How to Write for Woman's Weekly: An All-day Workshop at the Blue Fin Building 7th June

I’ve been to quite a few writing workshops but none so targeted as last Friday’s. The Blue Fin Building in Southwark, home to IPC publishing, was imposing - all tight security, glass and light wood inside with a fantastic view of the skyline round the London Bridge area from the tenth floor canteen.  I nearly got lost when I got out of the lift at the 6th instead of the 10th floor, but was recalled in time to squeeze back in.

 

 

I enjoyed all of it. Friendly Gaynor Davies, Fiction Editor, talked anecdotally about changes in WW’s 100 year history, from the old ‘Pink and Blue Banner’ days. ‘In hard times for magazines, we are holding our own ‘. Funny stories included sexual restraint advice from an Edwardian Agony Aunt and a reader’s endorsement of Woman’s Weekly as a perfect cure for insomnia.

 

  A practical exercise in writing an attention-grabbing first paragraph showed how many inventive approaches could rise from a single prompt.

 

For me, the most useful talk was lively Suzanne Ahern’s explanation of how she wrote serials – 17 of them so far. Her approach was practical, spontaneous and confessional- in line with her character. She also supplied copious hand-outs. Dividing the 30 or so attendees into three groups to construct a three-part serial, complete with cliff-hangers, demonstrated the need for structure.

 

In the afternoon Laura Longrigg, from the MBA Literary agency, gave an overview of what publishers are looking for in women’s fiction. She responded, as well, to questions from workshop members. She regretted that the days of lavish parties were over and emphasised how important it was for agents to socialise and network because that’s how they could source the kind of writing they were looking for. Understandably, her approach was profit-driven – a reminder of what commercial fiction is about.

 

I came away inspired, carrying free back issues of the Fiction Special magazines.  I’d like to write for Woman’s Weekly because they pay well - £200 for a one-page 1000 word story and much more for a serial. The stories with a historical setting are entertaining and allow for a plausibly passive heroine in the way that modern stories don’t. The recently –emerging mystery stories interest me, too. I don’t like the all-too predictable romantic stories and family crises, in cosy settings, or fantasy boy-meets-girl-on-idyllic-holiday tales that make up the rest.  Ditto the many pet stories. It’s life, but not as I know it.

I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to write for women’s magazines – the workshop is scheduled to be repeated on future dates.

Suburban Spies : 'Pack of Lies' at The Alexandra Hall, Charlton SE7

 

Seats in the third row for £7, interval tea and biscuits thrown in (not literally) and a venue that's on the 380 bus route; what could be better?  To the strains of sixties hits,  we anticipated a Saturday night treat from the ever-reliable Alexandra Players.

Hugh Whitemore’s drama, written in 1983, was inspired by the arrest of a spy-ring  in Ruislip in 1961. The play is set in a neighbouring family’s home, deemed an ideal vantage point for surveillance.  It charts the family's reactions as characters step forward in turn at the start of scenes to tell the story from their differing points of view.  As a framing device, it adds depth to story and characters, but  also lowers dramatic tension in a wordy play in which little happens.

 

 

Stodgy Bob Jackson (Mark Higgins) and anxious housewife Barbara  (Sue McGeehan)   resent the invasion of their privacy, especially as the look-out point is to be their  teenage daughter Julie’s bedroom. This being respectable Ruislip, emotions are low-key, and a lot of tea is drunk.

What makes things worse for the Jacksons is that they  already know the suspects, although they're ignorant of their neighbours' shady activities. Canadians Helen (Louise Gaul) and Peter (Roy Moore) Kroger, have become their closest friends since they arrived in the quiet suburb five years before.

 

‘It's  just for the weekend,’  implacable MI5 agent Stewart (Keith Hartley)  tells them, but as days turn into weeks pressure mounts and the teapot is sometimes replaced by the whisky bottle.  

