DON'T LOOK AT ME IN THAT TONE OF VOICE! IT SMELLS A FUNNY COLOUR.

I have synesthesia. It's not a disease, it's just a thing. A lot of people have it, and often don't really realise that they're synesthetic because it's not in any way detrimental to your health, nor is it particularly odd if you've grown up with it all of your life. It's a bit like having brown eyes, some people do, some people don't. But it's not the same for everyone. Synesthesia is when your brain doesn't communicate with itself in the 'normal' way, and your senses sort of get mixed up. Some people, for example, see colours when they hear sounds, and for some people it's very vivid. Some associate an actual tangible distance when it comes to concepts of time, for example Monday will always be two feet in front of you, slightly to the left. And I, I taste in colour; and when I touch things, I will taste a colour (for example, to touch an orange (the most hideous of all fruits) it tastes brown, with a golfball like texture, and crayon brown).

I never really knew this was odd until I went to the doctors a few years back. about something entirely unrelated, and he asked me to describe a taste, and I said it tasted really white. The whitest white you'll ever taste. He looked at me bemused, and I just went quiet. Not long ago I was asked if I wouldn't mind taste testing some products for a supermarket, and I said yes, because I like free food. And as lovely as some of this food was, when they were asking me to rate certain elements like the sweetness of the flavour etc. I suddenly realised I was having to translate what they were saying in a way that I could understand, because things don't taste sweet or sour or spicey. I was tryign to work out if it meant pale, textured, dull or bright. Eventually it got to the point where I was just getting confused, so I quickly guessed at numbers and got out with my free thank you chocolate bar.
to try and give an example by what I mean about tasting in colour, I'm going to share an extract from my diary (yes, my actual, real life, full on diary. Feel lucky reader!):

"There's a smell, it's a countryside smell, though I do not know the source, and it's a highly beautiful smell. It does not go all the way up your nose, rather it feels to hit a blockade at the top of your nostrils. It smells the most wonderful grey, like the clearing raincloud of grey, except with the texture of smoke, and for the brief time it is assaulting one's senses, it give everything one touches a most wonderful silvery tang."


I'll allow the lovely Stephen Fry to explain this further.

WHO DOESN'T HEART A HYDE?

'Jekyll and Hyde' is a great novel, one of the all time greats. If you've not read it you'll've heard of it. Everybody knows the story of Doctor Henry Jekyll....... don't they? Or do people just think they do? Commercialisation after commercialisation, retelling after retelling and reference after reference means that the actual story has been very much lost.
Jekyll and Hyde are not good and evil, god and the devil, your good side and your dark side. The story is something much more human than that.

Henry Jekyll is an upstanding member of the community, he is a good man that does good deeds. Respectable and polite, and must appear at all times to be so. So he takes a potion, and a madman appears, a monster takes over his consciousness and kills a man, right? No. Jekyll creates a potion that has the express intent of changing his physical appearance, and only his physical appearance. He still has the mind of Henry Jekyll, he is the same man in a different body. So why? What is Hyde?

Hyde is a disguise, the ultimate and perfect disguise. Hyde lets Henry be who he wants to be, but who society and social standing will not allow him to be. Hyde is rude and impertinent. He cares little, if anything, for social convention. When he tramples the small girl in the opening of the book, what offends the by passers is not the screaming child and the horror of his actions, but the fact that he makes no pretence of being sorry or offended. He doesn't care what people think of him!

The reason Jekyll stops being Hyde is because Hyde he kills a man and Jekyll does not wish to be imprisoned in his body (irony). Reading it, it is not hard to consider whether Jekyll would have struck out. Probably not killed him, he is stronger in Hyde's body, we know this, but you can't argue that it's Jekyll's temper on display. We know he's capable of being calm and thinking with the same genius he was using at the start of the book because when he is incapable of swapping bodies back, he works in his lab with the same fervour and intellect, just in the body of Hyde.

Hyde's body let's Jekyll be who he truly wants to be, where nothing is at stake, nothing can be lost. He can be as insulting and as rude as he pleases without fear of anyone besmirching his reputation. That's where retellings get it wrong, they tell the story of Hyde not Jekyll, of the monster, of the madman. Because we love that character. So why does everyone heart a Hyde? Because these are the characters that we fall in love with. Nobody wants to watch/listen to/read about somebody who follows social conventions at all times because they're boring. They're us. People who follow the rules and live ordinary live. Just ordinary. But somebody who breaks away from that. Who becomes Hyde, now they are well worth telly time.

