beat Blue Monday with a better January

If you don’t mind Pantomime, then Christmas for Technicians is great. You’d be pretty much spoilt for choice on the shows to work on (albeit they’re pretty much the same!) and more than often, you can work near your home making it fairly easy getting home for Christmas. That’s what I did for the Panto season and it worked great for me. But as it drew nearer to the end of the run, I found finding work to line up was difficult, either for me, or my colleagues. And so, I find myself in yet another January lull.

This lull has an overall effect on Freelancers, such as myself. If you’re in-house then great, because you have a month of PAT Testing just about every object in the whole of the building! (Because we all know how fun a big, long PAT Test is…) But as the Theatre scene dies down considerably in the months after the traditional Christmas boom-time, you get pretty much stuck twiddling your thumbs! As I run my own company, we’ve had plenty to do for planning the new year. But we’ve now got a pile up of events from the end of March rather than now. I mean, no complaints, but spreading things out would be a bonus!

So I find myself asking and mulling over why January is so quiet. Generally, there isn’t one reason that over arcs them all. Okay, industries all over are quiet, but as ever, Arts has to push continually and this includes creating and producing shows right?

Perhaps the money thing plays too much of a major factor. But it’s so true that the Arts never has any money, so again, pushing to create as so happens the rest of the year. Money then, playing the major part, I feel is an opportunity experimentation and reflection. For example, there should be more Scratch type events, like those at the BAC, charging little money for audiences to find some new stuff. It’s the same with technicians. There should be more opportunity to facilitate these ‘experiments’ within the theatre environment thus requiring technical support. Perhaps bands can try out new material in small low ticket price gigs, or bits and pieces of plays can be staged with some tricky technical content? Or perhaps very little technical content, but at the least for operators to push faders up and down, at the very least?!

This isn’t so much a plea or a cry out for jobs to be created and filled, but a flag-up of how January can be made far more productive. A busy, testing, experimenting, freer first month can help set the foundations and preparations for the rest of the calendar year. New contacts can be made, new artists can be found by audiences and, who knows, even new Genres found by artists?!

Bar all that, hopefully January can be a bit better so I don’t have to spend next year’s Blue Monday struggling so bad in bashing out posts like this!

go on, take a risk once in a while

After reading one of Lyn Gardner’s recent blogs, I was pleased to see how she got incredibly enthused and impassioned by what theatre should be doing and whole heartedly I couldn’t agree more. I am most drawn to her point about risk – “When I’m in the theatre, I want to feel as if some kind of risk is taking place” she says. This takes me back to my days at university when I often discovered the value of this tool and device when creating theatre across a number of forms.

Whenever I went to see a piece I was often asking myself, ‘what did they risk there?’ If it was nothing, then I found that it was pretty pointless – Gardner finishes her blog with a Tim Etchells quote: “I ask of each performance: will I carry this event with me tomorrow? Will it haunt me? Will it change you, will it change me, will it change things? If not, it was a waste of time.” How true.

Speaking more specifically about some of the in-house productions at St. Mary’s University College, some of which I was involved in; these are the ones that still stick in my memory. In the second year, a dance piece called Belonging, a 12-month project culminating in a movement/performance art piece entitled The Healing Room and also my final piece Inside Cover. I can remember how they pushed limits and boundaries both technically and in content and how this thrilled me, moved me and stayed with me.

Sadly, what many practitioners often don’t come to realise is that theatre is the place to take a risk. It’s where the opportunity is created and where the potential and real world can be ‘played’ with finding limits and boundaries. So I find myself asking, why aren’t more theatre makers doing this? Directly, I feel it is somewhat because of the ‘why’, as in they aren’t discovering why to take a risk and I’m not saying take a risk for risk sake. Perhaps taking a leaf out of Atonin Artaud’s book, quite literally, in the Theatre and its Double and injecting some ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ – and why so? Well, summed up brilliantly here –

The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid.

