Wednesday 28 March 2007

I Kick My A*se!



Things move on a theatrical pace. I go see another Business Adviser at Birmingham Central Library. Libraries, by the way are Good Places. Use yours as much as you can, so you don't lose it! So I'm sitting there at a screen in the glass bubble of the Central Library business bit and looking through a database of organizations that give funds. And I'm struck by the fact that I'm running out of dosh and I gave myself 6 months to decide the best way forward for me and my demanding mistress maverick and that time runs out at the end of March. Sort of now-ish! So it's time to just do it, as the TV ad says. Just do it Nick. So now I'm going to focus on what I can achieve by the end of this year. I get back home and fire off e-mails at a savage rate. Maverick will be a full Independent Theatre Council member by the end of the month, a non-profit distributing Limited Company and possibly a charity by the end of the year. And Henry V - Lion of England will have completed a national tour by Christmas. The other irons I have in the fire can take their place in the queue. If they work out, all well and good. If not, then at least Maverick will be making work. Good. Thats better. Just do it Nick, you prat.


With a lilt in my step, I jump in me Renault Reliant and drive down to London for the weekend to see the lovely Anne acting in a short ten minute play, written by a ten year old. There are about twenty such pieces, all written by children and presented by a charity in Camden. The results are original, refreshing and often hilarious. I'm struck particularly by how good all the actors are, and Anne's portrayal of a Robin is spot on. Surreal but believable with perfect movement. Her comic delivery is impeccable, too. An enjoyable afternoon. We all retire to a pub in Camden and get gently twisted!

On Monday I have a photo shoot for a press release I'm working on, dwalink. Well all right, when I say photo shoot, I mean Rebecca takes a snap on me camera phone in the beer garden of the Roebuck Pub on Chiswick High Road. The result of our 'photo call' is top right on this page. Just don't tell anyone!

PS Just shows you what a small world this theatre lark inhabits. As I'm leaving the theatre in Camden, a voice shouts out,
"Nick Hennegan, what are you doing here?"
It's Jez, an actor who trained with an ex-girlfriend in Birmingham last century! Nice bloke. Small world!

Thursday 22 March 2007

The Festival of Multiple Birth Locations


London. Where the festival took place. Tony Blair's office. For now(above) . He wasn't invited though.

And the Navy were ready in case Nick or Michael had too much to drink. (Above. A Big Navy Boat. With Guns.)

After the Festival Of Multiple Birth, Nick considered walking along the River Thames from the Chelsea embankment (above) to Chiswick. But it would have meant too much walking in a straight line, so he jumped on a night bus instead. God Bless Ken Livingstone.

Sunday 18 March 2007

The Festival Of Multiple Birth, Old London Town.

Very showbiz this week, loves. Oh yes. It was The Festival Of Multiple Birth, your see, so I celebrated down The Smoke. Although I also had a chat with a director about a brand new production as well, so it wasn't all high jinks.

The Festival Of Multiple Birth, as I like to call it, is the celebration of the birthday of three actor friends all within one week of each other. All three went to the Webber Douglas Academy with my other 'alf, Rebecca. The Webber D was a fine institution, that alas, after over 100 years, fell foul of commercialism and died an ignoble death just a few months ago. But like the other big, famous London drama schools, RADA, LAMDA, Central et al, most of the students that went there were all of a high quality. There are nearly 1000 potential thesps competing for each place at the Top 5 London schools apparently - and don't get me started about the obscenity of ending vocational grants for drama students. That's for another time, perhaps. But you should know that,

1. I like Drama Students and...

2. Although I'm waving the flag for the West Midlands, I also love London.

So the Festival Of Multiple Birth offers me an annual chance, along with the Boat Race and other great British Events, to combine two of my passions. Or three, if you include my woman, of course, who lives in Chiswick. (She's also a Brummy. But went to London and stayed. Something I'm hoping to address with the New Maverick Theatre.)

So I record a radio show at The Arrow, then jump in me Renault Retard and pootle down the M40. Fortunately there's a parking space on the drive outside our house. When I say our house, I mean the Bedsit With A Bog we inhabit inside the house with about 4 other people. Afford a house on Chiswick High Road. I wish!

