Wartime Memories

The creation of Metal Harvest last year produced a lot of interesting responses - and has sent me in a couple of surprising directions.  This is one of them.
Alan Scott, who has performed with me for readings and the installation piece You Have Been Watching in 2014, mentioned to me in the bar one night that he had a tape recording of his grandfather talking about his experiences in the First World War.  Now, Metal Harvest was mostly written at this point and though there was more material to shape I didn't need anything new, but it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass.  If nothing else, it would be interesting and I could transfer the recording onto a CD for him.
I sat down to transfer the tape.  It wasn't good.  There was a phenomenal amount of hiss and little dynamic to the sound.  The recording was of a family gathering, after a meal or similar event, where everyone was trying to prompt this veteran into talking about the Great War.  The tape recorder was hidden, so that he didn't notice.  There's a lot of background noise of clearing plates and general chatter.  I struggled along and hoped for the best.
In the 55 minutes of recording the conversation, occasionally obscured, danced around making things with used shell casing and leather off cuts; surviving off the land (stealing the odd chicken); looking after the horses; taking the dead from the front line; joining up and being demobbed.  I did a quick de-hiss to see how much clarity could be got out of the recording and emailed Alan back with a suggestion - to release the material online.  People should hear this first hand account.
So, Alan came over and recorded some background, listened to the recording and commented on it.  We think that with some work we could get between twenty and thirty minutes of good audio that I plan to release in a couple of weeks.  The current plan is to release it in themed chunks, of five to ten minutes each, over a month or so, and then release the full recording for those who want to work out the less clear sections.

Wartime Memories - First Hand Recollections of the Great War by William Coleman
First Part has been released - you can support this work at www.patreon.com/robertcrighton

Alan Scott, with the recording on screen.

Alan Scott:  "The recording is of William Henry Coleman, born 14th August 1897 in Lambeth.

His father was a saddler working for the Southern Railway in the Battersea area.  It is difficult to piece together a full service history as his service records are not available – probably lost in the 1940 fire - but from the tape I believe he was in the Army Service Corps, which became the Royal Army Service Corps in 1918 and is now the Royal Logistics Corps.

The tape was recorded at my parents house in Colchester following a family lunch and was done without him being aware of the recording.  I think this was to celebrate the Diamond Wedding anniversary of William and his wife Elsie and would therefore have been in September 1981.

He mentions being at Arras when the victory parade for Cambrai was staged – this would be mid-December 1917.  He was at Mons at or immediately after the Armistice and relates how they had to march to Dieppe to return to the UK. This is approximately 150 miles so would probably have taken a week or so.  I believe he was demobbed at Purfleet in December 1918.

After the war he returned to London and worked as a vehicle trimmer, having his own business for a while which failed during the Depression, and latterly working for a firm in Colchester as a vehicle trimmer until the 1970’s.  He served in the Home Guard in Colchester in 1939-45 – after failing to convince the recruiters to let him join up as a regular at the outset of World War Two.

William died in Colchester on 22nd April 1982."

William and Elsie in 1981 on the day of the recording.

Dates for the Diary - Spring 2016

Exciting times, as a new season begins.  Bagpuss has yawned and I awake at his command.

Lot's of variations on a theme of Shakespeare this year as a number of Undead Bard productions get underway.  From The Shakespeare Delusion of popular acclaim, to new work Shakespeare: The Ever Living and a short revival of last years hit Metal Harvest, there's so much to catch.  I'm very excited to be commissioning more new music this year, with Jack Lawson working on a very special 80's inspired soundtrack to Shakespeare: The Ever Living!  We're hoping to have a bonus live set for the Quay performance of the show.

ONLINE:

New material will be coming online very soon, some unannounced except on Facebook or Twitter - here's the next thing.

Friday 19th February - Wartime Memories: Part One - a special archive recording of the memories of a veteran of the First World War.
Also on Friday 19th February - Patreon launch for my audio work online. I do a lot of new audio work that goes out for free, this is a new way to make it happen.  Details to follow!

LIVE SHOWS: 

I will be adding more shows to this list and updating box office information, as and when they go online.

The Shakespeare Delusion
In time for the anniversary of Shakespeare's death.
Saturday 23rd April - Stamford Arts Centre - Box Office: 01780 763203

From 'Metal Harvest' - returning in May!

