Return’d so soon!

The War of the Wales activity has started to kick in again, so I must update you on our news. It’s been a fascinating week in the process.

On Wednesday I had some disappointing news, which I won’t announce here just yet because if circumstances change – well – I like to keep doors open where possible, I do not side with Mr Macbeth on that one, what’s done can always be undone. we have a brilliant (if somewhat controversial) alternative…but it did all knock me back a peg or two, to the degree that I almost postponed Wednesday’s script meeting. Luckily Mr Maddrell dug his heels in and I hauled my sorry-for-myself arse across to the Hoop and Grapes. Andy, Alan and I met for a discussion of the play and what needs to remain/be enhanced for the ‘Fringe Cut’.

It was agreed that audiences seem to love the heightened language which I am going to spend some time on in terms of the transitions – I like writing the verse so from that point onwards I got excited and happy again, which was such a relief – it’s still there – I suspect it always will be with this play!

We are rewriting 1:1 to make it a more immediate entry point to the play, as we feel that it took audiences a while to understand where we where, when we were and why we were sometimes saying it in pentameter. That proposal led us to look at the newsreader/journalist roles and we are going to pay much more careful attention to what they say and how they say it and also try to link it in with the press. Ironic that I kept hard news at one remove from the press scenes. It’s almost as if I don’t think journalists can be relied on to report. Wonder why that might be?

Most of the work we have to do is on the journalists…wherever we relax into prose we seem to lose something…but there is a stylistic reason for having the press speak in mainly prose. I thought my return to the directing work would be relatively simple, but I see that I am going to have to do I bit of revision of my vision! This makes it all the more important for me to get my producer and Stage Manager completely involved as soon as possible.

Andy had to dash off for KDC’s next season’s auditions, but Alan and I had a good talk about the theatricality of the text and how to make the play clearer and if possible, a little cleverer. I left the pub feeling extraordinarily happy, even if I did fall off my bike slightly as I said goodbye to Alan. I am a past mistress of bathos.

In other news, on Tuesday night I went to Westminster* for a Labour History Group discussion and I had the great good luck to listen to Shaun Woodward, Neil Stewart and Peter Kellner’s take on the 1992 Election campaign of which I will talk more later when we’ve done a bit more writing and I’ve gathered my notes…Peter started his piece by saying ‘Never has any journalist written so much bollocks in any election in any country.’ Which is rather amusing when you consider he was writing for the Independent and working on Newsnight at the time.

*As we went through security and walked up through the hall the to committee rooms we were slightly stalking Hugh Grant of all people (this is vaguely relevant as appears in one of the slides in the play!) I was extraordinarily excited and my companion later chided me for being more impressed at walking behind Hugh Grant than sitting next to Newsnight’s Michael Crick.

Ay now I am in Arden

Exciting news…

At 10.30 yesterday I had an exciting phonecall. ‘Hello, it’s the RSC’. We have been asked to perform at The Dell in Stratford (upon-Avon, not the Olympic one) on the 5th August. Two performances at 12pm and 3pm. Frantic scurrying as I gathered my cast’s availability and let the KDC committee know…but yes, off we will all hopefully go.

It works brilliantly as we are rehearsing the day before anyway and it means we get two full runs of the show before we go to Camden. I now have two lots of blurb to finish tomorrow, along with photos and I’m getting a friend to help me with our Fringe press reelase. Alan commented on my Facebook yesterday ‘I don’t think I’ve ever worked on a production this blessed.’ I don’t think I have either. I guess it’s just a combination of doing something very new that feels right and imbuing it with love and a hint of passion and having a flawless cast execute it all with a sense of enjoyment that has been so infectious…a theatre director who saw the play said ‘More than anything you can see how much that cast love being in the play’ and I think that’s the key.

That’s not the only exciting news this week, I’ve been cast as Maggot Scratcher (a monstrous version of Margaret Thatcher) in Sink the Belgrano! So I, too, get to go through the process of creating a former Prime Minister over the next 3 months (!)

Anyway – I have to go – I have to put down the holding deposit for our costumes for another 4 months!

The wheel is come full circle: I am here

This week I am mainly planning the rehearsal schedule for our revival in August. Rehearsal space is at something of a premium, but at least we look like we have a good 3 working days of rehearsal time to get reblocked and refreshed.

