1008 Thatcher The Musical

Because of a frustrating day of more downs than ups I was not in the mood for any form of a theatre in the evening. An account of what happened during the day is covered my AOl Blog ( to be added when the item is located).

I had become anxious about several matters, and was tired having no nap earlier (26.02.2007). I has also undertaken no preparations regarding the company or type the production, except that it was a musical about the life of Lady Thatcher, called Thatcher. I was going to the first performance at the refurbished Newcastle Playhouse.

The Newcastle Playhouse had been transformed after a long closure, reopening the previous year and one change is that the entrance was now opposite the Student Union Building of Newcastle University, involving a climb of several flights of stairs, either from the Metro station or the car park. There are two car park level entrances but one is for performers and theatre staff and the other had only been used as a safety door. On my visit on Saturday for Lypsynch, using the Metro, I noticed a sign which said that the car park level door could be used as an entrance, so on the evening taking the car, I used this entrance and the lift.

Although it was the first evening the foyer and theatre restaurant and bars were quiet and there were only a handful of others in auditorium. I struck up conversation with an attendant who said that some 200 were anticipated about half full. It was quickly evident that 95% of these were students in groups who knew each other. I appeared to be about thirty years older than everyone else, something I had in common with the actors. For many in the audience Thatcher was already history.

I met a Member of the Theatre Management in the lift during the interval and commented that perhaps the political fans of Lady Thatcher were staying away because they anticipated a negative portrait, while those hostile were not likely to want to be reminded of all the things which made them so angry during her 10 years of Premiership. She said that there would be a more mixed audience over the week so it appeared their had been some kind of special offer issued to the two Universities in the city.

The style of the production was revealed in the free programme notes which listed all the characters in the production, (with one exception) as Margaret Thatcher in her various phases as young woman through to the present day.

The first reactions were not positive because the portrait appeared more of a populist caricature than the clever woman who captured a political party from backward looking men and who had earned the respect of political opponents even though they hated her policies. This had been said to me by leading members of the national Labour Party Parliamentary team prior to the 1990’s
The “hit” list against her was comprehensive beginning with her call for unity and healing divides made on winning the first General Election and then alienating almost everyone, including Members of her own cabinet and Party.

I met Thatcher only once in passing when she the guest of honour at the annual dinner of the Association of Director of Social Services when I think she was the Minister of Education although she may have become the Tory Party Leader in opposition. I have the information somewhere. I was advised afterward that she was unenthusiastic about the role of social workers and the new service, wanting to expand the role of the private and voluntary sectors. Just how far she was determined to make these pubic policy, I, and my colleagues, were not to find out until 1979.

In the play her passion against all aspects of communism and socialism was covered. In 1970 the man who was to become her chief advisor, Sir Keith Joseph, had been my dinner guest at the first conference of the Family and Child Care Section of the British Association of Social Workers, and on learning of my background and political learning advised that I should have taken my protests to Russia to which I had responded that when the revolution came I suspected we would both be among those asked to stand against the wall to be shot. Three years after this discussion, in the Autumn of 1973, Sir Keith was the Minister of Social Services in the Heath Government and was required to approve my appointment as the First Director of Social Services at South Tyneside. I took up the appointment officially in April 2004, although I had been full time with the authority since January as the designate chief officer. In February The Labour Party formed the National government after the General Election with a narrow majority. The political administration I was to serve comprised sixty Labour Councillors out of sixty six and the future looked good as the council effectively doubled the budget previously drafted for the new authority. In October the Labour Party won the second General Election held in that year. The rates were doubled in May 1975 with some lost of seats although this was mainly because people from South Shields had been rehoused in Jarrow and Hebburn.

Originally Sir Keith Joseph who represented the right wing of the Tory Party, supported by Margaret, was to stand against the centre left candidate, Sir William Whitelaw. When Sir Keith dropped out, Margaret replaced him and successfully became the Leader on the first ballot. She made a point of emphasising her determination to abolish the rating system when her party formed the government.

The play discussed her approach to monetarism, towards the trade unions and the Miners, the Falklands and the sinking of the Belgrano, the demolition of state controls and the ending of the independence of Local Government, the development of the private ownership of housing, her stubbornness in relation to Northern Ireland issues, her attitude to Europe and her bonding with President Ronald Regan. The disaster of the Poll Tax was highlighted and the venom towards her by sacked members of her Cabinet. Most of her famous sayings were mentioned although I could not remember afterwards if what for me was the most significant, in that she was ask of anyone not previously met, ‘Are they one of us, and you knew you had problems if the answer came back, No,

The musical brought out the reality that there was not much difference between the public persona and the private lady. As the show progressed I became more and more impressed with the style, with several individual performances, and its overall impact. The contrast with Lypsynch was striking where nothing was as good as the opening aria and first act, but with Thatcher there was a gradual winding up with a memorable song marking an aging self assessment of Lady Thatcher before a splendid finale. The audience response at curtain call was boisterous which appeared to be genuinely enjoyed by the cast. Gone are the days of decorative safety or other curtains thought!

