London-centric

(...for fear of being thrown off)


At this month's What Next? meeting in Basingstoke, we talked about the issues surrounding Arts Council funding that looks undoubtedly London-centric.  A look at this map shows you the distribution of National Portfolio Organisations that will receive funding for 2015-18.

Joanna Ridout (Basingstoke Cultural Forum) alerted us to recognise that it may look like more money is going to London because theatre companies such as Hightide, Paines Plough and English Touring Theatre have their offices in London, and this is where the funding is directed.  The secretary is not the one performing in front of an audience, and we must consider this before expressing too much anger at the injustice of it all.

Nevertheless, this accounts for only a small portion of the imbalance, and it is difficult to argue that the focus on the arts is directed towards London.  And there is nothing wrong with that – as Sam Cairns (Cultural Learning Alliance) pointed out, it’s not that we want to sacrifice London theatre for the sake of regional work, we just want a fairer spread of the wealth.  The more that regional theatre cannot afford to put on work, the more audiences will flee their local community and put their money into London theatre, aggravating the problem further.  And what really gets my proverbial goat is the cheek of the Lyric Hammersmith seeking submissions for their Fun Palace.  Correct me if I'm wrong, please do - but isn’t this supposed to be a neighbourhood project?  So now we have applicants from all over the country ready to desert their community in favour of joining the project in London.  I throw my hands in the air, I purse my lips.

And yet, who am I to judge?  A scroll through this blog is enough to tell you that the majority of theatre I see is in London.   I went to University in London.  I am currently flat hunting to leave my peaceful, leafy surroundings in Basingstoke which will, worst of all, make work with my local arts centre a commute away.  But I don't have much choice - my primary reason for moving is that local artists are too few and far between.  This should be a reason to stay, but by the same token, it is absolutely why I should move.

Psychogeographically speaking, if you live in a small town and do not venture much further than said small town, I would argue that you can only endeavour to think, speak and create within the perspective of that small town.  Likewise, if that town is not a tourist spot in any way, the influx of people with different perspectives on the world is reduced, to the point where you are surrounded only by people who think and work like you.  Where is the progression?  The challenge?  The impetus to create art in response to anything?

The impetus to move, to travel, to 'be where the action is' is traceable throughout history.  One only has to look towards the industrial revolution to recognise the drive for social mobility and the influx towards the city.  Furthermore, the invention of the telegram brought London into contact not only with the rest of the UK, but also the rest of the world – within minutes.  Suddenly, the world is bigger than the sleepy little village one initially called home, and driven by that ineffable will to learn and achieve evermore, we moved away.  Because why wouldn’t you want to be in the centre of it all, in what must have felt like the centre of the universe?

This exact sentiment is here articulated by Bruce Robinson, composed for the BBC:

“So what happened to our child of 1800? Raised in a slow, rural life, he probably migrated to the city, leaving behind his old cosy community to start afresh on his own. Working in a factory, he would have been on his own: if lucky and diligent, he might have made a comfortable living. But every decade would have seen ground breakingly new inventions and the pace of life pick up: he might have travelled on trains and exchanged telegrams before he died. What is certain is that the world must have seemed ever smaller, while spinning ever faster.”

Don't Take It Sitting Down

What are the common issues that writers face?  Writer’s block, not enough time to write, not enough money to write, distraction, procrastination etc.  What I struggle with, is the chair.  I hate sitting down to write, and historically, I am not alone in my preference to work while standing up.  Thomas Jefferson, Ernest Hemingway and Charles Dickens apparently all worked from a standing desk.

“The chair will kill you”.  Whether you believe the arguments that sitting down increases the risk of diabetes, kidney disease, cancer and generally shortens your life expectancy, there is no doubt that a mainly sedentary lifestyle can’t be good for your physical health, let alone mental health.  My response is indeed, to work standing up, but it is not long before I get bored of existing in one area of space and simply have to leave my desk, and go for a walk.

"I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields absoutely free from all wordly engagements. You may safely say a penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shop-keepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them — as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon — I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.”

