I write from a delayed train to Bristol, where the tour of I Was Naked, Smelling of Rain opens tomorrow. I directed this show, by the visual artist Aidan Moesby, at ARC last year and it’s easily one of the most enjoyable and satisfying creative experiences I’ve had as a director. Not just because Aidan is a dream collaborator: entirely open to new ideas and entirely clear when he wants to go in a different direction; warmth and generosity do not preclude incisiveness and rigour. Enjoyable and satisfying rather  becaus, the show, which is about loneliness, climate change and mental health, is rich, strange and entirely, assuredly itself.

Aidan’s never made work for performance before, but you’d never know it. I’ve never worked on anything quite like it and I really hope you get to see it. It opens tomorrow night at We The Curious in Bristol: https://www.wethecurious.org/the-box-live-performance
 
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This time last year I was in the midst of my longest lean period in nearly a decade. We’re never immune, as freelancers in this industry, to sudden huge gaps: mine came up when four separate projects were postponed, moved, or cancelled, leaving a yawning gulf in the middle of last year. When the same thing happened ten years ago I was paying off the credit card debt for five years but I’m very fortunate to have, over the past five years, been able to build up a bit of a buffer against this kind of lean patch. Theatre Tax Relief is largely to thank for this availability of just enough reserves to survive.
 
This industry being, as it is, built on feast and famine, a year on and I’m in the midst of perhaps the busiest period of my entire life. Thursday sees the opening of not just I Was Naked, Smelling of Rain, but also 666 Comments: another show which has been immensely satisfying to direct. Totally different to I Was Naked, it stages a comment thread that unravelled beneath a comic strip posted online, about internet misogyny. The thread was a startling demonstration and vindication of everything in the comic. The show, by Aliki Chapple, hurls into the real world the bile and the wildness and the wit and the wisdom of that thread. It’s astonishing, hilarious and at times fucking terrifying.
 
The first performance on the tour of 666 Comments is this Thursday in Havant, Hampshire and then it’s touring all year: https://littlemighty.co.uk/projects-shows/666-comments/

On the subject of feast and famine, we learned that we had the money to re-rehearse and tour 666 Comments about four days before rehearsals were due to start. We’d submitted two applications for about £28000 which, despite being rated “outstanding” in at least one area and “strong” in the others, were nonetheless unsuccessful. So on the last day before the Christmas holiday, bit between my teeth and fully cognisant of the timeline, I radically rewrote the budget and application, and resubmitted at just under £15k. 
 
It could well be argued that cancelling would have made more sense than cutting it back to the bone (in particular including my own fee) and playing chicken with ACE’s assessors in this way. That we didn’t do so is, I think, a triumph of tenacity over orthodox good sense, a triumph of nerve-holding.
 
The rehearsal process, though, was a vindication of the decision to forge ahead. Of course we all got into a mode of imaginatively assigning the time that would be released if the tour didn’t happen. The amount of work I imagined getting done! So when we finally got the money, and had to do all the associated work, it briefly felt almost inconvenient. But. We made this show two years ago. Aliki has been nursing the project for nearly a decade. It’s about time we got it out there. Not least because it is really fucking good. I’m immensely proud of having been a small part of making 666 Comments, I’m really overjoyed that we didn’t cancel, and I really hope you get to see it.
 
And if it was just those two shows, I wouldn’t be going on about how busy I am like the humblebragging motherfucker you know I am. They’re both directed now; I just have to swan in from time to time and offer something that might help keep everyone alive; in lots of ways directing is really relaxing.

​March, though, sees the first two of four choir projects (e.g. http://www.danielbye.co.uk/blog/these-hills-are-ours-a-song-for-roseberry-topping), the filming of those projects to turn into shorts, and the opening of the stage show (http://www.danielbye.co.uk/these-hills-are-ours.html) all part of the These Hills Are Ours project. Between these things there’s quite a lot on my plate. So obviously I write this on a train from Kent, where I ran a marathon this morning. Why?

The week before the 666 Comments rehearsal process, on January 29th, I was scheduled to run 85 miles from my house in Lancaster to the top of Kinder Scout in the Peak District. It’s part of the process of making These Hills Are Ours, so if you really want to know why I’d do something so deeply steeped in folly, you’ll have to come and see the show.
 
Three days before the run was due to take place my baby son caught a vomiting bug. Two days before, my daughter caught it too. That same night so did I, feeling as rough as I’ve ever felt and praying we wouldn’t have to cancel the run. I spent the 28th in bed imagining I was getting better, imagining I was keeping food down, before having to admit that it was hopeless. You can’t run 85 miles if you can’t keep calories down. 
 
A few people told me I was wise to cancel. It wasn’t wise. In the end it was an absolute no-brainer.
 
Instead of running 85 miles, I spent the afternoon of the 28th watching Little Women in the cinema. I felt gradually better. But I couldn't have run, and I was glad to have seen the film. If we hadn’t got the 666 Comments money we’d have postponed the run until February 13th, a delay of two weeks, but I emerged from my Gerwig glow to find we’d got the money. Instead of resting through 666 rehearsals I had to maintain a huge (for me) volume of training in order to minimise the probability of this thing being a total catastrophe. So now it’s 4th March. Next week. 
 
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And because, feast or famine, working in the arts is cruel, next week I’ve also ended up with two job/commission interviews, two thirteen-mile walks as part of planning and delivering this choir/film project, and time in four different towns and cities - not including the ones I’ll run through. Things get moved, and then they get moved again, and then there’s nowhere left to move them to and so they all end up happening at the same time. Feast. Famine.
 
This time last year I was in the middle of the longest lean stretch of the last ten years and so it’s important that I remind myself, from time to time, that although my life is ridiculous it is also extraordinary. I am overworked but I love my work and I thrive on these peak periods. I try in my working practices not to inflict these kinds of demands on anyone else but I am obviously humblebragging like a motherfucker here, of course I’m delighted with my ludicrous feast. I’m a teetotal vegetarian but I’m Henry VIII quaffing chicken drumsticks and gobbling wine.
 
Working like this isn’t sustainable, but if you choose it, it’s a ride. If you choose it. As lead artists, we have to remember that for no-one else on the team is it the culmination of a year or a life’s work. Everyone else has to be enabled to work sensible hours and take sensible breaks. Especially the design team, who go into tech two or three times a month and are expected to work fourteen hour days because the director has been nursing this project for thirteen years and finally got to make it. Just because it's your birthday, don't force feed everyone else.

​Anyway, the marathon this morning went well. Physically, at least, I’m resting now before the long one next week. If you want to follow how that goes, I’ll be carrying a tracker and you can watch a dot moving slowly across a map here: http://live.opentracking.co.uk/thao20/#.
 