The authors did not miss the opportunity to contrast her reign with that of Tony Blair and contemporary politicians and politics. The most effective point was that she had responded to an attack in the Falklands rather than initiating one. However where the work had its greatest impact on the audience was to remind them of how effective her fundamental political positions have been, with the defeat of communism and socialism, the defeat and role change of the trade unions and the promotion of corporate capitalism as the savour of states developed, and underdeveloped.

At one point in the performance Lady Thatcher also moved into the audience to challenge the young people with her views. I wondered what the composition of the audience would be like during the rest of the week and how they would react to the show overall as well as responded when she came into the audience. I was tempted to go again but did not do so

It could be argued that it was her policies which led directly to the near collapse of the banking system and capitalism.

1034 And death has no Dominion Dylan Thomas

In the autumn of 2006 I attended a one man performance which merited a significantly larger audience as those present would have fitted comfortably into auditorium two, and better still the bar lounge atmosphere of the stage three area, given the subject of show. The life of Dylan Thomas told through his verse.

The soul and the sin of the man filled the place for a couple of hours and then we went our respective ways. I sometimes wish I had the kind of mission of the Sin Eater, cleansing souls, or even that of Soul Collector which appeared in a fantasy series, Star Trek next generation, whose concept was to protect and nurture souls, although in this the Collector messed up and collected from a planet that we not ready to give up its ghost.

What have I have done, and continue to do, is to try and collect something of the creative genius of others so that it inspires, stimulates and modifies my existence, stretching its dimension. I think John Betjeman came first, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn furnished and burnished in the Surrey sun of my home county, and then there was my own Brideshead of Byron Shelley and Keats although T S Elliot, Waste Land, Four Quartets and his play the Dinner Party heard on steam radio and then read and read avidly as I tried to help myself to get where I was not, knowing it would be different from what I anticipated and hoped for.

I cannot remember or recorded when, also on the radio, I heard that Welsh voice rage raging against the dying of the light which fitted into my anarchistic subversive protesting tendencies, and it was sometime in my late thirties, (I could look it up as I have the programme) that I experienced a theatrical performance of Under Milk Wood and the Newcastle Theatre Royal, and rushed off to read and later acquire a video, and a voice recording, and then later still in my fifties there was a trip of a few days to South Wales and Laugharne, to his cottage with Caitlin, going to one of the pubs and bookshops. His voice still fills the cottage fifty, now sixty years after souls departed and I acquired duplicate voice recordings to occasionally recapture the moment of that experience.

Unsurprising in the autumn of 2006 the majority of the audience was as old, some even older and quite a number were solitary men.

If you can't paint the way you want the word pictures can be just as good and less expensive to replicate.

Because we were so few in number there was room to stretch and enjoy the conversation which developed between a university student, and a young women, and then an older person of my years who sat between them and could not resist joining in, so I did too when the opportunity arose.

The talk was not of Dylan but what had been done to the theatre with millions of pounds acquired when the city hoped next year they would become the European centre of culture although the main developments have been created on the bank of the Tyne in Gateshead. We lost out to Liverpool, punishment I suspect for rejecting the offer of regional government.

We were generally enthusiastic about the changes and developments, but not one other young man who breathed black fire on what had happened.

The performance was simple, the actor standing at a lectern or sitting on a chair, mixing the poems and excerpts with stories and some chronology. If this was the turn out for one the great sons of Wales and poets in he British Language what hope had I for imagining that any one would to come and hear me ramble incoherently about my experiences, although there had been time when I could keep the attention of a sympathetic group for an hour and more about a subject of interest to them.

I have not mentioned the actor who was to the same for Truman Capote the following day. I am even lazier so I will endeavour to mention his name another time. He was excellent and enabled the soul of another to live on. And death has no dominion and I no longer rage about the dying of the light

This is a poor note on an important evening and I will make amends by writing about the work and the life at greater length on a future occasion, as long as death remains to have its dominion. I no longer rage but experience sadness and regret at the dying of the light.

1033 Denis Potter's The Son of Man

I have watched several versions of the Passion of Christ and in my childhood and as a young man I participated in the Stations of the Cross every Good Friday. But I did not become a witness until viewing Mel Gibson's Passion in cinematic theatre. I have owned the DVD for at least two Easters, but it will be the forthcoming time before I will be able to cope with the viewing experiences once more.

Shortly after the opening of the redeveloped New Playhouse Theatre I attended a performance of the Denis Potter play, Son of Man with doubts whether anything could measure up to the Mel Gibson reality. This used what was intended to be the epic stage, a combination of a stages one and two. This was short lived development/

The previous evening I had watched a DVD of the remarkable short life of Sophie Scholl with its subject the self sacrifice for the good of others. I have often wondered how I would face up to the reality of death in situation when you are given choice, do this and you live, don't do that and you live and what would I do? It is not the kind of choice those of us born children during world war 2 have had to face, unless we joined some armed service, became fireman, or such other help and rescue services, or been in situation where the choice was ones own life or that of a partner, child or parent, or someone one did not know.