We jump on the 27 bus which whisks us almost directly to the Gastro Pub where we are meeting for the 2nd Birth Event. It takes us an hour and I'm reminded again how BIG London is. (London is big. World copyright N. Hennegan!) One of the birth trio, the beautiful, talented and VERY organized Anne, has managed to track down a '2 courses for a tenner' offer in a newspaper. Very few actors can ever afford to turn down an offer.

Because I'd been on the radio, I'd missed the 1st Birth Event on Friday, a Barndance! Young and funky apparently! But the 2nd Birth Event event, although more intimate, with just the 3 Birthday celebrants and Rebecca and me, was very pleasant. We had a nice gastro meal for a tenner and a couple of glasses of wine and then, this being London and a Saturday night, realised it was going to be impossible to get a drink after 11pm. Where are the hordes of drunken rioters the right wing press predicted? In bed, probably. We eventually found a bar that stayed open till (shocked gasp!) midnight! The Monsters! I expect civilization to collapse around Paddington any day now. Caroline, the second of the birth trio teamed up with Anne to find a night club. A formidable duo. Anne, tall, blond and beautiful and Caroline with her cascading dark hair and flashing Celtic eyes, also beautiful but looking about 14. She is blessed with uncanny youth and it's no surprise to know she has done many recordings as Doctor Who's assistant.

Michael, the third of the Birth Trio, got so spannered the night before he decides not to accompany the chicks to a club and save himself for the the Third Birth Event, an all day party on Sunday. Michael is an attractive mix of boy band looks and Northern sensibility with a keen interest in world affairs. He's also the most famous Son of Leyland currently working in the West End and a sharp actor too, although he's been more on the technical side for the last few years.

So he and we head home having completed the Second of the Three Birth Events and I'm struck again about how nice the Birth Three are. It's a bit of a fiction, in fact a lot of a fiction about actors being queeny and demanding. There is perhaps a vulnerability and insecurity with some - god, you try working for the money and conditions most actors have to work for - but nearly all the actors I've come across over the years are warm, considerate friendly people.

Rebecca and I walk to Barnes on Sunday and have a leisurely pint watching the second half of the England v France rugby game. I'm impressed. Not just with the Rugby, but with Rebecca. She doesn't really Do Walking.

On Monday I'm to meet a theatre director, Chris, in a coffee bar in Soho to talk about a play about a famous comedian we want to tour in the Autumn of 2008. I still get a thrill walking and working in London. The first time I met Chris, a few years ago, we sat outside a small unpretentious Italian restaurant in Belgravia. As we were talking, Chris nodded to two people passing. One looked strangely familiar. When I felt it appropriate (I was very nervous talking to a big shot London director. Well you would be, wouldn't you!) I casually asked who they were.

"Oh, that's Edward. You know, Prince Edward. And his detective." and although we continued to talk about a proposal for another new work I really wished me Mom had been here!

Chis drops another bombshell this Monday. I'm telling him about Henry V - Lion of England and the tour this autumn. I ask him for his ideas about casting if the actor I've approached can't do it. Does he know anyone?

"I have the perfect person in mind," he smiles. "The ideal actor for Henry V - Lion of England would be you!"

Me? Blimey. Didn't see that one coming.

Saturday 10 March 2007

Goodbye, Michael Palin. I'll miss you. Perhaps.

You can now comment directly on this blog. I diddled a digit and wangled a widget and it now means you don't have to sign up or anything to leave a comment on this space. Democracy Rocks. As long as I say so!

My plan to conquer the theatrical world suffered a small hiccup this week. On Wednesday the phone rings. It's the printer in Birmingham. "Nick, those Henry V - Lion of England touring brochures we sent urgently to London last Friday for distribution by the tour booker. They've come back to Brum. They're sitting in front of me now. The courier couldn't find the address". Welcome to the World Of Theatrical Production. It got sorted, of course, but aggro always seems to follow productions.

