I travelled to Manchester last night. And from this morning ad all this week I’m  in rehearsals/devising processa t Contact Theatre. The rehearsal/devising process means one must, as both writer and performer submit to the black hole that all creativity comes from.  I do not mean a black hole of depression here. I mean  The dark Matter of it all;  The stuff of life. The stuff many of us spend a lifetime running away from; the place were the possibility of failure is palpable as the possibility of success. The still place that coaxes idea from the darkness. It is hear that I spot a speck in the darkness and as I spot the spinning speck I see another in my peripheral vision gravitating towards it slowly. And then there’s another and it’s sticking to the original spec by now it’s a spinning piece of dust and slowly and painstakingly more of them come out of the blackness and slowly and surely more and more….WHAT IS IT!!  the narrative and character and plot begin to build  with all their colour and texture and pulse and tone and emotion. And then we’re up and running and a landscape builds itself before my eyes. It’s a wonderful wondrous process that starts with me and a spec of idea spinning in darkness.