Halloween in Glemsford

Halloween - a gig in the Angel Pub, Glemsford.  It's the second outing for what will become GhoStoryteller for two weeks in London.  As it's still a work in progress I read from a script, but I did add a lot of local bits for that night only and needed to not confuse my brain when learning the final draft.
I rose late on Halloween and spent the day wandering around collecting my thoughts and my material.  I dressed carefully - not too Halloweeny, just in a black waistcoat and tails, a bit butlerish.  I arrived at the pub quite early to help judge the space.  I had been once before, but who'd want to get it wrong.
The Angel isn't a large pub and it is fairly oddly shaped - there are two rooms diagonally placed from one another, linked by the bar.  You can see both rooms so long as you stand in the linking archway along the bar.  This is where I performed, popping between the two halves.
Normally this would be a problem, but I opted for a microphone to hold both rooms together without physically being there at all times.  With another show I wouldn't have bothered, (never knowingly undersold) but ghost stories need soft speech which amplification makes happen rather well.
Unfortunately, though the PA at the Angel was good, the shape of the space meant it was difficult to avoid feedback.  I had a couple moments of howl around and it did limit my movement slightly, but otherwise was fine.
The major drawback with arriving early was there wasn't much to do.  Normally I would find sitting in a pub quite easy - but as I couldn't drink any alcohol before the show time flowed slightly slowly.  There were a number of trick or treaters who came in.  Some were little boys and girls dressed to the nines and accompanied by a responsible adult, but others were obnoxious teenagers who (completely uncostumed) burst in and tried to nick a handful of sweets.  They went away with a verbal thick ear.
The audience now arrived en masse and the place was soon very busy.  After a short argument with the microphone I began.  Now, I had been warned before I started that the locals might be a bit loud, that there might be hecklers.  Not a bit of it, they were all lovely and quiet.  There was one moment when a loud knock on the front door (possibly a projectile pumpkin thrown by the disappointed teenagers, jury is out on that one) coincided with a particularly tense moment of the first story.  My word, the room didn't half jump.
After the show I was, at last, in a position to have a drink or four, and swapped a few ghost stories with the locals.  It was a lovely evening and I must thank everyone at the Angel, and my good friend Fiona, for inviting me along.
Today has been the aftermath.  Using the response to edit the text down a bit more, make notes on what worked and what didn't.  As a result the show is now 500 words shorter and hopefully 500 words better.
Robx

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

Robert Crighton:

STORYTELLER

Written and Performed by Robert Crighton

GhoStoryteller

Tuesday 27^th December 2011 to Friday 30^th December and Tuesday 3^rd to Sunday 8^th January 2012 (No performances 31^st Dec, 1^st or 2^nd Jan)

Two weeks of real ghost stories collected during our autumn tour.  From the ghosts of empty houses, to the personal ghosts we carry around us, this collection is a mixture of the fantastic and the “real”.  Do you have your own ghost stories?  Let us know and we might add it to the show.  Send to contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk 

Tickets £12 / £10 concessions

Tuesday to Saturday starts at 7.30pm – doors open 7.15pm.  Sunday at 7pm, doors open 6.45pm.

Box Office: 020 8932 4747

Barons Court Theatre, “The Curtain’s Up”, 28A Comeragh Road W14

Nearest Tube:  Barons Court (Piccadilly/District Lines)

Differing spaces...

Decisions, decisions... The Natural History of Trolls has an out of town tryout before the run at Barons Court.  Now, the Quay Theatre, a lovely theatre in Suffolk, is a very different space to Barons Court.  The Quay is an end on space - 125 seats facing a stage at the other end of the room.  (See picture of some of the seats in the theatre - and some orange penguins.  I know I keep putting this picture up but I do love it so.)

