Back to the Future...?

Rob Stanson, our first 'Henry V - Lion of England'

It's a bit depressing realising that I'm going back 20 years. Next year it will be 20 years since I presented 'Teechers' and 'Henry V - Lion of England' at the mac in Birmingham. I booked three nights but didn't have the guts to put my Henry on for all three nights so my mate directed the Godber classic. And now I'm doing it again, but this time in London.

Us, at the launch of
A Ghost of A Chance.

It has occurred to me though that every time I've written something, things happened. 'Henry' has toured and went the the USA. A Ghost of A Chance not only attracted some stellar creatives, it also won the Guinness Award through the National Theatre. PALS became our local hit, going from nothing to sell out runs in the space of a few weeks. And this time I'm producing in London, arguably the world capital of the arts.

Ed Morris, the latest

 Henry V - Lion  of England.

Contemplating my return to Pub Theatre!

So maybe its not too depressing going back a bit. John Lennon said about the Beatles reforming, "you can't reheat a soufflé." No you can't John, but maybe you can cook another one and try and make it tastier. So 2012 will be a big year and nothing to do with the Olympics, because I'm gonna write me next new play and see what happens. I'm shall try a similar approach to PALS. PALS was in my head for about five years and this new one, Ron and Juliet, has been around for a similar time. It's due in July. And talking of the Olympics, it has a five-a-side footy match in the second half... Game On!

On Yer Bike.

I returned to biking later in life when I started to see signs for cycle routes as I was driving around Birmingham in my car. I presented a radio breakfast show so had few traffic problems. But the signs made me think about bikes, so I bought a cheapy one from Halfords, Kings Heath. Not the best move. I had to take it back 3 times as the pedals kept coming loose! But don't let that put you off. A trip to a proper bike shop solved the problems.

The first time I did cycle the 7 miles to the studio – up a big hill – it took me nearly an hour. But I'd make the effort once a week.  The start of the journey was through the rather lovely Cannon Hill Park.  Sun shining, birds singing, mugggers mugging...  During the summer it gradually dawned on me that I quite liked being in the fresh air, so I started cycling two or three times a week.  Within 12 months, the hour ride magically became 20 mins. I also lost 5 stone! And I was unexpectedly overcome with a very strange feeling of well-being after a ride…

Cycling is an almost organic experience after years of being cooped up in cars and public transport. If you’re new to the idea, give it a go. It really will effect your outlook on life. I’m discovering London now. I no longer present a breakfast show and London doesn't have Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, but it does have the River Thames.  Which as you can see from the picture below, is rather nice!

Chiswick House and Gardens

A Detour On The Way Back From The Post Office

And Wow!  What a detour.  I was on my bike and dropped a parcel off at the Post Office at the top of Chiswick High Road.  Having a half hour to kill, I thought I'd take a slightly different route home and this is what I came across.  I'm blessed that even at my age I'm still surprised at what London can come up with.  These are snapshots taken with my phone, but all taken 20 mins from our flat.  You should try a detour from a daily route  and post the photographs here.  I'd love to see what you come up with.

Chiswick House.  Available for weddings apparently!

This is the view from the gate I entered.

And the view from a little further back.

Swinging down past Chiswick Mall, this is a public right of way to the River Thames.

Is this little cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon? Nope.  Chiswick again.

Groovy sign to the river 'right of way'.

The view toward Hammersmith Bridge

People live on this.  I can't blame them!

Look the other way from the boat and this is St Nicholas' Church.  Many famous folk rest here.

A house in St Peter's Square, Hammersmith.  Our flat is just round the corner.

Groovy baby!

Happy New... oh yes, a bit late for that.

It's been a busy and fairly tough financial start to the new year.  I didn't really have time to write last month.  Since leaving Uni I've been spending a lot of time looking for part-time work and trying to get things ready for my new production company and as always, everything is many times more difficult and time consuming when you have no dosh.  But I'm almost ready to start my new life.  Sort of.  Well, new career anyway.  It's taken 50 years, but I now have some sort of focus on what I intend to do professionally.  And I'm fortunate in that so far some very successful people in the industry seem to think I am going to do okay.  One or two have even tipped me as a 'rising star'. Heh! 

