#29 - And I Used To Sleep Standing On My Feet
Good morning!
More anniversaries this week: One year since my sister got married, two years since my paternal grandfather died. Both people have been on my mind a lot and I try to be grateful for what they gave me. My sister, being older and definitely cooler, entirely shaped my taste in music and made us - for better or worse - a brown, rock/indie island in amongst the RnB seas of our fellow Asians. The first gig my band played was at her 18th birthday party so she even gave us a start there and as long as nobody hears any of the recordings that the Second Hand Ferrets (as we were called) made, I will tell you it was a joyful and artistically fulfilling part of my life.
What I learned from my grandad is a little more traditional - the importance of working hard for yourself and your family but also your community. Not just the Asian one he came to this country with either. He was a member and one time president of the Woolwich and Greenwich Lions Club and still sent money back to his ancestral village every year until he died. A complicated and not entirely saintly man. but one who knew that his best self lay in the world beyond him and I try to follow that example in my own communities. Theatre. My estate. The cats.
This week found me taking a theatre related trip to Suffolk, both in my capacity as a board member of HighTide and as a writer. As I've mentioned before, I've written a radio play for a collaboration between HighTide and BBC Radio 3 called The Shores and it was created as a companion piece to Tallulah Brown's Silver Darlings. Saturday saw us recording it on stage at the Aldeburgh Cinema which was such a deeply satisfying experience; a delightful cast, a large and warm audience and live foley effects including a melon getting stabbed to replicate a spear entering a mammoth's flank. We then upped sticks and went up the road to Lowestoft to present a stripped back version to a small gathering at the Seagull Theatre. This was one of HighTide's first forays into the town and I think we can be a force for good there - working alongside talent and organisations already in the region with dedication and humility to try and create exceptional work.
The process of making those plays was more intense than I had expected; partly because of the research, partly because of the structure and partly because it's my first radio play, but it was exciting to work alongside Jessica Dromgoole (who has basically directed every radio play that I've ever liked) and Tallulah as well. She's a brilliant writer with a completely different sensibility to me and yet we've found (I think!) a playful and enjoyable language through which to riff off each other's themes and images. The music from her play has also sunk into me and I find myself singing Shoals of Herring in the shower, as I walk down the road, flipping everywhere. I've sourced another brown man singing it if you want help with that mental image.
Perhaps the only downer was that I felt a little more discomfort in Aldeburgh this year than I previously had and, though I don't like admitting it, it stems from being a little wary of places that are overwhelmingly white. Tonnes of little microaggressions and one less micro, possibly exacerbated by my sporting a big old beard at the moment. It's funny - I never used to have that growing up even though Bexley is relatively homogenous for London and even Exeter didn't do my head in entirely. It was only a feeling that developed when I started to respect and love myself more, which involved removing the instinct to immediately act deferentially around whiteness, especially privileged whiteness. My grandparents didn’t let themselves do that. They knew their worth. With regards to how they should be treated by others, they acted as if the world owed them - and it was on the world to catch up.
Having said all that, I want to try and be fair and not tar a whole town on the basis of the stares and grabs and shouts of a few so here are list of people in Aldeburgh who gave me joy:
More anniversaries this week: One year since my sister got married, two years since my paternal grandfather died. Both people have been on my mind a lot and I try to be grateful for what they gave me. My sister, being older and definitely cooler, entirely shaped my taste in music and made us - for better or worse - a brown, rock/indie island in amongst the RnB seas of our fellow Asians. The first gig my band played was at her 18th birthday party so she even gave us a start there and as long as nobody hears any of the recordings that the Second Hand Ferrets (as we were called) made, I will tell you it was a joyful and artistically fulfilling part of my life.
What I learned from my grandad is a little more traditional - the importance of working hard for yourself and your family but also your community. Not just the Asian one he came to this country with either. He was a member and one time president of the Woolwich and Greenwich Lions Club and still sent money back to his ancestral village every year until he died. A complicated and not entirely saintly man. but one who knew that his best self lay in the world beyond him and I try to follow that example in my own communities. Theatre. My estate. The cats.