Barons Court, however, has 60 seats which surround the stage on three sides.  The decision I need to make is this - do I stage the show for Barons Court and slightly adjust it for the Quay or do I go all out on the Quay staging and change it completely for Barons Court?
The Quay is a bigger space and requires the performer to go out to the audience - it's a space where video projection will work, where a pictorial aesthetic will work, where music and sound effects will work, it's a space for bigger gestures.  Barons Court cannot be pictorial because only those sitting facing the front of the stage will see those images - Barons Court works in three dimensions rather than two and a bit.  It is easier to stage for Barons Court and remove a dimension for the Quay, but who wants to make life too easy? 
I've faced this decision before with Cuckold's Fair when we filled in a last minute vacant slot at the Quay and we didn't change much, just turned ourselves around a bit, but this time I don't want to ignore effects that will work in that space, even if it means cutting them completely once we return to London.
Re-rehearsals with the cast begin next week, so I've got a few more days to decide precisely how it's going to come together.  Around these deliberations I'm performing version  two of the GhoStoryteller show, this time in a pub in Glemsford.  I'm performing ghost stories on Halloween.  I must be mad.  Especially as since starting this GhoStoryteller lark I think I've invited a ghost into my home.  Well, I say a ghost - I mean that in a room in the house, where there are not sources of water and where the ceiling is dry, a puddle of water has appeared.  No one knows how it got there.  Spooky.
Or someone in the house is sleep walking and pissed on the floor.  Jury's out on that one.  Does anyone know of ghosts producing water?  I've not come across it.  Answers on a postcard.

After The Ghosts...

Well, the first GhoStoryteller show is past.  The Ghosts of Lavenham, the template from which the GhoStoryteller show will be based on, has come and gone.  It was a sell out show, the audience went home very happy and I got a real sense of where the final show is going. So, what will happen to the show between here and Barons Court.  Well...
Here's the running order as performed in Lavenham, with notes as to how I will alter each section.

 

Introduction: Spooks or Spooked?  Local stories of ghosts and the problems of the ghost story.

# This is a general opening, non-fiction, which will be shorted and simplied and generally de-Lavenhamised.

The Wheel of Shame: A semi-comic tale of one young girl and her unique poltergeist.

# This is the new Molly (Bink! & Teaching Gods) story.  I'm very happy with this - even though I actually only wrote the ending for it at 4 o'clock in the morning prior to the Lavenham show.  There was an illness in the family and, inbetween the piercing screams of pain, I suddenly realised how to end the story.  Now, all I need to do is tie the loose ends together.

Countdown to the Other Side:  A short comic tale of a ghost that refuses to give up its daily routine.

# Noticed a massive error in the text as I said it during performance.  No one mentioned it, so I assume I got away with it.  This story is very short and will go to our fabulous special guests - hopefully a different person  every night.

The Ghosts of Lavenham:  Set in the market town of the same name, though all characters and persons featured are entirely fictitious.  Milk Bottle cannot be held liable for any shoes that fit, these are purely coincidental and should fit any community.

# Though the story will remain fundamentally the same, I'm going to pull it apart and reconstruct it in a different shape.  The town will become generic, rather than specific, and the two plot strands - which in the original occur in two different places - will be pushed together under one roof.  

I have no plans at this time to write an additional material for the GhoStoryteller show - it does all now hang rather nicely together.  If the audiences in London like it half as much as in Lavenham, then I'll be most please.

And, on a final note - I did say you'd see a bit backstage of the photoshoot for The Natural History of Trolls.  Well firstly - a silly Blue Peter how to guide to making your own orange penguin.

Followed by a few snippets of the shoot and in the Guildhall itself.

And, of course, the resultant photo, because I love it so.

Till next week!  And remember to buy those tickets.

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

STORYTELLER

The Natural History of Trolls

Written and Performed by Robert Crighton

Plus Special Guests: Georgina Blackledge, Pamela Flanagan, Jessica Moore & Sophie Morris-Sheppard

 
SUFFOLK TRYOUT -

Sunday 20^th November at 7.30pm

Tickets £7 / £6 Friends of the Quay

The Quay Theatre, Quay Lane, Sudbury

Box Office: 01787 374 745

LONDON RUN - 
Tuesday 29^th November to Friday 23^rd December 2011

Tickets £12 / £10 concessions

Tuesday to Saturday starts at 7.30pm – doors open 7.15pm.  Sunday at 7pm, doors open 6.45pm.