(Henry David Thoreau, ‘Walking’)

I generally go for a walk twice a day.  I take thirty minutes in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.  And actually, thankfully, what I’ve experienced is that this is not time away from writing at all.  It is headspace to think through an idea while my body moves, oxygen floods through the brain and I return to my laptop with either a clearer decision or new inspiration.  There is a power to the act of walking, in leaving the work behind and returning to it physically stronger and mentally clearer.

"Every morning I go to Hampstead Heath [in north London], and I often also go for a wander in the middle of the day to think through a character or situation. I listen to music as I go. Again, it's about occupying one part of your brain, so that the other part is clear to be creative."

(Polly Stenham, The Guardian) 

Having taken action against the physical effects of sitting down, while out walking I began to ponder the mental effects.  If writing, and writing for theatre, are vessels through which a writer expresses their view of the world, endeavours to provoke social change and say something about society, isn’t it strange to do so from a position of physical weakness?  That’s not to say we should write while balancing on our heads, but if, for example, the work is provoked by a situation that makes us angry, why do we take it sitting down?  

Think of it in terms of children at school.  At break time, to sit down means you’re out of the game.  You sit out of P.E when you’ve forgotten your kit (or worse, wear the spare kit).   You sit in the nurse’s room when you’re unwell.  You sit and wait, watching everyone else pass through the day.  But if you’re in the rounder’s game, you’re standing and hitting the ball and running and winning the match for your team.  You’re walking from class to class and soaking up knowledge from a day’s worth of subjects.  Most controversially, if you’ve misbehaved, you stand outside the class.  Although you have caused a disruption and will inevitably end up sitting in the headmaster’s office, at least standing is a declaration that you’ve done something different.

“Enough.  7:30 a.m., Wednesday 29 November 2006.  Coffee drunk, cigarette smoked, bowels evacuated, and I’m off, tiptoeing from the Victorian house in Stockwell where my wife and children are still abed....I’m keyed up as I head off along the road; the sky behind the block of flats ahead is cloudless and still a paving-stone grey; yet it brightens from pace to pace – the day will be clear.  I’m conscious that even if i’ll only be gone a matter of days I will not return from the walk to New York the same man.  I shall have learnt something.”

(Will Self, ‘Psychogeography’, 2007)

I am not suggesting that we should rebel against the system, like the petulant teenager in an English class, and desert our desks for the sake of muscle tone, clearer heads and healthier kidneys.  Of course, if you did want to take this seriously, standing or treadmill desks are vialable solutions.   And actually, a treadmill desk is the first thing I’ll buy if I ever have enough money to throw at my writing pursuits.  Alternatively, an article by Luisa Dillner for the Guardian encourages office-workers to simply find every opportunity to get up from their chair and move around.

What I am asking us to interrogate is the contrast between sitting still and the physical power of moving our bodies through the world.  In walking, we discover things and feel things that no amount of internet browsing can compensate for.  I guess what we need is a healthy balance, like meat and two veg, and it’s just a question of how we organise the position of our bodies through the hours of the day.  If that means sacrificing some time scrolling through Twitter or BuzzFeed, then fine.  I would trade some of the intellect of the sitting reader for all of the drive of the life-affirming walker in a heartbeat.

“But when the door shuts on us, all that vanishes. The shell–like covering which our souls have excreted to house themselves, to make for themselves a shape distinct from others, is broken, and there is left of all these wrinkles and roughnesses a central oyster of perceptiveness, an enormous eye.”

(Virginia Woolf, 'Street Haunting – A London Adventure')

Sometimes I walk forty minutes into town to relocate my office space to a coffee shop, and when I do, I hate that I am then committed to sitting down for an afternoon.  It is for this reason that I wish coffee shops had more tables that are at bar stool height, and therefore optimum height for standing at.  New York has sat up and listened, and apparently these are some good ones. 

Review - Mr Burns - Almeida Theatre

For the entire run of Mr Burns at the Almeida Theatre, I have avoided reading any reviews, and scrolled past any references to it on Twitter.  There has been a tremendous fuss about it, and I didn’t want to come out of the play spouting hyperbole because my perception had been warped by others’ deconstruction.  Instead, I came into it cold, without even having re-watched The Simpsons episode that the play references, and endeavoured to have my own pure experience of it. 

