Images

Shed

A multi-media theatre piece commission by Théâtre Volière.  Shed is set on the Suffolk Coast, facing mainland Europe at our most eastern point beyond which lay terror, but also hopes for future adventure and a better World.

Shed was originally intended to premiere at The Library Theatre London in  2020, but Lockdown got in the way. Later that year, I performed a showcase at Norwich Arts Centre to a ‘socially distanced’ audience. In 2024 I performed at Ink Festival and Cockpit Theatre London. In March 2025 the show will tour beginning in March with details to be announced.

Jack was born at the exact moment Bolton Wanderer’s first goal hit the West Ham net in the very first Wembley Cup Final.  He loves buses, the sea, hoarding and telling small lies. In the final hour of his life the boundaries between fantasy and reality blur.  He offers up the small downfall of his life; recounts the loss of his father and his bold young evacuee French wife in World War Two.

After her death, Jack retreated into a private constructed world in a shepherd’s hut on the Suffolk coastal marsh. He’s watched over by crows, has the companionship of a mollycoddled butterfly and a spider he doesn’t quite trust.  He finds solace in obsessive ritual and hoarding of totems and keepsakes drawn from  a sometimes imagined life.

My Name is Mercy

To launch a new collection of poetry about Salisbury Hospital’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Oscar winning actress, and patron of The Stars Appeal, Olivia Colman, has read two of the newly commissioned poems. The Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust collection of poems – My Name is Mercy – is inspired by some of the hospital staff’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Olivia Colman reads the poem Fifth Season that is based on a patient’s true story and Nightshift, which has recently been chosen by Poetry Archive Now as one of the poems of 2021.

And here Olivia Coleman reads Night Shift

The Ridge Line read by myself reflects on the very personal experiences of one staff member, Lizzie Swift, and her horse Drum. Film by Harley Shearstone

Care Workers, read three of the Sixteen Sonnets for Care

My reading of Night Shift was selected for inclusion on the Poetry Archive Worldview 2021.

Dr Zeeman’s Catastrophe Machine

This first one has been around a long time, was the title poem of my first full collection (mixed!) and in Boring The Arse Off Young People, and then yet again for the show (but not the book)!  A parody of Ginsberg’s Howl, a re-imagining to the North West of England of the period.  It’s a poem that has opened many a door for me.

A California road trip with my son Sean

 

This is in the book and is the finale to the show, but not a spoiler.  These are the friends at a party that resurrected a memory lost to me for 50 years.

A commission to write on a Tate touring exhibition ‘Family Matters’.I chose to write about Gillian Wearing’s Video piece 2 into 1, the poem is a ‘specular’ no less.

New Stuff / Next Book some time when

Runner Up in The Rialto / RSPB Comp in 2018.

One of a number of poems commissioned by The Soldiers’ Charity for their 75th Anniversary.

 

Not exactly new, but held back for next book.

Boring The Arse Off Young People or similar

 

On my way to winning Episode 13 of Literary Death Match, where I celebrate my ‘sexuality’.

My secret past!

The next few are from the Joy of Six days, filmed at our sold out ADC Theatre performance for Cambridge Wordfest, back in pre-quiff days.  We performed all over UK and even did a short tour of New York venues.

This one is a bit bonkers, produced for the No News anthology, on 90th Anniversary of 18th April 1930, when the BBC announced: “There is no news.” Piano music played for the rest of the 15 minute Bulletin.

Whistle Poems