Andy, Alan and I are meeting soon to discuss the script – we’ll then have 5-6 weeks of tinkering with it…we also have to bear in mind that our Camden run will need to be even more minimal as we have no lights, no set and nowhere to change.

I’ve been invited to attend a discussion featuring Shaun Woodward on the events of the 1992 election in a couple of weeks, which is not how I would usually spend my weeknights before The War of the Waleses.

I’ve been reading the papers again and engaging with “now” rather than “20 years ago” and “The Play”. I laughed when I found this story in the Telegraph yesterday, perhaps the new draft should have Camilla and Charles battling over the heating at Highgrove – the real war of the Waleses. I wrote the following several months ago:

Queen: Divorce has never gone well with royal blood/The dissolution of the monasteries
Charles: All those beautiful buildings lost for good

Just to get a joke about Charles’ love of classical architecture into the script. And then I read that he loves recycling old things other people would throw away (sort of like a posh Womble) and he says ‘All those beautiful Victorian lavatories’. I really seem to have an uncanny knack of writing the ridiculous in a realistic way!

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them

I really don’t have time this morning to do last night complete justice, but I need to write something today before people disappear thinking ‘Well that’s it for The War of the Waleses’ – it really really isn’t by the way, you get me rabbiting on for just under 4 more months. You lucky lucky readers!

The first and most important part of today’s work is confirming our Camden run and submitting our play to the Camden Fringe programme – that’s a few light emails away from being all but done, but I can probably announce that all being well and provided my immensely talented cast don’t get snatched up for more glamorous work, in the interim, we will be returning on August 14th, 15th and 21st with the original cast and the new, possibly authorative 85 minute cut of the text.

Now then, last night…

We were blessed with a canny Shakespeare-getting audience, we got laughs on all the gags – I suspect there was part of a cast of Pericles in one part of the audience as my little dig at John Fletcher finally got the laugh I knew it deserved – ‘Pericles written with a good first act’ was one of the turning points in my writing, I wanted to make the play cheekier and bolder and that line was where that started to happen.

I would like to praise and thank Questors (particularly Richard and Pam) to its capacious rafters, such a fabulous resource for community theatre in London. In talking to Richard last night I was reminded ofabout the RSC Open Stages mission, to celebrate all that is best about amateur theatre – that ‘doing it for love’ is just as valid as being a pro.

In the bar afterwards Will (Charles) suggested that we should write an ‘Arden’ edition of War of the Waleses, with annotations of all the gags. It’s the sort of silly exercise I love to do whilst I’m writing something ‘proper’ as a distraction technique, so who knows? It would certainly be fun to offer such scholarly insights as the play mentioning the Grand National shambles of 1993 and on the matinee of the original run, an hour after the line mentioning it was delivered, the Grand National got off to a similarly shambolic series of false starts. Leveson has threaded through the writing and production of this play, some of the facts coming to light so close to our imagined version of events that I’m starting to wonder about Alan’s sources!

Having Ksenya backstage as our ASM and David on sound meant I could sit back and enjoy the show. Pirate did a sterling job. We had an interesting mid-scene blackout, but for a 90 minute tech on a 1 hour show, we did pretty well.

There is so much I love about this production and last night was like a selection box of all my best bits (all the nice caramelly nutty bits and no coconut or strawberry)…I don’t think the timing on Zadok the Priest has ever been quite so perfect or Lucky by Radiohead has sounded so beautiful or the Queen’s performance (Julia) so perfectly judged or Alex MS’s advisor so cleverly timed and played (even with all her words cut!). I finally told Will (Charles) that one of his lines has been delivered just like Armstrong and Miller’s RAF pilots and has made me giggle every night – his ability to play Charles on several levels throughout the play has not gone unnoticed (and neither has his shining idiotic face of New Labourite optimism in the Conference scene).

Simon’s Magnate reactions to Blair, just hilarious – and it was great to see an old hand work the room with that level of skill. Nigel’s total involvement in every scene and his tireless ability to be perfectly punctual for all his calls (sometimes on days he wasn’t called!), Richard’s stealth silliness, really one of the finest comic actors I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with.

Stephen’s playfulness – everything about his acting is always totally alive, but never quite so much as the brilliant impersonation of a particularly manic muppet he did during Love is All Around. Becca’s utterly filthy flirting and stage presence, Sarah’s lovely sweet voice, command of the stage and priggish delivery of ‘Coming for lunch?’, Alex W’s uncanny ability to just become Diana when the lights are on her – she’s even got the faint slur of her words down that I mentioned to her once early on in the rehearsal process and never really worked on, but she went away and did it all by herself.

Matt’s sheer enjoyment of playing Pap and Campbell to brilliant effect – Pap’s sonnet being one of my favourite bits I didn’t write. Leila’s boundless energy, passion and committment – a true ‘player’, Caitlin’s ability to draw an audience in and make them really listen and believe and Becky…who I sort of leave til last because like all the other actors in the play, I fell in love with her acting at the audition. I remember when I got the ‘It’s you’ feeling about each and every one of them. And I was right. We were right. We did alright.

My musicians were fabulous last night – Mel’s trumpeting almost flawless, Rob’s guitar sounding great, I shall work with musicians as much as possible from now on, I love their ability to just get up and do it…it’s certainly taught me a lot in terms of how I act. In fact all my cast have…I’ve had a 6 month break from acting now but watching others and seeing them just get on with it has really shown me how I could improve.

And that is it for the general love-in. The War of the Waleses has been the best thing I have ever worked on, I am exceptionally proud of it, proud of the product, proud of how we got there, proud of myself, proud of the love my cast have for the piece and being in it. Proud that the only time I shouted was to be heard in a hubbub, and never in anger. Proud of how it looked, proud that I had a vision and stuck to it. Proud.

Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain

I feel a little lost for words as we come to the last day of the original planned run of War of the Waleses.

Our hosts at Questors were so welcoming and friendly that from the moment we walked through the door we felt at home (and in awe, I think our assigned dressing room is the size of the stage and dressing room at The Lion & Unicorn). But I am a director so I only really care about what the audience can see and by crikey, it’s a lovely space and we feel exceptionally lucky and happy to have been invited to play there. If I had known about it when I briefly lived in West London, I might have stayed in Zone 3!

The set at Questors is an absolute joy, it looks wonderful, works on many levels and feels great to stand on. I stood centre front for a while looking out at the empty auditorium pouting a little in jealousy that I wasn’t going to get a chance to play on it.

It wouldn’t be my play if I didn’t get my actors to do something silly and new for this performance and the one major bit of reblocking we did on a transition makes me extraordinarily happy. It’s an homage to my secondary school drama teacher, Barbie Davies, who loved to use a level wherever one could be found. (And also Jim Henson, because what show is not improved by the addition of Muppetry?)

Pirate Dave, our lighting op and designer for Questors managed to replicate the lighting for our show (with added levels) and teched on the fly along with David Crackles our sound op, who will hopefully be adding some additional sound to the Camden Fringe run (I am determined to make the Camden run more like my original concept, I wanted to play with sound and video more than we had time to do, but now I know we have the time and technology, I can bring that back in – although not at the expense of the script, clearly).

It was our glorious Magnate’s birthday yesterday, along with the ersatz Blair the day before – the same day we confirmed our Camden run so we’ve been in celebratory mood this week. But tomorrow’s the big day. Our RSC Open Stages showcase. Do come and watch it, it’ll be a fun night in a great theatre, and my friend Sarah has made me the most beautiful and suitable earrings to wear to it.

D’you know what, although I’ve done precious little writing this last month or two, I’m starting to feel like I’m actually ‘a’ writer.

Good job that, as next week, Marchant, Maddrell and Heenan meet once more to rewrite and cut the play for Camden. I’m back at the keyboard…tapping away. It feels good.

Under clothes’ heavy burden do I sink

Very few things about this play have made me truly grumpy. Today is up there. I’m dragging a giant laundry bag into the city and later out to Ealing. It’s heavy, it’s drizzly, I’ve already got a slightly twingey shoulder and I had to get the bus 30 mins earlier to ensure I could get a downstairs seat with space for the bag.

When I first joined KDC I couldn’t see how directing would even be possible without a car. It is. But it’s beyond annoying.

