The Importance of Being Honest - Eight days on, a review of types of Juliette Burton's 'No Brainer' at the Museum of Comedy.

It's 3.40am on Saturday morning, precisely eight days since I attended Juliette Burton's show, No Brainer at the Museum of Comedy in London.  My head is a mess of ideas that need to be focused in some way, hence this blog.  The show has been resonating in my head since I saw it and my overactive psyche has been motivating me to produce something about it.  As such, here goes...

No Brainer is a palimpsest of a show (I mean that as a compliment).  Juliette Burton has described it as a work in progress.  As a creative work, it is engaging, emotionally raw, funny and chaotic but it is also coherent and will by definition, change with every performance (long may it remain a work in progress).  If that brief summation sounds confused, go and see the show and see what I mean.

Juliette Burton has experienced mental health issues throughout her life.  I suspect that exploring statistics would reveal that many of her audience may have experienced mental health issues too.  Personally, I have and do.  But significantly, Ms Burton uses her mental health issues to explore herself and in doing so, holds up a metaphorical mirror and sign, reading 'You are not alone'.

No Brainer is the result of Ms Burton's extensive exploration of the brain from a variety of angles.  I felt honoured to hold a plastic brain in my hands and to realise that this organ is very likely responsible for everything I get up to in a day.  Not only does it generate and articulate thought but it also helped me to find the Museum of Comedy (okay, I walked in the wrong direction initially but that's allowed).  Scientific understanding and learning to love or at least, to attempt to come to terms with the aspects of your personality that cannot be quickly changed were some of the ideas that I took from this show.

Ms Burton offered various concepts such as the fight or flight model.  As a result of my job and my studies over the years, I have encountered the idea before, particularly in relation to moments of anxiety.  Interestingly for me, Ms Burton added freeze and fawn to the model.  I have noticed that I personally have frozen at various points of crisis.  I have wondered whether this has constituted indecision as a result of OCD on some occasions (in order to overcome recurrent negative cyclical thoughts or the possibility of them kicking in) or else the age old notion that bad things won't happen if I become invisible.

I froze during a certain key moment in the show that I cannot describe as I felt (and still feel) that it was one of the catalysts for this show and indeed for Ms Burton's continuing exploration of scientific and other theories for coping with mental illness and with life.  In many respects, the fact that I did nothing and nor did the other audience members worried me, although to rationalise the moment, it occurs within the structure of the show.  For me, it shows Ms Burton's consummate skills as a performer that she can channel the emotions connected with a key moment of crisis, represent the event yet come out of it with a smile and positive affirmation to let the audience know that she is okay.  I wanted to hug Ms Burton at that moment and I suspect that lots of the other audience members did too.

I think that Ms Burton's assertion of the idea that good and bad memories continue to exist even if they remain repressed or sidelined remains valid and vital for our everyday lives (certainly a fundamental tenet of quite a bit of psychoanalytic theory).  These memories can be triggered by a variety of stimuli such as an odour, taste or sound etc.  Memories can both help and hinder us but it's important to acknowledge their continuing existence especially if they represent something urgent that requires closure.

One thing is certain, No Brainer has resonated with me for eight days.  I did a short course the other day on emotional intelligence and thought to myself that Ms Burton is definitely a good example of a human being with high levels of emotional intelligence (I mean that as a compliment).  To continue to explore yourself, open yourself to others, whilst also retaining the wisdom to separate those essential ingredients that are yours alone demonstrates to me a performer that is not only growing, but also helping her audience to explore themselves in a safe and creative way.

In the distance, I can hear the Eurythmics song, When Tomorrow Comes.  It's a memory but also like No Brainer a point of departure.  Ms Burton, you have done it again, you have created a work that will continue to change over time but also allows the audience to take what they can or like and run with it.  But I am definitely not moving into Elm Street, despite the property prices.  Thanks for your emotional honesty and your inspirational show.

                                                                                        Barry Watt - Saturday 20th August 2022.

Afterword

Juliette Burton has an excellent website, which is regularly updated with future shows etc:

Juliette Burton | Comedian, Writer, Speaker, Actor

Eurythmics were a very successful band and their songs still mean a great deal.  When Tomorrow Comes has always inspired feelings of positivity whenever I hear it yet not in a contrived manner, the lyrics move me.  For more on the band and their music, please check their website.  The song is copyright to them:

Home - Eurythmics | Official Site

Elm Street is of course, the home to a serial murderer as depicted in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series, which I surprisingly haven't seen:

A Nightmare on Elm Street - Wikipedia

Museum of Comedy puts on an eclectic collection of performers and shows.  Their website is below:

The Museum of Comedy - Showcasing comedy's biggest names and rising stars. Nightly shows in an eccentric independent venue on the edge of London's West End

Promotional Image (Used with the kind permission of Ms Burton.  The image is copyright to the photographer, Steve Ullathorne and Ms Burton)

Juliette Burton - No Brainer Promotional Image
Photographer - Steve Ullathorne

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"My work is a one-man mission to trample down the fourth wall and break into people's hearts" - An Interview with Mark Farrelly, Actor and Playwright.