Think of Banksy as the great example we have of Hyde. Whoever he is, by day he's just a bloke. Follows the rules and live his life. But then he changes, he changes into a deviant who is loved and loathed in equal measure, and as an audience, we love that! Hamlet no longer cares for his standing at the court, he wears his heart on his sleeve and we become enraptured by his story, he breaks the norms without care for convention. He's Hyde. A better Shakespeare example being Edmund ('King Lear') who when in public plays the perfect, clean son, with the perfect reputation, alone he becomes himself, an evil and manipulating man. Hyde! Comedians are loved because they tell the stories we want to hear about the conventions we're obligated to follow being broken. Everybody wants to tell the patronising bank manager to piss off, comedians tell the anecdote where that happens. Sitcoms put show us people breaking the conventions and the humour derives from the situation they are put in. Hydes one and all.
Every actor becomes Hyde the second they step onstage. The moment they become a character they can do anything they like without the fear of it damaging how people see them, what you do in character is not you, you are someone else. You can do anything without fear of it damaging your reputation as a human being. It's safe onstage, it's a place to be Hyde.


Everybody loves Hyde, because of who he is and who we want to be. What he represents is not evil, it's not bad. Stevenson puts forward a dark example, yes. It drives the narrative forward, it forces the audience to ask questions and it makes for a good book. But don't let people tell you that Jekyll and Hyde are good and evil, go and read the book. Think it through for yourself, see what you find instead of what you've been told to look for. Perhaps you'll agree with them, perhaps you'll agree with me; or perhaps you'll find something else, something beautiful and interesting that no one else has spotted. If you do, be sure to go against the social convention and tell the world about it.

"YES, AND I TREAT EVERYONE AS THOUGH THEY WERE A FLOWER GIRL"

Were you to ask me whether or not I had ever seen a piece of theatre that had impressed me, naturally I would've said yes. A piece of theatre that had ever really got me thinking? Of course. A piece of theatre that had ever actually changed my life? Up until very recently, I would've had to say no. But now, I think I have. I know I have. Watching Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' at the Royal Exchange theatre has changed the way I view the world, it's changed how I view myself. For the first time I have seen a piece of theatre that has managed to change me. I know! Deep or what?

'Pygmalion' is a play about Professor Henry Higgins (who was marvellously portrayed by Simon Robson! I actually cannot emphasise enough how perfect a performance his was!) trying to change Eliza Doolittle from flower girl to lady. From a 'common as muck' woman to somebody who could pass into the company of royalty without them batting an eyelid. And initially he relishes the task that was a bet from Colonel Pickering, looking upon it as quite an exiting academic task;

"You have no idea how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a quite different human being..."

All he seems to be forgetting is the human element of it all. The emotions and feelings that seem to bypass him on his intellectual cloud. Reading the programme before the performance I found myself fully respecting Bernard Shaw's decision to make sure that there was never a romance in this play. Initially, after he directed it and set it off on tour, his actors took it upon themselves to alter the ending, to ensure a romance between Eliza and Higgins, and I can only imagine Shaw's anger. I know that had that been the way that it had ended I would've felt angry (perhaps not angry, but definitely let down). It would've ruined these wholly believable characters and made it feel like a play. Like a love story, and it isn't. It's so much better than that. It's about a friendship, and intellectual friendship, two minds equally as capable as the other learning from one another. One academic, and one human. Think of it as Holmes and Watson without the crimes or drugs. (Actually, Higgins is entirely Sherlock Holmes, which is probably why I love the character so much.)

I do entirely admire Henry Higgins, more so than I have any other character. Largely because he appears not to care at all about how society perceives him. He knows he is incredibly brilliant at what he does, and that he is of a much greater intelligence than most of the people he is surrounded by. He doesn't use this to belittle them, if they wish to learn he will teach them, but he doesn't want his time wasted. I envy his outlook on the world, and the following bit of text is the one that changed my life.
(I am typing this entirely from memory, so I apologise if this isn't exactly word for word).

"Eliza: That's the difference between you and Colonel Pickering. He treats everyone, be they flower girl or lady, as though they were a lady.

Higgins: Yes, and I treat everyone as though they were a flower girl."

'What's so good about that?' I hear you cry. (Naturally I don't hear you cry that, not unless you are hiding in my room, which would concern my greatly.... I don't think I'm ready for a stalker at this moment in time. It's not me, it's you.) It's the philosophy behind it. I think it's something I've always wanted to be able to do, but never had the courage. to be able to treat everyone equally, and not rudely, but not to give people respect they don't deserve (I find it hard to word this, which is why I like the quote so much, it embodies everything I want to be). And really, I've always loved the characters that can do this, from Hamlet to Holmes, all the way up to the Doctor.
And I found myself suddenly sitting up straight in the theatre and realising, I wanted that to be me. Not a linguistic genius with a penchant for accents, but somebody who was brilliant at what they do. Who became excited by wanting to learn more, and somebody who viewed all equally. Not scared to be who they are, confident in what they can achieve, able to be objective about their work, and who will not treat people differently because they should, because they're higher in the hierarchy, be it social or otherwise.

This is it, this is my new motto, my mantra, my way of seeing the world. Everybody out there is a flower girl, and I have so much more to discover that I find myself excited by theatre in a way I never have been before.

It's more than just thrilling, fun and thought provoking; it's life changing.

DON'T READ THIS POST, IT'S NOT VERY GOOD.

Ok, so... it is officially the end of year one. No longer am I a fresher at St. Mary's University College, so here's me basically reflecting on the academic year just passed, and the effect it's had on me.

The thing is, I'm not sure it's been entirely positive. I'm much more self aware than I have ever been before, and notice things and am more analytical of myself, which is arguably a good thing. But, I've lost all confidence in my abilities. Give me a paragraph or two, let me try to explain the thoughts in my head.

I now know that I am shit working in large groups, I just disappear and let someone else take over because, and I realise this is terrible, because that's easy. Invariably there's somebody much more intelligent, or with a better idea, or with a greater capability to vocalise their idea whilst you struggle to form functioning sentences with actual real life words. I am also now very aware that I need reassurance to feel confident in doing something. I need someone to tell me I'm good at it, which is appallingly childish and immature. Surely this just means I need to grow up?
And I've always been aware that anybody who tried that reverse psychology bullshit of not being positive in the hope I'll try harder in order to garner compliments will never work on me. Ever. Sorry, I just don't care that much about any one person's opinion.

I realise that all of the following is stuff that I can work on and change, but I now have no confidence in my acting ability. I mean, I was never under the illusion that I was the next Laurence Olivier, but still.
I'm also scared of directing. I've started writing a stage version of 'Jekyll and Hyde' and was contemplating submitting it to the drama society and asking them, if they didn't hate it, if I could direct it. And then found myself thinking I could never do that, I found myself getting genuinely scared about directing a play here, which sucks! I quite like directing, but again I seem to have lost all confidence in my abilities. =(

And the one thing that I am truly genuinely saddened by that has happened at university, is that I've not been able to sing.
The walls here are paper thin, so I can't sing in my room because everyone would be able to hear me, and there's truly nothing better than belting out a good old song completely out of tune but fuck it anyway! AND I CAN'T DO THAT HERE! =( I can't belt out a song in class because I'm in a room full of people, but yeah. I miss singing.


This is a really weird and pointless blog post, but I thought I write it out anyway. At least I now know what my weaknesses are. And, let's face it, these are all things that I can work on and change.


This is a cactus:

WHAT A TWIT!

So this post is totally going to be me defending Twitter. It's possibly the famous of the social networking sites currently online and, being the modern techno whizz-kid that I am, I've been on twitter for a while.

I jumped aboard the twitter bandwagon before it was a popular one, also I was following Mr Fry before the millions, I feel like I'm allowed to be defensive about it, especially when twats like David Cameron attempt wordplay, and people slate it just because everyone is using it.
That's a surprising popular thing, "If everyone one is using it, then obviously I hate it/it must be shit". It's like in when charity bands were the big thing, schools banned them. Why? I am incapable of giving a none-sarcastic answer. There was no good reason to put a ban on them! The other thing is mobile phones, when they first became a big thing, no! When they first became a big thing with youth, that's when people starting attacking.


