Funky Beans

I want to move to a village called Hatherton in Leicestershire. Not only does it have an annual pie and bottle kicking excursion, but it holds a scarecrow festival in September of each year. However, its probably far too isolated, not nearly quirky enough for me and not quite as fun as Robbie Coltrane makes it sound on a Sunday afternoon.

In other news I seriously doubt the play. All my plays and things start off with an incoherent stream of symbolism, patterns, visuals and passages, the odd character and (if I am very lucky) a setting or complete first scene. This one is more random, less coherent, and more chaotic and with no direction or indication as to where it will go… and pen has not even reached paper yet!

I think the problem is that I do not feel the need or urgency of writing it, simply because no time has passed between this and Alcatraz. However there is a very real and physical urgency to write the play, even though a metaphorical or artistic one has not surfaced. Perhaps it has but I just have not seen what or where it lies yet?

Nevertheless it’s filling me with a very serious despondency about the play. I suppose that’s good for the mood of the whole piece. I looked at an advert in yesterday’s Guardian for three plays at The Royal Court today. They were entitled The Ugly One, Free Outgoing and Gone too Far. They all looked either kitchen sink inspired Indian family dramas, domestic violence comedies and BBC-Urban Yoof plays. Not exactly inspiring when you think about variety and spice in theatre. It’s similar to as if Ayub Khan Din was considered new and interesting and in-yer-face theatre was original in this day and age.

On the reading note I heard a very funny retelling of the nativity story last night which cheered me up a tad and Robin Johnson’s Broken Holmes script can keep me company on the way to London.