I was back in London's Angel area of London last night for a BRANE STORMING session or, as I believe the current terminology would have it, a THORT SHOWER.
This was all in aid of the new show that Mr A Dawson, Producer of the SELLOUT "Sexy Seven" show, is putting on during The Camden Fringe this year. We've got The Hen And Chickens booked for 26-30 August for "London Calling" which will hopefully feature new stuff by about eight of us, and so we had gathered to talk about what we were actually going to DO.
When I arrived I found that Alex had gone to town with the Synergetic Creativity Processing Enabling, not only putting up sheets of paper and laying out coloured pens but also providing SWEETS! It was jolly exciting, and we were soon into the full swing of... well, having a bit of a natter really, but after THAT we got down to business with IDEAS.
I'm a great believer in The Big Idea MANIFESTING itself of its own volition i.e. The Big Idea can take care of itself and will appear unto you given time, rather than you having to bash it out first of all. To be honest I have mostly come to this approach via album titles, as the final album title is NEVER the one you spend three hours arguing about in the pub (or six months discussing on email), it's ALWAYS the one that pops into someone's head when they're not expecting it, and then everyone says "Oh yeah, of course that's it." THUS I argued strongly (bossily) against deciding the theme of the show first, suggesting that we read out what we'd GOT and then see what it all SAID to us.
Amazingly this seemed to WORK. Most of us had got snippets/sketches/SCENES to read out and/or discuss and as we did so, and Alex wrote them on his big sheets of paper, The Big Idea appeared before us on the wall - basically a theme of old vs new, or the constant cycle of CHANGE in London, how that works and what it means. SORT OF.
It all felt very good and there was a TONNE of ideas for us to take away and work up into Actual STUFF for the next meeting, allowing a small group of us to relocate to the PUB for the traditional "That was good wasn't it?" discussion and the even more traditional "oh go on then, just the one more" recital that always follows a good evening. Obviously there's a way to go before the show's written, let alone cast, rehearsed and performed, but I reckon it's going to be GRATE!