Shakespeare: The Ever Living! & Metal Harvest - Double Bill
Metal Harvest was a huge success last year, so we're bringing it back, better than ever - along with the new show Shakespeare: The Ever Living!
Friday 20th May - Quay Theatre, Sudbury - Tickets on sale soon
This Quay performance is going to be very special - with extra pops and whistles that can't go on tour!
Saturday 21st May - The Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft - Tickets on sale soon

Invading Mars

It was a busy old week - revived the Everyman show for some students at the University of Essex and then invaded Mars, as you do.
The Martian invasion was due to a show I'd been asked to direct for Out of Kontrol Productions - Orson Welles: The Night We Scared America - a play about the infamous radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds in 1938.  I'll blog in more detail about it sometime, but the headlines are: it went bloody well.  So, here are a few unedited shots from the dress run, taken by the marvellous John Bethell.

 

Historic Crimes - Full Radio Play

It's been over a year since Historic Crimes premiered as part of my Artist Residency at the Quay Theatre in 2014 and finally I have the remixed, edited and complete recording for you.
This production is dedicate to Philippa Tatham who died earlier this year.

Milk Bottle Audio Presents...

Historic Crimes

By Robert Crighton

What would you want to see if you could look back in time and watch famous events in history?  And what would you do if they greatly disappointed you?  Or you discovered a hidden crime?  Would you tell the world if you discovered that Shakespeare no less was guilty of the worst of crimes?  Could you ever read his plays again?  Or allow them to be staged?  A modern morality tale about Bardolatry, sex and lies – staged as a live radio broadcast and streamed live online on Monday 13th October 2014 from the Quay Theatre, Sudbury.

Cast:
Julia - Pamela Flanagan
Sylvia - Philippa Tatham
Val - Robert Crighton

Technical presentation by Peter Morris
Final edit by Robert Crighton

This audio production is free to listen or download from audioboom.com - but, remember, the people who made it won't receive anything when you do. If you enjoy this play or you'd like to support the work we do, please consider using the PayPal button below and send us a contribution.

Historic Crimes - payment options

Thank You £1.00 GBP That's So Kind £3.00 GBP Thank You Sooo Much £5.00 GBP This Makes a Huge Difference £10.00 GBP Now We Can Really Get To Work £20.00 GBP Oh My God, Are You Mental? Thanks! £50.00 GBP

The full script of the play can also be purchased online now.

Left to Right: Philippa Tatham, Robert Crighton and Pamela Flanagan

A Ghost in the Machine

I'm supposed to be good at words.  That's my job, don't wear it out.  Finding words for difficult things should be second nature to me, but for the last year or so I have been failing.  That isn't to say that I'm not writing, I've written a reasonable amount this year, but, basically, quite a few friends or friends of friends have died and I haven't really had much to say.  Over a twelve month period I went to five funerals.  And on the news of each death I wanted to write something.  I got out the notebook or pad, booted up Word or hunted out this blog and... nothing.  Apart from the first sentence above.  Finding myself at a loss.
I think this is partly because anything I wrote looked trite - fake.  So this is an attempt to make up for some lost time, by not writing something too obvious about a friend, who has come back to me of late.  And this is because technology doesn't let go of the dead.

Earlier this year my friend Philippa Tatham died.  Not six months before she had come to my rescue by agreeing, at short notice (and on her day off from a run of a play in London) to appear in an audio play, Historic Crimes, that I was live streaming online.  I hadn't seen her in yonks, probably not since the last show I'd press ganged her into - but suddenly she was in my neighbourhood, saying my words, helping me out.  After eight or so hours of rehearsal, general natteration and then performance, she went back home.  Same old, same old.
I sat on the audio play into the New Year, as the edit for download release would take a while and other projects got in the way.  Then the news hit facebook that Philippa had died and no one could really believe it.  She was young, not much older than I, and so it didn't really make sense.  But there is was - in pixels on a smart phone, everyone said so, so it must be true.
And I still had this recording, sitting on a data stick by the computer, waiting.  Not that I could really face editing it.  That would make it true, some how.  So not yet.  This data stick (which I must return to my sound engineer at some point) sat by the computer till a month or so ago, when I thought it was time...  So, I had a listen.  Not a full listen, just a check.  It was very odd experience.  It still is.
You can forget things about people in their absence.  A photograph, especially professional ones, are misleading captures of the past.  Audio is strangely closer.  Even though the recording doesn't feature her own words, her natural phrasing, it does capture those little details you forget.  Ways of speaking, ways of thinking... but what the recording doesn't do is change.  No matter how many times I listen.

It was clear from the off that there was a lot of work to do with the recording - it was well recorded, but the room wasn't fully soundproof.  The play was supposed to have been recorded twice, once prior to the arrival of the audience, the second with audience for the live streaming.  We ran out of time to complete the first recording - so I don't have a clean record of the second half of the play.  This means I have had to do a lot of work to remove audience and other noise from the live version.  I've just finished editing a clean version, with a few edits and changes of timing.  Next, I will do a final clean up, mix in some effects and give it the final once over.  And then, on Thursday, I'll release it online for you all to hear.
 
