The Kraken Turns Off the Snooze Alarm

And I'm back in the room.  It's been a while and I can tell you've missed me.  Well, from Wednesday I will be six and a half projects down out of the ten of the year.  That will see the last episode of Lost Tribe of the Trolls release and the writing of recording of the final story of The Trolls Trilogy for release over the next few months.  That leaves three projects.  But what are they going to be?

Well, here the Seldom Plan hits again (see past posts ad nausem) - there be changes afoot.  I'm still going to be presenting the oft mentioned Historic Crimes in October - this will be a live streamed radio drama, tickets for the recording will be available from the Quay Theatre box office.

Otherwise, the last two projects are going to be more internet based and have no specific timetable.  I have already started one.  It is called The Museum of Tat - and it has a blog all of its very own.
http://themuseumoftat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/welcome-to-museum-of-tat.html
This will be an evolving project, but in the short term it will mostly be made of photography and video pieces - which will be published online.

Then there is another work in progress I'm calling Just Say Yes (no affiliation to a rather dull Snow Patrol song, youth empowerment companies or fascist organisations etc)- which will be created at the Quay Theatre (probably) on the fifteenth of September.  Or not.  It will be a one-to-one piece, but later a video work.  Or not.  More later.

Otherwise, two of my other projects are still alive and well.  The Shakespeare Delusion is performing again in London in October, as will the very popular The Juliet Inquiry, which I might be able to stream live (details to follow.)  So, this is very much the year of my Shakespeare Trilogy - which Historic Crimes will complete - all three pieces performing in close succession.

Lateness of the Trolls

Or perhaps I should call this post, lateness of everything.  I haven't posted anything of substance for a while because I hit a crunch period.  You can tell this because my posts petered out and they started sounding a bit... depressed.  I was tired, I was worn out, I needed a rest - but I was in the middle of performing in three different shows, almost all at once, as well as all the other planning of stuff.  So, I had a bit of a reboot this weekend and am now back in the room, as the hip kids say, in some other universe.
Which brings us to Trolls.  Didn't I say there would be a new episode of Trolls, every week, on a Wednesday, without fail?
Well, two things changed that prompted a change of plan.
1. I had got to the ending quicker than planned (for Lost Tribe anyway) and...
2. Audioboo, whom host the audio stuff I do, extended the length of free boos from 3 minutes to 10.
Despite claims to the contrary on an earlier blog, the three minute length of episode was cramping my style.  It was just that little too short, ruining cliffhangers and generally being unsatisfactory.  I was also finding the strict timeline a bit frustrating at crunch moments, as I had to rush some episodes out.
So, tomorrow (touch wood) the last episode of Lost Tribe of the Trolls will be released and then I'll be releasing episodes of the next story Paper Moon Trolls in a more holistic, bi-weekly ish set of 6-10 minute long episodes.

The Post Shakespeare Post

It is frustrating that the time when I should really be blogging the most is at the time when it sooooo isn't going to happen.  Production week - when people might actually be interested in the work, when interesting things are actually happening - is dead to this blog for the most part.  I'm just too tired.  And it doesn't get any better at the end of the week (i.e. now) because I've forgotten all the interesting stuff.  It just leaked out of my brain, probably at the same time I drank all that alcohol.  Hell, there aren't even any photographs, so I can't even show you them!
So, The Shakespeare Delusion went up this week.  Version 2, that is.  Version 1 went up two years ago and then went into hiatus with my colon.  It's a leaner, meaner, shorter, punchier version - though fundamentally the same in overall shape and structure.  On Monday I performed it at the Quay Theatre as part of my residency and then on Wednesday I took it to the LOST One-Act Festival in good old London.
Both shows went well, comments were positive, money was taken, scripts sold.  I now await my fate as to whether it will win anything at LOST.  Fingers crossed.
Now, hopefully, Delusion will go on the road next year.  I'm seriously thinking of doing so kind of tour, look at doing some festivals, generally get my arse in gear.  But, then I remember the downside.  It's the same problem stand ups have.  Touring a solo show is incredibly lonely.  You finish the gig and go to the bar and then there is no one to talk to.  This isn't quite fair - there will be audience members who will want to have a natter and it can be jolly nice.  But, this isn't guaranteed.  Often, especially with a dramatic piece, rather than straight up comedy, people don't.  And you can't throw yourself at people, because then you sound a bit desperate.  Which, after going to a hotel room (if you're lucky) alone for a few days, you might very well be.  What else to do?  Sit and drink a post show pint by yourself?  Read a book?
It wasn't too bad this week, because at the Quay I knew people.  At LOST I knew the organisers, I've performed there a number of times, but I didn't know anyone in the audience.  But out on tour, gulp, that doesn't bode well for my sanity.
Which is why I prefer my home touring model.  Storytelling for parties, telling stories to real people, not audiences, and then kipping on their sofa before moving on.  It's so much more human.  Just need to get that one together as well then.
**
But that's next year, next year is next year - I've still got this year to get through.  I've now reached the halfway mark.  Delusion was the fifth of ten projects.  Well, technically I've already done one of the later ones, so I'm six down.  Except I'm only halfway through the first project, so five and a half then.  So, now I need to de-clutter and plan the rest of the year.  I've got two looming projects that need writing.  Metal Harvest which is about the First World War, and which is changing daily in my mind, and Historic Crimes which is about Shakespeare as a sex offender.  These need to be shaped, written, planned.  And now that the fog of war has faded on Delusion I can now start on them. 

