Lots of notes...

"It is a slow process of getting ideas. I work out very carefully what I am going to do before I write. I make lots of notes which are at least five times longer than the play itself. The actual business of writing always takes me by surprise and things that you thought were not going to be important turn out to be more important. I work everyday from ten in the morning until seven in the evening. But, on the last draft, I can work very long hours, sometimes typing throughout the day and night and I find it a great joy to do that although I don’t keep it up for a long while. After the first draft I will do five or six drafts before the play is complete."

Edward Bond - interview with Jim Mulligan

An unpopular subject...

"I don't get up every morning and say, 'Now, can I find some risks I have to take?' No. But, I don't think I've compromised either. I don't think I've ever said to myself, 'Gee, this is going to be an unpopular subject. Maybe I'd better not write it.' Or, 'Gee, maybe I'd better simplify here.' No. Nor do I do the reverse - try to make myself look better by making them more complicated. No. You write what's in your head.

"I don't rewrite. Well, not much. I think I probably do all the rewriting that I'm going to do before I'm aware that I'm writing the play because obviously, the creativity resists - resides - in the unconscious, right? Probably resists the unconscious, too - resides in the unconscious. My plays, I think, are pretty much determined before I become aware of them. I think they formulated there, and then they move into the conscious mind, and then onto the page. By the time I'm willing to commit a play to paper, I pretty much know - or can trust - the characters to write the play for me. So, I don't impose. I let them have their heads and say and do what they want, and it turns out to be a play.

"There is no such thing as 'the writer's life.' There is merely that time when you're sitting upstairs, or wherever you sit, and you're writing something. That's very special, and probably very individual for each person, too."

Edward Albee - Academy of Achievement interview (2005)

Spare ribs and crispy duck...

Proper blog block at the moment. Hence, partly, all those quotes, which are not posted to bore you but because I found them interesting. As I've said before, this is my place and if you must insist on dropping by you'll live by my lack of rules.

Went for late lunch yesterday with daughter Danielle, who was celebrating being 20 (late, because she was actually hungover at the alotted time, bless). 20?! Really hard to fathom where all those years went. We had John Prescott's favourite diner - Mr Chu's China Palace in Hull - to ourselves and filled up on copious amounts of rather good fodder. When we'd done we made some sham attempt to walk some of the food off by trotting around the shops across the way but it quickly became clear, as we coated touch screen monitors in PC World with the remnants of spare ribs and crispy duck that lurked on our finger ends, that it wasn't going to do any good. A nice afternoon, anyway, in the company of someone who I am incredibly proud of.

Now? Working on new things. Seeing as the old things...well...I better not get into that.

Yes, Yes, No, Yes...

"We used to go round to my mum's place in the evenings and we would write about three pages of Bob Hope type one liners, you know the sort of thing, “I wouldn't say my wife was fat, but….” And then we would take them round to Derek [Roy]'s flat. He would go through them one by one and say, Yes, Yes, No, Yes, No, No, then call his secretary in and say “Seven”. Out would come the cash box and we would get paid 35 bob. He'd say see you next week. Then Ray and I would walk down to the bus stop and I would hand Ray 17.6d (87.5p). We were professionals!"

Alan Simpson - Galton & Simpson interview with CulTV

No point hanging around...

"It’s a privilege to get to work on something that’s so completely absorbing. It’s terrifying, too. I have to get out of bed every day to make something happen. I wonder if I would have been capable of producing anything if I worked in a more conventional way with a pre-written script, because I’m of the procrastinator class. I could see myself waking up saying things like 'Today I’ll just have a reading day,' 'I think I need to see a movie today,' 'I’ll do the shopping first,' or 'I’ll just make another cup of coffee.' But because of the way I work, once the film goes into rehearsal, I’m out of bed and on site by nine o’clock every single day. There’s no point hanging around. I have to make it work for the actor. And when the project takes off it becomes immensely stimulating. It’s tempting, when the rehearsal process drags on for months, to think we’re doing all this work and have nothing to show for it. But at the end of the day, we create great material. It’s a powerful, gregarious, collaborative process."

Mike Leigh in interview with Believer Magazine (2009)

Not concerned with succeeding...

"When I was living in New York and didn't have a penny to my name, I would walk around the streets and occasionally I would see an alcove or something. And I'd think, that'll be a good spot for me when I'm homeless."

Larry David on life before Seinfeld in interview with bestcomedyonline.com

"I think the only thing that really worked in my favour, is that right from the beginning I really didn't give a f*ck whether or not the show was a success. That's not to say I didn't want to do good work, but I wasn't about to let myself be judged by network standards. When you're not concerned with succeeding, you can work with complete freedom."

