Brighton
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Taking Magnificent Grace into schools
They say it is good to leave your comfort zone, and recently I have been doing that and found myself loving it. For Skelton Yawngrave was invited to several schools to talk about Magnificent Grace during the week of World Book Day. Instead of an immaculately-dressed skeleton man, however, the children got his alter ego: me. Creating an…
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Minotaur
I don’t dwell much on past projects. I’m always focused on the next thing. On Friday I had a few beers with Glen Capra, and this reminded me of Glen and I recording my poem Minotaur, which had been set to music by Matthew Pollard, in one take back in 2011. I made this video…
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The Shakespeare Heptet – the greatest unknown band in the UK
And great Art beaten down was the phrase suddenly rolling doomily in my head last night. I was drinking a nice pint of bitter in a pub called The World’s End in Brighton while hugely enjoying The Shakespeare Heptet playing in the corner of a pub. As usual, their musicianship was near immaculate. This despite the fact that outside in…
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A Cancer Landscape
“The disbelief, the grief, the doubt, the flung out, the anger, the banter, the bargaining…” Personal experience enabled English artist Michele Angelo Petrone (1963-2007) reach out to others fighting disease. Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease at the age of 30, Petrone became artist in residence at several schools and cancer centres, and created his own arts in health foundation.…
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Brighton Fringe – Relationship Status: Desperate
In the week or so since I saw Relationship Status: Desperate I have been forcibly reminded of the sheer power of getting off your butt making something happen. Beth Symons, as well as being my new stepdaughter, is also an actress with absolutely natural comedic chops. In partnership with her fellow actor and writing partner Emily Mawer, they staged their…
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Brighton Fringe: The Shakespeare Heptet
In the last year or so, The Shakespeare Heptet have morphed from a beguiling two guitar two piece, (with the shade of Shakespeare making up the former Shakespeare Trio) into the barnstorming Shakespeare Heptet who, in its current iteration, also features percussion, bass and banjo. The result is that their mix of blues, folk and magpied scraps…
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Jeff Keen, SHOOT THE WRX
I have found myself drawn back three times to The Brighton Museum and Art Gallery to look at the SHOOT THE WRX retrospective of the work of Jeff Keen (1923-2012). I hadn’t been aware of his work, before this time, despite the fact that he had lived most of his working life in Brighton. The…
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The Shakespeare Trio
Well my pals The Shakespeare Trio have just released their first CD. The band is made up of Dipak Chanda and Richard Gibson, as well as the ghost of Shakespeare of course who provides all their lyrics. Like all brilliant ideas, Richard’s notion of setting all the sonnets of Shakespeare seems to be rather a…
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Pack of 3
The Marlborough Theatre Brighton again is the venue for my next thespy business on the 26th & 27th August. Pack of 3 will be three short plays. My Wrong and Betty the Spacegirl, plus Mark Gandey has an excellent idea for a pirate play, which is as yet unnamed. As before the three actors will…
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Wrong at the Marlborough Theatre Brighton
After a two day trialling my play at the Marlborough theatre I am delighted with how things went. It has resulted in lots of positive outcomes. From my perspective there was confirmation that the play works and is funny. There was lots of laughter on both nights. This made me feel vindicated and happy. Then…
Peter Kenny: a writer's notebook 