The Turner Plays - a review

Red on Black's Turner Plays takes five Turner paintings and makes short and memorable theatre. Rain, Steam and Speed by Annalisa D'Inella and directed by Lotte Wakeman sees a newly wed couple are on their way to London by stream train. "It can't be good for the body to travel at 44 miles per hour" bemoans the anxious Rose. Herbert by contrast is enthusiastic and overjoyed "Extraordinary - breakfast in Slough and dinner in London" he beams. The couple's conflict is a sturdy metaphor for a much more contemporary discussion. That of the need for rural spaces in a age of advancing and unstoppable industrialisation. Finally the simple act of opening the window as the train travels at speed illustrates how it's possible to welcome in the new even if one feels scared and a little unprepared.

A River Seen from Richmond Hill by Mark Lindow and directed by Catherine Paskell is a pocket sized absurdist drama. One and Two are a pair of eager adminstrative busy bodies who ultimately are shown to be powerless in the face of outside forces.

Fisherman at Sea by Sally Horan and directed by Russ Hope is set in a panic stricken fishing village in Ireland. Bridie is a brittle widow waiting for fishing boat to come in with her two sons on board. With her are her daughter and daughter in law. Bridie has already lost one son, Seamus and, as the women wait, old wounds are brought to the surface. "Stop all this lying' Bridie is told "this poison before it chokes you". This short and intense piece deftly conveys the truth about lack of forgiveness. Bridie's closing words ring a hollow truth that is hard to forget "I'm so alone. I can't forgive him for that. I hope it's little Seanie in the life boat." bitterly adding "Happy now?"

Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying by Heather Taylor and directed by Kaitlin Argeaux charts the complexities in a relationship between two women. Ever changing it's impossible to find solid ground in Heather Taylor's sharply written drama. Spiralling realities compete for narrative attention. A and B were lovers once and retell the story of their past intimacy in this revealing and compelling piece. It is a complex and destructive relationship which neither women seems capable of leaving. "Some times you have to let them go, the dead weight, they'll sink you" is repeated like a self-defeating mantra. The characters undress revealing more of their essence and the stark contrast of black and white, light and shadow. This is a tight and perceptive play about multiple attempts to let go and the repeated psychological torture of a relationship that will not end.

Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset by Sam Hall and directed by Arlene Vazquez revisits a viking myth about slaying a sea monster. Helga listens cynically to the Olaf's telling of Sigurd's story. She is both mocking and disbelieving and recounts how she lost a father and a brother "fifty brave warriors sailed in to a bloody sunset and you weren't one of them". In this perceptive and dry-witted drama who killed the monster is unimportant, the story is passed from generation to generation cleverly reminding us about the myths in our own lives and the seductive wonder of story telling.

Human Moments in Time - an interview with Heather Taylor

This interview first appeared on Metaroar. One sunny afternoon on the South Bank over coffee and cake I spoke to poet, writer, performer and playwright Heather Taylor about her three new pieces Hostage : Bleach : Burn.

Can you tell me a little about how these new plays came in to being?

I wrote "Hostage" first. A friend suggested an actor whom she thought I should meet. When I met him he said to me 'I hear you are political, I'm not political' and that idea, that someone who did not have strong a political identity would end up in this situation, was the initial inspiration for the play.

The play is set in an unknown and unnamed place. It could be anywhere because it's about being held as a mental hostage. It was written at the time when Ken Bigley was killed and there were many questions coming up. The character describes his need to get away from his home country by saying "I'm not here for the money, I'm here to escape". There is a sense of other characters there but the audience does not see them. There were three prose sections in the play originally but they were removed and are now part of a collection called 'Horizon and Back', a collection of my poetry.

"Bleach" was inspired by a friend who was living in a small town in western Canada whose uncle died of AIDS. There was little acceptance of this in the community and I realised that the subject matter also brought to light other issues like adoption rights and gay marriage.

