How Rude?

I'm in the process of recording Cuckold's Fair - it's the longest audio I've done in one block since a very rushed version of The Natural History of Trolls that I recorded in 2013.  In the mundane world of practical things it means I'm rejigging my recording set up so that it's less actively uncomfortable, but in the artistic sphere it raises another issue.
Cuckold's Fair is very rude.  Deliberately.  It uses naughty words.
In a theatre this is fine, because you pay your money and you take your chances - but for something that goes out online... where filters are a little less... active... what is the right thing to do?

How rude do I make the online version?

I will almost certainly create a paywall version that will be as rude as I like - and let's be fair, it's only actively obscene once - but how do I deal with the text?  Do I rewrite?  Do I bleep/fadeout/add birdsong?  That might be even weirder.
What do you think internet?

In the meantime, here's the latest audio - a short little story from 2011.  There maybe a short out next week to bridge the gap before the epic Cuckold week, but I won't promise that.

Countdown to the Other Side - available on YouTube or on this player.


Cuckold's Fair will be released daily from 13th to 18th February online, earlier for my patrons.

My work couldn't happen without the support of my patrons - if you think you could contribute to the work I create, go to www.patreon.com/robertcrighton and see if you can help - you get to listen to my new work before anyone else.

Also, as there's a lot being planned at the moment, if you want to keep up to speed, why not join my mailing list.  I know, so last century. 

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The Valentine Day Special

From 2010

Valentine's Day - a time to remind couples around the world that their partners might be cheating on them.  That's correct isn't it?
In 2010 I staged Cuckold's Fair on the London Fringe and it was one of my favourite shows.  I've often meant to revive it (you never know) and it's been on the list of shows to record for online release for years.  Now, at last, after several false starts, it's going to happen.  Here's the schedule.

If you're a patron you will receive the full omnibus edition the first week of February, because I couldn't do this work without you.
If you're not... well, you will get it the following week in daily installments - as the story is told over six days, I'll release it one day at a time over Valentine's week.  Which is seven years to the week since the show was first performed.
At this stage, it won't be a full cast recording.  One day, if revived, I might do a new full cast audio version.  But that's for the future.

Here's a brief excerpt of the piece recorded, very roughly, a lifetime ago...



And finally: if you're a patron you'll already have the patron only link to Countdown to the Other Side - enjoy - the rest of the world will get it next week.  It's rather fun, especially if you have a really good working knowledge of the history of Countdown presenters.

My work couldn't happen without the support of my patrons - if you think you could contribute to the work I create, go to www.patreon.com/robertcrighton and see if you can help - you get to listen to my new work before anyone else.

Also, as there's a lot being planned at the moment, if you want to keep up to speed, why not join my mailing list.  I know, so last century. 

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Retreating

I've been a little quiet of late.  It's winter, it's cold, I'm comfortable, go away - can't you see there's snooker on?
I'm currently in retreat in Aberdeen, visiting family, and in theory writing.  I'm currently working on Project One - The Trolls Trilogy - or Trology if you will - and not exactly rushing.  As I say, it's cold outside and there's snooker on.
But, the deadline is looming, so I have to get something done now, or I won't be ready to record.  I'm working on the second part of the trilogy, Lost Tribe of the Trolls, which will start premiering on Wednesday 1st January 2014.  It's quite a task ordering the material into shape - for this is a piece controlled by it's structure.  It's being broadcast once a week for half the year, so that's twenty-six episodes - not only that, each episode needs to be only three minutes long, maximum - so that the final story orbits 75-80 minutes in length.
It's a matter of trying to create a straightforward narrative but also one that breaks into recognisable self contained chunks.  This is rather fun and very important - because the text will need to be turned into a live show at the end of 2014 and so must remain active.  What do I mean by this?  It has to move, have action, change of direction, because though a story it has to be a story told, something that has potential theatrically, as well as narratively.  So, condensed, engaging three minute chunks work well - and looking back at the basis of some of my more successful monologues.  Teaching Gods is similarly episodic (though closer to five minutes than three) and moves the action along by jumping between characters - as was, to an even greater degree, Cuckold's Fair.
I'm using the same story structure to the first part of the trology The Natural History of Trolls, in that there is a prologue, part one of the main story, an interlude, a part two of the main story and an epilogue.  So, the three minute episodes are similarly connected together in wider chunks of story.
So, what is Lost Tribe of the Trolls about?  Well, it all started when I was on the tube on Remembrance Sunday and I saw a woman, chest bristling with medals, sitting almost opposite me.  She was mute and relaxed until suddenly she realised she had lost something... and that set off a chain of thought in my mind.  What if she had lost a medal?  What if the medal she had lost wasn't a normal medal but something greater?  That each medal represented a war and captured the experiences of that war - that she was not ex-service, but a Recording Angel, collecting the memories of those who had survived the wars of the world.
It wasn't a hung leap to think this might connect well with the world of the Trolls I had created in The Natural History.  And she has lost the Crimean war.
To find it she calls on her adoptive family, who are the lost tribe of the title.  We assumed that the Trolls we encountered in the first story were the only ones - but another tribe have lived a different, parallel life.  These Trolls are not the quiet, semi-religious, victims of before; these Trolls have abandoned their past and become part of the modern world, they are wheeler dealing neoliberals and love the marketplace.  They are the Noble Guild of Trolls (Luton Branch) and they'll sell their grandmothers if it'll make a profit.

