Join me on a stark sojourn through the sordid and controversial corridors of my past.  Shiver as you discover I used to wax lyrical about Commodore 64s.  Squeal as I titillate you with tales of painting lead figurines deep into the night.  Shudder as I relay the fact that once upon a time I really was very keen on Role-Playing Games. Whenever successful actors adorn the pages of the weekend glossies, their previous lives always come across as righteously hip.  Many of them were going to be professional football players.  I, alas, was not.  The closest I got was being regularly deposited in goal on account of my ball-repellant layers of puppy-fat.  The important thing of course is that I can laugh about it now.  Ha ha ha. 

No, I spent most of my childhood playing games.  Not in the Olympic sense; certainly not in the spin-the-bottle, cool-kids-skiving-off-RE-sense.  I mean Role-Playing Games.  Easy now.  I need to be careful writing this, and have probably already condemned myself, ironically.  My grandfather, a sweet fellow of the evangelical ilk, really would tremble and spew like Vesuvius if he knew I’d ever whiled away my weekend over a Dungeons & Dragons set.  But I did.  Out and proud. Over the past week I’ve seen two very fine pieces of theatre:  The Sea, at the Haymarket, and Brief Encounter, just opposite.  Their geography also reflects their opposition in style.  Whereas The Sea —set in as traditional a theatre as the

West End can offer— was a parody of the theatre-going experience in itself, Brief Encounter commandeered the actual Haymarket cinema, and welcomed you with a serenading cast resplendent in old-style Usherette uniforms.  The theatre felt like a time-machine.  You might even say that the way forward, in this particular case, was the way back.  Although both productions were of a certain degree of genius (that said, Bond’s depths easily overwhelm Coward’s shimmer), it was the flair of the adapted film in an old cinema that won over the audience response. 

More to come?  The selling-out of Masque of the Red Death was marred only by the critique that allowing the audience to roam freely disrupted the traditional narrative.  But in a theatre where didacticism is losing its appeal, what better way to engage with the audience than by letting them choose which route the story takes.  And for the producers out there, I need only say the words ‘it’s my third time here’ as incentive for a play that offers multiple narratives.  Drama Centre taught us to respect the proscenium arch as a hallowed passage, an altar on which the masses could appreciate tradition and history unfurling.  But the boundaries are breaking down.  A strange sort of socialism is treading the boards, where the audience’s desire to step into the fantasy is being increasingly respected. Sorry, Grandpa Lee.  But the imagination craves indulgence, and moral subversion or not, audiences are getting tempted down the rabbit-hole more and more.  Wonderland ho.   

–>

THE OLD VIC

Really? The Old Vic? Off-west-end?

Well, yes. Not only is the statement a geographical certainty, but there was a time when the Old Vic was considered so off-west-end that wealthy theatre-goers would hire armed escorts to see them safely past the brigands and blackguards of Waterloo Bridge. Now we just have Boris patrolling the realm on his 21-speed steed, deterring potential ne’er-do-wells by ejecting the word “Oik!” like a demented boar. How times change.

No, the Old Vic shouldn’t be excluded for being the overfed hoyden in the off-west-end playground. Let’s not forget those bully-bombs it stood up to in WWII. Neither can we discount the words of my favourite-actor-that-I’ve-never-seen-act, Edmund Kean, to the Vic’s audience:

“In my life I have never acted to such a set of ignorant, unmitigated brutes as I have before me.”

As close to the constipated exclamations of a fringe actor as ever I’ve heard.

The Vic’s walls sweat with the talents of the ages. Literally. Up the stairs from the stalls you’ll feel the piercing eyes of Richard Burton upon you. Waltz with Michael Redgrave and Edith Evans on your way down to the loo. Chat with a wild-eyed Peter Scofield by the circle bar. The place is thick with ghosts, metaphorical and apparent. Having spent a terrifying summer locking up backstage, I’ll testify that things really do go bump down stage right (the poltergeists can be pacified by playing radio over the tannoy, just ask the stage-doorkeeper).

Working at the Vic assisted and protracted my progress like an overly tactile lollipop-man. Employment there was a warm, fuzzy refuge from the lean months of our acting careers, when expulsions of drama school graduates bumped us down from hot young gambits to tepid mid-tween two-bits. Strange thing is, I’ve mapped out the trajectory of my acting jobs and every good gig I’ve ever had has come about because of working behind that damned, glorious bar.

