Don't look north...

I might make a fleeting appearance on the Humber's version of Look North jabbering on about new writing and Hull Truck tonight, if I've avoided the cutting room floor and they could salvage any words I might have said between the stuttering. If you're interested - and if you are you must be my mother - you can see it here give or take a few hyperlinks. This is one of several regular pieces about Truck as the new building braces itself for the company's arrival and also coincides with the venue's three-night long PlayWrite festival, which I'll be attending as a paying member of the public and not in the hope of someone coming up to me to tell me they saw me on the telly stammering for 6.7 seconds, nor to nobble all these new writers rising through the ranks (although, hey, there's an idea!).

Staged entry...

Yorkshire Post arts critic Nick Ahad is the latest poacher turned gamekeeper and makes his directorial debut tomorrow evening. I wish the toussle-haired gent well and hope he has a blast.

Walls come tumblin'...

Here in little old 'ull, we weren't too far away from the epicentre of the earthquake that struck in the early hours of Wednesday. That was followed by some serious gales on Friday night. Both of which resulted in trees falling, chimney stacks wobbling and walls tumbling. We had to steer around the rubble from the wall in the picture to the left on Saturday morning. My, how I cursed Mother Nature before I turned the car round to go and take the piccie.

Went to see Richard Bean's "literal metaphor for the shifts and alterations of life" - Honeymoon Suite - in preview at Hull Truck, catching up with the author for a couple of drinks before dropping him off at his hotel and rounding the evening off beautifully by backing into then over a garden wall, a scene with echoes, if you squint a bit, of the photograph above. My alibi? Collapse brought about by an aftershock. Or something.

Theatre business...

Cast went to extraordinary lengths and rolled into town today for a read through of the play (actor Ed went to the additional trouble of baking cakes!). Everyone was extremely enthusiastic and all went very well but, of course, there's still a lot of work to be done. Then we shot up to Spurn for a team excursion on the lifeboat, which was as fun a way of getting to know each other as can ever have been dreamed up. A very good day, wrapped up nicely by the theatre's Christmas party, which was our first night out of the house together since the arrival of the famous Finn.

Pure drivel...

John Prescott and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer announce their respective departures on the same day? Coincidence? I don't think so. Indeed, I think they're doing a job exchange - super sub Solskjaer destined to be parachuted in as the next Hull East MP, Prescott, with his working knowledge of strikes, taking his rightful place in the Manchester United lineup.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's not much happening round these parts. Picture on the right is a spot of messy tagging we saw at the side of the River Hull on our weekend riverside walk. Went to see Rupert Creed's Slavers last Friday and enjoyed Rupert's leftfield take on the over-egged theme (at last, a piece of work that didn't get bogged down in old Willie Wilberforce) and the superb execution by the youth theatre cast, who had a lot of words to chew on and spit back out. Hark at me, I sound about as objective as Jeffrey Archer after a night out at the theatre.