I have the possibility of death three times. Once in a relatively new car, returning late and tired from a weekend in Manchester/or it may have been from over the Pennines in West Yorkshire but going cross country to Oxford, I turn off the lights by accident going around a bend and could only think of trying to turn the car around, expecting to hit something and expecting to be hurt. I did what I set out to do turning the car to face the opposite direction, and although I damaged the axel on wheel that was the only damage and I was able to drive to my home. The other two instances had occurred before. Once in prison, something I said or did not say triggered another inmate who placed a headlock which cab be damaging and even lethal if you struggle. I was able to relax and prepared myself to accept what was to happen. He was so surprised by this unexpected response that he let go, Later he apologise and tried to explain himself. However both of these situations were not of my making. After release I became involved in the organisation of a project which aimed at drawing attention to the obscenity of sitting a base for nuclear missile submarines in of the most beautiful and peaceful parts of this earth. Because I could not then swim I decided against participating in a demonstration which involved sharing a canoe. I did join a more substantial craft where the authorities first attempted to swamp by turning hoses at full power and then when our engine failed we were cleverly pushed by a government craft against a buoy as we attempted to transfer protestors from our craft to a larger one, so that for a few second sit looked that we would sandwich between the towering buoy and the rescue craft. The collision was missed by a second or so and we were then towed to the shore by a combination craft we had become all the rage, this was motor vehicle which could also function and a motor boat. In all three situations I remember being calm and prepared for the worst. It is therefore the prospect of pain rather than death that I think is the challenge.

It was this sense of real pain which I missed from the Potter play however well acted and set. The play has attracted wider media interest than theatrical criticism because of the portrayal of Pontius Pilot as an intelligent and thinking man who had to calculate the best options in the difficult political and social circumstances of his situation. The play however had a significant moment when towards he end of the first act the Sermon on the Mount was used by actor directly challenge the audience insisting that everyone hold hands, touch, fondle and caress each other which was Ok for established partners but questionable in relation to everyone else, More convincing was the portrayal of Jesus as an I thought the portrayal of Jesus as a essentially weak 'ordinary', 'normal', man with a sense of destiny and personal conviction who knew his time had come and was consequently able to lead, to preach and command an audience, and then to die in pain, was well done. Afterwards people went to the bar, or to their cars or public transport and I did not see anyone sitting stunned in their seats or visibly distressed as happened when seeing Mel Gibson's passion in a central London cinema theatre.

For this performance the main stage of the Playhouse had been stripped bare revealing the side wings ad removing the partition between this stage and stage two. Stage two as previously recorded has been created from the old Gulbenkian first floor studio and dressing rooms old Green Room below. It is still necessary to enter the new auditorium at first floor level and then descend to the removable seats to the floor level which form the stage space for productions such as Exquisite Pain. If you sit in the first row you are part of the production which the actors standing over you. For the Son of Man the sating had been dismantled so that the stage one extends to stage the floor the auditorium. However once does not encompass the whole of the area as there is the real wall structure which in addition to the wings has a lintel which is this instance restricted the view of part of the set construction. It was difficult to work what was gained by the use of this super stage. Moreover the partitioning at that point took expensive labour and time to remove and out back up. It prevented the use of the second stage from an income viewpoint and there is a sound proofing problem with some kinds of performances involving music and work designed to engage the involvement of children. The outcome is that the double stage has not been used since, the seating in the auditorium of stage two has been improved and the partition strengthened

1031 The Equisite Pain of Sophie Calle

26.10.2006 .The use of Jokerman script(Original Blog) for Exquisite Pain (27.09.2006 Newcastle Playhouse) is at one level appropriate. It is not a play but a performance art work where the setting of a seated fixed audience for two and a half hours is inappropriate, one needed to be able to walk about

12.03.2007 if you have not been to the theatre to experience acting for sometime then Exquisite Pain is not the work to go and see. It is not a play but performance art using exceptionally talented actors. (I can say this because I also watched them perform a total theatre experience of the history of "The World in Pictures," two days later).

You sit with increasing discomfort for two and a half hours with interruption. The discomfort is physical and emotional and is an appropriate way to experience the work. I would have preferred to have walked about a bit but keeping within listening distance.

This autobiographical work, previously performed by the artist and available in book form, is by Sophie Calle, born in Paris in 1953. 1985 her lover and older man failed to meet her as arranged in New Delhi midway between where she had been for several months and where she had previously lived, She was devastated by the experience, rather than traumatised and was able to work through the disappointment, humiliation, and victim guilt, because she was a creative using photo, memorabilia and words, but kept a record of how her perception of the event changed through linear time.

26.10.2006 The performance consist of one person telling the story of dealing with a traumatic experience and how the view of that experience changes over time, one blames oneself, one blames the other person one gets angry at being affected so much yet because one wanted and hopes for resolution reconciliation one clings the hope for a different outcome because that it is a possibility but the reality is that when you compare such an experience with the experience of others you realise that however painful it is insignificant to the realities of the succession of tragedies and horrors which are told in a dead pan and sometimes humorous way.

