Dear World

Dear World,

This is an open letter to you from me.

I am a 10 year old version of myself, and I have a few things to ask.

I'd write to God, but, as it happens, he's never given me his forwarding address, although being omnipotent, I imagine he'll be able to read this anyway.

I was wondering, World, if you you clear up a few things I've been told.

Like, were you created by calculation or chance, and are you only 6000 years old?

Seeing as you've been here all this time, I thought you'd be the best person to ask. I know you can't really give an opinion, but in all the times I've asked God something, I've never had any kind of answer back.

So I was wondering, did we start off as single celled organisms existent only in the sea, or did we all come from two naked white people called Adam and Eve?

I've been told that God moves in mysterious ways, but you just seem to move the same way every day, and I must say, that I prefer that notion. That the atmosphere causes tidal waves in the ocean, or that tectonic plates that shift and vibrate causes seismic motion. Not some bloke with a beard and an agenda living in the sky, causes and then casually shrugs off massive genocide.

And on that note, World, did you once entirely flood? It seems illogical to me, but that's what I'm told happened, and like I say, in my opinion I think you're the font.

Did Noah managed to get them all, or did he leave anything we don't know about behind? Massive creatures with wings and flippers and grey fur and teeth? And whats the deal with dinosaurs? Did they ever exist in the first place? I'm confused because I'm being told that smart scientists are wrong, and that the words of a really, really, really old book are to be believed. Even though I've never seen a talking tree. Sounds like some kind of hallucination to me, and what with the server lack of medicinal understanding coupled with their utter lack of knowledge involving the intricacies of the brain, I might suggest that, that bloke was seeing things.

Also, if my vicar is so sure all this stuff happened, why does he go red and take off his glasses and raise his voice when I question there logic.

You can't really answer that though, World, because you're just a ball of chance matter that settled perfectly in one spot and allowed sustenance to grow and mould and shape and grow more. Fauna and flora, and slime, and fish and stuff in-between all that and me.

I've got to say, as a revolving, evolving emotionless ball of water and dirt, I way prefer you to this selfish, vein, anarchic butthole the Vicar keeps telling me about. He just seems like a twat.

Thanks, World.

Regards,

10 Year Old Me

The Lady Countess Of Nowhere

She waits, very impatiently. Complete anticipation. Sat on the arm of the settee, half uncomfortable, half un, she is completely ready to jump. She bites her bottom lip, rhythmically bounces her left leg up and down, and with index finger and thumb gripped on gold, she twiddles her wedding ring whilst staring out of the window.

The clock says eleven-thirty-one. He’s usually been and gone by now. “A watched kettle”, she thinks almost aloud. She’s excited, but finds the wait unbearable. A Jeremy Kyle re-run spews violent noises from the TV speakers that battle with the kitchen’s Radio 4 radiations. A mess of noise that may as well be neat silence.

She’s forty something with short blonde hair, and in some indescribable way, just by looking at her, you can tell she prefers a life indoors.

A clatter. She springs. She twitches at the curtain to see. He’s just walked through the gate. He’s approaching the front door now. She stands; back flat against the wall watches the letterbox. It’s flap, flips open and from the space the flap had previously been flipped and briefly left a rectangular gap behind. From this gap a box protruded, before extending so far it fell away, in and down and bounced away from the door.

Excitedly, she grabs the box and rushes towards the sofa. Carefully, she removes each piece of tape. She opens the box, her hands shaking, a wry smile curling up the edges of her mouth. She can see it now. There, folded up inside the box. She closes her eyes and sniffs the contents. It’s like a drug. She up ends the box onto the table and out falls the fur. The animal’s skin. She unfolds it and spreads it over her lap. She’s ecstatic. She loves fur.

She is the Lady Countess Of Nowhere. Her home is nothing special, her bank account near empty, her T.V bought on finance, her children from home absconded, her carpet old and scruffy, her windows wiped clean weekly, her kitchen smells of bleach, her bedroom soft and cosy, her walls attached on both sides to two others, and one another, the flowers in the vase fake, the lamp lit bright and sparsely, the laptop permanently plugged in and the kid’s toys in the attic. She has little, but manages to get by. She buys fur to remind her of better times, imaginary times.

The Spark

Today my good friend Daffyd Bland made this image for me from a video he took in June (2015)...

I don't know what sparks an idea, or what thing happens in the brain when you suddenly get one, but I think I know the moment a spark happens that makes an idea stick.