It is the day after Mr Burns, and I still haven’t read a single review.  

So this is what I think.

Mr Burns at the Almeida Theatre - Manuel Harlan

Mr Burns, written by Anne Washburn and directed by Robert Icke, feels like a celebration of this generation.  It is introduced to us by a group of people sat around a camp fire, remembering the precise details of The Simpsons episode 'Cape Feare'.  It is a type of conversation that we all recognise - not necessarily about the Simpsons or that episode - and this is enough to invite us to join the circle.  But it is the first interval where people have turned to each other, said “I don’t like it” and walked out.  So what goes wrong?  All I know for sure is that my view of the stage was considerably less obstructed for act two.

The beauty of the first act is that information about the whys and wherefores of the campfire and the wasteland aesthetic are drip fed through this highly naturalistic scene, asking us to hold on to find out.  I would guess that an audience member’s decision to leave depends on whether they are holding on in rapture, or in boredom.  Perhaps the dialogue is naturalistic almost to a fault, maintaining all of the dithering quirks of normal human interaction, so progress is slow.  Although we are enticed into the group, it is not as active participants, but more as sleepy onlookers, gazing into the fire.  

The drama arises when the group hear a noise from somewhere beyond the auditorium and turn, suddenly fearful, and stare out at us.  The feeling is that they have noticed us listening.  They decide it is nothing.  But a noise stirs them again, and a traveller walks carefully towards the stage, held at gun point.  He, like us, has been listening to the conversation, and can help to finish the recollection of The Simpsons’ episode.  He also helps us to piece together what has happened to these people, and we learn that a nuclear explosion has wiped out masses of the US population with radiation poisoning.  It is devastating, but the characters return to remembering The Simpsons’ episode, and it feels okay again.  This is the introduction to the play’s relationship with Matt Groening’s cartoon, because it provides a mutual territory that maintains a sense of their past lives and then, crucially, a sense of identity.

It is in this sense that the play builds into a celebration of pop culture in general.  The second act, a restaging of TV series’, adverts and music videos, is a lamentation for the things that are evocative of the time before the nuclear explosion.  For example, there is a lengthy discussion about the probability that there is no Diet Coke left, apart from a couple of limited sources, such as a man who is trading one can for two batteries.  But, just as the threat of radiation poisoning will not dissipate, neither will the stories from their collective memories.  

Shockingly, lines from the Simpsons episodes are actually worthy of currency now, and staging the episodes is something of a competitive business.  This throws our culture as we experience it right now into a whole new perspective.  Because when we do Homer’s “Doh!” or Nelson’s laugh, it is not just about remembering the humour of it.  It is about clinging onto a crucial part of who we are that is more precious than a throwaway retort.   So, when Gibson has a mental breakdown because he can’t remember the decision to cut a scene from their repertoire, thereby cutting one of his lines, the melodrama that unfolds is due not only to the fear that he has radiation poisoning, but also that he has lost a part of his identity.

The staging of these episodes, then, that we presume are performed all over the country, are intrinsic to keeping that identity alive.  Having been lead into this dystopian world, it is heart-warming to see this group’s production at the end of act two.  Ann Yee’s choreography and Robert Icke’s direction brought together a piece that had all the awkwardness of a community hall production of a musical, coupled with a checklist medley of musical hits that we recognise and love.  We laugh and clap and delight in the music of Eminem, Daft Punk, and most aptly Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’.  We expect this act to go out with a bang.  What we do not expect is that bang to be a gun shot, fired by a couple of Grim Reaper characters who approach the stage through the auditorium.   

Presumably they intend to steal the book of Simpson’s lines and cultural references that this group have held like a biblical text.  This indicates a whole new level of worth to us.  People are willing to kill each other for these stories, these memories, these portions of identity.  What then, do we expect from act three?