And talking of dramas, I heard the first half of a new play on Wednesday. Stephen Jackson is a writer who I got to know from putting on plays at the Billesley Pub in Brum. Stephen attended the marvelous playwriting M.A. established by David Edgar at Birmingham University and got to know me at the Billesley over a cheeky beer or two. (By the way, one of the top New Writing theatres in London once described Stephen as "one of the top twenty playwrites in the U.K." So obviously, that's why he's never had a play commercially produced. Cursed, you see.) His style didn't suit what I was trying to achieve at the Billesley at that time, but he's a brilliant writer and he once knocked up a new children's Christmas play for us in ten days for a one off performance at the N.E.C. I hope to incorporate that play about a rather bossy but loveable little girl, Margy, into the Maverick canon one day. He's also had success with a children's book, called 'Mirrorworld'. It's very clever and not only did Steve write it, he also illustrated it. So Stephen has this new play. He brings it round to my tip... sorry, house... and reads the first half. A bit overlong, but very enjoyable with some marvelous comic situations. I won't say too much here, in case Stephen kills me for blowing his plot. We then go for a pint and a smoke at the Hare & Hounds. Neither of us actually smokes any more, but the nicotine fog is so severe at the H&H I reckon I inhaled a packet of ten. Roll on the smoking ban in July! In the pub, Stephen stops choking for long enough to make the comment, "So that's the SECOND play you've read in your house then." Second? Oh yes, of course. The first play, coincidentally, was Henry V - Lion of England! I only knew one actor then, so I got him round to read my script out loud. On that instance we pushed the furniture back and started to block some action as well. Robert Stanson, the actors name. A good lad. The first time I met him was at a party and he nearly threw up on me and so for ever more was known as Rob Vomit! He played Henry in Edinburgh to great acclaim. I think he's given up acting now and probably vomiting, to pursue his other great passion, motorbikes. Last I heard he was doing something with Triumph, lucky sod!

I also, rather sadly, said goodbye to my best friend Michael Palin this week. I finished his diaries and left him, poised on the cusp of the 1980's reflecting on whether he'd had his creative peak. I shall miss him and his wife, Helen and his children and all his friends, Python and non-Python. I've even stopped hating him for being so successful now, so familiar have we become over the years 1970 - 79. I suspect a sequel, but I already miss my daily fix of Palin. So I shall do what any other jilted person would do in these circumstances. If M. Palin can no longer satisfy me, I shall rebound. I already have my lustful eye on another Best Friend. He seduced me with a cheeky little book title - Will and Me. I was further titillated by the temptation of owning a signed copy from last summer's Edinburgh Book Festival, the tease. His name is Dominic Dromgool. Coincidentally, he's also recently replaced Mark Rylance as the new Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. And I'm sure he'll welcome me with open... er... pages. Palin? Palin who.

Tuesday 6 March 2007

A Brilliant Response, Michael Palin.

I've had a great response this week to the e-mail I sent out announcing this Blog.

Our e-mail list is really small, but not only did I have over half a dozen messages of good will, but also an e-mail from a brilliant Los Angeles based producer, Gerry, about possible work in South Africa. Then the Waterside Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon phoned and said they'd heard about us and would we like to go back there this autumn, bless 'em. Then another e-mail about a potential for eight months work at the fabulous Shakespeare's Globe. And Penny (Tour Booker extraordinaire) phones and says that just a quick conversation with a London venue was enough to interest them in at least a couple of nights of Henry V - Lion of England. How fab is all that!

I'm so elated I spend some time with my new friend Michael Palin. Or at least his diaries, which I am currently reading and using as a cleverly written self-help aid on how to be a self-employed artist working from home. Without, of course, Mikey's success. Or talent. Or family. Or Oxbridge education. Or money.

Then the thought of money brings me rather crashing to earth. I've finished my first attempt at a business plan and circulated it to (read Foisted Upon) a few trustworthy business friends for comment. But I realise that I've used up nearly all my working capital. I'm living on the money earmarked for a new kitchen back when times were fiscally easier. Better do something about that, or the mortgage will suffer and this suddenly popular Peddler of Bill Shaky will be receiving all these marvellous offers in a tent on Billesley Common!

I casually and perhaps rather heartlessly throw Michael Palin to one side, poor love.