Impossible Dream!

I am a bloody good director of theatre, my work is better than much I have seen! My sadness has been that I finished my training at a particularly difficult time for the Creative Sector in UK: the mid-1980s belonged to the Thatcher government who thought that art and culture wasn't something that the state needed to be supporting so it cut grants and support and opportunities for work suddenly disappeared as encumbent directors hung onto their jobs for dear life. I also made soppy, community-minded decisions about my early work rather than going all out for developing a "reputation" while I was young. Without a 'financially comfortable' family to fall back on I relied on my general management skills to make a living as close to "The Arts" as I could. But each contract took me further away from where I wanted to be. I'd been working for the Black Theatre Forum after raising the money to relocate The Actors Centre to its current location which includes the Tristan Bates Theatre and realised Black Theatre lacked crucial infrastructure. I'd just secured a grant offer of £27m from the Arts Lottery to build a National Centre for Black and Asian Performing Arts as part of the South Bank Centre, when the BTF's Board of Trustees "declined" the grant they'd asked me to pursue after their members had asked for a "Number 1 Venue in a Theatre district in London" as the place where their touring productions could end. I was so flabberghasted that I resigned.I was then contacted by the Artistic Director of Talawa Theatre Company asking me to take over as their Administrator. Iinitally I said "No! I am tired of making other people look good. I want your job! You keep saying you're going to retire, when are you going?" I ended up accepting the job with the proviso that when the opportunity arose, I would apply to be the Artistic Director. In the event, the AD hadn't given me the full details and the company was in serious trouble. -Once I'd sorted that out, I began to develop things I'd discussed at my interview and discovered that they didn't like it but had been happy to humour me as long as I got them out of the shit they were in. The company was a farce IMO; what the AD said, did and told her trustees were completely different things... but i digress... I left on the day Blair became Prime Minister for the first time and took over a nightclub (which turned out to be a ham-fisted failed money-laundering operation by some South London Drug Dealers, but that's yet another story lol).

I came to Newcastle with ideas of developing a theatre company, but when I went to the Arse Council for support, I was told there was no likelihood of receiving funds for it BUT they did want someone to lead their "diversity project". Some bright spark had had the idea of putting all the minority ethnic groups together so that the Arse Council could "rationalise" their request for funding. I took over something that had degenerated into a monthly discussion between Asian and African community elders about how wonderful their particular cultures were. I engineered a re-think that became "Intercultural Arts" and supported individual creative professionals from minority ethnic backgrounds as well as advised cultural venues about accessing artists who'd contribute to the cultural diversity of their programming.

I began to watch less and less theatre in Newcastle, because I thought most of it was crap! -I saw plays I'd directed with amateur/semi-pro performers in the past presented with what I thought of as basic mistakes and yet they were being praised like the next best thing. I began to feel alien: I'd be sitting there LITERALLY clamping my hand over my mouth to stop me shouting "THIS IS CRAP!" before overhearing oleaginous cooing praise by audience members who I thought could not have seen the same thing I had. It became an expensive waste of time to leave shows quietly at the interval. At the time, the job I REALLY wanted was to be Artistic Director at Northern Stage (after it was refurbished). I liked the previous AD more than i did her work- but what do I know; she went off to the RSC!! I've loved the new programme since her replacement took over; it has the combination of new writing and "classics" as well as adaptations from other art forms that I think is a winning combo. I was very surprised to see that job up for grabs, the job I've wanted for so long... But I realise I have almost zero opportunity of getting it: I've directed nothing since I've been here. Who's going to take someone seriously who hasn't worked in their supposed field for over twenty years?

But then: fuck it; If I don't try, I will hate myself. So, futile as it might be- especially as I know they'll ask about the shows I've seen if I was interviewed, and because I know that they were annoyed with me for the advocacy work I was doing for Intercultural Arts up to 2011 but I'm going to submit an application. Hey: pigs might fly!