Consider it when next you take a trip down The Cut. Take a good look at the faces tearing your tickets and mixing your Gin & Tonic. You’ll never find a team as nimble-witted and mammoth-hearted. But a few of them you’ll be seeing again in starrier performances than That’ll Be £4.20 Please Madam. Bet your life. So this week’s blog is dedicated to the ushers and bar-staff at this leviathan of the off-west-end, including those who’ve gone on to become film stars, award-winning writers and Hollywood costume designers (they know who they are). More importantly, here’s to those still grafting there today. They won’t be for long.

Charles Kingsley once described the Vic as:

“…a licensed pit of darkness, a trap of temptation, profligacy and ruin.”

Now, say what you like about The Water Babies, but anyone who’s ever had one too many lychee martinis in the temporal vortex that is the Pit Bar will understand exactly what old Charlie’s on about.

Yet another reason to surrender to the spirits of the Old Vic.
–>

COTTESLOE, NATIONAL THEATRE

Ah, the never-ending whirligig of theatrical fashion. Last century the words Theatre In Education were greeted with the same bloated dread that accompanied phrases like The Scottish Play. Self-styled Withnails would claim they’d rather eat their Equity card than tour schools with Bullies Need Befriending and Peggy Penguin & The Falklands Dispute.

But now these tours, those early starts and yawning young faces can actually land an actor onstage at the Nash. For those of you not, ahem, down with the kids, that’s the Royal National Theatre.

Today is Twelfth Night at the Cottesloe, where it’s bedded in for a week between school performances. Coincidentally, Twelfth Night was the first T.I.E. production I ever saw at the poster-paint smell-scape of my primary school (I believe they styled it 12th Nite, or, Wotcha Will Shakespeare). It went down well for many reasons. The lady playing Olivia appeared to be kissing with tongue (we duly took notes). Malvolio’s yellow tights snaked hilariously around his oblivious ankles. Sebastian managed to slice off the tip of Toby Belch’s finger, and we all helped look for it as Mr Clemens ran for the ice-box. We got the morning off whilst they mopped blood off the gymnasium floor. Result.

The Cottesloe is the smallest of the National’s three theatres, and huddles snugly behind its bigger brothers. It’s happily self-sufficient and the most adaptable of the trio; in fact the space is so chameleonic you probably won’t recognize it from show to show. Today’s company conjure up the streets and palaces of Illyria with an ingenious red curtain-box, a jamboree of bright costumes and some tongue-in-cheek doubling of characters. Sat in a sea of blazers and ties, I monitor how times have changed. Olivia’s proposal is now controversial (“Ugh!” retches the girl next to me, “Why would she want to get married?! That’s what old people do.”). But they love the laying of the letter-trap for Malvolio. This is something they could relate to. Utter mischief. Shakespeare’s a bit good at all that.

We sing with gusto, laugh at the funny masks, the quicksilver performances, the obvious talent of the whole production. And the children lap it up. Because here’s a show and a space worthy of their intelligence and sensitivity. No cut corners, no shoddy acting, no condescension. T.I.E as it should be. So bravo the Cottesloe, little theatre with a big heart, for celebrating these school tours. Goethe may have said

“I wish the stage were as narrow as a tightrope so that no incompetent would dare tread on it”

but that’s nothing compared to the perils of performing for Year 6. One bad production, and boom, you’ve put a child off theatre. For life. One hammy soliloquy too far, and you’ve wrecked Shakespeare for them forever. So remember, Mister La-Di-Da West End Actor, these troupers you once sneered at are out there winning over future audiences. For you.

Yes, I’m mainly talking to myself there. But I learned my lesson eventually. C+.

COCHRANE THEATRE

When I was at drama school we never had a theatre per se. What we had was a space known ominously as ‘ROOM 1’. Its walls were the colour of Miss Havisham’s wedding cake. Its toilet cubicles morphed miraculously into dressing rooms. Its windows were held up with ballet bars where we would rond de jambe to the scuttling of script-fed rodentia. ROOM 1, of course, was much beloved.

But lately our graduates have had to perform in an actual theatre: The Cochrane. You’ll know the Cochrane by its portly window swelling out into the converging mayhems of Holborn. And my, it is a plucky little theatre, encircled by the commercial testosterone of the West End big boys. It boasts a gallery and an orchestra pit fit for 20 musicians. Peter Brook opened his Theatre of Cruelty there in 1964 and Joe Orton premiered Loot there. It’s won awards for its children’s shows and produced the applauded Laramie Project. So what’s happening there today?