All this, as usual, is subject to much change - the plot has already shifted twice this week - so don't expect it to remain exactly the same.  Off to work.  Ta ta.

Cuckold's Art

I'm on the cusp of recording the audio book version of Cuckold's Fair, a storytelling play that I wrote in late 2009 and I'm looking for some helpers to be in the artwork as the original design work isn't really doing it for me anymore.  Basically I forced one of the cast to put a flower in their mouth and I took a rubbish picture which I then added a rubbish effect over and sort of got away with it.  So I want to create something new for the audio book and a re-issue of the book cover.
It's based, though not literally, on a nightmare sequence in the play that reads something like this...

They saw... a wall... and there were the Foliate figures

Building the wall, stone by stone.

            “It’s an ancient art, dry stone walling,

You need to examine the gap and then look and

Choose a piece that will fit the space perfectly.”

The dreamers watched these human shaped plants

Picking up the stones, examining them, but they

Didn’t seem to place them with any real care,

Just plonked them in, pushing other stones

Aside if they didn’t fit properly.

 “Man likes barriers.  This need to build

Barriers, boundaries, it’s something we don’t understand. 

Don’t respect.  We have no need for these things. 

These walls, these...”

And a Foliate Woman threw one of the stones

Across to the dreamers.  But it wasn’t a stone anymore.

It was a skull.

The dreamers silently screamed, a hoarse silent cry

Of dream-sick despair as the Foliate figures built

A wall, stone by stone.  Skull by skull.  Face by face.

Laughing, passing the skulls of mankind, the Foliates were many

With endless others building a great wall infinitely long.

 “It goes round the globe.  It’s our greatest work.”

And from the empty eyes, the millions of skull-sockets,

The shoots sprouted and crept and bushelled and expanded.

The dry skull wall burst into terrible life,

From dry skull to coppice in seconds.

 “This is our world and we want it back.”

And the dreamers felt the Foliate figures tear their heads off,

Felt their heads being added to the wall.  And the foliage forced

Its way out of their throats, eyes, ears and noses

And at last, when all breath was impossible, they woke up.

A cheerful image, as you can tell.  And for the artwork I want to create something similar, but different.  I'm fond of the covers for Asimov books which often bore no relation to the content literally, but captured something of the grandeur of vision.  

So, I want to create the image of a wall of, if not skulls, then heads, wreathed in foliage.  

And for that I require heads.  

Your heads, if you're willing.  

I'm going to organise a photo shoot for the image and if you're free and can make it to the bar of the Quay Theatre from 12.30pm till 2.30pm on Saturday 28th September I'd like to take a picture of your head.  

Just your head.  

It'll be fun.

You'll get to sit in a comfy chair, be lit interestingly and I'll take a selection of pictures.  It'll take a few minutes and then you'll be free to enjoy the benefits of the nearby bar or just the joy of freedom.

And, with some luck, you'll be one of the heads in a wall made by the foliate spirits.

I will use the image to create, not just an LP cover, but also a final work of art which hopefully will be displayed and available for those who helped make it happen - and I can send you copies of the originals if you want.

The Milk Bottle Spring Newsletter 2013

The first official newsletter for a while, though we've not been unbusy.  Though we have few positive dates for your diaries at present, there are lots of projects in the offing, which you can view, assist, even - dare we suggest - purchase, from the comfort of your homes.