The route marked in red on that map is very approximate so don’t be alarmed if you see me veering off it. And I’ll be stopping every ten or fifteen miles to eat, change my shoes, peel off blackened toenails, etc, so don’t be alarmed if there are short stretches of inactivity. There’ll be occasional updates from my account (mostly not from me) via twitter if you want to know more.
 
Scheduled departure time is 3am on Wednesday 4th. The schedule says it’ll take about 24 hours. But it’s twice as far as I’ve ever run, so really, who knows.

SINGERS WANTED
 
We are recruiting singers for a unique choral singing project.
 
On 8th March this year, a group of singers will make their way from the centre of Stockton to the top of Roseberry, singing an original song along the route. The song is being written in response to a series of workshops with members of the community. It’s a celebration of the relationship between Roseberry Topping and the people of Teesside.
 
The song, and the journey, will be documented as one of a series of four short films of similar projects across the country. 
 
KEY DATES:
 
Thursday 20th February – 6-8pm rehearsal, ARC Stockton
Friday 6th March – rehearsal 6-8pm, rehearsal, ARC Stockton
Sunday 8th March – performance day – meet at 9am, ARC Stockton for a final rehearsal before we depart shortly after ten.
 
FAQS:
 
Do I need to be able to cover the whole route?
It’ll be around thirteen miles and we want the experience to be accessible to everyone, so no. We will develop a transport plan that responds to everyone’s needs so that you can join us for as much of the journey as possible, and meet us at points along the way. We would like as many people as possible to join us for the final ascent of Roseberry Topping from the car park. But we don’t want anyone’s individual needs to prevent them from participating in as much of the project as possible. Please get in touch if you have doubts or specific needs.
 
Is there a bad weather plan?
There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. You will certainly need sturdy footwear and given that this is Teesside in March, full body waterproof cover is worth seriously considering.
 
What if I can’t make all the dates?
So long as you can make the performance day and at least one of the rehearsals, you’re welcome.
 
Do I need to be an experienced singer?
No. There’ll be people involved who are very experienced choral singers, and people involved for whom this is their debut at singing in public. All are welcome. And you’ll be in the very safe hands of the fantastic choir leader Beccy Owen.
 
Do I need to be able to read music?
No. We can have the sheet music (“dots”) available for those who need it, but this isn’t how the songs will be taught. And we’ll have demo tracks available to download and/or listen to online, so that you can familiarise yourself with the material between rehearsals.
 
What should I wear?
See “is there a bad weather plan”, above.
 
How long will the performance day take?
We’ll be back down in the warm well before dusk, and perhaps not long after lunch time. But we’ll travel at the speed of the slowest group member and want to ensure everyone who wants to can participate, so this isn’t going to be a race. It also means that we’re reluctant to give a precise time, but we expect to be finished around 5pm. Bring a packed lunch.
 
How do I get there and back?
ARC is here:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/ARC,+Stockton+Arts+Centre/@54.564384,-1.3175837,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x487e92fb7f463fcf:0xb3ecadf4c9c1a485!8m2!3d54.5643809!4d-1.3153897.

It’s in the centre of Stockton, and there’s plentiful parking nearby. It’s also well-served by bus routes to Stockton centre.
 
For the return journey on the day itself, we’ll do a mix of car-pooling and taxiing.
 
If you’re worried about being able to meet travel costs then we can help support your involvement. Just get in touch via the email address below.
 
I’m in! Or, I have more questions!
Email me on danielbye1980@gmail.com to get your name on the list. If you have any other questions, however small, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

With the support of Eden Project North, Lancaster Arts, and More Music, we are recruiting singers for a unique choral singing project.

On 15th March this year, a group of singers will make their way from the Morecambe coast to the top of Clougha Pike, singing an original song along the route. The song is being written in response to a series of workshops with members of the community. It’s a celebration of the relationship between Clougha Pike and the people of Lancaster-Morecambe, and an exploration of themes around land ownership, ecology and freedom.

The song, and the journey, will be documented as one of a series of four short films of similar projects across the country.

KEY DATES:
Thursday 20th February – 7-9pm rehearsal, More Music, Morecambe
Friday 6th March – rehearsal 7-9pm, More Music, Morecambe
Sunday 15th March – performance day – meet at 9am, More Music, Morecambe for a final rehearsal before we head to the stone jetty to start at 10.15am.


FAQS:

Do I need to be able to cover the whole route?
It’ll be around thirteen miles and we want the experience to be accessible to everyone, so no. We will develop a transport plan that responds to everyone’s needs so that you can join us for as much of the journey as possible, and meet us at points along the way. We would like as many people as possible to join us for the final ascent of Clougha from Rigg Lane car park. But we don’t want anyone’s individual needs to prevent them from participating in as much of the project as possible. Please get in touch if you have doubts or specific needs.

Is there a bad weather plan?
There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. You will certainly need sturdy footwear and given that this is Lancashire in March, full body waterproof cover is worth seriously considering.

What if I can’t make all the dates?
So long as you can make the performance day and at least one of the rehearsals, you’re welcome.

Do I need to be an experienced singer?
 No. There’ll be people involved who are very experienced choral singers, and people involved for whom this is their debut at singing in public. All are welcome.

Do I need to be able to read music?
No. We can have the sheet music (“dots”) available for those who need it, but this isn’t how the songs will be taught. And we’ll have demo tracks available to download and/or listen to online, so that you can familiarise yourself with the material between rehearsals.

What should I wear? 
See “is there a bad weather plan”, above.

How long will the performance day take?
We’ll be back down in the warm well before dusk, and perhaps not long after lunch time. But we’ll travel at the speed of the slowest group member and want to ensure everyone who wants to can participate, so this isn’t going to be a race. It also means that we’re reluctant to give a precise time, but we expect to be finished somewhere between 3-5pm. Bring a packed lunch.

How do I get there and back?

More Music is here: https://goo.gl/maps/1GHs8Fci74SKBMyKA. It’s close to bus routes from the centre of Lancaster and Morecambe, and there’s fairly plentiful on-street parking nearby.

For the return journey on the day itself, we’ll do a mix of car-pooling and taxiing.

If you’re worried about being able to meet travel costs then we can help support your involvement. Just get in touch via the email address below.

I’m in! Or, I have more questions!​
Email me on danielbye1980@gmail.com to get your name on the list. If you have any other questions, however small, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Of course I ended 2019 with every intention of doing an end-of-year round-up. I'm not short of thoughts about the bad, the bad, and the ugly of it. Yet here we are on the 14th of January, and what little you might have cared about my favourite show of last year while it was still last year dwindled to nothing with the imaginary rip of a page on an imaginary calendar. And as for what you think about my opinions on the General Election, well, I couldn't even bear to talk about that on twitter.

