Brummy

I walked into Muswell Hill this morning, through the glorious Highgate Wood, which resembled some sort of film set. Blue skies, bright, dusty shards of sunlight bursting through gaps in the yellow trees. You get the picture. I've written about autumn so many times in this blog recently that I've run out of suitable adjectives.

I was specifically heading to Muswell Hill in search of a cafe with wifi on account of our router at home going down. Today's the big day when we switch to high speed cable broadband, and the old one needs to go before the new one can arrive. I'm not sure it's going to make the blindest bit of difference to our tragic technical situation, but I'll try anything once. Apart from child birth. And meat. Or fish. Or, in fact, anything with a face or a mother.

Muswell Hill is the only place in my part of town with a Starbucks. Whenever I sit down to write in a Starbucks, my computer is bombarded with irritating offers of free wifi, so I thought I'd take finally them up on it. I ordered an English Breakfast tea, and paid for it whilst the lady behind the counter opened hundreds of drawers with a panicked look on her face which said "this won't end well!" Turns out they'd run out of tea. Yes, that's right folks: no tea bags in Starbucks! She offered me Earl Grey. I said I'd rather she hit me repeatedly with a moth-infested flannel, and that was the end of my little mission.

Actually, I found a much nicer cafe down the road with free wifi which seemed a little less chain-like. Sure, the man who served me had teeth which looked like cloves of garlic, but he was very friendly and brought my tea to me. All for considerably less money than in Starbucks. Lesson learned. I shan't rush to Starbucks again. 

I took the bus home. I was in my own world, so didn't notice for a while that we'd stopped whilst the driver attended to a child who was throwing up on the pavement outside. It was a vaguely comic sight at first, until the little lad's legs gave way. The poor thing was obviously in rather a lot of trouble. I felt so sorry for his Mum who was fiddling about with wet wipes and a bottle of water from his lunch box. Who'd be a parent, eh? It must be simply terrifying when your child falls dramatically ill like that. I hope he's okay.

I read an awful report a few days ago which basically said that bands, musicians and actors who want to tour or play in venues in Europe will be brutally hit by Brexit to the extent that it could well end up being unprofitable to do so. Nathan, of course, has earned a few decent crusts by touring Europe with various ensembles, and I can't believe all that is in jeopardy. And if anyone reading this (who voted Brexit) is presently burying their head in the sand thinking it'll all be okay: wake up and smell the coffee, have the guts to say that your decision was misinformed and get out there and lobby for a brighter future. In Europe.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/nov/01/brexit-music-british-bands-eu-referendum-touring-europe

I drove to Birmingham this evening. I always forget quite what a lengthy drive it is. When I got in the car, the sat nav predicted a 3 hour journey. The M1 was chockablock and I crawled along. I'm not sure when they're going to stop titting about with that blinking motorway.

I was in Brum for a quiz. And when I say Brum, I mean Sutton Coldfield in a spa hotel in what appears to be the middle of nowhere. To cap it all, I've been put up in said hotel, which feels abnormally decadent. It's quite a fancy room, although there's no bath, and there are two single beds instead of a double. There's a massive TV, though, and one of those fans/ heaters which is a big old circular ring that you can put your hand through. I've had a lovely cup of tea, a free biscuit, and I'm just about ready to sleep.

The quiz went well. Quiz master, Jack was blindingly good, and, with 24 teams, and a quiz which deliberately went at high speed, I was kept on my toes. We were joined for the evening by a lovely chap called Mark who's actually writing a book about quizzes. He's a very interesting character who's plainly a literally equivalent of, well, me! He wrote a book about taking busses all the way from John O'Groats to Land's End and loves quirky facts and figures. Now I want to make a TV musical about taking busses from John O'Groats to Land's End!

Side Show

It never ceases to amaze me how fragile London's transport infrastructure is. One little road closure somewhere in the capital has knock-on effects in ever-increasing circles elsewhere. At the moment, for example, the Holloway Road is closed by Upper Holloway Station. Because there's a network of ludicrous one way streets in that part of town, the official diversion takes drivers two miles out of their way, via hundreds of sleeping policemen, through Tufnell Park and back up to the Holloway Road. Frustrated motorist are doing anything they can to avoid the knock-on chaos which stretches all the way up the Archway Road beyond Highgate. As a result, all the back streets around our house are chockablock, to the extent that it took me half an hour to drive back from the gym yesterday, a journey which ought to have taken less than ten minutes. Today I got entirely trapped by scores of cars driving down a narrow road which I wanted to drive up. The looks of entitlement on their little angry faces were a picture. One guy shook his fist at me because he didn't think I was reversing back down the road (to let him pass) speedily enough. Obviously I immediately slowed down and shook my middle finger back at him, smiling sweetly. There's nothing like a berserk driver wanting to show you how busy and important he is to make me realise how little in a rush I am. From my bedroom, all I could hear were the sounds of car horns beeping angrily into the sonic distance...

This evening we went to see Side Show at the Southwark Playhouse. I find myself increasingly impressed by that particular theatre. It feels rather New York Villagey. It's got a brilliant bar and cafe and it always stages such interesting musicals. It's basically the home of new British musical theatre. It's got a brilliant 60s-esque sign over the door: the words Southwark Playhouse spelt out in giant metal letters filled with lightbulbs.

We arrived in the aftermath of some kind of occurrence. The front door was essentially smashed up on the pavement outside the theatre, and a group of bemused theatre queens were staring at the mess. Inside, a man was looking rather shell-shocked. He'd apparently bumped into the door with his glass of wine and the whole thing had shattered everywhere. The oddest thing was that the wine glass had survived the impact. He'd obviously caught the glass in the door at it's weak point and the whole thing had exploded. All very exciting...

The show itself was well worth the ticket money. The two leads, Laura Pitt-Pulford and Louise Dearman play conjoined twins who escape a freak show to become... well, über freaks! It felt as though it might have been a true story, because the piece suffers a little from what happens in all bio-pics, namely that there's never a particularly tidy through-line, or a convincing end or moral to the piece. It was also a tad chintzy. If I'd set that particular story to music, it would have been a darker, edgier affair, but it's an American show, and the Yanks don't do that shit, so you take mawkish sentimentality, cruddy lyrics and sanitised grime with a pinch of salt.

All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. The performances were exquisite. Dearman and Pitt-Pulford have two of the finest voices in the West End at the moment, and acting chops to match. The set was stunning. The costumes were lovely. And the band played beautifully. The show was directed by the wonderful Hannah Chissick, who directed Brass this time round, and I'm proud to say she did a marvellous job. The piece was staged in the "three-quarters round", which means the audience sits on three sides of the acting space. It's a really difficult space to work with, because, as a director, particularly if you have a large cast, you have two choices: either to keep everyone constantly moving, or to play an intricate series of angles in the space, which mean no one in the audience is having their view of the main actors blocked, and everyone gets to see someone's face at all times. Hannah managed all of this with great aplomb. Tick. Tick. Tick. Bravo all.

It was also lovely to see young Jordan from the NYMT, who was the assistant director on the show. I don't know how that piece of knowledge passed me by, but it's always an immense pleasure to see him. He brings out the very worst in me. And I in him...

More stars...

There's frost in the air tonight which felt very romantic as I left the house until I noticed that someone had shat down our alleyway again! A great, big runny turd which has showered as much of the wall as it has the tarmac. I suspect it might be time to force the council to get involved. The big problem is that no one seems to own our alleyway, so it's very easy for the council simply to wash their hands of it. People wee down there most nights...

I went to the Heath for an early morning walk to clear my head and photograph the stunning autumn leaves this morning. It was all rather romantic: dog walkers and joggers disappearing into a light mist. Everything white and grey but for the beautiful, technicolor trees, which, I heard yesterday, due to the specific weather we've been having of late, are more colourful than they've been for many years. They went to a botanical gardens on the news to prove the point.

With every gust of wind, huge swirls of leaves were raining down, paragliding to the floor in a scooping motion. The carpets of leaves under the trees were like thick Persian rugs.

I came home and worked a lot on one of the songs from Em. It's called A Little Balance, and because the character who's singing it is in no way balanced, I've written it in an ever-changing time signature, which mostly oscillates between 4/4 and 6/8, which is somewhat new ground for me, but, I feel, after the success of the Brass excerpt on Sunday night and the way people are still talking about the show, I have a duty to keep raising my game. 