I wrote 'Burn' to conclude the trilogy. The play is about secrecy and was inspired by an incident where Pierre Laporte, a French Canadian, was taken hostage and killed. My main character is called Pierre Laporte Morell who believes that his mother has had an affair with the original Pierre Laporte.

People have asked why I am not performing the pieces myself but I feel that having an actor and director to work with gives a new dimension to the work.

Are there any themes that tie Hostage, Bleach and Burn together?

All the plays are about people who are trapped. It was a real revelation for me to work with a designer. The set appears to be sinking like the characters themselves. Also each piece has a ghost in it, a dead son, uncle and a dead father.

'Hostage' has an English protagonist, 'Bleach' is set in Western Canada and 'Burn' in Montreal - how relevant is a national and linguistic identity to these works?

I wanted to explore the prejudices of small town western Canada in 'Bleach', in 'Hostage' there seemed to be a lot of British people who were being held at the time and I wanted to look at this, and 'Burn' I specifically chose something that would include something in French. There is both French and English spoken in Montreal and I wanted to examine that divide. Some of the play is in French but it is not important that the audience know the language. In fact I got some of the dialogue translated for me.

What influence has poetry had on your dramatic writing ?

The stuff I write is very naturalistic. I choose my words very carefully, and I have poetic moments. Some people say that I should have more but I like naturalism. Although I am now playing with different styles.

I try and tell a story in my poetry, I look for a story in a word. I like to be very subtle and that comes from poetry. I trained as an actor and actors feedback that my work very much written with the performer in mind. I deliberately write without stage directions as I want the director to come in and say 'What can I do with this?'

The characters in these three new plays are in very difficult places in their lives where they have no choice - can you tell me more about this ?

I have always thought about the idea that 'where you are from is what makes you'. The only time your metal shows is in crisis, and what happens when you become broken.

Finally, what motivates you to write?

I think this is the story I want to tell, how should I do it? I try and tell those human moments in time.

www.heathertaylor.co.uk

Talking with Lemn Sissay - A Lifelong Project

This article first appeared on Metaroar. Lemn Sissay is a stalwart poet and performer whose work has been enjoyed throughout the UK and across the globe for almost twenty years. Those who have never been to a spoken word gig will know of Lemn. He is funny and serious, truthful and mischeivous, profound and playful. His poems are universally accessible but never shallow. His autobiographical play 'Something Dark' has been touring internationally for the past 3 years. It tells the traumatic story of Lemn's childhood and the quest to find his mother, and birth family when he was 21 years old.

I meet Lemn one cold winter's morning on London's South Bank. The sun fails in its attempt to break through the clouds and the sky is low and grey. Lemn is wearing sunglasses. Two days previously we had talked about his new scratch performance 'Why I Don't Hate White People' on the roof of the Lyric in Hammersmith. Today he greets me like an old friend and I am genuinely excited at the prospect of spending the next two hours with him.

'Why I don't hate white people' is a 20 minute scratch. Lemn shone when I saw it. Twenty minutes went like five and I didn't want it to end. Afterwards there was a Q and A session. One woman in the front row, the wine smudging the edges of her waffling consonants said, in a far back accent. "I want to know about how you distinguish between being African, British or Caribbean."

"Well,' he replied calmly, "I am not Caribbean, I am actually African."

The woman was drunk and undeterred "You see" she continued "I just see you as British" hoping that her colonial spirit would be adhered to at all costs. As other members of the audience asked questions and contributed to the discussion about how and where racism lurks Front Row Woman could be heard echoing throughout the Lyric studio "I mean to me you are British. You just are. Everything about you..." her voice trailed off with another glug of red. Lemn was patient, extraordinarily so. He explained that the day that one can define themselves for themselves is very important both personally and politically. He underlined the point that people can be more than one thing. It made no difference to this audience member.