Anyway, this year I've decided I'd like to be more of a looking forward kind of guy, so instead of dwelling on the past, here's a little round-up of everything I'm up to in the year ahead.

1. With Boff Whalley, I'm creating These Hills Are Ours, a new theatre piece. On the surface of it, it's about running absurd distances up big hills. But really it's about land ownership and our ability to endure. The show opens in London at the fag-end of March, and then from April to June it goes on a very extensive tour of venues the length and breadth of England.

2. As part of the wider These Hills Are Ours project, Boff and I are collaborating with four communities in four corners of England to create choral pieces about their relationship with their local peak. These will be sung on a journey from town to peak, in north Devon, Stockton, Lancaster and London, in March and April. If you fancy joining a choir for one of these, get in touch.

3. Then we're turning these into short films.

4. Funding permitting, we tour 666 Comments this spring and autumn. I love this show. It's a combination of utterly terrifying and fucking hilarious and I really hope you get to see it.

5. I Was Naked, Smelling of Rain gets an outing at We The Curious in Bristol on 27 February (there's currently an installation version in residence there), with a plan for more touring of the full show either later this year or early next. This is one of the more remarkable and unusual collaborations I've ever been part of: it's by the brilliant Aidan Moesby, a visual artist making his performance debut, and it is a really rare and special piece of work.

6. Although I'm not strictly "up to" this, as my work on it's pretty much all done, ​How Does This Politics Thing Work, Then? is touring throughout the year. Find a seven-year-old and get along.

7. I'm collaborating with Sarah Punshon to write and direct a new family Christmas show at the end of the year. It's not been announced yet, so I can't tell you much, but it's Beauty and the Beast. Other people's deadlines being what they are, I'm closer to having a first draft of this than of These Hills Are Ours. It's pretty exciting to be entrusted with something on this scale and writing so far has been a real blast.

8. I'm once again collaborating with second- and third-year students at Lancaster university to create their end-of-year shows. I love doing this. It's invigorating and it's refreshing. It's a trip to the well.

9. Running-wise, the current plan includes three marathons, two ultra races, one ultra-distance challenge and probably an ad hoc bunch of shorter races. The ultra-distance challenge is particularly silly and terrifying, not least because (weather permitting) it's in a fortnight. It's the final piece in the jigsaw for the making of These Hills Are Ours. Follow me on Strava if you want spoilers.

10. Over the last couple of years I've done an increasing amount of ad hoc mentoring, basically whenever someone asks me. Tonight, for example, I've two phone calls with artists and am reading an ACE application for a third. AREN'T I NICE. I'd like to continue being helpful to others in the way others were helpful to me when I was getting started, so please don't be shy about getting in touch. (Somewhat inevitably, those who aren't shy about getting in touch tend towards the white and the male, so in particular, please don't be shy about getting in touch if you don't look like me.)

11. Isn't that enough?

12. There's room for one more writing project. Get in touch if that's for you.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Film-Maker(s) Wanted
 
In four locations, we have been working with community groups to explore the relationship between the people of that place and the peak that overlooks it. Out of this work we are writing four songs, one for each place.
 
The songs will be sung by choirs made up of the local community, at several stages on a journey from the centre of the town to the top of the peak. We want to turn these journeys, and these songs, into short films.
 
It’s part adventure film, part music video. We don’t think there’s anything else quite like it. We’re eager to hear from film-makers who are as excited by the project as we are.
 
The project has been commissioned by Beaford, Eden Project North, Lancaster Arts and Shoreditch Town Hall, and is produced by ARC Stockton.
 
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We anticipate a relatively small crew, with highly portable equipment. While we do not imagine it is necessary for the whole crew to accompany us on the whole journey, there will be some unavoidable rough and steep terrain on most if not all journeys. A recce day before each shoot will identify locations for filming to take place.
 
The journeys are currently scheduled to take place as follows:
 
1 March – Devon (destination tbc)
8 March – Stockton to Roseberry Topping
15 March – Morecambe to Clougha Pike
4 April – London (destination tbc)
 
We anticipate the films being approximately 5-8 minutes in length. They should all be complete by the end of April, after which they will be published online and exhibited in theatres and galleries alongside the tour of our theatre piece on the same themes.
 
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We would like to receive proposals from film-makers or teams who would like to take on all four films, and also from teams who identify one with which they have a particular connection. Please tell us about the approach you would take to filming, including an outline of crew and equipment. Stylistic references, including but not limited to your own work, would be particularly welcome. We are happy to receive proposals in any format. Written proposals should be no more than three A4 pages and filmed proposals no more than five minutes.
 
We have a budget of £6500, in total, across all four projects. This includes the filming days indicated above, a recce or planning day in advance of each (we’d only expect the director/project lead at this, not necessarily the whole crew), and editing. It should also cover all expenses any equipment hire. Please send us a breakdown of how you would apportion this budget.

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Send proposals by email to danielbye1980@gmail.com by Tuesday 14th January. We will aim to shortlist and be in touch with all candidates within a week. Shortlisted candidates may be invited to an informal interview, which is likely to take place via skype or similar.
 
If you have any questions or require any further information, please get in touch at the same address.

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UPDATE - FAQS

We've had an overwhelming volume of interest in this project, so I'm updating this post with some of the questions we've been asked most often.

FAQs
 
Could you tell me a bit more about the structure of the films/songs?
 
Each of the four will have a slightly different structure, but let’s start with what they have in common. In each case the song will be about the relationship between the town/city and its peak, and will be sung by a choir from that place. It’ll be sung by them on a journey from the town/city to the peak. The film will be of that journey.
 
We expect footage will be taken at various stages of the journey - we don’t expect the film crew to lug equipment the whole way along with us – the journeys will be at least ten miles. On recce days we can determine the best locations for filming, and locate these as close as possible to roads. The obvious exception here is on the final uphill stretch, where we do need you to accompany us. Lightweight equipment will be an advantage!

In at least one case the main journey may be made by a smaller group, with the choir only singing at the beginning and end of the journey. In at least one case the choir may be runners rather than walkers. Still, in all cases, the choir singing the song will be the soundtrack to the film – hence the reference to music video in the initial callout.
 
It is likely that the structure of the journey and the song will themselves dictate to a large extent the structure of the film. We want you to be responsive to these, but we don’t want you to be shy of making strong suggestions – the fact that the songs are themselves works-in-progress gives you a clear opportunity to contribute to this as a full collaborator. 
 
The most important thing, though, for you to get across to us at this stage, is a sense of your instincts in relation to your stylistic approach to the material.
 
Can you share the songs with me?
 
