The Little People Return

  Autumn is here. So is October. I guess those two together are like Millwall and the bottom half of the Championship (and possibly League 1 if they don't stop letting goals in!) I'm drinking a lot of tea, but then again, I always do. Alas, it is not all doom and gloom for me...

This half term, 30th October till the 3rd November, I'll be once again, for the 4th time, be donning the white lab coat and comedy glasses in my role as Executive for The Great Escape (A Borrowers Tale). It's almost 2 years since we did the first run at Battersea Arts Center, it's since been to Chat's Palace, The Southbank Center (Imagaine Children's Festival), and now returns to Battersea Arts again. As ever, I'm looking forward to it, it's a lot of fun and really engages children's imaginations as we lead them on on interactive adventure around the building. It's a really good team to work with, I've learned a lot from these doing shows and I'm looking forward to seeing them all again!

 In other news I confirmed a gig this week for The Wordhouse which be will next month on the 16th November at the Blueberry Bar  near Old street.The main acts that night are none other than Polabear and Indigo Willmas I've never done this gig before, but it's celebrating it's 2nd birthday and has a really good reputation. Amy Stratton, who runs it, I met a few years ago and she's really passionate about the whole spoken word thing and seems to be putting on some really good nights. 

I took this quote form the facebook event page but you get my point .. "It has become an East End institution” God is in the TV magazine

New Scratch Show and Ritzy Gig Audio

Hello. There's pollen type things flying around the air, carried on the winds and it's making my eyes itch, though, anyone that's ever seen me get nervous, on, or off stage, will notice that I'm always rubbing my eyes anyway, especially as at the moment there is a lot for me to be getting excited / nervous about!

New Scratch show No Milk For The Foxes

So...At the end of July I'll be going into the final development phase for A Tale From The Bedsit where we actually get to make the show, set an all, and we now have a brilliant set designer on board, which is great....but before then, on the 31st May as part of the Cook Up Scratch festival at Battersea Arts Centre myself and Conrad Murray will be presenting 10 minutes of a new work in progress called No Milk For The Foxes. The show is about 2 security guards and we will be exploring what a job like that means to them in the current climate, using elements of dialogue and rap. I've been working with Conrad for over 2 and a half years now both in theater and with music, as well as our work with young people for BAC Homegrown . We've had endless conversations lasting for hours about our mutual interests, swapping books, reading articles and posting each other links to video's and the like. It feels like a natural time for us to finally collaborate in a theater context and to do it at Battersea Arts Center which is somewhere that means a lot to both of us. There are over 60 artists and company's all going to be showing new work over the course of the scratch festival so naturally I'm rubbing my eyes in excitement and nerves, but trust me, nerves are good!

New Audio: Live At The Ritzy

Back in February, I performed at the Brixton Ritzy, at a night called Ritzy Platform which is an open mike night hosted by fellow spoken word artist and good friend Richard Purnell. Every month Richard will feature an act to do a full 20 minute set, and back in February it was me. It was a good gig, I had a few of my mates there and also 2 of my brothers came which is quite rare. Conrad Murray also joined me for the final piece, which was an improvised acoustic version of a track off the EP were working on called The Dice That Rolled A 3. Have a wee listen...

ATFTB: Round 2 Complete!

 Hello again

Last week, I was attempting to justify my addiction to both Peep Show and Don't Flop (which you can now add King Of The Dot, Smack URL and Grind Time too) by writing about what I've been up too, including what I was currently working on, A Tale From The Bedsit, which is what I'm going to talk about...

...now. So the comic you see there is The Foolkiller, which I talk about in the show. Now the show, is set in a bedsit, in which the audience come in and sit with me whilst I tell the story, about a bedsit I lived in Brighton and some of the things that went on whilst I was there, with a few mild moments of interaction that we've been playing with.

So Stef O'Driscol, who is directing me, and I had 2 weeks of development back in January at the Roundhouse. This Monday, after 3 scratch performances, we've just completed another 6 days, this time with a sound designer named Phil Davies. Battersea Arts Center kindly put us up for the week and we did a scratch there on the Friday, and then 2 at Roundhouse this Monday just gone. It all went pretty well and we tried out some things, there's been several more edits to the script (which has now gone though about a zillion drafts) and we got some really good feedback from the people that came along.

