[I should preface the below by saying that I’ve enjoyed some recent productions of this play in this country, in large part because they get away from some of the bizarre baggage of the British Brechtian tradition. This doesn’t necessarily bring them any closer to Brecht, but at least they get further away from that weird indigestible ersatz Brecht we’ve been fed every so often.]
 
[If I have any thoughts while watching the rest of it, I'll post those too, but this seemed long enough to be going on with]

It's here until Thursday and I recommend watching: www.berliner-ensemble.de/be-on-demand
 
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There's an inherited performance tradition around Brecht in this country, and it is terrified by Brecht. We tend to perform it all heightened manic energy. By contrast, the acting mode in the opening scenes of this production is naturalistic to the point of being laconic. It makes the audience lean in.

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You can hear the silent attention, the ways it’s rewarded by the first big laugh 
(The boy takes after him – But he wasn’t his father – He still takes after him)
 
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Pretty much every English translation puts the first song after this first bit with the two recruiting officers. In this production, it’s the opening. Eilif and Swiss cheese sing it while moving along at a fair lick on the revolve. There’s energy on the stage. There's momentum. So when we focus on two men standing still and talking laconically, there’s already some energy in the room, and the performers don't have to strain at grabbing and holding the audience’s attention.
 
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The Verfremdungseffekte are (at least at this point) not in exaggerated or heightened acting. They’re in structure. Abrupt breaches, interrupted action.
 
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Gestus is not caricature. It’s the gestural action that communicates the situation of individual lives in material political and economic circumstances. Its affect is sometimes not materially different from naturalism; it merely emphasises the fact that character is not innate, but is formed by material circumstance. This means that we do not communicate character, we communicate circumstance.
 
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To put it another way, in terms of the world outside ourselves, we are nothing but what we do.
 
There’s no need for theatre to communicate someone’s true essence, even if that were possible; even if it were a thing. What theatre communicates is the network of relationships between people trapped together in a net of circumstance.
 
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Starting in that heightened way as British Brecht does leaves the opening scene’s confrontation between Courage and the recruiting officer nowhere to go. But the tension, the (yes) drama in this scene in Brecht’s production goes way beyond anything I’ve seen in English.
 
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The idea that Brecht is opposed to dramatic tension is one of the most ridiculous misconceptions of the English theatre. Every scene has it. It’s just that every scene builds its own, rather than borrowing from the previous scene. It builds its own and then jettisons it, and repeatedly gives the viewer space to consider how these scenes relate to one another. The relationship is not purely narrative, but sociological.
 
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The closest thing to Brechtian work anyone’s produced in the past twenty years is The Wire.
 
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The end of the opening scene, where Eilif is led off by the recruiting officer while Courage sells the sergeant a belt, is electric. The audience sees everything unfolding while Courage strikes her bargain and the result is devastating, tension through the roof. You can hear the silence in the auditorium. A minute or two later when the scene ends and is replaced by the captions introducing the next scene, the theatre is asplutter with coughing as the tension drains from the room. In the British theatre, and this is certainly true of me too, we’re addicted to maintaining that tension. This silent transition is unimaginable in the British theatre. At the very least there’d be a high-pitched tone or the sound of distant guns. Do I think there’s a way of handling these knee joints without a chaos of coughing? Of course. But the lesson here is that the tension needs to be jettisoned – even if it is replaced by something else – in order for there to be any capacity for reflection or analysis. Lack of tension does not equal lack of attention.
 
Looked at another way, it seems fine to cough when there’s no-one on stage.
 
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In the second scene, when Eilif’s voice reveals him to Courage as the guest in the general’s tent, it’s immediately clear from Weigel’s tone that Courage really feels for, loves and wants to protect her children. So when the general demands meat for his guest, you might expect her to immediately hand over the chicken she’s been bargaining for with the chef. That way her son would be guaranteed a good meal. Instead she raises the price. The chef has little choice but to find meat, and little choice but to pay it.

So often Courage is portrayed as not really caring for her children, because of she always appears to put profit first. In such productions, where she appears to care little for her children, the question of why she acts the way she acts is all-too-easily answered: she doesn’t care for them as much as she does for money. And so there's nothing at stake for her, nothing at stake in the play, and it becomes boring. And boring British A-level Brechtians will tell you that it's supposed to be boring.

