Everything Flows (16/6/15)

Bloody hell, is it really four months since I last did this bit? Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?

What shall we talk about then? Shall we talk about the fact that I'm clearly using this page to 'break state' and cleanse my writing palate before I head back into the work that I'm supposed to be doing or shall we talk about what I've been up to that prevented me from visiting this little corner of the internet?

Let's do the latter shall we? The latter's always fun, always the right option. I've got this family (not a real family, not MY family, not a family that exists in this particular world but a family nevertheless with the ties and the conflicts and the drama that you'd expect/hope for) and I left them in a room in the late eighties about a month ago and I really need to get back to them and sort out the problems that I've caused and set them free for a while. And yes, that genuinely IS how the writing side of my brain thinks of things; real people living off somewhere else, somewhen else. Might seem mental, not overly arsed to be honest; to me - and I'm the only one that matters - the important thing is, it works. And yes, I've just (semi) quoted my own writing in my own play. I AM that pretentious.

The latter then, let's do the latter.

But first, if you want this to work properly, you should really be listening to the same stuff that I'm listening to. Which, obviously, is my own radio show - Northernquarterradio.co.uk every Friday at 8pm, give it a crack, it's smart. Whole station's smart - this particular show is the 'Enjoy The Trip' special; filled to the brim with early 90s dance that I wasn't necessarily into at the time but have grown to love over the years. On this one, I did that thing that I've done on a few now; abandoned the idea of talking between tracks and instead interspersed them with clips of dialogue found on old shows/films/radio etc. Tim Buckley (infinitely more talented father of Jeff) being interviewed in 68, Ivor The Engine, Elvis railing about accusations of Drug use - Elvis? Drugs? Surely not - that kind of thing. It's more fun than saying 'and that was by ....... and this next one's by.....'. More work but more of a laugh. Everything should be a laugh or there's no point doing it. Anyway, it's great, give it a listen.

I wrote elsewhere that 'life is an accumulation of small moments reflected through memory and perspective'; you haven't read this yet. It hasn't been published yet. Comes out in a book on 1st of August. It's a book on Liverpool by Liverpool fans but it's not about Liverpool. It's about the people who wrote it and the people that they know and how their life is and that sort of thing and yes, each one of us may have a game during the season that we started with but the game's not the point. I think I gave the Spurs game about 100 words in a piece that runs to about 3,700. I kind of went over my original word count. Not like me to use too many words. Not like me at all. The piece is great. It's the best thing that I've ever written. It may be the best piece that I'll ever write. Somebody who knows what he's talking about - I mean really knows what he's talking about - was fulsome in his praise of it. It's up there with the highest compliments I've ever been paid.

Some of the other 'highest compliments I've ever been paid' came at the weekend. We'll get to that.

(Underworld 'Mmm, Skyscraper, I Love You' now by the way, just in case you're trying to keep track and wondering if the music affects the rhythm of the writing)

(the answer's generally yes on that one)

And the piece is about how all moments are interlinked, nothing exists in seclusion to and of itself and all experiences are informed by the moments that came before and resonate within the new experience. Of course, it's not about that either. It moves round a bit but it's about my Dad. The book will be great, I'd buy it. Genuinely, if I wasn't in it, I'd buy it. ('We're Everywhere, Us' - 1st of August, Amazon and all that.)

So, moments interlinked and everything depending on everything else. If you take that as the basis for your thinking then it obviously follows that nothing really starts where you think it starts; most things start earlier than you thought they did or - in the case of this piece and most things I write after a lot of preamble that appears to have no direct link but may actually be vital.

Where did 'Half The Sky' start then?

It might have started in a cottage in Wales last December. Two days into a three day film shoot hours from anywhere with no wi-fi, no phone signal and no TV. Nothing to do but film and talk between filming (and, when up earlier than everyone else due to the fact that I was in a sleeping bag on a couch, read the copy of Herman Hesse's 'Siddhartha' that the owners had in with their very well stocked library for visitors use and then walk to the nearest actual road but give up after half an hour because it was still just me, fields and weird dwarf ponies, head back continuing filming). It might have started there as it was there that Chloe read what was going to be the last monologue in the series though I didn't know it yet. Knew by the third day that I was going to cast her in the part as there's a lot you can tell about a person if you've spent three days filming and then driven for six hours to get home), although she only found this fact out a week ago.

May have started there as it was there that I told Anna - who'd directed Venus Rising and had brought a visual aspect to it that I hadn't put in the script, that's what directors do - that I wanted my next play (well, play after next, there was still 'The Elvis Play' in the background in a competition that I couldn't tell anyone about) to be six monologues but I didn't want it to be just six separate vignettes, I wanted it to be interlinked and Anna said 'well why don't you make them all by women?' as the last monologue was quite definitely, no two ways, being played by a woman despite the fact that the character is the lead in the most successful book ever printed and is generally viewed as being a bloke. That's your only clue, you want the answer to that one, I'll sell you the book. Three quid a pop (plus postage obv).

But then that means that it started earlier than that doesn't it? It means it started when I met Anna to discuss what we could do with Venus Rising and it means that the monologue came from somewhere and though Venus had been a monologue we'd changed that but Grin Theatre Company had put a call out for monologues and my friend Sarah had said I should put something in and I had this idea that had originally been the first couple  of pages for a 'Deadman' proposal for DC that I'd never done anything with and there was a stand up comic and a clown and there'll be a film soon so I won't ruin that one. So I had this monologue and I had the other monologue (and a third) but only the clown one was in in time so the other two were spare and were a springboard.

