Posted By: Anonymous, 23 August 2010
The Story of The Story Of
Monday, August 23, 2010
Of all the puns iin all the world...The story of
Dean's Dad's Ducks and my Dad's dodgy double life hit the local papers back home earlier this month (sort of 40 years too late). They slightly played up the whole 'local man in double life shocker' theme and briefly, for that day (today's newspaper is tomorrow's chip paper), it caused a stir in the village where I was born and my mother still lives. It also gave the local paper the chance to do a duck pun in their own inimitable style (see above).
Stories and lies are a theme of
Dean's Dad's Ducks - as my mother pointed out to people who asked her 'Dean just makes things up, you know what he's like' (she said this with a smile by the way) - and the title poem of the show sort of deals with this and is actually called, 'The Story of'. A version of it appeared in my last pamphlet
Just Our Luck.... The thing about memories and stories and lies is that you just can't tell what's true or not, can you, in the end.
The Story Of
The story of the nut allergy.
How you know you’ve got it and why you aren’t dead.
The story of the whelk stuck in your throat,
of the fishing line hooking Simon King by the cheek.
The story of, the story of, the story of
The story of the kipper and the grandmother,
my mother’s story, the story I always get wrong.
You just make things up!
The story of the father and two sons in search of the cat –
each brought back a different one and the story
of the real cat that returned while they were out looking.
The story of, the story of, the story of…
The story of watching the morning arrive,
the sky clicking on its light, like that.
And the three men on a lawn massaging
someone’s else’s girlfriend until
that light came on.
Like your story of the two of you,
taking off your clothes, laying there together.
Of just talking, not touching.
The story of, the story of, the story of…
The story of the woman on the bus.
Of how beautiful a woman can be,
surrounded by pensioners and a young man
with tremendous acne.
The story of the warts. Of the place on your finger
where you can still feel you had them.
The story of it being thirty years ago,
of lemon squash in milk bottles.
The story of running,
how it’s not a race any more, of getting older.
Realising it’s not going to stop until it does.
The story of, the story of, the story of…
The story of the waiting room,
of having nothing to read, of thinking
to yourself, how long am I going to be?
The story of seventeen seconds one afternoon
when you wanted to change everything,
then decided against it.
The story of nothing but the same old story,
the long story you were told
to cut. Get to the bloody point!
The weekend shows went well - with so many shows under my belt, I know feel very comfortable with the material and I'm still enjoying doing it, enjoying that confidence. Every now and then you get a day when you feel drained and a bit knackered (you can see that in the faces of the other performers) and Sunday I did feel a bit lack lustre. You just have to look after yourself and try and change gear. Saw a magnificent show on Saturday evening - a weird tango opera called 'Maria de Beunos Aires' with a Tom Waits-ian type live band, dancers, singers and clowns (not Ronald McDonald type clowns, just ones with white faces). I didn't know what was going on all the time but didn't care. It was like watching a Marc Chagall picture that came to life. Terrific - the most weird and wonderful thing I've seen at the Festival so far.
The Story Behind the Door
Saturday, August 21, 2010
My very own keyhole (where you'l find me of an afternoon)...
This is the door. It's the place you will find me everyday at 5.10pm. Waiting for 5.15pm in a corridor. Occasionally people walk by noisily having their life, chatting, laughing, then see me and quieten and nod. Sometimes they apologise. They can see what I'm doing. I'm about to go on, waiting for my cue...
During the first couple of shows I simply went through the door - I didn't know how big the audience would be (I know how many tickets have sold but don't know the number of walk-ups on the day) - so the first day I hoped there would be more people than there was and the second day I was surprised that there were so many people. The third day I found the keyhole. The keyhole looks directly towards the other door in the venue, the door that people come into the venue. So once Sophie, my sound engineer and front of house person, has sound-checked and checked the lights etc, I go out of my door and she goes to her door and lets the people in. And I crouch down at the keyhole and find out who and what will be the audience today.
Sometimes the dance troupe upstairs finish late, just as I'm about to start (5.10pm to be precise), and their audience departs down the stairs and through my corridor (where I'm crouching to watch my audience arrive). Some days, every now and then, someone just walks past and sees a man with a briefcase at a keyhole. Sometimes I pretend I'm tying my shoelaces (this isn't very convincing). I've been caught once kissing my duck ("It's for good luck," I explained. The woman smiled and hurried along). I've also started talking to my duck too (it is the only other member of my cast) - not long conversations I hasten to add, just the odd word or two. I suppose, what I'm saying is, if you do come across a man doing slightly odd things in a corridor at 5.10pm don't worry. I'm an 'affable' guy (in three of my reviews that is the common word to describe me) and I'm also probably a little mad (we are gettting to the third week of The Fringe). And I'm about to go on, about to do the last minute check that I've got my rail ticket with me (all part of the show) and say my first line again, start today's journey. So, think of me, if only briefly, won't you at 5.10pm behind my very own green (greeny blue) door...
The Story of The Director
DateThursday, August 19, 2010
Two men and their ducks. Mine's a jumbo and Paul's is 'generously sized'.
I don't know many directors (I am not flush with theatrical contacts living in a remote Suffolk village which does at least boast an excellent fish and chip shop and a Chinese takeaway). I really only know one director, the director of my show. You only need one though, don't you? I first met Paul Warwick, in Shropshire in 2003. I was an Arvon Jerwood Young Poet (ah, to be 'young' again!) and he was a fresh faced Arvon Writing Centre Director (him and his long-term business partner Ed Collier had set-up the freshly converted John Osborne Writing Centre). The Arvon Jerwood scheme gave us a week at the centre with our mentors. Paul and Ed liked my poems and invited me back a few times over the next 3/4 years to do guest readings on schools' courses.
