Jeu Jeu la Foille
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‘We all know that to be a true infiltrator into patriarchy, one must find costumes, disguises and secret doors with which to enter enemy territory, in order to dismantle it.’ Susan L. Abert

26/12/2020

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Do you ever catch yourself doing something, and you think ‘I know I must be happy, because I’m doing that thing I always do when I’m happy.’ For me it’s singing. I found myself singing at the top of my lungs to an album that 90’s Vicky was obsessed with, while driving to Mama Jeu’s yesterday. Three weeks ago 2020 threw one last steaming turd at me, and I lost my shit and rather a drastic amount of weight. But if there’s one thing I’m rather adept at, it’s rising from the ashes.

I finished writing a book this week, and have sent it to the publishers for the proof copy. I won’t believe it until it’s a real thing in my hands. It’s the text of ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ and a selection of edited blogs that trace the process, plus a few other bits and pieces and photos from the live performances. I have included all of the brain haiku’s, and a poem that I later cut from the live performance. So I’d already done the writing, I just needed to learn the formatting. I hope it will be the first of many.

It’s been a booky month, as I found out that I’ve been featured in a new one coming out in April. In June 2019, my poet friend Dave Hubble came to see me perform ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ and we had a brief discussion afterwards about spoken word and burlesque for a chapter he was writing. The book is called ‘Spoken Word in the UK’ and is published by Routledge, which makes me feel very scholarly, as most of my theatre textbooks at University were published by them. 

I have been allocated some funding to re-work ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ for a digital platform and will be streaming some performances from my living room in the new year. It’s been interesting to experiment with performing to a camera, and I was able to invest in a plug-in microphone. I’m so grateful that the show is still finding new audiences, I had thought it was all over when the pandemic began this year.

Work on ‘Testy Manifesto’ is ongoing, and I found a way to frame the problematic middle section of the show. I’ve even booked a venue for a performance in June, because SURELY Covid will be long gone by then????!!! It’s currently running at 45 minutes, so I’ll do two performances to allow for social distancing. I’ve brought a burlesque element in, I wasn’t going to, but it felt right for a particular section, and Jeu Jeu insisted. She is often right about these things.

I wrote a very dark poem last month, and have shared it at a few online poetry events. I took quite a lot of artistic license with the imagery, really played up the wretchedness - we all need a lockdown poem, right?

​I keep surprising myself this year. 

Stay safe and cosy,
JJlF xx

In the house of self-undoing
A gradual drip fills a bucket overnight, and with a heavy slosh empties each day
Brown sludge clings to corners
Caterwauling creatures hunt for threads
And vacant spider-webs are hammocks for dust

In the house of self-undoing
A paint blob on the wall turns into a spindly bug, it’s legs rattle
Shower steam turns to green mould
Each day the doom-scrolling diary of a madwoman
Watches as the line on the graph climbs higher

In the house of self-undoing
A door frame shakes the frozen breath, a neighbours smoke unfurls
They are locked into screens
But taking no prisoners
Constipated hours pass, and no one thinks to help 

Bags are half packed in the house of self-undoing
An endless drone makes sparks fly, there is blood in the toilet
The sweat is fresh
But I can tell it disgusts you
Deft spiders descend with alarming speed

The house of self-undoing has paper thin walls
Terrifying hallucinations that only arouse her curiosity
Her voice rasps
Her hand won’t write
She thinks of the last meal she had with her mother in Peru, the llama skin tablecloth, the clay pots, the gentle candlelight on sloped ceilings.
Loves washes through in convulsions
Just let me leave
No sound escapes
And passers by admire the flowers outside 


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‘Am I still here if I’m not speaking / They say don’t go around, go through / Still, my heart is pounding for the right reasons / I hate to admit, but all along I knew.’ The Ode to Recovery, Jeu Jeu la Foille

13/11/2020

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Every Friday when I meet with my counsellor, I say to her “I don’t know what I’m going to talk to you about this week, everything is going well and nothing bad has happened.” But by the end of the session we have gone DEEP, and I’m usually laughing as I wipe the tears away. I never thought I would make much progress with talking therapy, but having a safe container for my feelings, and someone to reflect them back to me is the most positive thing I have ever done for myself.
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Having a creative outlet is great, and making and sharing art can be therapeutic, but the stage isn’t an appropriate place to work out issues. And although I write about difficult subjects, by the time that work is shared with an audience I’ve packaged it as neatly as I can, and distanced myself from the feelings that inspired it in the first place. That’s why at the start of ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ I say to the audience ‘Lean back, relax, these brain dogs always find their way home.’ 

