Claire Burlington

I’m delighted to be contributing a little to someone else’s work this week.

The ever-succulent Chris Goode is currently doing a show about doubting his atheism. It’s called GOD/HEAD and it’s a true story about God, neuroscience and, well, all manner of other things. This is the official blurb:

So there’s this writer.

Thirtysomething, gay, lefty metropolitan writer. Atheist, obviously. History of mental health problems, but those are all in the past.
Sure of himself and his world view. Comfortable in his assumptions.

And then one day, suddenly, without any warning…

There’s God.

In this brand new documentary piece, award-winning writer and storyteller Chris Goode explores the flipside of the familiar crisis of faith: what if there really is a God after all?

GOD/HEAD is a humane, candid, radically unsettling piece about the tensions between religion and neuroscience, and about the limits of language and the edges of desire.

Each night a different guest performer participates in the piece. I’m very excited to be the guest on March 1, so if any of you can make then, it would be lovely to see you afterwards! And, if not, there are plenty of other nights to choose from!

The piece is on at Ovalhouse at 7.45 Tuesday to Saturday from until March 10. You can book tickets via the Ovalhouse website.

Maybe see you there.

I’ve had a lot of people (quick, finish the sentence, Claire) asking about what’s on at The Woolwich Grand Theatre. I’m afraid I’m not the person to ask. That’s Adrian Green at info@thewoolwichgrandtheatre.com. There’s also a facebook page if you’re still down with the kids.

The Woolwich Grand has been the source of great joy and pain for me over the past year. Sadly, lately it’s been more of the pain, to the extent that I’m no longer really affiliated with the project. I mean, you may well see me up a ladder painting, or cleaning chewing gum off the floor, but I’m no longer any more involved than any other volunteer who’s giving up some time to help a local cause.

The reasons aren’t particularly complicated or interesting and are of the ‘artistic differences’ ilk. To me it was always simple: ‘We’re making a theatre; let’s put theatre in it!’, but I’ve gradually come to understand that that isn’t how the project is viewed by everyone. And I shall stop there. If you desperately want to know any more, then I’m happy to talk about it to you privately. To my mind, the separation has been amicable, so I hope Adrian feels that way too.

Also, I am currently, for various reasons, attempting to avoid stress, rather than actively seeking it out like a crazed cortisol junkie. Interestingly, the days when I would find myself alone in a state of fight-or-flight with not a lot to fight with or flee from are gone. Now, I just have those heart-pounding, wild-haired Palaeolithic moments in company. Great. Really great. Not all compay, you understand, but some. So, in the deeply selfish interest of self-preservation, I’m trying to keep contact with those, um, companies to a minimum.

But it’s been great fun! Those early days of battling the pigeons, the damp, the cold to make the building fit for human occupation were an absolute blast. If you don’t know me well, that might sound ironic. If you know me well, you’ll know it most definitely isn’t. Here’s hoping the project is a great success!

The Woolwich Grand Theatre is Go!

Having had the planning meeting scheduled for the end of September and then moved to October, it was suddenly brought forward to earlier this evening.

And, earlier this evening,  the arts centre application was passed unanimously by Greenwich Council.

Thank you, Councillors and Planning Officers!

Hurray! Phew! Gosh! Eek! Now the fun really starts.

And something else I wanted to say…

You know how it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind?

Well, I want to change my mind about the council. At least a bit. Recently, I had been feeling  that big business was their major interest, and the people on the Woolwich omnibus were not too high on the agenda, but I was so impressed by their efficiency, pragmatism and good-spiritedness at the planning meeting tonight. There were several applications under consideration and each was dealt with quickly and directly. All questions raised were completely appropriate and, if answered satisfactorily, then the applications were passed with no further ado. I don’t know why, but I expected it to be a much more adversarial process with all sorts of shillyshallying and bluster. There wasn’t any of that. At all. And the councillors even looked quite pleased when we all gave their decision a large round of applause.

Three cheers! Hip hip! Hurrah! Huzzah!

Snappy title, huh? But I do. I really do.

I’m a Chris Goode fanboy. I love him. I love his work (not unconditionally, and I haven’t seen it all, but I do love it) and no other theatre-maker has ever made me produce such a variety and quantity of bodily fluids in public. I do tend to leak emotions in liquid form quite readily, but grace à lui, I’ve almost drowned by inhaling my own giggle-snot, almost choked to death on my own chortle-phlegm and almost suffocated from trying to turn back a tide of molten sadness.Yesterday, I ended up with a soggy cowl neck jumper as it was the only handy absorbent material substantial enough to mop up the range of water-based feelings my facial orifices were emitting.

