How to commit Theatrical Suicide with Dylan Thomas - Part One.

I love this image we are using for Under Milk Wood.  It has a wistful quality to it and that is how I feel about some of our writers - especially Dylan Thomas, who was taken from us so tragically early. I also love Wales, and this image kind of sums up my schoolboy holidays in out-of-season seaside towns. This bench has seen a lot, you can just tell.  And it quietly waits for the next joyful - or maybe melancholy - experience. 

But enough wooden bench and more Milk Wood.  He was a smart cooky, was our Dylan, and like most successful people he was also VERY focused.  I think it's fair to say he was single minded and loved the notion of the drunken poet. Perhaps more than was the reality, but that is for another time.  The current excitement is preparing for our Under Milk Wood. We have less than a month.

It might sound trite, but I really feel privileged that I am able to present this incredible play for voices in the very pub where Dylan met his wife, on the anniversary of the day, sixty years ago, that he left us. That was why I wanted to do it at this time and at this place.  I want to feel closer to Dylan Thomas and this just feels like a cool thing to do. Spiritual almost. 

BUT there is a big problem doing this play at this place.  And like most things it comes down to money! I've managed to secure the rights, which is great, but that costs.  Then there are the three unshakeable elements of any theatrical production. Size of Cast and Cost of Production, Ticket Price and Size of Venue and Length of Run.

I won't bore you with the figures, but there is a reason most plays above a pub have only a small cast. The biggest play I have written has four people in it!  And then you want to run if for as long as possible to give yourself a chance of making back the money. And keep ticket prices as high as possible.  

I pondered on this over a pint, sitting in the Wheatsheaf after one of our weekly pub crawls.  Actors Suzi and Kate were doing great work. But the fact is that the even the National Theatre only do Under Milk Wood occasionally, because it has a MASSIVE cast. By pint two I was feeling a bit depressed. We'd never make it work unless we charged hundreds of pounds a ticket. Then by pint three I had the answer. We'd all do it for nothing!  And read the play as it was written, without any fancy sets or movement.  Just read it as Dylan intended.  Build it and they will come! So I booked the dates, got the licence and hunted around for a script.

So far we have 25 tickets sold, no actors or director and less than a month to go. I've been in touch with some fairly well known artists, mind. But we have less than a month to go. The casting call goes out tomorrow. It should have been today, but the casting company got back to me and said "How much are you paying?  Nothing? Well.... okay...!" 

Watch this space. More later in the week. When there will be less than less than a month to go!

Under Milk Wood - Part Deux

This week has been quite interesting in terms of Under Milk Wood.  The decision to do it as a fundraiser has been quite liberating.  It means we're all in the same boat and anybody who wants to be involved with the project will be doing it for the love of the piece and the experience rather than any hard financial reward. Any funds we do raise will go to Maverick in the hope we might be able to resurrect the youth group or The Peoples' Company.

After my last blog I had a Facebook comment that said we should let members of the audience read too if we were short of performers. I quite like that notion - a 'scratch' Milk Wood. My work with Maverick has always been about access for audiences and performers - see People's Company above! But what intrigues me about UMW is not just Dylans' obvious love of the sound of the words and his joy of alliteration, but the potential 'colouring' of the piece by the performers and the degree of humour we decide to portray. And parts are quite bawdy don't y' know! And that all needs a vision, direction and rehearsal. 

So I am meeting two directors this week who have agreed to pile in with us. I have to mention the lovely and talented Mark Rylance. He said he'd love to help out but he was away. Typically understated and gentle. It was a friend who said he's away performing on Broadway!

So the tone of our piece will be decided when I appoint a director this week. As mentioned last week I also ran the ad for actors. We've already had more than 60 applications! So we probably won't need the Audience to join in. But it has given me an idea for another event early next year. Watch this space...

                                           Lit Pub Crawl Actors at rehearsals earlier this year. At the pub before the Wheatsheaf!

Liza, Liza, Liza. by Richard Harris The Tabard Theatre, Bath Road, Chiswick, London W4.

(Someone said 'I never get to see any of your reviews.'  That's because I feel a bit poacher turned gamekeeper. I KNOW how hard it is to even get a production on stage. But okay, if I'm writing them for publication maybe I should bung 'em on here. So I will from now on. Ok, Someone?)

