An outside eye - working with Ellie Harrison

On Friday 15 February I had a very different, but no less productive, day with Ellie Harrison at The Carriageworks.

Ellie is acting as an outside eye on the show and I find her particularly helpful when it comes to thinking about the ideas and especially about the structure of the piece. We spent a lot of time pouring over the various bits of 'material', written, tried and tested, physical, musical and totally untried to get a sense of what I have. There was a lot.

Ellie asked a lot of probing questions including the hardest of all to answer; "What am I trying to say?"

She told me that I was being too harsh on myself and at the same time not hard enough... And yet, I still think maybe she was going a little easy on me. A lot of the material I have is too similar. It treads a lot of the same ground. We teased out a number of themes that play nicely together and I feel that there could be a strong 30-40 minutes in there. It was one of those days where you spend a lot of time re-arranging pieces of paper into a coherent order of sorts. And we did, for the most part, but there is still a rather large question mark over the end of the piece and consequently over my head.

What am I trying to say that I haven't already said? What is the big finish? Could that possibly be all there is to say?

I need to spend some time running in what I have and seeing if it works off the page as well it does laid out on a floor or in my head. I'm happy to say that the opening section from the very first Scratch seems to be holding strong as a nice foundation.

I'm looking forward to showing the first 20 minutes in a few weeks at First in Three at Northern Stage. I'm pretty sure that is the best test for the material. Especially if I mean what I say in the copy I wrote; I can't do it without an audience.

In the meantime, I have a photo shoot for the publicity image (and my website...) and lots to think about/try. Wish me luck.

What Might Be In The Show

When Rabbit Damage were making the show in Berwick we made a video called What Isn't In The Show and it was just a bit of a giggle and an attempt at viral marketing... since the show wasn't finished and we didn't want to give too much away.

Today I am rehearsing for One and mostly thinking about what might be in the show and trying not to get too boggled. On Thursday I have a scratch showing at First in Three at Northern Stage and mostly I am looking forward to trying out what I already have (what I did at The Carriageworks for Emerge in June) on a different, slightly less partisan, audience. But I'd also like to share something new and this is where my problems begin. I feel like I have spent so long shelving things to come back to later that I don't know where to start.

I guess this is where a collaborator would come in handy. We would discuss the merits of each and see which sparks the most interest. We could vote on which we would prefer to get stuck in to. We could play Paper, Scissors, Stone or have a thumb war. We could agree to take one idea each and try stuff out on each other... But there is no-one else here (Yes, Jaye, who's stupid idea was that then?).

So here I am, with a long list of wonderful things to play with. What to do first?

This show may contain: sex dolls, memories, cassette tapes, love letters to long distance lovers, Bros, the charts, my Dad, CCTV, video diaries, dancing, audio archaeology, Pillowman, internet dating, dining alone, desert islands, the zombie apocolypse, games, Chobitz, monophobia, Bridget Jones and imaginary friends.