Devoted…

…& Disgruntled in Plymouth (and Cornwall and Devon)

My first D&D, although I’ve done the open space format thing a few times.

Theatre Royal Plymouth

Here’s a detailed description of how the D&D Roadshow works in case you want to have a better idea of what I’m talking about: Downstagewrite

So it’s basically filling a day with those kind of coffee break chats that are often the best bit of a conference. Anyone can suggest a topic. And anyone can turn up – theatre goers/dancers/writers/producers/artists/venues ….maybe a little tricky to communicate that, I asked a composer-friend if he was coming and he’d assumed it was an exclusive invite-only event.

Devoted and Disgruntled – how was it for me…

I immediately liked the title as it pretty much sums me up – utterly devoted and a bit disgruntled.

But during the day I got the sense these states were being polarised. You were either in the devoted camp (good) or in the disgruntled camp (bad). Being seen as being in the disgruntled camp felt rather uncomfortable, like you were just a moaner.

I think being both devoted and disgruntled means that you are up for debating the problems, and then up for trying to do something about them.

Do we need the provocative formal debates/speakers in order to have something to rebel against/discuss/debate during the coffee chats?

One conclusion of the day is an obvious one….Devon….whether that’s Exeter or Plymouth…is never going to be Bristol.

We just don’t have the population. So we’ll never have that kind of self-perpetuating theatre ecology that draws people in and keeps them. I still think the various theatres and organisations in Devon can do more in terms of talking to each other, trusting each other, getting together to support the few full time theatre makers who are based here, helping us develop the regional audiences for our work, providing a bit of infrastructure…and they think that too.

from: http://welovelocalgovernment.wordpress.com

Will it happen? How long will it take? Why is being a supported artist a postcode lottery?

I look at what goes on in the East region  – I never would have imagined that the place I grew up – which felt so cut off and rural and boring –is now pretty much the best place in the country for a theatre maker to live.

Having said that, while growing up in Suffolk I was a member of ‘Splinters’ youth dance company at Suffolk dance, and we worked with Richard Alston, Wayne McGregor, Phoenix dance company…and I commuted once a week to the Royal College of Music junior school. On second thoughts rural Suffolk was the perfect place for an artist to grow up.  (if your arty middle class parents take you to Snape Maltings)

–Is it simply distance to London and travel costs that are the problem?

When I attended the Jerwood Aldeburgh opera writing foundation scheme last year,  it was brilliant to have time to talk with other artists – writers, directors, composers, – all of them full time practitioners, and to collaborate. That’s one of the things missing from Plymouth/Devon. Even when artists do get together we’re usually too preoccupied with the practicalities of how to make the work happen to talk about the work itself.

Which is why it’s so important to travel and spend time outside of the region. – That was one of the suggestions of the ‘Is the work being made in Devon good enough?’ session. – Maybe the artists based here don’t see enough good work. I guess that might be true for the recent graduates who have stuck around, but it’s also a little patronising. I’m a graduate from the region who stuck around. The few writers/directors/actors/theatre makers I know here have spent most of their lives making and seeing work in other places. It’s quite tricky to suggest that the work being made here isn’t good enough  - when many of the professional artists based here are not actually able to make the work they want to make at all.

Doing something about it.

There were some great things I got from the day…I met Kate Sparshatt who was very impressive and nice, and generous, and we have subsequently met up and had a useful chat about Gecko and producers and funding applications. On the topic of brilliant women –  one of the most vibrant chats was called by Natalie McGrath, ‘Women’s Voices – ? Do We Want To Hear And See Women On Our ‘Stages’ In The South West?‘ – other than Kate (Plymouth Arts Centre), and Emily Williams (Wide Awake Devon/Theatre Devon) I think the representatives of organisations/theatres in the room were all men. Robert Miles from the Brewhouse joined the debate.

There were a number of women making things happen in the room – including: Natalie McGrath (playwright), Josie Sutcliffe (director), Belinda Dillon (critic, Exeunt/Devon Life), Belinda Chapman (choreographer/director), Fiona Chivers (designer), Ruth Mitchell (actor/theatre maker), Bethany Pitts (director), Emily Williams (producer/Wide Awake Devon), Danielle Rose (producer), Cassandra Williamson (Pilot’s Thumb) …

I did a little tweeting and Lyn Gardner liked the idea of coordinating with other performances in the region and sending invites to critics to come down and see a few things at once. I would have liked to have talked more about the issue of lack of theatre criticism in the region …. I turned up too late to that session – but I think a conclusion was we need to blog more – tweet and blog about everything. And #swtheatre is available. I’m going to see the latest Belgium experiment at the Drum tonight. I’ll give the hashtag a go afterwards.  (But still find it very hard to comment on/review work, especially when I don’t like it) – Had a chat with Belinda Dillon about that. – I can’t afford to make any more enemies than I already make through this blog!

