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Today is November the fifth a day for plots and coup attempts, remember? Well today also marked the official launch of the National Theatre of Wales and boy did they do it in style. Not only were parties being thrown across Wales but Producer Lucy Jones and Artistic Director John McGrath shared the event online with people across the world. Let’s face it the Welsh know how to do Culture, in many ways they epitomise culture and ‘national’ they certainly know all about that, from fighting to retain their language and heritage, to forming their own Parliament to seeding their musicians, writers, actors and artistic talents across the world.
In fact, you have to wonder what kept them so long, well this was all explained at the launch and then we were treated to a filmic feast of what’s in store over the next year (2010) with live links to a school in Bridgend, an artist at the summit of Snowdonia another in a lighthouse and live chat from three young artists in the National Theatre social network chat room
http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/8344309.stm
The long and the short is that it is all very exciting and inclusive, as work will be truly national and taking place all over not just city-centric. For us social media queens and geeks there will be digital technology aplenty as the NTW embraces new technology and new ways of taking theatre and art to the people - I can’t wait, the ‘For Sale’ sign is up, my bags are packed and I’m moving (unless that is, train tickets get cheaper in which case, I’ll just commute as I still remember how ‘incomers’ holiday cottages were vandalised and burnt in the seventies).
Whatever, good art deserves a chance and next year I will at the very least, be winging my way to Port Talbot for the finale - Michael Sheens collaboration with poet Owen Sheers who will be staging a contemporary version of the towns ‘Passion Play’.
London’s National Theatre is just that, in London. The National Theatre of Wales promises to be much more, much, much more.
@ the Rootstein Hopkins Space, London College of Fashion last week for own-it and Stellar Networks seminar starring the very patient and extremely well-phrased lawyer Harry Karaolou from LG Legal. The event, ‘The Writer/Producer/Director Triangle - a guide to good practice of collaboration in Theatre’ didn’t disappoint. A rare event indeed when the panel has as many questions as the audience but ever since, my head has been full of ‘creative commons, trademarks, originators, copyright, performers’ rights’, and phrases such as, “asserting your moral rights”.
What can I pass on in a creative universe where more and more people are creating bodies of work through collaboration and shared experience? That it’s important to know your intellectual property from your development or design rights? You don’t want to make the same mistakes that members of the audience have done in the past, so at the get-go agree who does what and what is whose. Get an agreement, get i-p savvy.
Caught up with the Peter Hall Company for a matinee performance of ‘Enjoy’. I thought it was inspired to call a play ‘Enjoy’. Lots of jokes about that in the pizza restauraunt after the show when a pre-theatre party arrived and attempted to wolf down pasta and make the final bell before evening curtain-up.
I’ve mixed feelings about Alan Bennet these days, ever since I read the ‘History Boys’ I have an over-riding sense of an old man in a grubby mac. I know he writes fantastic dialogue and people say what a very nice man he is - not that I ever expect to meet him but ‘Enjoy’ was such an odd amalgamation of alienating concept and beautifully observed characters I couldn’t help but wonder if it was really written for television. Did I enjoy ‘Enjoy’? (sorry but I had to ask). In parts the story of the Craven family was moving, funny and entertaining but the museum idea, the distanced observation, the men (and woman) in grey suits didn’t work on stage - all totally superfluous to the central story of the Cravens, their lives and loves and death (well almost). Perhaps, like Margaret Thatchers idea of a ‘Poll tax’, in theory and way-back-when in the eighties it was written, it might have seemed clever and modern and workable. Sadly in the dim reality of the royal circle in the Theatre Royal Bath it didn’t. Well not for me at least, although other people were laughing, I suspect because they desperately wanted to - it has been such a grey, grey summer. I’m sure that actors love Alan Bennet for his detailed, beautiful dialogue, for his wonderful characters (especially the women) but I sat there and craved for the Cravens to be left unadulterated, untouched by the flim-flam of witty, clever invaders. I suppose when you’ve a large company of actors it’s no use using just five of them when you can bung a whole load on in the second act and wake up the old gents asleep in the circle. Oh well, I suppose it’s no suprise I ended up depressed by ‘Enjoy’ and back in Bath three days later at the Old Mortuary Chapel in Walcot Street to view an exhibition by sculptor and painter Gordon Dickinson and precocious young student Adam Crossland.