Sunday's concert garnered a 5* review: "Particularly successful were medleys of songs from Jason Robert Brown’s 13 – written for NYMT and introduced by the composer himself, in his typically droll manner – and Benjamin Till’s Brass, the latter reaffirming in my mind this show as the musical theatre highlight of the year." Just to be mentioned alongside Broadway legend, Jason Robert Brown is exciting enough, but to be compared favourably to him kind of blows my mind. People have sent some lovely private messages to me as well, including one of the cast's Mum's who says Brass changed her daughter's outlook on life. I feel sure it's a special show. It just needs to find that slightly wider audience...

Hallowe'en

It was hallowe'en yesterday, and, I'm told, for the good folk of Wales, it was the hottest Hallowe'en ever. I'm not sure I was particularly aware of it having been mega hot in London, or even hot for October, but then again, I was indoors most of the day.

I worked in the village in the morning, finishing another pass on Em, which I'm ready to call Draft One. It now has flow and is formatted properly and I won't feel embarrassed to hear it read out loud, but I know it's not there yet and will need to keep developing. It's definitely ten minutes too long. What's good is that I can now put the script away for a while and focus on writing songs. This will enable me to revisit the script with fresh eyes at some point later down the line.

I spent the rest of the day working on an application. I'm applying for a somewhat humble grant which will mean I'm able to focus on Em for a few months next year without having to worry about the rent. The grant body are apparently making musical theatre a top priority, after realising they haven't funded enough of it in the past. Good news for musical theatre writers. Great news for musical theatre writers from minority backgrounds.

When Nathan got back from work, we took ourselves off to Muswell Hill where we made our annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin shop on the Broadway which was literally teaming with the little orange things. This time last year, there was next to nothing left, and that's obviously something they'd decided to address, but over-compensated. I felt rather sorry for them, because, in the UK, pumpkins are next to useless after Hallowe'en. They're going to have to throw an awful lot away. We don't really use them for soups over here, and because everyone this side of the Atlantic is aware that pumpkin pie tastes like fart flan, it's not really taken off. The Americans, I think, have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, so the little critters have a longer shelf life. If the Gilmore Girls is anything to go by, they decorate their "ye olde worlde" streets with pumpkins for weeks on end!

NYMT 40th

A very proud man went to sleep last night after watching the cast of Brass absolutely acing it at the NYMT's 40th anniversary West End gala. The show happened at the Adelphi theatre and I'd written a special medley version of Barnbow Lassies and You'll Always Have a Friend. Because I couldn't help myself, I added a little chorus of Billy Whistle at the end. I was glad I'd thrown a blast of that particular song into the mix because, as the melody started up, the couple sitting in front of me exchanged approving glances in that "ooh, we like this one don't we" sort of way.

The cast performed wonderfully well, the segment went down a storm with a riotous audience response, and I felt like the proudest Dad in the world, in fact I got really emotional. I hadn't been in any of the rehearsals so was touched and thrilled to see that nearly every single one of this year's Hackney Empire cast had turned up to be part of the occasion. Even the actors who weren't on stage when the two songs happened in the actual show had learned the choreography and were giving it everything. The entire cast shone. Literally glowed like little beacons of light. Total professionals.

I realised last night how blessed I feel to have had my show performed by two remarkable casts. Genuinely special young people. I walked away from the evening feeling sure that, in ten years time, at the NYMT's 50th celebration, it would be members of the two Brass companies who would be famous actors sending messages of support to the NYMT from theatres and film sets around the world. What a fabulous thought.

I'd written a little brass fanfare to kick the show off, which didn't quite seem to go to plan. One of the trumpeters was missing from the line up, some of the players were a bit nervy and the decision to place four of the trumpeters in the royal boxes lead to everything getting a bit out of time and imbalanced volume-wise, which was a slight shame. But it was what it was, and I was proud to be having a premiere of sorts. 

It was a proper misty, moisty day in North London yesterday. I think someone must have told nature that the clocks had gone back because we got a thoroughly Autumnal Hallowe'enesque display. There were spiders' webs almost everywhere with dew dripping from them like precious jewels. It's the time of year when the giant the spiders appear. I love spiders. Nathan and I encourage them as much as we can. They catch and eat all the horrible creatures that we hate.

We walked up to my new favourite cafe in the grounds of Alexandra Palace, the one where they play opera music really loudly. The mist was thick, and had wrapped itself around all the trees in the park like ghostly grey chiffon scarves. I had a toastie and Nathan had pumpkin soup, which he proudly ate whilst wearing his hand-knitted pumpkin hat.

