Monthly Archives: January 2010

Tales From Ovid: Shopkeeper

This entry was posted in Brixton Village and tagged Brixton Village Empty Shops Projects Ovid Photos on by

As a child do you remember playing ‘shop’? I do. Generally there would be a theme to the shop – I was particularly keen at playing Post Office and Bakery. And Library, which isn’t exactly a shop but follows some of the same principles (see, I was primed to spend a good chunk of my early to mid twenties in customer service roles).

And I couldn’t help but think back to that when I collected our shop keys today. Because – for (almost) three weeks, Charlie and I are officially shopkeepers. All I need is my old plastic till, some teddy bears and my doll Bonnie and I am ready to sell fake dog licenses and mud pies. Which probably explains why I was so excited as I went to open the shutter.

Only – well, there had to be something that provided some sort of comic interlude and, predictably, the moment I went to insert the key into the lock it became painfully obvious that something wasn’t quite right. Either my career as a shopkeeper was over before it had even begun as I was unable to do something as simple as insert a key into a lock or – I hoped – I’d been given the wrong key.

Thankfully it turned out to be the latter rather than the former and soon I was back, shutter opening.

And, erm, it is safe to say I wasn’t quite expecting the sight that greeted me:

Crates

Inside Shop 82.

Free Soup (& other crap)

On the plus side one of the things on our to-do list had been: ‘get a ladder’ (result), however I don’t remember the bit of the list that said ‘get several muddy crates’. And a ‘Free Soup’ sign?

So, yes, a little bit of a mixed bag of abandoned items from the shop’s last (temporary) occupants.

Just when I was about to start cataloguing everything in the unit (I do like a list) a man in a green hoodie popped his head through the open shutter.

“Have you been told not to use the sink?”

“Nooo”. For indeed I hadn’t been. Though now I look at it I can see it is partially disconnected.

“I’m the onsite plumber” explains Green Hoodie Man in a cheerful manner. “We think there’s a crack in the basin – it flooded the entire shop last week”.

Nice.

Green Hoodie Man and I stand over the sink for a bit. He tinkers, we both wait. There is most definitely a leak.

“I wouldn’t use the sink” he says.

I agree.

Once we’ve said our goodbyes another man pops in.

“I got sent round to see about woodchippings” He says.

It is safe to say it was never quite this surreal when I used to play ‘shop’.

Tales From Ovid: Shutters and Sinks

This entry was posted in Brixton Village Metamorphoses and tagged Brixton Village Empty Shops Projects Ovid on by

Y’know yesterday when I said that we’d managed to put our favourite ‘Shutter Conversation’ to one side?

Turns out that such declarations were a little premature.

The only thing that threatened to blow the shutter out of the water?

The fact that we have a sink in our shop and thus a sink as part of our set. Thankfully, once we’d gotten over the initial bemusement, we were more interested in what we could transform it into than wanting to take a sledge hammer to it…

Tales From Ovid: The Anatomy #1

This entry was posted in Brixton Village Metamorphoses and tagged Anatomy Brixton Village Ovid Photos on by

I was having a break between some fairly dull-but-necessary admin work for Ovid Reworked when the pull of a red pen and some scrap paper proved to be too much.

And thus the first ‘The Anatomy Of…’ was born. For if I was to draw the anatomy of The Brixton Project it might look like this:

Anatomy: #1

There’s a bigger version of it here. I think it sums up the last few weeks quite well, albeit had I been 100% true to events I would have written the word ‘SHUTTER’ all over the piece of paper because ‘Shutter Conversations’ have been many and plentiful (though, at least until we’re into the shop, pushed to one side with a solution – other than just locking everyone in and thus failing every fire safety policy there has ever been – having presented itself).

Wherein a Critic Hammers Another Nail In The Coffin.

This entry was posted in Bloggery In Response and tagged Audiences Blogging on by

I don’t think I was alone in doing something of a double take when I read Michael Coveney’s post about watching a preview of Legally Blonde. Specifically the bit where he appeared to projectile vomit all over his computer screen:

“I went on Saturday night and I’ve never sat in an audience so unreal or abnormal. Weird couples, clacking hen parties, simpering teenage girls: it was like being stuck in a nightmare college campus graduation ceremony.”

Yep, still had to do a double take when I copied that over because I’m not entirely sure which part of that paragraph is the most offensive.

I was going to write a rebuttal about Coveney’s prejudices (not to mention his hardly covered misogyny and contempt for a theatre audience who had paid to see a show) but others have already said so incredibly well that I’m going to point you in their direction instead:

Carrie Dun writing at Spotlight robustly and passionately defends the audience’s right to like something critically disliked.

The magnificent Mission Paradox blog wasn’t writing of Coveney when he wrote about art’s hostility to its audiences – but, crikey, someone should send Coveney the link pronto.

Finally, and gloriously, Sans Taste has what is possibly the most eloquent response to the whole debacle.

Tales From Ovid: Cold Writing

This entry was posted in Brixton Village and tagged Brixton Village Ovid Workshops on by

One of the things that both Charlie and I were excited about from the beginning of The Brixton Project was the chance to get writers to write specifically for an unsual space. There’s been some wonderful responses to space from the writers who we’ve asked to do adaptations for us but we couldn’t let an opportunity pass to push the idea of writing/space/transformation even further. We’re in a market in Brixton in January and February after all! (That deserves an exclamation mark, I shall have to ration them for the rest of the year to make up for my over use in the next few weeks). And so the idea of ‘Cold Writing’ was born…

On Monday 1st February we’ll be holding a ‘Cold Writing Workshop’. Cold in the sense that we don’t want the participants to spend time working on anything before the workshop when we’ll dive in and use a couple of stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses as starting points. Clearly it’s also cold in the sense that we’ll all most likely be wearing thermals too but there’ll be free tea and coffee (and the warmth of creativity…okay, I’m sure you get the point).

The idea is that everyone in the workshop creates a short (five to ten minute) piece that we’ll allow you to polish for a couple of days before we snatch it back, bring in some actors and dedicate the afternoon of Friday 5th to performing the pieces in the shop.

The workshop’s free and it’s a great chance to come along, write for an unsual space and (hopefully) have some fun along the way. Obviously we’re having to limit numbers on the workshop so if you want to take part send us an email to writebynumbers at gmail dot com, telling us a little bit about yourself and why you’d like to take part.

There’s a more detailed summary of the workshop here, though I do mention thermals in that too. Sorry.

Tales From Ovid: The Countdown Begins

This entry was posted in Brixton Village and tagged Brixton Village Ovid on by

Today Charlie spread what seemed like fifteen pieces of paper across a table and we went through everything that needs to be done in the weeks leading up to Ovid Reworked – The Brixton Project. We’ve already got first drafts of the majority of the pieces that will be in the space, Directors lined up, a design for the shop but obviously this is the bit where it all gets a bit manic. In fact take ‘bit’ out – manic will just do.

In the spirit of what I think theatre blogging should be about I’m going to keep this blog updated more than is probably healthy in the coming weeks – the chances are that if we’re doing something you’re going to hear about it. I’m also hoping to give you a perspective other than mine to the proceedings and hopefully some of our collaborators will be contributing their thoughts too.

My one overriding hope at the moment, however, is that the weather gets a bit warmer – or else it’s thermal underwear in Brixton for us…