Of course, what I've really wanted to do is re-record the play.  Not because it necessarily needs it - but because I can't.  Because I can't just phone up Philippa and ask her to do another take.  To ask her to read a new draft.  To have that option.

So, I return again to the problem of words.  What words do I really have to say about this, about Philippa and other lost friends?  Not many.  Just three.
I miss you.

Historic Crimes will be released on Thursday via audioboom.com.

Fantasy Terrorist Variation #5: A Little Learning

It's not even a week since the terrorist attack in Paris and barely hours since the last attack around the world.  This is not a response to these latest incidents.  That will happen.  I've been writing about terrorism for over ten years and the one thing I have learnt is that, whilst the specifics change, the issues, the responses to and attacks by terrorists, remain fairly constant.  This piece is about a different kind of terror committed far away from Paris.
And this audio piece is late. Very late.  I wrote this short play before Christmas 2014 and rushed it into recording as a response to the attacks on school children in Pakistan and Nigeria.  It then got delayed because of recording problems.  But the delay it didn't stop being relevant.  In many ways it is more relevant now.  The use of terrorism against education, targeting children, women and those who want to improve their lives has become increasingly common.  Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates as a call for the end to western education, are still at large in Nigeria, having killed thousands of people over the years, whilst the school children they kidnapped last year are still lost.  As I type, the dust hasn't settled on their latest attack - where children were used to deliver bombs.
Though the following piece is fiction and potentially set anywhere, it is based on a number of accounts from around the world in the present day.

Be warned: the following piece reflects the horror of what is happening to children around the world and is disturbing and may upset listeners.

Fantasy Terrorist Variation #5: A Little Learning

Metal Harvest Programme

Last week was quite a week - I picked a terrible week to take on additional work, as I only had the world premiere of Metal Harvest going on.  Eek!  With so much going on I failed to create a programme - not even an info sheet.  So... here we go - have an online version - with photos from the tech at the bottom!

FIRST HALF:

Metal Harvest

By Robert Crighton and Richard Fawcett

Principle dialogue by Robert Crighton
Music and German translation by Richard Fawcett

Metal Harvest was originally commissioned as part of Project 10/52 - ten shows in fifty-two weeks - in 2014.  It only took two years to finally get it to the stage.

With Thanks to:
Sonia & Jonathan Lindsey-Scripps for lending the shell casing; Gary Plumb for creating the shrapnel; Alan Scott and Sue Clark for archive material (even though we didn't use it in the end!)
John Bethell for rehearsal photography.
And Everyone at the Quay - Joe, Simon and Sharon.
I've probably missed someone out - sorry!

SECOND HALF:

The Fantasy Terrorist Variations

In 2005 I wrote a monologue about reactions to the war on terror - Fantasy Terrorist League - which sank like a stone at the Edinburgh Fringe.  In 2006 it won the award for Best New Writing at the LOST One-Act Festival and since then expanded into a number of related variations on a theme.  Whilst I had planned to do a second half based on stories uncovered during the research for Metal Harvest on other themes of WW1, these didn't quite get to the level I wanted; so instead I decided to move forward the new variations for FTV I've been writing.  Variation 6, still a work in progress, fitted the previously staged Variation 3 so well I had to show them together.  Further variations will premiere online shortly.

Variation Six: (Untitled) A Work in Progress

Written and Performed by Robert Crighton

Variation Three: The Project After by Robert Crighton

Robert Crighton as Mark

Simon Nader as Art

The Project After has also been recorded by Frequency Theatre - you can listen to the recording here!

Technical Photos:

These photographs were taken for Metal Harvest, during a very speedy tech, by the marvellous John Bethell.  The stage isn't fully set, my hair isn't slicked back and we're not properly in costume.  But we got something recorded, which is nice.  The photos haven't been fully adjusted yet - there's some cropping and colour adjustments I would normally do, but I wanted to get this post out today and so... hey.

Richard Fawcett, getting the fiddle warmed up...

In the lighting box, going over the cues.

The desk, which I didn't appreciate was so wonky...

Is the back light on... oh yes, there it is.

Still on... good.

Sitting down. In performance I am sans glasses, waistcoat and the hair...

The one real(ish) statistic used in the show.

No idea where the cat impression comes in. That's another show.

On my Fisher Price telephone.

"WHERE'S MY COFFEE!"

And now the German section - which Richard and I did in unison. A surprise hit during the show. 

"Richard, what's my next line?"