To cram  kitchen and sitting room, the latter dominated by a striking sixties wallpaper design, onto the tiny stage, was a tad ambitious on the part of set designer Robert Hames, although  the cast coped splendidly within the restricted space and Rebecca Williams’ efficient direction ensured the pace never flagged. Any longeurs were  down to a downbeat script where nothing much happened to disturb humdrum suburban lifestyles. The turmoil was all within. 

 
The acting was of  the high standard  that regulars have come expect from this established troupe. Emma Dalton brought a crisp intelligence to the daughter supposedly about to go off the rails.  Keith Hartley was a physically imposing but gently reasonable M15 agent, and Louise Gaul’s bubbly Helen,  with playful manner and off-colour remarks, was a welcome contrast to the dreary Jacksons. Sue McGeehan , as the sensitive Barbara, ably negotiated a fine line between distress and  hysteria.

All in all, I’d advise playgoers  lucky enough to live within striking distance of SE7 to put  themselves on   the mailing list for  notice of  future productions.

 

On The Wrong Side of the Circus at the Funeral

 

Along with a lot of other people I felt angry in the days between  Margaret Thatcher’s  death and the funeral. Media reports brought back memories of the  eighties, when I was teaching in the East End, my students convinced that elections must  rigged.  Nothing seemed set to change, and I left  for a job abroad.

The poll tax riots happened in my absence, but when a notice about a funeral procession protest appeared on my Facebook page I decided to join in. ‘Wear red and turn your back’ it said on the website. The main rallying point was to be Ludgate Circus.

 

At 9.30am I arrived at Blackfriars station, a short way from the Circus. Metal barriers were in place but it was fairly quiet, apart from office workers in a hurry, so I sat near the window in Caffe Nero, where I had a view of soldiers in red coats and busbies, standing in lines

 

A woman on the pavement outside waved a cardboard cup at a policeman. ‘I’m on jury service at the Old Bailey,’ I heard her complain. He directed her to traffic lights nearer the tube station. ‘You’ll have to go round. There’s a crossing point on Fleet Street’.

Around quarter past ten the soldiers marched off, so   I grabbed my red jacket and rucksack and followed. But the crowd was already four deep at the Circus. Once there, I couldn’t move. An Italian reporter and a cameraman had commandeered a plinth. The reporter talked into a microphone glancing over his shoulder towards Fleet Street every few seconds. Some people had been lucky enough to sit on another plinth. Office workers had a great view from the tall buildings opposite. I glimpsed  a line of marchers in naval uniforms through gaps in the crowd, and some men in white helmets.  

 

 I was a lone figure in red among tall men in dark overcoats and women with expensive hair-dos.  

Behind me I heard a man with a foreign accent ask about a group of elderly men in dark red berets, gathered  in the Circus. ‘Paras,’ someone told him. ‘Oh, I thought they hated her.’ Then, ‘Why are there Parisians here?’

‘Paratroopers!’ someone growled.  

A woman in front of me turned round. ’And they didn’t hate her- they admired her. They wished she was on their side to negotiate with the Common Market.’  After this, silence for about half an hour.

 I could hear protesters on the north side of the Circus: a single voice shouted ‘Maggie. Maggie. Maggie’ and a chorus answered, ‘Dead. Dead. Dead’.

 

I knew when the cortege passed because people were clapping. I don’t think I could have turned my back if I’d tried. When  I got home and downloaded photos onto my computer I was surprised by this image that shows my arms holding my iphone aloft. How could I have taken a photos of my own arms holding the camera?

 

It was over quite quickly, and fifty or so policemen in yellow coats dashed across the Circus towards the protesters, whom I couldn’t see. I was glad to be a short walk away from the tube station, and was home just after twelve.

Although I'd not seen anything of the cortege I was glad I'd stood there. Despite all the echoes of her policies heard in the voices of the current government, something convinced me she was gone and can’t come back.  I didn't join the protesters, but just being  there made me feel better.   