But when she does care, as she palpably does here, the question why does she act this way in spite of the obvious needs and interests of her children is increasingly present. In this scene, clearly, she can turn a profit and guarantee Eilif gets a meal – she simply plays her cards better than anyone else. In the wider scheme of the play, she is dealt fewer and worse cards, because that’s what happens in war. So that question keeps coming up more insistently until the only remaining answer is: economically, she has no fucking choice.

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Up until this point, Brecht appears to be a much more traditional director than anyone imagined. But we have to establish something in order to disrupt it.
 
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In the second scene we’re modulating towards a patchwork that includes something more stylised. The cook and Courage remain close to something that looks like naturalism, but in the tent Eilif, the general and the parson are in a more staccato register.
 
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The precedent for the more stylised elements is not expressionism, but silent comedy. Externally the ways in which the two heighten and abstract specifics to externalised principles of movement may appear similar, but the distinction lies in what’s being emphasised. In expressionism it’s internal emotional states. In silent comedy, at least that of Chaplin, (which Brecht was obsessed by [I wrote my phd on this]) it’s gestus – social role. Hence Eilif, who in scene one seems to have three dimensions, sits ludicrously poker straight in the general’s tent as though he’s on parade, then performs his song like a marionette.
 
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Let’s not hide from the fact that the deaf-mute Kattrin is played by an able actor. Sure, we perhaps shouldn’t judge Brecht by standards of representation that didn’t exist at the time. But if we’re going to watch it now, recommend it now, we have to recognise that this is not acceptable now.
 
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Everyone always has something to do with their hands. The chef is peeling potatoes, then Courage plucks the chicken. Yvette sews a hat, then Courage works needle and cloth. The general drinks. There’s always a physical action in progress somewhere on the stage, and it always reminds us who works and who doesn’t.
 
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Let’s talk about Yvette. She’s first introduced in scene three, and most productions have her already rendered as a cartoon syphilitic hag. In this production, the only indications that she’s already begun sex work are in the text. Her clothing stays a long way from the usual clichés. This is a real woman, refusing to be defined by her social role. What we meet here is a woman still eaten up by the loss of her lover five years earlier, a lover who was part of an occupying force and who left when the army left. She pursued him, she still loves him, and she finds herself here. Again, in this production, we meet a woman more 'real' than any I’ve seen portrayed in the weird inherited tradition that is British Brecht.
 
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The part of scene three between Courage, the Chaplain and the Cook is often boring. It’s easy to miss it even in here, but just enough dramatic tension is produced by Kattrin at the side investigating Yvette’s hat and boots. (Only here are we starting to be sure Y’s already a sex worker.) Meanwhile there’s loads in the main scene that’s often missing in English translation. For example, the translation I’m referring to because my German is very ropey only makes reference to “The King” and “The Kaiser”. In Brecht’s production there’s repeated reference to Gustav Adolf. And they again and again refer to him as Adolf. I wonder why this might have felt pertinent in 50s Germany?
 
Meanwhile, the Cook’s political commentaries are all too often played as cartoonish caricature rather than the knowing cynicism we see here.

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Let's be honest, though. This scene still drags a bit.
 
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In the translation I’m referring to, the drum roll that precedes Swiss Cheese’s death appears in the stage directions, but the sound of his firing squad does not. In this production, we hear that gunfire, then Courage is contorted by despair and horror. “Mother Courage remains seated” is all it says in my copy. 

“It grows dark”, it then says, “It grows light once more. Mother Courage is sitting exactly as before”. In fact, while it’s true that she’s not moved from the spot, she’s gently rocking to and fro. The English stage directions emphasise Courage's impassivity; in Weigel's performance she is anything but.

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I have no idea what the original German stage directions say as I've no copy to hand.  But you see how easy it is, once a misconception has taken route, to find confirmation for it everywhere.

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I identify these small differences between the production and the text as available in English because I think British directors are afraid of allowing any feeling into the work.

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Or if they do, they imagine they're bravely throwing off the shackles of Brechtian orthodoxy. When in fact that orthodoxy has little or nothing to do with Brecht.

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But. Emotion floods through that celebrated dam, the alienation effect, at every turn, revealing Brecht as a man who needed a theory not because he felt too little, but too much. (This is a grotesque paraphrase of something Tynan wrote when the BE came to the Royal Court around this time.)

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Helene Weigel is fucking astonishing in this scene. The final part of it, where she has to pretend not to recognise the body of her son, astonishing. The agony on her face.
 