We’re still in the process of writing the songs, with the communities involved. So we’ve nothing to share yet. But to give you some idea, there’s documentation of some of our previous projects on this page here – of the projects covered on that page, musically we expect to be in the world of Wonderstruck and We’re Here.
 
What is the budget expected to cover?
 
Basically it should cover all aspects of your work on the project. Fees for you and any collaborators you bring on board. Any equipment hire necessary. Travel and accommodation. You are not expected to cover any of the costs involved in creating the project in the first place – getting the community from A to B is not your responsibility; you just have to film them doing it.
 
We’re aware that the budget is not massive. We’re not expecting helicopter shots.
 
Will all the sound be recorded live?
 
We hope to be able to record the choir in rehearsal too, in order to have some backup sound. We have a couple of options in mind for how best to ensure tempo and pitching are matched. We'll welcome your suggestions on this. Boff’s also pretty good at this stuff and can if necessary lead on recording the rehearsal. He'll also want to have some input to the final sound mix. We do, though, need you to capture sound live and will be very open to your suggestions about the best approach to getting good quality sound - without denying that the wild card of nature is in play.
 
Is the schedule set for the filming days?
 
Not yet, but here's a very rough outline. We expect to gather singers for a final rehearsal fairly early in the morning – around 9am. The journey will begin around 10am. We expect it to take several hours. Sunset, though, will be a hard deadline. In March it’ll start getting dusky around 5pm.
 
Is there a bad weather plan?
 
There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.
 
Is there room for spoken text in the form of interviews with choir members and/or creative team?
 
This wasn’t part of the initial idea, but we’re definitely open to it.
 
Is the idea for the films to be more “documentary” or more “artistic”?
 
First off, I’m not totally sure I accept the distinction. But the impulse behind the various people asking this question seems to be about content as much as tone – are we looking to explain the story behind the whole journey, or do we want the songs and journeys to stand alone? We’re totally open on this. But even if it’s the latter, it could potentially be done very lightly, with a bit of opening on-screen text, leaving the rest of the material to speak for itself.
 
Are drone shots a must?
 
No. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’d be great. But other approaches are possible.

This photo was taken by the brilliant Casey Orr as a publicity shot for These Hills Are Ours, but as November rolls into December, it sums up how I'm feeling at the year's end. Exhausted, beaten up and ready for a rest, I've had two colds in three weeks and I keep getting minor injuries. And after two weeks off for Christmas, it doesn't get any quieter, so in a desperate attempt to remove stresses from my life, I decided to quit drinking until my birthday in June. I feel much better for that, but I'm still knackered.

On Sunday I'm meant to be running a half marathon. My training has been a joke but running isn't one of the stressors that I can easily remove from my life. Partly because it's a relaxant and a depressuriser, but mostly because the show Boff and I are making requires us both to be fit. And at least I'm better off than him. He's got a broken toe.

The show itself doesn't need any special fitness. We'll mostly be sitting down. It's what surrounds the show, and what we're doing in preparation for it, that's alarming. The morning after the final show at each venue we're going to lead anyone who wants to join us in a run escaping their town or city to the nearest high or wild place. This will be easy enough in, say, Lancaster, where Clougha Pike is less than six miles from the theatre. But in London it'll be more like a marathon. And then we'll have to get back.

And these will all be parkruns compared to the set-piece story we're planning to tell at the end of the show, for which we've somehow decided I'm going to run a route of approximately eighty-five miles, over the Forest of Bowland, Pendle Hill and a stretch of the Pennine Way. To say any more would be spoilers, but I mean, holy shit. I'm in decent shape at the moment, but relying a bit too heavily on the Christmas break to provide a miracle rest cure.

Boff and I are in Stockton at the moment doing a few days writing and thinking around the project. It's an amazingly easy collaboration. We tell each other what we think about what the other is doing, take each other's notes, and move on. I've rarely been in a room with less ego. If I'd had a top ten single and run a 31-minute 10K I'm pretty sure I'd be all ego. Not Boff. (When first getting to know him I was never overawed by his rock 'n' roll past, but when I round out his 10K time I was struck dumb by the sense of being in the presence of greatness.)

Last night we ran a workshop on another aspect of the project. In four places (Lancaster/Morecambe, Stockton, London and north Devon) we're creating a choral piece about the journey from that place to its nearest peak or refuge. As if we didn't have enough to do with the show, we're also turning these choral pieces into films, and three of these films will have been shot before the show opens. So yesterday evening a group of people came together to think and talk with us about Roseberry Topping, the Matterhorn of Teesside. It was a real pleasure and confirms again the huge enthusiasm for the ideas behind this show we're amazed to find shared by so many others.

Because at root this isn't a show about running. It's a show about our freedom to roam in incredible places, and a tribute to the people who won us that freedom. Running is simply our way of celebrating their victory.

I've entirely overhauled my working process and it's been transformative, but the major casualty has been this blog.

If you work in the arts - I'm sure it's true in other fields too - it's expected that you'll answer any email that comes in, day or night, more-or-less immediately. I've lost count of the number of times I've received something late morning asking for an URGENT response by 4pm the same day. This is usually a deadline that could have been predicted much further in advance. But because of these occasional alarms we've all learned to be tethered to our inboxes, just in case.

Having been in rehearsals is an acceptable excuse for leaving something a few days but no longer. Having been in Edinburgh for the Festival is tolerable only because everyone else is there failing to reply to email. Having a script to write or a show to imagine: absolutely not. It would be easy to forget that this last part is my actual job, not answering emails. At various times over the past few years I've become convinced that my real job is answering emails, and making art is a hobby I squeeze into the gaps.

Not any more. I've been in more-or-less full-time rehearsal since early September, and I have a show to write and a major project to design. I also have the kids all day Monday, and when Sarah's in full-time rehearsals, as she is now, all day Tuesday too. My working days are precious, and they're for making my work.

Here's a list of things I no longer do during the working day:
- answer emails
- write funding applications
- write copy
- update websites
- anything to do with budgets
- and you know, all that sort of thing

The kids are asleep by shortly after 7pm. I tidy up the mess from dinner, clear up the kitchen, and sit down for an hour or two to do admin.

I'm convinced it has made me more efficient with my time.

I can focus on 1-2 tasks maximum, plus a bit of inbox maintenance. I don't have time to so much as glance at twitter, and I don't want to, because as soon as I'm finished the task to my satisfaction, I can read a book. In the past couple of weeks I've got round to doing some things I've been putting off since June or July.

If I watch a show or have a phone call or something, it eats into this time. The week before last I was in tech, so it was gone entirely. But that's no different to usual when opening a show.

It's not for everyone. Some people simply don't want to work in the evening: I get it - until September this year I was one of you. And some people already work in the evening. And some people are unable to work in the evening. This is also get, again for similar reasons.

