Edge Hill

I reckon I spent much of yesterday enduring a terribly rainy car journey down the M6 from Edge Hill University where I was delivering a lecture to the students about my experiences working on Beyond The Fence. It’s still a little bizarre talking about that particular project, although Clare Chandler, who brought me up to do the same thing last year, commented on how much more comfortable I’d seemed this time. I certainly feel like I’ve finally accepted how damaging the experience was and gained an understanding about why things went the way they did, which implies I’m moving on! It was interesting to talk about how de-humanising the project had been and whether this particular aspect was caused or exasperated by the computers we were working with. I certainly think that people felt they could be a great deal crueller to us about our work than ever they would have been had there been no mention of artificial intelligence. It’s understandable. I think, deep down, people are genuinely terrified at the thought of computers taking over the world and walked into Beyond the Fence without a clear understanding of the actual processes we’d used and quite how much human beings need to cherry pick and curate “computer creativity” for anything meaningful to come out. It was almost tragic that most of the critics came out with a sense that the actors and director had somehow saved the day by breathing vitality and meaning into the facile nonsense which had come out of computers. The bottom line is that they saw a West End show which had been written, in a highly unorthodox manner, in five months, by an incredibly stressed married couple who were being pursued relentlessly by television cameras and bullied by lawyers and execs. Under normal circumstances a show wouldn’t have been ready even for workshopping by this stage. One of the greatest sadnesses in my life is that I think, given a proper amount of time, a good number of re-writes (and the ability to take out all the rubbish generated by computer systems which were plainly not yet good enough) Beyond the Fence could have been a very wonderful and successful show.

I do love being at Edge Hill University. Claire and the team have created such a wonderful learning environment up there. The students don’t know how lucky they are to have a tutor with such great knowledge of musical theatre and such a keen ear to the ground when it comes to what’s going on within the industry.

The news is full of this Oxfam scandal. It strikes me that we’re in a very odd place when it comes to the reporting of news. In this particular instance no one seems to be able to report what has actually happened. We’re apparently meant to feel entirely outraged that someone or some people who work or worked for a charity might have employed prostitutes whilst working in Haiti and that this information wasn’t dealt with very well by a woman called Penny who has now resigned. I’m sure it’s far more complicated than that, and that this is just the tip of the iceberg in yet another desperately worrying crisis which will cut to the heart of every charity which has ever been formed, but as we’re not actually being told the full story, it’s very hard to feel any form of emotion. And yet, at the same time, we’re being told that Oxfam might have its funding withdrawn so we’re all assuming that something terrible has happened and have gone into moral panic mode claiming Oxfam is the new Jimmy Savile. I wish we’d all just stop panicking, take a deep breath and allow those in power to work out what’s going on without being influenced by yet another media-whipped-up witch hunt.

Thaxted

Yesterday found us in Thaxted again where we experienced bright wintry sun, hail, snow and ice. I think everyone is ready for spring now. I got chatting to the lovely woman in the flower shop in Highgate village who told me she’d had a surprising run on tulips. “People are fed up with winter.” She explained.

We had a very lovely time in Thaxted. I hadn’t seen the parents since Christmas, so it was fabulous to be back in front of an open fire, putting the world to rights. At one point we were talking about my Dad’s work as a WEA lecturer. WEA stands for the Workers’ Educational Association, and it was set up so that older people could continue to challenge and educate themselves, within their own communities, by attending lectures on a smorgasbord of subjects by visiting specialists. My Dad is an historian and lectures on a variety of things including the hell-raising, Boudicca. His work takes him around Suffolk, Rural Essex and Cambridgeshire, and, therefore, those who attend his lectures tend to be old, white and middle class. Imagine his surprise, therefore, when he was sent on a course to spot the early warning signs of people who have been radicalised! I just love the idea of a 90 year old Grannie thinking “If I’m gonna go and blow up some infidels, I better learn terrorism Boudicca-style!”’

