I didn't fill you in on the concert I went to on Saturday afternoon. The Singapore Chinese Orchestra, which looks, to all intense and purposes, like a typical symphony orchestra, but with weird instruments (that's not a cultural dig, they did look bloody weird to me) that sound incredible, and they were accompanying a 1930s silent Chinese movie. It was stunning. The film was called The Goddess with an incredible actor called Ruan Lingyu, who sadly committed suicide when she was only 25. She was an absolute star though, and has a depth of performance I haven't seen in similar western silent movies. We were on the second row, so had a whole load of Gaohu in the way, but it really didn't stop being entirely engrossed in the film. Such great sound. The film was a very moving story with incredibly dubious morals at the end, but a fascinating insight into what was important to china at that time, what the moral compass was. Fair to say it was big on education but very down on single Continue Reading

My morning treat was a visit to Raffles museum. A small but fine reminder of the hay day of this cultural icon. A record of the people that passed through Singapore on their tours, the great cultural and political figures (Coward, Maugham), plus a symbol of an important constant through the country's growth. Raffle's is a beautiful hotel; it's the template for the colonial architecture of South East Asian, it's the original. However, about a hundred years ago a massive complex was added to the rear which was relatively architecturally sympathetic. Two levels of white balustraded galleries, Escher stairways, palm courtyards and fountains, and a small room housing the museum. Of course, the problem with the is extension is it is filled with the ubiquitous ugly, prestige shops; Louis Vitton et al. Repellant emporiums of over priced tat. Any hoo, could I find the museum? Could I buffalo. I wandered every terrace, but nothing. I eventually visited the Raffles gift shop (you can Continue Reading

Happy Valentines! Seems to be a popular event here though I've learnt its illegal in Malaysia; doesn't seem to bother the Malayan Singaporeans here. Very busy day. I did the workshop this morning to 3rd year diploma students on keeping their work alive. First time I've done it which is always interesting and scary with workshops. I wanted to explore the combination of John Wright 'game playing' in the development of work through instant, non-thinking reacting and it's possible use with more traditional objectives. Didn't quite work, though it has given me an idea of how to approach it next time. It's hard to apply a playful fun activity onto something quite cerebral, I'll try it the other way round next time. I do enjoy doing workshops and that's an area I really need to push when I get back to the UK. It's a two way thing, I get as much out of it as I hope they do. I just wish I wasn't so terrible with names, it's even more of a challenge here! I then sat in on performance Continue Reading

I've been a bit slow this week on the old blogs. I've been getting back late as rehearsals have been going on until 7 to make up for the New Year 'bank holiday'. I'm really enjoying working with this group and their challenges, encouraging me to find new ways of helping students to push themselves and produce work which is different from what they would normally do, to be more imaginative, creative and, I hope, take some personal risks. It hasn't, however, stopped my terrible bad language nor reduced the ridiculous amount of colloquialisms I use; I didn't know I knew so many. It's pretty incredible how these students are developing skills in a language which is not necessarily their first, tackling Crimp's complex structure and wide vocabulary and learning new performance skills at the same time. It does feel bizarre asking for greater diction and clarity from them and working on text that is so English. It is even more confusing when the piece is set in Singapore so I am asking Continue Reading

Melaka or Malacca - obviously had a long and suitably turbulent history under various warring Sultans of the Malay peninsula well before Europe decided it wanted a finger in the Far East. In a bid to control the Malacca straits and, in effect the gateway to the east, Portugal conquered Malacca (1511) followed by the Dutch with help from another sultanate of Malay (1641) and eventually Britain (1795 and ours was peaceful). Slightly in our defence, the fella in charge was called Farquhar who was a Scotsman and a massive Malayophile. Obsessed by all things Malay, culture, history, dress, women (marrying one) etc, and in the continued tradition of the area encouraged and developed the eclectic ethnic mix to live and work together, it being the bedrock of the city's history and economic past and future. So when Raffles came up with the brainwave of founding Singapore as a better located gateway to the east (for reasons I may go into on another occasion, all to do with monsoons and Continue Reading