The key thing, though, is putting tasks in boxes that appear too small. Work expands to fill the time available. Even if you don't finish something, it's amazing how much headway you can make with it in two hours.

More to the point, my days are free to do my actual job.

Maybe at some point I'll migrate these evening sessions back into the daytime. Late afternoon maybe. A 3pm deadline for creative work in order to do the other stuff. But for the time being, there's just too much to do by day, and I'm enjoying it all the more for having a clear head.

​RECOMMEND.

When things collapse, it can feel like they’ve been teetering for a long time, but the final crumbling usually comes quickly. I think we’ve finally reached that tipping point with the Edinburgh Fringe.
 
People have been saying the Fringe is unsustainable for years now, and yet it’s gone on not only sustaining itself, but posting bigger numbers in every column year on year. Round about this time every year we usually see the news that once again audience numbers are up on all previous years. 
 
That’s not going to happen this year. We’re yet to see any hard data but reports that audience numbers have dropped are rife. It’s hard for me to say from my own show, because it’s an incredibly limited capacity so it sold out reasonably quickly. But looking around, that seems right. It's somehow quieter around Summerhall and the Pleasance Courtyard. Comedians who've had a steady, consistent audience for several years (this barely ever happens in theatre) are seeing a steady, consistent, smaller audience this year. There are of course hit shows selling out. But you can get tickets for things you wouldn’t expect.
 
The reason is easily identified. Accommodation costs have gone up about 35-40% this year. That sounds like such a ridiculous increase on already ridiculous costs that it can’t possibly be true. But it is. Our three-bedroom flat this year costs £1500 more than the one I was in two years ago. A change in Scottish tenancy laws gave more power to the tenants over their departure dates - a good thing - but led to the unintended consequence of far fewer properties available for the month of August. The resulting squeeze in supply of course created higher demand, and - who'd have thought it! - landlords were emboldened to considerably increase their already sky-high prices.
 
People who’d already made plans to bring shows up to the Fringe had no choice but to find ways of weathering these increased costs. Audiences are in no such corral. Those who usually come for a fortnight have come for a week; those who usually come for a week have come for three nights; those who usually come for a couple of nights often haven’t bothered at all.
 
Journalists and promoters have also found it harder to get up and see as much work as they might usually. There’s been less press covering the festival this year, and there’ve been fewer promoters shopping for shows for their venue. In some ways this is worse for artists than the drop in audience numbers: many are at the Fringe in order to sell a tour, impossible without some decent reviews and a good number of programmers.
 
Everyone already knows that you’re guaranteed to lose a packet at the Edinburgh Fringe. The size of that packet has increased, even if you already budgeted on a conservative box office assumption. In the past, a sufficient number of artists have assessed that risk and considered it a worthwhile investment in the potential future life of the show.

This is without even beginning to address the huge barriers to access created by the necessity of this assessment, and the position of privilege enjoyed by those who are in a position to make it. I don't want to suggest that I think up until now things have been rosy: clearly not. It's been impossible for a lot of people for a long time; it's in the process of becoming impossible for many more too. And even to those for whom it remains possible, will it continue to be worthwhile? Losing an increasingly large packet might make sense if you've got one to lose, so long as you can book a tour off it. If you can't even do that, why bother?

Don’t be surprised if next year show numbers are down with audience numbers. The feedback loop that kept it all growing year on year will work the other way too, and the air could go out of the balloon very quickly indeed.

-

​It seems churlish to be writing this towards the end of a successful Edinburgh run. In fact, in lots of ways this Fringe has been a lot less stressful for me than ever before. My show doesn’t have a venue: I take it to the home of whoever books it, with capacity determined by the size of your living room. So although I’m doing two shows a day, that’s still less than 500 tickets to sell across the course of the run, far less than I’ve sold in any Fringe run for over a decade. With that release of pressure on box office comes a release of pressure on reviews: it’s lovely if they’re positive, but my pocket doesn’t so keenly feel the need for them. And the show’s not going to tour, so I’m not worried about promoters either. It makes me wonder why I'm here at all.

This show exists because of a slightly ridiculous concatenation of circumstances and has been made quite quickly as a result. I had four other projects, all of which moved out of this summer in the course of two catastrophic weeks in March. Suddenly I had five empty months ahead. I had a bit of producing and project planning to do on other upcoming projects, and a lot of applications to write. But there were no project budgets from which to pay for that work.

Over the past seven or eight years, the theatre company that bears my name has built up a small reserve. This is mostly from theatre tax relief claims, along with a couple of budget underspends or better-than-projected box office. In theory that money's there in order to be able to put some of it into grant applications as match funding, but it's also there for when the day gets very rainy: if I have no other paid work, it means I can continue e.g. writing grant applications as might be the case if I were AD at an NPO (albeit on a much lower salary).

(As an independent artist this is a position of extraordinary privilege and I've used as much of this time as I can to support the work of younger and emerging artists - over the past five months this averages out at a little over half a day a week.)

(I'm also concerned that the weather front we're currently facing mean there'll be more rainy days ahead than not, and there isn't much of this money left.)

The project producing, grant applications, and so on, were going to amount to at most a couple of days a week. And meanwhile, with a lot of creative projects delayed, some indefinitely, I was feeling a bit frustrated. So, shortly after 10am one morning in early April I said to my wife, I could just make a new solo show on a shoestring and take it to Edinburgh. She said, what about that idea we had about a home show with Dot when she was a baby? We could make that with Arthur. So we had a look at the Fringe website to find out the registration deadline. Answer: 5pm that day. Game on.

We wrote a budget for a show that had no venue costs, no flyers and no posters. Apart from our time, our costs were someone to do PR, about £50 in props, a couple of train fares, and thousands of pounds in Edinburgh accommodation. For the budget to balance, we needed to sell 70%, and although we had fewer of the usual methods available for trying to make those sales, that figure still represented far fewer tickets than I'd usually expect to sell. It felt worth the risk.

Why it felt worth the risk, I'm still not sure. This Edinburgh run hasn't been an investment in future touring. We just did it for us, just because we wanted to make this show. Its success has been unnecessary. It's been an exercise in lightness, in intrinsic over extrinsic motivations. I'll reflect further on the show itself when the run's over: although it's gone well there have been some absolute shockers along the way. But on the whole, this month has disproved the theory that artists need a gun to their head in order to do good work.

-

​The format of the show has also inadvertently resulted in me being much more able to remain outside the Fringe bubble. I’m not tied to a venue and we have no flyers or posters. And I spend a lot of time being welcomed into people’s homes in parts of the city I previously knew barely or not at all. Escaping the orbit of the big venues feels like freedom, even when I’m escaping to do a show. It's been even better when I'm escaping for a run.