A trip down memory lane, my friends, that will send a shiver up the spine of any actor without soap-opera-deadened nerves. A little event we call the ‘Agent Showcase’.

Unfortunately, this tends to be the unspoken lodestone of any acting training. You slog your guts out for two years and then, after all the inspirational teachings and explicit pacts of integrity, you discover it’s just a business like anything else. That you may be the next Fanny Kemble, but if you can’t fork out £300 for a decent photograph then you will vanish quicker than a bad review from the green room notice-board. So each actor chooses a scene, the administration dutifully lays out two dozen copies of their CVs, the agents turn up to scribble ‘Big Teeth’ or ‘ Weird Accent’ on photo-cards and then afterwards the actors frantically count said CVs to see how many have been taken (discounting mothers/landladies/1st year-admirers who will take four CVs apiece).

And so an agent showcase is unlike anything you’ll ever see. In many ways, it’s the best acting you’ll ever see. These youngsters have been living, breathing and excreting theatre non-stop for two years, and they’re chomping at the bit to show you what they’re made of. They’ll each be playing to their strengths, be that Glaswegian misanthrope or South African pig-hunter. The only catch is that you may need to pretend to be Sam Mendes to actually get in to see it.

A word to the wise, however. Agents are a talented bunch in general (many being former actors), but some can only recognise talent through audience reaction. And when you have an auditorium full of agents, all attempting to observe each other observing the actors to figure out who’s going to make them the most money…it sometimes gets a little quiet.

So when you do pop along to the Cochrane for Much Ado About Nothing and The Winter’s Tale this March, please don’t be stingy with the belly laughs. Then watch those CVs fly.
–>

THE OLD VIC

Really? The Old Vic? Off-west-end?

Well, yes. Not only is the statement a geographical certainty, but there was a time when the Old Vic was considered so off-west-end that wealthy theatre-goers would hire armed escorts to see them safely past the brigands and blackguards of Waterloo Bridge. Now we just have Boris patrolling the realm on his 21-speed steed, deterring potential ne’er-do-wells by ejecting the word “Oik!” like a demented boar. How times change.

No, the Old Vic shouldn’t be excluded for being the overfed hoyden in the off-west-end playground. Let’s not forget those bully-bombs it stood up to in WWII. Neither can we discount the words of my favourite-actor-that-I’ve-never-seen-act, Edmund Kean, to the Vic’s audience:

“In my life I have never acted to such a set of ignorant, unmitigated brutes as I have before me.”

As close to the constipated exclamations of a fringe actor as ever I’ve heard.

The Vic’s walls sweat with the talents of the ages. Literally. Up the stairs from the stalls you’ll feel the piercing eyes of Richard Burton upon you. Waltz with Michael Redgrave and Edith Evans on your way down to the loo. Chat with a wild-eyed Peter Scofield by the circle bar. The place is thick with ghosts, metaphorical and apparent. Having spent a terrifying summer locking up backstage, I’ll testify that things really do go bump down stage right (the poltergeists can be pacified by playing radio over the tannoy, just ask the stage-doorkeeper).

Working at the Vic assisted and protracted my progress like an overly tactile lollipop-man. Employment there was a warm, fuzzy refuge from the lean months of our acting careers, when expulsions of drama school graduates bumped us down from hot young gambits to tepid mid-tween two-bits. Strange thing is, I’ve mapped out the trajectory of my acting jobs and every good gig I’ve ever had has come about because of working behind that damned, glorious bar.

Consider it when next you take a trip down The Cut. Take a good look at the faces tearing your tickets and mixing your Gin & Tonic. You’ll never find a team as nimble-witted and mammoth-hearted. But a few of them you’ll be seeing again in starrier performances than “That’ll Be £4.20 Please Madam”. Bet your life. So this week’s blog is dedicated to the ushers and bar-staff at this leviathan of the off-west-end, including those who’ve gone on to become film stars, award-winning writers and Hollywood costume designers (they know who they are). More importantly, here’s to those still grafting there today. They won’t be for long.

Charles Kingsley once described the Vic as:

“…a licensed pit of darkness, a trap of temptation, profligacy and ruin.”

Now, say what you like about The Water Babies, but anyone who’s ever had one too many lychee martinis in the temporal vortex that is the Pit Bar will understand exactly what old Charlie’s on about.

