspect of Speakers Corner makes for a necessarily gladiatorial and confrontational atmosphere which is something I'm keen to avoid - although, I don't want to avoid conflict if conflict is in the room but I don't want people coming along feeling nervous or intimidated by being forced to participate or speak. But Tony Allen does describe the fact that there is no 'fourth wall' and he is resolutely himself at all times, operating in the present moment and not hiding behind character. This is what I too will strive for and what sets the OEMP apart from Hitting Funny and other work I've done in the past.

So, lots of good thoughts and information going into the computer banks to be processed and hopefull come out smelling lovely at some point in the future. In other news, venues are being finalised - touch wood, Swansea venues are done and Cardiff is coming together.

Any questions or thoughts on the project or anything I've said then please feel free to contact me or leave a comment. One of the things I've had to row back on at this stage is an idea I have to enable performances to happen at the drop of a hat on the day - the idea being that if something of import happens in the world then I can do an offering on it that very night by Tweeting the venue details and using other social media. Thoughts on this? Would you be inclined to take a punt on something unknown at short notice like that?

Anyway, cheers for now.

Phil

Musing on amusing whilst I should be doing something else

So, blog number 2 with the glorious sound of The White Stripes first album pumping in the background and whilst I should be doing other things - many other things.

It's been an odd couple of weeks in preparation for beginning the one eyed man process. I've set myself the arbitrary start date of 7th February since that gives me ten weeks 'prep' before I begin a four week 'rehearsal' process leading up to six weeks of shows - three weeks in Swansea and three in Cardiff, alternating between the two cities and in a different venue each week. So, there are all sorts of dull but vital administrative tasks to be performed - finding venues and securing them; writing promotional copy and disseminating it as widely as possible; getting images; organising online tools (like this one) - now, all of these things are vital but ultimately all they do is put off the inevitable question to wrestle with -

I'm proposing to perform 36 'shows' - and I want them to be totally improvised in the moment with that audience. No script, no rehearsal - simply me and them in that odd space as human beings together, finding out what we find out and saying what needs to be said. So, the questions I'm asking myself are all related to what I want to get out of it and what on earth do I think I'm doing? I guess like everyone else in life I find myself evolving and wishing to push myself out of my comfort zone and to challenge myself to do something of value.

I arrived at this place via a circuitous route - like John Lennon nearly said - 'Life is what happened to me while I was busy making other plans.' I started out as an actor and trained to be one at RADA nearly twenty years ago. I worked a lot but never really consistently and I found the work that I was doing ranged from rather dull to mind-blowing. The latter category was taken up with work that I felt changed people's minds and their perceptions through theatre and performance. So, I played Iago years ago in a production of Othello and annoyed a lot of people by playing him as a flawed, screwed up man trying to do the right thing - rather than the usual interpretation of a Machievellian villain. Because I've never met anyone like that, have you? Then I played MacHeath in The Threepenny Opera as a racist skinhead and scared the bejesus out of the audience because they quite liked me. Then I got involved with Swansea's Volcano Theatre Company ...

The work they do is so utterly unique and idiosyncratic that is almost impossible to quantify them - they are iconoclasts and artists who wish to take their audience on journeys far out of their comfort zone - to challenge, question and debate. And I love them.

It's extremely common in this era of knee jerk cynicism and internet trolls to be wary about showing enthusiasm for passion, commitment and idealism - but I'm so bored of that kind of thinking that I could tear out my eyes and hack off my ears whenever I see and hear it. I don't know about you but I'm only going to be here for a little while - I don't know exactly how long, none of us do - and I want to live every moment of it to the full - and that means throwing myself in with passion and a desire to dream and explore and create with every fibre of my being. And that's what Volcano do and that's what they taught me. Hence this experiment.

These are just rambling thoughts and I don't expect them to make any sense but perhaps if the next three months or so continue in this vein then some sense may well emerge.

So, venues are being prepared and print is being prunted (?) and yesterday I had my first meeting with my mentor on the project, Mark Thomas. Much of what we talked about is not for public consumption since it relates to the shows themselves and I really want to take people on a journey of the unexpected. But what I can say is that, in his case, the old adage about never meeting your heroes was proven wrong. He's an absolute gentleman who, crucially for me in relation to this project, talks like he walks. He is who he says he is and he does the things he believes in - and he believes in them passionately and with his whole heart and soul. Like Gandhi said - you must become the change you wish to see in the world. And Mark does that. And I want to do that too.

More soon. Hope you have a great day.