Thursday 25 February 2010

ONE MAN RIOT

...

I have a script

I have a show

Its unlike anything i’ve done before

Firstly, its a story

so its storytelling, which is new to me

And also, its about me

...

I thought i’d be doing a show of ten or so new performance poems

and i have enough i like at this stage for

a show i like a lot

to be well doable come June

But i’ve kept coming back

And coming back

And coming back

To a thing i wrote five years ago in France,

Dec/ Jan 04/05

About something that happened to me in 1990 at the Poll Tax Riot

And its a story, a ghost story in fact

So i have to learn some new skills

Storytelling

Which is a different ballgame to performance poetry

Though less technically demanding than any show i’ve done before

[unless it gets hyper-theatrical, which it might]

But which is story led

When everything i’ve ever done has been writing led

And its now Late Feb

Meaning i have 14 weeks to get it right

To get more gags in

And work out the physicality

Will premiere it in Edinburgh in late May

And 14 weeks is a long time

Long enough to get consummate at new-ish skills

To come up with a number of decent gags

And easily enough to iron out the many kinks in the tale

If i work hard enough

very hard

hundreds and hundreds of hours hard

...

Plus its about me

When very little i’ve done has been about me

Some have been about a kind of caricatured me

But nothing like so personal

Back in Sept I showed it to TJ Dawe

and Jonno Katz

and Rob Gee

And they all said, you gotta do it

So here we go

My only regret is that, if I do a show next year of performance poems

It will have been a way too long, 4 years since I did a show of new pieces

The romping success in 2008 was one monster poem about shopping

Biggest show on the whole fringe tour

2009 was my misguided Greatest Hits show

So, with a story this year, I don’t do a show of new poems till 2011

And, more than anything else, I am a performance poet

And 4 years is a long time

Whatever, that’s it

This is it

The new show

ONE MAN RIOT

Here we go...

...

trepidatious excitement

cautious glee

One-Man Riot

,,,

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