The Summoning of Everyman
For the first time since 2004 (not including rehearsed readings) Milk Bottle produced a revival of a classic play.  The tryouts for the show were performed just prior to Good Friday (appropriate for a morality drama) and had some excellent feedback.  We're now looking for small non-theatre venues, religious or secular, for additional performances of this beautiful play, later in the year.  We're open to invites - suggestions for locations on a postcard to us here - the space needs to comfortably hold about thirty in two rows of seating, in an end on configuration.

The Milk Bottle Irregulars
Continuing to break the trend of the last decade, Milk Bottle is looking to produce more classic plays with our Irregulars.  The Milk Bottle Irregulars is a new venture, an experiment to create a pop-up theatre company that uses technology to make the creation of theatre easier; to use technology to reduce the time it takes to create a new show; to use technology to share Shakespeare (and other dramatists, but mostly Shakespeare) with as many people as possible, and not just one play every-so-often but many and frequently.  But the aim is the technology will be as hidden as possible.  We’ll use technology to give us an edge - to cheat, in other words.

We’re testing this out at the end of April with scenes from The Tempest on Monday 22^nd April at 8.30pm at the Quay Theatre.  The show should last about an hour and entrance is completely free, just email contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk for your name to be put on the guest list – or call 07704 704 469 and leave your name and number of tickets requested on the answer phone.

Publication of AMLETH

It's been a while since the first read through and general testing of the material, but Amleth is (at last) available to purchase in book form - just click here to order your copy.  It's not a short play - as it is in two parts - and runs at over five hours of drama, not to be missed.  An ebook version will follow shortly.

AMLETH - Parts 1 & 2

By Robert Crighton

"I’m not mad, I’m the only sane one here."

Hamlet, as you've never seen him before.  Before there was Hamlet, there was Amleth - a lying, cheating, mass murdering Dane - who doesn't die as he avenges the death of his father, but who lives on to conquer Briton, commit bigamy and fight great battles.  Funny and cruel, dark and light, award-winning playwright Robert Crighton captures an earlier version of this iconic character in the epic two part play, Amleth.

Viva Espana

No news at present on the upcoming Spanish production of Teaching Gods, which has been delayed due to illness.  A scratch performance of The Alternative Seagull and Sleep Inc. last year went well, so we're all hoping for new production dates soon.

Sleep Inc.

And for those in London, Sleep Inc. will make its in town premiere this July as part of this years Face to Face festival at the LOST Theatre, performed by Robert.  Performance date to follow.

Audiobooks

We've been dragging our feet a bit over audiobook versions of our back catalogue of monologues.  But have no fear - we're planning to start releasing downloadable versions very soon, starting with our first CD release, Teaching Gods & Bink!  Details will follow soon.

As ever, word of mouth / of electronic meme, is very important to us.  If you don't already, do follow Milk Bottle Productions or Robert Crighton: Storyteller on facebook.  On Twitter we're just @RobertCrighton.  It was RobertCrighton:Storyteller, but Twitter stole the Storyteller from us.  No idea why... they didn't even tell us they were doing it.

Coming Soon - Cuckold's Fair as an Audiobook...

listen to ‘Cuckold's Fair - Trailer’ on Audioboo

Adventurous Americans and a Shaggy Dog Story.

An odd trend has hit my blog this month - the sudden rise, and I think rise is an apposite term, of hits (viewings of my blog) from America.  Now, America has always been a steady source of hits and I'm delighted to hear from people all round the world.  The Germans, French and Russians are less avid readers, but still quite interested in my antics in storytelling.  But getting traffic from around the globe is not the odd trend as mentioned above; it's that, suddenly, there's been a huge spike in hits on one post. So many, in fact, that this last month more people have been looking at the blog from the US of A than in the snow drenched shores of the UK, which is odd, as I don't know anyone in the US, whereas I post a link to this blog to people I do know in the UK.  Which suggests that the UK is sick to death of me, whereas the US has finally succumbed to my charms.
So, I looked at the post, first put up in July 2011 and concluded that, as there was a mention of the US in it, then a search engine has pointed them in my direction out of computerised nationalist tendencies.
Then, I looked further down the post and saw that much of it was about a little manifesto I'd written for a season of plays in 2010.  At last, I thought, wise people in the US have caught onto my brilliant thoughts and are flocking in droves.  Yay!
Then, I looked at what these wise people had typed into their search engine to bring up that post.  And the real reason appeared.  It rose up before me, positively engorged with logic.