So much crap has built up around Brecht that everyone forgets that the theory would be nothing without a capacity to produce scenes like this. Individual humans are tortured by their helplessness in the face of powers far greater than themselves.

What Brecht did was observe that, in real lives, those powers are socially-constructed and can therefore be socially dismantled. He then developed a dramaturgy which revealed that constructedness, rather than mystifying it out of existence.

But all that would be useless if the scene itself had no impact. And yet people persist in thinking that not only is Brecht boring, he’s intentionally boring. Seriously. Watch the fucking show. You've got til Thursday.

www.berliner-ensemble.de/be-on-demand

To mark the fact that ​These Hills Are Ours was due to be on tour at the moment, the excellent people at Beaford asked me to say a few words to their communities. Say something about getting outside in the current situation, they suggested. So it seemed like a good idea to run a marathon up my local hill while attempting to make a short film.

I’ve been having a few days off from coping with all of this. 
 
In a parallel universe, tonight is press night. In that parallel universe, the show in London for the rest of this week, before touring nationally right through until the end of June. On Saturday, also in London, we'll deliver the third of four large-scale choir projects, the fourth of which will be in Devon in May. In between tour dates, I’ll be working on the next draft of a new Christmas show.
 
In this universe, none of this is happening. Over the past week I’ve occasionally made joking reference to the fact that we're opening ​These Hills Are Ours this week. This jokey chipperness doesn’t even convince me, because every time I’ve tried it I’ve thought, oh, that’s interesting, now I want to cry.

To commemorate press night, we're doing a small sharing via Zoom, for family and close friends. This is so far removed from the universe we planned to be in tonight that it feels absurd, and absolutely necessary. If you find yourself hurled into a river in spate, you grab hold of anything you can.
 
We’re still rehearsing the show, because it will surely open at some point. We just have no idea when. Maybe, just maybe, the show will open before the end of the current tour in June. If not then, maybe the autumn. If not then, next year. Sometime.
 
But we have to face up to the possibility that the current situation may will still be in place over a year from now. Why wouldn’t it be? The virus isn’t going away until we’ve all had it, or there’s a vaccine. Neither of those will be true twelve months from now. There’s no point in adopting an “over by Christmas” mentality when there’s absolutely no basis for that belief. I hope it isn’t too trivialising of the mindset considered necessary by a Marxist in a Fascist prison when I say that the title of my blog has never felt more pertinent or necessary to me. But for the past few days, I’ve been finding the first part difficult.
 
Rehearsing the show is helping me. Routine is helping me. Running is helping me. Cooking is helping me. Reading is helping me. I veer between trying to resist the rush to productivity and recognising that writing is helping me. So I’m writing this.

The Sunday before everything shut, I was on a long walk with a choir. We walked from the end of Morecambe stone jetty to the top of Clougha Pike, the peak overlooking Lancaster and Morecambe. We walked, as far as possible, along public footpaths, canal towpaths, byways and other rights of way. Along the way we sang an original song.
 
The Sunday before, I did the same thing with a different choir, from the centre of Stockton to the summit of Roseberry Topping on the edge of the North York Moors.
 
Yesterday morning in the shower I found myself singing the Roseberry Topping song. Only when my daughter asked me what it was did I realise that's what I was singing. Then that evening she sang it to her baby brother in the bath.
 
During the weeks and months ahead I’ll treasure my memories of those two Sundays. Long days in company feel very distant at the moment, and I have to remember that they are in the future as well as in the past. The future is invisible, thus harder to cherish, but even as the work cancellations keep eating up the way ahead far beyond the horizon, I’m trying hard to embrace whatever comes. Two similar choir projects have been put on indefinite hold. But they will happen.
 
Collective singing and time in the outdoors have demonstrable and significant impacts on well-being. Likewise exercise, and for some participants 14-ish miles with a climb at the end is a considerable challenge, so you can add a sense of achievement to that list. Also meaningful activity: the songs we sang were created in collaboration with the groups who sang them, about their own relationship, as people of this place, with the peak overlooking them and their place.
 
The rights-of-way routes were chosen to maximise our sense of collective ownership over the terrain. Almost every foot fell in the steps of a whole history of struggles for ownership, use, and access. As the disaster capitalists move in in the wake of this crisis, public land, and public access to land, will be immensely vulnerable and it’s a fight for which we’ll need to tool up. These walks, these songs, were part of that tooling up even before the suddenly mushrooming scale of the fight ahead. I will carry with me that sense of purpose I shared with those groups, as we walked and sang our collective anthem.
 