But the reality at the moment is that the difficult financial situation has meant I have discovered southern dole offices, too.  Posher than Kings Heath, Birmingham, although my London 'office'  is a newer building! I get the impression that there's a bit more care and help available than last time I had to sign on.  In the early 1990's I think we were just dole scum.  Now the Labour Govt seems to really want to help. Things are much better now. There are still rules, but in the past you were either on the dole or not.  It was unhelpfully black or white. You felt a bit like a hopeless scrounger. Now, although it's actually tougher to get help initially and they ask more questions, they've even accepted that I have to spend time to prepare for a new business and they have been offering help and referrals.  I get annoyed by people who seem to think benefits are some sort of easy way out. Try living on £65 per week.  It stops you starving, sure, but its not really going to give anyone a lifestyle after bills are paid. There are always those that will abuse any system, but I think social benefits, like the arts, are a mark of a civilised society and I for one feel better for being part of that.  Plus, with the eye-watering amounts of tax I paid in the 1980's, I would need many centuries of claiming £65 per week to break even! I suppose the key word about National Insurance is that it's, well... insurance. 

There are some benefits to being very poor again. I cycle to sign on, which is as it should be, and actually gives me some exercise. And it has forced me to find cheaper stuff in London.  Not an easy task in leafy Chiswick. I go to my exclusive show biz club and drink tap water (served in posh jugs with ice and lemon), use the free wi-fi and finish with a coffee.  A whole days work for £2.95.  Then down the road in Turnham Green, if you get fed up of home made food,  you can eat a massive plate of Chicken and Black Bean Noodles and a mug of Chinese tea for under a fiver.  Now that's living!

 

That's living!  All this for under a fiver in Chiswick.

This theatre thang has never been about the money but believe me when I say I am hugely looking forward to the day when I can afford a holiday again.  But in one way I am truly blessed.  I have a plan. I am in an industry that is starting to notice what I do.  It might not work out exactly as I want, but at least I have some hope, ambition and direction. I feel desperately sorry for those others who are suffering as a result of this current economic climate and can see little hope at all.

No more noughties!

Me in reflective 'new decade in new city' London mood. Do I look like a Master?

So, a new decade. Time to take stock. It's been possibly the most significant year of my life professionally. I've moved full time to London. I decided that 50 is a good age to finally go to university and I am now apparently a Master of Arts. With Merit, don't y' know. (I KNEW that soddin' 11plus result was wrong!) And I've set up a new production company that is 1 year old on 2nd January.

So a big year and a bigger year ahead. My personal version of the global recession means business is hard.  And the theatre business is possibly harder.  I've tried to find finance from a number of sources, includuding one for over 50's starting a busieness. (After making me jump through hoops for nearly a month they then decided they wouldn't support a theatre production company. Thanks. Like I can afford that time when starting a new business.)

But my first 'commercial' production, HANCOCK'S FINEST HOUR, (www.hancocksfinesthour.com) already has its first few hundred tickets sold for the historic Theatre Royal at Bury St Edmonds in April 2010. Other dates are coming together. So I might be in my 50's, but it's fun to start again. I'm discovering new parts of my new home city (Can you ever not be surprised by London?) and although its a new fledging business I know the route I have to follow. I perhaps need a business partner but at least I know that. I have no guarantee of success but I know the direction.  Oh, and I have a nearly finished screenplay that has been attracting kind words from the likes of Warner Brothers.  2010.  Bring it on.

Lest We Forget?

It's been an unusually domestic week for me. And with remembrance day, British troops in Afghanistan and the Sun newspaper giving Gordon Brown a bad time over his handwriting, one that has given me pause for thought too.

It was a big week on the domestic front because my Dad, at 86, had never been to London before. He apparently drove near it in the 1940's, but that was in the back of an army truck. So he and my sister came down for a few days. I don't think I ever spend enough time with my family. Is it just me or do we all feel like that? I am so focused on trying to create art and avoid arts oft nearby regular bedfellow - grinding poverty! So it was nice when they came down, and as ever Bex was the perfect hostess, worrying over every detail.

Dad actually passed near London in the 1940's to jump on a plane for Operation Market Garden at Arnhem. Dad was a paratrooper, a 'Red Devil' and was part of the cock up that marked a bridge too far. He was wounded and spent a long time as a P.O.W. It's just as well he was captured when he was. I checked his company details on the 'tinterweb and the very day of the morning of his capture most of his comrades were wiped out by a machine gun nest. Incredible, but true.
My Dad, above, on the Thames embankment for the first time, aged 86. Note cap in hand.