– Antonin Artaud, The Theatre of Cruelty, in The Theory of the Modern Stage (ed. Eric Bentley), Penguin, 1968, p.66

What I love about theatre especially, is that you can use it to play in the face of adversity. I believe that only in theatre, you can toy with an idea so much, to tempt it and push it to see just how far it goes. So, as we face such adverse weather, it doesn’t put a stop to the performance, yet we must, as always, take a risk and push against it.

get a sweet tooth for Suttie

Ah, so sweet – like being in a children’s sweet shop. You could pick and choose your favourite jokes and gags and get through the whole show that way. But it was much better than that I assure you.

Isy Suttie, famed for her appearances as Dobbie in Channel 4’s Peep Show, has a steam roller of a delivery which suits the material very well. It draws upon childhood memories and following your dreams – the latter being a very catchy song because the sing-a-long takes place.

It’s an open and “honest” account with a real mountain of thought which is plied with a feeling of irony, leaving you feeling both nostalgic and warm and gooey like the inside of a bubbaloo – isn’t that nice!

Yes, Suttie is incredibly like-able with smiles, giggles and snorts throughout, if that’s your sort of thing. The show takes a sketch form rather than a journey but the theme is strong and pulls it all together.

At times, the characters felt forced but the playfulness makes it more justified and the genius songs accompany very well. Melody’s’ song about following your heart is a particular highlight; it’s over the top and dry, much like the rest of the show.

Suttie screams incredible presence and her audience connection makes her the adorable child she tells the stories of. Although, in places, it was bordering on the cliché, I feel her experience will shine through and certainly make her one to watch for the future.

pappy’s is primetime genius

For today’s blog, I’m not going to beat around the bush but get straight into it. I saw a sketch comedy called ‘Pappy’s Fun Club’ and the show is a prime example for my blog – what theatre should be about.

The show tells the story of four fun-loving friends and their adventures in the club that is overlooked by a guy called Pappy. Brendon, Matthew, Ben and Tom (in no particular order) play a multitude of parts, each with a few props and costume changes to tell the story of how Pappy will pull the plug on their club unless they can find a more environmentally friendly way of powering it.

Through several mediums, ‘Funergy’ is the idea that they come up with, but just how they do it is where the journey really takes its course and also the reason why you’ll have to go and see it.

It’s an all round enriching and beautiful tale at the heart of it and it’s the smattering of pure genius comedy which keeps it flowing and inevitably holds the piece together.

As a piece technically, it has to be placed under a microscope to find any faults. The pace of the four performers is undeniably expert and you find yourself envying their talents at many times. They know the show so well that it becomes playful and engaging yet they manage to somehow place the audience at the centre of it through their over-the-top but honest and personal delivery.

If the technical aspects aren’t enough, then the writing undoubtedly adds to the strength of this piece. Even though it’s sketch, each sketch has a strong correlation and each part lends itself to one another completing a nicely rounded piece which leaves you feeling incredibly satisfied. The cyclical storytelling ensures that no prop, song, gesture, word or thought is unnecessary and that’s exactly what we want to see in a piece of theatre.

As I said before, if not for the comedy, see this show on the simple basis that it is a great piece of theatre and something that we should all aim for.

Pappy’s Fun Club – ‘Funergy’ is on at 6.40pm at the Cabaret Bar, Pleasance Courtyard – Venue No. 33.

the almost edinburgh festival

Those of you who have been to Edinburgh not during the festival (quite rare, I know) will have undoubtedly noticed the difference between an Edinburgh rush hour and a London rush hour. In London, Bendy Busses are squishing cyclists and pedestrians like tropical bugs and Black Cab drivers are taking road rage to a whole new level.

Edinburgh is a breeze of a metropolis. Queues at traffic lights are an average of three cars. Cyclists and buses treat each other with utmost of British respect creating a striking harmony and pedestrians obey the crossings like children watching Finding Nemo.

However, all has change. The ‘Festival Rush Hour’ is ongoing daily. Cars have loaded into the city in large convoys, bus stops are becoming a haven for petty crime between tourists and blue-rinsed old ladies and cyclists are obeying the traffic laws as it’s becoming more like ‘Tour de Ed.’