Yes, yes, yes!

Before I saw the Tabard Theatre's latest offering I had to check to see that showbiz icon Liza Minelli is still alive. She is, fortunately for her.

The fact I needed to confirm her mortal status shows I’m not particularly a fan, but Liza Minnelli is one of those global showbiz legends we all know. Or at least we think we do. And just in case you’ve been living on Mars, the daughter of the Hollywood tragi-legend Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli, Liza May Minnelli, was born 12 March, 1946 and is an American actress and singer. She’s won numerous awards and will always be remembered for the high heels and haircuts and the film Cabaret. Her longevity is further confirmed by recent appearances on the US TV cult, ‘Arrested Development.’

This World Premiere is actually a bit of a strange mix. Not quite cabaret, not quite musical, it slips genres somewhat. But although there are some songs and a bit of a Liza-a-long at the end, it’s a rather good, if thin, play. Its pedigree is impeccable, being written by Ealing resident Richard Harris, whose credits include The Avengers, The Sweeney and The Saint on TV but perhaps more importantly, Outside Edge and Stepping Out for the stage. It was when Liza Minnelli joined the cast for the film version of Stepping Out that the idea for this play was born. Harris took documented parts of her story to weave into his presentation of her life.

It’s a neat premise. It also has an excellent cast. Three actors play Liza at different times of her life. There’s wide-eyed optimistic young Liza, played by Stephanie Ticknell-Smith, who has to deal with a difficult childhood and the shouted commands of her mother - sitting at an upstage make-up mirror - as she tries to make her way in the world. Liza 2 is Sabrina Carter, vampy and Cabaret-fishnets. She deals with later Liza - the fame and the demons of drink, drugs and weight problems. And then the whole piece is glued together by a remarkable performance from Felicity Duncan as mature Liza. If Liza Minnelli had shuffled off this mortal coil, you would only have to travel to Chiswick to see her live again. Duncan's depth of humour and breadth of emotion is worth the price of a ticket in itself.

The three Lizas’ question each other about incidents and occurrences from their life, but director Phil Willmott keeps the pace, mood and movement light. Colin Mayes’ design is cleverly ‘showbiz’, using a giant, perspex, ‘Liza’ gushing across the centre of the tiny Tabard stage to provide solid acting areas and focus. The musical direction of Neil MacDonald makes clever use of a piano and an occasional male voice. There’s attractive choreography by Racky Plews - although remember, this is a play, not a musical - and the lighting by Miguel Vicente and sound by James Nicholson are both spot on and blend beautifully with the action.  As you’d expect from a writer of Harris’ pedigree, the script is very solid with some killer lines (“Smoking. It’s one of the leading causes of all statistics!”) and it is a testament to the quality of the writing and the acting that the early Liza-life is actually almost the most interesting. Because cleverly, although we are dealing with showbiz royalty, Harris and Willmott make sure we relate to a very warm, human and sometimes emotional story.  Quality pervades the whole production even if the conflict and drama is somewhat thin by the time we start the second act.

It’s a strong offer of a light piece that sees the Tabard once again punching above its weight. If you are a fan of Liza Minelli, steal a ticket and enjoy an intimate experience with a living legend - you won't want to miss this show.  Even if you’re not a fan, this loving portrait may turn you into one.  Either way if you fancy a humorous, smart, occasionally moving, uplifting night out, come to the (Tabard) Cabaret, old chum!

PS Richard Harris has not told Liza Minnelli that he has written this show. But if it goes well, he says he might. To PROVE that Liza is still kickin', here's her website...  http://www.officiallizaminnelli.com

'Confessions of A Brummie Boy', by Norman Raybone

This first paragraph is one of the reasons why I wanted to publish Norman's memoir - a working class man from Brum.


