The Seldom Plan Strikes Again

I've written often about the Seldom Plan - how my plans seldom happen in quite the way planned - so some changes have occurred to the projects of Project 10/52 - different order, different system...
Basically, I've had to take on other work in places to help make the finances balance, so I've had to shift a fair amount of what I'm doing to different parts of the year and this means some projects from the original plan are no longer viable.

So, here goes...

Projects 1, 2, 3 & 4 are unchanged - nay, nearly complete.  After that, it's all different.

PROJECT FIVE is now...

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!

This is performing at the Quay Theatre on Monday 26^th May at 7.30pm
Box Office: 01787 374 745

PROJECT SIX is no longer HISTORIC CRIMES though this hasn't been dropped and is now project nine and will be performing sometime in September rather than June.  This was supposed to complete a three month trilogy of Shakespeare plays to celebrate his 450th birthday, but there's another Shakespeare thing down the Quay in June (which I also happen to be in) so that's why it's now later in the year.

So PROJECT SIX is now... are you keeping up?

Complicated Pleasures

An All New Comedy by Robert Crighton

Matthew has won the lottery, so he dumps his girlfriend because “he can do better”.  She rebounds on a single parent whose child is blackmailing him for lollipops.  Set in a not too distant future, this is a hilarious sex comedy about messy relationships, the balance of power between the sexes and the consequences of not giving a child a lollipop.

Performing at the Quay Theatre on Monday 21^st July at 7.30pm
Box Office: 01787 374 745

PROJECT SEVEN is still...

ATTACK OF THE CHRISTMAS SQUIRRELS - because I couldn't be arsed to renumber it - it has essentially already happened and can happen again whenever you like.

Which means that the old PROJECT EIGHT is... (thankfully) still PROJECT EIGHT and is still METAL HARVEST and is still planned for August.

PROJECT NINE, as has been mentioned above, is the old project six, HISTORIC CRIMES.  Unless I swap it with project ten.  Not sure yet.

And then there's PROJECT TEN... well this is a bit more complicated.  Because I have a new piece I want to do which is currently titled SWITCH.  But I also have three other bumped plays fighting for inclusion in one of the slots this year.  They maybe held over till next year, but it will not be the last you hear of Beware of the Blob, The Single Source of All Filth or Shiny Medusa... 

And then there's the completion of PROJECT ONE (the year long project) - The Trolls Trilogy.  This will be an end of the year show, working title of GETTING TROLLIED, and rather than a straight performance of the Trolls Trilogy, I'm going to be creating a whole new show based on the material, with the emphasis on fun and laughter, as a New Years Eve show.  If you want to be put on the waiting list for tickets for the maddest of New Years parties then email me contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk

First Impressions

First impressions count - even with a script.  I don't mean your basic mistakes like using the wrong format, using different colours for characters or writing in crayon - it can be a much smaller thing.  Like how you describe your play.
I have a little quandary - I'm debating with myself - I'm procrastinating... How should I, if I should, describe a play?  The play is a comedy.  This should be indicated by the content, in the sense that it is funny.  I know this because at a read through people laughed, a lot, so I'm not delusional.  (Unless I am delusional in that they all actually sat in silence and this is a false memory / dream.)  However, readers of the play have - in feedback - seemed to have missed this point.  One response went something like this: such and such a scene was deeply moving.  I'm not going to describe the scene, but imagine saying that an episode of The Two Ronnies was deeply moving and you'll get the idea of the absurdity of the response.  Somehow the fact that the situation and characters are in no way particularly normal, comic in fact, doesn't seem to have come across.  It's not even that readers don't like it or don't find it funny (hell, people have different funny bones) - it is the failure to identify that it was a comedy at all that terrifies me.  I know the play is partly satirical, but please - dear [insert deity] - don't tell me people think it's a document of truth - that it mirrors the readers lives so much that it might as well be verbatim.  Kill me now if this is so.
So, do I point out to readers that it is a comedy?  I've put this question up on facebook and twitter and (as usual with actual questions rather than silly jokes) no one has said a damn thing in response.  (I love my followers - they're so unresponsive.  They're probably all closet trolls who just can't quite summon the will to reply with something rude.  Can't even be bothered to unfollow me.  Lazy sods.)
The obvious reason not to add an epithet is it sets one up for a fall.  A comedy (once identified) has to be funny, and that might be setting myself up for failure.  It's not as bad as putting it down as 'an hilarious comedy', which is the code phrase for 'crock of shit'.  I toyed briefly with a description - 'a moral comedy, without morals' - which fits the play well.  And then I realised it was a.) wanky bollocks and b.) even more off putting than 'an hilarious comedy' - so that one bit the dust quite quickly.
Perhaps, as it does have serious themes hidden beneath the comedic surface, I should call it 'a dramatic comedy', 'a comedic drama' or 'a comedy drama' - but everyone knows 'comedy drama' is what you call comedies that both aren't funny or particularly dramatic.  Another code phrase for 'crock of shit' then.
It could be worse - there are some people who label their work 'a play' (no shit Sherlock) as an offering to the gods of the patently fucking obvious.
The case against calling it 'a comedy' is less that it's nature is failing to get across to readers (the phrase 'a comedy' is more about marketing for an actual production, clearly selling the goods to the public) but that in the eyes of a reader 'a comedy' lessens it's importance.  Comedy, though big business, is not regarded as important (especially in theatre) as tragedy and it's modern offspring.  I look up to tragedy, comedy knows it's place.  So, perhaps missing that the play is a comedy could be my biggest bonus.  I look forward to earnest German productions where the whole mess of silliness is treated with the utmost seriousness and there isn't a titter to be heard throughout.  Except for me, of course, sitting in the stalls and laughing my head off at how easily people miss the point.
So - on discussing it with myself - I'm not going to call it a comedy then.  Right, now that's decided, I can actually have a look at the actual play...

I've Accidentally Written A Play!

Writing.  It's an odd activity.  Most of the time you're planning, thinking, procrastinating... and then you have to actually do some work.  I'm currently juggling a lot of writing commitments and they've all come together into one rather glorious mess.  Each day I get up, take the tablets, make myself the one real cup of coffee I can have a day and sit before the laptop surrounded by paper.  And then, because I've got several projects on the go, I choose the one I want to write that day dependent entirely on my mood.  On my moooood.  It is lovely.
Now, one of the reasons I don't solely write (beyond the fact it doesn't bring in enough money) is that this loveliness is entirely transitory.  I'm having a whale of a time at the moment because the writing is going well, the projects are all in a final stage of completion, so it's mostly a job of polishing, spitting and general silliness.  Most of the time this is not the case.
I should be mixing up my day more.  I have to learn some lines for Ghost Storyteller (the first half of the script has been locked and will not change, so I have no excuse not to learn it now) but the writing is going soooo well I just don't want to break the spell.
I'm writing in little bursts only.  I put on an album and work for 45 minutes to an hour (however long the album is) and then stop.  Sometimes I go straight on, sometimes I have a little break.  Food does get eaten.  (I've never understood the whole starving artist thing - food is pretty central to my writing process.  Hunger is not helpful - as the last 24 hours of starvation (and subsequent food obsession) for my most recent sigmoidoscopy has proved.)
The other day this process of random work generation took an alarming course.  I didn't even work on something in progress - it wasn't for the Christmas Storyteller shows, it wasn't even on the long distance radar.  It's just a play I've been picking at for the last couple of years, Complicated Pleasures, which - to my amazement - is up to length, has some great scenes and now just needs a lot of panel beating to get it into the right shape.  In fact, I'm planning on organising a reading of the script next Saturday.  Two days ago I wasn't even thinking of it, now I'm that confident I'll get it finished in a week.  When I picked it up on Tuesday I couldn't believe I'd somehow written a whole play and not really noticed.  I'd even forgotten about a whole subplot.  So, if you're based in Suffolk and would like to help read a play, pop down to the bar at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury on Saturday 15th September at 12.15pm.  I'll put a same float down at the bar for coffee and the like - though this will not be an infinite largess.  It should take a couple of hours to get through and is, I have to confess, a little bit rude.  So, no puritans please.
In other news, last week my cast for The Fantasy Terrorist Variations got together in dribs and drabs to read over the scripts.  FTV is made of three plays - the first is the award-winning Fantasy Terrorist League, which is to be performed by the marvellous Keith Hill - the second is a completely reworked Keynote Speaker, which I had a great session with the fantastic Simon Nader picking the original version apart and putting together again, but better - and the last play, which will feature both the above people of fabulousness, is currently titled The Project After, which is sitting in draft behind me now.  That is the next task.  It's sort of there, it's sort of ready, but it needs sharpening - and when I start doing that sharpening (i.e. when I'm in the mood) I will tell you all about the play.  Let's put it this way, halfway through the read through Mr Nader stopped mid sentence and cried out "Oh, Jesus Christ!"  Which I would hope is the reaction of the audience, if we do our job properly.  I think I've been tempted to produce too much nice theatre recently.  It's time to be a little dangerous.  I mean, it's lovely when a local vicar writes a letter praising my production of The Passion, but it does also suggest that somewhere I've failed.  But this is the subject of next weeks blog - let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Open Your Notebooks!

