This is the
place for information about my collaborations with
visual artists and other companies.
TeN LIFESTYLE GROUP
2019
In
February 2019, I was approached by Alex Cheatle,
the co-founder and CEO of Ten
Lifestyle Group, with an intriguing idea.
His company is a global lifestyle concierge
service, providing bespoke experiences and
loyalty rewards, tailored through its network of
connections between members and the brands they
use. But how to get that across to possible
investors and the general public? His idea was
to create a piece of short fiction that could
explain the possibilities of TeN membership, but
which could also provide an opportunity to go
into more depth about quite how the company
worked. I was inspired by his enthusiasm and the
chance to tell a world-spanning little tale; I
provided a set of different options and one was
chosen. There was quite a bit of editing to be
done, as I think I had too many ideas - this was
a world of possible stories and I wanted to go
much deeper with a couple of characters. The
shorter piece, called A Chain, was uploaded to
the TeN website when their half-year
results were announced in May 2019, and I'm
really happy with its combination of odd
characters, sweet moments, and an overall view
of how our ever-more connected world rewards
feedback and individual moments. Have
a read.
SUPER! 2017-18
In
2014, there was an Italian production
of Three
Wishes (translated as Tre
Desideri) and I had such a wonderful
time with the companies behind the
show that they were keen to continue
to collaborate. In Spring 2015 I
brought Each
of Us to Ostia, near Rome, and
in December of that year I performed
it at The Wonderland Festival in
Brescia, and gave a day of workshops.
They suggested I dramaturg a project
with them in 2017; they wanted to
create a play about superheroes. I
speak no Italian, but I can hear it a
bit, and, well, I LOVE superheroes.
The collaboration had its challenges,
but we spent a week in Genoa in
October 2017 talking
through the project, creating the
characters, building a location and
defining a structure for the piece. We
then had a week in Rome in January
2018 to crack the actual writing work.
My role was mainly done after that -
the actors and director did a
brilliant job of staging and putting
the show together (along with amazing
music, design, lighting and movement),
and I returned to see the final few
rehearsals. In April 2018 the show
opened at Teatro della Tosse in Genoa,
and the following week it was
performed at Teatro Astra in Turin. I
hope it has a long future - it's a
super piece of work!
BONES OF
BRAVE SHIPS 2014
In the summer of 2014 I was delighted to be
part of live performances of the new album
by Suns of the Tundra. Simon Oakes and his
bandmates have provided the wonderful scores
to my stage shows for many years,
particularly over nearly a decade of putting
them on at summer music festivals when we've
shared the stage. At Latitude, Green Man,
Green Belt, and London's Urban Physic
Garden, the addition of live musical
accompaniment to my performances has made
them super-special. So when Simon suggested
I return the favour and provide readings to
go along with the playing of the band's
extraordinary rock score to South, the
silent film of the Shackleton Antarctic
Expedition of 1914, I was delighted. I
researched some texts - quotes about
Shackleton, memoirs of his colleagues, the
names of the dogs they took - and at
Latitude and Green Man 2014, I read these
sections during the quieter moments of the
music. Hopefully we'll be doing this show
again - it was such a success at both places
- people were captivated by the beauty of
the film and the music.
You can read about the album at the Suns of
the Tundra page HERE
and check out the CD
of Simon's music for my shows on my CD page.
THE PREDICATES / JONBAR
ARCHAEOLOGY 2014
In
May 2014 I was approached by Catherine
Hemelryk at NN Contemporary Art
to write a text piece for their summer
project. They were exploring the Northampton
Multiverse - alternate histories
and Northamptons that never were. This
was right up my street!
I
wrote a short story called The
Predicates about what our reality is
predicated upon (it also refers to a
Belgian film). It was inspired by the
way many alternate history books claim
to be documents from parallel
universes and it involved layers upon
layers of documents from parallel
universes, which were about documents
from parallel universes etc.
But
the plan was always to have an
exhibition related to the story and so
Catherine set up a vitrine in the
gallery space to display the items
mentioned in the text:
A body called the Institute of
Crypto-Historiography was created (they have a stamp!)
to collate everything and a collection
of items purporting to be from these
other worlds were put on display in
the gallery - obviously there are airships;
obviously there is Betamax.
The
designers (Lee Farmer, Joe Brown and
others) did amazing work and there's a
fantastic series of images from all
the work in the project on FLICKR - photos
by Joe Brown.