Time Goes By: 'Merrily We Roll' Along by Stephen Sondheim at The Harold Pinter Theatre, Panton Street

 

 Stephen Sondheim , at 50, was the leading composer/lyricist of his generation, but 'Merrily We Roll Along', famously flopped on Broadway in 1981.  However, Sondheim didn't give up - thirty years on  Michael Grandage's Donmar Warehouse production won the Olivier  'Best Musical' award.   

Friday night's crowd  at The Harold Pinter Theatre  seemed to like this new production, but it was one of those audiences that seemed to be top-heavy with friends of the cast. Not that the cast weren’t good –they were- but the play still has its flaws.

A major weakness is that the story's  told backwards, spanning two decades from the protagonists' washed-up middle age  back to their early optimism ; it  lacks the, ‘What happens next?'  that normally drives a plot.

 

 

The storyline revolves around three 'Old Friends', which is also the title of one of the tunes in a  nostalgia-heavy story. Frank and Charley (Mark Umbers and Damian Humbley) are composer and lyricist who start out as idealistic collaborators but by degrees, ‘sell out’ to Hollywood. An implausible third, Mary, (Jenna Russell)   carries an alcohol-fuelled torch for Frank.

It’s a thankless role. In the opening party scene she's an embittered drunk shouting home-truths at a party, a cheap-laughs part that didn't deserve the rapturous exit applause. Most of the scenes work well, though - usually when the trio of pals are interacting.  Others are plain embarrassing – like the tap-danced 'Can-Can' that starts the second half,  possibly included to accommodate audience members who linger in the bar. Half of my row had left anyway.

On the upside, as my companion pointed out , the  chorus of show-biz characters are very impressive – clear-voiced, and well-choreographed, and one song, 'Franklin Shepard, Inc', is particularly impressive - middle-aged Charley sings and mimes what it was like  to work with his fame-obsessed partner  in the early years, the heat of creation continuously interrupted by phone-calls to publicists.

The delivery of the  torch-song 'Not a Day Goes By'  was mawkish but the overall musical  structure with its refrains and repetitions well integrated into the storyline, was good. I'm not surprised to learn that Sondheim wrote the words to 'West Side Story', the very first London musical I saw in 1959.

Apart from the underwhelming 'Into the Woods' at Regents Park last year, I haven't seen any other  Sondheim show -only heard songs like 'Send in  the Clowns' . But I'm keen now to see his  hit shows:  'A Little Night Music' and 'Sundays in the Park with George.'
 

The glossy programme, was very good value  at £4. It  included articles on director Maria Friedman, who brought the show from the Menier Chocolate Factory , interviewed by Mark Lawson, and an account of the  play's inception and critical history. I always appreciate some background information.

On the downside,  £9 for two ice-creams in the interval was appalling. I wish I'd insisted we go to the pub opposite, instead. These days a crowd outside doesn't always mean a lack of  seats inside, and in any case by the interval time some  of the local customers might  have gone home.

 

Quieter than usual: The Start of the London Marathon

 

When I set off at 8.30am under the most brilliant sky I'd seen for months, it seemed as if the whole neighbourhood was about to burst into Spring

 

 

At the edge of Blackheath I saw the first contenders walking ahead of me,  red plastic bags hanging from their shoulders.

I walk over the heath, spot  the huddle of giant publicity balloons in fron of the Greenwich Park Gates, but I enter the park by a side entrance, some way to the left of the Ranger's House.

There's the usual melee of supporters and runners but seemingly more space...

The 'elite' runners have set off, but I like to see the charity-driven enthusiasts getting into bizarre outfits.

Including some that look decidedly uncomfortable for a 26 mile run.

So much of the area this year is cordonned off for the use of runners only that I need to take a detour if I'm  watch the start from near the park gates. I  walk all the way down to the Observatory. Overhead, the drone of helicopters, and I recall my husbands words to me just before I left home:  'Security is 40% up on last year'. Is that the reason why there seem to be fewer supporters in the park?

I have to go as far as the statue of General Wolfe at the end of the avenue, and I begin to regret not having breakfast.

So the 'Honest Sausage' van is a welcome sight. Remembering last year's queues, I commiserate with the proprietor, and he says it's something to do with the route changes.