It's been a fragmented week, but I have made a start on the new stories for 2012.
This is how I started these stories and generally start most plays.

1. I create a crisp new document on my computer and type out the title and that it's by me, in case I forget.  In this case: The Shakespeare Delusion. (Which I've also got round to drafting a poster for - for the tryout anyway - see right - tickets on sale soon.)
2. I dig out my notebooks from the last year or so and look out the notes I made on this particular story.
3. As I type up each section I place it in the approximate area of the story so that the bits go in order, followed by general notes of thoughts, feelings and ideas for the story at the end of the document.
4. If I'm in a good mood I expand on these gobbits of text as I go along, adding detail, chasing any logical thoughts and ideas that come to me as I work.
5.  This process is done spasmodically over a day or two, by the end of which I have got all the ideas for the piece on one document, the key scenes/sections written up and a word count of somewhere between 500 and 1000 words.  This is always reassuring as it means I've got something to show for myself and before I've even started to do something anyone could call work.
6.  Now I go through my notes and discard files for any non-specific dialogue, joke, idea or just damn fine bit of prose that hasn't been homed in any other stories/plays.  These sit at the end of the file for me to look at during each writing session to give my brain to chance to weave them in naturally.  If I can't do this they get passed onto the next project.
7.  I'm usually juggling writing projects at this stage so I move onto story two, in this case Attack of the Christmas Squirrels and repeat this process, with the odd cut and paste for step 6.
8.  While I'm doing all this notebook transcribing I dig out the text of a play Complicated Pleasures that I've been toiling on and add a few notes I've made since last looking at it.  Amazed to find the word count already over 13,000 words and could be well onto the road of the first draft if I pull my finger out.
9.  I then write a blog about writing stuff.

That's us up to date I think.
Both The Shakespeare Delusion and Attack of the Christmas Squirrels will be shows that need to run at some 10 to 12,000 words each and have separate deadlines and outlines.  The Shakespeare Delusion is a single monologue told by one Professor L. Ashborn, whose account of an alternative history of Shakespeare is hijacked by the fact he is completely doolally.  He knows he is hallucinating, he knows the world he sees doesn't match our own, but he carries on regardless - which would account for a fair amount of Shakespearean scholarship in certain climbs.  This is the first character driven monologue of length that I've written since Fantasy Terrorist League (c. 2005) and Keynote Speaker (c. 2009) and it's rather nice to create a voice and person, as opposed to standing as an anonymous storyteller.  I have only written the character parts so far, the testimony of this man's researches and the strange journey he is taken on.  I will start on the 'factual' part of his lecture next - I did start writing a spoof Shakespeare lecture a few years ago but have yet to find the notes on it - frankly, the difficultly in spoofing theories about Shakespeare is that the spoof element is driven out by the number of crazy theories people believe anyway.  Hence the accent on character rather than on the lecture itself.
Observant people will have noticed that I have used the name Ashborn before.  Several times.  He was originally one Lord Ashborn, who I played as an occasional character whilst devising short plays at Sixth Form with my good friend David Aldous.  We did three twenty minute plays and finally launched Milk Bottle Productions together with our first full length play Lord Ashborn: Life, Death and the Pursuit of Cotton Buds.  I'm very fond of it, despite being a piece of juvenilia, and I'm tempted, one day, to have a crack at rewriting it.  I probably won't.  Professor L. Ashborn isn't going to be the same character, though he may have a few nods here and there, but it felt right to give the name at least another outing.
The Shakespeare Delusion will be written for a tryout in May, performing in Lavenham on Friday 18th May, so is the priority piece at present.  It will then be worked on over the year for performance at the Christmas Festival at Barons Court.  Those who orbit Suffolk can reserve tickets for the tryout now via email (below) prior to tickets being released in March, just send a name and the number of tickets (it sold out and then some last time, so be quick) and you'll be at the front of the queue.
Attack of the Christmas Squirrels is going to be quite different.  It may have a rough tryout in the autumn, but I might give it a different title to avoid the unseasonal date.  I don't intend to perform the show myself, but have a team of storytellers for the London run.  I might do the opening five minutes, just to keep me off the streets, but no more - I have other irons in the fire performance wise - largely with Nicholas Nickleby.  Squirrels is going to be made of five or so interlocking / overlapping stories.  Each covers a different character (probably), each leads to the final act of the story (hopefully).  I'll be opening auditions for this and other parts and activities for the Christmas Festival later this year.  Again, if you're interested in being involved it won't do you any harm if you send your CV, pictures, show reel, link to website, huge bribe to contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk anytime in the next few months.  Full details will follow later.