For
an evening called the Jonbar Cabaret
(named after Jonbar Hinges)
the excellent comedy actor Sophie
Fletcher joined me on stage for a
verbatim theatre performance of the
piece where we spoke the words we'd
previously recorded - so the text
became another layer of found
document.
There are photos of the night again on
FLICKR - and on
my GALLERY
page - photo credit again to Joe
Brown.
And there's a video from the evening
on VIMEO.
Copies
of the booklet made for the show and
the material from the alternate
Northamptons are in the collection of
NN Contemporary Art - contact them if
you'd like to track down a copy.
(NOW THAT WOULD BE)
TELLING - 2011/12
Artist
Hayley Lock and
Curator Catherine Hemelryk approached me
to write a text piece as part of a
series of works to be located in certain
historical buildings over the course of
a year.
Hayley would
make work in response to each writer's
piece and the building's art and history
and she created amazing artworks, all
linked by the appearance of a comet and
a black mirror.
My story was
called Please Wait Here and was
partially inspired by a visit to
Ickworth House in Suffolk in the winter
of 2011 when it was closed to the public
and I felt a sense of quiet timelessness
about it.
I chose a
questionnaire writer as a main character
and off I went.
All the works
in the series are available on ISSUU
(registration may be required) and I
think they make a fascinating read.
With
permission from Hayley
and Catherine,
Please Wait Here is available in my
collection Each of
Us (and other things) and can be
bought from my webshop
today.
ROMEO ECHO DELTA - 2011
Partially inspired by Orson
Welles' War of the
Worlds radio play and Fr
Ronald Knox's Broadcasting the
Barricades, this was a radio
piece I scripted for Iain Forsyth and
Jane Pollard as part of the
Abandon Normal
Devices Festival on
Merseyside in the autumn of 2011.
The story breaks in on a local
radio chat show and details the
speculation and bizarre responses
to a beam of red light that has
appeared on the Wirral one night
and the accompanying strange
climatic conditions.
Could it be something to do with
an alignment with Mars?
It was all done for real and there
are some wonderful performances.
We recorded as live as we could,
using local actors and real
presenters (and real residents'
responses), but the BBC insisted
the broadcast date had to be
changed and sections of the piece
re-recorded - the night intended
for transmission would have been
perfect, but that is sometimes the
way of these things.
I loved working with Iain and Jane
and I think it's one of the most
intriguing projects I've been
involved with.
It was later incorporated into an
installation at Kate MacGarry.
Iain and Jane have a page about
the piece HERE along
with some great photos of the
mysterious REDLIGHT
UPDATE:
In 2018 Iain and Jane asked me to
be a part of their exhibition of MULTIGRAPHS,
again to be shown at Kate
MacGarry. The images are
beautiful, mysterious and
inspiring and I was delighted to
be photogrpahed using this
wonderful technique.
RADIOMANIA - AN
ABANDONED WORK - 2009 Iain Forsyth and Jane
Pollard are wonderful
artists with a sensibility for
the fun and beautiful and I was
super-delighted to be part of
this project. Essentially a film
of a set of rehearsals for a
remake of the first 3-D science
fiction film (The Man from
M.A.R.S.), it involved
live music, dance, science and
fiction, shot in one take in 3-D
using two cameras pointing in
opposite directions, an
omni-directional microphone and
an awful lot of courage.
Kirk Lake's script was fantastic
and I joined Iain Lee and Ben
Crompton as a troupe of Martians
doing strange dancing and
passing on odd advice to Kevin
Eldon's scientist.
The piece also starred Caroline
Catz, Terrence Hardiman and
Fenella Fielding, with music
from a band led by Nick Plytas.
I haven't really explained it at
all.
But it was fabulous.
It was exhibited for a time at
the BFI Southbank gallery and
you would go in and watch the
work on two screens in a dark
room - hearing everything and
seeing details like a bee on the
floor! - and be taken totally
away.
Iain and Jane have a page on the
film HERE and
you can watch a clip (3-D specs
at the ready!) on vimeo HERE.
TeN LIFESTYLE GROUP
2019
BONES OF
BRAVE SHIPS 2014
THE PREDICATES / JONBAR
ARCHAEOLOGY 2014
ROMEO ECHO DELTA - 2011