It's all settling into a routine, though each time I plan to get up and take advantage of the free gym I have to go off for a meeting of some sort. A bit frustrating. But then actually getting up to the gym can be also, I have a pass to operate the lift to the hallowed 7th floor, but it only starts working at 9am, so I've to keep sweet taking security to let me up. It was odd, waking up this Monday morning and thinking 'off to work', but then remember its Singapore. However, works going well, it's moving along quicker and sharper, they're beginning to cotton on to what I'm asking of them. Keep it up. I've also been booked in to do a workshop this Friday, so I am giving my 'Keeping the actor's work alive' workshop, followed by being on the panel for a performance exercise class where students volunteer to present some work for assessment and criticism. Should be interesting but terrifying for them. At college we had presentation every Thursday where we had to present a song and Continue Reading

18. Drank, lots, some hooters and 'activism' over public transport I went to see a short devised piece by second year students. An interdisciplinary project between theatre, dance and 3D design. Their brief was to look at Singaporean blogs and select a popular topic which to make a piece about. They chose the most popular of all the blogs, public transport, the MRT (underground) in particular. If anyone has ridden on the MRT you may be surprised to find there are any complaints. It's hyper clean, fast, occasionally breaksdown (sometime you may have to wait for as long a 5 mins for a delayed train), it's cheap (I put $10 (£5) on a card two weeks ago and made quite a few MRT and bus journeys and have still not spent half of it) and the carriages are wide, long, and pretty spacious. But this piece last night presented the antithesis of the above. They drew on the blogs which complained of overcrowding, expense, delays, the fact that people who are entitled to (elderly, pregnant Continue Reading

17. It rained, and I got vertigo. This may be of little consequence to those reading this bearing in mind the downpours you've been having but we had 10 minutes of gentle but very large drops of rain. First since I've been here and I believe the first they've had for maybe 4 or 5 weeks. A bit worrying bearing in mind there's supposed to be a torrential downpour daily at 3 at this time of year. It was also a welcome relief from a very sticky walk down to the Gardens by the Bay and helped to ease a hangover from 2 pints of Heineken. What's that all about? Last night went for a drink with Simon Purse, another director here, to Chimes ('A premier lifestyle destination'! I've just seen that on their website, wouldn't have gone had I known) a converted church orphanage, and apparently the best thing to convert it to is a food and drink centre. Very beautiful but very western. It was the first place I've been to where I felt uncomfortable as a huge majority of the clientele were Continue Reading

16. All went a bit lesbian today Day three of rehearsals and we had a fairly full room, bit of a full stage, as opposed to the pairs I've been working with until now. And that brings fear of trying to focus on and manage an increased number of characters but also brings the opportunity for lots of fresh insights. One of which took my by surprise but has the potential to be a big turning point. The Misanthrope is about a misanthrope, Alceste, who is in love with Jennifer, a woman who is the antithesis of everything he believes in. Their relationship is tempestuous and agonising. I have more female actors than males so Alceste is been played by a female actor but as a fella. Whilst rehearsing another one of Alceste and Jennifer's scenes today I,for a moment, envisaged Alceste as a woman in a relationship with Jennifer and it all fell into place. I shared this with the actors whobecame very vocal and excited by the idea of turning it into a lesbian love story. Let me just say that Continue Reading

15. An evening trip to the bay and a spot of culture Drinks a in a bag. I'll either buy one (if I can find where) or surreptitiously photograph one, but loads of people are walking around with small, plastics, transparent drawstring bags with handles and a straw sticking out the top. Usually odd coloured stuff too. These are a fun lot of actors to do uniting with. They don't mess about, get in there, name them, get out. They seem to view it as a game, which is quite good, but wanting to nail it down to Actions rather than leaving the story open for interpretation when we get it on the floor. This was followed by a lengthy costume chat with Xian Ping (Ian) before getting in a bit of rehearsing. So it was a little frustrating today and I started to get, what I suspected was a migraine, so topped up with drugs which tend to make me tired. It's never nice yawning in front of actors when their working. I've not really seen Singapore at night yet, so I took a walk down to the bay Continue Reading