Here are the entries in order of hits, highest at the top, typing errors included

1. cuckold

2. amateur cuckold blogs

3. amatuer cuckold

4. bizzare cuckolds

5. breeding wife cuckold

6. cuckold hot wife

7. cuckold men

Now, these could have been perfectly innocent enquiries into... I don't know... Restoration comedy or something, but I the last item

8. cum drinking cuckold

did rather confirm the worst.

The blog post in question did mention a play called Cuckold's Fair, which is about the above issues (including number 8, it isn't a piece for the faint of heart) but it wasn't a post aiming to assist in the practical propagation of infidelity.  These are not difficult to find, as I discovered when researching the above play.  My faith in humanity did diminish slightly.  My inner Bagpuss cried.

But the above eight were not all.  The list of sources of the hits on my blog concluded in two searches that hit different posts in my year long output.  The first of these searches was for a perfectly respectable actress friend of mine who was mentioned in passing this year, but who shares their name with a celebrated pornographic athlete from another country.

And no, I'm not telling you who she is.  I might even have already removed the name from my blog just in case. 

But worse was yet to come.

The second search was for this:

day old dogs for sale in cork

So, apart from my mailing list, followers and friends online and the usual suspects, all other hits on my blog has been for porn or a shaggy dog.

I can feel my ego whithering before me. 

The Travelling Salesman

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

STORYTELLER:

The Natural History of Trolls

My life is a bizarre mix at the moment - half the time I'm a proper performer, rehearsing and performing, running lines and other actory things - the other half I'm a travelling salesman, passing on little brown envelopes filled with flyers.  I had a long day doing similar yesterday - popping round a cast members house to drop off my suspicious package, rehearsing a little in the afternoon with Richard Ward (whose part is so secret no one else in the cast is allowed to see it!) and then off to the New Wimbledon Studio to meet the lovely Helen who showed me round the space.  I must say I was impressed.  The London Fringe is made up of many dives but the studio at Wimbledon is not one of them.  The dressing rooms are positively palacial - if a funny shape.  Yes, we'll be well at home here.
And tickets for the show are, like the bowels of a condemned man, moving.  Tuesday night is the front runner at the moment, so get your tickets now.  And that does mean using the internet or phone to book.  Go on, you know you want to...

The New Wimbledon Studio Monday 11^th, Tuesday 12^th and Wednesday 13^th July at 7.45pm

Tickets: £10   Box Office: 0844 871 7646

www.ambassadortickets.com/wimbledon

New Wimbledon Studio, the Broadway, London, SW19 1QG

***

Now to other things.  I've been introducing you, my international audience (and yes, I see you in my stats America - hello there! - you're most welcome), to some of my earlier pieces and the progression of their publication/performance.  So it's time to introduce to you the manifesto season.  The manifesto wasn't a manifesto as such, nothing like the kind you got in the early 20th Century where artists nailed various colours to their masts, it was an appeal for the author.  Specifically, of course, this author.  No conflict of interest there.

Broadly speaking I worry that British Theatre has become very faffy.  Lots of artistic statements, workshops and people talking bollocks.  There is nothing so depressing than a bit of blurb saying that a work is "ground breaking" and "innovative" when the piece they put forward is based on techniques that have had currency for more than a century.  The traditions of British Theatre (capitals there, so I must be serious) of solid guts, getting on that stage and owning the text and the audience are diminished by the lack of variety of experience that young actors can get.  This is a slide that happened since repertory companies ceased to function. 

Let's not get too hung up by the death of repertory (many were terrible places where theatre went to die), but these theatres did give actors the chance to play every part under the sun, regardless of age, sex and class and, regardless of type they had to get on stage and do their stuff.  But rep was just one model for this kind of action.  Prior to rep there were stock companies, actor managers and other beasts of theatre which produced a variety of shows every year with (broadly) the same cast.  And so you can go back and back from one theatre company to the next right up to the English Civil War (where it gets a bit wobbly) and through a few threads back to year dot.

That was the British Theatre (still in capitals) - Wales, Scotland and Ireland all followed similar and sometimes better lines.  So when rep died (or was brutally killed, depending on your political pursuasion) there was nothing comparable to replace it.  The tradition of the ages died.
What I am really bemoaning is the lack of companies.  We don't have theatre companies anymore.  For the most part what we call a theatre company is a theatre management, who call together actors and artists to create occasional bits of work.  The RSC is an exception and there are others, but compared with even fifty years ago there are almost no companies where artists work together in a semi-perminant basis - as an ensemble.

