Watching watching...

I wrote this post over a week ago and decided not to post it until after the show...

Right, so, yeah... it's a little over a week till Project Two: You Have Been Watching goes up... I'm working on the last material for the show.  That goes to the company tomorrow.  The last pieces before we go into endgame.  There is some sense of wood/trees going on in my head at the moment.  I've props on order that are yet to arrive, I've technology I need to get working and I still don't quite know where everything goes.
This isn't anything to worry about - especially to everyone who's coming to the show - hi! - because there is a week and I'm not lost or anything.  I just don't one hundred percent know what I'm doing.
This is an interesting feeling.  Most of the time I have a very clear idea what I'm doing.  Even when I first started to create theatre over a decade ago I instinctively got it.  Didn't mean I got it right, but I got it.  You move here to do this so that that can happen over there - simple.
I'm creating an art installation.  With volunteers.  In a very small space.  On no budget.  I don't know whether what I'm doing is horribly cliched or not.  I suspect part of it is.  I don't know.  It's not quite my field.
The reason why I'm doing this is partly because it isn't.  I know how to do plays.  I'm (dare I say it) a bit bored of directing them because I largely know how it's done now.  Acting, that's different, that's just fun.   Even as a writer, I'm starting to chafe at the boundaries of my medium and my own tropes.  There are still different plays to be written, but I'm starting to find that I don't want to just create narrative anymore.
So, something different.  Something more art orientated.  Something possibly shit.  Because I don't quite know what I'm doing yet.  Yet.  I'll figure it out.
Probably.

Watching Feedback

Well, last night went pretty well, though many lessons to learn.  Namely that if you're doing essentially an exhibition style event, let the audience in slowly - the first ten fifteen minutes were a bit overwhelming for everyone and it took time for people to settle in.  In fact, one person left after about ten / fifteen minutes, which is a shame, as once it settled everyone was really into the experience.

Frankly, I'm knackered now, so I'll leave you with the audience feedback and write a proper blog another day...

You Have Been Watching Audience Feedback

Really enjoyed ‘Off Grid’ + ‘Outsourced Memories’.  Same interesting relevant ideas.  Nice to see something a bit different at the Quay.

Attention to detail was very impressive.  The atmosphere of the room was very overwhelming (in a positive way).  Lots of information, we had to work hard to process each story – I really liked that.

I liked the touching – the physical human to human contact to initiate communication.  GREAT to see laboratory type work at the Quay.  Experiment and exploration.

I particularly liked the biohazard styling and my favourite exhibit was ‘Spam’.

I liked the visualisation of ‘Spam’.  It was an ingenious way of doing it.

The layout and whole ambience was great.  The performers were amazing 10 / 10.  ‘Off Grid' was my favourite.

You Have Been Watching - Programme

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

Project Two:

You Have Been Watching

Written and Devised by Robert Crighton

The Exhibits

1.  ZX 20 SPEXS

Text written by Robert Crighton

Video performed by Adam Webster

Audio performed by Jacqueline Cooper Clarke

Time:  6 + minutes approx, looped

2.  Don’t Feed the Trolls

Text:  The introduction of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ by Mary Wollstonecraft

Audio and physical score performed by Marion Tuke

Physical score performed by Dann Read

Time:  Continuous, looped

3.  Off Grid

Text written by Robert Crighton

Audio performed by Malcolm Hollister

Time:  5 + minutes approx, looped

4.  Outsourced Memories

Text written by Robert Crighton

Audio performed by Kevin Roychowdhury

Time:  5 + minutes approx, looped

5.  Fraud

Text: Found text – internet spam

Audio performed by Matt Byham

Time:  8 + minutes approx, looped

6.  Spam

Text: Found text – internet spam

Audio and physical score performed by Alan Scott

Time:  Continuous, looped

7.  Amanuensis

Physical score performed by Liz Cole

Time:  11 minutes approx, looped

Additional assistance by Bex Johnston

Show documentation by Mark Pavelin & John Bethell

Website tended by Keith Atkinson

Thanks to Joe Fawcett and the Quay Theatre

Individual Sponsors:  Without whom Project 10/52 could not happen

Helen & Neil Arbon, Roz & Denis Brogan, Sue Clark, Jacqueline Cooper Clarke, Heather Clayton & Richard Fawcett, Cecil Qadir and Adam Webster

Robert Crighton is the Artist in Residence at the Quay Theatre...

Project 10/52 is the result – ten projects in fifty-two weeks...

This was Project Two...  Project One can be found online @

www.quaytheatre.org.uk/theTrollsTrilogy.htm

Project Three performs on Monday 31^st March at 7.30pm at the Quay Theatre

Box Office: 01787 374 745

As well as being live streamed online @

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

For more information about the making of this show visit the Robert Crighton blog...

http://robertcrightonstoryteller.blogspot.co.uk

Or follow Robert on Twitter @RobertCrighton

Or just go to the milk bottle website...

www.milkbottleproductions.co.uk

Instructions For Use:

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

The exhibits are a mix of the interactive and passive.  Where they are marked as:

DIGITALLY ACTIVATED

they will not begin until you hold their hand.

DO NOT ABUSE THE EXHIBITS!

They are delicate and are easily damaged.

DO NOT INTERFERE WITH THE EXHIBITS:

Only make contact with the digitally activated and then only their hand.

QR CODES:

Can be found around the exhibit and can be used to unlock additional content.

Time / Timing:

The exhibits are looped – so you may encounter them at awkward moments.  Feel free to wait for the complete cycle.  However, do not hog the digitally activated exhibits, allow others the use after a complete cycle.

The room can be completed in approx. thirty / forty minutes.

The room will be shut down after one hour.