Unfortunately, act three is where I felt that the tether was loosened a little.  The commitment to the Simpsons reaches tribal levels of commitment, with fantastic costumes, gold paint to resemble the yellow skin and a gold crown for Bart Simpson’s hair, which is satisfying to see.  But we have suddenly diverted from the story of the survivors of radiation poisoning.  Admittedly, it is 75 years in the future so we do not expect to see the same characters or way of life, but while I spent my time waiting for the old characters to appear I struggled to relax into this new story.  And even once I had settled in, I was handicapped by the fact I hadn’t re-watched the 'Cape Feare' episode, because I couldn’t tell what was a statement in the play and what was a reference to the episode.

Nonetheless, what is admirable is the extent to which the simple act of storytelling develops across the three acts.  It prompts questions not only surrounding the reliability of memory, but also between fiction and reality, between 2D and 3D.  The impression is that over time, the memory of the characters themselves has been condensed and blended with other popular icons, so that Bart becomes a Harry Potter-style antihero, and Mr Burns/Sideshow Bob is an absurd blend of figures similar to The Joker, Marilyn Manson and Frank N. Furter from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  In the act of the Simpsons characters becoming three-dimensional, the memory of them becomes morphed with other memories and thereby, creates a solid, fully formed fictional character who exists in the real world.  Quite neatly, it is a declaration of the extent to which pop culture influences our everyday lives.

So despite any difficulty following the narrative of the third act, it is no less engaging to watch the interaction between these new, oddly recognisable characters.  The performances are fantastic, and it’s just so aesthetically marvellous: Tom Scutt’s set design builds in wonder until the climactic, fairy lit ending.  Last night's final performance received a well-deserved standing ovation.

Of course, there are many questions we should ask the piece before we place it on any grand pedestal.  Would we care as much if it wasn’t The Simpsons?  Is the fuss around it largely fuelled by all the previous fuss? (Although, I am one example to testify that this is not the case)  Without such a fantastic production, would the text falter?  Is the piece actually doing anything new?

But this feels as immoral a process as picking holes in The Simpsons itself.  Of course there are flaws.  But what I am excited by is the fact I came out of the theatre feeling like I had been to a really great party that I didn’t want to end.  This is positive theatre.  It is not saying anything damning and derogatory about our culture and society, it is celebrating it, and in this respect offers the same escapism as these TV shows do.  And I love that it has sparked such an online and print frenzy of reviews and conversations that allow the story to be retold.

Other responses:

Tim Bano
synonymsforchurlish
Michael Billington
Catherine Love
A Younger Theatre
  

Review - Beyond Caring - The Yard Theatre, Hackney Wick

It is indicative of the atmosphere of this play that it should begin, simply, with Sean O’Callaghan walking from one side of the stage to the other.  The audience stop talking, wait for something to happen, and question whether that really was the beginning.  A light shines from the side of stage, and the play begins.

The ‘house’ lights – the building’s fluorescent strip lighting – are kept on.  We are voyeurs on a story of cleaners in a meat factory working on zero-hour contracts.  We follow three women as they proceed through a group interview, preliminary training and the following days of work.  They meet Phil, a full-time member of staff, and Ian, their power-hungry supervisor who is driven by ideals similar to Nietzsche’s Das Übermensch.  They sweep, they mop, they scrub the walls. They take a break, they eat some biscuits.  Phil reads a book.  Susan plays some music on an old cassette player.  They barely speak to each other, and when small moments of warmth and humanity occur they are shut down before we can feel like we really know these characters.  

It is saddening, because if that’s how we feel, we can fully understand how the characters must feel about each other.  We hear snippets of their back stories – Phil is divorced, Becky has a child – but never anything in detail.  Phil shuts himself in the toilet for fifteen minutes without any explanation.  Susan steals biscuits from Grace, presumably because she can’t afford to buy food.  Becky storms out of the room declaring that she is going for a cigarette five minutes before the official break time.  They are each having their own personal crises, but never talk about them, neither to each other or to us.  It all comes to a head when Becky storms back into the room, faces Phil, and they have sex between the delivery crates.  If that’s not a desperate plea for human compassion, I don’t know what is.