Had a little brain storm with Seth Honnor about what to call things.  - He made a list, none of them are great, although ‘Grokking’ perhaps the favourite. But anything that taxi drivers don’t understand is no good. My taxi driver thought ‘theatre maker’ meant that I built theatres. Maybe we just need to call ourselves and our work by different names in different situations.

I talked to Mark at Beaford Arts and started thinking about rural touring, and pondering whether my work could be rurally toured. We have subsequently had a chat and Beaford is supporting the development phase of ‘Hunger’ with a two week residency – which also gives me a chance to explore the question about audiences for my work.

So it now it looks like making Hunger in the region is a possibility. I‘ll still be based in London for a few months from September, but even having just one thing to come back for makes my year ahead more exciting, less disgruntling – and I’m as devoted as ever.

A selection of the reports:

How can theatres and organisations prioritise and support their local theatre makers?
Is Work Being Made In Devon Good Enough?
Should We Be Happy To Work For Free – And Are We Damaging Theatre If We Do?
Theatre In Non-Theatre Space: Was Creating The Bike Shed Theatre A Waste Of Time?
Women’s Voices – ? Do We Want To Hear And See Women On Our ‘Stages’ In The South West?
How Do We Get SW Theatre Regularly Reviewed?
Half The SW Lives In The Countryside. Why Doesn’t The Sector Give Rural Work Equal Weight?
In addition to developing opportunities for artists in the South West, how do we retain, attract and develop producers and arts managers?

From Plymouth to the Bush Theatre

Which way?

A meandering diary-entry-like account that includes a long bus journey, the tribulations of being an artist in Plymouth, ‘Encounters’ at the Bush Theatre and the post show discussion with Madani Younis and Omar Elerian, developing new writing, solo writers/performers, being a female solo writer/performer…There will be many tangents. I was on a bus all night and wrote this on that bus and haven’t had time to write less. And I also want to post this before something about the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and my new projects. I will probably write something more concise with similar ideas in it soon for the Capital Theatre Festival debate ‘New Writing Vs New Work’. So this is only for the committed procrastinator. I’ll put some headings and pictures in it. See, even the disclaimer was too long.

Encounters at The Bush

Opening emails from Sabrina Mafouz and from the Bush Theatre a few days ago: Look at this double bill at the Bush!  Sabrina Mahfouz and Caroline Horton are associate artists. This is quite something. And Friday was ‘writers’ night’ with a discussion about making innovative theatre and the challenges that female solo writers/performers face in the industry. I want to go.

Public Transport

I want to go. I won’t let this living-in-Plymouth thing get in my way. But I can’t afford the train – over £100 if you don’t book it ages in advance… but how about the bus? There and back in 24 hours for £35. £50 in total with the Encounters ticket. And that’s OK, that’s the price I pay for living here. My rent is cheaper.  And I’m going so that I don’t feel trapped by this geography, to be part of a conversation.

New Writing – for me or not for me

The last time I went to The Bush I saw The Kitchen Sink – which I enjoyed in the way I enjoy good TV drama. I sat in the new bar/library area for an hour afterwards, waiting to catch my night train back to Plymouth. And I felt so apart from that world. And seeing that play – I thought, it’s silly for me to feel bad about this theatre rejecting my plays – that is the work they put on and my work is in a completely different world. There’s no point sending my stuff to them. It’s like sending….I don’t know I’m too tired for analogies…like sending somebody something they haven’t asked for and have no idea what to do with….It’s like sending me one of those German ‘Herman’ bread things. I had the same realisation after seeing Bartlett’s Love love love (about my plays not Herman).

no thanks

But now, new directors, new directions…

So I booked tickets. I know Sabrina Mafouz through the spoken word world and I should have seen Dry Ice at the Edinburgh Fringe last year. But I didn’t because it was on late and the bones in my knees felt like they were rotting from the inside and it was all I could do to get through my flyering-performing-flyering schedule for two weeks. But I should have gone anyway and I’ve regretted it ever since. So this was my last chance.