We had a lengthy discussion about the amazing recent advances in medical science. Apparently there’s work being done in the field of cancer which could save my generation. That would be nice. We’ve been forgotten by everyone else! We talked about other diseases. They’re kicking HIV to touch. The conversation, however, ended in hysterical laughter when my Mum chipped in with: “and there was something about Alzheimer’s... but I can’t remember what it was...”

We were visited by my cousin Simon’s daughter and step daughter in the late evening. They were taking a very early flight to Badapest from Stansted, so came to stay the night with my parents because they live so close to the airport. I’ve always been highly fond of both girls. They’re such witty, well-mannered, well-bought up people, and their relationship with each other is inspiring. They are so close. They’re now 22 and 23. How many step sisters would be so fond of each other that they decide to go on holiday together as adults?

Shabbas

I went to a delightful Shabbat meal on Friday night in Notting Hill. The host was fairly orthodox, so there were all sorts of rules and rituals which needed to be observed, including washing our hands with a jug of water three times and not talking until the bread was broken. I, of course, felt like a hick from the sticks: I forgot to put my kippah into my jacket pocket and, upon arriving at the house, immediately rang the doorbell, rather than knocking. I also came with both a bag, and flowers for the host. Carrying anything on the sabbath is frowned upon.

It got me thinking about the day of rest and wondering when and why Christian people started opting for Sunday instead of Saturday? Jesus was, after all, Jewish, and very keen that people observed the sabbath. His tantrum in the temple was surely about this very subject: “My temple should be a house of prayer and you have made it a den of thieves. Get out. Get out.” He was so passionate about the subject that he sang the last phrase in rock-setto.

(Never let it be said that my only knowledge of the bible comes from Jesus Christ Superstar!)

Sticking to the Jewish theme, Saturday morning was spent singing in synagogue. The choir was a little ropey. Some had colds. Some were deps. Some were underprepared. When things start to go badly, the fear takes over and the house of cards comes tumbling down. I had a little solo in one of the numbers and was aware that everything around me was unraveling at a fairy fast pace. It was a terrible shame. We’re usually an astounding choir.

We took Michael (our choir leader) for some food afterwards to drown our sorrows (and apologise) before heading, in the driving rain, to Portobello Road where we’ve discovered a little vintage shop with a massive selection of cufflinks. I’ve now started to collect vintage cufflinks. They’re a great thing to collect because they don’t take up any room, and what with the quizzing and the singing, I’m rarely out of a suit these days. It’s rather nice to make a point of trying to find a decent pair of cufflinks whenever you’re somewhere you want to remember. I have pairs from San Francisco, Florence and Tel Aviv and a pair which once belonged to my Grandfather.

I woke up this morning to an email which made me feel incredibly sad. It came from the mother of one of the kids who sang in Nene at the Albert Hall. Her daughter, who is apparently very bright, had done well in the entrance exam for a local public school and been offered a music scholarship. Unfortunately, even with a scholarship, the fees were beyond anything which the mother could afford. She wrote to me in something of a state: “I feel I’m begging as I’m a person who’s never asked anyone ever for help before. I’m desperate as seeing my daughter’s dreams fade away in her eyes and it’s heartbreaking to watch her cry. I feel guilty I cant give her the start she needs but we just cant find another way but to ask for help.”

The tragedy is multi-layered. State schools just aren’t offering musical and creative kids the education they need, so kids who can’t afford to go to private schools are just not going to have the opportunity to develop as well-rounded people. The other upsetting aspect is that there’s an assumption that someone who’s done relatively well in the arts like me would have the kind of money needed to help someone in despair. I only wish I could. If I had money, I would immediately set up a fund to help young kids from the Midlands realise their dreams. But I don’t. And this makes me so sad.

Mealy

I’ve been working very hard in the gym of late, and am feeling the benefit. I feel lighter. I bounce again as I walk. I don’t get tired or breathless. I think all people who are actively losing weight should be encouraged to hold bags of sugar representing the weight they have lost, and wonder how amazing it must be not to carry that around any more.