They say during the festival the town population doubles, and although it hasn’t quite reached that level yet, it’s certainly well on its way.

Technical rehearsals have been in full swing and running like clockwork. I have small theory that the sun and risen population haven working in tandem to lift and burn off the dense fog that’s been plaguing for the past couple of days (although, I very much doubt bikini sales are going to jump up – one can only dream of such things).

So, bring on the punters! Things are nicely slotting into place – metaphorically and literally as every sizeable building in Edinburgh completely transforms. Every other shop front has been bombarded with posters so it’s mini challenge in itself trying to work out what the shop actually sells. The restaurants, cafes, and other such eateries are doubling their stock as queues file out of the doorways – soon to expand even further.

Today being the first day of previews, it’s almost all in place. Almost being the keyword because as long as the tickets keep on selling with streams of paper to be printed on, then the almost will gradually fade away just as the fog has upon Arthur’s Seat.

what makes the festival so special?

I think it would be an appropriate time to fill in on the journey so far. When I say journey I mean that literally as I write this from my somewhat comfortable train chair. The landmark wheel in York seems like a justified halfway point with a fairly eventful journey – actually hardly at all, apart from the hen-do rabble of chirping chicks boarding at Doncaster making it a livelier affair (there’s goes the bubbly!). Last year’s journey didn’t have the luxury of Wi-Fi, thus showing the importance of this route from the hub of London to arguably centre point of Scotland’s urban landscape.

At this point, I haven’t spotted any fellow potential Edfest –ites, –onians or –evians. I’m trying to work out what most other people have as the purpose for their journey. Not to be patronising that Edinburgh only functions for the festival – anything but. Although, naturally, the festival is the most popular time with the Scottish capital’s population doubling during August.

During the time so far, apart from compiling my networking for the festival’s coverage, I’ve had a flick through the Fringe brochure to see what I could spot for the potential must-sees (bit of an oxy-moron but oh well). I’m halfway through and have so far noted The Terrible Infants with their “new, extended version”, Mark Watson trying to fill a massive auditorium and Obong – Akwa-Cross-River Dance Company which I’m billing as the replacement for last year’s Tom Tom Club.

Don’t worry; I’ll compile the results of a more thorough examination some time later on, for you UFN readers to see.

For now, the journey is to be enjoyed and a question mulled over – what is it exactly about the Edinburgh festival that has made it grown into the world’s largest arts festival? Is it perhaps the size, layout and geographical location of the city? Or the number of suitable and potential venues to facilitate rapid growth? Or even the mix of tourist attractions to help bums on seats? Whatever it is, the specialty of it all has got me coming back for another year and I know there’s nothing else to beat it.

u.f.n. goes to edinburgh

As we head towards the end of the month where it is meant to be the peak of the summer, I can only hope it’s an Indian summer where it peaks next month instead, and a bit further north because that’s where I’ll be. As London gets too hot and sticky to be spending hours in black boxes with programmes for temporary fans, theatre land recesses to the far north in a place called Edinburgh. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it?

For those of you who have, but can’t make the journey due to other rubbish commitments, then rest assured that UFN will be providing some very insightful coverage. The best way to see the festival (any festival) is to work there and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing. I actually head off tomorrow morning to get on with practically making the theatres from empty shells.

Because of my early involvement with the festival, I’ve decided that I’ll be covering the following:-

· the feel of the place before the festival

· the buzz when the performers start arriving and the dreaded technical rehearsals begin

· the all important previews to pick out the potential hits and misses

· the best rated shows to see

· good nights out and things to do other than the theatre

· where and how to spend some quiet time

At the moment that’s enough to be getting on with and more ideas will inevitably pop up as the festival commences. I hope that it can be insightful for anybody thinking of heading up and not sure what it’s going to be like and also for those who are missing out altogether.

If there’s anything you’d like me to blog that you haven’t seen or heard about, then drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do.