Good news for me, though. I hear an announcer telling the runners to deposit their gear in the vans and gather at the start lines.  I have plenty of time to  sit down and  rest before veering off to a side gate to watch the runners on the heath.

It's a family occasion, and the smallest supporters get a good view. It takes half an hour for the runners to pass by, all bearing logos of charities. With 33,000 runners that's a lot of money raised and it's heart-warming to see so many willing to sponsor the causes.

A long nervous wait and no doubt plenty of water intake means some runners head off for an early pit stop. Seems to be good for the gorse bushes.

When the last of the rhinos pass I can cross the road and head back across the heath.

I manage to stray into an area of the heath where vehicles are  patrolling  and I'm escorted to safer territory.  It's good to see how well-co-ordinated the  clear-up is. Volunteers  collect all the plastic bottles and huge sacks of clothes discarded by the runners, which are donated to charity. A good effort all round.

Dressing to Kill in Cumbria: Silence by Maria Buffini at Jack Studio Theatre

It's always good to enter the familar portals of  the Brockley Jack pub. It's nice to be greeted  by name at the box office, too.

I didn't know what to make of this 'Dark-age dark comedy', which seemed overly  ambitious in the sheer number of issues it  tackled.

 Shakespearean themes emerge in a play which starts with the enforced marriage of a French Princess to someone who doesn't even know that she's female. Thereafter it takes on a 'Tom Jones' flavour in a  journey by cart through an England partly occupied by Vikings.

Maria Buffini was new to me, although she's won awards and was commisioned to write  for the National Theatre.

Maybe stronger acting or a larger stage would have helped to realise the play's full potential. I'll certainly grab any chance to see future work by this author.

My review in on the Remotegoat website.

There's No Smoke without Fire: 'Oedipus' after Sophocles at The Blue Elephant

 

'You should know these streets like the back of your hand,' I said to my companion, as we plunged into a housing estate off the north end of Camberwell new Road. To be fair, he was born and raised nearer to the Camberwell Green end,  opposite the bus garage, so no wonder he was as lost as I was. As I taught at a school in the neighbourhood for eight years, I should arguably have been au fait myself. But it had all changed since the tower blocks went up. All we had to go on were the maps on hoardings that stood on corners with helpful 'You are Here' arrows. The murky street lighting didn't help much. So it was more luck than judgement that brought us to the Blue Elephant. Just as we were about to give up, I  spotted the neon-lit logo next to a lamp-post, and an open doorway opposite.

 

 

In a simply furnshed upstairs bar a couple of cast members were eating fish and chips from papers spread on  the tables. We cast envious glances as we nibbled on the only available fare- plain crisps-and drank free glasses of press-night red wine - good quality, as it happened. The place soon filled up  with customers.

 

The play, Oedipus, was given a throughly modern interpretation and all the action took place on or near a  battlefield in WW2. 

 

Normally, I like the use of smoke to create atmosphere onstage. I thought the swirling mist  in Susan Hill's  The Woman in Black was thoroughly spooky.  But  I wasn't happy  to be enclosed in a smoke-filled box for an hour and a half. I wonder how the cast will fare over a three week run, with likely   outbreaks of asthma among the cast and complaints from smoke-sensitive  audience members. The absence of an interval didn't help - arranged, as my companion suggested, so they didn't let  all the smoke out.

 

 

 

That said, I enjoyed the play and I'm sure they'll soon have the smoke-generator under control. But I'd recommend going early, to give yourself time to get lost in the back-streets.

 

My review appears on the Remotegoat website. 

 

 

 

 

Molière with a Taste of Bollywood - Kanjoos the Miser at The Theatre Royal, Windsor.

 

 I really went 'the extra mile' to review this - in fact I travelled to Windsor, an hour from Waterloo.

I mistakenly thought this quirky-sounding production- Molière's classic 'L'Avare' adapted and relocated to the outskirts of Mumbai -  would be on in South London. When I realised the first night of its tour was Windsor, rather than back out I thought I'd make a day out of it.