13.03.2007 Sophie Calle could have just created a performance work in which she recounted the same experience over the subsequent days, weeks and months, reporting and observing changes in detail, consideration, feelings, attitude and judgement. This could have been a complete work. She did not.

On her return to Paris, she asked a group of friends to answer the question, "When did you most suffer?" Their stories of pain, each of them accompanied by a photograph, interplay with Calle's own story and daily reflections—"It is now seventy-five days since the man I love left me"—creating a testament to the heartache of romantic rejection. 130 illustrations, 71 in color. Amazon.Com.

27.09.2006 the university car park was free tonight, I usually pay £2. I enjoyed the salad and timed everything much better. It is the right thing to do to take the car although it would be sensible to work out the motorway way route back. It is ridiculous that you cannot enter the theatre at this level with the choice if steep steps or walking around the theatre up the slope.

28.02.2007. The revised travel arrangements to the Playhouse and other evening outings to Newcastle are now working well. I still visit my mother and then take the car to the Hewarth short stay car park adjacent to the taxi rank and metro station. I eat the picnic meal in the car and then continue the journey by metro train. On the way there is now a sign which suggests it might be possible to enter the theatre directly from the car park. It is.

27.09.2006 this is my first experience of the new second theatre space. For on the Town when both spaces were combined the audience sat on tiered seating the width of the second space facing into the main auditorium and banked seating. Previously we sat on similar seating in a semi circle around the stage which I like to call eyeball theatre. Now there is conventional tiered seating with not much space to move legs unless you sit on an aisle or the front row where you will feel part of the performance. I chickened out and sat mid row, fortunately one vacant seat so there was some manoeuvrability. My ticket was free as part of a five main theatre subscription packaged. Many in the audience were students.

Unsurprisingly there was a plea for funds at the end and I decide to give £10 which is slightly more than the average of £7 requested. Free programme included.

13.03.2007. The incorporation of the stories of the experiences of Calle's friends was inspirational. Each story communicates an aspect of physical and emotional pain but the accumulation of experience helps to put her experience into perspective

At the end of the World in Pictures chorus makes the valid point that however much the average member of the audience enjoys, appreciates, is moved or challenged by the event, it will become submerged under layers of new experiences of varying intensity and significance.

26.10.2006 There was also an after performance session with the two actors, and the company director chaired by a local cultural figure. I had only 'discovered' this extraordinary the company through the internet during the afternoon and had become so interested that I abandoned my work programme. The amazing aspect is that the core actors had been together throughout their working lives having come together at university. At the discussion I clanged by concertinaing this time, having misinterpreted an aspect of the internet information. I also wanted to know if the order in which the stories of the friends are recounted is changed according performance. It is not although if the work was mine I would have included the variations.

13.03.2007. Calle's work and the performance by the Forced Entertainment company is at the core of my work and confirms that what I am doing is only original in its particular form, at least I hope that is the position, but the concepts are already aspects of the work of professional contemporary creative of international reputation. However I do not regret only entering back through the portal of my occupational dimension of four decades into my first period of full time creative endeavour. Now I have a lot to say even if I continued to be limited in the means of expression.

14.02.2009 I have become more influenced by this work since first experience than any other cultural event because it has fitted so well into the dilemma I found of never settling on anything because each time I relived the experience the experience my perception has changed. Some of the cultural event writing has been recast three times as development activity with AOL, then on My Space and now with Google plus going back because the subject has reappeared, so I need to consider because of the interaction with another event.

1006 Lypsynch experience reviewed

Yesterday 24th February 2207. I experienced total theatre, a farce, a comedy and a satire, also a melodrama, drama, mystery and a thriller which included an operatic aria, operatic duet, rock and pop and karaoke, a comprehensive exploration of language, voice and speech, which included an education into the reality of film making, and a complex story where every cause and consequence becomes explained and every question answered.

Not surprisingly the performance last approximately four and half hours, excluding two intervals.

The quality of the work and the quality of the performance was outstanding. Only the ending disappointed although this is a work still in creation and therefore the present conclusion which felt rushed and failed to realise the expectation of its opening.

The work? Lipsynch led by Robert Lepage and a collaboration between Ex Machina, and Theatre sans Frontieres with Cultural Industries Lid and Northern Stage

Theatrical Art is a conduit between those creating the work and everyone who interacts with the performance, each bringing to the event their anticipation, immediate circumstance and previous experience. My experience over the past year has confirmed an impression that the majority of an audience select to attend because of the performance type with the musical being much in fashion and the Shakespearean classical commanding both an established, and an ever changing young audience studying English Literature. True there are those who attend out of curiosity or because they are taken by someone, or are, or hope to be active in the creative and performing process, and those who follow the work of a company or that of an individual performer.

The nature of audience participation appears to be governed by the preponderance of those who know in advance the form of the work. If branded a comedy people will look to laugh at every opportunity and if a musical they will give applause at the end of each number. The performance of the opening of Lipsynch, an operatic aria deserved a standing ovation, which I hope would have been given if performed in an opera house, or billed as an opera, but was met with silence at the Northern Stage. Is this an over reaction from someone who four years ago changed his life as a consequence of a day divided between the Saatchi MOMA and Tate Modern? My emotional being remains raw and open.