Everything I do, everything most of my peers in this industry do, is about gathering people together. What is any performance, indoor or outdoor, mass participation or solo, but a gathering-together in order to share an experience of what it means to be together in this world? What it means to live in this society, to share this space? What it means to navigate that shared space with others?
 
And now we stay together by staying apart. That’s a ropey slogan, even though of course it’s the correct thing to do, but it’s also a surgical strike at my raison d’etre and that of my whole industry. And not just our manner but also our means of living. That slogan might function as an accurate view of how we need to model our behaviour for the foreseeable future. But we also have to be careful not to lose our sense of what together really means. ​The experience of singing together on zoom is not comparable with the experience of being within the sound we collectively make.

In the dark times, there will be singing. But it will only be available via Facebook Live. I’m thrilled by the number of companies and artists who’ve made their work available to stream for free, and these things will do for now. But let’s be honest: these things are decaf. They’re like looking at a diagram of the brain’s electrochemical reaction to pleasure, rather than having the actual pleasure; they’re the information about an experience without the actual experience. They're talking to your friends on Skype rather than giving them a hug.
 
When this is over, I imagine a hunger for communality. I imagine audiences refreshed with joy simply at being in the room. I imagine the biggest and most celebratory participatory work. I imagine artists, newly released from confinement, returning to audiences with new discoveries about what it means to be together in this changed world. I imagine a wild rumpus, a heightened togetherness, a sharpened connection, a deepened purpose.
 
By implication, I imagine a discrete point when this is “over”. Of course it won’t be as simple as that. This is the way things are to be, probably for a very long time, and the end will not come easily or cleanly. But after the dark times, oh the singing there’ll be then. And we will need those songs to help us through the coming fight against disaster capitalism.

On Sunday my daughter and I sat in her bedroom and read quietly together for five minutes. It’s the happiest I’ve been all week. I say “read”: she can make out some letters but the only word she recognises is her own name. She was looking at the pictures in the Royal Horticultural Society’s Good Plant Guide. It was bliss. I got through four or five pages of the new Hilary Mantel before she climbed up my back, or bounced on my head, or whatever.
 
It’s obvious how this lockdown is challenging for extroverts starved of society. But now that we’re all locked in the house together 24/7, it becomes equally clear that introverts starved of time truly alone must also find themselves clawing the walls. Yesterday I unaccountably woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up, made coffee, and read for two hours before anyone else came down. The relief of this sudden breathing space massively outweighed the sleep loss. This morning I set my alarm for 5am. I’d be feeling great if I hadn’t hit my head on a door frame during a weights routine.
 
Whenever those quizzes claiming to determine whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert come up on Facebook, I break them. Plenty of people, perhaps most, are both. We all need society and we all need solitude, and the ways we each get those has been entirely upended. That’s far from being the main difficulty of this extraordinary situation, but still. Everyone’s struggle with this is unique to them. 
 
Given that the internet is the only visible outlet, the surge among some theatre-makers towards online activity seems totally understandable. Others have sounded an equally valid note of caution: no-one should feel pressured into suddenly generating a whole new means of creation from a standing start, when they’re still coming to terms with the situation. I have sympathy for those still reeling, and for those casting around for something to do because their sense of self or their ability to pay the rent depends on it. Everyone’s struggle with this is unique. Be kind.
 
I had the dubious advantage of having spent the past month telling everyone who’d listen that this would happen, so emotionally at least I’ve been able to adapt relatively quickly. Only three weeks ago I was in a big job interview, along with a potential job share partner, and of course we were asked the inevitable question about the main challenges facing theatres in the years ahead. I said coronavirus was going to shut a lot of theatres, and my partner basically told me to shut up, so we moved on to talking about Brexit instead. But this has been in the post for a while and I’ve had my teeth gritted for the moment it landed on the doormat.
 
So in the first day or two after the theatres closed I’d already put up a couple of old shows online. At the time this just seemed like the decent thing to do, rather than having any sort of intent to generate anything in particular. But within another day I’d set up a Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/danielbye) and committed to creating material online. If you look at the small print, though, I’m simply promising to release writing to subscribers - the kind of writing I already do - rather than trying to master a whole new art form. I have nothing but admiration for those whose creativity immediately found its way through the cracks in the current situation. Fortunately I’m in rehearsal (albeit in a weird telescoped process taking place over Skype and Zoom), so I’m exempted from having to think of anything new.