 

(Photos by Jacky Summerfield)

Some time ago, I went to see one of my favourite plays, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Trafalgar Studios in London.  It's a play that has always captivated me due to its sheer emotional intensity.  Also I greatly admire the actors who perform any of the four roles in the play as each of the characters undergo many transformations of mood and motivation as it heads towards its tragic denouement.  It was my first encounter with Mark Farrelly, who played the role of Nick, a biology professor caught up with his wife in the production, Honey played by Louise Kempton, in the psychological games of George and Martha who were played by Matthew Kelly and Tracey Childs.  Mark Farrelly's performance was subtle and I could see how he was fully engaged with the role he was very successfully creating.

Since then, I have encountered his work again in numerous theatres, where he has created his own plays based on four brilliant and unique personalities, Quentin Crisp, Derek Jarman, Patrick Hamilton and Dennis Heymer.  These works are beautifully written and performed, highlighting all aspects of the personas he has chosen to portray.  These works he has chosen to continue to perform in repertory, thus allowing you to see all four plays over time as he moves between venues.  I have seen all four plays and I can attest for their vitality and insight into the people he portrays.

Mark Farrelly has very kindly allowed me to interview him, so let's begin...

When did you first discover that you had an aptitude towards performance and how did you develop your skills?  Did you follow the academic route into acting?  

I began to enjoy acting at school and that really escalated when I got to Cambridge.  While I was there I played Hamlet on a month’s tour of North America, and at that point I realised I wanted to spend the rest of my life acting.  I didn’t go to drama school, but simply moved to London and started looking for work.  Thank God I didn’t know how hard it was going to be.

Please can you tell me more about your earlier acting career?  I saw you in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Trafalgar Studios with Matthew Kelly and I remember thinking how nuanced your performance was.  Do you find that certain playwrights are more in touch with the art of acting?  Are there particular playwrights whose works you enjoy performing?

The only playwright whose work I enjoy performing is me.  I’m not being conceited, I simply spent many years performing other people’s words, and gradually reached a point where I had to start writing for myself, expressing the things I really needed to say.  Now I’m committed to that and want to keep exploring further.  That said, I think Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is one of the best plays ever written, as it so brilliantly asks the question most plays are asking: how do we find a way to communicate authentically with each other?

Also when you were growing up, who were your influences?

Jeremy Brett and Timothy Dalton made me want to act.  They both had an incredible intensity and truthfulness to their work which still rivets me.

When you are performing, do you have a preference for acting technique or method or does your development of character largely depend upon the role you are playing?

I have no idea about acting technique… in fact for me, the more I think about and analyse it, the harder it gets.  I honestly couldn’t tell you how I act, I just do it.  Just tell the truth.

For some years, you have been working as a playwright and performer.  When did you decide that you wanted to write plays?

In 2012, when I went through a series of successive emotional shocks.  My girlfriend and I split after fifteen years, I ran out of work as an actor, my friend killed himself… on and on it went. I experienced an agonising loneliness, and a profoundly deep depression and hopelessness.  Out of that pain came the desire to create and connect, as the alternative was despair, and perhaps worse. I finally felt that I had something to say, because of course, people who’ve lived safe, unchallenging and emotionally avoidant lives don’t tend to write interesting drama.

What are the particular challenges that you face as a playwright who also performs his own plays? I have noticed that you work with different directors (most recently, Sarah-Louise Young on the play Jarman).  Does working with a director provide you with the mental space that you need to fully engage with the creation of a character in whichever venue you find yourself in?

It’s much easier, I think, if I’ve written it, because as the actor I know what the writer is intending!  But you still need a great director to bring out the fullness of the words, because even the writer doesn’t always consciously realise the full depths of what they’ve written.  That’s especially true of Jarman, where my brilliant director Sarah-Louise Young brought me and the play to life in ways I could never have envisaged.

Your plays focus on extraordinary personalities; creative, unique, occasionally flawed individuals but most importantly, they are based on real people.  How do you go about becoming these characters?  From observing your work, I can see that you must put a lot of work into their realisation and that a sense of kindness and empathy surrounds your development of the characters.  Have you developed your performance of the roles at any point after receiving the feedback of family members or friends of the personalities you portray?

Again, I try not to think about it too much.  I observe if the character has any distinctive mannerisms, and whether it’s helpful or not to adopt those on stage (sometimes they can get in the way).  Far more important is to see where one coincides emotionally with the character.  So for example when I began playing Quentin Crisp, I identified hugely with his loneliness and isolation, and that was my way in to playing him.  With Derek Jarman I identify with his emotional courage and love of fun, and that’s been the key.  Feedback from family and friends has always been hugely encouraging.

In the four plays that you perform in repertory, The Silence of Snow: The Life of Patrick Hamilton, Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope, Howerd’s End and Jarman, you directly engage the audience, incorporating them into the action.  I have been invited to read you questions on stage when you were Quentin Crisp and was given a spotlight/torch to illuminate the action when you were Derek Jarman.  How do you select the audience members that you use and what are the advantages of directly using the audience in this way?  Your engagement with the audience was slightly different when you were Dennis in Howerd’s End and when you were Patrick Hamilton but equally rewarding for the audience.

I always pick audience members at random… take the risk.  Another example of why it’s best not to over-think.  All my characters speak directly to the audience because I dislike the ‘fourth wall’ in theatre, and think it’s often a way for actors to hide from the audience emotionally.  Infinitely better to turn out front and address people, make them realise this is about them.  One of the reasons live music and comedy are more popular than theatre is because music and comedy engage the audience directly, and people love it.  Yet still theatre stubbornly refuses to recognise this, even though Shakespeare had characters talking directly to the audience four centuries ago.  My work is a one-man mission to trample down the fourth wall and break into people’s hearts.

Please can you talk about your motivations for producing works on the individuals that you have chosen?  Are they people that you have admired and/or do they represent aspects of your personality either now or in the past?

Yes they are all aspects of me.  Patrick Hamilton is my reckless, egotistical side (which I’ve tamed through therapy, but can still play on stage).  Quentin is my loneliness, my sense of being alone on the planet without companionship.  Dennis Heymer in Howerd’s End is my tenacity, my determination to connect with people who are closed-off emotionally and Derek Jarman is my passion for creativity, love, sex, adventure, colour, and my awareness of my mortality.  A human life is no longer than a lightning flash, so no excuses for not living it to the full.  Anything less is a straight-up tragedy.

You produce four of your plays in repertory, which enables the audience to see them all if they wish.  From the perspective of a performer, what are the advantages and disadvantages of staging the productions for short periods in different venues?  

To me there are no disadvantages.  It’s joyful!  You get to switch characters all the time, something actors rarely do now that the repertory system has died.  True actors are mercurial, so we love being different people at the flick of a switch.  Also when the challenge is so intense (especially with frequently different venues), there isn’t time to worry about your lines or your performance, you just have to get out there and be, and consequently feel all the more alive and spontaneous. 

Also does the size and style of the venue alter how you perform the plays?

Not remotely.  You can be intimate and up close in a room of a thousand people.  I’ve never understood why anyone thinks otherwise.

Your most recent play, Jarman encapsulates the life and works of a furiously creative individual who worked in many mediums including film, videos for bands such as Suede and The Smiths, art and sculpture.  Do you also produce art works outside of the world of theatre?

I don’t.  I can’t play an instrument, paint or draw.  All my passion and energy go into performing, and it’s something I want to continue doing for as long as I can.  When you perform, time stops for you and the audience, and you connect most fully with what matters in life: the truth of who you are.  The rest of the time people seem to spend merely avoiding themselves.

Finally, what are your future plans and are you working on any more plays?

I’ve got performance plans stretching a year ahead.  No new plays in mind at the moment.  I’m perfectly content if I never write another… maybe I’ve said all I need to say?  Equally, if a new idea occurs to me tomorrow or in five years’ time, I’ll engage with it with all the gusto as if it was my last day on earth.

Thank you for allowing me to interview you, Mark Farrelly.

                                                                                                            Barry Watt - 3rd July 2022.

Afterword.

Mark Farrelly has a website, which contains details of his work and performance schedule:

MARK FARRELLY |

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play by Edward Albee and remains one of the greatest plays of all time (in my opinion).  A very successful film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton is also worth seeing.  I tend to try to see most London productions of the play.

Trafalgar Studios continues to stage varied and interesting productions.  More information about their history and past productions etc can be found on this website:

Trafalgar Studios - Trafalgar Entertainment

Sarah-Louise Young is another talented and eclectic performer/producer.  Please see her website and my previous blog interview with her:

Sarah-Louise Young (sarah-louise-young.com)

Suede are a band who rose to dominance in the 90s and continue to produce music that explores the myriad hues of the human condition.  Their website is below:

Suede

The Smiths were a band that produced music and in many respects, a sensibility that still resonates today.  They disbanded in 1987, although both Morrissey and Johnny Marr continue to produce their own music and tour separately.  The other members of the band, Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke have also continued to work within the music and creative industries over the years.

The lives of Quentin Crisp, Derek Jarman, Patrick Hamilton and Dennis Heymer can be explored through the works of Mark Farrelly and through their own works.  Please see below link to see an obituary for Dennis Heymer as he is slightly less well known than the other names mentioned:

Dennis Heymer; OBITUARY. - Free Online Library (thefreelibrary.com)

The photos at the start of the interview of Mark Farrelly as himself and as the aforementioned Patrick Hamilton, Quentin Crisp, Derek Jarman and Dennis Heymer have been kindly provided by Mark Farrelly and were taken by and are copyright to Jacky Summerfield.

Please check Mark Farrelly's website for the future schedule of his performances around the United Kingdom:

Mark Farrelly Schedule | MARK FARRELLY

                                                                                                                                  BW.

Photos (The below photos have been kindly provided by Mark Farrelly and were taken by Jacky Summerfield who owns the copyright to the images).

 

Mark Farrelly as Derek Jarman

Mark Farrelly as Quentin Crisp

Mark Farrelly as Dennis Heymer

Promotional image of Mark Farrelly as Patrick Hamilton

                                                                                                                           BW.

A work in progress with an empathetic eye - An Interview with Sarah-Louise Young.

Over the years, I have had the pleasure of attending lots of memorable cultural events. Sometimes, my memories of these events over time become transformed and condensed to just a feeling. Some performances have left me emotionally elated, whilst others have left me drained. My one persistent belief is that I always respect the creators of a piece of work even if I do not always understand their original intent or indeed, feel that the work has worked for me. It doesn’t matter because someone has made an effort to offer something of themselves to an audience. 

Now, quite by accident, I stumbled on the work of Sarah-Louise Young. I suspect that I may have seen her first as part of Roulston and Young with their catchy acerbic songs about relationships etc. I then saw ‘Julie Madly Deeply’, a beautifully resonant exploration of the work of Dame Julie Andrews and an equally touching engagement with her fans. I most recently saw her at the Soho Theatre performing ‘An Evening Without Kate Bush’ from my little table in the B row with a friend and was astounded that she brought out the hidden performer that lurks within, as ‘Wuthering Heights’ was sung and I began the dance movements. Sarah-Louise Young is a very talented and versatile creator touching on many mediums. She has very kindly consented to allowing me to interview her, so without further ado…  

In your current show, ‘An Evening Without Kate Bush’, you explore the works and life of Kate Bush and her impersonators. You also acknowledge borrowing a wig from the oldest (and now retired) Kate Bush impersonator.

I like to think the show explores Kate Bush and her fans, as opposed to her impersonators. We do pay tribute to her original tribute act, ‘Jaquie’, who sings ‘Wow’, but the heart of the show is about how each of us has our own relationship with her work and how we experience it or ‘pay tribute to it in our own way’.

What attracted you to Kate Bush as the possible subject for a production? 

I had always been a fan, but the original idea for the show came from my co-creator, Russell Lucas. We had already had international success with ‘Julie Madly Deeply’ (our musical loveletter to Julie Andrews which has played West End and Off Broadway). The two shows are very different, but that started us thinking about the relationship fans have with their icons, especially someone like Kate, who hadn’t performed live for over 30 years, since her 1979 ‘Tour Of Life’. 

Interestingly the first work-in-progress sharing of the show was as a two-hander, with the brilliant Matthew Jones (Mannish from Frisky & Mannish). We presented a 20 minute section at The Albany in Deptford as part of their try-out night, Cabaret Playroom. We spent a few days together in a rehearsal room but in the end decided to save our enthusiasm to collaborate on something else as he wanted to focus on his Richard Carpenter show and it felt like the best story-telling mode for this piece was for a solo performer. It was great fun to play together though and some of the ideas we had begun to explore still made it into ‘An Evening Without Kate Bush’.

After Russell and I had just started working on this version, Kate Bush suddenly announced her ‘Before The Dawn’ comeback dates at Hammersmith Apollo! As fans we were thrilled. But as theatre-makers we were concerned. We thought people might think we were just cynically trying to cash-in on her return by making our show. So we decided to shelve it for a few years. 

Cut to 2018 and we went to see the brilliant US tribute band ‘Baby Bushka’ at the Moth Club. Watching their audience leap about to ‘Hounds Of Love’ and enjoying old classics with guilt-free abandon, we knew we had to make ‘An Evening Without Kate Bush’. Our idea was too fun to ignore!

Also how did you go about learning the techniques and mannerisms of both Kate Bush and her impersonators? Did you interview them and/or watch a lot of performance footage?

I never set out to impersonate her. She is unique. It’s amazing how many people tell me I sound like her though. I perform all the songs in their original keys and I think part of it is that she chose such specific phrasing and wrote such intricate melodies, hearing them instantly hot wires you back to the original. I spent one day working with the amazing Tom Jackson Greaves, who is a director and choreographer. He had watched a lot of her videos and noted down similarities in her body vocabulary. We explored those in our session; again, never trying to ‘be’ her, more tap into her spirit. Quite by accident, the nicknames we came up with for them (The Pulse, The Champagne Whipcrack, for example) found their way into the show. That’s often how it happens with devised work - you become a sponge for every impulse and they jostle around your head during the making process until they either find a home or float off into the ether.

With the costumes too, we tried to evoke her, not copy her. We rub shoulders with themes (she uses a lot of nature and bird imagery in her work, hence the feathery headdress). The cleaner’s outfit for ‘This Woman’s Work’ is as much a nod to the cleaner’s story we mention at the start of the show, as it is to her TV special appearance where she sang ‘Army Dreamers’ dressed as a cleaner or archetypal vintage housewife. That’s one for the Super-fans.

We did of course watch a LOT of footage, interviews, videos, everything we could find, to get to know her journey as an artist and also how the world around her changed. Her early interviews are so uncomfortable. She is often being asked truly banal or overtly sexualised questions. She is so polite and accommodating but it’s great to see her later on her career take the reins and shut down lines of enquiry which show the interviewers have no idea what they are talking about. I also read the brilliant biography by Graeme Thomson called ‘Under the Ivy’. It’s the best music biography I have ever read and really lets you into her creative process.

When did you first become aware that you had a predilection towards performance? How did you develop these skills through your education? 