Since the commencement of 2007 I have attended three forms of live performance. I have been among 50000 at events where the majority paid months in advance up to four times the maximum of a Lipsynch ticket cost, and where a greater number than the total audience for the week, paid even more for tickets to a single event. The expectation of the majority of these audiences indicates that they anticipated to be frustrated and disappointed by the experience, but attended because they had already paid or lived in hope of something better. In reality they received perhaps a 10th, perhaps a 100th of what the Lipsynch experience provided.

There was a time, until about a decade ago, when the audience at these performances were active participants giving voice in song and shout to prejudice and hostility, of a foul and offensive nature, towards half the performers, the director and some of the supporting production staff and towards a separated section of the audience. Some ignored the performers and concentrated on self expression. This aspect of the audience participation has been successfully suppressed, although it is evidently just below the surface. Two exceptions are still allowed, hostility shown towards performers based in London and their supporters from where ever they live, or when the neighbouring team and supporters visit. This season there has also been the unthinkable, mass booing of home performers. Whereas in the past the nature of audience participation reflected local tribal loyalty to performers, now the performers are of international origin, frequently changing their loyalty between production teams and sometimes none of the performers having any link with the with the audience locality.

I also attended a performance event of 10000, repeated over two days, where the audience also paid more than the top price Lipsynch for a ticket, having previously invested tens of pounds over ten weeks in voting for individual performers. The noise level of the performances was so high that the quality of the sound was adversely affected, but was necessary because the noise level of the audience, (with one notable exception), and where some performers gave this kind of participation every encouragement, by calling on the audience to support, even to the extent of putting on city football shirts, which was brave because of its regional nature. Afterwards there were universal expressions of enjoyment and money's worth. The final performer deserved several standing ovations, but the audience was of the wrong composition and mood but her time will come when the cost of seat will be priceless.

Whereas men and teenagers are predominate in the 50000 events, women, girls and children were predominant among the 10000, and where I suspect I was the oldest present. This all contrasted with the third event where the audience was under 500, and the seat price less than maximum at Lipsynch, despite the performer being of international good reputation over four decades. Because the audience knew the work of the performer well, they listened intently and then gave applause, sometimes prolonged, at appropriate points after each number, and standing in ovation at the end.

The events were Newcastle United AFC, the X Factor finalists show tour and Ritchie Havens, also on tour.

I had no previous knowledge of the Ex Machina company, or the work of Robert Lepage, who initiated the concept, except for the Northern stage advance publicity, and despite having planned to do so, work activities prevented internet research. I had attended a performance in Spanish by Theatre San Frontieres, (a company, collaborating with Ex Machina) and which brought back memories of having been brought up six decades earlier in a Gibraltarian speaking household in England who did not teach me their language. I had also seen all the theatrical productions at the Playhouse since its re-opening, except for those designed for children. Northern Stage had become a partner in planning the Lipsynch theatrical production. My only expectation about the form of Lipsynch was that it might be like the Performance Art of 'Exquisite Pain' (the Enforced Theatre Company) and where at the end of their 'World in Pictures,' chorus warns the audience that whatever the immediate response to a work, it quickly becomes submerged by the layers of subsequent experience.

This seems to me to be particularly true for those who visit the theatre as part of their consumption culture. Those who do not want to feel uncomfortable and challenged by the eyeball experience of human beings baring the soul of others, and through them their own, stay away. The young woman in Exquisite Pain recounts over and over again, mirroring the linear passage of time, what happened one night when she was dumped by a lover, the memory of the details and of the emotions aroused, changes, at first only slightly, and then significantly because of subsequent experience. Most people cannot cope with such reality, and even less prepared to pay for such an experience.

This is a Blog and Blog asks for moods to be indicated and was there not a play about people going to and leaving a play. My mood has been euphoric having celebrated the 100th birthday of my mother, who despite severe memory loss with psychosis, is generally happy. The mood has been dampened by receiving two reports from the Health Ombudsman regarding the premature and preventable death of her sister, and my care mother, four years ago, and which required, and will require of me, more time, and distress.

I made no attempt to search for a review in advance or until I have completed this writing of my experience and reaction. I was very intrigued by the brief reference in advance publicity to the 'search for father in western society,' and was stunned when the story line struck so many chords with my own background, with my former professional work, and which had continued after retirement after 2003. Having a discovered Mediterranean ancestry, primarily Spanish and Maltese, with some Italian and English Wiltshire, also raised personal interest levels because the work involves parts where the first language is German, French, Italian and Spanish, used to explore aspects of language and communication, and how digital communication and digital gadgetry can be used to overcome all differences, including those of distance.
I had not anticipated that the work would have any coherent story line, and therefore one which attempts to explain and resolve all issues was unexpected. An opera singer, en route is asked to hold the baby of a young mother who suddenly dies. The woman adopts the child, and part of the story is the relationship between a boy who does not know anything about his father and then finds a relationship with a step father difficult, and where one proposition is that young men are jealous and threatened by their fathers. The work explores who the girl was, and how she came to be on flight with the child, and how and when, the son comes to also learn the truth of his mother and of his parentage. Substitute parents always attempt to protect, usually for good reasons, while the child in question has a lifelong need to know, even if they come to wish they never did (The Bad Mother's Handbook of Kate Long should be the bible on this). Part of my creative work since retirement has been about what happens when late in life you discover that your ancestral identity is different from what you were led to believe and with the added irony that one aspect of my occupational activity involved helping others to gain the truth of their biological identity.

