March 2014 (nuts!)

Greetings...

So, March was a pretty busy Month. I've been enjoying spending some time at home of late, working on some new bits and having a bit of a rest after all the activities of the last month...

A Tale From The Bedsit

It all worked out well. I really enjoyed the run at BAC, had some great audiences in and lots of new faces which was really nice, managed to pick up a couple more reviews as well, got another one from EVERYTHING THEATRE and POEJAZZI which I was chuffed about. The British Library came and filmed it for their archives, which is nuts! The show they came for, was probably the best one as well, it never works that way!.. I'm waiting to see what happens next with the show, hopefully more..err shows! In the meantime, here's some pictures Stef took from the rehearsals..

No Milk For The Foxes

So straight after I finished the Bedsit show, I went straight into rehearsals the next day, with Conrad Murray, for the Foxes show. We were performing a work-in-progress, kind of like a first draft really, at the Camden people's Theatre. We had no idea what to expect, I think what Conrad and I are doing is quite different, in the way we perform and how we've developed it but it went really well. So much so, were hopefully going into full development..fingers crossed

This was pretty much our set for the show

Play Festival

The Young Producer program at Battersea Arts Centre I have been working with as artist, since the beginning of the year had their 3 day festival in March and it all went off pretty damn well! they had programmed several artists and installations and fun rooms, all around the theme of childhood and play. It went off a treat, really proud of the team!

The team, minus Charlie

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...

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

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