And there have been few artistic movements in the theatre that have existed outside of an ensemble. Shakespeare, Moliere, the work of the MAT to name but three out of dozens.  Because an ensemble doesn't just help the actor grow, it gives the writer (director and designers) juice.  There is nothing better than to write dialogue for a company of people you know.  You're spurred on by the chance to challenge X, you've got this great scene that Y will do well, and you've got a chance to show off Z's special talent (whatever that turns out to be).  The divorce of theatre from its company has been the end of the British tradition of theatre.


That isn't to say that there isn't a lot of very good theatre going on - it's that there is a hole in the heart of it all that isn't being filled and we are poorer as a result.  When the older generation of actors dies, that will be it.


This, in a roundabout way, is what the manifesto season is about.  All the play's in it were written with specific people in mind and were there to challenge and push, not "the boundaries of modern drama" or the "envelope of innovation" (genuine quote) but to push a cast, to push people, to get those bastards out on the stage and give it some. 

Unfortunately, of course, the theatre company these plays were written for doesn't exist.  Almost.  All my plays are written with one group in mind.  An amateur company, the Sudbury Dramatic Society based at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury.  They produce six productions a year with a variety of old hands and new faces.  They don't put on my plays of course (I wouldn't suggest it for a start) because they wouldn't sell.  But I do imagine who would play each part based on these actors, giving them something to say.  I don't tell them this, of course, except via my blog.


The manifesto season was also just a calling card, a chance to show the variety of work I write - from storytelling to comedy to tragedy.  I wrote this little manifesto - below - in some hope that it might annoy someone and printed it in the programme of the first play of the season, Cuckold's Fair.  In an hope to annoy I made it as pretentious as possible - in that I stated we had pretentions to greatness, as apposed to using pretentious language to give the impression of pretention to adequacy - but no one said a word.  Hey-ho.  Suppose it would have been better to talk about being "relevant".  Which I think I did use in a press release once in 2006, but never believe my press releases, they're almost all lies.

The Manifesto Season @ Barons Court

3 New Plays – 3 World Premieres – 3 Different Worlds

These three plays are our Manifesto.  They are a manifesto that demands to be heard, seen and experienced.  They are a call to arms for writers of challenging words.  Not for writers of scripts or for new writing – but for the ascendency of a theatre of words.

The words of the theatre of Robert Crighton are weapons, precision tools to slice into the physically and visually strong, but textually weak, theatre of today.  Challenging theatre has always progressed with its words, and in the modern theatre the words have become soft.  Come and listen to a few of ours.  Listen to the manifesto.

Milk Bottle doesn’t develop work: it writes it, rehearses it and puts it on.  We do not workshop, we do not create theatre in a democracy, and we do not dilute our material by looking for a consensus.  We aim to share with you the visions of Robert Crighton, three works of different genres, yet all from his own very twisted world.  It is his, it is genuinely unique, and we share it with you - enjoy. 

Manifesto 1:  Storytelling - Cuckold’s Fair - Tuesday 9^th to Sunday 14^th February 2010

So, in this roundabout way, to Cuckold's Fair - the first of the Manifesto Season.  It was based on the original idea I had for the monologue Teaching Gods.  In Teaching Gods a man is cursed with "perpetual attention" - that is an erection (no swooning in the back) that only goes away when he's about to get lucky.  But I chickened out for Teaching Gods and did the mild version of the story.  Cuckold's Fair took it all the way and threw in a few more sexual antics for good measure. 

Cuckold's Fair is about sex and infidelity - specifically the man being cuckolded by his wife/partner.  This we explored in most combinations, the serious affair, the one off fling, the couples who love, the couples who don't... but mostly I used sex because it's funny, it's absurd and the desperation to have it tends to make people do really stupid things.  It was also a serious look at how infidelity works and the damage it can do. 

It ran for a week and I was very pleased with it - it will return for a one performance this December (BREAKING NEWS - dates pending) and hopefully I'll revive it next year.  But for those who can't wait, you can always purchase the script online or download it to your kindle.  Be warned - it is filthy in places and not always in a good way.  You have been warned!  BUY NOW!

Next time on this occasional blog about the past - rather than the Trollish future - I'll introduce you to Shoes That Angels Fear To Wear.  They're rather natty.
Robx