We did the usual thing, showing Dad and Sis around darkest Chiswick and taking them to our favourite haunts. I'd met them both at Euston and we took the Northern and District Lines to get home. Now Dad is sharp and full of humour and although his hearing isn't too good (and he stubbornly refuses to wear his hearing aid) and he's not as lithe as he used to be, he's nobodies fool. So it was strange to see how strange the everyday of London was to him. He was fascinated by the electronic signs inside the tube carriages. He thought they were a great idea and seemed transfixed by them all the way back to Stamford Brook. He couldn't understand the need for all the different tube lines.

"And what if you're colour blind with all those colours on that train map?" he commented. He was shocked by how violently the turnstile doors slapped open and shut. I think he may have a point there.

But what really made me think was us walking from Westminster to Embankment pier past the RAF war memorial. I was slightly ahead of Dad looking for my camera. When I looked back he was looking up at the memorial and had his flat cap in his hand.

"You all right Dad?" I asked.

"Just thought I'd say hello to the boys," he said and nodded at the memorial. "They looked after us as much as they could."

I took the pic, then he doffed his cap to the memorial, put it on his head and off we went.

I asked him about it later. Dad was born into extreme poverty, the youngest of eleven kids. His mom, my Grandmother, died when Dad was seven. My Grandfather, Paddy, was an Irish labourer from Co Mayo in the west of Ireland. He was a big drinker (so THAT'S were I get it from... not my fault then!) who would often use his belt on the kids when he'd had a bit too much, which was most nights. I have some sympathy. Not with beating the kids, but the pressure must have been immense. There were 12 of them in two rooms in an up and down house in Leeds and often they went hungry too. When Paddy sobered up later in life he would often tell Dad the army was a good way out. Three square meals a day was a lot better than the everyday life they enjoyed. So aged 16 Dad and a mate from Leeds lied about their ages and signed up. Not the best of times to join the army. As Paddy said,

"Join the army, yes, but not when there's a bloody war on!"

Dad was grateful to the airman who took care to give them a safe landing at Arnhem. But it transpired later that there were other people looking out for him too. Dad's C.O. never acknowledged Dad's age. But the day they got captured, the day dad's platoon was massacred, the C.O. got his company up in the early morning, and moved off quietly, leaving Dad and his young chum asleep. When they woke up, the older guys had gone. The German officer who first captured them looked set to turn violent until he saw their age. In perfect English he said to Dad, "You are too young to die in this war."

And it got me to thinking about the current engagements. The loss of life is hugely regrettable and tragic and indeed many of my cousins in Leeds were in the forces, but was WW2 the last TRULY justifiable war? Can the 9/11 tragedy be compared to the invasion of Poland by Hitler? Is it right the Sun newspaper seems to be making an attempt to discredit the P.M. by using and directing the anger of a grieving mother? Isn't that just a bit too much 21st century?

Something don't smell right, kids. I feel uncomfortable. I suppose it's always us, the great unwashed, the working class who get stuffed by other peoples principles; it's always us that ends up galloping into the cannons or marching into the hail of shot. But is it right, nowadays? I dunno. This time last year, during a performance of Henry V - Lion of England, in Brighton I had actor Ed Morris place a poppy in his coat at the end of the show which caused a palpable gasp from the audience. (I won't give too much away about that. I want you to see the show!) But what do you think?

I'm just very grateful to Dad's C.O. and that unnamed German officer in Holland. Or I almost certainly wouldn't be here to ask these questions.

What a Fete!

Its been a while since I've been on here and its because everything is coming to a head. My working class equivalent of the grand tour - a three year search for self improvement and a real career though specialised education - sorta finishes this year. Finance and time are running out and so I've been vary aware of not wasting either. Not that being on here is a waste of time (?) but if I've time to knock out a quick blog I should be writing my dissertation or trying to promote the two 'Introduction To...' classes I am running later this month -
Creative Producing and Screenwriting.

But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Or maybe a nutter. And talking of nutters, I decided this weekend to take some time out. I read about the Big Swim from Chiswick Pier. Since I've been in London full time I've been constantly working against some sort of deadline and since lectures finished I've not even had the exercise of walking to the tube, so I thought Saturday afternoon about three o'clock I should head out and suss the area a bit. So here in pictures is Nick's Guide to a Bit of West London And Jolly Nice It Is Too.