Box Office: 020 8932 4747

Barons Court Theatre, “The Curtain’s Up”, 28A Comeragh Road W14

Nearest Tube:  Barons Court (Piccadilly/District Lines)

Do Penguins Read Newspapers?

It's been another exciting week of rehearsals for the ghost stories show - first tryout in Lavenham is nearly sold out, get those tickets while they're... well... there.
Otherwise I've been spending some of my out of hours moments doing a bit of arts and crafts for a photoshoot the end of the week.  I know, I said in my last vlog it should have happened by now, but I got my dates messed up and it's the end of this week.  Anyway, at present I'm constructing a troll.  And there will be video evidence of this later in the run up to BARONS COURT.  Yes, though there are lots of try out shows between now and then, BARONS COURT is the primary thrust of my thoughts at present.
So what changes will have been made to The Natural History of Trolls between the New Wimbledon run and BARONS COURT?  Well, it's going to have a smaller cast and a much more involved staging.  I've lots of little ideas I want to overlap onto the text - the physical score, if you will - but I don't want to over egg this.  I don't want to enact every moment of the story in ever increasing cycles of manic physical theatre balls crap.  I want to suggest elements, little light touches of sound and movement, just sprinkle a little fairy dust over it all.  I'd like there to be a little more magic.
Which brings me to announce - there's AN EXTRA SCENE!  A whole NEW SCENE!  Yes, exciting, I know. Those who saw it at the New Wimbledon will have to watch it again, if only to see the new scene.  It's like when they release an extended special edition of a CD eight months after the first version just to really annoy everyone who bought it the first time around.
That isn't the reason I added a scene - well section - to the story.  I've never been completely happy with the last quarter of the show.  Actually, I'm never completely happy with my shows, ever, but on this occasion there was a real, practical flaw in the text.  It's a bit rushed in places, some of the text was a bit phoned in, so I've been generally tweaking and adjusting the end and also adding in a short sequence about cakes and a new line to help end the epilogue.
This new section isn't entirely new; it's left over from an early draft.  In an early version there was a whole subplot to do with baking.  Yes, baking.  That's how we roll at Milk Bottle.  Trolls are master bakers.  This survived into the New Wimbledon show as a two line throw away, a reference which was little more than a bad pun.  This section - much longer in the original (about ten minutes rather than the current two) was too big for the show.  It didn't add anything to the plot beyond a bit of whimsy.  I couldn't see how I could justify going off on a tangant about baking, however nice the sequence was.
Then I came up with an idea of how to tie the baking into the structure of the story and move the character of Vicki forward more.  It's the story of her first experience of a Troll feast.  Spoiler: she gets to decorate the cake.  This doesn't sound like much, but that's because I haven't told you what it means, you'll have to watch to find out.  The baking of Trolls is life affirming and, if it comes out right, it should break some hearts.

Here's the first Un-Trailer for The Natural History of Trolls.  A trailer and various other Un-Trailers will follow soon.

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

Robert Crighton:

STORYTELLER

Written and Performed by Robert Crighton

Plus Special Guests: Georgina Blackledge, Pamela Flanagan, Jessica Moore & Sophie Morris-Sheppard

SUFFOLK TRYOUT - Sunday 20^th November at 7.30pm

Tickets £7 / £6 Friends of the Quay - The Quay Theatre, Quay Lane, Sudbury

Box Office: 01787 374 745

LONDON RUN - Tuesday 29^th November to Friday 23^rd December 2011 

Tickets £12 / £10 Concession 

Tuesday to Saturday starts at 7.30pm – doors open 7.15pm.  Sunday at 7pm, doors open 6.45pm.

Box Office: 020 8932 4747

Barons Court Theatre, “The Curtain’s Up”, 28A Comeragh Road W14

Nearest Tube:  Barons Court (Piccadilly/District Lines)