Unless you want to commission me, in which case, I just lost all my work, yes please whatever it is I’ll do it yes.
 
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I am, though, gently exploring a book idea. Everyone else takes one step forward into the 21st century; I take two steps back from it. What is this situation but an opportunity to move more slowly?
 
Like everyone else, I’ve started baking bread, boiling up peelings for stock and taking an interest in the garden. We’ve started getting a veg box and cooking with whatever seasonal luck brings into our pot. I’m planning raised beds and a woodshed and tonight I’ll bake my first pie in a year. All of these are things that, in my self-image, I do regularly, like shaving. All of these are things I never do. It’s daft to talk about silver linings in a situation like this but if I don’t die of asthma-heightened Covid-induced pneumonia, then I hope to emerge into a world with which we’ve all changed our relationship a little.
 
This without even beginning to think about the obvious ways in which our current socio-economic system is utterly unfitted for taking care of its citizens. The right have thankfully conceded that some of the normal rules of their hegemonic system don’t apply in this situation. But how much better would it be if the system placed value in people’s wellbeing in the first place. With a universal basic income and systems of healthcare and essential services whose purpose was to deliver healthcare and essential services, rather than financial gain, imagine how much better the state would be to cope with this crisis. Any system that has to be totally upended in the face of a crisis is no system at all. I can only hope that some on the right will recognise that many citizens have already been in a state of permanent crisis for a full decade, and help to build a system that works for everyone.
 
But it’s too early to think about what happens afterwards. Like the rush to find new methods of creation, people are rushing towards prognostication about the new world we’ll emerge into. This is going to get worse before it gets better and we will be in the present situation, on and off, until well into next year. No one really knows how they’ll be changed by profound loss, deep pain, or prolonged uncertainty. But we all will be.
 
What I do know is that it’s spring at the moment, and next year it will be spring again, and the year after that. I think my daughter will be reading for real when we come through this. But what a pleasure that will be.
 
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Ahem. Another nudge for that patreon. Desperate times. https://www.patreon.com/danielbye

These Hills Are Ours – An Escape From London
SINGERS and RUNNERS wanted
(you can be one or the other. You don’t have to be both!)
 
We are recruiting participants for a unique project.
 
On 4th April this year, a group of runners will set off from Shoreditch Town Hall, with the mission of escaping London on foot. They’ll do so, as far as possible, via off-road routes: public footpaths, canal towpaths, back alleys.
 
Several hours later, they’ll arrive at the summit of Box Hill in Surrey and look back at how far they’ve come.
 
It’s approximately the distance of a marathon.
 
At the beginning and at the end, as well as at three or four points along the way, the runners will be greeted and sung to by a choir. The choir will sing an original song, written by me and Boff Whalley, about the urge to – and the difficulty of – escaping the chaos and the noise of 21st-century digital life. About the need to flee the urban for the rural and about the fearsome challenges of doing that in London in particular. It’ll be a celebration of switching off and checking out, and the power of our two feet to set us free.
 
The song, and the journey, will be documented as one of a series of four short films of related projects across the country. 
 
Singers will be able to listen to a demo of the song in advance, in order to prepare. There will be a rehearsal on the day, at approximately 9am, at Shoreditch Town Hall. You’ll be in the hands of the brilliant pop-up choir leader Beccy Owen, who's just brilliant at supporting singers to learn new material.
 
Runners will depart at around 10.30am.
 
The various stops for singers will be mostly accessible by public transport, with a little bit of taxiing. This transport will all be paid for, as will the return journey – you just need to get yourselves to the start line.
 
KEY DATES:
- 4 April 2020 9am til approximately 5pm.
- that's it.

FAQS (Runners):
 
How fast do I need to be?
 
We expect the run to take approximately five hours, including a couple of short stops. This means averaging a little slower than ten minute miles: for most we expect this to be a relatively easy pace. Those who want to go faster will get more breaks. 
 
If for you this is at the edges of what you think you can manage, we’d love you to give it a go. We’ll have a back marker at all times so no-one will be allowed to drop off the back. The front-runners will pause periodically to allow everyone to regroup. And in the worst-case scenario, if you can’t continue, there are regular opportunities to hop on public transport. Give it a go.
 
It’s a long way. How will I get back?
 