Yet another reason to surrender to the spirits of the Old Vic.
–>

WHITE BEAR THEATRE CLUB

Every good theatre has versatility on its side. The Manchester Royal Exchange doubles nicely as an intergalactic spaceship. The Old Vic’s public bar successfully moonlights as an Ultimate Fighting Arena (well, it did before they installed CCTV). And the National Theatre is obviously London’s unofficial bastion in the likely event of zombies overwhelming the South Bank.

And then there’s the White Bear Theatre Club. If it weren’t for the signs, you might think that you’d wandered into the wrong place and certainly the wrong decade. There are no less than half a dozen televisions offering a variety of sporting events in a pub the size of a pool table. Yellowing league listings adorn the walls. Earnest pencilings of famous football stars line the corridor to the toilets. And the clientele are a trans-era collective of flat-caps, tracksuits and motorcycle jackets. As a curious finale, the barman feeds the flowers out front with the slops from leftover pint glasses. So what on earth would I be doing there seeing a play about Byron and the Shelleys?

Well, it was a play I auditioned for. And like all bitter and thespically-challenged actors I was curious to see how it would turn out without the acute disadvantage of me. My previous experience of the White Bear involved a surly barman giving me a good telling-off for requesting a coffee. I had learned my lesson, and this time ordered an ale, which, somewhat ironically, tasted of mocha.

Waiting for curtain up, I spoke to a member of the flat-cap constituency – a quartz-eyed fellow by the name of Topper.

‘So have you seen much in the theatre out back?’

‘Nah, theatre’s not really my thing. John tried to drag me along once, but—‘

‘John?’

‘John Hurt. Used to have a little breakfast pint together. But like I said, not really my thing…’

Truly these men are the living chronicles of actors gone by.

Now, being the penny-pincher that I am I had a two-for-one offer. The amiable box office took my announcement of this by promptly doubling the price of my tickets. Confusion unmuddled, I sat down on the side of the corner theatre (like the Old Red Lion, the venue seats its audience on one right angle and the stage on the other), sipping my beer and ignoring the taste of Arabica bean. I now pass judgement on the production in the time-honoured manner of many a rejected actor:

Absolute cracker of a night. I’ve not seen quality of this caliber in one of the smaller theatres for yonks. Actually, for a theatre that sits somewhere in the Twilight Zone between Kennington and Oval, it was astounding. Not only that, it was produced with barely a piece of furniture beyond a pillow and stool. It was a packed house propped up by deliciously filthy language. The way theatre about the Romantic poets should be.

See, I can be a good sport. Something, incidentally, that the White Bear has in abundance.

GREENWICH THEATRE

Talk about scandal. One minute I’m at the theatre enjoying a perfectly respectable piece of Restoration — the next I’m in the depths of Lewisham doing the twist (again) between a woman dressed in a yoga mat and a man in a faux-bearskin loincloth, mixing mojitos for people in bubble-wrap. Theatre is truly transportational.

To explain. Once upon a time I worked at this week’s venue: in the teensy, affable bar, tucked beneath the stairs to the stalls like some hastily-assembled franchise of pre-bedtime children. I spent my quiet shifts leafing through free copies of bad books and wondering how long my post-graduation unemployment-funk would last. Then I’d meander home through the Greenwich foot tunnel, where I was once unsuccessfully mugged by a man wearing a pirate’s outfit. Actually, working at the Greenwich Theatre provided me with the best address I ever had — Cyclops Mews, Homer Drive, Mudchute, Isle of Dogs. A right old postcode odyssey.

The Greenwich Theatre has the munificent, orphans-at-Christmas feel of an old regional venue, which is the first good reason for paying a visit. Because Greenwich doesn’t feel like London. It feels Dickensian and quaint, with its antique market and naval college and (immolated) tea clipper. And how many other fringe venues are only a hop, skim and jet along the Thames? With more transport links than anyone imagines, Greenwich is utterly charming.

Tonight’s performance was The School For Scandal, Sheridan’s corrosively satirical comedy of manners — incidentally one of the first grown-up plays I ever saw. In fact, still have the production script. Inside are the perspicacious scribblings of a flourishing tosspot. For example, ‘Humour — but they don’t laugh?!!’ as if deadpan had been invented circa 1991. Also inscribed for posterity is the dubious assertion that ‘Sarcasm is the god of poetry’. This does not bode well for the memoirs.

The company’s protean actors were also doubling up for tandem performances of Doctor Faustus. Stupendous workload notwithstanding, the direction was devilishly inventive, the production riotously and repeatedly hilarious. Fittingly —or perhaps I was under the influence of Greenwich’s salinity— the theatre stage itself seemed reminiscent of a galleon’s deck.