I come from a big family; I’m the youngest of five siblings and the only girl. Apparently that explains a lot! I always loved to sing but was quite shy away from home until I went to secondary school. I found doing silly voices helped me out of a tight spot at ballet once when the older kids were picking on me for wearing second hand clothes. It’s a common story amongst comedy performers that they find their voice under duress. We had the most brilliant music teacher at school, Miss Porrer, and she really nurtured me. I have been fortunate to have a lot of encouragement, from my family, my teachers and my friends. I met one of my closest friends, Paulus, at 13 and he shared his love of cabaret and variety with me (I distinctly remember him playing me a Fascinating Aida record in his bedroom, both of us surrounded in stuffed Garfields. I had no idea that 22 years later I would be guesting with them in the West End!)

You suggest that a teacher found your performance during your teenage years as Kate Bush a little risqué. Were other teachers more encouraging of your creativity? 

I wouldn’t take everything you see in the show literally if you don’t want to spoil the magic :-)

How would you recommend a student in school or college with creative leanings should develop their skills?

See stuff. Watch other performers. If you don’t have much money, like me growing up, talk to your libraries, your school, your local theatre - they may have resources and outreach projects. If you can get online there are SO many good shows available to watch. Also, just DO it. Don’t wait for permission. The Edinburgh Fringe is an expensive place but there are ways to do it more cheaply like the Free Fringe and it is an incredible learning experience. You have to try and fail and as Beckett said, ‘fail better’. There are no short cuts. With every new show I make I start again. Watch, devour, make, take risks, and study a bit. But don’t get stuck in an endless cycle of taking courses, DO! Also get some sleep, look after your body and foster your friendships with friends. You need a life too.

Who have your influences been as you have developed your own style and professional career? Have they varied a great deal from your childhood interests?

There are performers and creatives I saw when I was young who inspired me to want to act: Emma Thompson, Steven Berkoff (around the time of his incredible solo show, ‘One Man’), Linda Marlowe (who I finally got to work with and is now a friend), Kathryn Hunter, Mark Rylance. Also composers, Stephen Sondheim, Kurt Weill and artists as diverse from Edith Piaf to Joni Mitchell. As we evolve so the need for different creative nourishment evolves. I am most inspired now by my contemporaries, people making and evolving around me: Desmond O’Connor and Zoie Kennedy (as individuals and as part of Twice Shy Theatre), Amy G, Lucy McCormick, Gateau Chocolat, Peta Lily, Jordan Clarke, to name a few.

Also when did you first become interested in Julie Andrews? ‘Julie Madly Deeply’ still holds fond memories for me. I saw it twice in the same run at the Trafalgar Studios, both alone and with my mother and sister (who are big fans of Dame Julie Andrews). You successfully conveyed the emotional attachment of fans to their idols. Did you ever meet Dame Julie Andrews?

Thank you, I’m still very fond of that show and in fact we just did a two week run of it over Christmas (at the Park Theatre in London). I have not met Dame Julie but some of her friends have seen the show and loved it so that’s wonderful. I did invite her but she is a bit busy!

You work regularly with Michael Roulston and I have many happy memories of seeing the two of you performing your songs in various venues. ‘Please Don’t Hand Me Your Baby’ from ‘Songs For Cynics’ has always been a favourite. When did you meet Michael Roulston and how does collaborative working help you to develop your ideas? When Michael and your self are composing, do you find that one or the other of you tends to focus more on the lyrics of a song and the other person, the music?

We met on the Battersea Barge when it was owned by Peter Lewis who provided a haven for artists and clowns to try things out, develop ideas and experiment. Paulus, Dusty Limits and I put on a cabaret night called ‘Trinity’s’ and Michael played for us. We worked a lot in different configurations and then in 2006 I asked him to write songs with me for an ill-fated show called ‘Confessions Of A Paralysed Porn Star’. The title was the best thing about it. By the end of the run I was £8000 out of pocket but we had learned how to write songs and make a show. It took me another three years to try again and by then I had learned from some of my mistakes and we presented ‘Cabaret Whore’ in 2009 which catapulted me into the world of cabaret one-nighters, The Adelaide Cabaret Festival and being commissioned to make ‘Julie Madly Deeply’. At the start I was very much the lyricist and Michael was the music but now we have a more fluid working relationship. We still have our feet primarily in those camps but will work together on a lyric first and then on the music and it’s just as likely that Michael will solve a lyric problem as I might have an idea for a melody. It’s a true collaboration.

Also the idea of creating bespoke songs for individuals is a unique endeavour. How did the idea come about?

Like many creatives the pandemic wiped out all of our work for a year. We had already written songs with and for other people (including Marcel Lucont, Lili La Scala, Ophelia Bitz, Clementine Living Fashion Doll and TO&ST winner, Lynn Ruth Miller). We put the idea out on social media and the response was great. We’ve written songs and created personalised photo videos (with the lyrics so you can sing along) for birthdays, weddings, retirements, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and even a song for a cat. We are still doing them now.

I recently saw the production of ‘Jarman’ that you directed.  How did you become involved with the playwright and actor, Mark Farrelly and can you explain to me some of the freedoms and restrictions that you experience as a director as opposed to those situations where you are solely responsible for your own work? 

I met Mark in the queue to see the brilliant Rob Crouch in his solo show about Oliver Reed, ‘Wild Thing’. He was about to make his Quentin Crisp show and I was about to start work on ‘Julie Madly Deeply’ so we were seeing as many solo shows as we could for inspiration. We became instant friends and big fans of each other’s work. When he asked me to read his script for 'Jarman' I didn’t know a lot about him other than the title of some of his films and as an activist. I fell in love with the script and the man and then watched his films and was delighted to be asked to collaborate on the piece. I don’t really think of directing as having restrictions - my job is to help the artists create the show they want to make. In the case of ‘Jarman’ the script already existed so my job was to bring the physicality and staging to it - a visual realisation. We made a few small adjustments to what was on the page but it’s mostly exactly as Mark wrote it. I absolutely adored working with him and found him endlessly open and available for play and exploration. I’m very proud of the show. I’m also working with Russell Lucas on a new show called ‘The Bobby Kennedy Experience’ where he is performing and I am the outside eyes. It’s a different process from the one I had with Mark - again, there is no template: sometimes Russell will work on things on his own and invite me round to give feedback. Sometimes we are coming up with ideas together. With ‘Looking For Me Friend: The Music Of Victoria Wood’, Paulus, Michael Roulston and I spent a few days listening to songs, playing with post-it notes and collecting stories and quotes. Then Paulus went away and wrote the script. So I had a bit more of a hand in its creation but my job as director is still to facilitate Paulus to make the show he wants to perform. The kind of work I make for myself often involves improvisation and flexing with the audience in the room - so that is in and of itself a different kind of freedom. As a director, once the show is out there, my influence is over - apart from sitting in the dark and feeling proud.

‘Je Regrette!’ was a very funny and in some respects, hard hitting account of an Edith Piaf style figure with her difficult upbringing. What paths lead you to create a figure based on the troubled singers of so-called chansons or torch songs?

La Poule was originally one of 7 characters in the ‘Cabaret Whore’ series of shows. She’s the only character who made it into all four incarnations. She’s my dark clown. She comes from the desperate human need to be loved, the narcissistic neediness in a lot of us. She’s inspired by real people and imagined people. The original premise of ‘Cabaret Whore’ was to look at the ego it takes to stand on a stage and tell a bunch of strangers your life story. Why should we care? It’s the question I start all making processes with. What are we asking the audience to connect with? Who or what is it in service to? Again, it’s less about trying to imitate or reference a specific singer. La Poule just happens to be a singer. Mostly she’s a human being who has found life hard and unfair. I think a lot of people can identify. I use extreme characterisation to amplify normal behaviour so that audiences can recognise aspects of themselves but feel reassured they are not THAT bad!

During your production, ‘An Evening Without Kate Bush’, you delve into a box of costumes and props? Was this something you used to do as a child? 

My childhood friend Charlie had a huge costume box I was very envious of and we used to get given huge bags of second hand clothes from well-meaning people because we didn’t have much money. I was always trying to create fetching outfits. At 14 I started dying my hair and playing with that, shaving it off, making it blue. Now I dress up for a living. I’m quite dull in my civilian life. I don’t wear make-up and I’m mostly in black. I like full transformations from simple changes.

Also following your work in ‘The Showstoppers’ improvisation group, do you think that improvisational practices are not only of use within creative endeavours, but also to explore personal issues or dilemmas?

Absolutely and to answer that question I refer you to Pippa Evans’ book ‘Improv Your Life’.

Please can you explain your work with ‘The Authentic Artist’?

The AA is a wonderful collective founded by Kath Burlinson who runs courses and workshops for people who want to explore their artistic process. She takes an embodied approach and I have found this invaluable in my work. Writers, singers, musicians, visual and digital artists, set-designers, she works with all manner of creatives: they do not all necessarily practice their art for a living. The group is not an official organisation, rather a gathering of like-hearted people who have all experienced a similar process and like to stay in touch and share work and thoughts from time to time. It isn’t a cult or a membership thing. It’s community.

Do you feel that there is a story within us all? If so, how would you encourage someone to develop it?

I think we are all creative and we are all story making creatures - we tell stories to ourselves when we sleep and we recount the day’s event with a beginning, a middle and an end. A lot of people have their creativity squashed over time and I advocate everyone being encouraged to invite in their creativity. Whether that’s how you arrange the furniture in your room, make a salad or write your Facebook post.

During ‘An Evening Without Kate Bush’, you were able to encourage through your charisma and empathy to get various members of the audience up on stage to both sing and dance. How can you determine who will and won’t be willing to perform with you on stage?

I hope after 20 years of performing I am a good judge of who will want to play. I can definitely tell who doesn’t want to be asked. I build into the show opportunities for me to investigate who might be a possible contender for later in the show. Most people self-select - you can read their body language and their faces (an interesting challenge through a mask!) I never invite a single person up unless they have someone waiting for them by their seat to make them feel supported when they return. I never humiliate people. My job is to elevate and celebrate the audience. So far, no-one has every refused!

Where do you get your ideas from and how do you distinguish the form that they should take (e.g. a song or performance piece)?

I’m constantly trying to make sense of life through my work. Everything is a potential inspiration and the form it takes is dictated by what mode (song, poem, play, tweet) will serve it best. It has to connect with an audience, so if it’s not going to resonate with someone else, I keep it to myself.