This post hasn't been provoked by anything negative, more because I've just checked my twitter feed, and have been informed of a number of important news stories (Just as an aside, Well bloody done! I wholly support every head teacher who is not forcing their students to sit the SAT'S exams.), and have laughed constantly, not just by the various celebrities on my news feed (Hello Mr. Fry! He's back in the country! Can't wait for the new book!), most of whom are comedians, so they're supposed to make me laugh. But the 'normal' people. The just every day people who say what they have to say. And sometimes it's heartbreaking, and sometimes it's heartwarming; and sometimes they can make you laugh more than any professional.

Twitter has proven itself as a force for good a number of times over, such as the Jan Moir article, the various charitable causes that are RT'd by people such as Stephen Fry or David Mitchell. And only the ignorant slate it. To imagine that twitter is some childish, unnecessary thing that only the ignorant and immature use, shows a degree of ignorance and immaturity far greater than mine. I'm not saying that it should be obligatory, that everyone has to use it and that if you don't like it you're a freak of nature, I'm just saying that if you've never used it, how can you ever fully appreciate or understand it?

IT'S BEEN A FUNNY OLD WEEK!

Last Wednesday I saw the drama society's production of 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist' (Dario Fo) which was bloody brilliant. I genuinely didn't expect it to be as good as it was, despite the marvellous reviews, there's always a degree of 'Mustn't upset the students', but I've got to say (taking nobodies feelings into account) it was marvellous. Being (don't judge me) a bit of a Gleek (yes, I capitalised it. Build a bridge, get over it) a bit of 'Don't Stop Believing' karaoke is always welcome, and Mikey O'Neill (who you don't know, but one day will) playing a role he was born for.

Roll on Thursday and say hello to my directing assessment, and the first person to have chosen a comedy as apposed to something all, you know, serious. The opening of John Godber's 'Teechers' (Just taking a moment to pause and recommend that if you ever have an opportunity to watch one of Godber's plays, do so. They're so good!) was the script that I eventually chose, having read about forty, but for this reason and that reason had to ditch.
I'll confess, it wasn't the prospect of directing a comedy that was incredibly daunting, as opposed to directing a comedy that wasn't black (I think you'll find that's the correct linguistic term, not racism thank you very much). Darker stuff, the stuff where you know that you shouldn't laugh but can't help it, that stuff is easy. It's the nice stuff that I was scared of. But it went swimmingly. A few edits to the script, a touch of wordplay, more parody than you can shake a stick at, and a couple of outright insults (meant and (thankfully) taken in good humour!) meant that it actually went down a success. Obviously not perfect, looking back on it there are a million things I'd change to make it better, but still. Bright side and all that.

Then we move on to Saturday, and after a 180 mile trek back to the north I was running a Shakespeare workshop for the 'A Taste of Shakespeare' event being run by the Oldham Coliseum Theatre. A workshop that involved being funny. It involved having to be willing to make a fool of yourself, to just let go (which I am the first to admit is something I'm absolutely terrible at, yet the folk I had were absolutely marvellous. I can't thank them enough); and (and here's the risky bit) using bits of scripts from one of Shakespeare's comedies. Comedies famous for not being funny.

(NOTE TO SELF: stop using parenthesis so often!)

We used Act 1 Scene 2 from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', the first scene with the Mechanicals as it has a nice number of people and enough material to properly play around with. I won't bore you with the details of the actual workshop, but wish to point out that it was funny! Everyone was having fun. Everyone cracked jokes, got the satire, performed brilliantly, and thoroughly enjoyed the comedy of it.

This is all massive pre-amble to a post all about comedy. Comedy is massive, currently there are stand up comedians who are outselling bands and singers in massive stadiums. It's the new rock and roll, and personally, nothing pleases me more.
(That's a lie, a lot of things please me more. Call it poetic licence)

I like to think of myself as something of a connoisseur of comedy. There are very few stand-ups I haven't heard of, sitcoms I haven't had a go at watching, panel shows that I haven't seen. My twitter feed is littered with comedians telling me about their cats (Susan Calman), sock length (Rob Brydon), or baby anecdotes (Mark Watson, Jason Manford, Robert Webb, etc.). I thoroughly enjoy comedy, and am in great admiration of those who have the ability to make people laugh. This world can be fantastically grim. Really it can. We, as people, as societies, are capable of some monstrous and horrific things. It's not nice, but it's true. We're in a bloody war that only seems to get worse. We're still struggling back from the worst economic recession we've had. Our children are an ASBO nation (I say 'our', I don't have kids, but am not young enough to be classed as one). Our prisons are full, our patience thin, our extremists getting louder and our society facing struggle after struggle.
And I think that it is a beautiful thing, an astonishing and amazing and immense thing, a thing to make you feel proud about Britain, that our society is flooded with comedy. British stand ups are considered the best in the world, we have hundreds of stand up venues, it is becoming more and more accessible and more people than ever are standing up and giving it a go, making Britain laugh. I think it's a brilliant thing that as our society gets more and more negative labels, our comedy industry has exploded, and now we have more comedians than we know what to do with. Quick! Commission another panel show!