But is this centuries-old play still sea-worthy? As Mr Garrick’s prologue puts it:

A school for scandal! Tell me, I beseech you,
Needs there a school this modish art to teach you?

The backbiting affectation and fiendish sniping of the 1770s seems very much alive, judging by any newsagent stand’s offerings — Celebrity Mums, Rundown And Unfit! screams Heat’s latest headline. Bitchity bitch-bitch.

Which brings us back to yoga mats and loincloths. As every theatre-going veteran knows, hang around long enough in a post-show bar and you will inevitably be invited in cavalier fashion to a fancy dress party that a friend’s friend of the cast is throwing. The party in this case —jointly hosted by painters and sexual health workers— was replete with hijinks, gossip and drinking songs about STDs, though with mercifully fewer asides. Even Sheridan’s Ofsted-recommended School For Scandal can’t compete with that.
–>

Sink into a sofa at THEATRE 503

This week’s venue has the dubious prestige of being the only theatre I’ve ever walked out of. Not, rest assured fringe-lovers, because of anything to do with the production. Just good old-fashioned self-humiliation.

A few years back, during the first half of a touching and reverential play, a platoon of youths behind me were flipping texts to one another. More unforgivably, the text alerts in question were Crazy Frog Redux and Akon singing about how lonely he was. They tittered maniacally and eventually I responded with an exasperated:

‘Oh, come on…’

At which point I realized that the audience —and actors— were staring at me, horrified, presuming my outburst concerned their deeply touching reconciliation scene. I made my excuses like a tabloid hack at a brothel.

If only we’d been on Broadway. This week saw James Bond and Wolverine battling disruptive audience members, with Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman directing their celestial fury towards a front-row audience member who forgot to switch his phone off. They may have hyper-gadgets and super-powers, but these boys are squealishly susceptible to cracks in the ol’ Fourth Wall.

Thankfully tonight’s performance was interruption and mortification-free. Theatre503, formerly the Latchmere, formerly the Grace theatre. Same venue, but now with added mysterious numbers. Perhaps 503 is the meaning of life. Perhaps it just means they get to the top of the listings. Either way it’s refreshing. It’s also deceptively close to Clapham Junction, which means pretty much anyone in London should be able to get to it easily with no excuses. Take note, my esteemed colleague, who burst into the theatre half an hour late.

Fearless new writing is the directive of the 503, and over its burgeoning years it’s previewed many authors of whom I am intensely fond and covetous, particularly the talent-crammed collective that was The Apathists. They even coaxed the skyrocketing Tom Hardy in to run an actors’ gym —Shotgun— culminating in a tremendous production of Blue On Blue.

However, seeing a play here about a death-row warden, I felt the inscrutably malevolent voice of my old principle in my head: ‘What’s the relevance, darling?’ (don’t read into that, he called everyone darling. Or at least in our impressions of him he did). What interest could a British audience have in an American execution block?

Judging by sniffling into scrunched tissues at curtain call, a helluva lot. The Ones That Flutter by Sylvia Reed —like its set— is a beautifully compact production. An outstanding evening begins front-of-house — not in all OWE theatres do you get the artistic director taking your ticket. The auditorium is a snug descent down into a confidential playing space, which doesn’t require traps and tricks when the acting is up to scratch. Which it certainly was tonight. To top it off, which other fringe venues have a sumptuous private antechamber to discuss the play in at the end of the show?

The perfect place to confront noisy audience members. Not, remember, during the performance.

–>

THE GATE THEATRE

Approximately 83 theatres make up the glorious confederacy of the Off-West End. 83! Show to show that’s 8 straight days of sitting in the dark; roughly 166 gin & tonics - and 8 limes, if you’re the type. I for one am that type, and here begins a rather rapacious attempt at compiling a taster menu; a sampler of all 83 fringe venues. Sort of like stamp-collecting, but with less licking. One would hope.

Phileas Fogg-like delusions of grandeur aside, I begin by having one of those days. You might call them ‘a working day’. My usual, erm, working day consists of 20% lie-mongering, 4% panicked dead-lining and 76% girlish tittering as I filter rude words through my Mac’s speech function. But today starts with an audition for a play requiring me to murder crustaceans live onstage, and go tongue-to-tongue with my ‘grandmother’. To be honest, only one of those theatrical gimmicks intensely appeals. I sneak in front of a fellow actor because I have an impending game of tennis and a terminal lapse of attention. On the courts I am destroyed by a giant Italian, and it strikes me that hastily-purchased, Wimbledon-inspired tennis rackets are summertime’s equivalent to Boxing Day puppies. After this I attend yet another Alexander Technique session, and begin to suspect my spine resembles a half-played game of Jenga. At dinner I spill chili-squid down my white shirt, which rather stylishly kicks off an evening of bumping into influential contemporaries. Finally I arrive at the Gate theatre in Notting Hill.

Be warned: the pre-show entrance up to the Gate feels misleadingly like a rollercoaster queue. Inside, however, is the closest thing you’ll find to a miniature Royal Court. Familiar faces of stars-in-ascension abound, huddling cross-legged by the intimate toilets. This and the lack of a bar compels people to mingle - and converse?! - which is rather nice.

Tonight’s play is Vanya, a streamline approach to Chekhov’s chubby classic, written by the increasingly dexterous Sam Holcroft. I like this slim-fast approach to old Anton. His short stories - The Kiss, An Avenger, The Duel - seem to work potently on a smaller scale, and for some reason the reduced cast here provide real bite to the comedy. As we settle into the Gate’s cinematic slice of a sloping auditorium, the bleak simplicity of the set suddenly erupts. I don’t know quite how they managed to rotate their box-of-tricks shed-set on that modest, sprightly stage, but the effect was as dizzying as the performances. It’s rare, too, to see a play where the story is so punchily told through pure body language. That’s your subtext. Where do we learn body language if not at the theatre?

Certainly not on the commuter train home, where body language does not exist because everyone is so rammed up into each other that we might all as well be Chekhovian lovers. Smelly, knackered, gin-soaked lovers. Here’s to the Gate - and long may it remain, swinging.
–>

Home is where the art is. And I’ve habited some less than artful places. I lived in a luxury apartment with a Jacuzzi and sauna that was so pointlessly expensive that we’d sit in the spa reminiscing about sustenance. I stayed with an ambassador’s daughter whose house was an elegant rubbish tip of priceless artefacts. I resided next door to an elderly deaf man with a flair for casual racism and a penchant for rummaging through my bin bags. Now I’ve moved again, and I’m waiting for some domestic horror-bomb to drop. But every nook and cranny compliments my questionable personality perfectly. Its garden encourages contemplation like a perfectly rolled cigarette. Its bathroom has a corner-tub with a ledge for resting the complete works of Bernard Shaw and/or Calvin & Hobbes. Its bedroom captures the sun’s rising rays, gently ushering you to consciousness in the way an alarm clock should but never quite does. It’s the perfect home.However imperfect relatives may be, perfection, however, is relative. Whilst house-hunting I viewed somewhere billed as an artist’s retreat (retreating from the onset of a political atmosphere that will undermine and annihilate the arts, I suppose). I was greeted by a man wearing bright ivy-green, pointy purple shoes and a top hat with goggles. He led me on a tour, passing through a room full of fish-tanks where a man in a wetsuit struggled; a stairwell impasse hosting a slinky-racing tournament; and a man painstakingly making castles out of cakes. Eventually we emerged on a roof terrace where a young woman alternated wheatgrass and alcohol in an attempt to breathe fire more efficiently. As in, to ease her carbon footprint.

I’m not sure if your carbon footprint is of utmost concern when fire-eating’s your career of choice, but it certainly underlined that nothing beats a home for pure drama. You may even find that you’re at your most intriguing when pottering about the house (many drama school exercises play to this fact). Even Hollywood agrees, with Synecdoche, New York, in which a beleaguered theatre director receives an award that allows him to create a live, never-ending theatre production in an abandoned set of flats. Cue shameless rip-off for this week’s proto-venue.

There is a huge building by Rodney Street in Elephant & Castle, still awaiting demolition because a few residents refuse to sell up. Government ministers were vocal about utilizing abandoned, recession-punctured shops for the arts (well, they were when they were still in office), but what about the hundreds of houses and buildings lying unappropriated now? With 2012’s Olympic construction drive there will be many structures in transition. I’m compiling a list of buildings awaiting renovation that might play host to a sort of revolving rep through the under-developed districts of London. The cheerless dénouement of The Cherry Orchard would chime well with the dynamite and diggers outside.

And why didn’t I move in with the purple pointy-shoed fellow? Ah. I just wasn’t artsy enough for them. Touché. –>