Has your creativity ever led you astray resulting in you creating something unlike your original idea?

I don’t think I have ever made a show with an exact version of it in my head at the start. If the story is solid then there is a direction of travel but it’s part of the creative process to wander off path from time to time. I am making a show now for Summerhall this August called ‘The Silent Treatment’. I was just about to share an early draft when Covid hit. During the past two years it has morphed into a different show, hopefully a better show than the one I might have presented in 2020. The world changed, I changed, so it changed too.

I haven’t read it yet but the ‘RSV People Book’ by Paul Chronnell and your good self sounds wonderful (the book is on its way to me now). The idea of contacting all of the requests for pen pals in one issue of ‘Smash Hits’ magazine in 1985 touches on a theme that seems to run through lots of your projects. Nostalgia seems to provide a rich vein for your creativity. What do you most miss about the past?

Flexibility and time. I don’t really miss the past but I long for more TIME - time to do nothing - life is full and I love it but I sometimes long for a few days with absolutely nothing to do but shoot the breeze… if I had it I’d probably spend it coming up with an idea for a show anyway! I also have to stretch and look after my body much more now than I used to. But honestly, each year I am learning - I wouldn’t want to go backwards.

Your work ensures that certain acts and movements are not forgotten, how would you like to be remembered?

As someone who cared and told good stories. Loyal and loving. Work in progress up to the final breath.

What are your future plans? How is your musical ‘Maxa, The Most Assassinated Woman In The World’ with Michael Roulston coming along?

There is a lot of promotion to do for the book. ‘Jarman’ and ‘Looking For Me Friend’ are off on tour so I will check in with those. I have one more week working with Russell on the 'Bobby Kennedy Show' before we open at the Town And Gown in Cambridge in April. After our Soho run I am on tour with AEWKB (‘An Evening Without Kate Bush’), I’m also in rehearsals for 'The Silent Treatment' and coaching several other artists on their solo shows and planning a wedding. Maxa is ready to go so now we need investment or a producer to take it on. It’s all go! 

Sarah-Louise Young, many thanks for allowing me to interview you and I look forward to seeing your next production.

                                                                                            Barry Watt – 9th February 2022.

Afterword 

Please see the below links for further information about Sarah-Louise Young and her endeavours/collaborations: 

Sarah-Louise Young’s website: www.sarah-louise-young.com 

Bespoke Songs: www.roulstonandyoung.co.uk 

An Evening Without Kate Bush: www.withoutkatebush.com 

The RSVPeople: www.thersvpeople.co.uk 

Maxa Musical: www.maxamostassassinated.com 

The Authentic Artist: www.authenticartist.co.uk

Also all of the projects/artists/magazines and books etc. are copyright to their respective owners.

                                                                                                                                            BW.

Photos (Kindly provided by Sarah-Louise Young.  The photographers are listed under the photos.  As above, the images are copyright, so please do not use without seeking permission or La Poule may come to visit with her knife!  ;-) )

                                           

Sarah Louise Young (Photo by Jamie Zubairi)

An Evening Without Kate Bush Main Shot

          (Photo by Steve Ullathorne)

Roulston & Young (Photo by Claudio Raschella)

Julie Madly Deeply (Photo by Steve Ullathorne)

La Poule Portrait (Photo by Steve Ullathorne)

La Poule With Knife
(Photo by Steve Ullathorne)

 

Lost & Found - The Detritus/Treasures of Memory, Emotion and Transient Ownership.

I listened to the Divine Comedy's album, Regeneration for the first time in ages the other day and I was once again moved by the song, Lost Property.  It explores the very human need to accumulate as a means of somehow creating an identity for ourselves and the subsequent feelings of sadness that grow within us when those objects that are often only meaningful to their owner loses them.  The song progresses like a lament to loss and culminates with the narrator experiencing a vivid dream where he progresses to a utopian land where all of the lost items have magically coalesced and he can once again behold the infinitesimal wonders of 'postcards and letters' and 'Blue Rizla packets'.

The song has acted as a catalyst for this blog and a consideration of why we place such value on objects that others may consider menial and also conversely, why found objects are so important?

Personally, I define myself as a collector.  I live in a world of sequential artefacts.  I like to see how stories finish.  Closure is important up to a point but rarely happens in the comics that adorn multiple boxes.  Indeed, as I have got older closure represents something more meaningful, scary and fatalistic than the happy endings in fairy tales.  In the other cultural artefacts that I consume, a break of any sort so long as it conveys a change of some description satisfies.  Happy endings are for kids.  

Anyhow, just like your good self and millions of other people, I have lost things.  The weirdest thing I ever lost was a set of keys.  As I walked to the railway station, the keys fell out of my pocket and I heard them hit the ground or road yet never found them.  I assumed they fell down, hit the road and ended up in the drains.

In many respects, it is important to consider those items that are permanently lost from those items that we temporarily mislay.  The permanent losses can be like mini-bereavements, if only for a short time.  They hit us emotionally in the same way as missed or wasted opportunities.  The gift that is given to you that is irreplaceable that disappears.

Oddly, I have objects that I have been given that have assumed the symbolic and emotional equivalent of talismans or good luck charms.  When I was a child, my Grandmother gave me a little blue imp made of plastic (possibly, a Christmas Cracker toy) explaining to me that I was as mischievous and cheeky as this imp.  My Grandmother died but the imp still keeps popping up sometimes.  It disappears from my view and then all of a sudden, it reappears.  I recall using it as a good luck charm during exams.

Then there are those items that are still around but not immediately locatable.  I have a couple of manuscripts written by people who have played a role in my life, one now sadly deceased.  If these documents come to light, one will upset me and the other one may incite feelings of anger.  Objects in themselves hold no intrinsic emotional value beyond that which we imbue them with (although, manuscripts do if they are written by someone we care or have cared about.  Also creative works in general).

I was given a poem once written in pencil by a friend I had lost touch with as he had moved to Spain.  He returned to the United Kingdom for a visit and gave me a card with a poem about a Butterfly.  Once again, this is temporarily lost as it is hidden in one box or another.  If you collect or hoard, you are opening yourself up to moments of discovery, both pleasant and depressing.

Conversely, one person's lost object is the source of another's development or pleasure.  At one point, I was in Brighton and bought a selection of second hand books, mostly Hermann Hesse as they are not always easy to locate in bookshops.  Upon getting them home, in a copy of Knulp, I found a poem called La Vase Brise (The Broken Vase) handwritten in French.  I have done a bit of research and the poem was written by a French poet and essayist called Sully Prudhomme.  It uses the metaphor of a crack in a vase that gradually grows as a symbol of how subtly we can be transformed by the love of another, either for the better or for the worse (well, that's how I view it anyhow).  I was left to speculate whether the book (and poem) had been given as a gift to a significant other back in the year I was born (there is a name inside the book).  Is the poem a love poem or a student trying to improve their understanding of French through the act of writing?  Why is the poem slipped into the book?  Was it a favourite book?

Found objects are part of the joy of being alive.  Think of the art works that have been created as a result of chance encounters with random things.  For example, Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, a ceramic two fingered gesture to a staid art world and the beginning of a movement towards the beauty of the mundane and utilitarian often later seen exemplified by the Pop Art movement.  The objects that we find can also hint at sad stories too.  The cat scratching post left outside a house, perhaps suggesting either a dead or lost animal?  The educational or cookery books, the end of a dalliance with some new interest as temporal as the children's books that the little ones outgrow on their passage towards Dan Brown and Tolstoy.

However, we view them, lost and found objects speak of the passage of time and the essential meaninglessness of all possessions.  Our emotions are the only things that matter, the objects merely stimulate their appearance or reiteration.  In the final analysis, people matter, objects don't. 

                                                               Barry Watt - 29th January 2022 and 5th February 2022.

Afterword.

The Divine Comedy are a rather lovely band that I have been following since the 90s.  Regeneration was an album they released in 2001.  It has really grown on me recently.  Lost Property inspired this blog.  The phrases from the song are copyright to the band and their publisher.  They have a website.  Rizla is also copyright to the company that produces rolling paper for cigarettes.  They have a website:

Official Site of The Divine Comedy | The Divine Comedy 

Rizla is also copyright to the company that produces rolling paper for cigarettes.  They have a website but as they need you to verify your age, have a look at this Wikipedia entry instead:

Rizla - Wikipedia

Hermann Hesse is one of those authors that you tend to get introduced to either through reading other books or through friends.  I can't really describe his work in detail as the beauty of reading them is to explore self-development and personal understanding/growth.  Knulp was pretty much in the same vein.  Stepphenwolf is still my favourite of his work.  Don't assume that your identity is static then life becomes bearable and goals can be achieved.  His works are available from various publishers and are copyright to the publishers etc.

Hermann Hesse - Wikipedia

Sully Prudhomme (Rene Francois Armand (Sully) Prudhomme) was a French poet and essayist.  The poem in question, La Vase Brise (The Broken Vase) is beautiful.  I have uploaded the poem as I found it for illustrative purposes.  It is copyright to the publishers etc.  There are a number of translations available, subtly different.  I was surprised to discover that songs etc have been created from the poem.  It's worth exploring You Tube for some versions of the poem.  A link to some further information about the poet is below:

Sully Prudhomme - Wikipedia

Marcel Duchamp was a very creative individual/artist associated with many of the art movements of the 20th Century such as Dada and Surrealism.  Fountain was an example of what Duchamp referred to as "readymades" essentially random items that he personified by either adding a signature or subtly changing in some way.  Please see below link for more information on Duchamp and his work:

Marcel Duchamp - Wikipedia

Pop Art is something of an umbrella term for a number of disparate artists.  Please see the below link for more information:

Pop art – Art Term | Tate

Dan Brown and Leo Tolstoy are both authors.  You probably don't need me to provide links but here goes anyway:

Dan Brown - Wikipedia

Leo Tolstoy - Wikipedia

                                                                                                                                             BW.

Photos (Taken by me).

The Blue Imp.

La Vase Brise by Sully Prudhomme
& Mysterious Cartographer (Page 1).

La Vase Brise by Sully Prudhomme
& Mysterious Cartographer (Page 2).