Shaking the Delusion

I rehearsed The Shakespeare Delusion yesterday.  Well, that's hardly news, is it?  I've been rehearsing daily for weeks.  But yesterday I rehearsed it in London.  With Colin.  Which was a very nice change.
Now Colin runs a thing called the Face to Face festival - aimed at showcasing solo performance - which I've performed at a couple of times and have been invited to do again this year.  Not only that but Colin agreed to give the show a once over.  Which was very helpful.
As well as, a little bit, painful.  But pain is good, pain is growth, pain is just ego having a tantrum - because what Colin said was true - page x needed a trim.  It wasn't flowing.  It stuck out like a sore thumb and lost him.  So we cut it.  Almost the whole page.  Which was painful, as it does feature some of my favourite jokes.  But the show isn't just about cheap laughs, so sometimes you have to get rid of them.
Not only that, but when we ran it again, sans page x, not only did it run smoother (WHOO-HOO!) but we also discovered a lovely bit of physical action that makes the ending far sadder.
Only now, I've got tonight and tomorrow to learn the reworked pages around page x.  So, pain.  But also joy.
Thank you Colin.

The Shakespeare Delusion

Written and Performed by Robert Crighton

Professor Ashborn invites you to share in his latest discoveries and lead you through the terrible secrets behind the man people call Shakespeare.  Did he really write the plays?  Was he really bald?  Did he like cheese?  Using recently uncovered documentation Professor Ashborn can finally tell the true and completely true, truly true, utterly true, true story of the Shakespeare delusion!

Performing at the Quay Theatre on Monday 26^th May at 7.30pm

To listen to the Live Stream on the night go to www.ustream.tv/channel/robert-crighton-storyteller

Also performing at the LOST One-Act Festival in London on Wednesday 28th May at 7.30pm

The Other Irons in the Fire

I suppose I should, with less than a week to go, go on about The Shakespeare Delusion but I've gone over that so many times, it's not news.  It's on next week, book tickets, ya-da-ya-da-ya-da.  So, I thought I'd post about some of the non-Milk Bottle productions I'm involved in.  At present I'm reacquainting myself with a play I've loved ever since I first appeared in it in 2001 - the delightful The Importance of Being Earnest - which I happen to be in.  It isn't perhaps something I should admit publicly, but think I was possibly born to play Algernon Moncrieff.  He's a self obsessed glutton with few moral scruples and I would hate to think I were that bad.  However, the part does slip on me like a well worn and insanely comfortable pair of shoes.
I first essayed Algernon when I was but a youth, back for the summer from University.  It was September and term was about to begin again.  And on Tuesday 11th September we had our dress rehearsal.  I remember discussing the terrible events of the day before getting into the dressing room and on stage to eat a lot of muffin.  The run was, a recall, well attended.  I have wondered whether we picked up audience because people wanted to escape to a safer world.  But then again, Earnest is rarely poorly attended.
I'm acting in this production for my local amateur company, the Lavenham Players, partly because it keeps the juices flowing, partly because it's good for business, but largely because I'd happily play in Earnest at least once a year anywhere that it came up.
I was chatting with a friend who has directed a number of Wilde's plays and we got onto the subject of the content of the plays.  That of the four plays that deal with society Earnest is the one with the least content - that unlike the other three, which are dramas with some wit, Earnest is only interested in laughs.  I couldn't agree with that.  The play is a satire and it's razor sharp.  It is also very fun, light and frothy.  It is an example of a play that can be both a deeply subversive work - full of class satire and gay subtext - and a play that middle England will sit down and happily enjoy.  I forget the name of the fictional aunt that Terence Rattigan claimed he wrote plays for, but it's something very much for her.
Perhaps there is an argument that we shouldn't be reviving such staples of the repertoire so often - unless we have something new to say about it.  I've been involved in four productions in thirteen years and that's without really hunting the play out.  But it still delights, it still sells and, frankly, if I can't be involved in a revival of the odd classic amongst the dozens of other new works I'm creating, then life would be very dull indeed.
Earnest aside I'm also in two other community productions this year.  I'm doing a bit of Shakespeare in June, a compilation show called Shakespeare Undressed which has been great fun to rehearse so far.  A bit of Benedick, some Fool, some Robin Goodfellow and home in time for tea.  And in November I'm performing in Waiting For Godot - but that's a whole other blog post.

