"Makes the Caucasian Chalk Circle look like Eastenders"

So the reviews are in and WE'RE A HIT!

"... fabulous, fabulous set..." Kirsty Wark

"... spectacle... " Robin Ince

"... trying to tell you anything at all. It was super-... a laugh I suppose... reminded me of the stuff from the eighties they had on Channel 4..." John Harris 

"... the set is good..." Oliver Kamm

"... not a complete waste of time... there was nothing new about it. BUT -..." Germaine Greer

 Well at least television's regained some of its mystique for me now. All that Mitchell and Webb stuff had just made me cocky. But I'd love to know what GG was going to say after that "BUT" before Kirsty Wark cut her off to point out that the Enron show had sold out. She was spot on about reading the "event" as the "organism Money", and had stuck her tongue out at me in our Parliament so was clearly one of us. Also it was enlightening to see Robin Ince chance upon the perfect mind-set for enjoying the show; the only question now is how do we get an audience that *haven't* missed the first forty minutes to approach us in as good faith... Anyway, work continues: 10am calls, a little less audience interaction, a lot more cast interaction (which is jolly). And Lizzie's produced a fantastic series of prints for the Institute upstairs now (see above) which may just explain everything: the organism, on wheels, everywhere. We set out. They've just turned the lights off. The machine's kicked in and it's probably time to let our sixth audience pile in. My sister got it anyway. Who knows what's out there? Oh, for anyone who enjoyed Disney's Magic Highway here's Disney's Life on Mars. Well, the visuals anyway, but you all like Techno, right?

(originally posted on myspace)

Dance Bear Don't (a life in 3 acts)

(originally posted on myspace here)

Let's see if we can't squeeze another one of these posts in before Newsnight Review shows up tonight (pray God they respect to the Code of the Preview, that is all I ask...) Now - ah - I'm writing this on the office's IBM ThinkPad and there's odd little buttony growths all over it, what do they all do?!... Um, so anyway last night saw more cuts to the show: no more giant table cloth, and no more opportunity to sing along to this unparalleled two-minute ode to joy WHAT?! NO!

I do hop s ee its rurn. Oh how did the cursor get over there! I'm using my thumb to move and my forefinger to click, thi sis nonsense¬! LISTEN - no, bad caps lock! - listen, let's all just take a moment to be the water shall we? Let's fill the cup. Fill the bottle... That's better. Alan?

I mean, it's fine. I recognise the preview period will be intense and that changes need to be made. I recognize that the Simon Smith Karaoke segment wasn't working in context inasmuch as it was unbearable and stopped time itself Howard Campbell-like in its tracks, and I recognise that perfect as the song is we must pay attention to the doughnut, not the hole, and speed our plough over the bones of the dead. Of the dead bear. Of the dead child and his amazing dead dancing dead bear. That is fine. Huhhh... huhhhhh, huh huhhhhh.... I had a good conversation with Lizzie last night. She's the designer. It's good to talk to her because I think her priorities are spot on - how do you work on an audience's imagination without asking them to suspend their disbelief? That seems to me the - OH IT'S NO GOOD! ALAN PRICE! ALAN PRICE WHER ARE YOU?

Mood: None. Related Topics: None

(originally posted on myspace here)

 

Hello. I'm posting this from my phone again, from outside the machine which I think is now complete. I think. It's got bunting and a bell. And I feel I should post this because of course last night we opened, and that's a thing, and we're having a photoshoot, sitting around in towels with nothing better to do. (The costumes arrived yesterday but we're still going with just the towels, apart from Tom who having missed the towels note has shown up covered in clay and feathers with a shaved head. Good old Tom. But also, good old towels.) So how was last night? Well it felt like the first time I'd actually earnt my money, but the show itself, now I think about, reminded me of Zack Snyder's Watchmen: I - ng - liked it, but oo there was a lot missing... missing here not from the original, but from the sum and, when we were lucky, product (maths joke) of the past six months' settling of ideas, decisions and enthusiasms. Whole swathes of theme that it turns out just aren't there now. And what's interesting about that is this was evident last night even though the playing was crisp and the crowd jolly. But now let's see what we've got, less is still probably more. Already today we've axed the steampunk detox and the misunderstanding about the pen. And good. My voice is a three amp fuse right now with thirteen amps of quarrel run through it. Don't kiss me, I taste like a farm.

Ah, I've got to a computer now. Great. So here's a short animation I came across illustrating just some of the themes which didn't make it into last night's show. It's also ideally how I'd like to us to end it (I mean Germaine Greer's coming on Friday. She'd eat this up. Imagine.) Go!

But the future need not forbode.