I next bumped into Paul at the Edinburgh Fringe last year in the Assembly Rooms. Paul and Ed had left Arvon and had formed China Plate (which acts 'as a conduit for collaboration and encouraging leaps into unknown creative territory') and both now direct and produce award-winning and innovative plays for the theatre. Paul asked me what I was up to, I said I was developing a one man show and he said, 'do you want a director?' It was one of those Yes please moments. I was immediately excited. That was the moment when doing a show at Edinburgh became a reality. The rest is history, or at least the story of this very strange year.
It's been brilliant working with Paul - from the first five day session in March and late nights listening to Billy Bragg in the Mancave (we also celebrated Paul's birthday with a bakewell tart bloke feeding frenzy) to the week he spent up in Edinburgh with me, bedding in the show at the beginning of the month. He's also the first person ever to really push me and try to drive me forward. Paul also loved the Mancave and was very impressed with me being so close to a fish and chip shop and Chinese takeaway (it takes a top bloke to see that). It's been a terrific experience working with him. Thank you Paul.
This week's shows have continued where I left off on Sunday. I'm feeling more confident about the show and as a result it's mostly going with a swing. The mood of the audience does seem to change day to day, I don't think it's me, but sometimes they are quiet, sometimes they laugh, sometimes they don't know when they should laugh - I think that's it. I can see them smiling though and feel them listening, which is the main thing. On Tuesday and Wednesday I had nice big audiences - it's really great to have the Cabaret Bar packed. They've been fairly quiet audiences on both days though but I've had some friendly feedback at the door afterwards when I hand out the programme and duck postcards. One man said yesterday, 'I'm not sure what that was but thank you, that was strange! I mean, amazing! And strange. Is any of it true?' I raised one eyebrow in a quizzical fashion and said, 'of course it is'. As Nick Lowe once sang, All Men Are Liars (And That's The Truth)...
The Story of Saving a Pigeon from Baguette Express
Sunday, August 15, 2010
In Edinburgh ducks are allowed to travel for free on buses (at the back).
For Saturday's show I came out fighting (after Friday's stodgy audience plus I knew there was a reviewer in). However this was probably the most obvious reviewer of all time - he sat at a table directly in front of me writing in his notebook (either that or he was my stepmother's solicitor). His girlfriend seemed to like the show so fingers crossed. But I was delivering it all rather aggressively to begin with. The audience didn't know whether to laugh or cry or be afraid! I suddenly got in the groove half way through - the last half of the show, which is the sad half, got more laughs than ever before. It just seemed to work. I was a little bit down for Sunday's show but when I walked on stage today, it fell into place. The audience were lovely and were with me all the way. An old guy came up to me at the end with tears in his eyes and said 'your Dad was very lucky to have you'. That almost made me spontaneously blub! But I am a bloke and a British bloke at that so I sniffed it off. I must have got something in my eye... But audiences and days like this make it all worth doing.
On the way back, swinging my briefcase, whistling an Elvis Costello tune, a pigeon flew at me and missed and went head first into Baguette Express. It then played pigeon pinball flying the length of the shop and then against the window. And then against the window, and then against the window. The staff came at with brooms which didn't helped. So the Pigeon Whisperer stepped in. I told them to calm down, go and get a box. By this time the pigeon had come to rest in the window display with a bad headache. They handed me the box and I gently played the 'walls are closing in trick', putting the box behind it and edging it, escorting it to the door. It saw the light and flew for it. I got a free caramel slice for my trouble. All in a day's work...
The Story of the Swan Machine
Saturday, August 14, 2010
My Mum Hev, back then, with Swan Machine
In
Dean's Dad's Ducks I mention The Swan Machine. And to prove such a thing existed - here's a picture of my Mum at work on one in our kitchen in 1985. As I might have mentioned, my father was a toymaker and was a plastic blow-moulder manufacturer. My mother used to help out with factory work in the evenings. She used to put the squeak in the squeakers to go on the bottom of those sweet-filled walking sticks. But mainly she used to drill swans on the swan machine...
The Swan Machine
was in the kitchen, next to the fridge. Two feet high,
a black frame with a motor and drill for making
six holes in swans (three each side)
for daffodils to grow through. The plastic shavings
flew everywhere. My mother drilled
and turned up the radio. We kept the kitchen door shut.
My father reloaded the garage with black sacks,
the occasional beak pecking through.
My mother drilled – each time she switched on,
the living room lights would flicker. When we heard
the drill skid and snarl, the machine would stop
and we knew she’d missed a hole and hoped
it was the swan that had taken the gouge. She sat
on one of our dining room chairs (covered,
so it wouldn’t spoil). For comfort
there was a length of foam for her to rest her elbows
as she held the swan up to the drill. She drilled
and swore when the dog wanted to be let out,
let back in, Bloody dog! The motor was slow
to start, rising to a drone through the house.
She drilled to get cash from my father
who gave her more swans
and arthritis. What’s that?
my friends would ask when the buzzing
interfered with ‘Tomorrow’s World’ on TV.
That’s my mother, I would say, proud
to have a swan machine in the house.
*
Wednesday's show was the best so far - a lovely warm responsive audience, it really flew. There was even a
Total Theatre Reviewer in (pity The 3 star Scotsman reviewer was in the day before!) and did get a good review from her. I also swung through Thursday's show but Friday's had a very stodgy audience, very unresponsive although they were smiling (some of them were smiling). Sophie, my sound engineer, agreed 'You were okay', she said, 'but they were so silent!'. I barely got a 'bubblewrap' out of them (audience participation poem). Then she told me in a quiet even voice, so as not to frighten me, that there were two press tickets amongst the audience. Ah. Hopefully they were they ones that were smiling!