When I recall this incident over soupy coffee a few days later, he comments "If I had been less articulate in my response what would have been clear is that she wasn't listening to me. It was really important that I didn't bully her, that I didn't get angry with her. So look at all the things I didn't do to at least open my mouth. What I want to articulate is that invisible language between the words that are spoken. I am interested in what happens in the spaces in between."

He continues "That’s what 'Why I don’t hate white people' is about. It’s saying that there are a lot of rules that are established about how you perceive other races before you even had the language to articulate what those rules were. That’s why families introduce religion early on. You have two choices good or bad. All these ideas are stuffed in to your childhood through a series of individuals who then you have a lifetime of relating to."

It is not surprising that Lemn’s clear vision is now getting a chance to be aired. Living many an artists creative dream he is presently Artist in Residence at the South Bank a position of which he is enormously proud. 'The umbrella frame for my job is to inspire and be inspired and one cannot happen with out the other.' he tells me. When I ask him if he is enjoying the responsibility and challenges of his new role, he replies "This is like the BBC for the arts. Jude Kelly has said I want artists here, I want them to develop and grow. There is no better place to be. For me. On earth. Right now."

I cannot resist asking him which writers he would programme for a fantasy event at the South Bank, dead or alive. He answers without pausing for breath.

"Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Isabelle Allende, Khaled Hussein, from San Francisco, oh my god that would be great ! Benjamin Zephaniah. Linton Kwesi Johnson Alice Walker, Toni Morrison."

"Do you actively hunt down looking at new performers and new artists?"

"Basically I see who keeps coming in to my orbit and then I take a look. I don’t find myself inspired by the desperate events where the only desperation is to be successful rather than to say something that matters. I don’t mind if someone writes about a tree but I want to know it matters to them beyond me appreciating it."

We talk about the war in Iraq and the sad fact that despite incredible opposition few poets actually wrote or spoke about it. This frustrates and angers him.

"It's important for us as poets to ask questions that are not being asked and to rail against whatever the popular opinion is. John Burnside said, 'poetry is the ultimate statement against globalisation.' The act of writing itself is the biggest force against this because what you are doing is exploring your individual voice against the adverts, against the globalisation if ideas. And that is a wonderful thing. If a poet doesn't recognise that's what it is, then they are reaching for popularity and flirting with the antithesis of what poetry is."

I wonder how Lemn copes with his notoriety and how he deals with the constant beckoning of the Bitch Goddess.

"Popularity is very seductive but it’s not the driving force that will give you longevity. I don't write to be popular, whether you like me or don’t like me is not where my head is. If I didn't write I wouldn't be alive. The more I do, the more I realise what I have to do. Nothing is the endgame, there is no end, there is no project where you've arrived.

The thing is, fuck everybody, I'm humble only to my work. That's where I'm a boy. I feel like I'm the dresser of the poems and they're the king and I dress them the best I can."

This spring Lemn decided to give up drink. It shows. He cannot contain the enthusiasm of a man released from the confines of alcohol. He jumps up two stairs at a time, looks trim and happy and wants to world to know that he is now free from its clutches, that he thinks clearer and, although this poet's mood still bobs below the surface now and then, he does not have those demon days any more.

"You know that at 40 years old I stopped drinking. I looked at my life and thought what is destructive that you are doing. Alcohol is a venus fly trap. Not drinking is such a wonderful thing, it’s been such an improvement on my experience artistically and of myself and of the world around me."

It is a lot to ask someone to reveal all to a complete stranger. It was not even that I expected him to. After the interview I found myself going through the transcript, wanting to protect Lemn from his audience. I wanted to jump in and say "No don't say that, you are making yourself too raw. Hold back." I kept wondering was there nothing to protect?

Lemn is in full flow now and I am flattered and overwhelmed by his honesty. "I am one step away consistently, in my head, from begging on the street for money. And people don’t perceive that about me. So I have to look after myself, I have to be my own parents and handing all of that responsibility over to alcohol is a very scary prospect. I don’t have any family. I found them and they don’t talk to me because of the play that I wrote about finding them. I don’t have anyone who knew me as a child. Nobody."

His fear of destitution is something I have often heard from those denied the rightful safety of childhood. He lights a cigarette and the tape recorder chugs its old fashioned way to the end of the cassette. It feels like the whole interview is pivoting on this one fact:

"What people forget is that family is about relativity, it’s not about whether they are nice or good to you, and actually you have a life time to patch it up. If you don’t have that oh my god, it’s mind blowing."

I note that whilst Something Dark was highly autobiographical Lemn’s creative concerns have become more about the social world and less about himself directly.

"Creativity is at the centre of what we are as human beings. As an artist you have to fight for the right to do that and it doesnt happen about fighting out there. I knew at twenty two I wanted to write Something Dark. Every time I had a book out, every time I won something there was no one backstage. The more successful I became in my art the more obvious it was that I had nothing. With Something Dark I was waiting for my artistic ability to catch up with when I could personally translate the story without it hurting me. It took twenty years for that to happen."

"When it’s raw, its still a wound." I observe.

He nods "Absolutely and you know we are constantly mending, it's a life long project."

Have Box Will Travel - Charlie Dark's blistering new one man show

Have Box Will Travel is Blacktronica founder Charlie Dark's sizzling new one man show. Directed with a relaxed intelligence by Benji Reid HBWT chronicles Dark's journey to adulthood and a touching realisation of what it is to be truly human. Beginning with boyhood DJ fantasies whilst his ever-patient mother bellows through the bedroom door, Dark introduces us to his first love, the deliciousness of vinyl. As a young boy Charlie is believable and endearingly foolish. The description of a teenage party complete with underage smoking, drinking and some unwanted Heavy Metal had me splitting my sides with welcome recognition. As did his unsuccessful attempts to out dance Sweaty Tony at the legendary Dingwalls

His characterisation of his mother allows us to see the rapid quest to find himself through caring and resigned eyes. On her son's new attire she says "he's taken to wearing camouflage at all times. It's like living in the house with a bush!" The warmth of this relationship is made even more apparent when he goes to visit his father in Ghana who appears as a distant figure communicating his love mainly through his pocket.

Anyone who recalls the delirious history of London's pirate radio will relish the descriptions of the “right hand side of the dial' and “stations sandwiched between stations”.

There is so much humour in the first two thirds of the show I would defy anyone not to fall in love with Charlie Dark and his Tigger-like enthusiasm for the music. "I come home, put my headphones on and immerse myself in sound” he says.

The tale becomes increasingly poetic as he describes his search for illusive records hidden in “dark basements filled with other people's dreams” and the sheer orgiastic delight when he asks “have you ever seen 1000 records in one room?” Dark has that rare and deft gift of making the universal personal and the personal universal.

His dreams of becoming a Super DJ are ultimately unsatisfying, the more elite the gig the less responsive the audience “a private function where no one cares about the music” leading finally to the Attica Blues signing by Sony Records and the damning realisation that he is “fish-food in a tank full of piranhas” and a shattering mental breakdown. Dark’s violent scratching away at the surface of a record with a kitchen knife is symbolic of the self harm possible after such an enormous betrayal.

As a moving homage to self acceptance HBWT will break your heart. But, as he tells us, it is all welcome “the breakdown was a gift, it meant I didn't have to be that character anymore”. Charlie Dark teaches us how important it is to be ourselves, and how music will keep us alive when little else will.

In Praise of Bad British Feet

I find myself the frantic city of New York and ask myself just one recurring question - why is it only possible to get a perspective on ones own habitat at a distance of over a thousand miles. For each step I take in the invasive damp heat here I take another invisible step back home on the drab grey paving stones of what used to be known as London Town. Yesterday I went to Soho House, a private members club whose originator is in London. Never having been to its London counterpart I am well aware that its bar stools and high backed armchairs are sat upon by advertising industry drones, storyliners from Eastenders and would be, could be, and could never be artists and plagarists. From the tabloid press to gossip over a dinner table I hear that the London Soho House is fuelled by white powder and over priced champagne, the air heavy and yellow with tobacco smoke and the toilets loud with arguments about whose turn it is to take the next line of a Class A named after our future king, an irony I have always enjoyed.