Depending on where you’re getting back to, there will be a mix of public transport and taxiing. We’ll cover the cost of this.
 
Only two FAQs for runners?
 
There’s more under “both” below.
 
FAQs (Singers):
 
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 a fantastic choir leader.
 
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.
 
FAQs (Both runners and singers):
 
Is there a bad weather plan?
 
There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. You may need waterproofs. Runners would be advised to consider trail shoes. The choir will be able to take shelter more often, but still, for the final climb of Box Hills, sturdy footwear would be advisable.
 
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 by mid afternoon. But we’ll travel at the speed that can accommodate the slowest group member within the time frame, 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 food and water.

Who's behind this?

Daniel Bye and Boff Whalley. I'm Daniel Bye and you're on my website, so if you want to find out more about me, you're in the right place. Boff's site is: www.boffwhalley.com.

The project is commissioned by Shoreditch Town Hall and supported by Arts Council England.

(This same week, Boff and I are also doing a show at Shoreditch Town Hall. You can find out more about that here: https://shoreditchtownhall.com/whats-on/these-hills-are-oursshoreditchtownhall.com/whats-on/these-hills-are-ours)
 
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.

If you're bored enough to be following my long run on Wednesday, there are a few things you should know. Principally this is so that you don't start to panic that I've dropped dead when in fact I've simply stopped for beans on toast. But also, most people I know have no real sense of how long it should take to run a hilly, muddy 85 miles (neither do I really), so this should also give you an idea of whether to imagine I'm doing well, or moving like a Romero zombie.

First of all, the tracking page is here: live.opentracking.co.uk/thao20/#

There might be periods where the tracker isn't updating - clicking through on the site will tell you when it last did. It sends updates every 90 seconds. If it doesn't have signal, it will try again 90 seconds later. In remote areas this means you might go a while before updates land, and then I'll suddenly appear to have travelled a longish way in one go. In fact, I won't be moving quickly. The most remote areas, where this is pretty likely are the first two sections.

Scheduled departure time is Wednesday morning, 3am. This is not an intentional Simon & Garfunkel reference. Scheduled stops for food, changes of shoes, lancing of blisters, etc, are as follows:
- Slaidburn approx 7.30am
- the foot of Pendle hill approx 10.30am
- Burnley (near Townely Hall) approx 1.45pm
- Todmorden approx 4pm
- Blackstone Edge approx 5.45pm
- M62 crossing approx 6.30pm
- Wessenden Head approx 8pm
- Crowden approx 9.30pm
- Snake Pass approx 12am
- Kinder Scout (finish) approx 1.30am
Then I'll have to get either back to Snake Pass, or on to Edale - this will depend on road support and we'll make a call about it on Tuesday. One side effect of this is that in the unlikely event of your tuning in at 2am to watch a moving dot, you may see me apparently moving backwards. The whole thing, including getting back to the van, should take approximately 24 hours. But this is incredibly, increasingly approximate.

You'll see that these stops get more frequent as the day goes on. This is partly just because on that last section, on the Pennine Way, there are more road crossings. It's also because I don't know what state I'll be in by then, so we've scheduled stops to be on the safe side.

The major thing I don't know how I'll handle is the sleep deprivation, and although we've got an approximate schedule, there's no time limit and I'm not ruling out having a nap. The decision-making process for napping will be as follows: would I literally rather die than continue? If yes, I'll have a nap, then continue. If continuing seems preferable to immediate execution, then I'll continue.

There are obvious exceptions to this flow diagram here. Serious injury would certainly make me stop, for example. In terms of safety planning, I'll be prepared for the possibility of coming to a sudden irreparable halt anywhere on the route (emergency food, first aid kit, foil blanket, waterproofs, extra layers, etc) but in practice this is an extreme and remote contingency.

Apart from the planned stops noted above, I shouldn't be stationary for more than thirty seconds at any point.

Finally, don't be alarmed if I'm not exactly on the red line shown on the tracking page. That route is approximate. I should never be more than a few miles off it, but for example:
- the route out of Lancaster (if anyone's up and watching that early) will be different
- the route off Bowland into Slaidburn will be slightly different
- the route between Slaidburn and Sawley will be different, especially the first part of it
- and so on

I'm going to try to get this amended slightly so that it's a little closer to being accurate, but there will be variations.

There will be occasional updates on twitter from my account (mostly not sent by me) and Boff's (@boffwhalley).

​Happy dot watching.

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.