Larry David - interview with Laugh Factory Magazine

Do something fun...

“What we worry about is whether or not it’s funny, pure and simple, because if you start worrying about what kids are going to like, then that’s different business. Some other people are in that business but Eugene [Levy] and I try to make each other laugh and do something fun and, you know, hope it works out. I think if you sit at home and start thinking about that then we’re out of our realm.”

Christopher Guest - interview about The Mighty Wind with Inside Out Film

Another new wheeze...

"My pictures are made without script or written directions of any kind. We simply figure out enough story to build sets around, then we pull our gags and 'quick stuff' in the set as we happen on the ideas. After we feel that we've shot enough to make about six pictures, we assemble it, rip out whatever is left of the 'story'--and make one picture out of what's left.

"I dread the day when we won't find another new wheeze to wrap up, when all the gags will have been sprung, when we're stumped for something new. That's what a comedian has to guard against: running out.

"We just wrap up a little hokum. We build up a little story on some sure-fire idea, throw in a dozen gags, if we can think of 'em, and let 'er ride. The scenario we use is written on the correspondence end of a picture post card. If it's lost its no great matter."

Buster Keaton - Six interviews with Buster Keaton in Taylorology

Afraid of what might happen...

"Much of our identity, as people and as writers, is made up of bits of old stuff that we cling to. We might not be convinced that they matter in our heart of hearts, but we're afraid of what might happen if we let them go. In theatre, it's time we let new writers be who they want to be, without forcing them to make artificial decisions about who they are and what they should write."

Dennis Kelly - interview with The Guardian (2008)

Social media began...

Social media? It seems to have been around forever to me. It was, perhaps, more exciting when it was illegal and involved lashing extremely long aerials to chimney stacks, taunting the authorities who didn't want us rampaging over their airwaves. In comparison, the internet seems a nice, safe place to be. Anyway, with apologies to Larkin and his popular toads...

Wonderful Year

Social media began
When I acquired my first CB
(which was rather early for me)
Between the start of senior school
And Ozzy Osbourne's Blizzard of Ozz LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A spate of glue sniffing and
Copious amounts of masturbation,
A shame that started at thirteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A handle and chat
An indecipherable jargon-riddled game

So social media began
When I acquired my first CB
(which was enormous fun for me)
It allowed me to stalk the airwaves
And talk incessantly.

A bit like industrial management...

"I do a lot of careful construction, I do a lot of thinking about what I'm writing, most of that thinking is trying to imagine exactly what things will be like for this particular character in this particular situation, and also trying to imagine how things actually work, what will actually make someone do something, why would they do this rather than that. I, whether that's thinking or whether that's imagination I don't know, somewhere on the borders of the two perhaps.

"...I've sometimes thought that writing a story is a bit like industrial management, you, you've got something you want done, there's a plot you want, you want carried out by the characters and the characters have got ideas of their own, just like a workforce, and you have to negotiate with them, persuade them, bully them, bribe them, in order to come to some compromise arrangement where they, their interests are respected and your interests are respected.

"...it is one of the sobering lessons of being a professional writer, as with so many other things, that you cannot predict public taste at all. You really do not know how other people will, will react to anything until it's happened."

Michael Frayn - interview with Radio 3

Crap...

"If I see a drama on at 9 o'clock on ITV, I'd never tune into it because I know it's going to be crap. I've tuned in to so much fucking shite over the years. You could say that about 9 o'clock on BBC1 too."

Jimmy McGovern - Interview with The Guardian (2006)

Rotting away...

Think I scared the life out of M yesterday when I took a detour and ploughed down the back streets of Hessle Road. We wound down the roads surrounding the ruins of Hull FC's old home the Boulevard. This area, which I spent a lot of time in and around as a young rugby league and speedway fan, is in serious decay. M had never seen any of these streets before. I doubt she'll want to go back in a hurry. Now, I'm sure some of the people that live in the houses of Cadogan Street, Camden Street, Gordon Street, Airlie Street and the rest are lovely. But, driving slowly down this once proud area, it looks and feels like a ghetto. This is the 21st century - how and why do we allow entire neighbourhoods to rot and disintegrate?


View Larger Map

With this road trip in mind we were both a bit shocked this morning when we checked the Hull Dreary Mail's website and were confronted with this - a story about the redevelopment of the site where the Boulevard just about still stands. The comments are insightful.

Sticking it out...