I've said before that I'm mystified by runners who come up for the Festival and then do all their running round and round the Meadows. I mean, you do you, and if you're enjoying yourself I have no wish to dissuade you. But I'd go mad. There are so many great places to run in this city and almost all of them (with the exception of Arthur's Seat) are an escape from the melee. I've done most of my running over the past week in the woods around the Hermitage of Braid and Blackford Hill. This is closer to Marchmont than is Holyrood Park, but I'm yet to meet a festivalgoer who's even heard of it, let alone been there. Craiglockhart and Braid Hills are barely any further, but if anyone's heard of either it's because of Siegfried Sassoon and again, most wouldn't know it's even in Edinburgh.

There are loads of these green hilly places, so this is a great city in which to be a runner, and last week was the heaviest training week I've ever had. Sixty miles, 10,500 feet of climbing and that's without counting the innumerable miles traipsing round Edinburgh carrying a baby. The endurance athlete Ian Sharman is a huge advocate of weight-vest hiking as training for ultra runners and I've thought about that a lot during long walks to shows in Leith: I'm exhausted by this festival, as always, but everything about it is good training. According to my phone, my average step count for the month of August is just over 30,000. In March I ran a good 10K; since then I've run a marathon, a trail ultra and a long fell race and not been well-trained for any of them. Next weekend I run another trail ultra and for the first time since March I feel ready.

I do need to catch up on some sleep, though.

-

​In the spring of next year Boff and I will premiere These Hills Are Ours and there's an open debate about whether we bring it to Edinburgh. It feels like a good Edinburgh show for loads of reasons but my current inclination towards is obviously emotional: I've had a lovely time this year, and I want more of the same. That is utter foolishness. I don't want to be the last artist in Edinburgh when the Fringe finally collapses. It's become, for most, and under the normal circumstances to which I'd be returning, a sort of nightmare vision of itself. Still, it's been a big part of my life and I think I'll miss it when it's gone.

​At the end of Wild Conference on Friday, I went for a run around Temple Newsam woods, and while I was out some good funding news landed. I’ve written a bit over the past few months about feeling like it’s been tougher than usual this year, but still, I was astonished by the sense of relief. I could have wept.
 
Relief is a huge part of our industry, which is constructed around gradually mounting pressure to an extent that is so obviously unhealthy I hardly need talk about it. A few years ago I spent a couple of weeks with agonising toothache, at one point so bad that I had to pull over at the side of the road because I couldn’t drive safely for the pain. Having a woman pull it out with a pair of pliers was a horrendous experience, but I have never felt such a rush of relief. I walked out of the dentists and astonished myself by bursting into tears. I had to have a sit down. After I’d recovered I thought, this feeling is what I used to get at the end of the Edinburgh Fringe.

Wild Conference itself was a relief, too. There's so much that's unhealthy about the way our industry is structured, and a big part of that is the way we talk to each other. Yet here were 500 people in a field, cooking lunch together and talking about the things that mattered in a way that was healthy and constructive. Be kind. Be useful. It's a relief to think that there is at least 500 people's worth of good faith in our industry.

​-
 
Lots of people have been posting their self-care tips ahead of the Edinburgh Fringe next month. (Victoria Firth’s are good) But they all add up to one key thing: do everything you can to avoid letting the pressure build to the extent that having a tooth pulled would be an improvement. Catch yourself before you start repeatedly hitting refresh on the Scotsman website. This is not a good mental place to be.
 
I’m not going to add to the tsunami of advice for your self-care routine during your run on the Fringe. Instead I’m going to play to form and talk about running. The main thing that stopped me from mentally disintegrating when I was last at the Festival (Instructions for Border Crossing, 2017) as compared to the time before (Going Viral, 2015) had nothing to do with whether the show was going well. It was running. I know that doctors often patronise people with mental illness by suggesting they go for a run, and I know very well that it’s not as simple as that. BUT. Getting out of the melee and into the green, at whatever speed, is vital to reminding you there’s a world out there. You don’t have to watch every show. The Royal Dick will not miss you for an hour. You cannot affect your show's success every minute of every day.
 
Most of the people you know will be spotted running round and round The Meadows like hyperventilating goldfish. This is fine, especially if you’re doing some interval work, and I’m sure you’ll catch me at it at some point. But lots of people decide that in the free time they imagine having during the festival, they’ll take up running, and going round and round the Meadows is the perfect way to get bored out of this resolution. So here are a few more diverting possibilities.
 
There are loads of routes around Holyrood Park. The views are way better than the meadows and a full loop is only about five miles, so most days you’ll only need to go round once. If you fancy a bit of hill work, also in Holyrood Park is Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags. Arthur’s Seat is like a motorway during the Festival, so I’d suggest you mostly stick to the Crags. The panoramic views out to sea and across Edinburgh to the Pentlands are stunning, and give you a chance to get your breath back. And unlike Arthur’s Seat there’s a nice longish ridge line that’s lovely and runnable. Do Arthur’s Seat once though; it is a great workout.
 
For a slightly longer run, carry on through Holyrood Park along Duddingston Road down to the sea at Portobello. Then turn right and run along the coast for a couple of miles before turning right again at the Booker Wholesale warehouse to run back into town along Brunstane Burn. The whole loop is about fourteen miles and most of it is off-road.
 
Whether in whole or in part, check out the route of the Seven Hills of Edinburgh. All seven hills – Calton Hill, Castle Hill, Corstorphine Hill, Craiglockart Hill, Braid Hill, Blackford Hill and Arthur’s Seat – provide fantastic views of the city, and even the most adventurous of Festival goers has rarely been up as many as three of them. But they’re all easy to reach from wherever you are, and they’re all set in pockets of green space that I'll be exploring a lot more this Festival. Two years ago I was lucky enough to be taken round the whole loop by David Greig. I won’t remember his route exactly and will make some poor choices on the way, but I would very much like to pass on this gift to someone else. Let me know if that's you.
 
Finally, just outside Edinburgh, bigger and more imposing than anything in the city itself, are the Pentland Hills. You can get to the foothills via public transport, or indeed on foot: Hillend is only about five miles from the meadows. Once you’re there, you might just fancy getting up one peak. But I’m in training for a big race at the end of August, so my last long run during the Festival will be the route of the Pentland Skyline race. It’s about sixteen miles, with over 6000 feet of ascent, plus the round trip. Let me know if you want in.
 
I’d be very surprised if anyone accepted that last invitation. But if anyone wants to join me for a morning shakeout during the Festival, let me know. Wednesday is long run day for me, but apart from that, I’ll mostly be doing a gentle 5-7 miles each morning, with maybe one harder session on Saturday or Sunday. Company is very welcome, especially if it gets you running somewhere you wouldn’t otherwise have explored, and even more so if it helps release a bit of the pressure.