On the bus

Mine twas not ‘rapide’ but this, my friends, is Plymouth

I was feeling quite chirpy. I suspected it wouldn’t last. But I was fine. Feeling quite inspired by my impressive reading material, left Marie Claire at home and took Caryl Churchill, Václav Havel and Jan Kott – never come across his writing before and it was a revelation, ideas that’ll keep me writing for life. It reminded me of what I want to write about, of what I really know about. (Love, by the way, the body, the erotic) That’ll keep the googlers busy.

But then an accident on the road, a diversion….and we were an hour delayed by the time we were at Heathrow, and then another 40 mins delayed in traffic from there to Victoria. And you know, we practically went past Shephard’s Bush and I asked the driver if he could let me out and he said no that wasn’t possible…I should have pretended to need to puke. By that point I was avoiding watching the clock in the bus. Wasn’t willing to accept that I was going to miss it.

I’d left a bit over an hour contingency. Optimistic. But earlier buses were more expensive. Last time I got the bus to see something at the National we were delayed and I missed the first half. This time it took seven and a half hours – Plymouth to London. I think it felt worse because I was half expecting it. I knew I’d be lucky to get there in time. But then, being let down when you are half expecting to be let down….it was worse. My optimism suddenly gone…because it had been proved to me again – I can’t live in Plymouth.

So I arrived at the Bush 15mins too late for Dry Ice. I had a pint at the bar.

Enter: Madani Younis and Omar Elerian

Madani Younis

Omar Elerian

Wrapped in their own integrity and Madani with a rucksack. I’ve always liked people with rucksacks –  carrying their homes on their backs. My first image of my husband was seeing this huge green rucksack, retreating down the stairs at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Short, stocky, dark – Mexican – a little pack horse, a snail. When we met he was a director. He would have walked up to those two men and introduced himself and impressed them. They probably would have wanted to produce his next production there and then. He had/has that knack. He went to Eugenio Barba in Denmark, went into his office, talked – and on the spot was invited to spend time with the Odin Teatret whenever he wanted. I don’t have that knack. Maybe I’m just socially awkward.

First impressions

I was at a networking meeting a while ago with an important person I know from a theatre. I introduced a female playwright to him. He also briefly met a young male director. After the meeting he joked that the female playwright probably wasn’t any good, and also mentioned the young male director in a positive light. It is often assumed that women don’t know what they are doing and that men do. Women have to overturn assumptions and men just have to not disprove them.

Anyway, that’s something I struggle with – a lack of confidence in talking to people on first meetings. A lack of confidence in presenting who I am when someone knows nothing about me. Too much of an awareness of all the other people in the same situation who in fact don’t know what they are doing. So I finished my pint.

You’re not like other girls Chrissy by Caroline Horton. Directed by Omar Elerian

Caroline Horton in ‘You’re not like other girls Chrissy’

Although I was gutted that I missed Sabrina’s I could still watch Caroline’s in the second half. This isn’t any kind of a review because that would involve structuring my ideas and perhaps mentioning what it is about. But just want to say a few things including – what a beautiful piece of work.

You know those annoying audiences who laugh at stuff that isn’t funny? Sometimes they do it because the work is so tedious they are so desperate for respite they laugh out of a need to laugh. Sometimes they do it because they suddenly have a collective shite sense of humour. I don’t know. Well normally I don’t laugh when the audience around me laughs. The last thing I saw was Ontroerend Goed’s A History of Everything. It really was the most soul-numbing bit of work I’ve seen for ages. The actors were just going through the motions, the theatre had buggered off leaving a bare idea of a performance struggling to survive in a dead space.

So this, Chrissy character – so full of life, so embodied, it was like soul food or something, to be laughing, naturally, spontaneously. And of course to be reminded of how simple it is, really, to engage an audience completely. How beautiful it is to be engaged, entertained, drawn in, by just one character and some suitcases. This was craft I was seeing – the acting and the writing coming together so that there was no distance between ‘actor’ and character. She was Chrissy. And whenever she was looking at the audience on the other side I was a bit jealous.

I loved the use of language – the use of English from a French woman’s perspective, ‘hot cat on a roof’. I love that, when the context is given for word play, I loved the way she was tasting these English words, revelling in the newness of them. That distance from the language, not taking it for granted…

Submission policies & You’re not like other girls Chrissy cont.