The mist makes everything seem that little bit more significant and mystical somehow. Sitting on one of the dustbins in the park was a piñata in the shape of a dog. On a normal day, I might have merely assumed someone had had a Hallowe'en party for children and thrown the piñata away afterwards, but in all that mist, it took on a sinister, somewhat supernatural quality. Like someone had left it there as a warning of some sort!

The other thing about foggy days is that sound travels in very unusual ways. There was a classic sports car show going on at the Palace, and periodically, we'd hear the sound of a roaring engine shooting out of the gloom. Somewhere else - probably at least a mile away - a rugby game was happening. The sound was so clear, however, that the match could have been happening just the other side of the trees.

We met Brother Edward, Sascha and the parents in town for a bite to eat before the show. The mist had cleared a little and there was a pink, smokey sunset which gave central London a sort of New Yorky vibe. A great day.

A Constable

I dropped Nathan off at a party in Walthamstow this afternoon and realised, as I drove away, that I was less than half an hour away from my parents'. So I drove up to Thaxted for a lovely lunch of soup, bread and pickles, and the most wonderful walk across the fields.

The light was absolutely magical. It was almost as though we were walking about in a Constable painting. The sun was shining, but the sky was pretty much every colour from white through cornflower blue into brown. The trees looked spectacular. Reds, oranges, silver green and, in one instance, pure gold.

The freshly ploughed fields were entirely covered in a gossamer layer of delicate spiders' webs which caught the sunlight and glowed like little threads of silver. I have seldom seen something more beautiful.

It's not rained in Thaxted for months. We're often reminded of some crazy statistic about East Anglia being randomly drier than the Sahara Dessert. In the same breath we're often also told that if you stood on a hill in Thaxted and face East, the next highest point your eyes would theoretically rest upon (if they could see that far) would be the Ural Mountains. Or something like that. Anyway, the lack of rain means the little river that we always follow around the edge of the fields has entirely dried up. I can't imagine what must have happened to the fish. Do they have a sixth sense about this sort of thing and clear off downstream when the waters start to vanish? Or do they drown on the dusty river bed? These things bother me.

Because of the lack of rain, the fallen autumn leaves were entirely brittle, and crunched and crackled under our feet as we walked. It was such a pleasure to be out and about. And I met a dog called Brangelina which has to be the strangest name I've ever heard being shouted across a field!

This evening we went to Llio's house to get the heating on and fill her house with flowers and home made cakes to welcome her and Silvia back to London after their awful, awful two weeks. I simply can't imagine how they must be feeling or even why they're still standing right now.

Scouseisms

I took it a bit easy yesterday, and only really cranked myself into gear at about midday, when I continued to work my way through Em, focussing on writing a lyric to a song called Delusion and diving deep into the dialogue of an old Irish woman who plays quite an important role in the piece. I'm a little out of depth when it comes to the linguistic authenticity of quite a number of the characters in the show. I'm particularly struggling with the Liverpool dialect. With Brass, the Yorkshire accent, its phrases and rhythms, came easy to me. I've been around Yorkshire folk regularly since I went to university and can do a passable accent when, as I like to do when writing, I speak the words aloud to myself. People in cafes must think I'm insane as I mutter away. I've learned to cover my mouth, but that must look just as bonkers. Anyway, I can't do a Liverpudlian accent, and can't get my head around Scouseisms, so I'm having to work very hard at getting that feeling authentic.

Nathan finished work earlier than usual last night, so we took ourselves off to the pizza shop for some of the ingredients we needed for an evening in front of the telly. I'm not sure what happened to the time. I made a fridge cake to welcome Llio back to London and Nathan spent the night trying to upload one of his podcasts so telly didn't really happen. The quality of our Broadband is astoundingly poor. We complain to Talk Talk on a three-monthly basis. Uploading is almost impossible because every time our unstable connection drops offline, the uploading fails and everything needs to start again. Nathan's hour-long podcasts take upwards of 12 hours to upload at the best of times, which expand into days when we drop off line.

We have signed up for high speed broadband, so are hoping, when that arrives in a couple of weeks, the problem will be solved, but the poor quality of what we have at the moment has been the cause of a disproportionate amount of frustration and misery.

Nathan went to bed early and I sat up watching clips of Dusty Springfield and Petula Clarke singing live at the BBC. Before I knew it I'd fallen asleep on the sofa and then, all of a sudden, it was dawn.