In a sense, the play calls our bluff as the middle classes sat with our glasses of wine and paper fans.  It is, essentially, a portrait of the working-classes as we recognise it.  We have preconceived ideas about who these people are – living off benefits, council-housed, tracksuit-wearing, uneducated, single parent – and the play is resistant to deny that.  The small moments of humanity bleed through when the group talk about Phil’s book or sing along to the music, but they are immediately snatched away and the group are straight back to work.  We are always moments away from finding something we can sympathise with, something we can care about.  But consider the title of the piece – ‘Beyond Caring’.  It is ironic that these people are portrayed to be beyond our care, and yet this play provokes the exact opposite effect.

What the play achieves is a gut wrenching confirmation of things we thought we knew about this coarse way of life, as well as things we denied about ourselves.  But cleverly, Alexander Zeldin has told it all emotionally rather than literally so that by the end, it is crippling to watch five people scrub meat fat off factory machines.  But when the most heartbreaking moment of all is when the coffee machine swallows Susan’s money, you know the play is doing something extraordinary.

 

In the Dialogue Theatre Club discussion after the play, we talked about the poignant symmetry of the men working in the warehouse next door to The Yard, chopping vegetables.  When we left the theatre, we peered into the factory, watched the men chopping, and carried on walking to the tube.  

This play felt a lot like that.

The Future is Fun

It is too easy to look at the state of the arts and do little besides moan and groan.  There’s no money, there are no audiences, there are not enough plays by/about/performed by the multi-cultural Britain we should be celebrating.  There are not enough women. The arts isn't valued enough in our schools. Theatre costs too much.  Even when theatre costs nothing at all, audience’s don’t come.  What are we meant to do?  What are we expected to do?

And yet, as those links will suggest, there are two sides to every argument.  It is a case of whether we choose to be devoted, or be disgruntled.  In my local What Next? meetings, the topic of conversation often lands on the difficult discourse between those who run the arts organisations and those, the local councillors, who interrogate why we bother with the arts in the community.  Thankfully, this is a group who yanks the reigns on moaning and groaning, and instead seeks a plan of action.  The consensus, last time we talked about this, was to encourage the artists and audiences who are independent of those running the arts centres and theatres to step in and lobby their MP.  Maria Miller was present at last month’s meeting, and of course, she quite agreed.   

But excuse me while I have a little grumble, because that is much easier said than done.  Particularly in towns that are within heckling distance of London, if you're going to pay for theatre at all, it is more worthwhile to hop on a train and dive straight into the fringe and the West End.  When it is that easy, there is little impetus to care about the arts in your local community.  Sorely, sometimes this is even the cheaper option.  So how can we inspire people to think otherwise?

At the What Next? meeting, while we were on the topic of engaging with audiences and providing free theatre, Mary Swan, artistic director of Proteus Theatre Company, told us about the Fun Palaces.  The energy in the room shifted.  “Do you know what they are?”  “No, but I definitely want to know.”  This is an exciting initiative taking place nationwide on the 4^th and 5^th October.  The idea sprung from a Devoted and Disgruntled meeting in January 2013, where Stella Duffy asked what should be done to celebrate Joan Littlewood’s centenary.  Inspired by Littlewood’s saying ‘everyone an artist, everyone a scientist’, the group came up with the idea of building these spaces for communities to come together and play, for free, provided with whatever art, theatre, games or music they want.  If the children want to go in and learn the ukulele and play table football while also having their face painted, then that can happen.  Theatre can happen, live music can happen, so long as there is opportunity for everyone to get involved.  

There is far more information on the website, as well as the tools to find/build your nearest Fun Palace.  But basically, this is terrific news.  Within the title Devoted and Disgruntled, it is easy to spend too much time being disgruntled.  We should primarily be devoted – to enjoying art, and enjoying it with our audiences.

(Also, within the original Devoted and Disgruntled report, there was the suggestion that everyone walk to Winchester - just as Joan Littlewood walked to Manchester - because it is also Theatre Royal Winchester’s centenary.  I absolutely want this to happen.)