I wake at 6am do a little admin and bike to South Bank arrive bang on 10.30am, do a little admin – working on confirmations for the show on 9th November. I scoot down to the technical people at The South Bank about setting up a blog for my residency here at the arts centre. Their faces light up but I’m going to have to set it up myself. South Bank Blog.I’ve been in this organisation virtually every day the past three weeks.
I’m meeting Mary King this morning who runs Voicelab at The South Bank. Because of
one thing or another we don’t meet until about 1pm. The one thing or another is that Mary has just returned from giving vocal direction to Kelly Osborne who herself was late. Mary has given voice to the entire cast of Carmen Jones and is a dynamic and strong presence – she’s kinda cool and I’d been wanting to meet for ages.
We scoot up to the sixth floor members bar, drink water and Mary generously shows me her artist in residence approach to the south bank. It is absolutely genius. Mary began in February at The South Bank and the effect of her work, the ripples that she has created, the effect of her approach is terrific and only gathers momentum with each development.
But it is her work process, that of three concentric circles with names like surge
and pulse, that is absolutley off the hook! This is why I am here at the south bank. But because kelly Osborne was late to the rehearsals we are late and behind time and I have to rush which is embaressing because this is such a lush person to engage.
Downstairs I’m meeting the wonderful David Morley. It’s a while since we’ve met – five years at least. He is the highly succesful tv and radio company Above The Title. I have some radio documentary ideas that I think David may be interested in and I get the
chance to introduce him to this wonderful place. His companies associated directors are Clive Anderson and Hardeep Singh Koli. I’d been speaking to Hardeep a little earlier
last month about these ideas. I made a documentary a while ago with David, on The Last Poets and I like him. It’s good to see him. That was the most memorable documentary I ever presented. He’s looking good and tanned and well.
4pm I meet director Daniel Hann and producer Laura Boardman from the company Human Rights Watch. I give them a tour around the building and we sit at the bar. Daniel is director and laura producer of Cries From The Heart an amazing yearly event that was last year at The Royal Court Theatre. They are reviewing Cries From The Heart. It’s
a wise thing to do after five or six years sell out shows at The Globe The Royal Court and other fantastic venues. We run through the event and I wonder if I should actual write a page of feedback rather than reacting in this conversation. Part of my role here is to introduce people to the building and introduce ideas to the organisation which is precisely what I am doing and loving it.
The thing about being here in the day is that I then bike home simultaneaously writing this on my lap top to you – tricky stuf y’know- and when I get home I will spend at least two hours responding to the daily tide of emails. If you don’t put the work in you don’t get to work out. ANd if you don’t work out you get lazy and if you get lazy you miss the essential quality of life and living. Or you could say I am talking bollox which is never a bad thing in the right place.