Newsletter

August 2011

Summertime and a few moments peace before I go on the road.

I spent the first part of this year going to and from Georgia for meetings at the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tblisi where I wrote a new adaptation of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin with the director, Levan Tsuladze. The new show will be performed by a cast of five actors and thirty puppets. Four of the actors are from The Mercury Theatre Company in Colchester (and that includes me) and a Georgian actor who will play the part of Pelagia. I took the other three Cochester actors with me to Georgia in May to introduce them to the Marjanishvili Theatre and to present the script. We had one read through and a lot of banquets and toasts to celebrate. Everyone who has received Georgian hospitality will know what a wonderful experience we all enjoyed. We go back to Georgia on September 5th to start rehearsals for the show which opens in Tblisi on October 3rd and then runs for two and a half weeks in Colchester from October 27th.

We spent all of June on the road with a new version of Italia ‘n’ Caledonia – a show about our grandparents’ generation – men and women who left Italy at the beginning of the last century to begin new lives in Scotland. I first wrote and performed it with my friend, Philip Contini, in Valvona & Crolla at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1993. I made a new production to take on the road which incorporated the home movies we have – films which show scenes from the annual big picnics in the 1930s when Italians came together from all over Scotland to eat and drink, to have races, football matches and a tug o war. It turns a thetare show into a cinematic experience. In the movie we see the people whose story we are telling eating and drinking together before the second world war brought tragedy into their lives. All adult Italians males were arrested, and interned or deported as ‘enemy aliens’. When you look at all these people in the movie having fun it is heartbreaking to discover that many of those deported lost their lives when the ship taking them to Canada, the Arandora Star, was sunk by a German U-Boat. My mother is in the film – a very pretty 13 year old. We are doing the show again at the fringe this year in Valvona & Crolla.

We’re also going to reprise two successful productions – Did You Used to be R.D.Laing? and A Funny Valentine – the former with Dave Milligan and myself, and for the latter Dave and I are joined by trumpeter, Colin Steele. It’s a dream team!

Did You Used to R.D.Laing? is about the life and work of the radical Scottish psychiatrist who put the treatment and diagnosis of mental illness onto the front pages of the newspapers in the sixties. He became very famous, although there are many psychiatrists who believe their profession is still recovering from the damage he caused. He is loathed and loved – no one responds to R.D.Laing with indifference.

A Funny Valentine is about the great American trumpeter, Chet Baker. Colin is every bit as good as Chet and our audience will leave this show humming all the great tunes from the American Songbook which was Chet’s repertoire – including 'My Funny Valentine'.

Immediately after the Fringe I have to fly out to Tblisi for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin which doesn’t finish until November in Colchester and then we embark on A Chrtistmas Carol over the festive season. Norman Chalemers and I did A Christmas Carol together last year and we had a wonderful time and so we are hoping to make it an annual event.

I have no idea what’s going to happen in 2012. I would like to go to California and follow the John Muir trail in Yosemite then come home and write a show all about it. John Muir was born in Scotland in the nineteenth century. He fell in love with nature in America and is a great poet of the wilderness. I could try and fit together two of America’s gifts to the world – jazz and national parks!

Perhasps we’ll meet in Edinburgh, Tblisi, Colchester, or somewhere else.

Ciao!

Mike