At 830 in the morning, the suns rays shine boastfully despite the fact that it is mid-Septmber here in New York. I enter a large room called The Library. So as not to draw attention to the intellectual capacity of any of its members this particular library has no books. At the far end of the room there is a bar. A breakfast of bagels and salmon, weak coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice is free. Or should I say complimentary as this breakfast is, in the eyes of the PR company who provide it, “an investment”

At the other end of the room a tall man in a dove grey suit talks his eager audience of well-presented twenty somethings through a powerpoint presentation on eyebrow surgery. I sit and pout and try to fashion a look of enthusiasm. All to no avail, as after the presentation the surgeon discusses his innovative techniques with my colleague and describes me as the 'silent partner'. When in truth, free clover coloured lipgloss not withstanding, I was just ever so slightly bored. Bored, as you can well appreciate, is a word only found in dictionaries on English bookshelves. I think it means I would rather be doing something else, even if that particular something was nothing at all and sometimes especially that.

They say that the UK and the US are two countries divided by a common language and yesterday evening I found myself once again at another promotion at Soho House apeing some sort of interest when I know it is unlikely that I will ever return there. After being shown around the dimly lit spa and beauty rooms we took a drink in the sparsely populated 5th floor bar. The staff are polite and reading your credit card, address you by your christian name in the same manner that telesales people do to boost their commission and your impatience.

Am I the only person here who does not have perfect nails, toes and eyebrows. Momentarily I feel ashamed for my shoddy appearance but tell myself the exuse that I am A Writer and that this adds character. Another pair of efficiently dressed nobodies enter the bar and not even I am convinced by my own protestations. A bar is a bar is a bar but in London a little down dressing has always been the order of the day.

I sip on the remains of my free champagne and am introduced to a group of people who are clearly settling in for the night. Making my exuses I leave early and on 14th street I take my reliable flip flops out of my handbag, slip off my gloriously delicate strappy sandles and run for the subway praising my bad british feet.

Monkey Circus

I remember as a schoolgirl hearing a phrase I did not understand. It described a common complaint amongst the middle class North London mothers whose husbands had left them for the Au Pair, a younger model or in one case, a younger man. They had suffered, it was whispered in the playground between puffs of underage smoking, a Nervous Breakdown. Watching Diana Ross playing Billie Holiday all I could think of was straitjackets and cruel nurses, of women stuttering incomprehensive vowels rocking themselves to sleep, and of cartoon sized hyperdermic needles driven into unwilling flesh in order to calm them down. Not once did I have any idea of what it was like to feel this way. That is I until a few months ago, hence the silence. I did not wring my hands Ophelia- style in an amateur dramatics version of Hamlet. However I did sob until my voice was hoarse and my face pockmarked with the red blotches of too many tears, and not a name for any of them. I lost sight of who I was and the only relief I was able to achieve was from crying. There was no nurse with a syringe, instead the damage I did was to myself. When the pain inside became unbearable and when words could no longer describe what it was I was going through, I reached for the scissors on my desk. I slowly and deliberately drew the blade across my right thigh making a bloody grid with each mark. I sat and watched as the blood seeped out and the pain that had been howling and voiceless inside me found a home on the surface of my skin. I fantasised about hanging myself with the belt he had given me, from the door handle. I wanted to sleep forever, but dreams were no comfort. I flushed my prescribed valium down the toilet for fear of being seduced by my desire to end it all. I smoked heavily and stayed in doors. My thoughts were the enemy, they assaulted me each morning telling me how useless I was and that it was all my My Fault and that it would only get worse, why not end it now. I believed it all. I wept more and shivered and longed to be held. I was in hell, I had broken down.