"Get a handle on the dialogue...

... it's a one man show, it's a monologue..." as a wise woman once said.

I do a lot of monologing, as anyone who's ever attempted to have a conversation with me will tell you.  It's a frustrating process, because you're largely dependent on yourself.  You may have a team around you, people to help with lines, directors, crew etc. but basically you need a brain to hold all those words and actions together.  And so you sit and you fuss and rehearse and go over lines and tweak, and rewrite the lines, because you suddenly hate them, and that bit never flowed, why didn't you change that weeks ago, shit there's only two weeks to go, you should be running it by now, agggghhhhh! 

Because, unlike a play, it seems to take ten times more work to get the damn text to flow right.  You're faffing with tenses and clauses and stuff that my education has wholly failed to prepare me for.  And the closer the deadline gets the more you suddenly want to change, but then there isn't time to learn those changes.

Of course, it's different if it's someone else who's performing the text, or if you're performing another persons play, but when you're doing all the creating it drives you a bit loopy.  And I know, I just have to lock myself away for a few weeks and it'll be fine.  And it all will be fine.  All will be well, all manner of things will be well.  Or something similar.

Basically, what I'm writing here, isn't an attempt to tell you want it's like rehearsing The Shakespeare Delusion or other of my monologues.  It's an attempt not to rehearse yet, because I'm writing a blog post.  Don't make me do it AGAIN!  

Oh, all right, if you insist.

Or I could prepare my Radio show for tomorrow.  Yes, I need to do that now.

No I don't, that's for after rehearsal tonight.  

And so this displacement activity ends.

I believe you're supposed to write lol or something similar at this point.

The Shakespeare Delusion - Press Release

The Shakespeare Delusion – Press Release

 

New comedy drama by the Quay Theatre’s Artist in Residence Competing in London

Live Streaming Across the World

 

As part of Milk Bottle’s Shakespeare Trilogy – three plays on a theme of Shakespeare to celebrate Shakespeare’s 450^th birthday – Robert Crighton presents his mock lecture, The Shakespeare Delusion.  Not only is it premiering at the Quay Theatre on Monday 26^th May, it is also competing for the prestigious LOST One-Act Festival in London, as part of their 30^th anniversary season.  Robert is the only competitor for the festival in its history to have won three awards in three successive years – he only stopped entering when he was no longer eligible to pass the age restrictions.  The age limit has been dropped this year, so Robert is eager to win a fourth award if he can.

The play is about the so called 'Shakespeare authorship question' which is ruthlessly satirised throughout.  "It's the worst of all conspiracy theories because there is literally no evidence at all to suggest Shakespeare didn't write the plays and vast amounts of evidence to say that he did.  Some of the theories are so absurd it's almost impossible to satirise because anything you try to make up has to be crazier than that which has already been suggested."  Robert Crighton

 

Robert is also appealing for help in writing the play – looking for the worst line from all of Shakespeare.

“I need the worst line I can find – either incomprehensible, weird or just awful.  It isn’t an easy thing to find - he was generally speaking, a brilliant writer.  The winner of my favourite quote will see it featured in the play, and will also get a free copy of the published script with a thank you inside!”

Entries can be sent via tweet @RobertCrighton or email contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk

 

The play is being live streamed as well – the last play Robert streamed, Hang, was listened to around the world.

“With the advent of the world wide web, theatre need not be tied down to one location.  Now, even a small arts centre can produce, not only world class drama, but show it to anyone around the world.  We are no longer bound but the traditional ideas of what is rural theatre or cosmopolitan theatre – there is only theatre, drama, comedy – the excitement of the new.  We are just as important as any other broadcaster and can be judged, not on our location, but on our content.  That is an exciting change in the world.”  Robert Crighton

 

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

The Shakespeare Delusion

Written and Performed by Robert Crighton

Professor Ashborn invites you to share in his latest discoveries and lead you through the terrible secrets behind the man people call Shakespeare.  Did he really write the plays?  Was he really bald?  Did he like cheese?  Using recently uncovered documentation Professor Ashborn can finally tell the true and completely true, truly true, utterly true, true story of the Shakespeare delusion!

 

To listen to the Live Stream on the night go to

www.ustream.tv/channel/robert-crighton-storyteller

Performing Live and Online on Monday 26^th May at 7.30pm at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury

Tickets: Pay-What-You-Want

Box Office: 01787 374 745

www.quaytheatre.org.uk