In town filming some footage for a Larkin25 project I'm involved with. A dearth of people with anything to say, other than "never heard of him". Then a chap outside of Waterstone's starts waxing lyrical. "There's that Nick Cave song, yeah? Where he talks about Larkin being stuck in the library in Hull. I find it amazing that there's this songwriter from Aussie writing about a poet from Hull, don't you?"

Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles
while writing Das Kapital
And Gaugin, he buggered off, man,
and went all tropical
While Philip Larkin stuck it out
in a library in Hull
And Dylan Thomas died drunk in
St Vincent's hospital

from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' There She Goes, My Beautiful World

Get a job...

"I think writing is a very selfish, obsessive game. I think writers have to be very single minded about their own stuff, and the whole concept of it being taught doesn’t actually really sit that comfortable with me, you know what I mean? I think a lot of these programs have emerged now and I don’t think you should let anybody under thirty on them. I think for older people they work, but for younger people I keep saying 'Just get a job,' or 'If you want to be a writer, get a job and have something to write about or do a course that’s going to give you some knowledge rather than writing skills,' like...

"People like Will Self and Chuck Palahniuk, they’re just writers, nobody has to tell them or show them how to do creative writing. They’ll just batter away at it until they find their creative voice, until they find something that works for them and then they’ll go off with it, you know...

"...it’s like Ray Bradbury said, 'In the writing game you jump off a cliff and then you construct your wings on the way down and you just hope you get a good working pair before you hit the ground.' And I think that’s the way it is, you’re just trying to see what works every time you’re doing it."

Irvine Welsh - intervew with Bookslut (2006)

Away to the grocers...

"I don't see any work by an artist as trying to encapsulate everything in a oner. You can relax and write a few plays, novels and stories, and eventually it's the body of work that adds up to what you do. I don't have any interest in putting everything in one play with a massive statement. If you want a message, away to the grocers, get your messages there.

"The problem in contemporary theatre is the influence of television. There is an interrupted rhythm because people write thinking there's going to be a break for adverts. Things aren't sustained, the idea of real time is gone and the whole drama from conversation is gone."

James Kelman - Scotland on Sunday interview

I find too much sex...

"I find the constant rudery depressing, and I find the shit and fart jokes endless. I find too much sex, I find these things not put in a particularly funny context. I always say farting isn’t funny in itself, but it’s funny in a wedding reception, or a dinner party or in church. I watched an episode of The League of Gentlemen but I watched one that was particularly revolting, with exploding dogs and everything. I couldn’t quite take it. People tell me if I’d watched any other episode I’d have loved it.

"Comedy is very difficult to read on the page. I think it’s very difficult to judge a script. I can’t believe there aren’t the writers around, I think there are. Sometimes the wrong decisions are made."

David Nobbs - interview with The Idler

Mediocrity has always been praised...

"I hope people write better plays. That's all I can hope. But I doubt if they will. Rubbish is always being produced through the ages, mediocrity has always been praised. That's simply what happens and most plays are only really liked in retrospect and hindsight.

"Formally, I'm trying to collapse a few boundaries as well. To carry on with making the form and content one. That's proving to be extremely difficult, and I'm not going to tell anybody how I'm doing it, so if any of you get there first I shall be furious."

Sarah Kane, interview by Dan Rebellato (1998)

Aware of this paradox...

"...writing remains private and theatre remains public. I'm always aware of this paradox that I am somebody who likes to do something private but is actually quite addicted to public exposure - the risk, perhaps ... When we're talking about risk in theatre, we're not talking about serious, life-threatening risks. We've got to keep this in perspective."

Martin Crimp, interview with The Guardian (2007)

What the mind can think of...

“When you dramatise mental states, your limits are only what the mind can think of. You can have humour, and surprising shifts in tone. You can have songs. You can have dance.

"My shows are very accessible. I’ve never believed that experimentation means unpopularity.

"...what you want to see is something that moves you, that provides spectacle but also food for thought.”

Anthony Neilson Interview with The Times (2007)

Poetry and motions...

At the beginning of July I took part in the Joe Hakim, Mike Watts and Cilla Wykes' organised Write To Speak Larkin-fuelled writing experiment They F**k You Up. To say I was out of my comfort zone and was stupidly nervous is something of an understatement. It was a brown trouser day for sure. Although, pop a mic in my hand and I can generally get away with it. So, because many of you didn't bother turning up, here's one of the poems I performed that night:

Without other people...