 

We open on Tuesday and the fever and the cough are still tediously here. I was well enough for a run-through of the show today but there's still a lot not in place, cramped confusion elsewhere, and a baffling egginess in the playing of stuff that had found a nice place to itself months ago. I didn't enjoy a second of it. And that's particularly annoying as there's a lot of stuff here I should be finding incredibly enjoyable, just the kind of stuff I want to play. No actually, what's annoying is that the thing's so NEARLY there, but only if done by us at our best. Done badly, it's meaningless.

I left early to try and get my hands on some anti-biotics in Soho, failed and headed over to Whitechapel for a flat-viewing and some Soothers, by which point I was fumbling for the correct change like a boxer for beads and saying "B'bye" everywhere. Anyway here's something I should have posted ages ago: Apparently around the time of Zola writing "L'Argent" all the best brains in Paris had written off cities as a thing of the past. "Where are we going to put all the shit?" I think was the main issue. Their vision of the future was very close to Disney's it turns out...

  

(originally posted on myspace)

Consilium Pilot (with easter egg extras)

(originally posted on myspace here)

Someone other than myself drew this sweet catalogue of me and my worldly possessions (Le Petit Plastrier) and for all the gnashing on bile that follows I remain giddy and red-eyed with gratitude for that fact, and have no complaint with anything outside myself as subsequent posts will hopefully testify... Pblaaackk! It's September now, is it? Yeah. Right. What is it in this room making me cough every time I come in? This is it, the only space I have remotely moved into, how can I be allergic to it? Money's opening in a week now but I'm missing the hundred-and-forty-third day of the Big Push, laid up here in the Jock Block instead as though I've just come out of hospital and we're back in February, incapable of sleeping on my back once again, turning to the sputum pot I'd only kept as a momento and staggering to the bathroom for a toxic harumph. Is it sun-stroke? Is it nerves? Is it the karaoke at the Dungeon Summer Party where I went as Daryl Hannah out of Blade-Runner? I want a microscope. I want to peer at a sliver of this and give it a name. I want to look in the mirror and not see Zach Galifianakis' downy corpse squinting back. I want to write about Paris, and the seventh week of "Let's run it again from the Jewish Question", I want to get some ideas down for Sirs Harry and Paul, I want to run off every footling, glittering nugget I promised everyone so that I can get on with the stuff I promised myself, but CHIEFLY I want to use this blog for something other than lists of stuff I'm supposed to do. How am I ever get my own unfathomably-depressed-literary-giant-teatime-telly gig at this rate? And have you SEEN how overgrown the machine's been getting in our absence?

Well okay, what have I written... There's the closing sketch of this week's Mitchell and Webb Sound so have a listen to that maybe (three closers in a row. "Closer" is an industry term I've just used wrongly) although now I think of it, if you have it on and  DON'T listen my sketch does sound pleasingly like Peepshow... And I also filled in this questionnaire I filled in on F*c*b**k a bit back (a bit is a measurement of time. I have lost track of time. The Bit System is: A bit equals some bits and some bits make up a bit, so we're talking a bit back. So it works fine.) You had to answer every question using the titles of songs sung by just one band or artist. I chose the songs of Leonard Nimoy, and after essentially two month's blog silence the results are as good a reacquaintance as any, so you can have that... (oh and I've put links to the tracks where I can so don't click on them if you won't be able to face it, they're not the easter eggs I meant, I don't really know what easter eggs are)...

Are you a male or female?

Nature Boy.

Describe yourself:

Where It's At.

How do you feel:

Contact. 

(Particularly proud of that one)

Describe where you currently live:

If I had a Hammer...

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:

Where No Man Has Gone Before.

Your favorite form of transportation:

I Walk The Line.

Your best friend is:

Music To Watch Space Girls By.

Your favorite color is:

Ruby (Don't Take your love To Town)

What's the weather like:

Sunny.

Favorite time of day:

Lost in the Stars.

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:

Consilium

What is life to you:

A Visit To A Sad Planet.

Your current relationship:

Gentle On My Mind.

Looking for:

Love of the Common People.

Wouldn't mind:

Both Sides Now.

Your fear:

Everybody's Talkin'.

What is the best advice you have to give:

You Are Not Alone.

If you could change your name, you would change it to:

Abraham, Martin and John

Thought for the Day:

Spock Thoughts

How I would like to die:

Amphibious Assault.

My motto:

Well what else would my motto be? The Ballad Of Bilbo Baggins? And who knew Lego did whites? And weren't Buffalo Springfield good sports? Right I'm going to try and catch some L-shaped Z's now, sweet dreams and prosper. Pblaaackk!