I'm on a diet...

Today I was mostly in pain of the whiplash variey. People telling me how many thousands of pounds I can claim for the injuries I've suffered is getting quite boring. As are the endless monologues about other people's car crashes. On advice, I'm on a diet of Ibruprofen and Paracetamol, although feel something stronger might be in order.

Tonight, Thinspiration returned for another one-off performance in the studio at Hull Truck. All went well. Lots of interest in our post-show Q&A. Mother didn't come to the show. Her excuse: "I've seen it before."

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?

Post Loot...

Went to see a preview of Loot at Hull Truck Theatre - which was excellent so by the first night audiences will be in for a real treat - and, afterwards, having grabbed a quick chat with Truscott of the Yard (Chris Connel, outstanding as one of the Water Board's finest officers), we headed over to The Old English Gentleman. We forgot that the Rocky Horror Picture Show is also in the city (at the New Theatre) and, almost as soon as we sat down with beer in hand, were entertained by an endless procession of outrageously dressed (and outrageously drunk) guys and gals that streamed by. In our Orton frame of mind this freaks' roll call seemed a rather fitting end to the night.

Bean here now...

I went into Tesco for a Cornish Pasty, an ink cartridge and a die-cast police car for Finn. Which I got. I also bumped into Hull's award-winning playscribe Richard Bean, in town for rehearsals of his new play Pub Quiz Is Life. "Will it offend me?" I asked Richard Bean. "You probably won't be interested," said the award-winner, "it's about east Hull."

Gagging for it...

Back in June 2004, we were getting all involved with the Humber Mouth (via the writers' group at Hull Truck that we were a part of) for the second year running, having had our toe-in-the-water ten minute plays aired at the previous year's festival - which took place in October 2003. We were still dreaming of becoming playwrights back then, unaware that we already were. Gagging For It, which played to a lovely, up for it, capacity audience in the studio at Truck last night, completes a bit of a circle, I think, and sets us up nicely for the next stage in the journey.

I could do without the comedown. It is just how it is, but it's no way to feel after what was a bloody good night and a damn good working experience with some extremely talented people. I know it's coming - I've known that since October 2003 - but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. In fact, it makes it even worse. Last night, for 60 minutes and a nice round of applause, we truly existed in the space we belong. Today it's all gone away. And we have to begin again. F**k.

Truck, 2009 model...

When I trotted around the new Hull Truck last week I took some photographs but agreed to respect the press embargo, not that this 'ere blog is a member of the press, nor has any readers. Besides, the pix were mostly for my own benefit, so I could keep reminding myself of the space I'm writing for. In all honesty, my snaps were pretty lousy. If you want to get a real glimpse of the innards, Ian's got some nice ones on his flickr pages.

In with the new...

So, yesterday I got to glimpse the future. Well, the sparkly, not-yet-used auditoria at the new Hull Truck. If ever there was a kick up the arse to make my current commissions for said theatre company the best work I've ever penned it was walking into those two spaces. I do believe that my Artistic Director pal smiled somewhat sadistically when he heard my nervous cry of "f*cking hell!" upon walking into the main house. I got to romp about on the stage, test the new seats, and explore the rest of the building. The third most performed playwright in the country was on one of the building's many sun terraces, sitting on a little folding camping chair (a slightly absurd sight). I complimented him on his new world class facility. "We didn't do bad for the money," he said.

See you on the other side...

We trotted along to Hull Truck last night to say au revoir, ta-ra and goodbye to the old place and catch up with a few Truck faces 'n' friends. The beer flowed a little too quickly, due to some pleasantly silly prices that proved impossible to resist. There were lots of people there with an emotional attachment to the building and one last Bouncers and all that ale was a fitting, if alarmingly drunken, farewell. Exciting times lay ahead, as Hull Truck and its audience moves from this:

To this:

Flagging it up...

Went to see the last night of The Flags. Truck is something of an oven when the weather outside is hot - as it was tonight - so I had to take a lot of fluids on board throughout Bridget O’Connor’s play. It was quite an achievement to not have to head to the gents to empty the bladder and it would have been a shame to have missed any of the scattergun Oirish dialogue and fine performances from a cast I also saw perform down the pub the night before.

