tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46054163738154972432024-03-13T11:10:30.090-07:00A grindingly literal moment of sledgehammer symbolismJon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-89789430625976950202016-02-13T13:34:00.000-08:002016-02-14T12:37:11.934-08:00Staring into the abyss<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://chrisgoodeandco.podbean.com/">http://chrisgoodeandco.podbean.com/</a></div>
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David: This might come as a bit of a shock, but in about six
or seven weeks’ time our money completely runs out. We’ll be skint. We won’t be
bankrupt, we won’t have debts, but we’ll have zero, absolute zero. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Jon: We’re staring into the abyss<o:p></o:p></div>
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David: Yeah, it’s quite a scary kind of prospect, you know,
and it takes us right back to when we made the commitment to go to Derry in
1994. There was a period there of five years where we jumped into that abyss,
and the two of us ended up living in an office space with all our possessions,
illegally, we weren’t meant to be sleeping there…<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jon: Showering in the sink. <o:p></o:p></div>
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David: A Belfast sink in Belfast. In fact two Belfast sinks.
I would heat up the kettle and then add cold water to it and then stand in the
two sinks, one foot in each sink, and pour it over my head. God help me if
anyone had come in. I was just a sort of naked soapy man in the most grimy
toilet ever. It was horrible.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jon: Yes, but it all fed into the show, I suppose. It was
all put into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Say Nothing</i>. The
caretaker, anyway. Frank. ‘I’ve been having some complaints! I know what you’re
doing. You’re sleeping here.’ ‘No we’re not. It’s not a bed, it’s a stage set.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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David: Yes, so coming back to that, we’re thinking how did
we survive then? And we have to work without designers, without technicians, we
have to operate ourselves, we have to find a way, for example, with this show
we would have to be able to build that set ourselves, and we don’t really have
those skills, but we would develop them. Then we would have to learn Q-lab, and
have the operating board outside the door where Jon is, pressing the ‘go’
button as well as acting his socks off…It’s like it’s going to that point, and
you think that way we would be able to make a show that could go out at a rate
that people could pay and still turn a little bit of surplus. Touring fees, if
you’re doing well, are 800 to 1200 pounds per gig, to pay everyone properly
it’s 1500 per gig, so you’re in this desperate need always for subsidy and then
of course the gigs don’t come in the neat little zone that the Arts Council
want…so we’ve got ahead of us now a few possibilities, Bridport and Kent, then
possibly Bristol Mayfest then possibly the NRTF then possibly Edinburgh, which
we have to think very carefully about, whether we can afford to risk that
amount of money (that we don’t have), and then possibly an autumn tour….so
you’ve got this horizon of bitty gigs that would all lose money, so you’re
thinking what have we got in reserve?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jon: Nothing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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David: Who could possibly fund us through that?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jon: Nobody.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Chris: And just to be clear about the context in which this
is happening. Presumably this directly relates to you losing NPO status last
Spring.<o:p></o:p></div>
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David: Yes, the sequence there went after years of project
money we were invited to be a Regularly Funded Organisation and that succeeded
and we had six years of bliss, actually. And in the RFO phase you were allowed
to apply for project money on top. So we had a lovely time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had the security of being able to pay
ourselves a monthly retainer – the amount of which has remained the same up
until this March. It didn’t ever increase. It just diminished in value. Then
the NPO possibility came along and we were able to go up to this higher level of
core subsidy of 100,000. But you were not allowed to apply for projects and
that’s where it really started to go wrong. Our own staff were saying ‘You’re
more of a project company than an organisation’ and I just felt there was a
lack of imagination about the way we were using the funding, that we should
have been more creative about that and they were actually saying to us ‘Don’t
reapply for NPO.’ But we were saying ‘No, no, no. We are able to. We <i>must</i>. We
cannot just say no we don’t want 100,000 a year.' So with the reluctant support
of our own team we put in a new NPO application and failed. But the Arts
Council were very apologetic, saying ‘Oh don’t worry, we’ll look after you, you
can come to us for project money now, and you can get as much from that, if not
more, and it will be better for you.’ So we put together a project application
which was equivalent to what we’d been getting for NPO, and failed, and were
told can you please resubmit for a smaller amount. And we said ‘Well, the
tour’s in eight week’s time'<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and they said ‘Well, it has to be for under 15,000.’ So we
went very quickly from being on 100,000 subsidy to being on 15,000. And luckily
we’d been building up a reserve and were in a state where we thought we can now
take a gamble and employ someone for a year.</div>
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Jon: Yes, and raise money, basically.<o:p></o:p></div>
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David: But the money’s not out there. The Arts Council want
you to continue applying for these small things so that they can drip feed you
and keep you alive, along with all these other artists who are being drip fed
and kept alive, in the hope that on some distant horizon someone like Jeremy
Corbyn will come in and start funding you properly again. So it’s very, very
fragile, our existence and yes that gamble didn’t work, so we’re now faced with
this prospect of zero money in March. And basically having to do the
administration again ourselves. That’s a huge depressing lump of feeling, that
you’ve been hit with and I don’t really know how we’re going to ride it out.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Chris: Sure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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David: I said to Jon the other day ‘Should we just
hibernate?’ Try and squirrel ourselves away for a decade and re-emerge and see
what happens. But I guess we’ll slither on. I can’t afford to slither on like I
used to. I have dependants now. So then the pressure to get outside work
increases and that of course requires commitments and Jon’s thinking like that
too. In other words, veer towards hibernation. But it may be that we’re forced
into hibernation because of this problem of having to work at Tesco or
something. We’re not the most senior independent theatre artists that are still
going, but you just think this ‘career’ is not a viable one. It eats up young
companies coming out of college, full of enthusiasm, still subsidised by their
loans and mums and dads, then they die off, fall out with each other…but
there’s this supply of that, so the scene sort of struggles on, relying on
these self-subsidised shows. We’ve attempted to get up into the middle scale by
doing things like that two-hander version of The Importance of Being Earnest,
and actually that turned less surplus than the remnants of our maverick style,
which was Ideas Men, the last made for nothing piece…So that’s where the
company’s at. Personally then, what effect is that having on us? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Chris: It’s such an extraordinary situation that a company
like you should be facing that abyss, again at this point. And having to as
yourselves whether it’s at all viable to go back to a way of working that…is
there anything in that model that appeals to you? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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David: It’s ultimate, utter freedom. If you don’t have to
answer to anybody, if you can just get out there and do a gig in a venue
without having to report about it, you’ve got such freedom and it’s just
