Paines Plough Blog

As the last one standing in the PP office at 5pm on the day before Christmas eve I thought I’d say one last goodbye to 2011 with a pictoral journey through Paines Plough’s Programme 2011.

Over the past 12 months more than 24,000 people saw one of 11 new plays by 15 different playwrights in one of 39 different places across the UK. Thank you to everyone who contributed, came, saw, enjoyed and supported – we hope to see you in your local theatre in 2012.

It’s nearly Christmas, and we’ve reached the end of another fabulous year at Paines Plough.

Programme 2011 is now complete and we’ve had a brilliant time over the year, working with 15 playwrights, and touring 11 productions to 39 places where 24,868 of you have come to see one of our shows. Thank you to everyone who joined us as we made our way around the UK, we hope you’ve enjoyed our shows.

Here’s a quick round-up of Programme 2011:

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

We started the year with our co-producers Drum Theatre, Plymouth on our spring tour of Mike Bartlett’s LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, which we are delighted won the award for Best New Play at the 2011 Theatre Awards UK last month, and has been shortlisted for Best Regional Production in the upcoming Whatsonstage Awards.

Here are some of the reviews from the tour:

“Bang-on-the-money new play… required viewing.”
★★★★★ The Telegraph

“Devastating precision… peppered with terrific lines and big laughs”
★★★★ The Guardian

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE will return in Programme 2012 in a brand new production at the Royal Court in April. You can book tickets here.

Read the LOVE, LOVE, LOVE blog here.

TINY VOLCANOES

We then returned to the Liverpool Everyman with our co-production of Laurence Wilson’s TINY VOLCANOES, before taking the show on the road for its second national tour.

Here’s what some of you said about the show:

“Wild and exciting, terribly funny”
Audience member, Trowbridge

“Excellent, thoughtful, great performance, please come back to Folkestone”
Audience member, Folkestone

“Very engaging, challenging and entertaining”
Audience member, Harrogate

Read the TINY VOLCANOES blog here.

THE 8TH

In July we hit festival season, and collaborated with Manchester International Festival on THE 8TH by Paul Heaton and Ché Walker, which played for three nights at The Pavilion Theatre and starred Reg E Cathey.

Have a look at some production shots from the show.

Read THE 8TH blog here.

WASTED

Later in July we braved the rain and took to the muddy fields of the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, where we premiered WASTED by Kate Tempest alongside our co-producers Birmingham Repertory Theatre and The Roundhouse, and our friends at NSDF.

We’re touring WASTED in spring 2012 and will be announcing dates in the new year. Keep an eye on our website for updates, and in the mean time check out our production shots from Latitude here, and watch our online trailer here.

Read the WASTED blog here.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT

The second half of the year saw us tour three new plays in co-production with Òran Mór in Glasgow, in our A Play, A Pie and A Pint season. We opened the season with DIG by Katie Douglas, which was followed by YOU CANNOT GO FORWARD FROM WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW by David Watson, and JUICY FRUITS by Leo Butler.

Here are some reviews on each of the plays:

DIG
“Devastatingly effective”
★★★★ Edinburgh Evening News

YOU CANNOT GO FORWARD FROM WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW
“Funny, intelligent, observant”
★★★★ Edinburgh Guide

JUICY FRUITS
“Brilliantly witty, acerbic and dark…”
★★★★ The Public Reviews

Read the A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT blog here.

THE ROUNDABOUT SEASON

In October, we opened the first ever Roundabout Season in partnership with Sheffield Theatres. The season consisted of three new plays, performed by an ensemble cast in our prototype Roundabout Auditorium which lived in the Crucible Studio for two months. We opened the season with ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG by Nick Payne, followed by LUNGS by Duncan Macmillan and THE SOUND OF HEAVY RAIN by Penelope Skinner.

Here are some Tweets about each of the plays:

@MatthewDPlant: @painesplough @crucibletheatre #OneDayWhenWeWereYoung: stunningly emotive/engaging. Original/ innovative scene changes with costume. BRILL.

