A meeting with young directors studying on the course at Birkbeck. I’m struck by how knowledgeable they are about the sector as an industry as well as an art form. They seem to be entering a difficult profession in just the right spirit – with enviable optimism and idealism but not naivety. I also get to meet some of my opposite numbers from Manchester Library Theatre, Ipswich’s New Wolsey, and London’s Southwark Playhouse. Realise I don’t get out enough – these meetings, these opportunities to swap ideas, to talk about my theatre and hear others talk about theirs, are invaluable.
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Meeting with some of the senior managers to work on the Business Plan. It will be a big document, and takes a deal of thinking and discussing before the plans take shape – only when we have those in place can we begin to actually write the document.
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Most of the time, this job I find rewarding and immensely enjoyable is, nonetheless, very hard work. It’s true that the payoff is directly proportional to the input, so that the satisfaction and relief of a successful opening is only heightened by the 60 hour weeks it takes to get there. And that wrestling with business plans and staff appraisals and excel spreadsheets can be a learning experience – even occasionally, a creative one - despite being well outside of my comfort zone. And that the tension of casting and commissioning and programming, where every decision has as much potential to have devastatingly dreadful consequences as superbly brilliant ones, can be agony and can be pleasure. But just occasionally, along comes a day that is so far from hard work that it feels like a total indulgence. Yesterday was one of them. Here it is:
Cigarettes 0,
Glasses of red wine 2,
calories, less than usual
9am Salon Geoffrey
A quick visit to the hairdresser – reading mags, gossiping, drinking tea – sheer luxury. Come out sleek and gorgeous to a shower of rain.
9.45am The office
Answer emails, check post, schedule meetings for the rest of the week, say hello and thank you to the Don Giovanni cast who attended an event on our behalf last night.
11am Department meeting
Total diary confusion: I’ve got my dates mixed up. Can only stay half an hour. Will have to catch up later when minutes come round. So much for telling everyone after the last meeting that’s it’s important to be there!
11.25am Cab to station
Twenty-five minutes allowed for journey. It takes precisely seven. Stand in the shop sneakily reading magazines without buying them.
11.55am Train to London
On journey re-read The Weir. Will be directing it this autumn and just started meetings with designer Liz Cooke, so wanted to read through and think in terms of images and movement. Got swept up by the stories instead: haunted by it for the rest of the day (and night. Note to self: Try not to think about ghost stories when lying awake in the dark at 3am).
1.30pm London.
Pollution almost palpable in the air, on the skin.
Was a Londoner for my first 20 years so always too blasé to plan a London trip properly. Now standing in Euston realise I can’t remember where The Haymarket is. Take a chance on Trafalgar Square vicinity. Bingo.
2pm
Half a panini and a mocha decaff in a comfy chair in Starbucks. I love London coffee culture.
3pm
Kneehigh’s Brief Encounter. Terrific fusion of stage and screen; high romance, low comedy. A real event – what a special way to spend an afternoon.
5pm
Passing the National Gallery, decide to pop in. Dodge lurid Biblical scenes of suffering and death to get toThe Arnolfini Marriage. Exquisite. Admire the way the picture casts the viewer, reflecting us microscopically in the mirror at the back of the room. But why have the couple taken their shoes off?
Make my way to another favourite, The Ambassadors. Another very theatrical painting, forcing the viewer to walk from right to left, watching the splashed skull take shape and contract. Like the Arnolfinis, Dinteville and de Selve strike me as painfully young. Last time I looked they all seemed very grown up.
6.30pm
Bush House for the Soundstart launch – event marking the arrival of the new members of the BBC Radio Drama Rep. The New Vic saw four of our recommendations make it to the final of the Norman Beaton Award, and one, Inam Mirza, is one of the two finalists. Good to see him collect his gift and start his career with the BBC – he performed in one of the New Vic’s TIE tours, and then on the main stage.
7.45pm
Wave goodbye and head off on the bus back to Euston, rather merry after two glasses of hospitality wine.
8.05pm
Catch the Manchester train. It’s packed. Find a reserved seat and hope no one claims it (they don’t). All four of us are wired up to our iPods.
10pm Home!
I feel so guilty to have had such a wonderful day that hopefully the act of blogging it will be some sort of confession and absolution (ah, those Medieval saints sneaked into my head after all). At the same time, though, it’s exactly the kind of day that gives me the inspiration, the creative kick-start, that I must always seek out and value.
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A brief but delightful visit to Don Giovanni. It’s everything I could hope of a Mozart opera – compelling, witty, memorable. And not just the music: the lyrics, in a nifty modern translation, are playful and catchy – and entirely comprehensible.
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Just back from a blissful two weeks’ holiday – chugging on a narrowboat up and down the Caldon, possibly the most beautiful and peaceful canal in the country; finally sitting down with Arnold Bennett’s Anna of the Five Towns; researching the history of my house in the local archives; and turning the garden round from spring to its summer glory.
Clearly, I’m not very good at relaxing, so I’m glad to be back amidst the bustle.
There is a huge hole in the car park where the new annexe will shortly arise; Don Giovanni is rehearsing in every nook and cranny of the building, so we are surrounded by Mozart; and I was welcomed back to the tremendous news that Chris Monks, Don Giovanni’s director and a long-time New Vic associate, is to succeed Sir Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.
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