joyous, you know. I’ve talked too much. Maybe Jon, you should say how you’re
feeling, in your body.</div>
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Jon: In my body? Well, I’m getting a bit cold.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-34770949784331741732014-12-28T08:13:00.002-08:002014-12-28T08:57:41.229-08:00Jon Haynes Pick of 2014<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;">My pick of 2014</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;">There was only one thing worth catching in
2014 – that great, rumbling, thunderclap of genius: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheHNbaM55jJKxf0unrL42ePvaLG11KQ75jZBKu9bXtRClflqEypkoE4dsPlBGGgis5nm1kzvSvRd6LW2iovukK6hVdr86zwn3VvoZqCza60Ra2k2I5LO50pqDUrzWGoxD160vDJPnR6j2d/s1600/tristramkenton_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheHNbaM55jJKxf0unrL42ePvaLG11KQ75jZBKu9bXtRClflqEypkoE4dsPlBGGgis5nm1kzvSvRd6LW2iovukK6hVdr86zwn3VvoZqCza60Ra2k2I5LO50pqDUrzWGoxD160vDJPnR6j2d/s1600/tristramkenton_2.jpg" height="400" width="321" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;">JON HAYNES</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;">His performances
are consistently surprising, but this year he surpassed himself in one
psychologically athletic turn after another. There was his poker-faced and pathologically
narcissistic Richard in<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The Eradication
of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland. </i>There was his inscrutable yet
compassionate Mouse 1 in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">World Mouse
Plague</i> (co-written with the less talented but always interesting David
Woods). Finally there was his gobsmackingly audacious Private Robert True in a
one-off sharing of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Happy Ones</i> (to
premiere in 2015 – David Woods will have an insignificant off-stage part as
Corporal Schmaltz). Unsurprising to hear that this most modest of actors has
turned down the offer of an OBE for services to the arts in the Queen’s New
Year Honours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-8274148503845094402014-08-03T22:26:00.000-07:002014-09-17T16:32:03.233-07:00Arseflop<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL4qKSAFRXKrJfVd26vS7UYRKXjYSQNNy77mXTum4eGZHxxqRR5xL7IAzTS_D01aPZ-hgP8fIvGE3Gud8DBtGOf50-Yhi5hKXgMEKZ1zcqdDkYYG0AJbDV2402rm1fDTA-smJW7YlIPFp5/s1600/GOPR1154_2_2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL4qKSAFRXKrJfVd26vS7UYRKXjYSQNNy77mXTum4eGZHxxqRR5xL7IAzTS_D01aPZ-hgP8fIvGE3Gud8DBtGOf50-Yhi5hKXgMEKZ1zcqdDkYYG0AJbDV2402rm1fDTA-smJW7YlIPFp5/s1600/GOPR1154_2_2.JPG" height="320" width="184" /></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">D: </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">We have a very fragile existence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">J: I’m still
eating rocket salad out of plastic bags in my rented room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">D: We’ve been
hugging radiators for the last week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">J: There’s no
work on the horizon after the bit we’ve got next month.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">D: We didn’t get
programmed in a major festival, and while in one sense we’re relieved by that,
we also feel we’re missing out on something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">J: The country’s
on the brink of a double-dip recession and our funding is about to be snatched
away from us even before it’s started.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">D: And yet we’re
happy, aren’t we?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">J: Well we are when
we consider the alternatives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">D: So let’s look
at the alternatives. In a conventional office job you’d have a few hours to
yourself a day. You’d have a mortgage but get little time to enjoy the benefits
of it. Your existence might be soulless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">J: It might not.
It depends on your personality. You might be the kind of person who loves that
kind of life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">D: So this
existence we have is perfectly suited to our personalities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">J: Apparently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">D: And if we had
money would we actually have any energy to make anything?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">J: There was a
time when we had a bit more money but I think we were the same, just as
creative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">D: I think we
were less creative. We had to tour so much to make that money that we never had
time to think about what we were doing. Now we have serious thinking time. For
example, we know that when we start work on the next show we’re not going to go
into a rehearsal room unplanned and run around with bags over our heads wasting
energy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">J: What a shame.
I could do with a bit of that. I think I’ll do it when I get back to my room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black;">(From The (unpublished) Ridiculusmus book of making
comic theatre: Arseflop 2011) </span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-29475866312114147612014-03-14T03:36:00.001-07:002014-04-22T01:58:43.970-07:00On previewing 'The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland'<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">It’s a very weird thing, previewing a new show. Not as weird as The Twilight Zone or the Bermuda Triangle or the ghost I saw in the grounds of Dean
Close School, Cheltenham in 1978. But pretty damn weird nonetheless. It is
excruciating too. Take this morning, the morning of the third day of our run in Shoreditch Town Hall. I woke at 6, having gone to bed at 1, and immediately
switched on my computer, with whom I’ve been sharing a small room in a small flat
overlooking London Fields since 2010. I checked the news of course to see if
there were any updates on the fate of flight MH370. The search has now moved to
the Indian Ocean. Malaysian authorities are rejecting the US’s theory that the
plane went on flying for four hours after it lost contact with the radars, and
in a press conference the day before a relative of one of the missing threw a
bottle of water at a Malaysian Airlines official. I read an article on the BBC
website about some of the passengers. There was – or is (because, as a friend
of one of the missing said, ‘miracles do happen’) - a team of illustrious
Chinese calligraphers, one of them aged 79. There was a couple returning to
their two young kids after a short beach holiday. I recalled a Sunday Times
magazine feature from the 1970’s about the passengers on Turkish Airlines
flight 981, which had crashed in a forest outside Paris (a farmer found six
seats in a field with dead passengers strapped to them), killing all 346 people
on board. I must have been in my early teens when I read the article, but
nearly forty years later I can still remember that a male model had been
amongst the dead. After that I googled ‘The Eradication of Schizophrenia in
Western Lapland review’ to see if any conscientious reviewer had posted one
already (the previous night being press night - though why they're reviewing previews I'm not sure). There were none. Then I thought
I should really get some sleep. I wasn’t tired though so I sent a friend
request to Jake Orr, who we’d met the previous day after a photo
shoot for the show, and who’s just starting as our Assistant Producer. As I was talking
to him, or, more accurately, listening to my colleague David talking to him, I
carelessly poured peppermint tea all down my shirt. Jake, who had a metallic
adornment set at a rakish angle in one lobe, asked us how the photo shoot was
for us. ‘We have to be wary of gurning,’ David said, ‘as the more obvious
gurning shots will inevitably be the ones they publish.’ This is very true. I
spent most of the shoot being determinedly po-faced, especially during the Finnish folk dance, standing there with my weight on one leg,
attempting to protect the arthritic knee of the other one, and watching Woods
leap-frog over Talbot and Paolini. The trouble is, I might end up looking
over-solemn, a parody of deadpan (‘His features lend themselves to expressions
of gloom’; ‘he out-Busters Buster Keaton’; ‘he sings comic songs with a face
like a Lurgan spade,’ and so on). Well, we’ll have to see, won’t we, when the
reviews with their accompanying photos come out. <i>If</i> they come out. And if we can <i>find
out</i> if they’ve come out. Kate Bassett from The Times was there. Terrifying.