My indoor plants have mealy bugs. A horrible white sticky, fluffy substance has attached itself to the bits where the leaves meet the stalks. I noticed the first infestation some months ago and left it. I thought it was a spider’s egg sack, and because I love spiders, I was quite pleased. Now I feel like a bad dad because one of the plants has plainly been damaged. This must be what it feels like when you get a phone call from the school saying “little Walter is coming to school dirty and we’re concerned.”

I went to the garden centre first thing, showed a lovely bloke a photograph of the hideousness and he confirmed the diagnosis, prescribing me a spray which he said would get rid of them fairly quickly. “I assume they’re not eating the leaves yet?” I looked at him guiltily as I remembered a leaf falling off in my hand. He looked at me like a bad dad and said I might need to use the spray a few times.

The plants have now been sprayed and I await to see whether I’ve managed to save them.

The ghosts of ‘95

It’s freezing cold. It’s actually really rare for me to get cold, but sometimes, once I’ve started feeling the sensation, I can get quite obsessive about it. Today I actually wished I had a coat. I might have a look in my wardrobe to see if there’s one in there. I should look for a jumper as well. There’s never really a point in my having either of these garments because I only ever need them for about four days a year and when I do wear them, I instantly over heat and end up leaving them at people’s houses and in cafes and things. I also think that coats can look quite horrible. Especially those big puffy modern things made of shiny man-made fabrics with logos all over them.

I went into Spitalfields yesterday evening to meet Philippa for tea. For some reason, as I walked from Moorgate, through Liverpool Street Station, I found myself transported to that same area in the 1990s when I first moved London. It was a very different place in those days. Once out of the station, the further East you walked, the darker and emptier the world became. These are the streets where Jack the Ripper once roamed, and, in those days, his ghost seemed very apparent. The area around Brick Lane, which is now a swanky haven for wannabe hipsters, was a complete no-go zone back then.

At the time, I was living even further East, near Mile End, in an equally shabby district which these days hums with yummy mummies.

Spitalfields Market was just an empty barn of a building with a leaky roof. It had a few indoor football courts on Astro turf, but was largely a deserted brick shell. At one point, when they started to understand the resource they were sitting on, they built a pop-up mini opera house within the space. It was a giant, white fabric cube. I think they were trying to attract a few city workers off the beaten track, because it was never going to be popular with the local Bengali kids.

We performed Berio’s A Ronne there in 1995. It was my first paid gig as a performer. We had to learn the highly complex piece off by heart, which was quite a feat. It was all weird shrieks, extended vocal techniques and strings of made-up words sung at unfathomable pitches. There were five performers, two of whom were my tutors at university. We did a tour of some very unusual Northern Towns and I loved every minute.

Anyway, perhaps because it was so cold, and a Monday night, there were very few people hanging about in the market yesterday evening. In fact, it seemed eerily quiet, which is possibly why the ghosts of 1995 were out in force.

Being social

Blimey, it’s turned cold! I have just walked from my house down to the tube. The air feels like little daggers. Surely snow is forecast?

It’s been a weekend of work for me. Bank holidays, evenings and weekends cease to have any form of meaning for a freelancer. We can try to force ourselves into 9 to 5 regimes, but at the end of the day, we tend to work when everyone else is at play! (Often because we’re generating the play for others.)

On Saturday, I spent the morning singing in shul. It was a last-minute booking: sadly one of the other basses has a dad who is ill. It was rather good practice for me because it meant I couldn’t obsess about the material and had to rely a little more on my sight-singing skills, which I guess I’ve never really trusted before. I genuinely recommend regular singing for everyone. It’s such a joyous experience to sing in harmony, really one of life’s great pleasures. It all went very smoothly and I think the quartet blended particularly well and made a very nice sound. 

Saturday evening found me quiz mastering at a very charming tennis club in Holland Park. I deduced from the clientele that it must be a fairly exclusive club, and I was really thrilled that its members were so cosmopolitan. I doubt there were more than a handful of native Brits in the room. Fortunately, I’d been given this information before setting the quiz, so I was able to choose questions with an international flavour. Scores were very high, and very close. There was just one point between the winners and the two teams who came joint second. Everyone seemed to have a very jolly time. 

I had a meeting at lunchtime today with a charming chap from Leeds. I love chatting to creative Yorkshire folk. They never seem to have the jadedness of arts professionals in London. There’s always a can-do attitude and a sense of wanting to get in there to get their hands dirty.

This evening is about watching crappy telly at Julie’s house which I’m very much looking forward to. I’m not having a great time of it at the moment. I feel I just don’t understand the world any more. Every time I switch on the news these days it feels like someone’s being morally outraged on behalf of someone who we’re repeatedly told it’s really awful to be at the moment. The problem I have is that it doesn’t really feel very nice to be ME right now. I’m beginning to feel invisible, like I’m being sent to the back of every sodding queue I arrive at. I used to feel that way when I went to the shops as a child. I’d often be made to wait until there were no more adults left in the building before being served even if people came in after me! Sometimes this makes me want to hide. Sometimes it’s nice to be forced to be a bit social.

Car crash BBC interview

Hmm. I’ve just seen a rather disturbing interview on Newsnight with Kirsty Wark attempting to rip Tommy Robinson limb from limb. Now in my view, Robinson, who used to be the spokesman for the English Defence League, is a deeply unpleasant character. He comes across as a garrulous bully, and I think his views are ghastly, but, he royally spanked Wark’s arse this evening! It was hideous, car crash television. Wark obviously felt like some sort of moral champion with right on her side, and was therefore hideously under-prepared. She wanted Robinson to take responsibility for the attack on the mosque in Finsbury Park last year, because Darren Osbourne, who drove his white van into a group of innocent Muslims, had apparently googled speeches by Robinson countless times in the weeks running up to the attack. The online material which Wark was attempting to pin onto Robinson was factually flawed. She spoke obsessively about the “speedy radicalisation of the far right” but refused to see that three Muslim terrorist attacks in short succession (one in Manchester and two in London) had played any part in Osbourne’s growing anger. She quoted texts out of context for the sake of sensational telly, and then sat, mortified, as Robinson reminded her that it was actually watching a BBC documentary about Rochdale which had sewn the attack’s initial seed. He then was able to freely claim the the BBC had systematically refused to report any stories pertaining to right wing demonstrations. Wark, I’m afraid, came across as smug and then utterly flustered when her spurious line of questioning was entirely undermined. We deserve much better journalism than that - particularly in these deeply sensitive times.

The problem is that, in order to maintain a sense of democracy in this country, we actively need far right leaders and spokespeople, just as we need the so-called “loony left” and the myriad politicians whose views sit somewhere in between. Those are the uncomfortable facts. Or maybe they’re the facts we need to celebrate? Someone will alway stand up to express or fathom the inner thoughts of people in this county, and by attempting to silence anyone, you run the risk of turning them into martyrs. Unless you can, by law, prove that someone is practicing hate crime, there’s actually nothing you can do to silence his or her opinion. And there shouldn’t be. The joy about living in the UK is that we have freedom of speech. I don’t agree with a great deal of what I read in the Daily Mail, or watch on that ghastly Loose Women show (which I’m now boycotting). I regularly, and sometimes angrily challenge the nonsense which gets spouted, just as many people who read this blog will disagree with what I write, and may well contact me to tell me so. But we can’t and must not silence views that we simply don’t agree with, or else those views go underground where they seethe and expand. By all means attempt to change someone’s mind. By all means rail and rant about what they say, but do not hide behind the smug firewall which tells you that everything is black and white, and that anyone whose beliefs don’t fit into a narrow, Liberal viewpoint is evil and must be silenced. This is what, I fear, Wark was doing this evening. And because of this, she royally lost, and many people with far right views in this country did a little celebratory dance.