I shared the first fifteen minutes of ‘Testy Manifesto’ with a friend over zoom recently, and she said she felt reassured when I say near the start ‘I promise you, I’ll be ok.’ All of the feelings expressed are real and messy, but something very useful I learned in my training at LISPA is that we should never fear for the actor. The character or stage persona is one or more steps removed from the vulnerable human underneath - we invest our discomfort in the character; the actor is ALWAYS safe. When I performed burlesque, other women would ask me if I ever felt uncomfortable taking my clothes off onstage. The answer was no, and not because I’m an exhibitionist, but because by the time I’ve got to the nudity part, its been so packaged up in music, character and costume that it’s irrelevant. Taking ones clothes off onstage is worlds apart from getting naked in front of someone you are about to have sex with for the first time, but annoyingly our culture seems to conflate the two.

I’ve reached the end of my poetry filming experiment, where I made a video for all eleven of the poems from ‘Testy Manifesto’, and shared them on my facebook page and instagram. I felt resistance to sharing some of them, I got irritated sometimes when I forgot my words and had to keep re-starting, but overall it was a fun project. And though I lamented not having the joy privilege of a live audience, I was able to try out some ideas that wouldn’t have been possible in a live performance situation. I climbed a hill while reciting the final poem, the same hill that I wrote the poem about when I climbed it on New Years Day this year, when I was in a terrible state, and couldn’t see a way out of my misery. Bringing the two elements together that day allowed me to look back and see how far I’d come, and it was TRIUMPHANT!

Just before Lockdown 2.0 happened I got to share the first fifteen minutes of ‘Testy Manifesto’ to an ACTUAL LIVE AUDIENCE at Poetry Platform at the The Railway. It was going to be a quiet night, so the host asked all the poets to prepare a longer than usual set. I had to learn a new piece of dialogue for the performance, and I hadn’t shared the work since February of this year, but it was lovely, and I remembered nearly all of my words. My sister was in the audience, and this meant a great deal to me...

Currently I’m working on staging the middle section of TM, which seems to be where all the satirical material is sitting, and I’m not sure how all those pieces intersect just yet. I’m meant to be sharing this in another zoom rehearsal next week, but I’m not putting any pressure on myself to have it all figured out, just memorised is enough, anything else is a bonus.

What I have decided to do, is go through ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ and cut out the parts with audience interaction to make it covid-secure and suitable for a digital platform. It seems an awful shame, but I really can’t be crawling on audience members smearing lipstick on their faces in these times, and I’ve had some overseas interest in the show; I was gobsmacked to discover that some poets in Nashville and San Francisco had heard of a ‘burlesque poet’ called me, and they want a Lobotomy. Cool.

No new poems to share this time, so I’m writing a list of what needs to be adjusted in ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ for my own process, it won’t mean much to anyone but me....I do love a list.

Lots of love, 
JJlF xx

  1. Mirror at the start might be weird without an audience, I won’t be able to look directly at anyone.
  2. Instrumental Montage - Do something different with the thumb lights for middle section of the music.
  3. Walter Freeman 1 - Hold the brain myself and demonstrate the Lobotomy without the use of an audience member.
  4. Cut Brain Haiku part with audience interaction, or recite several myself. Keep the ad hoc.
  5. Other Side - Smear lipstick on own face, and find something else to do rather than put it on someone else for the middle part of the music.
  6. Lip-synch part - Change script here: “We can’t even see who is watching”
  7. Rainbirds - The ‘apology’ doesn’t make sense now, find something else to do for that part of the music. 

There’s a lot of ‘finding something else to do’ here!
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‘The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.’ Jacques Cousteau

16/10/2020

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Venus was twinkling at me through my bedroom window when I woke up this morning and it was still dark. I know it was Venus because I have an app on my phone that told me. Technology is pretty awesome. So are planets.

A past collaborator and I got together over a facebook video call the other week to record a voiceover that I need for ‘Testy Manifesto.’ It’s a piece of dialogue that I’ve written in the style of Theatre of the Absurd that happens early on in the show. I reply to the voiceover live, and I hope it sets up the idea of the abusive ‘other’ and the absurdity and crazy-making that having a conversation with an abusive person sounds like. The same collaborator is making me a bespoke sound effect too. Technology, yeah. Friends that help you for no money but you might be able to pay them in the future possibly if you get that ACE grant you applied for, yeah.