.It was sunny and not too cold so a walk around the town was in order.  I wasn't in the mood for the castle and tried to visit  the Guildhall Museum but it was closed. Next I went to the library to work on a book review, but conditions weren't good. It  was small, bright  and open-plan but the study area was too near the kiddies' play space.

 I walked  around the town, dominated by the castle, looking at the statuary. There were certainly plenty of restaurants and tea-rooms  as well as souvenir shops, but I wanted somewhere to linger so the Wetherspoons was a good bet for lunch. Another good place to spend time  was the Costas coffee shop at the bottom of Eton High Street.  You can walk over the bridge and amble along as far as the college chapel. A notice on the door said it was 'the long break' so I didn't see any stiff-collared school boys.

There were  decorative tiles in the public loos, located in a small flat field called Bachelors Acrea designated as a children's playground.  I enjoyed a walk along Eton High Street as far as the huge Chapel on the right, and visits to an ancient bookshop where the categories were written by hand on cards. There was a good charity shop and a Costa Coffee where I could linger. It was all suprisingly run-down  and slightly scruffy. At 7.30pm, after a walk by the river to view the swans as the sun was setting,  I reported to the theatre. There a mayoral reception was in full swing. There were two mayors present, a man from Windsor and and a woman from Slough, in their chains of office. The mayor of Windsor and the  the director of the play,who also heads the production company, made speeches. The mayor stressed the age and history of the town's theatrical connection. Shakespeare's 'Merry Wives of Windsor' was first presented at the castle in 1599

 

The Tara Arts director said  fund-raising for  a first class venue for South Asian performing arts in London is going well. Work is to begin later this year.  It can't happen too soon for me - the  play went on until 10.25pm, which rarely happens in London. Worse, it ended just as the train left for Waterloo so I had to wait for the 10.53pm one and didn't get home until half past twelve.

 

I should have waited until the show's tour reached Stratford East, where it can be seen 6th-9th of March.

 

My review appears on The Public Reviews website.

Hero with a Six-pack: Shakespeare's 'Othello' at the Bussey Building, Peckham

 

 

 I was intrigued by the sound of this venue -  a former weapons factory off Rye Lane, Peckham.  Thanks to the Transport for London site maps I was more or less able to pinpoint the location -up a tiny alleyway opposite Peckham Rye railway station. The narrow passage led to a weird courtyard decorated with black and white graffitti in gothic style, featuring a huge animal skull.

 

 

 

The theatre  is housed in the  attic of the the ramshackle edifice, now converted into smaller  commercial units. Stairs lead up to  cavern-like room with a stage at one end and cafe tables at the other. A helpful young assistant, spotting myself and my elderly companion, escorted  us by lift to the theatre.  Just as well - the concertina-like metal door had to be forced open  manually.

 

It's usally a disadvantage when an acting ensemble has no members aged over forty; here it proved  an asset. A youthful  cast and the nature  of the venue were well-suited to a distinctive  interpretation of Shakespeare's tragic tale. 

 

My review appears on the Remotegoat website.

 

 

 

Privileging the Regulars: Trojan Women at the Jack Studio Theatre

 

I've developed  an addiction to Greek drama. It 'privileges' the regular viewer, just like a TV soap. At first it makes little sense - overwrought characters ranting on about horrific crimes committed elsewhere, backed up by a chorus. Mainly they blame fate, but more often they name names, which over time stand for abstract concepts such as courage and beauty  - Hector and Agamemnon, Helen and Cassandra. Some you know about, some you get to know, but eventually, when you've seen a few episodes,  they become familiar. You get caught up in the multiple  storylines.

 

The Trojan Women is set in the aftermath of war. It's the women who are strong, who face with stoicism whatever the gods throw at them, while trying to advise and support the men. As in soaps, their advice tends to go unheeded.  

