July update
It’s been a crazy week - on Sunday I directed a staged reading of an hour-long piece of new writing at the Oval House Theatre, which was performed on Monday at the Blue Elephant in Camberwell. This was easily the most fun I’ve had in my theatre directing experience to date - it’s so liberating when you get the chance to work with actors who not only take notes quickly but also respond with a raft of intuitive suggestions of their own.
On Tuesday I directed a short filmed adaptation of a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in a corporate boardroom - this was also a lot of fun, although it was challenging directing Shakespeare whilst also trying to operate camera/sound…
On Wednesday I filmed the finale of my next short film Balloon Man, which actually involved a real live hot air balloon. Great to finally have wrapped the film.
Since then I’ve been working on a group of short films which will be screened next week at the Southbank Centre to accompany my friend Nikesh Shukla’s evening The Secret Life of Immigrants (which has already sold out!).
Finally, I also managed to catch Metta Theatre’s adaptation of Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry, which I had a small hand in developing. My favourite sequence presented a beautiful, wordless enactment of a couple falling in love. In the midst of a very verbal text, I’d suggested to adaptor/director Poppy Burton-Morgan that this scene would be a great opportunity for words to melt away and for the lovers to dance. I was transfixed by what she’d come up with - a beautifully choreographed aerial routine. Sensitively directed, with a wonderful musical accompaniment by Jessica Dannheisser, this sequence was both hypnotic and transcendent - easily the highlight of a week filled with glimmers of beauty.