If you can, do see The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley at the Pleasance Baby Grand and, even if you’re less leaky than I am, I’m sure you’ll leave feeling different to how you went in. I’m simultaneously laughing with delight and holding back tears just thinking about it. It’s on tomorrow and Monday, so hurry!

And then we could talk about it.

Well, gosh, oh dear, oh dearie dear, what a couple of days.

I went up to Edinburgh to see, amongst other things, Lighthouse Theatre’s production of my play ‘Nourish’.

I didn’t see my play. I saw an adaptation of it. Which would have been fine if I’d been expecting an adaptation, but I wasn’t.

I was aware that the company had moved a speech and needed to trim for time. Knowing that the play runs at about an hour and that the company had an hour’s slot, I was anticipating nips from lines and, as no-one had run any cuts past me (I had already vetoed the moving of another speech and a suggested cut), I assumed there must be very few of these, but I was wrong. The play I saw was not the play I wrote.

To be honest, I feel quite sad about the whole experience. I know the company were shocked that I was unhappy with the alterations they had made and I feel absolutely rotten for casting a shadow over their time in Edinburgh. I don’t know the company well, but they all seem to be genuinely lovely people with extremely good intentions and actions to match (for example, donating profits from the show to Women for Women International). I also believe the company were happy with their work but, all the same, that is not justification for altering a proven piece so greatly and not mentioning it to the writer.

After seeing the piece, I asked the company to make it very clear to audiences that this piece is not my play, but is their adaptation based on my play. The company decided to cancel the rest of the run.

The changing of scripts is a contentious issue and it’s the playwright who runs the risk of seeming prima donna-ish if they object to changes made in rehearsal rooms. The fact that I’m writing this blog post at all probably seems prima donna-ish, but, if you read to the end, hopefully I’ll have been able to shed a little light on the writer’s perspective.

Firstly, when you’ve written a play, you’ve wrestled with the slippery beast of the English language so as to make the story that you want to tell; it’s not hugely unreasonable to want that story to remain in the shape you battled to create. Also, when rehearsing a script-based play, the job of director and actors is to serve the text. The play has been written. That part is over. Now it is being made into a production, a process which is a whole nother kettle of fish. One of the incredible things about working from a script is that there is an endless number of different ways to do the work, and that infinite array of possibilities comes from the directing and acting choices, not from rewrites. Many actors and directors like to change the script and make it their own, but this is not ‘doing a production of a play’, it is ‘adapting a play’ or ‘using a play as inspiration’ which, again, is a whole nother kettle of fish.

With regard to the show in Edinburgh, I had agreed to a production of a play, not an adaptation of a play. The company had invited me to rehearsals but, as I was not aware they were adapting the script, I saw no need to go and see what directorial or acting choices they were making – after all, it was their production.

The piece I saw earlier this week ran at only 40 minutes. It was a short piece to start with, and I was stunned by how much was missing. I don’t have the script committed to memory word-for-word right now, but the major things I noticed were as follows:

The Wardress’s routine tasks (delivering and removing Sylvia’s food tray and preparing the milk-and-egg mixture for force-feeding) had been removed, thus removing the fundamental structure of the piece, the sense of time passing and the repeated contact between Sylvia and the Wardress.

The story of how Sylvia had ended up in prison had been removed, thus removing a heck of a lot of the fiery, funny, self-mocking, non-starved Sylvia who then deteriorates as she becomes weaker.

Discussion of Sylvia’s work, political and social aims, her art, her letter-writing, her mother, her father and Keir Hardie had been cut, along with much of her political fervour, manic working and developing confusion.

Sylvia’s etching of drawings into the cell walls had been removed.

The Wardress’s discovery of Sylvia’s work and her choice to let it stay hidden had been removed.

The final speeches from both characters had been removed.

The Wardress’s focussed displacement during the forcefeeding scene had been cut.

The doctor’s guilt over the forcefeeding had been cut.

I won’t examine all the changes that were made to what remained, but things were different from the off. The speech which I knew had been moved to the start of the play was truncated and had at least one line in it (a quotation) that I did not put in the original play.