A

 

This Jack Theatre production was very well done. With Greek drama, success depends a lot on design and choreography, but here the acting was uniformly strong, and the updated script was marvellous, particularly when voicing the soldiers, who'd spent ten weary years fighting the  Trojans.

It's good, too, when the the programme comes in the form of a complete text of the play. I have a friend in Bahrain who's always looking for good scripts for her play-reading group.

My complete review is on the Remotegoat website

Letting the Side Down: Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde at Bridewell Theatre

 

It's not often I feel sorry for the actors in a play; in this case a fine cast  and a talented creative team were let down by the lead. There's no hiding unsuitability when the perpetrator appears in almost every scene. Not that I blame Autumn Ellis, making her professional debut. Even allowing for press night jitters, whoever cast her has a lot to answer for.

I love a going to a venue I haven't been to before.  Bridewell Theatre, located up an alleyway off Fleet Street, had extra appeal: a fifteen minute walk from Cannon Street station took us past St Pauls cathedral, even more imposing when floodlit. Unfortunately we had to hurry past as the train from Lewisham was delayed.

 

 

 

Most of the audience were luckier and the mini-warehouse space with steeply raked seating was quickly filled. In fact, it was over-sold, always a problem with an unreserved policy, especially when everyone is admitted only at the last minute. We had a good view of the subsequent kerfuffle, as the entrance was directly beside the front row.

 

 

 

 With an author of Oscar Wilde's calibre, and a play I hadn't seen before I was anticipating a treat. There was a lot to enjoy. As the comment at the end of my review indicates, however, not everyone was able to look beyond a poor performance by the leading lady.

 

My full review is on the Public Reviews website.

  

Bullingdon Boy: Don Giovanni at The Coliseum, St Martin's Lane, London

 

 

 

 

This experience was quite a change from my usual one at the Coliseum. Normally I sit in a cheap upper circle seat more often than not on the back row. A friend told me 'I can't go there - I have no head for heights'  There are advantages: a panoramic view of the big stage and being more or less level with the sur-titles. There's a magical quality to sitting almost within the splendid dome, almost touching  the gilded charioteers on either side of the stage. The acoustics are so good that none of the music is lost.

 

 

 

This time, being an official reviewer, I was in the middle of the stalls and even had to lift my eyes to read the sur-titles.

I'd nothing much to draw  on in terms of previous knowledge of the work : an amateur performance in Chiswick in which a friend sang  the dramatic Commendatore role  and  nearly caused a companion to jump out of his seat with surprise at the climax to the second Act. That was nearly twenty years ago and I couldn't remember much else about it.  So I watched a DVD of a film version directed by Joseph Losey to have something more recent to compare. Recent for me, that is - the film was made in 1979.

The film was beautifully shot in the grounds of an authentic Italian villa filled with amazing statuary. So this version, inspired by contemporary Spanish city suburbs, was quite a contrast. Political references struck nearer to home, presenting a womanizer with a sense of entitlement.

 My review is  on The Public Reviews website. When I read the Evening Standard reviewer's account next day I realised I should have said a lot more about the music, but to be fair the actual staging was pretty spectacular. It didn't quite overshadow the sound, but it bid fair to doing so.

The show seems to have improved  a lot  since its first showing in 2010, going by the reviews at the time.

Before the Ships Set Sail: Iphigenia in Aulis at the Jack Studio, Brockley

I love going to this local theatre,  a short bus ride from where I live. The tiny space sparks innovative  productions and there's the added bonus of the  pub.

Lazarus Theatre Company specialise in re-interpreting classics in a non-realistic style,  incorporating dance and mime,  that suits Greek Tragedy.  Last year I saw them perform two adapted dramas, 'Electra, Her Life'  and 'Orestes, His Fall' at The Space theatre on the Isle of Dogs.

National dramas reflect national character, and Greece has been much in the news lately. So this dramatised debate about personal sacrifice versus the  public good strikes a  topical note.

Meant to be performed in an ampitheatre, how would this monumental prologue to the Trojan wars  fare in the tiny black box of the Jack Studio?

Here's my account on the remotegoat.com website: