In His Own Words



Photo by Marlon Hazlewood

 Robert Winslow, Artistic Director

November 26th, 2010

Ok, my second last week in the UK is coming to an end on this frosty Friday - hey, that used to be one of my mom's favorite expressions - 'it'll be a frosty Friday before I....' - you get the idea.

Britain is having a significant cold snap at the moment with lots of snow (for Britain) in Wales, the north and Scotland. Significant snow is predicted for this area and around London next Tuesday. Daytime highs around 0 and lows around -5 to 10 - pretty cold for England in November. I must say the colder it gets the more I feel like I'm home in Canada. That familiar freezing feeling we all hold so dear to our hearts.

After another day at the Imperial War Museum's research room I met with artistic director Ivan Cutting again on Tuesday and talked about him trying to come over next summer to see one of our shows and keep a dialogue going about developing a show for the UK. Ivan, along with all theatre companies in the UK, is facing applying in January for continuing arts funding from the British Arts Council. All companies, and I mean all, are candidates for having their funding completely cut by the British government as part of the 30% overall public spending cuts. I know in Canada public arts funds are not increasing but they're not (so far) declining either. In the UK some companies, no matter how long in existence - and this covers all the arts - will have their public funding completely eliminated. It is a very trying time here for UK artists. I hope Ivan's company, Eastern Angles, does ok in the funding round as he is a very accomplished artist and a wonderful person to boot who has been promoting regional theatre in East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk) actively for the past 30 years. I hope he comes to Canada and that some of you can meet him.

On Tuesday afternoon I attended the Brick Lane Music Hall Christmas show in the docklands area of East London. One of the performers, Joni Talks (hailing from Peterborough, England), is a relative of two of our enthusiastic members, Jerry and Joan Harding. Joni has a wonderful singing voice and it was really interesting to attend a music hall style show - lots of suggestive, risque humour by the MC comic/actor interspersed with standard Christmas carols. Very interesting. One of the stars of my favorite UK soap opera, East Enders, worked at the Brick Lane in the 1990s and was 'discovered' there by the East Enders director. Peggy Mitchell (the character who owned the Queen Vic pub in the series) never looked back. Fame came to her around the age of 60. Maybe I should hang out at the Brick Lane Music Hall for a year or two!!!!

On Thursday I spent the day at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medecine on Euston Road in London. What an amazing library and collection of works connected to all aspects of the history of medecine. The library itself was very beautiful and conducive to quiet reading and contemplation. My kind of place. While there, I also met Doctor Julie Anderson from the University of Kent in Canterbury. She teaches the history of disability. I was able to quiz her about my emerging play and the scenarios for the characters. She seemed to think that what I was thinking was not too far out of the realm of possibility. She of all things is about to research and write a book about Irish giants - not mythical ones but real ones. She will focus on an Irish giant who went around performing all his life and died in the early 1800s. Anatomists of the day were very keen to disect the giant when he died and followed him around. He retired from the limelight and had himself buried under the foundation of a church in Bristol to prevent dismemberment by anatomists as that would have left a legacy of people thinking he had been a criminal not to mention contravening religious practise of being buried whole. Unfortunately, several years after his death the foundation was dug up for repair and the giant's body was revealed to the nosy public after all. He was apparently over 8 feet tall - this in an age when the average height was just under 5 feet.

And to top off the week - ha ha - last night Janette and I saw The Railway Children, based on a famous children's story, at the former Waterloo Eurostar Station. The audience faced each other on either side of a real sunken train track, on which set platforms moved/glided throughout the play - and there was even the appearance (more than once) of a real antique locomotive from the period of the play (pre World War I Edwardian period). The play was magically-staged and reminded me in parts of our original staging of The Cavan Blazers where one part of the audience faced the other part with the play in alley staging in between. The Railway Children, by Edith Nesbit, contained many themes of people helping people regardless of their poverty or position ( I mean the helpers as well as the helped) and was semi-autobiographical as the writer's father died when she was a child and in the story the children and mother have to move out of London to the north of England when the father is arrested for possible treasonous activities. I imagine many of you have read or at least have heard of the book and Nesbit. It was my first exposure to her work and as I said, the staging was the kind of site-specific work I love and delight in.

We've got our work cut out for us with our Train play in a couple of years!!!

So long for now and I'll check in next Saturday for my final instalment from the UK. God willing I will be back in Millbrook soon to share my stories, walk around the old farm with Janette and Fido, and dream new plays! Thanks for listening. Cheers.

Rob