This week found me taking a theatre related trip to Suffolk, both in my capacity as a board member of HighTide and as a writer. As I've mentioned before, I've written a radio play for a collaboration between HighTide and BBC Radio 3 called The Shores and it was created as a companion piece to Tallulah Brown's Silver Darlings. Saturday saw us recording it on stage at the Aldeburgh Cinema which was such a deeply satisfying experience; a delightful cast, a large and warm audience and live foley effects including a melon getting stabbed to replicate a spear entering a mammoth's flank. We then upped sticks and went up the road to Lowestoft to present a stripped back version to a small gathering at the Seagull Theatre. This was one of HighTide's first forays into the town and I think we can be a force for good there - working alongside talent and organisations already in the region with dedication and humility to try and create exceptional work.
The process of making those plays was more intense than I had expected; partly because of the research, partly because of the structure and partly because it's my first radio play, but it was exciting to work alongside Jessica Dromgoole (who has basically directed every radio play that I've ever liked) and Tallulah as well. She's a brilliant writer with a completely different sensibility to me and yet we've found (I think!) a playful and enjoyable language through which to riff off each other's themes and images. The music from her play has also sunk into me and I find myself singing Shoals of Herring in the shower, as I walk down the road, flipping everywhere. I've sourced another brown man singing it if you want help with that mental image.
Perhaps the only downer was that I felt a little more discomfort in Aldeburgh this year than I previously had and, though I don't like admitting it, it stems from being a little wary of places that are overwhelmingly white. Tonnes of little microaggressions and one less micro, possibly exacerbated by my sporting a big old beard at the moment. It's funny - I never used to have that growing up even though Bexley is relatively homogenous for London and even Exeter didn't do my head in entirely. It was only a feeling that developed when I started to respect and love myself more, which involved removing the instinct to immediately act deferentially around whiteness, especially privileged whiteness. My grandparents didn’t let themselves do that. They knew their worth. With regards to how they should be treated by others, they acted as if the world owed them - and it was on the world to catch up.
Having said all that, I want to try and be fair and not tar a whole town on the basis of the stares and grabs and shouts of a few so here are list of people in Aldeburgh who gave me joy:
- The barmaid at the community centre and the kids sprinting around with glee as Norwich crushed Man City
- The coffee slinger at Two Magpies
- The man in the wine shop who had a long chat with me about Suffolk beers (and casually threw some cultural-economic shade towards Adnams: "They're not included in the 6 local beers for the price of 5 offer"
- Tallulah and her parents who hosted me for a couple of nights
- The HighTide board
- The half naked couple getting off with each other with something approaching fury, whilst floating in the sea at 11am
- The wide-eyed, wide-mouthed kid watching them
I'll end this section with some summer-colours framed Polaroids from the rehearsals...
A title card I wish I'd ferried away
The cast of 'The Shores', left to right: Anastasia Hille, Cassie Layton, Simon Ludders, Joel MacCormack, Clare Perkins
- The half naked couple getting off with each other with something approaching fury, whilst floating in the sea at 11am
- The wide-eyed, wide-mouthed kid watching them
I'll end this section with some summer-colours framed Polaroids from the rehearsals...
A title card I wish I'd ferried away
The cast of 'The Shores', left to right: Anastasia Hille, Cassie Layton, Simon Ludders, Joel MacCormack, Clare Perkins
Finally, I'm nearly fully go on this first draft of The Experimental Filmmaker and the thrill is starting to build. In fact, I suspect that this will be the best play I've written. This is an outrageous claim, of course, but I will allow myself this little crumb of confidence since properly starting a project has a habit of grounding you pretty quickly. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. There is a use in abandoning the perfect ideal in your head and like with any aspirational process (love?!) it’s eventually better for the loss of the fantasy and an acceptance of reality.
When I was researching it while on attachment at the National Theatre Studio, I'd run down to the VR shed out the back to talk to the people there (who were basically the only people I knew thanks to an earlier digital attachment) and I'd bring them the most fun/juicy tidbit from my readings. As a tribute to that, I'll do the same at the end of this newsletter for every week that I'm writing this draft of the play. We'll start light today, with this enjoyable description of Francis Ford Coppola...
Must use that sometime. Also, I've got a cracking one about shooting Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in India for next time. Til then xxCoppola’s confidence was no doubt amplified by Chronicle reporter/critic John Wasserman, who was always happy to take the most sensational route when the situation allowed it. Wasserman described Coppola as “a big black-bearded man, rumpled as if there were 30 dwarfs playing handball inside his clothes.”
If you're new to Patelograms and like what you've read, you can subscribe by clicking here.
If you're an old hand, thanks as ever for taking the time.
Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to patelograms: