A new show developed through lockdown

My last post was February 2020, wow! around three weeks before the first lockdown. I was what was called a Lab Associate at the Theatre Royal Plymouth and was supposed to be making a new show for Autumn 2020 however, in due course that would be cancelled along with everything else.  During that lockdown I didn’t feel a creative at … Read More

First week of a new show

Last week I had the luxury of being in a rehearsal room, by myself, to start developing a new show. Saying ‘by myself’ is a bit of a lie because even though, at this stage it may be a solo show there was a collection of voices in the room with me. I am a 2020 Lab Associate at the … Read More

Developing The Secret Listener

For the last few months I have been quietly researching my new performance entitled The Secret Listener, a show that looks at the hidden work of voluntary interceptors during WW2 – the VIs would set themselves up in their spare bedrooms, attics or garages/garden sheds and they would listen in on homemade radios that most had been using as amateur … Read More

The Hidden Histories Seminar at Plymouth University 29-30 November

  I will be giving a presentation on Wednesday 30th November for a Hidden Histories Seminar organised by the Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, (a Major Partner Museum in partnership with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter) hosted in conjunction with Plymouth University and funded by Arts Council England. I will be talking about creating an audio trail … Read More

thoughts on making an audio performance for a hidden walled cemetery

    In 2013 I made a performance for the Plymouth Synagogue, which is the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in continuous use in the English speaking world. I spoke to the ladies of the very small, congregation and used those interviews, verbatim, to create my text. The performance has been performed inside the synagogue every year since and has helped to … Read More

Creative conversation or development discussion

When I travel from the south-west up the M5 beyond the turning for Bristol south and the airport you pass an orchard, row upon row of young apple trees in perfect straight rows at right angles to the motorway so you can see the precision of the planting. I don’t travel up with enough regularity to see the changing of … Read More

Bringing the audience into the cultural conversation

In August 2014 four women came together to research and develop the first draft of a new play The Orchard. It wasn’t even a first draft, it was two monologues for two actors. Although intended to be a dialogue playwright Natalie McGrath wanted to find the voices of the characters, she was finding one easier than the other and so … Read More

the art of good conversation

I am getting to that point in my life where sometimes I struggle to find the word in a conversation, sometimes a small everyday kind of word that normally you don’t have to even think about. This doesn’t matter when you are with a group of friends, people who know you, who understand because they are experiencing the same thing, … Read More

Research for my @TheatreWestUK show

Believe it or not this is research for my next show. When you are there, at a baseball game, it is pure theatre. This clip is a mash up of Robert Redford in The Natural and the real life drama of the 1988 Kirk Gibson home run to win the World Series, which features in my new show Homeward Bound. … Read More