She reviewed our two man Earnest in 2005 and wrote ‘They’re just not great
actors…their only option is to play everything knowingly fifth-rate.’ Yes, very
possibly true, but then we were (she didn’t get it, which was of course our
fault) meant to be playing two knowingly fifth-rate actors who were putting on
a production of Wilde’s play. Kate Bassett sat, according to my colleague
David, in the front row, but, perhaps a little considerately, on the far right
side. That was in the first half, before the interval. We swap the audience
round at half time and I’ve no idea where she sat after that. The other very
weird thing about press nights (well, perhaps not <i>that</i> weird) is that once you know the critics are in you start
imagining them. I’ve no idea, for example, if the voluptuously committed Lyn Gardner from The Guardian was in,
but because I’d been on the receiving end of her complaints in the past (she kept on picking up her very large notepad, scribbling in it, putting it down, picking it up again, her response quite clear from the expression on her face, so no need to read the review, really, and anyway reviews are not meant for the artists, are they, they're intended as some sort of guide for the public), but yes, because of all this I <i>imagined</i>
she was in. She was in the front row, just three feet from my right elbow. She had her very large notepad with her and she absolutely <i>hated</i>
everything I did. Also sitting on the domestic side of the play, but on the
other side of the row Kate Bassett sat in, was Ian Shuttleworth, critic of the
Financial Times. Except it wasn’t, was it? It was Tassos Stevens, with a bottle
of beer. There was another man in the front row with a moustache and dyed black
hair and I was convinced he was someone from The Telegraph whose name presently
escapes me. There were also several bloggers. And Time Out, I think, was there.
I mean I <i>felt </i>they were there. I
could sort of smell them. It was, then, an audience made up of critics and Tassos
Stevens and Jake Orr. At one point someone in the audience started talking in a
loud voice. Not a whisper. David, playing my character’s therapist, stared at
them as though they were mentally ill and in need of swift diagnosis and, very probably,
anti-psychotic medication. I ignored them, convinced that although the voice
was deep and manly, they’d only turn out to be Lyn Gardner. Somehow we made it
to the end. We had changed the ending, and will probably change it again,
several times. It currently has a Finnish finish: we exit doing a hunched
dance, wait for the blackout, wait for, hopefully, applause, and then re-enter
for our bows. Or rather, actually, not for bows, having aired our loathing of
the latter the previous night. We’ve chosen to nod at the audience instead.
We’re not bowing and saying ‘we’re so grateful to be serving you, and being given the chance to humbly offer up this little piece for
your entertainment.’ We are nodding our heads (possibly bigger than all the
imaginary critics’) and saying ‘Yes, we’ve spent two years making a piece of
theatre and that was it. It’s meaningful, we think, we hope, so please go away
and think about it.’ And then we bugger off, go for a drink in a Shoreditch pub
that’s quiet (they don’t exist) and return to our homes, knowing we won’t get
good night sleeps…And then, and then, and then…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-17489800099938002112014-01-16T17:07:00.001-08:002014-01-16T17:07:42.369-08:00Some more things that may have contributed to the making of 'The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland' <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Watching
the 1967 Frederick Wiseman documentary ‘Titicut Follies’ in 2003 and again in
2013</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Reading
hundreds of books on the subject, amongst them ‘What is Madness?’ by Darian Leader
and ‘The Myth of Mental Illness’ by Thomas Szasz</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Rereading
‘Awakenings’ by Oliver Sacks and trying very hard to watch the sentimental film
again<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Being
mesmerized by the Roy Anderson films ‘You the Living’ and ‘Songs from the
Second Floor’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Watching
'The Bothersome Man' for the third time, saying it’s for research purposes,
although it wasn’t really<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Reading
Auden’s Christmas Oratorio while trying to write a Chorus for ‘The Eradication’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Watching
a documentary about Brian Blackwell, who had narcissistic personality disorder,
killed his parents and then took his girlfriend on an expensive holiday to the
States, fantasizing that he was a professional tennis player <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Downloading
the Finnish saga ‘The Story of Burnt Njal’ with a view to plagiarizing it for
our Chorus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Revisiting
Anouilh’s ‘Antigone,’ in which I played the messenger at university. ‘The queen! The queen! Where is the queen?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Seeing
Alan Ayckbourn's ‘The Norman Conquests’ in Liverpool because a character's
exit from one play corresponds with an entrance in another and this is
something we would like to try<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Meeting
Ben Sessa, psychiatrist and author of The Psychedelic Renaissance, and hearing
him talk passionately about the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic drugs
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Visiting
systemic family therapists in the Tavistock Centre who tell us about a man called
Jaakko Seikkula who’s developed a dialogic approach to treating psychosis -
Open Dialogue – that’s practically eradicated schizophrenia from Western
Lapland<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Driving
to Western Lapland with David Woods <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Stopping
on the motorway to take some photos, marveling at the special quality of the
light and getting covered in mosquitoes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Searching
for Keropoudas Hospital, where Open Dialogue began<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Meeting
a drunk man in a Tornio pub and finding out he’d been in Keropoudas Hospital<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Wondering
if an apparently deranged man in the street in Tornio is pissing or
masturbating or both<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Being
welcomed by Timo Haaraniemi at Keropoudas Hospital and taking part in an
impromptu simulated Open Dialogue session<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Attending
a Dialogic Practices conference in Hameenlinna and being over-awed by Jaakko
Seikkula, Peter Rober, Professor John Shotter, Markku Sutela and just about
everyone there<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Tolerating
uncertainty <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Witnessing
Jaakko Seikkula and colleagues disco dancing on the last night of the
conference in Hameenlinna<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-58938603245009747442014-01-16T05:08:00.000-08:002015-07-05T01:12:57.622-07:00Some things that may have contributed to the making of 'The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland'<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Reading R. D. Laing as an </span>ontologically insecure undergraduate and finding the idea of madness quite attractive</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Flicking through The DSM IV and noticing I've got most of the disorders<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">A psychiatrist asking me if I agree that I'm a
danger to myself and others and when I say ‘No’ telling me ‘In that case
I’ve no option but to detain you under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act’</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Spending 6 months in the Maudsley Hospital and finding madness
wasn’t so attractive after all</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Having my clothes taken away from me and being accompanied to the toilet
every time I wanted to go</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Being told that I wanted to get out but I didn’t want to get better</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Agreeing, for a fee of ten pounds, to be the subject of a psychiatric
presentation</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Imagining it would be a bit like appearing on the Parkinson show</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Discovering it entailed sitting on stage, answering questions from an
audience of psychiatrists and breaking down in tears</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Listening every morning to someone chanting from the ward below ‘Help me
someone I’m dying’</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Being ashamed to have a mental illness and not wanting anyone to know</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">My family trying to understand</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Seeing a Pelican book on my condition on the bookshelves at home</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Being told that I sometimes seemed quite normal</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">The book stating ‘It’s all about a desire for control.’ This wasn’t my
experience. I felt out of control, actually possessed</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Living near a mental hospital in Shrewsbury when I was a boy and ending
up in it in my twenties</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">A nurse in hospital taking my temperature every 30 minutes and saying to
me ‘I don’t know if this is what you want but if you carry on like this you’ll
very soon be dead’ and my thinking ‘Good’</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">A patient called Roy Christy telling me how John Fowles the
novelist stole his first wife from him on a Greek island. I was never sure if
this was true, but years later I picked up a copy of Fowles’s Journals and
discovered that it was</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">A man in the Maudsley sitting next to me and telling me he was Jesus and
I was John the Baptist</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">A bearded lady in the Maudsley asking me if I thought she should kill
herself or just put up with it</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Seeing a night nurse throw a patient against a wall, reporting it to the
hospital board, nothing being done and wondering if I’d imagined it</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">A nurse supervising the eating disorder patients’ mealtimes while slowly
consuming a pot of very low fat cottage cheese</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">A manic patient called Liz who I found attractive and who told me I was
an angel</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">As I got better beginning to fancy some of the patients, particularly a
thickset suicidal boy called Darren</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">My psychologist telling me that she’d seen me looking longingly at a
patient called Douglas who’d been experiencing hallucinations. It wasn’t true. Was she projecting onto me?</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Going to the ward round. The eminent consultant (Professor Gerald Russell, whose hobbies include art galleries, photography and music) asking me how I felt and my
saying ‘I am terrified about my imminent confrontation with the outside world’
and him saying ‘That’s a very philosophical statement. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What exactly do you mean
by it?’</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">After the ward round the nurse who had escorted me there saying to me ‘You
did very well. What a wonderful opportunity for an actor’</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Being allowed home for a weekend, scoring some dope at the Prince John
in Peckham and walking out straight into the arms of the Metropolitan Police</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Being taken to the police station and locked in a detention room.