Please digg me, del.icio.us me, reddit me, stumble me, add me to your roll and RSS feeds et al.

To put it plainly, Until Further Notice will be casting its thoughts on what the Edinburgh Festival should be about.

In the mean time, take a look at these views on the fringe box office ticket fiasco:-

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2008/07/wlll_recent_chaos_bring_order.html

http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/21258/booking-system-failure-causes-five-week-delay

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/latestnews/Fringe-drama-plunged-into-a.4201359.jp

it’s made ‘the list’ – i now hope it can unmake it

Heading back to the source of my last post – The Stage News, a new report has been released compiling a “list of England’s most endangered theatre buildings.” A new addition, amongst others to join that roll (I knew it wouldn’t be long) is the Gardner Arts Centre, Brighton. The list – compiled by the Theatres Trust, is released annually and I find it interesting that it was included shortly after I enquired about the state of the building when I spoke to some of their representatives at the ABTT conference last month.

Of course, there are many other endangered theatre buildings, far too many for a theatrephiles liking. But the reason why my biased goes towards the Gardner Arts, is because it was one of the places that helped me nurture and pioneer my first real original theatre thinking and the openness that theatre represents as a medium.

Growing up through school, musicals, straight plays and Shakespeare where the main studies of theatre known to me, and it was the GAC that positively broke down that mould. It was a place where I first learnt of Frantic Assembly and Forced Entertainment – both of which completely blew my mind open and made me ever more hungry to explore my own theatre realm. The centre attracted many renowned artists and companies to a very supportive and active Brighton theatre community which would only help further endorse theatre on the whole.

Not only did I gather many inspiring thoughts from experiencing some great work upon those boards, I also performed there myself – in a couple of musicals and a dance show. The latter is what made the GAC so appealing because of the size of its stage – it is one of the largest stages in the whole of the south of England. This added to the strength in attracting so many established companies.

Not only was the centre a thriving house for theatre and dance – being an arts centre it exhibited some fine local and further afield art works and installations as well as regularly screening films. What’s more, it provided many amateur theatre groups with an incredible space to play some fantastic productions and showcase Brighton, Sussex and the South as a leading innovator and creator of theatre and dance.

It’s now on that list, so it has been recognised as endangered which will hopefully help to turn it around and back into a prosperous and successful arts centre. Those of you who have been there will understand it is a peculiar but very spacious and welcoming building. It certainly became, in part, a home to me and somewhere I would hope to go back to as a professional theatre maker and with the right awareness and support, no doubt this can and will happen.

Read the news post from The Stage here – http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/21286/new-entries-on-theatre-building-at-risk-list

end of an era

In one week today, no matter how much the sun is brightly shining, it will be a dark, gloomy and miserable day. The era of “university digs” will come to an end as I go out to face the world of the dreaded council tax. Aside from this depressing thought, it is important to remember how 44 Church Street had become an absolute hub of friends and fun. Nevertheless, as I write this from my mattress on the floor in an echoey shell of a half empty room, I know that it will be sorely missed. However, dwelling will only further the pain and so, instead, I’ve decided to look back at my time at university.

The house is inhabited by the three of us – as you can see on the About page, and we all took Drama at St. Mary’s University College, Twickenham. When I was choosing, out of the many options, what course I was to take at a higher education institution, I had the decision of Drama School vs. University. Admittedly, I didn’t manage to successfully audition for drama school, although throughout the auditioning period, I did find that university seemed to suit me anyway. I like to think of myself as a theatre all rounder and uni was certainly the place to relish this aspect.

It gave me the freedom and choice to indulge in my own learning and take what i considered to be ‘true’ from uni drama department and not attempt to fit a mould. Undoubtedly, you don’t receive the intense practical skills based training – but that all depends on where you think you’ll be heading for the three years – for example, actor, director, practitioner, producer etc. – even if you know that already anyway.

