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One of the most enjoyable parts of writing The Tent was choosing the music.

I picked most of the tracks as I went along but it was only on a later draft that the producer/director Toby Swift and I decided we needed a song to go with the fantasy phone calls from 'Jennifer'.

I thought immediately of I Want You by Elvis Costello from Blood And Chocolate - an album I used to listen to all the time on tape back after it came out in 1986.

It's a fabulous set of recordings, mostly much more frenetic than the very intense I Want You -  and all the tracks, according to Wikipedia, were 'recorded in a single large room at high volume, with the band listening to each other on monitor speakers rather than headphones. Costello describes it as "a record of people beating and twanging things with a fair amount of yelling".'

Highly recommended. In fact, it's high time I went to Amazon and got a new copy for myself.

(Here's a more in depth assessment from blog critics.)
 
 

I'm one of the six writers taking part in a collaboration between the Writers' Guild and the artists' licensing body DACS on 2nd July at the Kowalsky Gallery in London.

I went to the private view a couple of weeks ago to select an artwork to write a short piece about and initially found the possibilities a little overwhelming. Almost any artwork could invite some kind of response, and I was also tempted to reflect on the rather heady atmosphere of wine, canapes and everyone talking very animatedly with their backs to the pictures.

In the end I went on instinct. This lightbox by Phil Ashcroft, Where You Go, I Go Too, just kept catching my eye.

I'll keep my response to it under wraps for the moment but will post it here after the event.

 
Arcadia 06/09/2009
 
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Arcadia is a play that leaves almost nothing to be said. I emerged from the theatre bludgeoned by brilliance. And a little bit tired.