Another theme which struck several chords is the proposition that there is a multiplicity of causes and consequence for each event existing in parallel dimensions. I wrote my first and only attempt at a play in 1960 after volunteering to complete six months in prison in preference to entering into a recognisance to keep the peace which involved stopping my work as an independent non violent, weapons of mass destruction inspector, in Essex, and elsewhere. The play was sent to the English Stage company at the Royal Court, and unsurprisingly rejected, although a note was added, " However, they (their readers) did feel that your play was interesting and consequently we would be very pleased to read anything else you may have written."

I had not completed anything and instead of devoting all my energy to doing so, I chose to move through a series of related portals away from active artistic creativity, into further education, professional training, child care social work and child care work and then social services management. In 1985 I was advised, while attending an international residential senior management course, that I was a creative intellect working in an unsympathetic environment which although confirmed what I knew, added analysis and implications which I did not. It was not until a sequence of related events spread over less than the year 2002-2003 that I decided to cross back through an open portal into the dimension of artistic creativity, as a contemporary concept and installation worker, having discovered that throughout the previous decades others had been thinking and doing what I had been thinking, and to a less extent, doing, in my separate dimension. Lipsynch is divided into potentially self contained one act dimensions with refer and link into the others. At times you are puzzled despite close attention, especially with the significance of the fourth act, and where those sitting immediate behind me also had the same problem, and I am still not certain about the value of this act except as used to explore aspects of communication and understanding surrounding social and ritual behaviour towards death, and to give another slant on father son relationships.

I was much more at home and impressed by the lead and other characters involved in the unmasking of child/young person abusers, knowing from personal experience how victims are for ever haunted and lack any meaningful sense of justice, while some, not only victims, will ruthlessly and obsessively seek to unmask and punish.

I am impressed by the technical integrity and sensitivity in which the subject was treated and which for me was at heart of the Lipsynch story taking precedence over the search for father.

In Lipsynch it seemed to me that the father was demonised with no explanation attempted why he had come to behave as he had, although I wondered if we were expected to understand this from the behaviour of the son, and what happens when father sees himself in the mirror through the presence of his son: Look into the abyss and! There was evidently much serious attempt to explain and link the behaviour of everyone else.

After 24 hours I consider the opening act to be one of the most powerful and moving experiences I have encountered in the theatre. I thought the performance of the opening aria without build up extraordinary. Given the quality of the subsequent individual plays and performances I was disappointed with the finale which I had expected to be at least as powerful and moving as the opening, whereas the emphasis appeared to be on providing an explanation and resolution. I had expected at least an aria leaving the audience in silence, challenged. Perhaps a quintet of the five languages, synchronised in harmony to indicate the provision of a go home contentment from resolved ending, only to be followed by discordant Babel to remind of reality? True this aspect was there in the restaurant scene and the making of the autobiographical film.

I remain puzzled by the emphasis on one explanation and one resolution given the proposition of a multiplicity of causes for each event and outcome although this may have been part of the grand design, having educated the audience through the artificiality of film making with the possibility of adding and changing every component separately, and as was also done through the creation of the railway station announcement. Perhaps my reaction is related to having expected the work to more abstract and where in the end there are no answers and when those which appear to have been are opened out to more questions.

I am not sure if the attempt to be all things to all and to undertake such a comprehensive exploration of the use of voice, speech and language added to the value of the core concept. As I tried to demonstrate in my introduction it is possible to create and develop a popular cultural performance experience with the public paying in several ways for the same event, enabling high wages and corporate profit. I also tried to demonstrate my difficulty in sustaining quality and consistency over increasing length. Whether intended or not Lipsynch communicated the extent to which technology enables greater consistency and comprehensiveness through the use creation of the Train station announcements and ways of building up the segment of a film by separately adding/changing artists, sound and voice.

My problem with the present production of Lipsynch is that I did not find the totality as satisfying or challenging as the first act led me to anticipate and because of the overall quality of the components and the performances. In singling out the actor who portrayed the operatic singer and substitute mother, and the actor who covered the old woman, the camp hairdresser and the detective, this is not to downgrade the work of everyone else. The removal of the brain tumour was excruciatingly magnificent. But most of all I shall never forgot that opening aria and the difficulty I had not to cry.