It was only my admission of this fact that allowed me to turn away from the gutter and to look at the stars once more, that, and the persistence of my friends and family that allowed me access to the unbroken world again. And love too, a part of me was still alive enough to feel it. I still hug myself to sleep at nights but at last something in me has shifted. Last night I was lucky enough to go to a poetry festival where I met what can only be described of as my kindred writing spirits. New friends who not only spill over the sides, they actually turn their frayed edges in to an art form.

Walking back home past midnight along the bedtime streets of Highbury I realised that my madness, if that's the right term, was a calling in me to belong to something. Initially I was tempted to entitle this piece "If people evolved from apes why are there still apes ?". I am still angry you see, the sort of anger that paralyses me when I don't know who to blame first, when my body is a clenched fist looking for a fight.

There may be still be apes and for all I know I may be one of them. I do know, however, that my circus will be full of performers who fall from their horses, their make-up smudged, and yesterdays sequins littering the sawdust floor. In my circus the monkeys will out smart the men and clowns will make the straight man slip on the banana skin. Who knows the guy in the suit and tie may even cry in public, lose a button, lose face and not care. And in my circus, my nervous-breakdown-to-hell-with-it-we're-alive-circus, the applause will be all the louder for getting up.

Saving a Life

Greg and his lopsided family are moving out from the sodden flat in the basement. “Fuck” I hear him say in an exaggerated voice below my window, taking his last cardboard box to the van double parked on the street “A bit of this house has fallen off” he shouts to his son, and like those clutching to life in the boats that saved the shivering travellers from the Titanic he smiles from the car window as the van finally moves away. I have been meaning to move out for years, the chic wooden shutters that make this flat seem so elegant from the street have the reverse effect when you are the one shut inside during the winter months, it’s like being sealed in. I don’t mean to sound churlish or ungrateful, it’s just that it’s time to move on and I am not sure yet how I can, how I will or what to do.

I never thought that I would find myself at a workshop on a blustery autumn afternoon called ‘The Phenomenal Women’s Program’ and believe the possibilities to be true but that is where I was last weekend. After far too long being anchored to a stubborn depression, brought on in part by sustaining an unhappy relationship and partly by its end, I saw what it was like to be part of something. That something means more than the warmth of my ex lovers embrace when the love has gone sour. There were no lightning flashes or emotional outbursts and in its place just a quiet and sustained kindness. I felt what it was to care and be cared for again. The truth of it was gorgeous in its simplicity and it enabled me to see some of my more difficult relationships anew.

This understanding is what will save my life.

There are still bits falling from the hulk of me, some big enough to hold up a house, but sometimes the only thing to do is to hire the biggest van possible, pack the most valuable items and move on from what is crumbling and start afresh.

Tender Loving Care

Two years ago I worked in one of Londons biggest teaching hospitals. At the time I was curious about working as an Occupational Therapist (as a secondary career to supplement my writing) and to this end took a job as an OT and Physiotherapy assistant to find out if this really was the environment I wanted to work in. After a year I had my answer, and it was a defiant and definite no.

My first rotation was to be in the grim and dimly lit Queen Marys Ward. Photographs adorned the long corridors of the Victorian era when a strict matron in a starched uniform governed each ward, and dirt and germs were the rightful enemy of good health. How things change. I learnt more in my first week at the Middlesex hospital than I did in the following months I was there. Queen Marys Ward was for Care of The Elderly. It was here that I learnt that TLC did not mean love or kindness but instead that the end was inevitable and that no drugs or intervention would change this. TLC was a euphemism. It was not an act or an instruction instead it indicated a reluctance, in that notorious English way, to voice the truth death was, as ever, in our midsts. Each morning there would be a handover and new names scrawled in red or blue on the whiteboard. And, so often, after a weekend away, an abrupt RIP where the TLC had been.