I’ve filmed myself doing six poems and posted them on my facebook page and instagram over the past month. The responses have been positive, and as my confidence grew I found myself getting a bit more creative with the way I framed each one. The videos are nothing fancy, the point was to try something I hadn’t done before. I’ve got five more poems to film, but I’ve been dragging my heels a bit, I think the doubt is setting in, and the longer I leave it....

A good friend who moved to Edinburgh this year and I have started having rehearsals over zoom. She is devising her first solo show, we have exchanged scripts, and I have resolved to be vulnerable in front of her. Then if the Fringe goes ahead next year we will tech for each other, and I’ll have somewhere to stay that doesn’t swallow my entire budget. Which is good as those tiny, damp, free fringe venues are germ factories, and I may as well not be diseased AND overdrawn.

I did manage to do an actual live gig for Poetry Platform at the Railway last month. It was streamed online, and the mic was sterilised after each performer. I’m enjoying this hygienic hybrid approach, and had missed being part of an audience. I did an old poem I knew well from ‘Frontal Lobotomy’, two new ones from ‘Testy Manifesto’ and ended with ‘The Laughing Heart’ by Charles Bukowski. It was nice to be back.

I’m training to be a Funeral Celebrant at the moment, and my tutor commented today on how I always selected such lovely pieces of poetry for the guest readings and what we call the Scene In and Scene Out. I revealed that I wrote poems, and was a poet-nerd, and he said I could write my own pieces for originality. Maybe that is my third anthology show; ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Lonely Ceremony’, ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Smitten Commital’, ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Boredom Crematorium.’

Here is a very new, and very vulnerable poem I wrote for ‘Testy Manifesto.’ I’m done with writing for that show, I’ve said all I wanted to say, and there are other things to work on now, like the ACTING. But I’ll probably end up re-writing this one, as I’m not sure I like it yet.​

JJlF xx


It was easy enough to report 
The unspoken currency of a white woman’s tears
We’ve got something more serious here
You clearly didn’t do that to yourself
My eye betrayed me
But my skin colour saved me


It was simple enough to escape
The unspoken guarding of a white woman’s face
Buy the paint, move into this space
You’re going to be safer now
My eye healed up
But the phone didn’t stop


It was smooth enough to describe
The unspoken manner of a white woman’s pain
He’s a cunt, and you’re not to blame
You can stay with us anytime
But my eyes are still sore
And I’m thinking more and more


What if I hadn’t been white
Had trouble walking upright
My English was stale
If I had been born male


What if the two years were twenty
I had spoken too gently
If I had far less of a wage
Or if I was gay


What if that child had been born
If my bruises were worn
And instead of a new flat
I’d ended up on a slab


My story has been heard by many strangers
You are by no means the first
Professionals doing their good work
I’m past the worst, not in any danger


What I wasn’t prepared for was the loss
Weird, but I felt empty without the stress
Fear, anger, grief or drunk
That’s how that summer sunk


And I sometimes thought
Amid the haze and tears
That if my assailant had been black 
Would that have brought the justice back
Would it be swifter, harsher, fairer 
And what did that say about me
I can’t condone these atrocities 
I won’t stay silent to ease your discomfort
There are too many to of us to count
There’s someone near to you now
That’s in an unspeakable hell
And getting free is only the start
Please hold them as they open their hearts 
And say, you’ve come this far
You’ll never go back there again




Photo Credit: Veronika Vee Marx
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‘Ruminating over the past doesn’t mean you want to return to it.’ Brianna Wiest, The Mountain is You

30/8/2020

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Something pretty big happened for me last week. I finally got out of my own way and finished writing ‘Testy Manifesto.’ It’s the first draft, ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ went through about 15 drafts, so I can’t call it finished. But it’s there, it’s something, and I don’t hate it. To put into context, I began writing this show in March 2019, it’s taken me 18 months of floundering and questioning why I was even doing it. I’d written a few bits and pieces before I began in earnest, but only one of those poems has made it into this version, I’ve ended up with several orphans. The tipping point happened when I stumbled upon a writer giving an interview on self-sabotage a few weeks ago, and what she said made so much sense to me, that I bought her latest book and read it in a day. There were four pieces that I still needed to write, and rather than trying to control the outcome of those, or waiting even longer until I was ‘ready’, I just opened my computer and started writing words. Three of them didn’t turn out at all the way I was expecting, and two surpassed my expectations, and were far better ideas than I’d originally had.
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I said two blogs ago that I was going to start filming poems and putting them online, just as a way of practising, and I still haven’t done that....it’s on my list for tomorrow. But at least now I know why I was holding back. It was my fear of being judged, not being liked, not being polished enough. All that shit has to go now. And if I try filming thing and it’s not for me, then I know I need to try another way. I’ve already sent the first draft of the script to a trusted friend and collaborator, I’ve approached a previous collaborator to record a voiceover with me, I emailed the last producer I worked with...I don’t care if it’s not quite ready, if not now then when? I now know that all this dragging my heels didn’t happen because I was unmotivated or undisciplined. I was genuinely afraid of how the work would be received. But I think back to when I moved from burlesque into doing ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ and people saying then how much of a departure it was from my previous guises. And then after the scratch performances of ‘Testy Manifesto’ them saying “Well, it’s a bit different from your last show.” I’m glad it’s different. This is where I am now.

I don’t think a creative process gets any easier the more you do it, you just have more grace. You know it’s going to be difficult at points, and those challenges get easier to reconcile. Like when a relationship ends, it doesn’t make it any less hurtful, but you know that you managed before, and so will do again. Despite how well ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ did for me, the reviews, awards and audience numbers, I know there were some people who didn’t like it. I really have to get comfortable with not being ‘liked’ now, as what I’ve produced this time is far more confrontational. It shares many features with FL; anthology style, puppets, A LOT of words, but no burlesque this time. I had a ball with burlesque, but that side of me no longer feels appropriate. 

On a completely random side note, I’ve been training to be a funeral celebrant. Somehow my writing and performing experience, and my latent goth tendencies, not only have an outlet, but a market too. My pre-coursework was to write the funeral for someone real or imagined, and I chose Tom Waits. My course tutor was so taken aback at this rather epic funeral I’d planned that he’s urged me to continue with it, and deliver it for my assessment. There is music in there from Leadbelly and Captain Beefheart, and the eulogy begins with ‘Thomas Alan Waits was born at a very young age in Pomona, California.’ I wouldn’t have even begun thinking I was poetical without Waits, he has a lot to answer for.

Big loves,
JJlF xx

PS: A story that I wrote, that didn’t turn out how I expected...

The mouth of the cave was small, indiscriminate, indistinct, indignant. No one knew how far back the cave went, they all assumed it was bigger on the inside, but no one had ever ventured far enough. You probably wouldn’t even notice it if you walked past, and many did walk past, it being situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty. No one felt compelled to have their picnic there, and so no litter was left. It remained wild, wild and unremarkable. Inside the cave lived a group of three beings, whom one by one had spontaneously materialised, over an indeterminate period of time. You couldn’t call them friends, but occupying the same space as they did brought a level of familiarity. 

The first of the three to appear arrived in the shape of a small red tricycle, and for a long time he sat alone, not knowing how he’d got there, not daring to go outside. The second being to appear arrived as a red haze at first, and then took the shape of a white rose, her petals already a bit wilted and spoiled, but her stem thick and spiky. The tricycle and the rose sat and waited. Somehow they knew, in all their numb confusion, that a third being would soon materialise, and that they would give them the answers they needed. Why are we here? Who made us? And why can’t we leave this place? 

The silence surrounded them until a tiny blue frog with black beady eyes appeared and began croaking incessantly. It seemed luminous in the darkness, and had a kind of frantic bravery, that cut through their inertia, and ruffled them into action. Working together, they explored the cave, the rose riding on the tricycle and the frog leading and lighting the way. “What’s out there?” The frog croaked, indicating the mouth of the cave, and hopped towards it, the other two obediently following. 

Suddenly the whole cave glowed with a ruby luminescence, the ground beneath them shifted, the walls began shuddering, and wind that came from deep within the cave lifted them and began sucking them inside. Up up they went, pulled by the wind, the ruby glow getting hotter and hotter, until all three of them had transmuted to fire. Bursting out of the earth and running down the newly formed peak as lava, they somehow knew it had to be this way, and they let go, cooling as they flowed, slowing as they hardened.​

The rain came, the grass grew, and three flowers bloomed on the mountain. One red, one white and one blue. The wild yet unremarkable mouth of the cave closed over, but people often have their picnics on top of the mountain peak now. They don’t stay for long, and they always take their litter home with them.