And one other thing. Well, Vicky Featherstone is at the Royal Court now, so maybe this will change. But the other day I came across the Royal Court submissions policy, or maybe it was via a High Tide Symposium tweet – saying they were looking for work that is about our times…contemporary, relevant…(London presumably)…? I think, what a silly thing fixate on. There’s the risk of just making work about things that are in the UK news. As if that is a good reflection of today anyway. And there’s the fact that if you are trying to make current work then by the time it’s on it’s not current anymore. You don’t want to be looking for work that is current and relevant Now – you want work that is current and relevant Always…surely? (And now and then putting on work that is ahead of its time wouldn’t hurt either)

Well on that note, a funny thing about this play (set in France in the forties so unlikely to have made it through the Royal Court’s submissions policy) – it opened with a little scene about queuing. ‘The English wouldn’t stand for this’ – in a queue at a train station for over an hour. It was hilarious of course because of the Heathrow debacle. But that couldn’t be planned. Serendipity aside, it was a timeless piece that will always be relevant. Don’t take history away from writers, we have a hard enough job as it is.

When I was a kid I used to love to replay films in my head, I could do it with strange accuracy and I used to write, in my head, different endings for novels. When the work is so real, it takes you over, involves you, lives within you. That happened with You’re not like other girls Chrissy. In my delirious state of tiredness on the delightful seven hour bus journey back to Plymouth I sometimes had Chrissy with me, I could hear her. I have that character now, to entertain me in my imagination. What a beautiful thing this theatre can be.

Theatre can do many things. My experience of Caroline’s piece is one of those things but I wouldn’t write an artistic policy based on that work. Caroline’s, for me was all about character and a voice.…another show might be about ideas, might be about what my imagination does while I’m watching……to search for work that does a particular thing…is homogenising…deadening…

Solo writers/performers

Sabrina Mafouz

When you perform your work as well as write it, there is no division between writer and performer. The process of writing takes place in a studio, the writer in you is involved in a strange kind of internal collaboration with the performer in you. It is still writing – and Sabrina and Caroline are fantastic writers. And (‘and’ not ‘but’) it is a different way of writing. It often doesn’t happen on the paper, alone, it happens in the studio, often with others. With recent plays I’ve seen – Shivered by Philip Ridley for instance, and I’m a huge fan of his writing….the actors were very good, but I could see them as actors….acting the characters….doing a job…. With a writer/performer, the really good ones that is, it’s not like that. Partly of course because the writer/performer is so invested in making their own work, they rehearse it for longer, develop it for longer, the responsibility of making it a success is entirely down to them. No pressure (shit loads of pressure).

Post show discussion

Madani Younis said he wants to engage with a new generation of writers…he might have said theatre makers….he might have said artists….I think he did say writers…different processes of writing…the point is…a new generation of ways of writing and making work.

This new-writing-London-centric-theatre-world has been closing its doors to the writers who write differently…and now there’s a possibility the doors will open. And these directors are coming from different trainings, theatrical backgrounds, approaches to making work, with different taste, different perspectives. I think it’s really exciting that Omar Elerian is there as associate director. His background in theatre outside of this country, training in Lecoq, and interest in visual story telling could prove…well just imagine it – Complicite with a decent script.

Neither Sabrina or Caroline were ‘found’ through script submissions…Sabrina said her script had been rejected many times as the readers/directors didn’t know what to do with it…so I asked whether a script submission policy still works? Will they have a different way of finding artists?

Watch this space was the answer I think. Or,  this one. And they will try to see lots of stuff.

I wonder about a different way of submitting…I wonder about submitting ideas, working methods, past work as evidence…more like putting together an application for a new project…I wonder if that’s a possibility. I really think the writer in their cave…the script meetings….the rehearsed readings….the three week rehearsal period….needs a re-think. Alex Chisholm on a similar topic.

Central female characters

Sarah Lund

Very interesting – Madani and Omar said they read many script submissions prior to programming their first season….they said there was a 50/50 male female split in the submissions. But none of the work they read had a female character at its centre.

I recently blogged about the brilliance of strong female characters in Scandinavian drama. I think we are really un-used to…un-programmed to seeing female central characters in British contemporary theatre and TV. Are writers emulating what they are watching?