I found that the most difficult and most meaningful thing I encountered when I was working there was the unavoidable fact that people die. And we make connections, ranging from love, loyalty to grudging indifference but, in the end, it stops for all of us. There were no provisions to talk about this. I worked with a young woman with breast cancer. She was a single mother and had a six year old daughter, whom she adored. I did relaxations sessions with her twice a week. We never talked about her inevitable death. But on my bike on the way home tears would run down my face before I knew they were there.

The people who coped the best with the illness and pain they saw were either unapologetic aethiests, pragmatists with a you take what youre given approach to life, or those lucky few who were buoyed up a certain spirituality and faith in Gods love. Anything else meant the inevitable struggle of questioning the glaring inequities in the lives we lead and how this could be so.

Entering the building at 815 each morning was like going to another world, with its very distinct language, customs and rules. You didnt have to be a sociologist to witness the rigid hierarchy with its unsubtle gender and race preferences. To be blunt the nearer the job was to cleaning up shit (figurative and real) the more likely the employee would be a Black and female. And no surprises, the conceited and knife hungry surgeons were, in the main, White and male. From the patients, to the porters, the cleaners to the consultants, the nurses, the health care assistants, the canteen staff, the physios, the OTs, the ward sisters everyone had a uniform indicating clearly not only their job but also showing their place in the social pecking order. It was the closest thing to being in the army that I could imagine.

But before I paint the grimmest picture imaginable let me end on this note. I met some of the most wonderful, exceptional people whilst I was there. A young cancer patient who could not walk when we met and worked with her her absolute devotion to life meant that when I saw her again 6 months later she smiled. Its the last day with my sticks she said and skipped down the hall away from me. And so many, so very many people I worked with, despite the bad hours, the MRSA, the grime, the appalling pay all loved, yes loved their patients. I met people with huge hearts full of faith, love and compassion.

I met everything there, all human life and I also met myself. I will always be grateful for the lessons I learnt about what it is to human and what it is to believe and, despite everything, to keep the faith.

The Mysterious Mr Beck

Before the Almeida Theatre was known city wide in its current incarnation it was a lecture hall. This was in the days of The Elephant Man, and when conjoined twins and bearded ladies were removed from the hospital and taken to the roadside freak show. Hand-rubbing gleeful surgeons would listen to professorial speeches about the latest techniques in aneasthesia or eyes widening witness the latest equipment to remove cysts from the digestive tract or lung.

The spectacular was muted by the First World War and the nursing of the trenches. The building lay dormant for some time until the Salvation Army took over using it mostly for storage. Soon the building was left to rats and the winter damp until Mr Beck of Islington saw its potential in the 1960’s and opened Mr Becks Carnival novelties selling and hiring fancy dress attire and circus equipment.

Mr Beck a timid and private transvestite was tragically murdered by his brother in law for bringing shame to the family. And today the emergency signal for a fire at this popular theatre is ‘Mr Beck’ wherever he may be. It is said that his shadowy figure is still seen loitering in the Green Room quietly listening to the interval conversations about make up and drag and the freedom of dressing up.

The World is Full of Letters

The other day the 6 year old Leo came to me with a yellow piece of paper emblazoned with black hieroglyphics. "Look,' he told me proudly " this is Chinese". As I was scrutinising the rice noodle packaging and wondering at the intricacies of these foreign words Leo tugged at my arm and in a stage whisper declared "The World is FULL of letters" before leaving the room to share the good news. I remember when I came to realise, like Leo, that the world was made more magical by alphabets. My mother was an art teacher and apart from my brother and I having a constant source of powder paint from the infamous school stock cupboard the walls in my room were covered with pages torn from an old Letraset catalogue. Seriffed and non-seriffed upper and lower case A's were stuck opposite my bed so I too could see the loveliness of letters.

Years later and my love affair has blossomed to a passion for googled information and a buffet approach to All Things Found There. The simplicity of letters is forgotten and now a word or phrase, from 'weblog' to 'wheat free cuisine' (if indeed there is such a thing) leads me to even more words and statements where the complex is made irresisitable with a single key stroke.