If you’re not a writer, actor or director, these changes may not sound much to fret over, but the tiniest tweak can dramatically alter meaning, character and relationships, change the information that is being conveyed, make ensuing events seem disjointed, and even knock the whole play out of whack. For example, in the original script, Sylvia had a line which describes how a doctor reprimands her for vomiting milk and blood over his hands after forcible feeding:

‘he tuts and says, quite gently, ‘Naughty girl’

In this Edinburgh version, this line had been removed and replaced by the Wardress bellowing ‘Naughty girl!’ directly at Sylvia. Might not seem like much, but that one change introduces an aspect of the Wardress’s character not seen anywhere else in the script, throws a totally different light on the relationship between Sylvia and the Wardress, throws the hierarchy of doctors and wardresses off kilter, denies us knowledge of the doctor’s attitude to Sylvia, and denies us a pointer towards the fact that the forcefeeding process was becoming normalised by those who had to administer it. In short, the function and effect of the altered line bears no similarity to the function and effect of the original.

I had been sitting watching the piece in a state of dazed disbelief, but when I heard that bellowed ‘Naughty girl!’, I’m afraid I had a strong desire to leave the building.

I’m not wishing to make a negative qualitative assessment of the production – bold acting and directing choices were made and, as I hope I’ve made clear, those choices are entirely up to the company. That’s the point. That’s putting on a play. That’s the business of show. I do not have any issue with that. In fact, I love it! I do, however, have a problem with my name being attached to something where my contribution was so greatly altered without consultation.

Anyway. It’s all part of life’s rich tapestry and we’ve agreed to tie this episode up in a neat bow and leave it there. I wish the company all the best with their future work.

So, though I’m not taking any work to Edinburgh this summer, some of my work is being taken up.

Nourish is being staged by the US theatre group, Lighthouse Theatre Company at the gloriously atmospheric Paradise in the Vault at 8.45pm from 23rd to 28th August. The production will be raising funds for Women for Women International.

I’m thrilled that the company chose the piece and tremendously excited to see what they do with it. I’m very much looking forward to seeing it; I was in it before, so I have no idea what it’s like to watch. Also, when you write something, you don’t necessarily remember what you wrote, or feel any recognition when you read it back; I was really quite surprised when I skim-read Nourish recently. In a good way. Which was, well, fortunate, I suppose.

I’m aiming to get up to Edinburgh to see Nourish - and to appear in the audience of as many other shows as I can squeeze in. Hope to see you there!

Nope, not a description of my weekend, but the title of a new musical by the award-winning team of Desmond O’Connor and Andrew Taylor which had a reading at the Leicester Square Theatre a few weeks ago.

There was a cast of amazing musical theatre performers – Rebecca Hutchinson (catch her in Little Voice in Lancaster soon – she’s genuinely astonishing), Stuart Saint (who’s creating a rock ballet in between being a gimp to Des’s platinum-tongued diamond of a host at Sideshow), Jonathan Dryden Taylor (who acts, writes and produces for all manner of TV and radio shows and is organising the Sod Cancer gala at the Bloomsbury Theatre – donate, go see!), Sarah-Louise Young (whose stupendous act ‘The Frumpy Pigeon’ is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen – go see her in her Cabaret Whore show!), and the magnificent Bart, Steve and Jamie who stepped in last  minute and who all do marvellous mixtures of musical theatre and comedy with pizzazz and aplomb. Oh yeah, and me, the token non-sight-reading actor-who-can-carry a-tune. And does Rex Harrison impressions when she can’t.

Slow Motion Suicide is a satirical comedy – a jolly tale of obsessive work, obsessive love, mental breakdown and global financial collapse. With songs! The reading was terrific fun and there seemed to be a real buzz from the industry audience about it afterwards. I hope the buzz develops into a veritable roar, as Andy and Des have worked long and hard on this show and, frankly, the world needs a new musical featuring a song dedicated to Fluoxetine.

In one of the radio interviews for ‘Henry and Elizabeth’, the presenter asked me if we’d had any accidents on tour, such as unintentionally walking into cupboards. We didn’t ever quite manage to do that, but there were, as you might imagine, quite a lot of funny incidents. Pets, in particular, provided great entertainment. There were numerous cats who wandered in to have a look at what was going on, especially in the bedroom scenes. We had a whole pack of little dogs in Saltburn-by-the-Sea who collectively decided to have a yapping frenzy during a very quiet, tense scene and then went completely, well, barking, during the party scene (party blowers drive small dogs loopy, we learned).  We also had a gorgeous chocolate labrador named Bonnie in Oxford, who, touchingly, came to comfort Henry or Elizabeth when they were having their slightly troubled moments. Another Oxford dog was such a large beast that its owner decided it might be best to keep him out of the play altogether. Boz and Dirk (that’s Philip Bosworth aka Henry and Dirk Hoult our super stage manager) caught a glimpse of him and confirmed that he was indeed the size of a bear. I didn’t see the creature in the flesh, but I did see his dinner bowl which looked more like a washing up basin. And I almost sat in his giant bed in the living room, thinking it was some sort of low sofa.

