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...

Coming Soon - The Natural History of Trolls as an Audiobook

listen to ‘The Natural History of Trolls - Trailer’ on Audioboo

One Week To Go...

One week to go before Ghost Storyteller and The Fantasy Terrorist Variations comes to life and I'm already thinking what I'll get up to during the run.  In between rehearsals, publicity work, line runs, I'm building up to what will fill in the gaps when I settle into the routine of the run.
Six weeks is a reasonably long time for me, in terms of repeating the same show.  The nice thing about doing a storytelling piece is that it is genuinely, largely, noticeably, different every time I perform it.  And I don't mean in a small way, not in the standard play sense of "it was a difficult house tonight" or "I wasn't feeling it" etc.; the audience in storytelling create the relationship between the performer and them, creates the show in many ways.  So, boredom is not a problem.  But a routine is.  The day to day element of getting up at the same time, doing the same journey, doing the same things.  The routine around the show is the problem.
So, how will I keep myself fresh?  By writing a new piece over those six weeks.  By spending a set hour plus in the morning typing in front of my computer and another hour in a London coffee establishment writing out notes to be typed up the following morning.  The three/four hours I'll be spending on a train each day I have set aside for reading.  Last year I made good inroads into unread Dickens, but this year I think I'm going to dance about a bit.  I'm doing a lot of science reading at present (don't mention the word 'meme' to me at the moment, boy will I bore you) but I'm also working through this years Booker shortlist.  Though I will occasionally defer to a George Gently novel if tired.  (Rather nice little books, can finish one in a day - though be warned, they are completely different to the television adaptations - in fact the BBC should really be prosecuted under the trades descriptions act for calling the series an "adaptation".)
But here I hit the problem.  Which project should I write over Christmas?
Here are the front runners:

The Attack of the Christmas Squirrels - 30/1
Yes, the ever promised story of dangerous furry rodents that regulars on this blog knows will probably never get written.

Trolls 2 - 6/1
The sequel to last years The Natural History of Trolls.  More trolls, more action, more memes.  In fact, I've got 3 sequels in mind, one provisionally titled: Peter Git.

Portrait of a Singer - 9/1
This is a morality thriller that has been bubbling away, a proper play with characters and everything.  I think I will spend sometime this Christmas on the research for this one, but writing probably deferred till next year.

The Juliet Scandal -5/4
A favourite of mine, a reversed version of the Romeo and Juliet story, where their love tears families apart rather than (belatedly) bring them together.  Though this would be a monologue, possibly with hints at Venus and Adonis and Lucrece.  Or not.  Don't know yet.

Something else - 10/1
Some other idea I haven't had yet... might just pop up and I have to do it.

Those are the front runners, there is at least one other play bubbling away under the surface and probably dozens of stories.  I'll let you know next week which has won out.  Or you could ask me - in person - when you come to see Ghost Storyteller.  Go on - book tickets NOW!  Here, click HERE, to get them.
Anyway, I'm off to do a run of Ghost Storyteller, wish me luck as you book those tickets.

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

Ghost Storyteller

Comic Ghost Stories Written and Performed by Robert Crighton

Returning this Autumn / Winter following the success of the run last year!  Ghost Storyteller is a lightly comic selection of ghost stories written and performed by award-winning writer and performer Robert Crighton. 

From the ghosts of empty houses, to the personal ghosts we carry around us, this collection is a mixture of the fantastic and the “real”: including the tale of a poltergeist hamster and the pub that cried ghost.

Running Tuesday to Sunday from 27^th November 2012 to 6^th January 2013

Tuesdays to Saturdays at 7.30pm – Doors Open at 7.15pm

Sundays at 6pm – Doors Open at 5.45pm

No performances on Mondays, Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Years Day

Tickets: £12 / £10 concessions

Barons Court Theatre, “The Curtain’s Up”, 28A Comeragh Road W14 9HR

Nearest Tube:  Barons Court (Piccadilly/District Lines)