Since late lockdown, I’ve been working on a kind of self-help tract for my own self, to reconcile some of the contradictions of being a caring artist in the shadow of capitalism. For a while I thought it might be a book, or a talk, or… something, who knows. But it’s become clear I ought… Read more »
The story of a song from A MILLION TINY GLITCHES A Million Tiny Glitches by Sleepdogs When my brother Mike died in 2012 he did so in a dramatic way very much out of keeping with his calm and unflappable personality. An astoundingly rare condition took him away in the blink of an… Read more »
Some subroutines I’m trying to run for my writing, whenever possible. Or whenever I remember. Warning: contains pedantry. 1 No roles, only desires Many of my stories are about people who wouldn’t normally connect, people who come from different walks of life, having to work together. This isn’t something I’ve engineered consciously. It’s something… Read more »
How being a musician affects scriptwriting and storytelling – The second in a series of short (ish) articles – WARNING: contains autobiography – 2. Craft work I’ve been thinking about a gig I went to with some friends, and the support act was your classic modular synth guy: sat on the floor, in front… Read more »
How being a musician affects scriptwriting and storytelling – The first in a series of short (OK, short-ish) articles – 1. Story ghosts One of the amazing things about making digital music – especially working with laptops and sample libraries – is that you can follow a chain of thought that would have taken… Read more »
Last year I was lucky enough to be awarded an Industry Fellowship on the Bristol & Bath Creative Cluster Expanded Performance programme. Yeah, it’s a mouthful… Basically it meant I was part of a group of people researching the potential of live performance in conjunction with creative technologies. I’ve been pushing at the door of… Read more »
It’s been a tough year for anyone working in the performing arts, and I want to pick apart something I’m hearing more and more, especially as theatres announce their re-opening programmes and projects. In private I’m hearing an increasing number of brilliant artists – and in particular writers – saying that theatre isn’t a welcoming… Read more »
So my play Babel’s Cupid has just been announced as one of the three runners-up for the Yale Drama Series Prize 2021. Over the moon, me. Many thanks to judge Paula Vogel and Yale Drama Series, and huge congratulations to the winner Rachel Lynnet, as well as my fellow runners-up Molly Bicks and Francisco Mendoza…. Read more »
On quantum emotions Writing drama, you’re regularly asked to justify the actions of the fictional people you’re creating, to give them clear reasons for doing what they do and saying what they say. And of course this is key to a method of storytelling that seems to have done us fine for a good two… Read more »
The peeps at the Watershed Pervasive Media Studio invited me to do a lunchtime talk for them over summer. I’ve been banging on forever about how the theatre industry (and wider arts/creative worlds tbh) would be much more open and connecting if we were better at welcoming, recognising and getting excited by diverse artistic identities,… Read more »