I saw this image of me practising a belly-flop into a paddling pool of water, I'd almost entirely forgotten about how much fucking fun it was. Looking at this suddenly reminded me, and it made a little spark click, and I thought... This is actually something.

I was originally practising the belly flop for a one off trick to be performed at Greenmail Festival 2015. I was going to do one belly flop for the end of a show, and that would be it. All the effort I put in required reward, but I didn't get one because I didn't even end up attempting the belly flop because of Welsh weather.

So it was to never be performed again.

Until Daff posted this image today and I saw it and reconnected with the idea... Not the idea to belly flop into a paddle pool of water, that's been done thousands of times before. The idea, to simply, make it something I can do.

Practise, get better, learn how to nail it, take the pain, pad the balls.

Perform it to crowds in swimming pools a few times before getting thrown out.

Hope someone books you off the back of your swimming pool show. 

Get booked at a really great event.

Tour the country visiting county fairs, family fun days, festivals and events, even splash into a paddling pool at my nieces birthday parties. 

Travel the world, go to Japan, learn how to do other stuff, encorperate it into a routine. Perform everywhere and anywhere, even splash into a pool in the middle of the set on This Morning. I'm talking huge ambitions here.

Jump from higher than you did before, then higher than that, then higher than anyone ever has.

Fly through the sky, smashing mightily into a million tiny paddling pools that explode and gush cold hard glory.

Grow old, forever being known as the guy who can do the really awesome pointless thing.

I'm talking about those sparks. The sparks that make you into something mighty.

Mucho,

Jx

A Philosophy in Funding

When we started Tin Shed Theatre Co. back in 2010 we didn’t know much about business side of making theatre. We were never taught about funding, or support schemes, we didn’t really know what R&D meant, and we never performed any sort of “work in progress”, we just made things and found places to perform them. We worked two jobs and paid an equal share into our productions to get them off the ground. Five years on, reflecting on our early work methods, the whole thing seems ludicrous, and never something we’d do now.

 We used to perform in bars and split the money we made on the door, which 9/10 times would just go back behind the bar before the night was through. We toured from town to town in a tiny car, rammed with costumes, props and pieces of paper on which we’d written the plays locations to save having to make sets. 5 years on we sit at desks, talk on the phone, send emails and type reams of wordy, eloquent bumpf in order to convince people we’re worthy of their cash. We drink more coffee and less beer, we no longer perform in the grubby backrooms of bars, but in lovely studio theatres, and although never content with “right now” always looking forward to “what’s next” I sometimes yearn for the days of “back then”.

 The philosophy this work ethic developed, I think, followed these rules:

+Don’t stop, just do.

+Talk less, move more.

+Make one another laugh.

+Always surprise the audience.

+Resist buying anything and use what you already have.

+Ignore all and any conventions.

+Turn “we can’t” into “how can we”.

+Never say no to anything.

 This early, almost accidental rule making has stayed with us and although has been slightly amended, has become intrinsically threaded into our work, and even though we now rely on funding and commissions for most of what we do, I feel we still have that spirit of poverty in us, and in a way, I feel our work was better back then. It wasn’t convoluted by the bending of ideas to appeal to the ever-changing demands of funding, or subject to a permanent state of “not-readiness” because we trapped it in development. It was wild and loud and raw and exciting and born of cardboard and charity shops. On some of the larger commissions we’ve had, I’ve been left feeling like the work suffered from an abundance of budget, resource, time, and paycheck, like we were swamped with possibility and prospect. The restrictions we’d become accustomed to, no longer exist.

 Now, don’t for a second think I’m anti-cash, or even anti-funding… Hell, if you’ve got some cash you want to give me, I’ll prove it. I’m also completely aware that some of the greatest work I have seen simply wouldn’t have existed had it not been for the fiscal component that supported the grass roots exploration, or the international collaboration, the initial opportunity or the overall prospect. I’ve seen phenomenal work that cost millions and phenomenal work that cost hundreds.

For me the problem arises when money makes the difference between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ for a young company. Too many times have I spoken to emerging theatre makers who have thrust their hopes into the hands of invisible forces that grant cash on what ever basis. I’ve heard so many ideas that will never exist outside of the types of conversations that evoke them. These early companies are often rejected for having no prior experience, and the result is, they make nothing at all. In the quest for budget, quality, time, space, production value etc. they are stuck on the corner square of the board, scared to roll the dice and make the first move.