Explaining I was a mental patient and being let off</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Making friends with a schizophrenic who told me he taught the Foreign
Secretary’s children to play the cello.</span><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Coming out of hospital and a relative saying to me on the phone ‘What are
you going to <i>do</i>? You have to do <i>something</i>, you know’</span><br />
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<!--EndFragment-->Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-91614066941263545682013-07-24T20:12:00.002-07:002015-05-16T12:19:36.708-07:00From 'The Ridiculusmus Book of Making Comic Theatre'<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKwgkiz8I2gC4O7VKn6Ob3JpO8OgVEMXcDO0RXmuNZ7W4PmbZrQB4thGU8eSnVukIy9MbyZg-vAQD7w1oA3gZlEm35HvyKM5sgjVo5znkA63ATfpUo5cHsdrA9DCJl9nwh0jndFruuwbtK/s1600/DSC_0052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKwgkiz8I2gC4O7VKn6Ob3JpO8OgVEMXcDO0RXmuNZ7W4PmbZrQB4thGU8eSnVukIy9MbyZg-vAQD7w1oA3gZlEm35HvyKM5sgjVo5znkA63ATfpUo5cHsdrA9DCJl9nwh0jndFruuwbtK/s320/DSC_0052.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">When they first saw each other in ‘the carpet room’ of the Poor School
in 1990 Dave and Jon didn’t talk. They just eyed each other warily, as if they
knew it was only a matter of time before something would happen. David did an
impression of a stork for ‘animal study’ that Jon was rather impressed by and a
couple of terms later Jon recited ‘Ode to the Asshole’ by Rimbaud, which David
found downright peculiar. Cast as Polonius (David) and Hamlet (Jon), they
ignored any direction they were given, devised bits of comic business and cut
most of Shakespeare’s lines because they got no laughs. When David invited Jon
back to his studio flat for midnight beans and toast Jon wasn’t that surprised
to find David only lived two minutes away from his own abode in Nunhead, one of the
cheapest and most inaccessible areas of what could still be called London. As they talked, ate the beans and toast and drank copious amounts of
tea, more coincidences emerged. Before enrolling at the Poor School David had
attended the same university as Jon and had done the same drama course that Jon
had done there seven years earlier. They’d read many of the same books (or at
least David thought they had) and shared a theatre-making language. It was
derived on the one hand from Peter Brook, Grotowski, Stanislavski, Berkoff,
Beckett, Pinter, Brecht, Keith Johnstone’s <i>Impro</i>, Albert Hunt’s <i>Hopes
for Great Happenings</i>, Artaud’s <i>Theatre of Cruelty</i> and John McGrath’s
<i>A Good Night Out</i>, and on the other from hours of improvising in devising
rooms. David confided to Jon that at school and university he’d been called ‘Mad
Dave,’ and Jon confided to David that at school and university he’d been
notorious for being depressed.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">
</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Two years later, still meeting up for the occasional midnight beans and
- if they could afford it - toast, David and Jon began to lament the fact that
in their final shows at the school the imaginative leaps they’d struggled to
make during the course were being thrown away for the sake of commercial
casting. They were given roles as similar in age, sex and outlook to the most
smiling and willing versions of themselves they were prepared to be. On one
level this was understandable. The profession was notoriously competitive and
to get a foot in its door perhaps one should play to one’s strengths. But David
found it reductive and humiliating. He really should have left. Everyone was
skint. They were expected to go in during the daytimes, so unless you had a
very willing employer unemployment was the only option. David managed to hang
on to his job by disappearing or pretending to be sick. Jon was sacked from his
position as an insurance clerk. To save money he took to walking from Nunhead
to the school in King’s Cross, and then to Kentish Town for their final year
shows. A fellow student once took pity on him and hid a loaf of bread in his
jacket.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">By 1999 they’d been running a successful theatre company for seven years
and their lives had markedly improved. Jon was living in an industrial unit in
Belfast, sleeping on a piece of foam on a tabletop while mice scuttled around
him in the dark. On the other side of a divide his colleague David snored on a
futon bed. He’d told the caretaker of the building it was part of a stage set.
They had to switch all the lights off at 9pm so as not to alert suspicion. They
weren’t meant to be living there. It was rented out to them as office space.
For seven years they’d shared the administration, driven up and down the UK
putting on plays and, in spite of most people never having heard of them,
received critical acclaim. Yet they couldn’t afford a home.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The making process was intense. They had intercourse, became inseminated
with an idea (often simultaneously), gestated it, gave birth to it, christened
it, nurtured it, created a profile for it, sent it to college, bought it a
cappuccino machine (or at least a hand pump milk frother), shared awkward
family gatherings with it, took it to board meetings, indulged in sordid
affairs (side projects) and opened a building society account for it (got a
grant and took it on tour). But ultimately they had to let go, move on and have
another child together, occasionally holding embarrassing orgies with
collaborators drawn from an expanding pool. Basically it was a marriage.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">But what kind of a
marriage was it when your idea of a meal together was a selection of pre-packaged
salads and cartons of M&S custard and fruit compote carefully laid out on a
futon in an industrial unit? Did you really want to renew your vows and
reaffirm commitment to a partner of seven years who was engaged in similar
catering activities two feet away on the other side of a glass divide? Was this
a life at all? Was it really worth the sacrifices? What on earth did they think
they were doing? Had they ever really stopped to think? Perhaps, Jon thought as
he saw a family of mice making its curious way to David’s side of the office, a
couple of them ferrying a fragment of a multigrain bap, perhaps one day they
should sit down and write a book about it all. But that time wasn’t now. There
was a farting sound. David had woken up. He thought he’d heard the caretaker
pushing some post under the door, so he got up and shuffled over there to get
it. ‘It’s come,’ said David timorously, waving a white manila envelope
containing the result of their application for revenue funding from the Arts
Council of Northern Ireland. He opened it. Jon was sitting up expectantly on
his piece of foam. Their grant had been slashed in half. During a performance
of ‘Dada’ Jon had been so deeply in role that he had told a member of the
council’s board to piss off. ‘Oh God,’ groaned David. The caretaker heard him
and barked out some expletive. ‘I’ve been having some complaints,’ he said
(a reference to one from David about kids flicking shit on the toilet walls).