1030 Eyeball Theatre

Friday September 1st was intended as the day when I returned to writing Fragments of Time, after losing two months, enjoying the sunshine and free entertainment, losing weight and getting fit, creating inventories and new records for a new Will, creating something for my mothers 100th birthday and then 24 hour 7 day weeks, on two draft reports for the Health Ombudsman. (Now almost six months later I am still struggling to catch up with the rest of my life as it could be and has been)

I have become excited about the prospect of visiting the Playhouse again for a performance, any performance, (now excitement is a word I cannot say to have used much over recent times), since attending a test drive of the fire alarm and emergency exit system via the Journal Culture Club, and immediately sent off for a package of tickets with reductions for five shows and further reductions through the age factor plus free advance but unreserved tickets for the five other shows, plus two others one night performances, but then became anxious and frustrated when the tickets did not arrive, despite a couple of phone calls and reassurances, especially when on Weds learning that the computer recorded three printings, but no confirmed postings. Although it was admitted that they were finding that some printings had not materialised with is even more curious given the new box office and internet booking system.( I have overcome tiredness by eating chocolate which is regretted because it has left me awake but dissatisfied).

Despite not getting the tickets in advance, I abandoned the idea of going into Newcastle first thing and decided on taking the Metro in time for a lunch treat at the theatre as it is rare to eat out because of the cost factor and weight watching. I did find a copy of the Metro free paper even though it was twelve thirty and I usually miss out if I take a late morning walk. Relaxed, laid back, tranquil, I have never been, although generally at peace with myself and with the world in general, avoiding stressful situations and in harmony with the recreation of past life and in tune with the world at large mainly through 24 hours media. God is good and the redemption quest in this life is continuous. (Oh what excitement there has from live theatre and much more)

Having attended the theatre fire alarm emergency exit exercise, I had already discovered the developed main auditorium which is now accessed from the University Union level, so you go down to your seat rather than the previous stair climb and then down. (I remain to be convinced that new arrangement of the auditorium is an improvement. Lost are side areas where for coppers you could look down from uncomfortable seats and walk about. Or you could sit with similar difficulty around the stage).

On the first visit, the bar was incomplete and the new glass fronted reception area, built out and through the previous wall of the building facing the university union and which facing wall only had some benches to enable 150 people and staff to assemble for the free orange/water reception and glass of wine at the conclusion of the modest entertainment and mock fire. Now there are some twenty plain tables at this level with an organising Italian and several busy staff taking orders from an appetising mixture of sandwiches, (I had warm chicken in a two piece baguette with lots of green stuff and dressing for £3.25 and £1.50 for a medium size bottle of still water with lemon and ice, having resisted the mixed olives at £2) and main course dishes for around a fiver. From this level I could see a further eating area above and found half a dozen tables and leather seating which is the new bistro. (Oh no it isn't but an area for sponsors and friends).

Down stairs in the old eating area there will be a bar, open when there is something on in the new third performance area. The toilets are still there with most people using the stairs and not having discovered the large bright new lifts in each corner. I have not worked out the second performance area which I think is the old Gulbenkian. Unfortunately because of the need to do the draft Ombudsman reports I missed out attending the grand opening of the new building with 2000 torch bearers representing most of the artistic performers and students converging first on the Monument from the Baltic and the various performance locations before a roof top performance of On Top of the Town and I had also decided against what was essentially a family orientated open day on the Bank Holiday Monday as a means of getting a conducted tour of the new set up. I regret this missed opportunity to get to know the place again, but I did not regret attending to what needed attending. Oh we are growing up.

Anyway I am getting ahead of myself because first stop was to find the box office which no longer exists. (Oh it is difficult to cope with so much change in old age). Instead there are two computer screens and keyboards on small desks with the printing machine and desktop in an adjacent corner, next to the bar and main entrance which can be removed out of everyone's attention. (This works they the theatre management/administration are part of you but are you part of them?)

There is an office somewhere, upstairs I think, with the terminal for the internet connection and which also handled the internet printed order sheets for ticket packages. My tickets were quickly produced from this office and I was able to check dates hoping that there were no clashes between Saturday evening performance at 7.30 to 8 with rearranged 5.15 kick offs at the Toon. My next venture is next Friday for a Potter play with the next Toon game on the 9th v Fulham at 3pm. The first free show with unreserved seating on stage 2 and make a donation in on 27th a Weds, but I cannot find out when the second home leg of the Euro cup game is to be played with another visit on 29th Sept for the World in Pictures. The October dates are fast and furious with Ms Kipling on the 6th stage two and free, and Cymbeline main stage 2pm matinee on 7th, the only Saturday afternoon performance when there is no football. Like Water for Chocolate is on the 10th October Tuesday and Dylan Thomas top price seat with concession at £15 on 12th a Thurs which could be a euro date. The Free night shift is on Weds 18th and the free Home on Tues 24th then there is a break to Sue Perkins 15 Nov main stage and Broken Chords Friday 19th January after the children's season. There are performances this year of the RSC but none appeal. 12 shows for £88 is brilliant because of the season ticket reduction and age concession. (However this was the core price so that we contributing for the free shows and missing a show the per visit cost changes, but this is nonsense who cares , what price magic, inspiration, participation in the brilliance of others? The football went from disaster to mediocrity anyway)

Although the seats were hard the first row at the Gulbenkian provided an Eyeball theatre experience, you could not only look into the mind and soul of the actor but he or she could look back into you (but of course no one did because of the distraction) and thus the scene is set for my first performance experience at the new Playhouse.
Having had the lunch and paid a visit to the loo there was some twenty minutes of wait before we were let in just before two, sufficient time to work out the rest of the audience, perhaps fifty so we would be scattered around the large auditorium ha ha. I was feeling like a theatre virgin again which was just as well because it was to be an experience like no other.