 My point is this; I wonder if the current culture of funding, research and development, work in progress, support schemes and fiscally incentive initiatives sets an unrealistic precedent for young theatre makers. I wonder if it dilutes the spirit of “doing it” and prevents the taking of risks.

I wonder if, rather than encouraging the creation of new, exciting work, it creates a vacuum of discontent, in which it never gets made at all.

Mucho,

Justin

Appocolypso

I have dreams of a dystopian future.

Where a city lays ruin and not a single thing moves.

Grey dust lays atop of grey matter and leaves grey outlines in a grey skyline where grey buildings once where but have now grey tumbled.

Two people still live here. Somehow. Lately they have sustained themselves on a few remaining packets of Peanut M&M's, found in a cobwebbed vending machine situated in a previously overlooked leisure centre foyer.

A half chicken half man wearing only a captains hat and a bra, clucks and struts and clambers up a large pile of brick and cement whilst gritty-blues-like-metal-punk-funk tunes click and drone from an old boombox he carries on one shoulder.

Across the rubble his small female companion, kitted out with a gas mask and a "kiss the chef" apron, also sifts and lifts large chunks of grey debris, looking for lost relics and objet d'art.

Old shoes should be collected, even if they have to be unlaced from skeleton feet.

Handbags, hats, belts, bicycle parts, old tin, rope, string, chord, etc, trimmings, glass eyes (rare but quite a find), newspaper, cutlery, glasses/spectacles/shades, bottles, ice cream tubs, furs, jewellery, electric fans, balls, musical instruments and very, very small things.

They scuffle and rummage with a penchant for desperately seeking eclectic adornments to hang, dangle and decorate their bar.

The last bar on earth.

Appocolypso.

The door hangs loose on the hinges, as each time they enter they kick it hard open, so full of excitement to give home to the lost objects they've reclaimed.

They leap across old tables, and climb over chairs. She's the head chef, he looks after the bar.

"A drink my dear?" he asks the mannequin they propped up on a stool, with blu tacked hand holding a five pound tip that can't be spent anywhere near here anymore.

He pours brown-water-whisky into an already too full tumbler, fullup from all the other drinks undrunk.

She clatters pots and pans whilst chasing twenty pantry escapees that squeak and flee and she curses "fucking rats!" and wonders what they'll serve for tea.

Then with an almighty thwack, she whacks a rat, the others see, they form an orderly line and march right back to the cage from whence they came.

It's darkish, but lit by furious glowing flames from flares they found in an abandoned ambulance, along with fairy lights reclaimed from old christmas trees that shed their needles and needless to say no one was going to be needing them any time soon.

The music that plays is swing, but the record skips and the plate revolves too slowly, so instead it's a distorted, almost demented sounding thing.

The lawn flamingo, mannequin, porcelain cat statue, baby doll, princess Diana commemorative plate, rubber frog, henry hoover and mug with a face on are the only customers the bar ever see's, but they all eat heartily and drink till they fall (are moved/pushed over).

She marches wide legged out of the kitchen, with a twitching rat between to pieces of newspaper.

He leans forward, scoops it off the plate, and although someone (she), who he can't quite now recall, once recommended he start at the head, he pops the tail end in and bites down.

She watches on, face in a gas mask, covered in ketchup, waiting to see if he likes what he eats...

He...

Smiles. A wide, rat bottomed smile.

The half rat betwixt newspaper finally let's go of life.

They laugh out loud, one gas masked, one rat mouthed, for what seems like a few seconds, but is actually a very, very, very long time.

Then the record stops.

And they quickly stop laughing.

The room, silent.

Together, in sync, at the same time, they slowly turn their heads.

Their, stood beside the stereogram... A man.

Mucho

Justin

A Line In The Sand

It's time to draw a line in the sand.

Metaphorically drag a stick through the earth and stand opposite.

Stare at the line you've made.

Pace back and forth and scratch chin sluggishly, wondering on which side of the sand you should stand.

Place the body of your failures on one side, and witness it for a while from the other.

Feel unconfident, to begin with, that leaving that body on the other side is right.

Feel unconfident, to begin with, that leaving that body on the other side is right.

Feel unconfident, to begin with, that leaving that body on the other side is right.

Eventually find solace in the thought that it is made and done and set in stone, and unlike the sand is no longer moveable or changeable.

Accept it.

All you can do now is move forward.

Just ensure that when you take your first few steps, that hopefully will transform into a confident stride, that you are stood on the right side of that line.

Rough Start 2015

I've called this blog: Rough Start 2015. Perhaps a more apt title would be False Start 2015, but I'm already feeling pretty low, so I'll save myself from the utter pits.