Female writer/performer again

Hannah Silva in Opposition (photo Eileen Long)

On the topic of difficulties that face female solo performers/writers Sabrina and Caroline both seem to have found that they have not experienced challenges because of being women, and that being the writer and performer gives you control over the work. Sabrina said she has found it much harder in the other areas she has worked in – spoken word and scriptwriting….

Have I found it hard as a female solo writer/performer? First answer is yes. Don’t know how much it has to do with being female, how much it has to do with living in Plymouth, how much it has to do with writing non-naturalistic plays and making work that gets described as ‘avant-garde’ and how much it’s just that – no one ever said it was gonna be easy. Yes. It is bloody hard. I’m feeling quite good right now as I have two amazing opportunities and I’m going to survive from my writing for the next few months. But those are not South West things, I don’t even get shortlisted for the rare opportunities that come up here. It’s my location not my gender that’s the challenge. It’s the bloody transport system.

It was lovely to have a chat with Sabrina afterwards, and also to meet Caroline, both of them are very generous to other artists, male and female, which is part of it. I think some women feel that there are only a few slots available for us in the theatre world, and that we must compete for them. In fact a victory for one opens doors for others.

Taking Risks

Madani and Omar said they had a tricky time convincing whoever it was they had to convince, to programme this double bill. They weren’t expecting it to do so well. It was only programmed for a week but actually could have run for longer. That’s fascinating too. The unremitting timidity of programming. The relentless underestimating of audiences….A theatre like The Bush has a  developed core audience and a high profile; if the work is good, it is going to sell. If a theatre like that can’t take a chance with their programming, who can? The point is, there is an audience in London for this work. It’s good work. As the youngster with the cool t-shirt in the audience said – our mates would like it.

On the bus again

So my slumbering bus journey back to Plymouth was a pretty happy one. Things are changing. A few weeks ago I decided not to try anymore, decided that I need to build a home for my plays myself. Now, I have hope again, I think it’s worth trying. New writing might become ‘new’ again. There was a half moon. A man got trapped by his seatbelt. I had strange dreams of theatre. Got back at 5:40am. Had a little sleep.

Then wrote a crazy long blog. Has anyone actually read it? All of it? 

Why critics shouldn’t be invited into the creative process (but writers should)

So I have been reading this: Andrew Haydon on ‘embedded criticism’

& this: What new dialogue can we set up between people who write about theatre and people who make it?

& I can see some problems with having critics/reviewers inside the process of making theatre…

The star system or a university marking procedure – which is worse? Hannah Silva & Chloe Langford performing at Dartington College of Arts, 2006

Artists wanting critics to come into rehearsals perhaps want to build a model closer to their experience of college/university.

When university lecturers in a drama department go into student rehearsals it is often because they are also assessing the process. This was true to the extreme at Dartington College of Arts, where I did my degree. There, a performance module was assessed 100% on process. In other universities, the process also impacts on the mark and feedback (like at Exeter uni, where I did an MFA and taught).

The main reason for this is that theatre education is focused on the artists, the makers and the making of the work itself, and not on the final product, or, in some cases, the audience. Performances that would bore a public audience often get high marks due to the working process, concept and research behind them; performances which would entertain and delight sometimes got lower marks due to lack of thought, little collaboration and poor research during the making. The work suddenly coming together on the night doesn’t make up for a weak process within these contexts.

However, outside of university, in my opinion, it is the final piece of work and the audiences that matter. The working process is necessary not for its intrinsic value, but to produce a good piece of work. Some celebrated companies have appalling working processes yet still produce phenomenal work. That’s not to condone treating actors like puppets, but still, I expect the theatre world would be very divided between those with closed rehearsal doors and those with open studios.

Another reason for taking process into account in university is that there’s only one chance to perform – things can go wrong on the night, and it might not be fair to judge the work based on a bad night/circumstances. We also have this problem with reviews. Having a press night means critics are all reviewing the same performance and if it wasn’t a great one then the review can be significantly impacted by this….as much as critics, audiences and anyone else might think they can take into account factors such as technical failures, small audiences, their own bad mood or a show in its early stages – they can’t. I don’t think the solution is to invite critics into rehearsals, but perhaps getting rid of designated press nights would help.

Hannah Silva in Opposition at the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth 2011. Photo by Eileen Long

It is already near impossible for new companies and artists to persuade critics to come and review their work, particularly those of us making work regionally. It would be impossible to get them to view the process too. There’s a risk this would push regional and lesser-known practitioners even further to the margins, resulting in some work being even more disadvantaged than it already is.