Drama at St. Mary’s is currently going through a change of course phase. As a student learning in the heart of this change, I’ve seen how it has benefitted the department as a whole. As much as staffing revisions have led to some gaps – namely a world class dance tutor, there has been some largely fantastic additions which has led to the department having a clearer sense of direction.

The new course, I’ve been told, enables students with a greater promise as to what they will take from the course – unlike some of my peers, for example, not being able to take a module due to shortage of staff/students. It has also been intensified with much more contact time between teachers and students which gives the sort of time that you’d receive at a drama school.

Mark Griffin, Programme Director of Drama and Applied Theatre Arts, who has overseen the phase of the new course blogs at Drama St Mary’s where he is currently filling in on life within the department. The blog includes many examples of opportunities and general activity and the sort of community you’d be a part of. Although the new changes make it slightly more regimented, I feel it will enable prospective students to find a direction in their own learning and much faster too.

I had an amazing three years at Simms – it’s nickname and what it is affectionately known as, and if you’re currently considering drama at school or university then St Mary’s should certainly be a consideration. Their course provides a mix of the two and also the freedom to structure ones learning. For me, there was real feeling to flourish and achieve the best that I could – after all, it’s the reason why we go to university right?

who do we represent?

It was a late trip out and I managed to pick up a shabby daily free newspaper. Ubiquitous on London transport, they’re basically the commercial daily version of the Friday-ad, in that it is strewn with adverts trying to get you to buy from them. It’s a plus when travelling back from a theatre gig, when your phone battery is practically on its death bed, and you’ve missed Jon Snow or Krishnan Guru Murphy and that’s what article jumped out at me (not Wayne Rooney and his wonky St. George’s flag tattoo as he tries to behave like Johnny Rotten, although I did like the £1.99 McDonald’s coupons.)

Anyway, the London Lite reported that a claim has been made by a guy called Dr Samir Shah who is a non-executive director for the BBC. He’s principally stated that black and Asian people being ‘token’ represented on the box is a not a real representation.

The main point of the article was that he ‘blamed the problem on a “metropolitan, largely liberal, white, middle-class elite” for making sure ethnic minority people were on screen regardless of editorial content.’

Now, why does this sound all too familiar? I don’t think theatre can be held up as much as TV, but I do think there’s a real danger for it. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t be producing plays like Behzti, but I do feel there is a real possibility and potential chance of patronisation to be found upon the boards.

Nevertheless, I think that theatre is more culturally assure in its representation, as “editorial content”, if you can call it that, doesn’t usually take precedence when creating and so there isn’t the element of “token”. Well crafted theatre with purpose finds no compromise for this to happen.

But Shah’s other comment, and main counter movement for his stance ‘Calling for more black and Asian people to be BBC executives, he said the real positions were still filled by a “narrow culture circle”.’

Here, I couldn’t agree more. I accept that I don’t work in an executive environment, however as an outsider, I think it would be fair to find a truth behind Shah’s words.

I read the article and reflect with an awareness and analysis of the theatre of our time to not fall into this trap but to stay equal, non-patronising and true to what we want to communicate upon the stage.

There, that ain’t half bad on a midnight train to London. Who needs Jon Snow anyway, which, by the way, the reason why he isn’t reading today’s news is because he’s giving a speech at the place I’ve just been working.

it’s all for the kids!

     

Each time the inevitable school holidays approach, if I’m brutally honest, a shudder runs from the tip to the base my spine. No longer can I visit a shopping town centre or go for a leisurely swim without insurmountable disruption to my supposedly sordid routine.

Avoiding the everyday bumper scrape of the school time rush was hard enough, but during the break, it’s as if the school run hell took place all day. Town centre car parks become the epitome of a jam packed metropolis, British weather keeps up its crown for worlds most unpredictable weather as it disrupts many a trip to the local park for a wee picnic and chlorine companies empty their supplies as leisure centres try to compensate for the funny yellow colour of their swimming pools. The whole holiday escapade culminates with Mother’s running out of ideas where to take their “little cherubs” – of course by this time they are Satan’s aspiring generation – and PS2’s and Nintendo DS’s become the sole reason for the drain in the country’s national grid.