Where Do Babies Come From?

It's one of those difficult questions that writers get asked: "Where do you get your ideas from?"  Actually, I usually get asked: "What the f**k were you on?"  To which the reply is usually tea or coffee, rather than proper drugs.  I started drinking coffee at about six years old, in emulation of the great prophet Garfield.  As I sit, slouched on a sofa, watching a flicking computer screen, and drinking my tenth cup of joe I see that I still follow his wise teachings.
But I digress.  Where do my ideas come from?  Where do they not come from?  In the case of some plays the plots are direct knock offs of mythology, which everyone does at some point in their life.  With a bit of luck you grow out of it.  It's either that or a random thought or line that has tickled your fancy.  I was once sitting at a bus stop looking at someones shopping, abandoned in the shelter.  I wrote a few lines about them containing an unexploded bomb and how I really can't be arsed to raise the alarm as it's obviously not.  These pages became Fantasy Terrorist League.
A play like Shoes That Angels Fear to Wear was born of an idle thought of what someone would do if an old woman attacked them for possessing evil shoes.  It's an average day to day thought and it was expanded into a play.  Unfortunately for me, the image of a battle for a pair of shoes was also the subject of an episode of Cybill, which was being repeated at the time, and this may have got jumbled up in my mind.  Luckily no other componant of that show was repeated, so that's fine.  (That said, I had a terrible moment of doubt watching Drop The Dead Donkey the other day on 4oD - there was a passing reference that did sound like the seed for Bink! - luckily I know that there was no connection between the two whatsoever.  Slightly scary though.)
The current play I'm writing centres around an idea I had about a particular line of dialogue.  It came to me as an nicely ambiguous phrase, that had great potential.  A whole scene grew from that line and has acted as a spring board for the whole play, which is increasingly turning into satire about how much we've all sold out to market forces; how the market reaches throughout everything we do, to the point that our collective souls are now on ebay.  I won't tell you the line of dialogue, or the other ideas that abound.  Not yet.  That's the problem with writing stories / plays etc. - if I tell you what happens, why would you want to come and see it?  
The creation of wordage on the new play has now slowed, as the initial excitement of writing has lessened and I'm crawling along a bit.  But with 13,000 words down on the page, I'm happy for the last 5,000 or so to come out a little more slowly.  And then the horrible bit starts - the re-writing.  Long months of agonising - see my earlier blog on Despair.
So, where do babies come from?  From little random explosions in the night - but they're the easy bit.  It's the nine months of waiting, eating, sitting and vomiting that makes them really come to life.

COMING SOON:  THE LONDON RUN OF
The Natural History of Trolls
Tickets Available Now! 

Tuesday 29^th November to Friday 23^rd December 2011

Tickets £12 / £10 Concession

Three stories covering 150 years of history, two Queens, orange penguins and the fairy kingdom.  Midst this is the story of an ordinary commute gone wrong, when a troll-like tramp on the Underground turns out to REALLY be a Troll.  Not suitable for children.

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)