But David didn’t really care. He read the rest of the letter, which concluded
by telling them that the days of experimental theatre were most definitely
over. ‘Oh God,’ David said again, ‘what are we doing?’ </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
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<!--EndFragment-->Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-75759173620900152982013-05-26T15:33:00.000-07:002013-12-23T01:00:47.549-08:00Voice recorder found<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Surgeons at a London hospital have found a digital
voice recorder in a man’s anus. The patient, who had undergone laparoscopic
resection of the sigmoid colon for recurrent sigmoid diverticulitis, presented
to the hospital because of symptoms of subileus due to a recurrent high-grade
anastomotic stenosis. A computed tomography scan revealed an electrical object
that was hastily removed and, after consultation, shown to the patient, who
claimed no memory of having inserted the device himself. At his request doctors
at King’s College Hospital gave the recorder a thorough wash, purchased
suitable batteries and played it. They discovered the machine contained more than two hundred hours’ worth of improvisations for a devised theatre
show called The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland. </span></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-58221246445959788052013-05-02T02:26:00.001-07:002013-05-05T04:05:52.234-07:00Instead of writing fictionI've started documenting my life. Or snippets of it. What happens though is that I send it up. I haven't really been awake since 5am, high and manic on a cocktail of melatonin, antihistamines, travel sickness pills and valium. Though I've thought about getting in that state. What is true is that I walked to poncey Broadway Market, intent on sitting in La Bouche. I planned to have a cappuccino (one pound ninety-five) and an almond croissant (two pounds twenty) and pretend to read my book on trauma while watching all the passersby. La Bouche was full of like-minded and similarly pretentious people so I continued on my nonchalant way to a less trendy and almost empty Middle Eastern cafe whose almond croissants were forty-five pence cheaper. I took a seat and got out my trauma book. Actually made some notes about a psychiatrist called Lenore Terr who proposed that trauma in children took two forms. Type 1 trauma results from a single - often life-threatening - event, and it can be easily remembered in all its detail. Type 2 consists of repeated and predictable trauma, particularly sexual or physical abuse, which a child begins to anticipate and then learns to cope with through psychic numbing or dissociation. Terr's thinking - backed up by some questionable research - is that because of the repetitive nature of this latter kind of abuse it would become a general blur, less easily recalled. Richard J. McNally, however...actually, you probably don't want to know what Richard J. McNally thought. All you want to know is why I'm writing about abuse. 'Was he abused?' you'll be thinking. I don't think I was. Although according to some commentators there are only two kinds of people in this world: those who remember their sexual abuse in childhood and those who do not. I remember, when I was five or six years old, the boy next door lifting up his shirt and showing me his stomach. It was highly erotic and led to other things. But I'm not going to tell you what those other things were because I've been fictionalizing them in Human Waste, the novel that I'm having difficulty finishing. Probably because of this futile and near obsessive documenting of my life. I hold 'Sunshine and daydreams' responsible. He/she left an encouraging comment beneath a former post, telling me this was the most interesting blog he or she had ever read. I don't know who 'Sunshine and daydreams' is. She/he (I suspect a she) left her comment anonymously. She hasn't created a profile, which means I can't reply and thank her. Or complain about the way her positive comment is making me post more rubbish on this blog rather than get on with writing Human Waste. Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-22355405942098543212013-05-01T10:49:00.000-07:002013-05-09T13:46:20.610-07:00Melatonin in KoreaI had some Korean Won left over and popped into Kiehl's in duty free thinking I could buy a bottle of clinically proven - or was it clinically tested - age corrector. Gave up and wandered into a gift shop where I gazed at vitamins on shelves and found some Melatonin. The last time I tried melatonin was in 2005 on the recommendation of Jude Kelly. It gave me vivid nightmares and I stopped. Perhaps I'd give it another go. I knocked one back, attempting to wash it down with water from one of those little fountains outside the gents. As I bent forward to gulp some water the pill shot out. I picked it up and swallowed it and got on the plane. Had an uneventful flight sitting next to two Irish people. A man in his late fifties and a woman, possibly his daughter, in her thirties. He ordered a white wine. She ordered a white wine and a tomato juice and then gave him her white wine. We only spoke when she asked if they could get past me to go to the toilet. Began to watch Hitchcock again. Switched it off after five minutes and watched Silver Linings Playbook for the third time. Knew all the dialogue. Turned that off too. Watched The Master, a very depressing film with an agonizingly twisted performance by Joaquin Phoenix. Fell asleep. That peculiar half-sleep during which a calm descended upon me (I also took a valium) and I could see the solution to my novel. It would contain an abundance of flashbacks to abuse. Everyone would start to have them. They would become ridiculous. I would become ridiculous. Have become ridiculous. I'm not sure if it's the melatonin but since taking it I've become obsessed by porn. Can one blame melatonin for watching porn?<br />
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<br />Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-49332372915937843592013-04-30T04:06:00.002-07:002013-04-30T04:06:45.908-07:00Jeff not BeauIt's Jeff Bridges and it's 'A Dog Year.'Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-23818781607349241652013-04-30T00:32:00.001-07:002013-04-30T00:32:54.276-07:00Beau Bridges and a dogAfter the buffet I rented a LAN cable from reception and connected to the internet until my battery ran out. I wrote some rubbish on this blog. Then I went to bed and switched on the television. There was a film with Beau Bridges in. He was playing an irascible writer who separates from his wife and goes to live in an isolated ranch in the American countryside with his dog. I missed the beginning but I gather he'd acquired the dog quite recently. Anyway his acting basically consisted of sitting at a kitchen table looking grumpy. He made a processed cheese and ham sandwich while his lips were turned resolutely down. The dog watched as Beau ate the sandwich. Then Beau, still with downturned mouth, slid his plate, which had half an uneaten sandwich on it, towards the dog. The dog ate it. It's a border collie. Eventually, though I'm not sure how this happens, Beau meets a trainer of border collies. She also looks grumpy and tells Beau that he is one angry man. Beau, meanwhile, is starting to change. A local youth badgers him, asking if he could give him some odd jobs to do. Beau says no, but eventually gives in. He also starts to write a book on his typewriter. It's called 'A Dog Year.' Or was it 'Year of the Dog' ? Anyway, suffice to say that in spite of all the downturned mouth acting it's the perfect film to watch when you're jet-lagged and in transit between Seoul and London. Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-86028994749880670082013-04-28T04:48:00.002-07:002013-04-30T00:14:48.621-07:00Lost in Harbor Park Hotel, IncheonOf course the reality is very different. We were taken by shuttle bus from the airport to a hotel where 'simplicity and modern design offer you comfortable atmosphere and allover window in room commands superior view and also completely presenting you efficient business environment.' They gave us a dinner voucher. After a hurried shower and failed attempts to connect to the internet I made my way to the Sky Lounge on the fourteenth floor. 'Appreciating the panoramic view of Incheon Harbor, you can enjoy the meeting with your sweet people after stressful and busy day and relish the diverse drinks including various beers and whiskies, wines from all the countries of the world.' A buffet dinner was available, though the waiter didn't tell me this. I sat down and worked it out for myself. I thought I'd better get it confirmed though so I asked him what the procedure was. 