"All writers are ecstatics, which is why we can be seduced by the siren calls of addiction or extremism. Sartre said that there are three kinds of writers: writers who write for God, writers who write for themselves, and writers who write for other people. I write for other people. The play doesn't reside in heaven, or in a library. As a dramatist, that's your instinct: without other people, the play doesn't exist."

Howard Brenton - A life in theatre (The Guardian)

Thinspiration...

A play. In the nice, tight confines of the studio at Hull Truck. A Humber Mouth Special Commission. Yes, I know, it's not the first. Send your letters of complaint re nepotism etc. The chance to work with two of my favourite creative types and, shucks, long-term collaborators. A capacity crowd. Again, not the first. Such a shame that it was a one off but, well, who knows what might happen?A piece of work covering the issue of 'eating disorders' although, really, just a story about a young woman coming to terms with everything. As for my workmates, what a pleasure to work with they are. Who knows what might happen to award-winning Rachel Helen Shaw, our performer and an awesome, awe-inspiring talent, next? And Lee Green, our director, who ain't so bad himself. The whole experience was, well, just that, an experience. It's given me back some of the confidence that has been chipped away of late due to...well...I better not say. If you did see Thinspiration, thank you very much. If you didn't, silly you, although I'm hoping you'll get the chance some other time. You could always download the script if you're interested.

Hanging about...

Day of the production. Lots of hanging about. Watch a run of the play at 11am. Rachel, I think, is amazing. It's in good shape. Nothing for me to do except act the class clown - a role I've spent my entire life perfecting. Lee and Rach have had to do all of the hard work; writing this thing was the easy bit and they've turned it into a piece of theatre. There's a certain irony when Rach eats a huge hot dog mid-afternoon. I settle for x2 little boxes of veggie sushi. Mr Green doesn't eat anything. Even when directing he's 'method'. I don't think my presence helps much so I skip off, during the lull before we can actually get in the space, to change out of one set of black clothes and into another. I pick up some insignificant, consumable gifts for the two people I'd like to continue to work with. Pre-show, several people tell me I look worried, stressed, a little bit confused. I wonder why that is?

And woosh. It's been, it's gone. Another transitory chapter amid the ephemeral nothingness that is life as a playwright. Not sure I will ever leave a mark. But I like the way it makes me feel. Sometimes.

Losing bits...

Busy chewing fingernails and generally running around for props. Scored a huge piece of carpet that now fills the car. Picked up a Chevelle mirror yesterday. Other stuff for dressing the set is now packed in a nice, tidy box. I've not actually seen a run of Thinspiration yet. Which, in addition to the general feeling that I've forgotten to do something massive, is another reason to chew fingernails.

Information enema required...

Not for the first time I've been overwhelmed by books on shelves. It's usually a moment that attacks me in Waterstones when their schlocky, bathos-addled brand of classical muzak is humming away in the background. Indeed, I put it all down to those strings. Anyway, there I was in Hull's Central Library - a mostly tuneless place - when it happened again. Granted, I'd just been interviewed about the play and was trying to get over that trauma thus was in something of a shaky state of mind. But, as I stood there, reading snippets of the collected works of Anthony Neilson and seeing that wealth of information on the shelves around me, a wealth of information that I knew I could never absorb in its entirety, there it was again, sweeping over me. There must be a word for it. I could probably have found that word if I'd hung around the library. Instead, I popped the Neilson book back in its place and shuffled out of there. Does anyone else feel like this? Or is it just me?

What do you look for in a play?..

I do read other newspapers. Just that all that good stuff is in The Guardian.

What do you look for in a play?

"I want to be educated, surprised, moved, amused and deeply involved. It happens about one in every 100 times."

Portrait of the artist: Edward Albee, playwright

Find a play...make a show...

Just seen this from The Guardian the other day. Hull Truck founder Mike Bradwell speaking the truth. Great stuff - can't wait to read The Reluctant Escapologist: Adventures in Alternative Theatre

"...the biggest single area of growth in theatre has been in the relentless expansion of the administrative and entrepreneurial classes. Indeed it seems that the history of the last 50 years of British theatre forms a perfect arc. The first 25 years were devoted to the struggle of artists and practitioners to get their hands on the means of production. The second 25 were spent watching management and executive claw them back.

"I want to remind theatre-makers that it is possible and even desirable to make their theatre outside the warm embrace of the theatrical establishment.

"...I would still like to think that, lurking in a dark alleyway round the back of every new £15m glass and steel culturally non-elitist Shopping Mall Playhouse and Corporate Entertainment Facility is a gobby and pretentious 20-year-old with a passion for real theatre, a can of petrol and a match."

So, what are we waiting for?