@lyngardner: Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs at Sheffield Crucible is fab. Edgy, anxious, very funny, horribly honest and completely now. #stage

@Cory_face: Enjoyed ‘The Sound of Heavy Rain’ by @painesplough + @crucibletheatre brave but silly, consciously stylised and dramatically justified. See!

You can watch a film about The Roundabout Auditorium here, or read more here.

Read the Roundabout blog here.

COME TO WHERE I’M FROM

To close Programme 2011, we staged COME TO WHERE I’M FROM : JERSEY with playwrights Ben Evans, Leon Fleming, Martha MacDonald, Hannah Patterson and Colin Scott performing their own 15 minute pieces inspired by the place they grew up. The event took place at the Jersey Opera House and was part of The Big Room, and organised by the Jersey Arts Trust.

You will soon be able to hear podcasts of the plays on our website. In the mean time, have a listen to some of the podcasts from COME TO WHERE I’M FROM 2010 here.

Read the COME TO WHERE I’M FROM blog here.

So that was the year that was. We’ve had a ball. Bring on 2012.

If you saw any of our shows this year, please post a comment and let us know what you thought.

Woo Whoo! I’ve been asked to write today’s blog and today’s topics will be:

“impenetrable bubbles of life outside time and space, multiple-personality disorders, and the merits of a non-human audience.”

Views from Grosnez

What a week it has been so far. There is something quite incredible about the clarity gained by going somewhere else to write, away from the clutches of daily life and its need to pull your attention away from the work. Being within the same space as other wonderful writers; Hannah, James, Stacey, Ben, Sam, Colin, Robin, Martha, and Matt, to name, well, all of them really, as well as Paines Plough Artistic Directors James and George, could be likened (possibly) to being in the X-Factor house. A buzz of creative energy. Fortunately without an annoying one constantly singing when people just want a bit of peace and quiet. And with the fabulous and eagerly anticipated (by everyone except perhaps the participating writers), COME TO WHERE I’M FROM performance on Saturday at the Jersey Opera House Studio, the X-Factor link is still valid (just) as we have our very own live show.

As one of the “Jersey Five”, invited to spend our days up here in these luxurious surroundings, with these great people and the incredible views of St Aubin’s Bay, I am shocked at how much work I am actually managing to get done. Proof I think of how important it is to be able to remove yourself, for just a little while, from the world and spend time in an impenetrable bubble outside time and space (I knew I’d get it in somewhere) and just write. OK, so it’s not really impenetrable. But it is a space without too many distractions, and I think it’s proving massively beneficial for all of us here.

My only worry is that at some point my urge to read out-loud will overcome me and give away my dark secret. I have a habit of performing my plays to myself, and to my cat when she’s available. I don’t get much more than a strange look and a grumble from her when I stand there reciting my work in a myriad of different voices and accents (which all sound very much like my own), but this is the way I usually write. Is this normal? Some writers are mostly working in their rooms’, so I’m hoping, possibly in vain, that this is a sign that I’m not alone in my habit.

Also, I’m wondering if there are any other kinds of non-human that make a better audience than my cat?

Tomorrow is the last day of the residency, so almost everyone is out for a walk along the coast; it would be a shame to come over here and not see how beautiful and inspiring this island really is.

Sam, James, Matt and Stacey take a cobweb-clearing stroll

As for me, I’m starting to consider how sound-proof the lavatory might be; as I think I might have to give in to my urge to read out-loud. Even without the cat here to give feedback.

This update is coming to you from the pool house. That’s right, I said it: The Pool house. Three days in I’m still getting my head round it. I won’t bang on about how luxurious and grand the Eulah is because that’s just showing off, but staring round my OBSCENELY large and luxurious room, it’s got me thinking about whether or not the location/ environment we write in affects the way/ what we write.