And then there was the Astonishing Talking Cat. This fine specimen of ginger tomness joined the cast at the home of David Prescott from the Drum Theatre in Plymouth and he was just astounding. I think David had been secretly rehearsing him for weeks. He leapt right into the role of Henry and Elizabeth’s cat, sitting on or beside one or the other of us, joining in with conversations with meows and purrs, and rolling over to be tickled at appropriate moments. An absolutely marvellous feline.

Another of the many things I learned from this tour (Dualit toasters don’t pop up, some fridges have child-locks on them, pepper grinders can be electronic etc) is that touch-sensitive bedside lamps exist. Jeepers. That was a shocker. Especially as sometimes it’s quite tricky to find exactly where you’re supposed to pat them in order to let there be light. There was one particular lamp in Clapton that I patted and prodded and stroked and pleaded with for almost all of our (unextensive) preparation time. I got there in the end, but heck, I think I’m a switch kinda girl at heart.

There was also a minor spot of accidental damage. In the Oxfordshire home of a lady whose fingernails and toenails were painted in rainbow colours, I spied, perched atop the boiler, a pair of pink rubber gloves, trimmed with fur and finished off with a big shiny diamond ring . Clearly, I had no choice but to wear them to do the dishes. So, Elizabeth washed dishes in these fabulous gloves, but when she tried to take them off, every time she pulled a rubber fingertip, the fingertip came off and the rest of the glove stayed on. The rubber had perished! Noooo! Poor gloves! So, lovely Oxfordshire lady with the rainbow nails, should you ever read this, please accept my apologies for destroying your glamorous rubber gloves!

So, here’s a quick round up of our reviews and other coverage, for posterity, the record or something.

Sam Marlowe in The Times

Lyn Gardner in The Guardian

There was a Sunday Times review too, but I’m struggling to get hold of it online, due, I think to the paywall…

The Oxford Mail preview (we had a wonderful time at Angela and Paddy’s home – thank you for having us!) and review.

BBC Devon gave us a smashing preview for our Plymouth run. And Mr and Mrs Meen (who had a glorious collection of animal-shaped doorstops) and their friends were a delightfully warm, high-spirited  audience with whom we had a terrific and memorable night.

We had a sweet mention from Chris Wilkinson on The Guardian’s Noises Off blog (at the bottom of the article, keep scrolling). Chris was in the audience at a show we did in Islington, a show that very much nearly didn’t happen because we couldn’t find the front door to the flat… And for some reason, the tour managed to land repeat mentions in Grazia magazine, which I think is a pretty major achievement in itself.

Claire Burlington and Philip Bosworth in 'Henry and Elizabeth'

So, those good intentions of getting multiple posts up in Oxford failed to be made flesh. But we had a splendid time. Oh, we had a splendid time indeed. Oxford’s a terrific place and the shows generally seemed to go with a real swing. One day, whilst waiting to meet my cousin in Summertown, I bumped into two people who’d been at shows and, though I felt slightly guilty at my presence in their real world splintering their world of the play, it was really lovely to hear what they had thought of the night.

Now, with a week and a half left to go, I feel I can confidently state that this is the most exhausting play I’ve ever done. Though it’s more about ‘being’ a person than ‘performing’ anything, it’s far more knackering than hours of high energy singing and dancing. There’s the same oomph kicking about inside you but it doesn’t ever get to shoot out of the end of your fingertips, and this appears to result in an overwhelming need for at least 10 hours sleep every night. Though incredibly time-consuming, this isn’t a bad thing.

After these weeks of being amid the audience (six inches away, a lot of the time), it’s going to be odd going back to a stage and lights and other dividing apparatus. I’ve always been a fan of direct address and love seeing who you’re talking to and this show really allows you to ‘share’. When you spend a night gazing into the eyes of strangers, they end up feeling like friends, like you know them in some way, like you’ve made a connection. Not always and not with everyone, but often. That sounds bonkers, but it really does feel like that. You can see people laughing, smiling, thinking, remembering and well, you don’t do that with strangers.

