“The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling..."

On Friday I went to see A Midsummer Nights Dream at Manchester Met University – performed by the third year acting students…it was an excellent evening’s entertainment – brilliantly acted by a very talented cast…

Some of my favourite lines from the play are these:

“The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.”

I am so very grateful for the fact that my day to day life is all about using my imagination…that, like the poet Theseus talks about in this speech, I am frequently employed in turning the unknown into shapes and giving airy nothing a local habitation and a name.  Sometimes this is as a writer, sometimes this is as a director…this business of making something out of nothing has as usual formed the highlights of my week…

The first is the performance of some of our creations at “Not Too Shoddy.” The whole evening was a lovely event – celebrating the history and heritage of Ossett with children the artist Jason Wilsher Mills had been working with this year.  For this event Gemma had worked with Purple Company and I had worked with Gold to create a physical theatre response to the artisanship that formed the foundations of the town.  Although Gold were of course marvelous a special mention needs to be given to Purple Company who although small in stature and number were huge in bravery and loveliness.

Another highlight of the week was finishing a play inspired by Taming of the Shrew – it’s called Flawless and will be performed by Black Company in June.  It’s always exciting and nerve wracking hearing your play for the first time but I was really pleased with the results… it has the potential to be thoroughly entertaining.

The final highlight was working with Gold Company on Saturday…we are devising a story telling piece at the moment and there was a real break through with one of the scenes…it was one of those lovely workshops where I started out with half an idea and through the focus, creativity and patience of the actors we developed that idea into something that was exactly what we needed…

All in all it’s been a wonderful week…here’s to the next!