In this blog I am going describe all of my short comings, mistakes, errors, bad calls and excuse-less lazy decisions. Partly because I think it might be helpful to any artists who find themselves feeling stranded with a broken boat and a lollypop-stick-ore, and partly because it will be cathartic for me.

In November a lot changed for me. I moved to Cardiff, I became detached from some of the most important people in my life and I sort of sunk into a state of feckless stagnancy where I couldn't really care if I'd been wearing the same socks since Christmas. I couldn't get my brain to function the way it usually does, it felt like it was full of thick purple mousse. I felt miserable all the time, and spent hours on my on todd feeling sorry for myself, when I should have been excited about future prospects. The problem was I'd spent the past three months being a good salesman, instead of a tactful artist. I'd managed to secure myself more freelance contracts than I'd ever had, and with January lurking around the corner they were all about to come to fruition in one way or another.

I'll spare you the details and keep this brief, essentially I have spent the majority of 2015 failing. I have lost huge contracts with arts organisations and interesting prospects with artist collectives, I have had to postpone deadlines due to sloppy self-management and massive technical errors, I have failed to commit to projects that I had so much enthusiasm for, and I have let a lot of people down...

To top all of this failing off; This morning upon logging on to ACW to submit a Large Funding Grant that I've been working on for the best part of a year, I learnt the deadline was two days ago. Upon seeing it there on the website, knowing I'd fucked up once again, my heavy heart sank deeper than it has been in a long while.

I'd taken on way more than I could possibly handle, I'd completed some work, but to no standard that I was close to happy with, I'd dropped the ball too many times and this was the final straw.

So, right now I should be in a montage of fury and self loathing. Violently sliding all of my text books from my shelf,  packing up all of my ridiculous costumes, throwing my computer in the bin, taking the Tin Shed Theatre Co. website down and sobbing gently to myself whilst rocking forwards and backwards in a cold shower stroking my hand that I have contorted into the shape of a parakeet.

But I'm not, I'm sat at my desk writing this blog, because I received a phone call, an email and a text message. All from people I'm working with, all from people I've let down, I had reached out to them in a moment of pure self-deprecation, and they reached back with kind words, offers and understanding. I came to see that I'd spread myself ridiculously thin and this was a consequence of that.

I guess my point about this being a cathartic blog more than a helpful one is to be decided by you, but this morning I violently hit rock bottom, flat out with deflated lungs and my spinal chord jabbing it's way out of my stupid fucking neck. But instead of discouraging me to continue, it has rejuvenated me. It has re-set the mark. It has made me want to leave this old self behind and get smart, learn from my mistakes, reach out to more people and start making stuff again.

I guess my point is a very old and worn out one, but for me right now it couldn't be more relevant, and I hope in expressing my short comings so candidly it will help me and other people who may be in a similar place.

Once you've hit rock bottom you have to choices, brush your self off and start climbing, or stay there, I'm going to stay here for the rest of the day wallowing, and tomorrow I'm going to start climbing my way back up.

Mucho,

Justin

Honorary Otter Spotter

Today I sat on the banks of The River Severn and spent a hour or so watching an otter dip and dive above and under the water.

If you've not been to Bridgnorth I really couldn't recommend it highly enough. It's an absolutely beautiful little town that is quant, alternative, ye olde and modern. It's building covered hills lay before you stunning views of a billowing cloth like landscape of bricks and mortar. The scenery is top and the people on the whole are awesome. Also if you like an antique or a bit of vintage tat, this its the place for you.

Tin Shed Theatre Co. are currently here performing Of Mice and Men at the beautiful Theatre On The Steps. It's a place we've regularly performed since starting the company and have over the years built up a reputation and a friendship with.

This blog post is really not about theatre, or Bridgnorth, or otters for that matter. Although it's probably more about otters than anything else.

Today I decided to cut myself off from technology, emails, phone-calls, theatre thought and work. I decided to ramble aimlessly, turn left when it took my fancy, pop into a shop, start a conversation and wander. After doing this for a few hours I ate chips and decided to go and lay by the river for a bit of a sleep. Walking up and down the riverbanks looking for a quiet place to slumber I found a patch and took a seat. Staring out over the luke-brown-river pouring it's way before me, I saw a log floating by. Then the log moved, and the log looked at me, and then the log dipped under the water. Then it re-appeared with a fish in it's mouth. Then it chewed the fish, then flicked it's tail and dipped back under the surface of the water, then I realised it wasn't a log. It was a f**king otter!

