Teaching Gods now available for free!

Hello All,
I've been bogged down by a glut of recording.  I am drowning in audio.  There's so much, it just needs ordering.  In the meantime, here's a re-edited version of the award-winning Teaching Gods, released for download a few years ago and now released for free to all you wonderful people.
Enjoy.  There's more coming soon.


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March of the Shakespeare Trilogy

I didn't quite intend to spend so much time on Shakespeare this year.  I planned to do a piece or two that touched on him, I planned to perform his narrative poems (one down, one to go) and that was about it.  But for some reason my Shakespeare-ish-based plays won't go away.  In fact, they have morphed into The Shakespeare Trilogy.  First up was The Juliet Inquiry - a straightforward project, a one off.  Except it went so well, we're doing it again.  In October.  Twice.  (Details below.)  It's entirely possible we'll keep doing it.  It was very well received, it was interesting to do, there is still room for improvement.
Then there was a new version of an old play The Shakespeare Delusion which I put into the schedule because it timed well with the LOST One-Act Festival.  It didn't win, but it did then return for the Face to Face festival and is returning to London again.  In October.  This is a play that is definitely not going away as I plan to try a tour it next year and would love to take to the festivals.  
And now there's Historic Crimes.  Which is being staged in... October.  I don't know how well it will go, I haven't finished writing it yet, but it will now cap off a season of work, playing with Shakespeare.  The Juliet Inquiry, though technically a version of Romeo and Juliet, was as much about how the contrast between an old story and the new world.  How they exist in very different worlds.  The Shakespeare Delusion is about the ridiculousness of the so called authorship 'question' - where the question is asked by a madman.  Historic Crimes is about how society changes, how things once considered acceptable change and what would happen to the Shakespeare industry if he fell from grace - basically it's about Bardolotry.  It's a loose trilogy, but there is now part of me thinking it could be presented as a whole.  Three plays, one after the other.  An unit of thought.  I don't know.
Either way, I'm hoping that all three plays, over October, will be available in some format online.  Either live streamed as audio and even possibly video (watch this space).  So, wherever you are, you can catch a bit or all of my accidental Shakespeare Trilogy.

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...
THE JULIET INQUIRY
By Robert Crighton
Based on the story of Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare 
Specially commissioned to celebrate Shakespeare's 450th Birthday

A complete re-imagining of the play where the story of Romeo and Juliet is told as a modern day public inquiry.  In this version the Montagues and the Capulets were once close families - until their children fell in love. This is the story of how love can tear apart, as well as heal, and how that love can seem when put under the public gaze.

Performing on Friday 3rd October at 7.30pm at the Lavenham Village Hall 

Performing on Saturday 4th October at 7.30pm at the Offton Village Hall

Tickets Pay-What-You-Want

Milk Bottle Audio Presents...

Historic Crimes

World Premiere By Robert Crighton – the Quay’s Artist in Residence

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?  World premiere of a modern morality tale about Bardolatry, sex and lies – staged as a live radio broadcast and streaming live online at www.ustream.tv/channel/robert-crighton-storyteller

Performing on Monday 13^th October at 7.30pm at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury

Tickets Pay-What-You-Want - can be reserved via the Quay Theatre Box Office

Telephone: 01787 374745 or online at www.quaytheatre.org.uk

The Post Shakespeare Post

It is frustrating that the time when I should really be blogging the most is at the time when it sooooo isn't going to happen.  Production week - when people might actually be interested in the work, when interesting things are actually happening - is dead to this blog for the most part.  I'm just too tired.  And it doesn't get any better at the end of the week (i.e. now) because I've forgotten all the interesting stuff.  It just leaked out of my brain, probably at the same time I drank all that alcohol.  Hell, there aren't even any photographs, so I can't even show you them!
So, The Shakespeare Delusion went up this week.  Version 2, that is.  Version 1 went up two years ago and then went into hiatus with my colon.  It's a leaner, meaner, shorter, punchier version - though fundamentally the same in overall shape and structure.  On Monday I performed it at the Quay Theatre as part of my residency and then on Wednesday I took it to the LOST One-Act Festival in good old London.
Both shows went well, comments were positive, money was taken, scripts sold.  I now await my fate as to whether it will win anything at LOST.  Fingers crossed.
Now, hopefully, Delusion will go on the road next year.  I'm seriously thinking of doing so kind of tour, look at doing some festivals, generally get my arse in gear.  But, then I remember the downside.  It's the same problem stand ups have.  Touring a solo show is incredibly lonely.  You finish the gig and go to the bar and then there is no one to talk to.  This isn't quite fair - there will be audience members who will want to have a natter and it can be jolly nice.  But, this isn't guaranteed.  Often, especially with a dramatic piece, rather than straight up comedy, people don't.  And you can't throw yourself at people, because then you sound a bit desperate.  Which, after going to a hotel room (if you're lucky) alone for a few days, you might very well be.  What else to do?  Sit and drink a post show pint by yourself?  Read a book?
It wasn't too bad this week, because at the Quay I knew people.  At LOST I knew the organisers, I've performed there a number of times, but I didn't know anyone in the audience.  But out on tour, gulp, that doesn't bode well for my sanity.
Which is why I prefer my home touring model.  Storytelling for parties, telling stories to real people, not audiences, and then kipping on their sofa before moving on.  It's so much more human.  Just need to get that one together as well then.
**
But that's next year, next year is next year - I've still got this year to get through.  I've now reached the halfway mark.  Delusion was the fifth of ten projects.  Well, technically I've already done one of the later ones, so I'm six down.  Except I'm only halfway through the first project, so five and a half then.  So, now I need to de-clutter and plan the rest of the year.  I've got two looming projects that need writing.  Metal Harvest which is about the First World War, and which is changing daily in my mind, and Historic Crimes which is about Shakespeare as a sex offender.  These need to be shaped, written, planned.  And now that the fog of war has faded on Delusion I can now start on them. 

Shaking the Delusion

I rehearsed The Shakespeare Delusion yesterday.  Well, that's hardly news, is it?  I've been rehearsing daily for weeks.  But yesterday I rehearsed it in London.  With Colin.  Which was a very nice change.
Now Colin runs a thing called the Face to Face festival - aimed at showcasing solo performance - which I've performed at a couple of times and have been invited to do again this year.  Not only that but Colin agreed to give the show a once over.  Which was very helpful.
As well as, a little bit, painful.  But pain is good, pain is growth, pain is just ego having a tantrum - because what Colin said was true - page x needed a trim.  It wasn't flowing.  It stuck out like a sore thumb and lost him.  So we cut it.  Almost the whole page.  Which was painful, as it does feature some of my favourite jokes.  But the show isn't just about cheap laughs, so sometimes you have to get rid of them.
Not only that, but when we ran it again, sans page x, not only did it run smoother (WHOO-HOO!) but we also discovered a lovely bit of physical action that makes the ending far sadder.
Only now, I've got tonight and tomorrow to learn the reworked pages around page x.  So, pain.  But also joy.
Thank you Colin.

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!

Performing at the Quay Theatre on Monday 26^th May at 7.30pm

To listen to the Live Stream on the night go to www.ustream.tv/channel/robert-crighton-storyteller

Also performing at the LOST One-Act Festival in London on Wednesday 28th May at 7.30pm

Shit Shakespeare

I'm trying to find a shit bit of Shakespeare.  It's really difficult.  I need to find one line - one line that is irredeemably second rate.  Something that leaps off the tongue like an elephant in a swimsuit that plunges into the water of language with a booming untidy SPLASH!
It's for a one line gag in The Shakespeare Delusion which I'm performing in a little under four weeks time.  I just need one line of Shakespeare, which is obviously rubbish (or weird - I'll take weird) to punctuate the joke.  My choice of line for the first version which premiered a couple of years ago was so so - so I've asked the internet for suggestions.
So far I've had:

1. To step out of these dreary dumps
2. A maid and stuffed? Aye, there's goodly catching of cold.
3. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.
4. Betwixt Dravidian shores and linear five nine three oh one six seven point oh two, and strikes the fulsome grove of Rexel Four. Co-radiating crystal, activate!

Spot the obvious odd one out.  Some people just don't appreciate the seriousness of this mission (and this is a mission now) to find the worst lines in Shakespeare.  Google failed me - the best I got were overrated quotes - all of which were quite good.  So, come on people, we can do better!  Find me the worst lines from Shakespeare!  Bring me your clangers!  Bring me your typos!  Bring me the incomprehensible!  Find me shit Shakespeare!

The winner of my favourite shit quote will get a free copy of the published script with a thank you inside!  There, that's an incentive for you.  Either tweet me @RobertCrighton or email contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk

The Shakespeare Delusion is performing at the Quay Theatre on Monday 26th May, at the LOST One-Act Festival on Wednesday 28th May and later in the year at the Face to Face Festival.