​-

​Race Report: Lakeland Trails 55K
​Saturday 29 June
 
The numbers on my watch no longer make sense. I can’t be doing 34-minute-mile pace; this bit’s downhill. But nor can I be doing 7:30 pace. It’s a long time since my legs felt fresh enough for that. Then my scrambled brain puts this in some sort of order: I’m not doing a 34-minute mile: I’ve run 34 miles. I’m not doing a 7:30 mile: I’ve been running for seven and a half hours. Numbers on this scale are so unfamiliar that I can’t make sense of them.
 
The good news is that 34 miles means the finish can’t be far. This is a 55km race, which is just over 34 miles, so the finish can’t be far. It definitely can’t be far. Except it doesn’t feel like we’re coming into Ambleside yet.
 
I’ve slowed down substantially by this point, but I’m still going. At the half marathon distance I noticed that I was starting to feel tired; at the marathon distance I didn’t notice anything apart from my legs and the heat. My run by now was a shuffle. Even the slightest uphill was a walk. But here’s a dirty secret. On the uphills, most ultra-runners “power-hike”. This is a euphemism, and it means “walk”. So although I’ve slowed down, so has everyone else.
 
Success in marathons comes to people who sustain their speed, or perhaps even get slightly faster as the race goes on. Success in ultras comes to those who slow down the least. Given how much I’d slowed down, how battered I felt, I was amazed every time I passed someone, but it still kept happening. During the whole second half of the race, only three people passed me, and I took two of them back again soon afterwards. I kept drawing level with people expecting them to pull away, only to find I was leaving them behind. 
 
For the first ten or twelve miles plenty of people had been passing me on the uphills and I let them go. I was trying to take it really conservatively. Trying, but not entirely succeeding: on the downhills I was taking them all back, plus a couple more, because what’s the fun of a race like this if you can’t enjoy the downhills? A little voice in my head occasionally told me that I’d regret blowing my quads to pieces by blazing all the downhills. I let that slow me down a touch, maybe, but if you brake too hard it just makes the quads do more work. This is my first ultra. Might as well have a spectacular detonation and see what that’s like. It’s all experience. 
 
But despite slowing down, that detonation never came. One of the remarkable things about this experience was that, however hard it was, and it was hard, it never occurred to me to doubt that I’d get round. At one point I remembered Hayley Carruthers at the London Marathon earlier this year, collapsing as she crossed the finish line and coming round an hour or so later uncertain of whether she’d finished (she did). That’s going to be me, I thought, as I felt myself get woozier and wobblier. The heat was the worst part. Last Saturday was the hottest day of the year so far, with the kind of humidity where you can’t tell where your sweat stops and the air begins. Whenever we crossed a stream or passed a tarn I would fill my hat with water and put it back on my head. The bliss lasted at most thirty seconds before I started to bake again. But it never got grim enough for me to doubt I’d at least make the finish before keeling over.
 
But the thing with a race being a different length to advertised is that you don’t know when the finish line will come. Maybe it will be just around the next bend. Maybe it will be another five miles. OK. Make your peace with that. So when I turned the corner and saw the finish funnel, I had a strange mixture of delight and disappointment. Disappointment because although I have no desire to collapse over the line, I want to know what it’s like to push through the sense that it’s impossible to continue. But I could have kept going. If this was about finding my limits, I hadn’t quite done that. I went from “I can barely take another step” to “my big race at the end of August is only another eight miles: EASY” before I’d even crossed the line. 
 
The delight took precedence though. At the end of my last marathon, about twenty people crossed the line around the same time, some charging, some shuffling, all running their separate individual races. The finish was lined with people cheering seemingly at random. It didn’t make any sense, and crossing the line wasn’t a particularly satisfying feeling. On Saturday, during the course of seven and a half hours, the field was sufficiently spread out that there were no other runners within a couple of minutes. So the cheers at the finish were all mine and it is definitely the best feeling I’ve ever had at the end of a race, however well I’ve run. The announcer on the PA: “runner 635 coming down the final straight now, Daniel Bye from Lancaster, with a huge smile on his face…”
 
Some of that was relief. I’ve done it. The tooth is out. And again, I could have cried. As I came round that last bend, running with a bit of purpose now, a woman joked that I was going to win the race. I guessed I was about 50th, pretty respectable but I’d certainly had to work for it. Two days later I learned I was 23rd, out of about 360 finishers. I’d had no idea I was so far up the field.

​I had a couple of hours astonished delight before I learned my result from the Clougha Pike fell race the weekend before: 48th out of about 170. The field in a fell race is much tougher. Fell running is more challenging physically and mentally. My astonished delight is now long gone as I contemplate this weekend’s race. Though shorter, this will be much, much harder than last weekend’s race. The terrain is way rougher. And steeper: despite being 14 miles shorter there’s an extra 3000 feet of climbing. That’s roughly the height of Scafell Pike, which funnily enough the race goes over about two miles from the end. And of course, being a fell race, you have to navigate your own way around. I did a recce of some of the course two days ago: visibility was appalling and although I was never lost, at no point was I on the best line, or even a good line. My strava track looks as though I must have been drunk and if visibility isn’t a little better on Saturday I’ll go from 23/360 to DNF. I’m obsessively checking the weather forecast for Wasdale, and reminding myself of dark places I’ve been in during Edinburgh Festivals passim.
 
Relief comes, I think, not just when a physical threat has passed, but when a threat to your sense of self has passed. Good reviews are causes not for celebration but relief: the world, or the bit of it that I’m giving prominence today, continues to endorse my sense of myself as someone who is capable of doing this job for a living. Crossing a finish line is a physical relief because it’s over, but much more of a mental relief as the runner is able to sustain a sense of themselves as someone who can struggle through this endurance challenge. For some that’s a parkrun, for some it’s 100 miles, but the feeling is the same. Contemplating Wasdale this weekend, for the first time ever before a race, I find myself genuinely afraid that I may not be able to do it.
 
This is exactly where I should be, just as it was right to keep submitting applications over the past few months despite a not-that-unusual-actually run of ill luck. Because not only did that funding come in on Friday, but another bit of good news landed yesterday for the same project. And while I was trying to take that screen grab, another, on a different project. From not knowing if I could afford to leave the house this autumn, my dance card is now full. The relief!

-

​Exhibition of the week: It's actually a few weeks ago now that we went to Abbot Hall art gallery in Kendal. But I didn't get round to writing about it at the time and it’s absolutely the best small gallery I’ve been to in years. We went in the last week of the Refuge: The Art of Belonging exhibition, which unfortunately you've now missed. It gathered work by artists who’d fled Nazi Germany for Britain, perhaps most notably Kurt Schwitters and Lucian Freud. As well as being a display of some fantastic portrait and landscape painting, its curation gently but insistently returned to the theme of what cultural riches refugees have brought to Britain. I may have misremembered this, but I think the B-word may even have been mentioned in some of the interpretation. They were careful not to draw direct parallels between contemporary Britain and 1930s Germany, but they did just enough to say: BE CAREFUL.
 
