Despite everything I've droned on about over the last ten days, a very large proportion of last year was in fact spent working on my own stuff, and a very grand time I had of it too. Along with many of you, I am often frustrated and downheartened by the difficulty of getting attention from other practitioners for my work, either for constructive feedback or getting it produced. I think this will be an ongoing issue, and largely because it's easier to feel frustrated than facilitated.
So it's salutary to look back over the year, see quite how much has been achieved, and pay tribute to the amazing people who have stepped up and made the work as good as it can be.
Of course I was incredibly lucky to be able to strong-arm Ben Rigby and Nick Pearse into taking on The Gambit; a play that pretty much everyone who had read it said would be too difficult or too boring. Their stunning performances did as much for that play as any other professional actors would be able to achieve. And they put their all not only into what happened between the characters, but in pushing the play, getting the word out, arranging the tour and stumping up cash to make it work. And driving me round the country, which was nice of them. I want them to be a part of everything that I'd ever do. For the stage. I should just be clear on that point.
Across the year I have launch a few little projects. I undertook a play-in-an-hour project for the First Draft nights curated by Faro Productions, which I called Escher's Birthday, and had seven amazing actors step up and take the risk for what could have been a complete disaster and turned out to be great fun, Adam, Nuria, Nicola, Rachel, Peter, Tal and Lauron.
Tal Twist and Lauron Stirrup also joined Richard Sails for a piece that I wrote for performance at the opening of Dan Fogarty's First Oxo Conference at Malgras. Another quirky piece that was really encouraging, challenging and again great fun.
Charlie Mortimer lead a workshop of a play of mine, Turing Test, up at Korova, and we were joined by Ben Rigby, Nicola Marsh, Andy Avery and Tash Southworth for a very entertaining and productive day. Don't worry, that's not lead to anything yet, but I was incredibly glad of their input and it was awesome to work with them in that environment, I felt very lucky. Korova also hosted a piece inspired by a play of mine just before Christmas, and they did an amazing job that I wish I'd been able to spend more time getting under the skin of.
My other big project in 2013 was Yawp, and there was no way when I started the ball rolling that it would turn out to tumble quite so incredibly as it did. There were many people involved as the project progressed, but the team of Michael Chadwick, Owen Rafferty, Janet Thompson and Meriel Pym quite frankly blew my socks off with their enthusiasm, engagement, professionalism and sheer talent and ability. Any success that piece had was entirely down to them, and I think it was a pretty successful experiment; it sent people thinking and it gave them an entirely new experience for Manchester fringe, and I was dead chuffed to have had them all on board.
So all in all it was an amazing year. I don't expect 2014 to be quite so packed. But thinking back, this time last year all I had was an indication from Ben that he would be interested in The Gambit, and a contact tweet from Nick who I think I'd spoken to once. Incredible.
Who knows what the future could bring.
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