Saturday, April 12, 2008

Nothing sinister going on!


I'm writing today as I've begun research into a longstanding idea I've had about writing/devising a play based on identity in Peterborough.

I want it known from the outset that I appreciate delicacy. I don't believe in telling stories that are best left untold. Whether that is because they are potentially hurtful to individuals or whether somethings are best left to myth or legend and left for a people who are quiet in their council. In short I realise that somethings are deeply routed in a personal feeling and should be left that way.

In researching the idea for this story "In the eyes of the beholder" (a story set to look at change through the eyes of a local resident) I am only at this stage assessing it's potential.

The local press have agreed to write an article about this story as the idea surrounds a local triumph. A man known as Nobby.

My knowledge of him began as a young boy. My parents won't be pleased to hear me use this phrase but I would just 'hang around' cathedral square on a Saturday and watch as this gentleman with a tramps exterior would slowly walk around gathering cigarette ends. Even then I would offer him some of my own cigarettes. ( again I hear my parents grown) Well I barely knew what to do with them.

How could a man so calm and yet so alone seem so content.

I later realized that this man had a home. And that he was accepted by his neighbors. A simple enough concept. Yet for any young male growing up a concept still to be learnt.

"He lives in a bus shelter! But how!"

As the years past and I blundered my way through adolescent soul searching I would often think of Nobby down in his home. I'd heard stories about how he came to be in his situation. Even then I remember a massive sense of 'let him be.'

I agreed.

I would on occasion cycle past him on my way down to Dusty Bowl at Ferry Meadows. I began to speak to him asking him if he was OK. Not knowing why, but feeling compelled to.

After a while I began to read news papers. I stumbled onto an article that suggested he was a keen golfer and I decided I'd drop of some golf balls at his shelter. I'd begun to take him to my heart. But still I always knew there was a limit as to how far I should impose my curiosity on this man.

He was happy after all. "What if he isn't though!" I'd ask myself.

Some fifteen years later and I'm still a young boy filled with the same curiosity. I've made some choices and for the most part am happy with those choices and their outcomes.

Progress is being made in one such area of my life, and I find myself back at 15. Sitting next to a circular flower pot wandering where our friend has gone. The people in the town center seem different. I don't recognize any of them. In some cases I don't recognize their language. They are interesting and welcome but still something is lost.

Should I create this one up? Will people be interested? Is it best left to a childhood memory? Maybe! Only a few people can answer that question.

One of which is Mr Michael Ross.

MC

Sunday, April 06, 2008

I'll take today!

I strut through the park, and I suppose that gives me an aroma of arrogance. I'm not, but today my head is held high and my chest is finding a natural place 'forwards.'

It's got nothing to do with backing the winner, nor have the tempting devil's of my inner most thoughts lead me to that place where only ladders will get me out. This is something else.

I know I felt at some point as though there were a million little workers in my body, all pulling little threads. These threads are attached to ropes that if you follow them to their ends, you find the civil organs of the body. I'm not saying that the other organs are pointless, in fact the opposite! For, much like a Cello needs a strong bridge they work effortlessly, and unnoticed.

These civil organs are mixed and complex instruments. They beat, they are like train stations as blood rushes through them, one is the capital, the other is like a festival.

As the workers pull back there individual strings these organs sound out loud and clear. I can all of a sudden feel my pupils. A gong sounds, I am breathless and perspiration becomes a haze that floats around my head, like a bumble bee to a nest. The train stations roar, the crescendo peaks as the head worker in coat tails waves his sticks.

A pause....

It is over...

The workers relax. One lone little dude in a melee of panting, looks around. "Yipee" he mutters. Workers as people now begin to follow the leader. First with no commitment and then with gusto as it spreads. "Yipee, yipee yipee!!!" "Yip f**king ee!!!"

A chaotic relaxation exhumes as the never stopping stations power on. The strings still in hand are relaxed, as the dramatic moment ceases the ropes lay silent.

Then, there is a slow sound. A surrounding echo. The workers heads prick up like a dogs ears alert to the sound of nearby curiosity. The sound comes again! Louder! It moves like hurricane with no wind, the workers take up the strain. The stations speed up.

Here we go again.....

I awake, I've slept well, long and silent. Every part of me is relaxed and soft. The stations are quiet.

Overcoming fear and standing up to your own inadequacy's are worth more than a run on the treadmill.

MC

Friday, April 04, 2008

The new era.

I'm at a moment in a film, i'm settled, i'm relaxed i'm beginning to unwind, the film is good. I contemplate reaching for some food, I take my eyes of the screen just for a moment as I look to the well prepared plate. My appetite beginning with my eye full. I reach and grab just like a crane, it's delicate and precise, a very specific movement. As it draws the vision towards my mouth. The eyes flit upwards back towards the screen, yes..i've not missed a second of my viewing pleasure.....

Bolloks. Yes I have. A quick confusion kicks in. Momentary as the penny drops...it's an advert.

Alright, like most lads I can forgive the channel 4 stream of adverts. For one in five remind me to get up and get a can of stella from the fridge.

But honestly they were really starting to bug me. So much so I had to sit down and examine why I was getting annoyed.

I think that my basic annoyance besides the constant interruption to my cotching, (erm.. yes that's right i said cotching,) is that most adverts aren't very good. They don't inspire me to buy a product, they don't tell a story and they very rarely make me smile.

Um...maybe I should make some of my own. I thought my tiny brain bouncing around it's shell like peanut stuck inside a walnuts body. This will stop me having yet another thing to moan about as I descend into grumpy middle aged man.

Well we did say we could turn our head to anything. This is our first attempt. Now it doesn't promote anything and there is no story, or is there. A series will follow.



youtube, the new home of advert making.
MC

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Hi ya mate!!

It's great to look around and see people doing well. And i thought I should keep you up to speed.

Robert Maskell (Someone Who'll Watch Over Me) is in The Sound of Music in the Westend. He is cover for 'Max.' I saw it a month ago and him in the role. Laughed my ass of!!

Kev and the boys up at The Old Red Lion, I believe I've already mentioned that achievement.

Mr Peter Brad-Leigh (Neville's Island) is rolling in and out of tele work. Rhys is working down at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Even young Danny Box (SM) is working in town on Les Mis.

All we need now is myself and Darren Hillda Hill to crack the pop idol world and we've nailed it.
What do you reckon Darren, Robson and Jerome, or Adam and the Ants?

Go on the boys... huh hum....sorry and Georgia. xx