'It's a buffet,' he said. I got up and helped myself to some spaghetti from a chaffing dish. Also some mini chicken breasts and a glass of red grape juice. After I'd sat down I was joined by various sweet people: an elderly Asian couple with plates piled high and a swarthy red-faced man with goggling eyes who I guess was from Tasmania. He asked me what I'd got. The food kept getting stuck in my throat. I finished as quickly as I could and went downstairs to...oh you don't need to know, are not even interested to know, are you, what I was doing downstairs. They've probably got a bar somewhere here but I'm too timid to seek it out. Anyway, you can bet your bottom dollar that it won't contain Scarlet Johansson or anyone resembling her. It'll contain other transit passengers, all trying to avoid each other's gaze. Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-9537793385186230192013-04-27T14:39:00.002-07:002013-06-01T15:56:57.566-07:00Spaced at Brisbane airportI spent half an hour staring at rows of watches. Didn't like any of them. Then I tried various perfumes. A sales assistant approached me so I left. Found myself in a book shop that also sold rejuvenating creams. Considered purchasing Re-birth placenta face cream but decided not to on remembering I'd already bought an intense moisturizer with Rosa Artica (not sure what it is but it smells of my ex landlady) and Facial Fuel for Men from Kiehl's. I haven't boarded yet and I'm already off my face. I have twenty hours in Incheon airport (hotel provided by the airline) where I'm expecting to feel like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. The plan is to sit in the hotel bar drinking Bourbon on the rocks and looking inscrutable. Basically I crossed the world to do four nights of The Poof Downstairs. I had a radio interview during which the interviewer called me 'difficult' and 'irritating,' and a review which described my show as 'controversial.' As the critic left the theatre he heard a man behind him saying 'I've never seen such a load of rubbish in my life.' This really makes me very happy. Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-23382584131668521662013-04-02T11:07:00.000-07:002013-04-14T00:46:05.576-07:00First post in agesTwenty-four hours ago I swallowed two travel sickness pills from Boots. I was hoping I'd get high but I got drowsy and constipated instead. I've been taking Boots antihistamine pills for the last few days. They help me sleep. In my late adolescence I'd eat ground nutmeg. It tastes vile. There's a deeply unpleasant sensation as it passes down your throat. I'd advise washing it down with lemon squash. On the plus side it gets you very stoned and lasts longer than a spliff. I've tried smoking hops and dried banana skins and used to take something called Actifed until they stopped selling it in chemists. Have been getting into Tiiffy too, a Thai cold remedy containing chlorpheniramine and phenylephrine that - in my case - induces sleep, but am rapidly developing a tolerance to it. I'm also addicted to M&S cheese puffs. They're a lot cheesier than Wotsits.<br />
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Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-35979177384245673392012-04-02T14:38:00.008-07:002012-04-08T06:41:52.016-07:00Talking about Writing<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Julian Fox is writing a book. I think he’s intending it to be a novel when it’s finished. Not that I want to publicize it for him. All I want to say here is that we met the other day in Brockwell Park and talked about our respective works of fiction. His is called </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">So Here I am in the Between Land</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">. Mine is provisionally called </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">A Boy Falling Out of the Sky</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, although I’m thinking of changing that to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Human Waste</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> because there’s an awful lot of shit in it. We sat there on a bench and I gave him my reactions to his blog (julianfox.wordpress.com or something like that, though probably not that because it hasn’t turned itself into a link as soon as I’ve written it). He’s posting bits of his writing there, though I am not sure why. He’s disabled the functions that allow people to give feedback. Perhaps just putting his writing up publicly like that is a challenge to himself. He’s set himself some goals, a certain number of posts per week, and has to achieve them. We talked about our different meta-fictional techniques and my worry that they’re merely indicators of our literary ineptitude. Julian keeps on saying he’s not a proper writer. I have my fictional narrator comment on his own writing, how he’s anxious, for example, that the reader will be getting fed up with all his long-winded paragraphs, and how he’s going to turn his divagations into more palatable dinner party scenes in flats in Camberwell instead.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I am reluctant, I told Julian, to post any of my writing on the web, or even to give readings from it. A novel, I said, can only be properly judged in its entirety. You can’t judge it by its extracts. He sort of agreed with me. In fact that’s probably what he said because that’s the way he talks: ‘I sort of agree with you.’ We both expressed our cynicism about the ‘scratch’ process, currently fashionable in the theatre world, while admitting that it’s quite pleasurable, as well as heartening, to receive the occasional pat on the back when the work is well-received. I have to say I feel slightly envious of Julian. He’s developed a distinct persona over the last ten years. It’s there again in his writing. Even if he changes the narrative voice from first person to third and calls the character Stephen you can tell it’s really him talking about his life and what’s happening to him and how he feels. I’m probably deluded in thinking I’m doing something different, because when I look back over my efforts I often end up crying ‘It’s just me, me, me.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I’ve thought about posting some material on this blog, but what would be the point? No one, apart from, occasionally, Julian Fox and the maverick theatre maker Chris Goode, oh and also very occasionally my friend and flatmate Patrizia Paolini, ever looks at the thing. For the last two weeks I’ve been suffering from writer’s block. I’ve developed an irritating habit of looking back and editing. When I get bored with moving words around and cutting them I’ll surf the internet and read interviews with writers and get depressed. Then I’ll download extracts from other people’s novels, read them and become positively suicidal. In the end I console myself by telling myself that this is what most writers do. Today, the second day of April 2012, I have been editing a passage to death. I’ve toyed around with it so much that it no longer resembles the original at all and I hardly recognize it as a product of my imagination. I thought I’d share it with you. Which is something I’m probably going to regret. Here it is. I should just tell you that the story is narrated by a successful television comedy actor called Philip Harding who is addicted to the internet. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Actually, I've decided there's no point in posting extracts from a novel in progress.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:13px;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi- Arial Narrow";mso-ansi-language:EN-GBfont-family:";font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi- Arial Narrow";mso-ansi-language:EN-GBfont-family:";font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-11567513738401647792011-12-12T13:44:00.000-08:002011-12-12T13:45:17.667-08:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">And who are you, anyway?</span>Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-14751563217329387782011-12-12T13:33:00.000-08:002011-12-12T13:43:56.784-08:00<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Work began today at the National Theatre Studio and here is a picture of one of our collaborators arriving late.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihbgpt8dIHEJusIBSF92oEH86sCQr27D9ZKT7QeaXf6zHYwkhpf_S4_u3xy6yFoKQf8aMSpb_0wFe1O0RjCMAotz7ZjlvW5cZhNW2dOZI5-6x3apIJtGk_p2QB3FeFpQVjq-P-TC7qWJ0O/s1600/100_7206.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihbgpt8dIHEJusIBSF92oEH86sCQr27D9ZKT7QeaXf6zHYwkhpf_S4_u3xy6yFoKQf8aMSpb_0wFe1O0RjCMAotz7ZjlvW5cZhNW2dOZI5-6x3apIJtGk_p2QB3FeFpQVjq-P-TC7qWJ0O/s200/100_7206.