Toaster update: the Dualit dominance has disappeared. For some reason, this makes me happy.

So, we’re halfway through ‘Henry and Elizabeth’. I’ve been having some difficulties keeping in touch with the online world whilst on tour, largely due to my astounding ability to forget passwords… And, somehow, during the two weeks I’ve just spent chez moi back in the big smoke, when I wasn’t doing a show I seemed to be, almost exclusively, stuck on a bus. Ah, the joys of living in uncentral London. Anyway. Passwords, computer and internet access are all, at this moment, present and correct and so here I am, courtesy of the Oxford Playhouse’s wonderful wifi connection.

The past month has been, all things considered, darned marvellous. I am thoroughly enjoying being Elizabeth in a different home every night. Press night was slightly tricky, partly because we were in a rather shiny and beautiful bachelor pad and partly because, well, because it was press night and so therefore must be at least 30% below par. Nonetheless, we had decent, fair reviews, and, naturally, once the bizarre event of a press night was out of the way and we’d become embroiled in the far more normal activity of turning up at strangers’ houses and pretending to live there, the play began to work much more happily. There have been some lovely, gentle, fun nights, some tense, sweaty nights, and some nights where the dogs got a bit overexcited. More about the actual experience of performing (though this is not quite the right word, more anon) in this way later, but first – the homes!

Oh, we have seen such lovely homes! Shiny new Truman Show style houses in Milton Keynes, rambling country houses in the wilds of Teeside, chi-chi north London pads, cosy terraces in Northamptonshire. It’s fascinating being allowed a glimpse into people’s lives like this. Letting a theatre company into your own home is really quite brave – I mean, none of the hosts of ‘Henry and Elizabeth’ knows quite what we’re going to do, but they give us carte blanche to do it. It’s a very generous act, and I’m absolutely loving being allowed to spend evenings in the heart of other people’s lives like this. Every home is so different and yet, there are some similarities. Having to very quickly get the measure of how a particular home works is part of the fun of this show, and I appear to have developed a sixth sense for locating cutlery drawers, and built-in dishwashers can be identified at 12 paces. Still haven’t quite got the hang of Dualit toasters though. (And here’s an interesting fact for you: Dualit toaster ownership seems to be running at about 70% among those people who book theatre companies for home performance – so far. I’ll report back on this astounding statistic at the end of the tour).

We’re in Oxford now, for two weeks, so I’m rather hoping to get a few posts up over the coming days. I’ve not spent much time in this beautiful city before, but so far I’m loving it. (Gosh, I sound like a stuck record with all this exuberant enjoying of everything, but, hey, it’s not such a bad groove to be in). This may well offend all manner of people, but being here is a bit like being in Cambridge, but without the feelings of nostalgia. Very excited about the open-air swimming pool which is just down the road from my digs. Aiming to actually get in it tomorrow morning.

And now my battery’s about to give up, so I shall take my leave and go and get ready for tonight’s show.

In June and July, I’m off on a tour of the nation’s sitting rooms, kitchens and bedrooms.

The play is Henry and Elizabeth written and directed by the marvellous Chris Goode (he wot brought us, among many other unforgettable events, Hippo World Guest Book, a piece of theatre so unbearably funny and sad and magic that when I saw it I actually spent the whole time pretty much unstoppably snorting pure laughter and grief out of my nostrils in liquid form) and performed by the splendid Philip Bosworth and, um, me. And, potential comedy snot aside, one of the rather splendid things about Henry and Elizabeth is that it takes place in your own home. I’ve listed dates in the sidebar, so if you fancy a Goode experience in your house, invite your friends and have a theatre party – up to 12 is fine if you have the space, and that works out at just a tenner a head. If you’re in London, then Chris is the chap to contact, otherwise, booking is via the theatres listed in the sidebar.

Frankly, hurrah!

Here’s the official blurb:

A classic tale of love gone wonky, Henry & Elizabeth is a new production by home-performance pioneers Signal to Noise.

When hapless Henry is defeated by a simple repair job, and long-suffering Elizabeth finally snaps, it seems as though it might jeopardise their whole relationship. But are they really trapped in an endless circle of co-dependence and tit-for-tat niggling? Or can they find their way out of the loop to a happier and more magical future together? Henry & Elizabeth is a bittersweet, captivating comedy with a surprise up its sleeve.

It costs £120 to book a performance – get your guests to contribute, or invite them for free if you want to! Maximum audience size is 12, but only if your rooms are big enough, otherwise as many as will comfortably fit.