There was one family of a couple and two sons but did they attend the performance? There was one mother and a son, an elderly woman on her own, typical matinee person,(oh what prejudice send for the theatre racism police) and an older couple who spotted that I had dropped by Metro/bus pass combination who also were in the matinee category; (now that marks you from the rest of humanity, a bus pass, although having paid for the metro pass gives a little edge) apart from me were middle aged to younger which was not surprising given that the actors were 8 young people from Newcastle and eight from Groningen between 15 and 19; 11 girls and 7 boys.

On our way in to the auditorium we were asked to pick up a small cardboard box and descend onto the vast stage and I have never seen such a vast stage at the back of which were four tiers of wood benches which is where we sat exposed under spotlights while during the performance some of the young actors watched us from seats in the auditorium, from gantry and balcony. It was immediately evident we were to be an essential part of the performance and that this was eyeball theatre with a vengeance. Whoopee. (How the rest of youth would like to put their parents and teachers on such a stage?)

I made by way to the second of four/ five rows of benches against the back wall of the theatre and was able to have a new perspective. First the old side balcony, refreshment areas have been removed thus providing greater width to the auditorium. The entrance to the auditorium is now at the opposite Union Building level by the ticket area and lifts and there is a passage way along to the second stairs down the auditorium. The stage is also full width with those side seats and comes within touching distance of the front seats without an orchestra pit on other divide. What has been done is to remove the wall between the old main stage and the area which house the Gulbenkian so you can create a performance using the old stage or create an epic stage by using the space behind or just use the space behind as a second more intimate space area. From out vantage point at the back one could see the side stage areas. One leads to the main stage entrance doors where the scenery can be loaded from any transporter parked outside. For our performance there was a car used and for the fire drill there was a motorbike. Looking up there is an upper gallery across and to one side for lighting, special scenery and effects. (Just as well as I had this experience because it was never to be same again, well I have heard that used before about first experiences)

The actors were nowhere in sight until their presence was indicated in eight large boxes which together with the smaller ones formed the two cities. I/we knew that this was a project play about people with different languages creating a theatrical experience and that the performance would be in both languages, but not that we would be expected to learn the Dutch for 'I do not understand' as well as for yes and no. There were other interactive moments, when early on the actors mingled and asked our names and then called out to us individually from within the distant auditorium such as where you live Fred, I live in a box, which was even more of a challenge when it was in Dutch. There was also one glorious encounter between a young woman and an embarrassed male who eventually got into the exchange as she was first slow speaking and then shouted with grotesque gesturing in trying to communicate about where they both lived, this later was developed in an exchange with a front row man who with a mixture of voice and clapping was brilliant although he admitted it was one of the most challenging moment of his life. One neighbouring sitter brought applause when in answer to the question what would make Newcastle more perfect, said a new defence. Interestingly it was also evident that those who sat on the first two rows had not only sussed the participation but did not mind whereas those who rushed to back had also sussed or as one man said after he had been challenged twice, why pick on me. I was not one of the twenty or so, given tickets to join one young person on her dream island, which was just as well as those with tickets were told to stand up and dance with her.

The free programme states "in a world made smaller by new media and online communication", now who was it who prefaced their project we live in a world where what we do can be viewed, recorded and changed by anyone anywhere with the technology. So as I expected no one has an original idea of their or on their own

This is a performance about 'the process of how complicated it is to show others our cities and through this reveal our individual identities. We are completely normal we think (well most people do I add) until we are taken out of context. When we have to explain ourselves we do so in a way which never seems to quite tell the whole story. Sometimes it tells a new story entirely.' I would add that for some such a journey, such an experience is the best way to escape from the past and reinvent a future.

Of course this was no more than a platform for the young actors to begin to find their own identity as actors and as individuals and the opportunity was taken to explore the divide between actor and audience, between youth and adulthood and the barrier of language which developed into a mini riot between the two towns and a mini war between the actors and audience where were pelted with screwed up paper boats which some in the audience threw back and with an orgy of verbal anger and abuse which was both cathartic for them an enlightening for one or two in the audience. I thought it was fun but I guess several were glad to escape into the sun. I learnt nothing about myself or them that I did not know before except that my hunch that this might prove to be money better spent than at the Toon was well founded and the Toon is on notice to perform or I will make a full switch next May. I was impressed by the majority of the actors including one who stood out. They had that mixture of self aware uncertainty about themselves as actors but also that fearlessness of the young.

(well that sounds about right for what I now remember six months late, so my memory is not as bad a I think, or perhaps I am concentrating more, or the work is more important, or I am getting less upset and stressed by experience).