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685358771496804914" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">She gave me permission to use the photograph, so everything's ok. As to the work we did, well, I am not going to talk about that as I think it would be rather boring to do so. I haven't actually posted on this blog for over a year now. This is because I don't really like blogs. Also because I am not sure I have anything to say. Or rather I may have something to say but I'm not convinced that a blog is the best format in which to express it. The last time I wrote anything here it was about my irritable bowel syndrome. If that's what it was. I don't have it any more. Now I've got something else, but I'm not sure if this blog is the place to tell you about it. <br /></span><div><br /></div>Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-29967931558498973522010-09-14T14:52:00.000-07:002010-09-14T15:04:57.418-07:00Total FootballYes, I know. It's kind of dried up, this blog. Though the bowel openings haven't. I'm a little concerned about that as tomorrow I have a long haul flight to Australia, where I'll be in a version of Total Football in Melbourne Fringe. The last time I flew back from that part of the world I had to leave my seat and charge towards the toilet during landing. This time I have prepared a cocktail of Co-codamol and Solpadeine which I hope will knock me out and constipate me at the same time. And that is all I have to say for the time being. No one is reading this anyway, apart from Chris Goode. And he was only drawn to it because I mentioned him. Is that the way to get read? Mention people? All right. Gordon Brown, George Osborne, Lewis Hamilton. Who else has been in the news? Wayne Rooney (actually I've mentioned him before and he never got in touch). The TUC.Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-49386327977181880462010-08-17T04:55:00.000-07:002010-09-08T08:03:58.588-07:008am: banana, peppermint tea.<div>8.30am: mild explosion followed by another firmer one at 8.45</div><div>1pm: collection of small greasy stools at Liverpool Street Station en route to audition for Plan B's latest video.</div><div>2pm: ginger and apple juice and half a cream cheese roll</div><div>3.30pm: arrival and immediate departure from Plan B audition on being met by a swarm of young dancers spilling out of the Soho studio, all of them clutching a sheet of A4 with a number on it.</div><div>4pm: leisurely return to Hackney and no more emissions for the rest of the day. </div>Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-89770051202325626122010-08-10T11:42:00.000-07:002010-09-08T08:04:13.394-07:008am 2 bowel explosions; coffee.<div>12pm 1 more (explosion)</div><div>1pm cheese and ham sandwich on brown bread and bottle of sparkling water in Cafe Nero, Brixton.</div><div>3pm a collection of small loose stools. Perhaps it's lactose intolerance and not IBS. Or even Celiac Disease?</div><div>4pm Knotted sensation all afternoon</div><div>8pm Still not eaten. Glad I'm not doing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA2PnA9KuHA">The Poof Downstairs</a> in the Fringe after all, I'd only have to keep leaving the stage to do collections of small stools.</div>Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-17047561432570578612010-08-03T15:43:00.000-07:002010-08-18T12:25:45.768-07:00<b><div>Sunday 25th July</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">8am: 1 banana, porridge, peppermint tea</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">1.30pm: Omelet. Bread.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">3pm: two bowel openings while at gym</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">6pm: cheese and coleslaw sandwich</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">9pm: lentils, vegetables and rice</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div>Monday 26th July</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">8am: 1 poo on rising</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">8.15am: 1 tea, banana, porridge</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">8.45am: 2</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> more poos</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">12 noon: cappuccino and muffin</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">1pm: 2 poos in quick succession (10 minute gap)</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">6pm: Cheese sandwich (white bread) and chips</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">9pm: small amount of rice, lentils and vegetables. </span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">stewed rhubarb, camomile tea</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; ">Tuesday 27th July</div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">8am: tea, banana, porridge</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">8.30am: runny poo</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">10.30am: again</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">1.45pm: cheese sandwich, crisps, chocolate</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">3pm: diarrhea</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">5pm: yoghurt and banana smoothie, piece of cake</span></div></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">9pm: bread and cheese, rice, broccoli, nuts and tofu </span></div></b></span></div><div><b><br /></b></div>Wednesday 28th July</b><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">6.45am: peppermint tea, banana</span><br /></b>9am: Small loose bowel movement (not urgent)<br />9.30am:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Cappuccino & muffin<br /><div>12 noon:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>small, loose stools, but no urgency to go</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(same with earlier opening)<br />2.30pm:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>cheese & ham sandwich on brown bread, packet of crisps,</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>sparkling water<br />5pm:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>cheese roll (white bread)</div><div>9.30pm:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>rice & butter beans in tomato sauce, apple </div><div><br /><b>Thursday 29th July</b></div><div>6.45am:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>peppermint tea, apple<br />9am:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>omelet, bread roll & butter</div><div>10.10am:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>urgency to go after 10 mins on running machine in gym</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(many small loose stools)</div><div>10.25:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>urgency to leave running machine again,</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>though hardly anything came out.</div><div>1.30pm:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>cheese sandwich on brown bread </div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(on train to London Fields from Liverpool </div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Street Station), piece of white chocolate.</div><div>6pm:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>chicken leg, roast potatoes, salad<br /></div><div>8pm:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>a crumpet<br /></div><div>10.30pm:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>bread, cheese, salad<br /><br /><b>Friday 30th July</b></div><div>8am:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>poo (normal)</div><div>8.15am:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>black coffee<br /></div><div>9am:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>several small loose stools<br /></div><div>10am:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>small stringy poo</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-83793733354571785072010-07-03T03:23:00.000-07:002010-07-03T03:25:58.190-07:00The Cheap Cosmetic Surgery Capital of the WorldAlmost exactly two months ago today I was sitting in a cafe in Silom, the financial (also, some of it, the gay) district of Bangkok. The area‘s been in the international spotlight recently because the Red Shirt protestors set up an encampment just on the edge of it. A complete stranger came up to me. He said his name was Nut and he asked me if I would accompany him to his skin clinic. He was, he said, feeling a little apprehensive. Although only twenty-six, he had already had two operations on his nose. Nut is Thai, and like many Asians he wants to look like a Westerner. Westerners have larger noses than Asians. They also have lighter skin, hence the craze for skin lightening creams. You go into Boots in Silom to buy a moisturizer or facial scrub and unless you