The clown one. I knew who I wanted for the doomed stand up. Mairi had performed in another play in the same venue immediately before the first performance of Venus and wanted to work with us at some point so you make notes of people whose performances impress you and she had so we did. And she played the clown and I knew we'd work with her again.

You gather people from project to project and you trust them and keep them and move forward and a rising tide raises all boats as I pointed out at great length at three in the morning in The Grapes in George Harrison's seat (there's a photo, incontrovertible proof) and momentum ensues.

That's why we didn't audition. There's no need to audition if you know who you want and you know who'll do the job and who'll be better than you thought your script was in the first place and your ego's so huge that you thought the script was basically bloody godlike in the first place. And you get six actresses who take it elsewhere.

Maybe it starts in 1997 with album reviews for Bigmouth Magazine working out of the Echo and getting the first ever review of Mercury Rev's 'Deserter's Songs' and the second ever review of Spiritualized's 'Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space' into print and establishing a working relationship with Lisa which became a Facebook friendship when they got round to inventing it years later and seeing a clip of her performance in 'Little Voice' and thinking, 'need to find something for her' and then finding this character wandering around two beaches in Greece that became one.

And you wonder if you're making sense any longer and the music has become Saint Etienne's 12" version of 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' which I prefer to Neil Young's original because I heard it first and that's often the way.

Nat came with us from Venus Rising. Played the wife. So, in order, that's probably somewhere in the middle of it all isn't it? Met her on a film set on the day that I met Anna and realised that we were doing something different with the play and thought 'we've got a part that will suit you' and added her to Lydia who I was - bizarrely - doing a comics podcast with. Bizarrely as she's not actually that into comics. Little coincidences, little connections, meeting people at the right time, in the right place.

Claryn had been in the TV pilot that we made. The one that wasn't picked up. It's on YouTube - The Owl & Me - it'll be a play next year, I've decided. Sod this six part series bit, it's a two hour play. Who could play the me that killed a dog? Give it to Claryn who, unfortunately, loves dogs and had to murder one at the start of the night last Thursday and Friday. (Not actually murder it obviously, that would be bad).

Emma. I'd met Emma once, after a performance of Venus at the Bluecoat (nice space, great lights), she'd worked with Anna. We had a part for her. And the part that I had for her was hopeful and defiant. I thought. Anna and Emma had different ideas and found absolute heartbreak in it. And they were right. Tears. Tears in rehearsals and again in performance.

We needed music. We didn't know we needed music, didn't know the music was missing but we met Reid. Met Reid for a part in something else that a communication had got lost on which turned into providing music for that something else which became we've got this idea for a film on Crosby Beach which ended with 1, 000 views in 4 days which is ridiculous for a small indie with literally no budget which was RT'd to a stupid number of people by Sally Lindsay (who's in Mount Pleasant and used to be in Corrie and is lovely) and Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) and Duncan Jones (who directed the film 'Moon' and is making 'World of Warcraft' and whose Dad used to be Ziggy Stardust) and you look up from Twitter and realise who these people you're talking to are and try and figure out where all this came from. And your conversation before any of this happens becomes 'what are you doing next?' and that becomes 'let's have live music with this' and the music's great and Steph comes in on Cello and if you were there you know how great it sounds.

And this is how it works. Always the same way. Get a bunch of people that you want to work with and are bloody good at what they do and be blown away by how good it all sounds just sitting round a table in a room at the nice shiny new library in Liverpool and then let them go away and learn this ridiculous amount of words that you've given them and see what happens with it and be blown away by what happens with it. And then rehearse and rehearse and rehearse.

And put everybody together into a room behind a lovely bohemian cafe and watch them impress. Watch them bounce off the audience and get laughs and tears and gasps and realise that between ten of you you've made something as special and pretty damn unique as you'd set out to. And sell the damned place out on the second night and see the audience reaction hit the button marked rapturous.

And yes, the writer was embarrassed when the applause came his way and he tried to hide but was not overly secretly bloody chuffed because his ego's massive and he craves attention but the credit goes to the guys who stand out front before the audience with only their memory and ability to protect them; it's a high wire act and there's no net and they're brilliant because they never actually need one. And they make the whole thing sound like it's by six different writers. Which is bloody great.

What comes next then? Well, the feedback comes first and the joy of seeing that of the six, so many people had different favourites, which means that there was something for everyone in there. Which is what you hoped. That's where the compliments come in and they're amazing and they keep getting better.

After that it's the alcohol. Friday nights in Liverpool? The Cavern closes at 1.30, The Grapes may well never close. We hit 4am (some of us, not all of us) and an empty table (The Beatles' table) that none of us wanted to fill with more drinks and prayed that someone would tell us it was time to go home but they didn't so we went anyway and I got home in daylight and I haven't done that since the eighties.

And I'm on a different radio show now and it's the covers one and Hot Chocolate are doing Elvis Costello's 'Green Shirt' and I genuinely haven't made that up and I'm about to end this and move onto some more of the 'what comes next?' and I'm already in talks with a venue in Manchester for next month and I've got a place in mind for August and then...well, let's tour it shall we? All you who couldn't come to us? We'll come to you. You're welcome.

And then I'll go back to that family that I left in the eighties and put them back together again and figure out where I'm going to put this on and who I need for it and when it happens. And we still haven't talked about 'The Elvis Play' (as it's definitely not called) and how bloody great that is and that's for another day. You'll love that one.

'Emma' by Sisters Of Mercy. Gorgeous.

So, that's what I've been up to. Not necessarily in order. Nothing's ever really in order but everything's connected to everything else and it all just flows on.