Taking all this into account, I decided that there had to be a solution to the lack of recreational activities for mothers to take their kids. I thought it would be a good idea to look no further than the Time Out website and see if my theatre counterparts could come to the rescue. I took a glance through Time Out’s section ‘School holiday activities for kids’, to see if I’d be able to find new possibilities of entertaining the tots, tweens and teens. I was somewhat ashamed to find less than a handful of a decent selection of theatre shows for children.

 A fair part of the shows selected were West End with ticket prices starting at around £20 – not at all ideal if you have a few young-ans. The other shows looked fairly decent, although the general selection was far too small. Mothers, for what it’s worth – you have my full understanding.

Lyn Gardner, of the Guardian, pointed out in her blog recently that theatre start times are too late and because of this, theatre buildings aren’t being used to their full advantage:-

Many theatre buildings are woefully underused throughout most of the day and late night, and are like ghosts that only come alive for a few hours in the evenings.

Surely the school holidays are a perfect reason for companies to use theatres in the daytime to entertain the children masses and keep them from being so bored at home. Not only can they entertain, but get our future generation through the theatre doors so we can brain wash them into the magical world of the performance. All jokes aside, it is a shame to see theatre buildings go to very little use in the daytime as well as a lack of children’s entertainment shows. If we have any hope of making theatre in the UK grow far and wide, this is certainly a situation we need to find solutions for. It is pretty simple.

Let’s tear these kids away from the television screens that we, ourselves, were far too subjected to and show them a way that is far more educational, more real and without doubt, a far better way of spending that little precious time.

a little bit more tree-hugging can’t hurt

            

Environmental vocabulary is thrown around all too often these days – Global Warming, Green Issues, Carbon Footprint, Carbon Neutral, Recycling Initiative Etc, where those who use the words lend very little integrity to them. Numerous large companies have come under scrutiny for their advertising of ‘green’ standards and policies, which is simply just awareness rather than action and so a misleading appearance happens on a regular basis.

In theatre, environmental policies come very few and far in-between. As a keen environmentalist myself, an avid recycling and water re-usage fanatic as well as a general responsibility for the earth, I make no hesitation in saying that my theatre counterparts fall very far behind. Our responsibility as ambassadors of the world at large is very poor when it comes to “being green.” I say it is our responsibility, under the circumstances that as theatre as a voice, we have a social integrity to recognise and represent some archetypal views and the environment is always high on the agenda.

I’m not proposing that there should be lots of plays consisting of tree-hugging, one shower a week and drinking our own wee, rather that throughout the production process, we can be more environmentally responsible. For example, implementing some sort of policy that helps a company to consume less – using less paper, recycling props and scenery and consuming power only when necessary; switching off lights when not in use. This applies to companies whoever they are – theatres, arts centres, music establishments, artists, performers, producers Etc, to which it goes without saying that the economic effect can only be positive.

This is all very obvious and easier said than done, but the point I’m trying to make is that pure awareness will have a knock-on effect to help facilitate future projects in terms of environmental responsibility.

A massive example of this is the Arcola Energy project at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney, North London. This is the scheme where they “aim to make Arcola the worlds first carbon neutral theatre.” A huge effort has been made possible under the guidance of the theatres’ executive director Dr Ben Todd who is also a consultant to the fuel cell industry. Through his and the theatres’ work, they have installed a hydrogen fuel cell to power the main part of the venue, including bar and main house. As well as the cell they “will be installing biomass heating, solar panels, fuel cells and state of the art energy saving technologies throughout the building.” This is a standard that we can all pursue to reduce the impact on Global Warming – the key achievement at the end of the day.

Furthering this, also one of the reasons for Arcola’s excellence, is the Greening London Theatre initiative – October 2007 Press Release:-

The Mayor has announced that he is working with London’s theatres to reduce their carbon emissions. Speaking at Somerset House where he helped launch the new energy efficient lighting scheme at the National Theatre, the Mayor announced a partnership across the London theatre sector with a shared goal of making London’s theatres more energy efficient.