Matt Hartley (L) and James Graham (R) depicted in graffiti form

The five of us all came with different ideas about how we wanted to use the time at our disposal. For some it was finishing off plays, for others it was redrafting and for a couple of us it was to start something from scratch. I was in the start from scratch category. In the last few days we’ve got good at summarising what our plays are about in as few words as possible. So here is what the group are writing about:

Me: Baby stealing.

Sam: Monkeys.

Stacey: Biotechnology.

James: Gypsies.

Robin: Not sure yet.

I’m fascinated to know if this will have changed by the end of the week.

And this is why:

Looking out of my window I am spoilt for views. The sea, the Eulah’s beautiful grounds, the pool, James and Sam typing away in their respective bay windows, and perhaps it’s for these reasons that I’m finding it hard to get into the mindset of people who steal babies. Perhaps if I was looking out of my window back home, at the fence burglars recently broke when ransacking my house [ if anyone has recently been offered a great deal on a Black 58” frame, 24 gear, 2011 Specialized Allez road bike, please let me know ] I would find it easier to write. Is the tone of my piece changing because I am in luxurious surroundings, am I too relaxed to be writing? I look back at plays of mine from the past and I can’t help but notice how my environment at the time affected the plays: a play about siblings when I was living with my brother, a play about coke fueled city kids when I was working in a trendy bar in Angel.

Have I chosen the right play to write whilst I’m here? I don’t know. Time will tell. One thing I can safely say though, is that it won’t be the same play I thought it would be at the start of this week. I would  love to hear from people about whether they think their writing changes when they are in different environments.  Do you go somewhere different to write a certain type of play than you would to others? Do you have to be in control of your environment? Do plays become funny, tender, tougher, larger, smaller etc when you change where you’re working? All thoughts, queries, advice will be greatly appreciated…

Writers writing (electronically)

Anyway, I must crack on as I have a pool party to plan. That’s right George and I [the other pool house resident] are hosting a pool party on Friday night in true Paines Plough style. So far we have Mojito’s, Hip Hop and bathrobes on our list. Are we missing anything? What makes the ultimate pool party? I would say answers on a postcard but Tweet, @painesplough, instead. Ta.

Pool and pool-house - eat your heart out Fresh Prince

It's like this in Jersey even in December, apparently

Next week George and I are packing our bags and heading to the beautiful island of Jersey, accompanied by some of the best of British playwrighting talent.

We’ve been invited by The Jersey Arts Trust and we’re taking writers Robin French, James Graham, Stacey Gregg, Matt Hartley and Samantha Holcroft with us for a week-long residency.

The writers will be writing away under their own steam whilst George and I run some workshops for Jersey actors and writers.

Most excitingly, five playwrights from Jersey will be joining us on the residency, which culminates in our final PP show of 2011 – COME TO WHERE I’M FROM at The Jersey Opera House on Saturday 3 December at 8pm.

Ben Evans, Leon Fleming, Martha MacDonald, Hannah Patterson and Colin Scott will perform their work themselves live on stage.

Last year, we commissioned 61 playwrights to write plays about their home towns in everywhere from Bristol to Belfast, Cardiff to Coventry and Nottingham to Newcastle. Many of those plays are available as free-to-listen podcasts on our website.

We’re delighted to be producing COME TO WHERE I’M FROM in St Helier next week, and we’re hoping to podcast the plays too for those who can’t be there in person. Look out for more COME TO WHERE I’M FROM dates in 2012.

It’s incredibly exciting to be extending our relationship with The Jersey Arts Trust and theatre artists on the Island. Last March, Mike Bartlett and I spent a brilliant weekend working with actors and writers in St Helier and were blown away by the depth of talent we encountered.

We’ve created the residency to forge stronger links between the playwriting communities separated by the Channel. We’re inviting Ben, Leon, Martha, Hannah and Colin over to our gaff every evening to sink some wine, and we’re very much looking forward to lots of dicussions and debates and new friendships.

Rather stupidly George and I have offered to cook for all ten playwrights every night. Any good recipes or large numbers very gratefully received. Any any Jersey tourist tips welcome too.

We’ll keep you posted on our progress from Monday.