My top ten things to do next in order to have an ongoing excuse not to write any top tens

Some people use the new year as an opportunity to wrap up everything that's been going on over the last year. I'm always too exhausted to do that, and anyway I still haven't finished my Christmas shopping. Some people use the summer instead, the end of the school year.

I thought my return from summer holiday might provide an appropriate opportunity. I've been away, now I'm back, so this means it's autumn, right?

It wasn't even a holiday, exactly. We were in the Philippines, and for the first week I was doing The Price of Everything and running workshops. It was absolutely wonderful. And for the second week, yes, we were on a beach. But there was a typhoon, which, if you've never experienced one, isn't restful.

So here I am, back, jetlagged do I think it's midnight when it's late afternoon, and the autumn is, to all intents and purposes here. This is what it looks like: 

(I'm not wrapping up the first half, or the last year - nobody wants my top ten of anything. So this is my ten next things, in more-or-less sequential order.)

1. I've got a first draft deadline at the end of the month for the new show I'm making for Polka Theatre. The show runs for the month of March 2015. It's about how we know what we think we know, why we trust the people who tell it to us, and, you know, what it means to be human. It's for 8-11 year-olds.

2. We're making two more Story Hunts over the next couple of months, in Heckmondwike (mid-August) and Middlesbrough (mid-September). Doing Story Hunt in my own home time adds a particular piquancy that both tantalises and alarms.

3. I'll be creating a new piece of work with a community company at Royal and Derngate between September and March, on the theme of the aftermath of war.

4. I'm working with People United, Sarah Punshon and Boff Whalley to create a large-scale participatory performance installation in Manchester Museum. That's in mid-November, it will feature about five choirs, and it's called Wonderstruck.

5. Sarah is making an interactive piece for families about maths, and I'm working as a performer on that.

6. There'll be a new Six O'Clock News in Lancaster in early October.

7. I'll be opening a new touring solo show in Edinburgh 2015 (I'm having a year off this year). That's about the spread of disease and it's about advertising and it may or may not be called Going Viral. I'll be working with an epidemiologist as part of the early R+D later this year/early next and I'm hopefully going to be able to confirm an exciting international element to the project.

8. I'm under commission at Live Theatre, which has been one of my favourite theatres in the country since I first went there many years ago.

9. Amidst all this, I'm hoping to make a bit more time to write reflections on the ongoing, the upcoming, and the outside world, over the next few months.

10. This didn't seem like quite enough to be going on with, so on Thursday I've got an interview about a commission for a project I'm REALLY EXCITED ABOUT OH GOD I HOPE WE GET IT. Wish me luck.

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