This road above is not leafy Sussex or Warwickshire. Nope, its a road not far from our Chiswick flat, 20 mins from the bustling metropolis of The City on a Saturday afternoon. How can you not love this?


As a recent convert to Moseley Rugby Club on Billesley Common I was having withdrawal symptoms till I discovered the Chiswick equivalent on Saturday. But although they have a brick built clubhouse instead of Moseley's portacabins, the whole operation is much smaller, provincial (in London!) and lower-leagued. But it means the (smaller) clubhouse is completely bursting with kit bags, players, trophies and beer. I intend to find out more when time and finance allows. And in the fleshpots of the metropolis it also looks as if people can leave bikes unlocked!




Like I said, nutters. They have their own society, don't y' know. This dip pool by Chiswick pier.

Top Nutter wins silver thing, presented by the Mayor of Hounslow, for...




...winning this 1k swim to Chiswick Eyot and back. The winner did it in 12 mins! The last guy took 45 mins against the tide. A huge effort. I stayed to the very end and found the massive cheer, applause and encouragement for the last guy strangely moving. I might be turning into a girl. Or a nutter. And again, being in fleshpots of the metropolis, the whole event, Mayor and all, had the feel of a small village fete. Like Kings Heath Carnival without the tents.

I look again at the river and I start to think this big swim would be something to work towards...

Mmm. Back to work then.

Bill's Big House

My education into the big wide world of London theater continues apace. I'm still mindful of the fact that when William Shakespeare was my age, he was actually returning to the Midlands at the end of his career. But then Bill never had the M40 or a Renault Megane, did he.

The first two months have been, in our esteemed tutors own words, something of a 'boot-camp'. Head of the course Andrew is a rare breed - an easy academic with a soft Scottish lilt who has, unlike many academics, been there and done at least most of it. He has all the T-shirts (almost literally!) and has done everything and been everywhere. We - the students - are amazed the R.S.C and the National Theatre have escaped Andrew's gentle touch. It can only be a matter of time, if Andrew decides he fancies it.

The other chief boot camp jackbooter is Julius - arguably one of the top six people in British Theatre. He's an interesting mix, is Jules, and I like him very much. He comes in for lectures once a week after he finishes his day job which at the moment is TEN No 1 theatre tours! After lectures one Thursday night he offers fellow producer-in-training Samantha and I a lift home - we're in the same direction - and he pops in to his office to pick up his phone charger. What an office! But if you're Bill Kenwright I suppose it's all tax deductible.



In stark contrast, here's my office...



A desk in our 1 bedroom flat. Although, apart from the phone, it's newer than Bill's office.

IKEA Wimbledon, we salute you.

Playing with the Big Boys

New experiences continue unabated, not least of which is the fact I've been able - had no choice really - to get over the claustrophobia I developed some years ago on the London Underground. And I also find I'm really quite enjoying this University lark. Don't get me wrong, the pay is rubbish. Well non existent. Actually of course you have to pay fees. (I can't BELIEVE there's virtually no financial help for an MA. Age discrimination I think. Or maybe academic discrimination. Most Masters have done a 'normal' degree. Not me mate. I think I'm a special case. Well, special. Maybe just a 'case'. Whatever. Get back to it...!)

It occurs to me that one of the big gripes I had about my beloved Birmingham is that there were no networks. There are maybe four theatre producers in Brum that I can think of. And the chances of us ever getting together socially were virtually impossible. And we all have different agendas and methods of working. Plus most of the original 'Mavericks' have moved on, mainly to London. My main, regular chums in Birmingham have long since been bored by my theatre talk and it is not doing them a disservice when I say most of them have absolutely no ideas about the standard or concept of theatrical production anyway, so nights down the pub tended to fairly uninspiring for me and probably very boring for them.

So its only just occurred to me that three days a week I am not only listened to when I talk about theatre production, but listen to lectures about it and hang out with people who are equally if not more into it than I am. Bliss! I have a new bunch of chums who rave about theatre in different disciplines and I am regularly meeting/talking to theatre obsessives, mainly West End, but not exclusively. It can't last. This is almost fun. Imagine. Me, at my age, admitting that. They won't believe it down me local in Brum...

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.