The fact that satire is so integrated into our culture is a great thing, and although my natural instinct is to be negative toward our politicians, I give them one thing; Gordon Brown mightn't like being satirized and parodied on our screens. Cameron might not like the fact that people only love his poster campaign for the purposes of doodling. Clegg may not particularly enjoy that (until very recently) he was famous for being the guy that wasn't famous. They might not like being a laughing stock, but at least they are.

I would always choose to be here, in a 'Broken Britain' without 'the family' and 'failing systems', that is filled with laughter, than a perfect country where funny is not allowed.


"Lift up your head. Release the tension in those shoulders. And laugh. Because laughter's only human. Laughter keeps us in the moment and it keeps us on our toes. Laughter separates us from the gods while binding us closer together. If you're looking for a miracle, look no further than your most recent belly laugh. Maybe a friend made you clutch your sides till you shook with glee, maybe an old episode of 'Fraiser' had you howling on the carpet. Either way: in that moment you were immortal. and that, my friend, is as sacred as it gets."

Charlie Brooker, 'The Atheist's Guide to Christmas'

DROMIO OH DROMIO!

I went to see 'The Comedy of Errors' at the Royal Exchange Theatre on Saturday, which was interesting. the acting was largely brilliant and saved the play from the flaws in direction. The two Dromios (Owain Arthur and Michael Jibson) were utterly incredible! I cannot emphasise enough just how perfect they were in these roles, stealing the show with a fine aplomb! Catch it if you can.

I love the Exchange, and recently decided that it is definitely my favourite theatre. This is partially due to the fact that with our directing assessments the scenes we must do have to be set in the round, which a lot of people have struggled with and really not been happy about. And this is mainly because, for most people, a majority of the theatre that see is on a proscenium/end on stage, so being in the round is increasingly awkward if you haven't really seen a lot of it. Whereas I've been going to the Exchange since I was 11, and have seen some amazing plays, and some quite rubbish ones. So I sort of know what works and what doesn't, what plays fit and what techniques that work beautifully on other stages just won't here. (Does that sound pretentious?)

Anyhoo! The Royal Exchange Theatre is right in the heart of Manchester city centre, it has two spaces, the theatre and the studio. The theatre itself is like a large bubble that sits in the centre of the great hall, seating 700, making it the largest theatre in the round in Britain, 400 at ground level, the rest above the stage. So no matter where you are sat you have an awesome view. The studio is a flexible little space that seats about 120, it is also brilliant.

The layout is really gorgeously cool as everything seems to radiate out from the stage itself, and there have been some epic shows there. Firstly, Mr Matthew Dunster has done both 'Macbeth' and '1984' at the Exchange, and both have been completely amazing. I think 'Macbeth' is possibly one of the greatest things I have ever, ever seen in the theatre. It was incredibly visual and spectacular and clever on so many levels. '1984' which was on only recently was again, utterly astonishing, but in a very different way to 'Macbeth'. It was very clever in a very quiet way, lots of small and subtle but beautiful things made it a pleasure to watch, and the torture scene!! Oh my word!! You know that it's not real. You know he's not really being branded with an iron, he isn't really using those pliers, his face wasn't actually smashed into the floor, it's not real! But even I wanted to cry out 'Just say five!' as Winston was being electrocuted. It was amazing! And to boon of being able to see the rest of the audience meant that you could see everyone else cringing and covering their eyes. There is no doubt that Dunster is a most immensely talented director! (And I did travel a sort of three hundred mile round trip to go and see '1984'.) Twas immense.

I'm not a hundred per cent sure where this post is going. I guess I just want to say that the Exchange is AWESOME and everyone should pay it a visit. I'm I have to be here in Twickenham with the upcoming season looking so very good, including the poet Laurette herself rocking up for an evening or two.

I've decided that were I to end up working at the Exchange I would be very, very happy and content.

WOOT!