"For the life of me, I do not know why I am starting this project. I was initially motivated by a telephone conversation with my eldest son, John. He urged me, on behalf of the family, to put down on paper some of the most momentous and interesting incidents of my long life in Birmingham. My sorely neglected education and atrocious spelling proved a deterrent to me attempting such a task. However new technology, the Computer, has made it possible for me to try this crazy idea. I was nervous and 85 years old, but I took a Computer course on Windows 95 at Solihull College. This finally made me decide to try my luck. But now I am in a quandary. How to start? Nervously, I think the best, and only way to start, is at the beginning. Please excuse my bad grammar and repeated words, for my vocabulary is limited."


Kewl, Norman. You have a great story. Although at 85,000 words I've only edited up to 1931 at the moment!

You can reserve a copy and a ticket to the launch party next year - there's GOT to be a party... for £9.99 at www.LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com

Gertcha! Bostin' our kid.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Clever 'ent I!

Location:Chiswick High Road,Hounslow,United Kingdom

Photo of the day

Artist Augustus John's house in Chelsea. Dylan Thomas's wife Caitlin came here - often. His parties were wild affairs, to say the least. He had this house built for him, by a Dutch architect he met in a pub! If this front door could talk...







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Location:Pimlico Road,London,United Kingdom

Diggin' Seamus.

Seamus Heaney died yesterday. It's a loss in so many ways. Probably the finest Irish poet since Yeats, he was sometimes known as "Famous Seamus" because unlike many poets and writers, he wasn't particularly shy and retiring. He was something of a celebrity from an early age and was prepared to stick his head over the parapet to make a comment.

But I identify with Heaney the farm-boy. My folks are from the peat-bogs of Mayo - he was from a Mossbawn farmhouse in County Derry, although he resided in Dublin until his death. He was a translator, most recently of Beowulf and in 1995 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The farm-boy was a very bright-boy and won a scholarship at an early age.

But to my thinking, he never lost his farm-boy sensibilities or morality. He was in some ways a literary John Lennon. He was Catholic and a staunch Irish republican concerned about his people, yet a man who understood the suffering of all the communities in Northern Ireland and who could never be persuaded by either side to condone the violence of the troubles. I get it. I've heard it said that for any grand cause, People Have To Die. Heaney, didn't agree with that. With the current politics and violence in Syria very much a hot topic at the moment, his loss is possibly more keenly felt. But his work will last. Not Vox Populi, but accessible and of the people.

Frank McGuinness, the Irish playwright, said: "During the darkest days of the Northern Ireland conflict he was our conscience: a conscience that was accurate and precise in how it articulated what was happening. His poems are a brilliant record of what Ireland went through, and to produce it he must have gone through many trials. He carried enormous burdens for us and he helped us. He was a great ally for the light … he was the greatest Irishman of my generation: he had no rivals."

Politicians from both sides of the border have also praised the poet. Michael D Higgins, the president of the Irish Republic, said: "The presence of Seamus was a warm one, full of humour, care and courtesy – a courtesy that enabled him to carry with such wry Northern Irish dignity so many well-deserved honours from all over the world."

The taioseach, Enda Kenny, said that his death "brings great sorrow to Ireland, to language and to literature".

Heaney was a strong supporter of the peace process in Northern Ireland, memorably paying tribute to the architects of the Good Friday agreement, the then leaders of nationalism and unionism John Hume (whom he dubbed "the hedgehog") and David Trimble ("the fox").

Other writers who knew him have paid tribute tribute to his sheer human warmth.
"Seamus never had a sour moment, neither in person nor on paper," said the playwright Tom Stoppard. "You couldn't help loving him any more than you could help reading on from the first line."

Isn’t that nice to hear.

In his first collection of poems, called 'Death of a Naturalist', Seamus included a poem called Digging – a manifesto, of sorts, for the poet who was also the scion of farmers.

He makes reference to his farming traditions - his father dug peat as did his father before him.

"I've no spade to follow men like them," he wrote. But the poem goes on, with the kind of dogged ferocity that all great writers share:

"Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it."


You dug. We dug you. Literature will never quite be the same again. RIP Seamus.

Location:Cranbrook Road,Hounslow,United Kingdom

iPhone Photo of the Day

London looking like a seaside town! Spot Big Ben and Millennium Wheel in background.

HINT. Taken from the South Bank. Check out Lambeth Palace and bridge.



- Posted from my Phone

Location:Chiswick High Road,Hounslow,United Kingdom