I just wanted to be grumpy, I think. Tonight will be fun, for tonight we rehearse AT QUESTORS!

When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

My bike’s name is Hermes (yes my bike has a name, I am that kind of idiot) and I cycled home on him tonight after rehearsal if that helps put today’s v. long quote into any sort of context.

And so my actual rehearsing work is done for this stage of the War of the Waleses process – Tuesday night is to all intents and purposes, a tech for Questors.

However, don’t think for a second that the War of the Waleses fun stops there for a second* (and Thursday’s performance will be superb fun) on Friday I will announce the next phase of Project Wales.

In the meantime, get thee to Ealing for a fun night of THREE Open Stages offerings, including a fascinating sounding adaptation of The Scottish Play (but mainly US!)

Thursday 26th April, Questors Theatre, Ealing. 7.45pm

We were rehearsing in Ocean House today, next to the Marathon course, where Elbow from KDCs recent production of Measure for Measure (the terrific Matt Hudson) was busy running past in the sun and the rain. Do go and sponsor him if you know in in the slightest. So the soliloquy and monologue rehearsals were somewhat affected by the driving samba beat and whistles. We wrapped that up pretty quickly and moved on to singing and reblocking the prologue so that it’s not like some sort of Olympic relay event. We even played the prologue like small children which I found most amusing. We are running a little slow which is odd as somehow we’ve gained the 10 minutes that I already cut in addition to the original cuts and it can’t just be the music. We’ll get it to time, somehow!

There was such a lovely atmosphere going back into that room that all the sniffly sadness of last week was forgotten in an instant, and the thought that I can keep the cast together for as long as they want to be together (within reason, beyond August, I suspect I shall have to let them go and be in other plays directed by other people) was so sweetly cheering that finally I have the glow of ‘I done a good thing’ about me.

And that’s it really for today. The cast now have extra singing to do, more making everything look like an episode of the Muppet Show and less faffing about with props.

Can’t wait to get into the theatre on Tuesday.

Now I am officially cooled down from my fastest ever cycle home, I shall attempt to have a nice bath and go to bed. N’night.

*I like that stupid repetition too much to edit it out. Leaving in mistakes is much more fun than doing good writing all the time.

Let go thy hold

I have sent my final and somewhat brutal cut of the script to the actors, the final rehearsal call and general plan.

I just need to spend a bit of quiet time on Saturday really getting my head round the entrances and exits and the alternatives if they’re too noisy or seem out of keeping or just don’t work.

I can now send Questors my list of music and the final requirements. The pit-ponying is not quite over, alas, next Thursday is going to involve me getting a giant bag of costumes I can barely carry onto the Central Line – may have to try to disperse some of them beforehand. Hopefully though next Thursday, all I have to do is sit down and watch the show (and then carry everything back to its point of origin)

I’ve done my show accounts. Just enough money for extra glowsticks. Good.

It was funny being back in the rehearsal space last night – I had that funny tummy flip I get before auditions and first rehearsals.

I should be yelling at you all to come and see us at Questors next Thursday. I’ll start doing that shortly, but this is not the post for that. I think it will be a fun showcase of everything that we’ve worked on, it won’t be quite “our” show, the show that we made and will never be like it was last week again. Last night felt like a bit of a compromise of so many things I loved about the structure of the play. It was funny to remind the actors why two scenes couldn’t be cut any more than they had been. ‘It’s the title of the play’. So that’s probably why I’m a bit sad, because at times it was the most perfect thing I have ever created, the best thing I have ever done that was in my stewardship. Letting go of that has been harder than I thought.

Enough of such navel-gazing!

I had a reminder today to renew my password at work. It’s derived from an obscure word that occurs in Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Romeo & Juliet and (but I had to Google it) Timon of Athens – it’s a very Shakespearean object that reminds me of home and I chose it when we started work on WotW 6 months ago. I’ll change it today, I think. I wonder what my new password should be? My colleague who saw the play just bought me Ian Mortimer’s Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England, inscribed with ‘For your next project?’

Wait til you see what I do next.

Wise men never sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms

So we plod on. I’m a little clearer in my mind about the Questors set and how to play it. I’ve outlined the rehearsal plan. I really like the extract cut. It’s rather fun and almost tells the story. We should do ourselves justice in an hour.