I was chuffed. I've never seen an otter before, not in real life anyway. I thought about the amazing co-incidence this must be, to stop at the very spot along the river that the otter is fishing. I was in awe. I stayed and watched it for well over an hour, so I consider myself an otter expert now, and in watching it I found it spent a much greater percentage of it's time under the water than it did above it, and as I couldn't really see under the water I thought about how much more of an amazing co-incidence seeing the otter in the first place really was.

After a while of lonely observation, I noticed woman with a camera taking photos. I'd never seen an otter before, and somehow Tweeting about it didn't seem a big enough sharing of the event so I walked over to her and we started talking about the otter. People spotted me and a woman with a huge camera looking in the river and they began to stop. At first not many, but then quite a few. Pretty soon the otter had a bigger audience than we did on our opening

Eventually the crowed disperse and walked away, and once again me and the lady with the camera we're alone together with the still bobbing otter.

She told me about the people in the local area who try and spot them, how seeing one on any given day was pretty rare. She said that just for today I was an honorary otter spotter. I wanted to ask if I get a badge and a certificate, but we were too busy smiling and then we parted ways.

I said this blog wasn't about otters, and it's not. This blog is about shutting off for a while, wandering aimlessly and discovering what happens when you just let yourself get lost.

What is mainly beneath the surface can suddenly bob up to the top.

Otter love.

Mucho,

Justin

Kinokulture - Oswestry's Hidden Cinema

Happy New Year.

At the end of this blog I'm going to ask you to make one more New Years Resolution...

For me this is the first blog of the New Year and I'm hoping to get a lot more bloody bloggy here after.

Maybe that can be my New Years resolution?

Christmas was great, and it rolled quite nicely into New Years, which this time and for the first time in a while, I spent at home in Gobowen. Caught up with friends, spent time with family and ate heaps of meat.

HUURAH!

But this blog isn't about that. This blog is about cinema, one cinema specifically.

Over the festive period I managed to cram in a massive 23 movies, but on January 2nd I watched the most amazing of the 23 movies in a most remarkable place.

Me and Mum went along to a 2.00pm screening at Kinokulture in Oswestry. A small independent cinema that has transformed a old community space into a full operating cinema, and although the space has been transformed it's inclusive and community driven ethos seems to have remained the same.

I was amazed at what I saw upon walking up the four short flights of stairs from the entrance hall of the building to the large space above. It is the Tardis of cinemas. Seemingly small and mild from the outside, with only a few signs in the window and on the door that hint towards Kinokulture's amazing space hidden inside, you enter a building that has such a great history and feeling to it, that eventually, with a little exploration, opens up into this enormous and beautiful, bespoke and contemporary movie theatre.

It has a state of the art projector and screen, a full 80-100 seats racked back, that are genuinely more comfortable than any other cinema seats I've searched in. There confectionary is fairly priced and you can see there is a healthy, worldly ethos surrounding it, what with being able to by organic cola and health bars, as well as chocolate and crisps. I haven't even mentioned that our tickets were £6 each.

We saw Interstellar, I can't get into writing about the movie as this blog will become an odyssey, rather than the quick "on the bog" read it should be. All I will say is, if you haven't seen it, see it.

If cinema is to win the ever increasing struggle presented to it by the internet and the ease of home viewing, it has to be like this.

Kinokulture is warm, welcoming and full of heart. It is stripped of the commerciality and extortion we've put up with in mainstream cinemas for so long. It feels inclusive and it feels communal. Ran by people who love cinema and want to share those rare experiences of collectively viewing it. Admiring something beautiful, profound and thoughtful together. When we leave our living rooms and join other people in place like this, we are brought together and moved together. Laughing, crying and cheering together.

I had one of the best experiences of cinema I've ever had at Kinokulture, and looking at their line up of films for 2015 it seems like they're really not putting a foot wrong, offering a varied and interesting catalogue of stuff to watch from mainstream to foreign cinema.

If your from Oswestry or nearby and haven't wondered into Kinokulture I strongly suggest you do so.

But if you do make sure you arrive on time, because unlike Odeon, there isn't twenty minutes adverts before the movie starts, theres about 5 and there all just trailers to more great films.

Kinokulture is contactable on Facebook, Twitter and via their website:

Website: www.kinokulture.org.uk

Twitter: @kinokulture

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/kinokulture

Make one more News Years Resolution.

Support local independent cinema.

Mucho

J