Read the full release.

As you can see it isn’t only the Arcola Theatre making a difference; however they are the only body to openly publicise changes and undertake a genuine accountability into helping the environment. Arcola is an off-West End theatre where economic and financial tackling is an all time reality – yet they still manage to achieve something so wonderful. It is about time that more companies followed their lead and should make aware and fully implement green changes into their day-to-day running.

share the language and free the word! in theatre

Following on from yesterday, I raised an obvious point about everyday suffering in the world and the role that theatre can play in the healing of these afflictions. Theatre, as language, plays a hugely important part in the understanding between cultures, especially language shared globally. The modern climate allows for a vast amount of cross-culture collaboration to take place, with freedom of travelling growing at an implausible rate and international theatre companies joining forces left, right and centre because of this. It is only inherent that we should embrace these opportunities and make it a responsibility to learn, teach and grow together in co-cultures – language plays vital part of this.

In search of this responsibility, I should take time to highlight the upcoming Free the Word: A celebration of world literature festival taking place at the South Bank, London this weekend (11-13 April). The festival is being held by International PEN – a hugely established association of writers from across the world. Its focus is the breaking of divisions between countries using language. This is what the organisers say:-

Meet the great writers you know and the great writers you don’t…

Come and feast upon a weekend of events that promises to engage with stories from all over the globe in unexpected and extraordinary encounters. Be part of an intimate conversation, a raucous debate, a provocative cabaret, or just listen to dialogues between eminent and emerging writers as they discuss their role as creators, thinkers and interpreters in society.

Free the Word! is taking place at the National Theatre, The Old Vic, Southbank Centre and Young Vic.

The festival is the perfect opportunity to learn how language can incite, invite, inspire, invoke and inflame in the best way possible. This, in turn, can be used in the theatre, with all the above terms, to educate both creators and audiences alike.

However, the truth is that at the moment, there is, as Hassan Abdulrazzak puts it in his blog at the Guardian Unlimited, too big a “gap in knowledge” – particularly between Western cultures and the Middle East, for example. Abdulrazzak writes that the perception and understanding that we have about other countries and cultures has been filtered only by the news and television. Others also have the same closed view about us – that we are a male hooligan, violence driven nation, which plainly isn’t true.

Theatre is a medium which can change these views and Free the Word is an ideal festival to attend which can help support. So, again, I stress the value in our responsibility as theatre makers to take in every possibility and help shape the views of the world at large.

theatre should highlight the beauty too

The infamous poet, Dylan Thomas, is reported to have commented that Under Milk Wood was developed in response to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as a way of reasserting the evidence of beauty in the world. If that was the case, then a play such as this should be written every day.

With everyday events of human rights abuse in Tibet, extreme world food shortages and the ever present war tearing apart nations, then theatre and the arts in general, needs to reassert the evidence of beauty at every possible opening. Living in a country where freedom of speech is a luxury, compared to some, and human rights come at very, very little cost, we need to take advantage of that fact.

As theatre makers, I believe it is absolutely vital, a duty perhaps, to search and expose the splendour that does exist in the world. Even if it takes a great amount of time, to use the cliché “Rome wasn’t built in a day” – Thomas worked on Under Milk Wood for eight years and what he eventually produced was an astonishing feat and an incredible commentary on the world at large, I think we’d all agree this is a lesson we can learn.

I accept that, in this day, we don’t have the time to write a masterpiece over an amount of years, although some attempt at this would be a tribute to writers’, such as Thomas, to theatre and audiences and it is somewhere to be aiming for.

It is then fitting, in these troubled times, that Under Milk Wood should be appearing at the Tricycle Theatre for two weeks in May. Director “Malcolm Taylor’s new, simply staged production gives full rein to the words and majesty of Thomas’ timeless masterpiece.” This is a fantastic opportunity for an audience to lend their ears and eyes to be seduced by Thomas’ words once again and also to be reminded of the beauty in the world.