I go to see the proposed venue for our tentative revival tomorrow. Things to do. I need a rest. I know I do. (I am not a good rester, can you tell?) When I sit still it feels horribly dull. Once we’ve confirmed that a second run is possible and I’ve booked the venue, actors, rehearsal spaces and crew then we’re golden until the odd rehearsal in June and July and then I can commit to something new for me. Of course, The War of the Waleses has been more for me than anyone will ever know…but I wish the sadness at leaving the jolly old Lion and Unicorn Theatre could be replaced with proper glowing, well-earned pride. That would be nice.

I had a harder time switching off last night than on Sunday because I wasn’t exhausted but as a result I am again today. Ha. I’m glad there is still stuff to do because this would be a sad week otherwise…the costumes all still hanging on my balcony to air, like ghosts of my creations…it’s heartening to know we’ll be back in a room together tomorrow (the cast and me, not the costumes). It’ll be so different to the first readthrough. Ah – you see – that’s made me smile just thinking about it. My lovely cast, back in dear old (yup definitely on a sentimental tip this week) Ocean House.

And with that, I appear to have an ASM for Questors. Ahhh. Sweet relief.

Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.

What was it I said earlier about resting easy? It was not to be. A frantic day today. More spreadsheets on cast availability (more on that later) walking through the Questors space in my head (quite a lot of fun). Figuring out if I can fit in any acting at all this summer (sigh if I can’t, I miss it a lot, I’ve learned a lot from my actors whilst doing this and I want to get back out there and do some more and there’s some cracking parts up for audition over the next few weeks).

So…I can’t really say very much at the moment as it is all up in the air, but yes, we are trying (I’m sure I’m allowed to tell you that we’re trying) to revive War of the Waleses for a few more dates. Whether that’s this summer or in early autumn, I don’t know and whether it’s with KDC or under my own production company, again, not sure, all I know is that the writers and the cast seem keen and I’ve had offers of production help (if I go on and direct this any more, it will be very much as a director and nothing else so I won’t take it any further without a full crew on board). I think I should probably say right now, especially after my whinges of 2 weeks ago*, that I feel especially privileged to have directed this. Sometimes you choose exactly the right project at the right time and this was that, it so easily might not have been me. I was not the obvious choice! (I had remained circumspect until I turned my own private writing corner) In fact I attended the meeting fully expecting to be told that I wasn’t the right person.

Things done today include airing and checking the costumes. I need to work out how to get all of the stuff to Questors – it is two quite expensive taxi rides, two pointlessly long and convoluted streetcar journeys or two mad and cumbersome dashes across London on a tube. As I live 10 minutes from the nearest tube and Questors is 10 minutes from a tube this sounds unappealing. This is the first time I’ve missed my little car in 7 years.  Along with so many other things in my silly life that have been allowed to fall by the wayside in the last 5 months, I have forgotten to renew my driving licence so I’m no use to anyone. It feels unfair to ask anyone else to drive, but enough of that Heenan, ask for help, and soon!

And then there’s the question of my MA application. I’ve had so much fun and love what I’ve just done so dearly that I’d be heartbroken if I had to stop doing it for two years…so my deal with myself is that I get a couple of other productions under my belt, do all the required reading over the next year and then apply to do it in a year. So I’d complete at the same time, but only take a year off from all this silly sweet fun. It also means that if this wasn’t a one off, I can apply to do a directing course somewhere instead. This time two years ago, I was performing in The Southwark Mysteries and the director said ‘In 2020 one of you might be directing this’. It was at that point that I thought to myself ‘How do I get it to be me?’ Perhaps this is the beginning of a Very Long Game.

So, do continue reading, there will be more photos, more things going on, and that’s stopped this week from feeling rather sad. This time in 48 hours we’ll all (almost) be back in the same room again. Wonder if they’ll all still listen to me – that’s the funny thing about returning, in performance, the cast become a little autonomous and own the play a little more than you ever will so I expect a slight shift in the power balance!

 

*I believe it went something like ‘Boo hoo, I never want to direct again**, poor me’

**I totally want to direct again. Can you tell? It’s like Glastonbury Festival, give it two days and you forget all the horrible bits.