There are riches elsewhere in the museum too. At first sight I wasn’t particularly taken by any of the room full of George Romney portraits, and but for their brilliant curation I’d have left thinking little of them. But the curation tells a story of Romney’s determination to paint grand landscapes and his need, as a working-class artist, to keep painting commercial portraits to feed himself and his family. He came back home to Kendal and died in poverty, having never achieved his ambition. And what could just be a room full of decent but unremarkable portraits becomes a story about art and the class system, and about a tragic life in the face of that. It becomes a provocation to now. And then you go round and look at the portraits again, knowing that he did one every day with all this pressure telling on every corner of his life, and they appear so much more.
 
On the way out I spotted a small exhibition by a local artist, no more than ten photographs or collages. by the entrance. The images show young people dressed in clothes with a binary-splintering array of gender significations; clothes also designed by the artist. The images are intense, sharp and vibrant, and they put your pigeonholes in a cocktail shaker and get you drunk on the results. Frustratingly, despite every search term combination I can think of, I can't find the artist's name. I've emailed the gallery and will post here when I get a reply.
 
Meanwhile, for kids, there were smocks and berets to dress up in. Dot wandered happily around the Refuge exhibition pointing out her favourite things while dressed in a red beret. She’s decided she likes museums.
 
Small town museums get a bad rep and “local” is often code for “ropey”. This absolutely smashes all that to pieces; it’s a genuinely brilliant little museum. It’s easy to get a bunch of Turners, or a bunch of anything else, and just say, here you go, here’s a load of good pictures. It’s much harder to use those pictures to tell a story about the artist, their world, or the world we live in now. This museum consistently manages to do all three and I can't wait to get back in a couple of weeks for the next exhibition.
 
SPORTS REPORT: As I write Australia are 37/3. Only a mug would bet against England winning the world cup from here, which is a truly terrible thing to say out loud.
 
Fringe Tip of the Week: Drone by Harry Josephine Giles. I saw an earlier version of this two or possibly even four years ago and I still think about it. It’s an extraordinary spoken-word text in which the two meanings of the word drone – the remote bombing device and the anonymous office worker – are smashed together and danced between. As well as playing with the meaning of war in the age of phone bank capitalism, it also gloriously dissolves various binaries of gender into a thick soup. And since I saw it Harry has started singing in a punk band, which has got to lend an extra something to their performance.

Job Update: I mentioned last time that I'd put my money where my mouth is and applied for a job in a theatre building. They invited me for an interview and I did a lot of prep. I was ready, and excited by the possibilities of the position. Then the day before the interview the board stepped in to put the recruitment process on hold. I'm not going to say too much about this, because I have some confidences to honour, but it was another factor in my ongoing feeling that I was banging my head against the dead end of a series of blind alleys. Am I done in this industry? Was that it? Do I have any other skills?

​The day that would have been the interview was the same day I went for that run round Temple Newsam. I don't believe in karma, but I definitely felt I was due a break.
 
Read of the Week: as a sort of Harry Josephine Giles bonus, please read this fantastic essay on their blog, Access Means It’s Not For You. It’s wide-ranging and laser-focused and it’s absolutely full of insight and challenge. I particularly love the analysis, drawn from the work of Sarah Ahmed, of the “non-performative access policy” - a piece of language whose purpose in existing is to do the opposite of what it says. 
 
It reminds me of the ongoing tendency, in the world of theatre to having open meetings on this subject or that subject, or urgent and wide-ranging conversations. I went to a (brilliant) one of these a few weeks ago at which a few courses of action were suggested. The convenor of the session suggested that the next stage was to get some people together to talk more about these courses of action. How about you just do one, I said. Pick one, and do it. It might not work, but then you’ll have something to talk about other than talk. Then you can try a different one. As almost all writers know, a meeting is not action. “The policy makes nothing happen, and sometimes by making a policy, you deliberately stop things from happening.” I’m not, by the way, having a go at the people who convened that (brilliant) meeting. The commitment to talk over action is just so deeply baked in that good people mistake the former for the latter. Get me, writing this on my blog, as if it’s action.

To come back to where we started, Wild Conference felt like a healthy shift in this. The talk felt meaningful. It was making things happen. It was performative.

(The word "performative" has shifted in meaning in popular usage, and this makes me a bit sad. I like that language evolves but sometimes the evolution leaves a gap. "Performative" is now more often used to describe an insincere speech act than one that makes something happen, as in the section above. If this is the way the language goes then so be it, but we'll need a new word that means what performative used to mean. See also "reticent" and "mindful".)
 
Writing Report. Last week was all about structure. Arranging and re-arranging the post-it notes. By the end of the working week I was far from sure I'd got anywhere. The pressure was building, and as often happens at this point in the process, I started to feel that sense of looming dread. Maybe there's no show here after all. Then Sarah brought in a massive new possibility and I re-arranged the post-it notes around that. Did another work-in-progress on Sunday. The work has progressed. The relief!

 
Are you coming to Edinburgh for the festival? Do you have experience looking after children? Would you like to earn £1000?
 
Due to making this show not only my co-star but the whole family will be living in Edinburgh 30 July - 25 August. That includes his mother, who needs to work, and his sister, Dot, aged nearly 3, who needs to play. 
 
We need about 100 hours of someone’s time during the month of August: playing with Dot, taking her to playgrounds, museums and out for picnics. She is super fun and WLTM same.
 
We need 9-12 or 9.30-12.30 every day except Sunday. As well as these key three hours in the morning, we'd also like another approximately 30 hours of afternoons, spread through the Festival at whatever times most suit everyone's show schedules.

We would like if possible to find someone who can do the full period: however if you could only help us for one or more weeks of that time, or if you can do every day except Tuesdays, or whatever, get in touch. It doesn't have to be the same person for the whole Festival; it just needs to be the right people. 
 
We will pay you £10 an hour.

Please send an email here explaining your experience of childcare / playing with 2-3 year olds, when you’d be available, and anything else you think is relevant. Deadline 9am Friday 19th July.
 
Please only apply if you have truly considered the idea of getting up in time to get to Marchmont for 9.30am whilst doing whatever else it is you’re doing at the Festival. We don’t want to add to anyone’s Edinburgh burnout! Hoping this might instead be useful to a young artist.  
 
We’ll arrange Skype or in person chats with shortlisted people - but we’ll get back to everyone.