So the next stage of development will be in June, and all going well we will have a set designer on board who is going to make the show, which is all quite exciting, for when the full show happens in November!
Here's some pics...

 The BAC Bedsit.

The Roudhouse bedsit feat. Stef

Paul, where have you been and what are you doing?

Well, I hear you (don't) ask...

I've been a bit slack with updating this, but I guess that means that in-between watching reruns of Peep Show and Don't Flop rap battles I have actually been doing some stuff. So before I mention what’s coming up, I think it only nice I mention a few things that I've been up too.

Since February gigs wise I've been lucky enough to feature at The Patchwork Club, Platform @ The Ritzy, Come Rhyme With Me in both Brighton and London, and also at Look Mum No Hands as a fund-raiser for the charity CALM. I also did a weeks run, for the third time, of The Great Escape (A Borrowers Tale) as part of the Imagine Children s Festival at The Southbank Centre, which of course was a lot of fun.

I've also been working on some more workshop projects with Battersea Arts Centre as part of their Homegrown young people's program for 18-25 year olds, for the Brave New World festival. I also worked with Farnham Maltings Art Centre in a spoken word project working with some Traveller children from Cranleigh Primary school which was ace, working in part of Surrey that I'd never been to before, and quite different form Horley where I grew up in.

And so to the future! It's been a very long time in my head, and in carious forms and drafts on my PC, but since January my first ever solo project A Tale From The Bedsit is now currently being made and is in it's second stage of development, which I'm very excited about. It's essentially me telling a story about a bedsit I actually lived in Brighton a few years ago, and some of the things that went on. I say it's a solo project, but in reality, it isn’t, as it firstly took the Roundhouse to commission me to do it, and produce it, and for them to bring in a director, which is Stef O'Driscoll who's quite frankly breathed a whole new lease of life into it as a project and really helped me to shape the writing. Were currently rehearsing all this week at Battersea Arts Centre, and have bought in a sound designer, Phil Davies who's a don! There's going to be 2 scratches coming up at the Roundhouse on 22^nd April.

I'm also working on a show that will be heading to the Lattitude festival with Poejazzi, called 1990BPM, so, along with, Joshua Iduhen, Chimene Sullymen and Bridget Minamore, were all busy working on pieces to do with the 90's...and to top it all off, in conjuction with the bedsit show, I'm working on a EP with Conrad Murray called The Dice That Rolled A 3.

Hopefully it won't be so long until I update this again

Until next time

Paul

Beatbox Jam

As mentioned before, I sometimes get to work the stupidly sick BAC Beatbox Academy led by Conrad Murray. Here's a video of a jam we did last week. I look like the awkward uncle trying to dance in this one, I think I was concentrating trying to remember the words, it was a new piece...


If you're interested in Beatboxing (and under 21, sorry!) the Beatbox Academy run drop in sessions every Thursday in term time) as part of Homegrown

Checking In

Greetings


It's been a wee while since I posted an update, the last few months have been nuts, to say the least!


Since the last update, just before The Crawley Wordfest, I went straight into intensive rehearsals for the now finished outdoor show Babel. It ran for 2 weeks in May and was easily one of the most amazing and challenging experiences I've ever had. There were many many people involved, there was rain, long days, rain, coldness, rain but a lot of fun which really pushed me in terms of being a performer and who I was lucky enough to be working with, and the fact that I got to go up in front of, on some nights over a 1000 people, who very much got into the spirit of things! 

An amazing on going project I'm currently working on, running since March, is the Apples & Sankes: Shake The Dust as a shadow poet at a school in the South East region. The Regional Final is at The Nuffield Theatre is on the 25th June, which I'm looking forward too.

After finishing Babel I went straight into rehearsals for a play by Boston Murray called Sex, Drugs and on the Dole in which I play a stoner called Fab. The last show is this Sunday which is also my birthday.

I'm also working on the BAC Homegrown programme which, as ever, provides excellent opportunities for 14-25 years old in the performing arts, it's a pleasure to be back there.

Well, that pretty much completes the round up!

Paul