You may view as much or as little of the room as you wish.

You may leave and return at anytime in the hour.

Once the hour is over you will be asked to leave.

Drinks may be brought into the room.

Please have a drink in the bar afterward.

Please fill in a comments section in the bar afterward.

Please remember to Pay-What-You-Want afterward.

PHONES / CAMERAS:

Please switch your mobile phone to silent, but please leave on.

If you have a camera / video facility please record as much of the show as you can.

Please email us any footage / pictures

contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk

Please post any or all of it online as well if you please.

Technology

The problem with You Have Been Watching from a worry-it-might-all-go-tits-up kind of way is that it is reliant on technology.  It needs lots of devices to all work at the same time and not go horribly wrong.  There is little I can do to get away from this as it is about... technology.  It's about cameras and machines looking into and recording our lives.  Just heaven help me if there's a power cut.
The use of so much technology to record the show is ironic.  I'm going to be adding to the general misery of the universe by creating more content and more information about people that will be shared to anyone in the world.  This is why all participants (audience and performers) will need to sign wavers as they go in.  Like we all do, every time we see a terms and conditions form tick box online and just tick away without ever reading the terms and conditions.  Perhaps we like signing our rights away?  Perhaps that can be a form of entertainment in itself?
Anyway, two big (really stupidly big actually) boxes arrived at Milk Bottle HQ today.  No idea where I'm going to put them.  They were not cheap but they will be used for most of my shows in the next few years.  So, per show, they'll pay for themselves.  But, at the moment, they just eat space.
But must dash.  Someone has just suggested soup for lunch.  Soooup, soooup!  As Baby Clanger would say.
Oh, and today's audio episode of Lost Tribe of the Trolls is available now!
https://audioboo.fm/boos/1915263-lost-tribe-of-the-trolls-part-eight

Watching Brief

With a week to go - A WEEK! - before You Have Been Watching goes up, let me give you a snap shot of a typical rehearsal.

I arrive slightly late as an earlier rehearsal overran.  Cast have ordered a drink in my absence, saving me offering.  Result.

We gather in a small group of two or three and I start off the first 'exhibit' in the show.  The performer involved gives me a terrified look as I explain what I want them to do.  The other performers sigh, relieved that they're not first.

We run the piece.  Notes, suggestions, discussion.  I leave the 'exhibit' to run with another member of the company and work on someone else.

Repeat of earlier fear, though now with a different person.  Run, notes, tweaks, run.

By the end of the rehearsal all the 'exhibits' run at the same time - I go round being awkward / taking photos. (Though I forgot the camera this week - hence no photos!  DOH.)

We set tasks for the next meet and head for the bar for alcohol to dull the pain.

Repeat.

I tend to arrive with little confidence in what I want to do - and then find I'm surprised how well it all works.  There's a lot to be organised for Monday 17th February and I'm a little stressed as some of the costumes will (in theory) arrive two days before hand and some might not arrive in time at all.  Which could prove irritating and expensive.  But you'd be surprised how much can be done props wise thanks to a 99p shop.

Tickets for this one off performance are available now - pay-what-you-want on the night - and can be reserved at the Quay Box Office as normal.  Box Office: 01787 374 745

You Have Been Watching

Written and Devised by Robert Crighton

Performing at the Quay Theatre (Upstairs) on Monday 17th February at 7.30pm

Tickets available online at www.quaytheatre.org.uk

Box Office: 01787 374 745

The Trology So Far

If I was a pretentious wanker (which it is impossible for me to know as pretentiousness tends to blinker self awareness) I would say writing The Trolls Trilogy is akin to the work of Dickens.  And mean it.  Naturally it is nothing like Dickens at all, except in that I'm writing it in installments.  So, there is some similarity to my working methods to Dickens.  We both have had to sit down and work out a story in bits.  To broadly plan out the story in chunks and then deliver them in at regular intervals.  This is both an excellent way of working and a nightmare.
Pros:  You have a regular schedule of work - a regular deadline that forces you to get your arse in a chair and write.
You have a good tight word limit per section - forcing you to think about every word carefully.
Cons:  It is hard to keep your eye on the complete story, focusing more on the individual episodes.
You have to keep creating end points for every three minutes (400/500 words) of action.
Dickens, it has been noted, often ended up creating dead ends in his novels because one week, amusing as it might have been, didn't really add to the whole when produced as a novel.  Luckily I don't have that trouble, because the number of words I'm using are considerably fewer.  I don't have the words to go on too much of a tangent.  In fact, I've already cheated by releasing two episodes on the first day as I'd just run out of room.  This may happen again.
The first story (The Natural History of Trolls) is online now.  The second story (Lost Tribe of the Trolls) is about six weeks in and so I've finish the prologue.  Tomorrow I release the first episode of the story proper - where you'll meet Robert, who's remarkably similar to me.  Just not.  The prologue is a bit sad and sweet, the main story is more comic and action orientated, so features a very shiny bust.  On the flip side, it is also a serious story about war.  If there is a theme running through Lost Tribe it's about the balance between glorifying and commemorating war - which is appropriate for this centeniary year of the First World War.  In the first Troll story we touched on the First World War, in this second we're looking at all wars from the Crimean onwards - the prologue is set in the Second World War.  Tomorrows episode starts on Remembrance Sunday and starts with medals - and it is where the story will eventually end.
So, if you've missed out so far it's all still online.  Over a thousand people have listened so far - join the throng.
Here's the complete first story The Natural History of Trolls

And here's the second story - which at time of posting covers the prologue.  Enjoy.

Watching in Overalls

A few more photos from rehearsals of You Have Been Watching.  Do not think of giant human condoms.