Gordon was once a coach-builder for British Rail but now creates giant steel horses for Primary Schools (and Swindon if they’ll only get their heads round it) and elegant eagles on silver birch poles poised to take flight but he also paints abstract pictures in rich yellows, oranges and browns. I was drawn (as I suspect many others have been) to his painting of a small teddy bear he found half-drowned in the middle of a road which he rescued and gave a home to - he has painted this bear stretched out on a vivid yellow background and entitled it ‘just holding on’. I also liked his black textured paintings of flowers, bold and exquisite from a distance, exploding off the canvas as you get up close. The venue was a wonderful bright and characterful place to be (reminded me a bit of Mrs Craven in Enjoy) and I desperately wished I could take the Teddy Bear painting home, although Gordon has since facebooked me a picture of one of his ‘Marcel Marceau’ paintings brilliantly capturing the expression of a man who spoke without words as he plucks with his thumb and forefinger a stream of colour, ‘magic’ from the air. The painting is entitled ‘when you find it, hold on to it’. Now I want one of those as well!
Adam’s work, in case you’re wondering was ‘precocious’ (especially in price), confident - painted on wood, cardboard probably done in no time at all and very …. well, it seemed angry to me but equally the sort of ‘illustration style’ stuff you’d see in magazines for the ‘teenage-to-twenty-somethings’ market and it worked well against Gordon’s sculptures and paintings.
As the rain poured down on Bath, I stood and looked out the chapel window to see a grey mist rise, whilst Gordon stirred my imagination with tales of his plans for an exhibition of souls based on his experiences of buying souls on ebay and the stories that have sprung from these mostly tongue-in-cheek transactions. Although I googled “souls for sale” when I got home and realise that there has been hot and heavy debate on this activity and ebay now no longer permits the selling of ones soul(before you rush off to the computer thinking that may just be what you need to raise this months mortgage payment). So, somewhat ironically, my spirits were raised in the old mortuary chapel by the thought of ’souls’ sold for a penny, the debate on the cheapness of life, the morality of it, the creativity and the care with which Gordon (owner of 50 souls) treats it and how he intends to return them intact via the angels of art (and his beautifully animated eagle sculptures). I wandered off, back down historic Walcot Street with my imagination fired, my creativity stoked, my soul touched (but still my own) - don’t be suprised if I become a partner in this venture and start promoting the exhibition any time soon.
Okay, so stepping away from the master-classes for a moment. I’ve just seen a preview of Daniel Craigs Brit-film ‘Flashbacks of a Fool’ and am resonating with the title, the story-line, the music and the locations - can’t wait (not that I am or have ever been, I hastily interject, any kind of movie star/ famous actor whose mouth is full of smart words and whose body is full of s****). My facebook friend Doug McFarlane, of UK Theatre Network and creator of ‘Making it in Hollywood’ sent me a message yesterday bemoaning the complete absence of British films at the Cannes Film Festival for the second year running (Frankly, if Sean Penn is the chair of the judges panel - should we be surpised?) Doug asks are we making good enough films in Britain ? Is the UK Film Council doing enough are we being too complacent? (see also www.britfilms.com) Probably. It should be easier to make a film in the UK - the Film Agency for Wales are busy blazing a trail - what’s to be done? Obviously it would be nice if all our acting talent didn’t trot off to LA for a better lifestyle and a living wage but then America’s bigger, the film industry older and more established, more varied with more choice and more money. Oh I don’t know I’ll have a good think about it whilst I’m watching ‘Flashbacks…’ at least I think I will, Daniel Craig is rather mesmeric on screen