Witnessed some thrilling urban crime this afternoon. A gang of bare-chested, tracksuit bottom-clad urchins on bikes caused a bit of mayhem by dashing into a chemists to do a spot of shoplifting. A couple of them were caught and the rest pedaled up the road on their fine two-wheeled getaway vehicles but, in a peculiar show of criminal solidarity, turned back round when they realised their mates hadn't followed them. One of the returning gang decided to offload his booty outside the chemists (obviously not blessed with a fully-functioning brain, this petty criminal) and, after some tampering with his tracky bottoms, around 20 aerosol cans dropped on to the pavement. Great to watch, all very comedy sketch. Then the rest of the gang went into the chemists to cause mayhem. I was thinking of stepping in to this situation but, before I could, a posse of muscular lookin' gents and a loudmouthed woman crossed the road from the public house opposite to enforce some good old fashioned vigilante intervention. Not that Killing Time would recommend such action. Although very nice to see people doing what's necessary while the police are busy doing their paperwork (10 minutes later and there was still no sign of any police response, despite lots of people phoning to alert them).

A night in...

Three consecutive nights down at the theatre, supporting PlayWrite. The best piece - of 28 slices of new writing - was a comedy about sheep. I was right about the TV appearance and my allotted screen time was somewhere in the region of six seconds. I gesticulated wildly towards the bottom of the screen. Mother: "You weren't on for long, were you?" The actual clip is here.

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!).

Concrete block...

The new home for Hull Truck has well and truly made its mark on the skyline now. I've been promised a site tour soon which will be pretty useful given that I'm writing some new pieces with the intention of them being performed in what is, right now, just a hefty slab of concrete in my mind. A quick glance at a contract reminded me that I need to get my finger out soon. Unfortunately, this nonsense that I'm involved with during the day to ensure that I can at least make some token inroads into the outstanding bills is getting in the way of any creative thinking right now.

To town for some lunch. We were a party of six and the order at this simple tavern selling simple Sunday fayre seemed very simple to deliver to simple old me. Somehow, they (the tavern) managed to mess things up. The waitress seemed to pin the blame on me for incorrectly ordering food that I didn't want, despite me holding in my hands a piece of paper (ie an itemised bill) that suggested that I knew exactly what I was doing. I started to tell her where she'd gone wrong when she walked off, citing "this food I'm holding in my hands is getting cold while you make up your mind what you want. I'll take it back to the kitchen" as an excuse for her about turn. Which stopped me in my tracks before I could let a tirade of Larry Davidisms spring forth. Shame. It would have been fun. We got our revenge by stealing lots of sachets of sauce.

Listening: Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles; The Kooks - Konk.

Shameless self-promotion #2,389...

Another "official" blog by me is now up on the Hull Truck website here. No prizes awarded to the first person that notices how adept I am at recycling words.

Go, Lewis Hamilton, go! No! No! What am I saying? Motorsports are even more tedious than rugby union!

Tags: On A Shout, blogs, Hull Truck

Shameless self promotion # 1,078...

My latest 'official' blog is now online at the Hull Truck website here.

Tags: Hull FC. writing, Hull Truck, On A Shout

Omnipresence...

As if all these tedious ramblings aren't enough, I now have yet more web presence and more blog space, over on the Hull Truck website, where I am, rather retrospectively in the first instance, harping on about where the idea for On A Shout materialised. In a hasty decision mumbled across a green room, I have pledged to write an entry at least once a month for the venue between now and the first night and I anticipate a huge response from the public!

Met eldest son in town. He's 15 tomorrow so I handed over the necessary in exchange for five minutes of his valuable time. We ate hot dogs, which are touted at Hull's major shopping mall as 'the taste of Europe', although, of course, we now associate hot dogs with ball parks and obese Americans, rather than the more svelt European. My hot dog was topped with chopped dried onions, an addition that quickly dropped off as soon as I started eating. In the mall I also managed to catch sight of a pair of trainers that my daughter is insisting we buy for the baby, as she's keen to indoctrinate unborn children with her personal brand preferences. Daughter reckons that if she had size 1.5 feet she would wear these herself, although I think that's the kind of behaviour that would probably get a 17-year-old girl laughed at (velcro? at your age?) and, if she did have size 1.5 feet, I'd've made her join the circus and she wouldn't be able to afford such luxurious footwear.