All bow. My bag on Joan's desk. Her actual, real desk!
We're all going to die, right? I mean, we have no option. All we can hope for is a long easy life and a short easy end. Now I'm 50 years old, I should be thinking about retirement, maybe. A serene dotage. My mate, Fat-Belly Norton certainly is. But then Brian has had a 'proper' job all his life, with a career path and a pension. On one hand, I envy him. On the other hand, I think I'm just the right age to start a new career.
So I'm now a student. I'm going to University!
There are a couple of things this brings up. Firstly, they accepted me on this MA. Something of a miracle as I've not troubled the education sector much since I failed my 11 plus. You're supposed to have a good degree or experience. Guess which I had. Then another fact I overlooked - I am the first person in my family to attend Uni. It didn't really occur to me until I told Dad what I was going to do.
"University, eh, son.? They'll send you back with a bag of brains then. Make up for me." (By the way, everyone loves my old man, including me. The story of how he survived A Bridge Too Far in WW2 is frightening in its randomness. Maybe next month I'll tell you about that.")
So I'm off to University. To be honest it's an MA in Creative Producing so its more a validation of what I've been doing for the last 15 years, interspersed with radio, than a new career. But it's a strange feeling. We've had a flat in London since my ill-fated gig at the Globe last year, so accommodation was not a problem. Down sizing from my 3 bed house to a 1 bed flat is a problem, but I'm dealing with it. Looking after Maverick should not present too much of a challenge with our cyber-options and the excellent Debs as administrator. Being a commuter on the tube in London is more odd. So too is meeting my corum. Not class, corum. Or Chorum. Sommat Latin. I ent sussed it yet. But on our first day we are all due to meet outside the Uni in Bloomsbury. I approach a young looking group of people who turn out to be American tourists. I explain I'm a Birmingham tourist looking for my corum. They look at me strangely and walk away.
When I find out where I'm supposed to be, I finally find my corum. My 6 other potential Masters. Only two of us are blokes and we're both called Nick. I hope its a good omen. We are a disparate but interesting group and I can see almost straight away what Andrew, the course director, is trying to achieve. We will infest, if that's the right word, a broad range of performance disciplines when we leave and hopefully we will all have the right tools to make a difference. Although I already have many of the tools. In fact I wonder if I'm too 'tooled up' to be here, but Andrew's first address hits the spot.
"There may be some repetition in the early part of this degree. You are all experienced in different areas, so you may find you repeat areas of knowledge. You, Nick, for instance, will have little problem with the academic work, given you already have an MA, 2 BA's and you've taken time off your PhD. " Eh? I'm about to remonstrate when I realise it's the other Nick he's addressing. I think Nick is my age, but he's 27. Wishful thinking on my part. So young and yet so qualified. He's a nice bloke too, on first impressions, and I can't help but feel this degree will give Nick and many others on the course the necessary Producer smarts to allow them to change the world. I'll be long dead by then. Or will I? I am the eldest, but not by THAT much...
Later we meet the Directors. Some of our work is with the Theatre Directing MFA's. They are all about 12, passionate and intelligent. I find them captivating. They have solid, firm ideas, formed by philosophical debate. Even Director Andy, who tells me he is 37, went to RADA to train as an actor and is originally from Harbourne in Birmingham, is really only 15 and unnervingly handsome. Later in the second week I have a debate about the play 'Festen' with a beautiful director who in spite of her tender years is frighteningly focused.
Beautiful Directors, hangin' outside the Theatre Royal, just being brilliant.
I'm saved by Joan Littlewood and the fact that for the last 15 - 20 years I have worked in glorious isolation. Now Joan is sadly long dead, but amongst other things, (oh what a lovely war) she bought a new, mainly socialist agenda to the Theatre Royal Stratford East. A venue I have heard much about, but never visited till now. Much of our course will be based there. (It's a long way from our flat in West London, but being a Brummy, I can't reconcile distance with the Underground. Not natural and I'm still not comfortable with being in a tube under the earth. Give me the 50 bus any day.)
At the Theatre Royal, I hear their lovely head of outreach and education describe a theatrical philosophy I thought had only existed in my head and at the Billesley Pub in Birmingham when we were there. It's a real shock. I am not alone! A notion I thought I had invented had been created previously. It's a shame Joan is now dead, although I am sure there are more protagonists. I then realise that I am sitting at Joan Littlewood's desk and her library is in the same room. For a theatre anorak, it's a dream. I take a photo of her desk. And although it takes a few days to sink in, I realise that for someone who has worked on his own for so long and generally been responsible for everything, its great to be part of a group.
Mind you, it's only been a couple of weeks...