If coming into the process has no impact on the review – then what’s the point? If, as Andrew Haydon suggests, it is  to remind critics that artists are human, and to avoid personal attacks, there must be an easier way!

Audience by Ontroerend Goed

I think critics should be able to get angry about a bit of work, (although the one star ratings in What’s on Stage’s reviews of Audience de-values the points made). Maybe that anger wouldn’t be there if the critic had drinks with the cast the previous week and knew how much they’d slogged. But the work is the work, it should speak for itself, and it should be able to provoke reactions in a way that day-to-day human encounters cannot. Anger is part of that – audiences often feel it.

Like Action Hero recently blogged, the best scenario is if a critic experiences the work as the audience member does. Which means sitting within the audience, not on the edges of the work, and maybe not taking notes during the show. Of course the ‘synopsis of what happens and then a short note at the end saying whether or not this story was pleasing to the critic’ as Sarah Kane criticised, is not much use.

Perhaps critics could have a blog dumping ground for their full review, before it is edited down to however many words they are allowed, so that those of us who want more depth can find it. Another interesting thing might be to re-visit reviews. To have one response directly after a show, and another some time later, when the impact of the work is more apparent. Although many shows are reviewed more than once by the same publication (lucky bastards) so maybe this happens already. And I think it’s more important to spend time reviewing regional and little known work.

Most performances are made for one viewing. Having seen a disastrous run through before seeing the final show lessens the impact of seeing the work live for the first time. Performers and ideas come alive in front of audiences. Some parts of the work need to remain beneath the surface.

I’m reading ‘The No Rules Handbook for Writers‘,  Lisa Goldman writes:

It was a senior reviewer who pointed out to me that most of his colleagues simply didn’t understand new writing. Some critics do write creatively themselves or are involved in the theatre-making process and this helps. Perhaps it would serve theatre to bring some critics together for a playwriting workshop.

Why inviting writers into the process is a great idea:

Inviting a writer into the rehearsal process and inviting them to write about it could be interesting. But in this case they are not reviewing the work and they are not critics. What they produce might be useful to the artists, students and audiences, what they write might be a piece of art in its own right. Their thinking and responses could be very useful to those making the work. I believe there are quite a lot of people already doing this – perhaps it just needs better dissemination, outside of academia.

I suppose artists are starting to consider different models for making work, and inviting different kinds of artists into the process to support it. Ten years ago, while I was living in Holland, I worked on a couple of pieces with this approach. The director invited an author (of a non-fiction book related to the show), a dramaturg, and me as a writer (I wrote the short story the piece was based on, the piece had no words in it) to join the group discussions with the others involved in the work (a choreographer, architect, composer, video designer). These conversations were not rushed, were not directly related to what was being made, took place mostly before the rehearsals and were given a lot of importance. I think this interest in inviting critics/writers into a process is perhaps British theatre finally carving out its own role for a dramaturg, whilst avoiding calling it that for as long as possible.

Nikolaus Fotiadis (first soloist of the Royal Swedish Ballet) and Anna Valev (principal dancer of the Royal Swedish Ballet) in Passion. Photo by Ranno: http://ranno.eu/about/

One of my most memorable moments in the theatre was seeing a Swedish ballet company from the back row of a large auditorium when I was seventeen. As I watched, I was writing in my head, a stream of ideas and understandings about who those dancers on stage were, interpretations of their movements, sudden understanding of the (intended or not) metaphors, the relationships between the dancers/characters, and therefore relationships between humans. It was the experience of ‘reading’ the performance that was so exciting. The text I wrote in response to it was entirely personal and in no way a review. However, it might have said something about the nature of watching dance, interpretation and how dramaturgy can happen in the mind of the spectator.

For me, that experience was not about discovering dance or the particular company/choreographer, but about a sudden ability to write in my head, and also about discovering the potential of performance to produce words, images and ideas for the audience. I guess for me, that moment of insight, inspiration, understanding  – is at the heart of making work, it’s the reason why I do it. And I want to feel that when I’m in the audience, I think that’s what theatre can do.

Having a writer around to respond to a creative process could produce some great writing. In this case I think the writer is not working for the company, not there to document the process in a systemised way, but part of the company, there as an artist in their own right, to explore writing around the process and the ideas, to collaborate.

The writer invited to write about the work from the inside is not a critic, and we will still need critics.