scrutinize the product carefully you will open it at home to find that it contains skin-lightening agents. Nut showed me photographs on his phone of his previous, pre-operation noses. I’m not sure I could tell the difference between any of them. It’s all relative, after all. Asians, to Westerners, have small noses generally. Some are flatter or wider or thinner, but they’re all small. Minor gradations may be discernible to fellow Asians but to the Westerner small is small. Nut’s nose had been made taller by a sort of hammering from within. No cutting had been necessary, just the insertion of a miniature club and the subsequent bashing outwards of the nasal cavity. Nut, though, was not happy with his taller nose and returned to his doctor in Silom to have cuts made either side of each nostril so that the skin cold be tucked in and sewn up. This resulted in a narrower nose. When I accompanied him on his third visit he extracted his iphone and showed the doctor a photograph. “There,” he told him. “That one. That’s the nose I want.” <br /><br />During the ensuing discussion the doctor showed us other examples of nose jobs on his computer, and as he scrolled down through a sequence of ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots Nut began to emit little yelps of surprise. “Oh,” he said, “there’s Pon! Oh, and there’s Ta! And there’s Ton!” The patients were mostly friends and regulars at a renowned local nightclub. There they all were with their taller and narrower noses or their larger eyes - another operation popular with Asians being double eyelid surgery, or ‘enhancement of the Asian upper eyelid crease.' This again turns them into Westerners. All very odd, actually. I’ve never heard of Westerners having their eyelids messed around with so that they resemble Asians ('slitty eye surgery'). <br /><br />Towards the end of this consultation it dawned on me that I was being talked about and pointed at. If I had something done to my eyes, a kind of sucking out of the fatty deposits beneath them, I would look ten years younger, I was told. Oh no, I couldn’t, I said. Only 50,000 baht (about 700 pounds), said Nut. Oh, is that all? I said. Well, in that case… After Nut had had some quick botox injections (painful, he said) we left the surgery, passing boys peddling ‘sex dvds’ to tourists. Exhausted, sweaty soldiers slouched against shuttered shop fronts and gazed idly on.Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-16675208857659526592010-06-28T11:44:00.000-07:002010-06-29T02:59:33.994-07:00Rude Boys Go to Westminster (working title)I have been prevented from sitting at the kitchen table and writing because there is cat vomit blocking the way. If Nicotine thinks that by throwing up between me and my writing surface she is going to stop me working on my treatment for “The Rude Boys go to Westminster” then she’s got another thing coming.<br /><br /> “The Rude Boys go to Westminster” is an alternative reality TV programme in which a group of handpicked lowlifes exchange places with politicians and spend a couple of weeks running the country. David Cameron swaps places with me and finds himself having to tip-toe from his attic room every morning, creep past the bedroom wherein lies the sleeping landlady and pick his prime ministerial way through the cat puke punctuating the kitchen floor.<br /><br />V.O: Clearing up Nicotine vomit in the early hours of the morning isn’t the kind of thing David Cameron’s used to doing.<br />CUT TO: David at the G20 Summit, looking bemusedly on as Angela Merkel cracks a joke, Berlusconi cracks his face, Barack beams and Sarkozy slaps everyone on the back. <br /><br />But there’s something more pressing than this: no one is reading my blog. You can’t even find it in search engines. According to my research it can apparently take a few weeks for your blog to start appearing in Google. But it nearly <span style="font-style:italic;">is</span> a few weeks and it’s still not there. I’ve consulted blogger Help and I’ve done what Help advised me to do, which is to send the link to my friends. Friends have clicked on it. Some have actually read it. I’ve even left a comment on someone else’s blog, gawd help me (or rather Help help me), but only because Help told me that the way to get your blog noticed is by leaving comments on other people’s blogs. The trouble is, though, that no one has commented upon my comment. Perhaps it was a non sequitur. Whatever it was I am now stuck with this problem: my posts are being shot out into the blogosphere but remaining for the most part unread. They are also missing Google by several miles.<br />Perhaps what I should do is regard this blog as a private journal that I’ve accidentally left lying around in the bathroom. It’s just a matter of time before someone chances upon it and has the temerity to open it. But this approach is fraught with danger. If I assume no one is going to read it then I will apply neither taste nor discretion to the writing, and then if they do read it (in the bathroom or anywhere else) and find themselves lampooned or bitched about I will end up being sued for libel. Or on the streets. <br />Although I’ve mentioned my l-lady and various individuals a few times here already, I have so far gone to great pains not to bitch, being aware that even if I am not consciously bitching it might come across as bitching. Which takes me back to The Westminster Fight Club for Rude Boys. I mean, sorry, Rude Boys go to Westminster.Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4605416373815497243.post-2972422638120411202010-06-22T04:09:00.000-07:002010-07-09T15:40:17.004-07:00The SnipI met an acquaintance I hadn’t seen for a few years. ‘What are you up to?’ she asked. ‘I’m waiting to be cut,’ I replied. She looked blank. I explained my fear of being made a victim of George Osborne’s fiscal sadism. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said, ‘I thought for a minute that you were waiting to have some operation. Like the snip.’ We laughed, it not occurring to us that we are all, in a sense, waiting for the snip, and if not the snip then an operation that will involve snipping. Danny Alexander, young enough to be my grandson, announced more snips the other day. I read the list before going to bed and slept very well as none of his snippings involved me. <br /><br />But I can’t talk about politics. I don’t know the language. I can’t talk about landladies either because they’d kill me. She’s gone away for a few days, my l-lady, leaving me to feed Nicotine. Which is not a euphemism for my smoking habit (I don’t have one) but an allusion to the cutting up of M&S organic chicken and the feeding of it to a seventeen-year-old cat called Nicotine who has reached that grand old age precisely because she’s been on a rigorous life-long diet of bran biscuits and responsibly sourced meats. But at least I don’t have to pay any rent. Well, not until the landlady discovers my blogging activities and her inclusion therein. Oh, let’s throw caution to the wind and assume that the l-lady will be delighted to find she is being blogged about. After all, there’s only one thing worse than being blogged about, and that’s not being blogged about. <br /><br />This is my sixth post and I still haven’t found a subject about which I can safely blog. There is IBS, of course, but is irritable bowel syndrome a suitable subject for blogging? To get to the point: have I got IBS? Does anyone, apart from me, <span style="font-style:italic;">care</span> if I’ve got IBS? If I feature in the list of cuts in today’s budget and all I am left with is IBS and blogging, then what hope is there? An IBS blog. That’s where the hope lies. Unless the blog is cut as well.<br /><br />Last Sunday I came perilously close to having a bowel explosion in the middle of Dalberg Road, Brixton. It would have been the fifth such incident in my lifetime, previous explosions having occurred in the queue for the boys' toilet in Mrs. Long's class at St. Winefride's Convent School circa 1968, in a disused outhouse on Battersea Rise, behind a stack of garbage cans outside a swanky Manhattan apartment block (significantly only a few weeks after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre) and, most recently, on platform 9 of Waterloo Station, where I found myself ducking down behind a workers’ hut one cold evening in 2001 and not so much opening my bowels as letting them have their say. Displaying great quickness of thought, I concealed the spreading lake of diarrhea beneath copies of The Evening Standard and Metro. The following morning I had to pass through the station again. I noticed, with a quiet satisfaction, that platform 9 had been cordoned off.Jon Hayneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17064920164464085546noreply@blogger.com0