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Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself. Roy T. Bennett

1/8/2020

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I’ve done so many of Peta Lily’s workshops now, I feel like I’m collecting them like stamps in a coffee shop. I had my first taste of the dark clown back in 2015, and just the other weekend I was really honoured to continue piquing my curiosity with Dark Clown Level 2, over Zoom. I wrote her a little testimonial, but that really didn’t do it justice. I teach A-Level Drama, and I sometimes implore my students to never stop learning, if they have a passion for the work, a hunger to figure out what humanity entails, in all it’s messy, abusive horror, to never stop asking questions. I tell them that no play ever written or performed, involves a bunch of people sitting around having a lovely time. Where’s the fun in that?! Just the relish in which Peta delivers the exercises, the technique that she insists upon, and the feeling of support and connectedness that she nurtures. It’s trauma informed, so challenging but so accessible. Something she said that has stuck with me, and I’m wildly paraphrasing, was that if you get it ‘right’, you’ve been visited by the spirit of inspiration, not your ‘fault’, not because you’re ‘better’, but because in that moment you were given a gift from the ether. I love that, it takes the pressure away, while not letting you completely off the hook.

Often before I perform I imagine roots from my feet growing and twisting around the earth. I remember distinctly from the 2017 tour of ‘Frontal Lobotomy’, thinking before every performance; I give it over to you, whatever happens happens. Who ‘you’ is I don’t know. There is some strange alchemy going on in a live performance, and for a nervous, reluctant performer as I am, handing it over feels appropriate. Obviously I’ve rehearsed, and my props are in the right place, and my eyelashes are glued on, but the rest is up to ‘you’. I remember an earlyish gig at The Wet Spot in Leeds, where Fancy Chance diligently instructed me how to glue on my lashes. I was a useless burlesque performer in many ways, totally clueless, and insistent on doing things my way. Why does it matter how good my make-up is, and how many rhinestones I have on my costume, I thought. If the story is good enough, and my acting is good enough, and the right items of clothing come off at the right time in the right way - and if they don’t then I’ll style it out - then it doesn’t matter that my costumes and props were homemade and sourced from charity shops. I was always the plain jane in line ups, I always felt the least polished, I didn’t invest £2000 in my costumes, and I felt some kind of masochistic pride in that. Watch me for the content, not the sparkles, I thought. Deeply misguided perhaps.

It was Peta Lily who gave me faith in my writing. Write your own version of ‘Pasties and a G-string’, she said, you know far more about burlesque than Tom Waits does. So I did. I basically plagiarised the entire rhythm and structure of that beat poem, told it from my point of view, it’s still one of my favourite parts of ‘Frontal Lobotomy.’ The spirit of inspiration visited me the day I wrote that. And the spirit has been back this week. Having had my cogs oiled by the dark clown workshop, I’ve written a piece of dialogue that I’d been toiling over for a while, and I have ideas for four more pieces to write. After that ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto’ is done. It’s taking me forever, a total mishmash, makes no fucking sense, the usual story. AND I speak French in it. I really know how to make life difficult. 

The truth is it has been so so hard to write a piece about domestic abuse, from me, as a survivor. I am haunted by the past, it has affected everything in my life since. I am clouded by rage, with intrusive thoughts, I cannot trust, I run away or withdraw, I’m hyper-vigilant and often triggered. I started writing ‘Testy Manifesto’ initially as a way to cope, now I’m working out how to make it palatable; using what Peter Levine calls ‘pendulation.’ Like a good massage, a little bit painful, and then aahhh...relax. It’s trauma informed, I hope it’s accessible, it’s funny, strange and true. And I have no interest in making theatre that’s me just sitting around having a lovely time, where’s the fun in that?!

I hope to bring it to an invited, highly sanitised and socially distanced London audience before the year is out. Let’s see, nothing is certain anymore.
All love,
JJlF xx
Photo credit: Ale Filizzola. Costume by Faye McKeever, for the London College of Fashion.
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‘I had to embrace a kind of science fiction life, or maybe a magical life, by which I mean the ability to experience the world and connections and myself, in ways that did not fit the standard modes of reality.’ Rachel Pollack, The Beatrix Gates

1/7/2020

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It does not sit well with me to be sitting down while reading poems that I have written, speaking to my own face on a screen. I have not done well in online performances, and though I am grateful that they are still happening, there haven’t been many that I’ve enjoyed watching either. I did probably what will be my only live performance of post March 2020 at the end of May. It was at my Grandmother’s funeral, and I’ve included the poem I wrote for her at the end here. Today I filmed a short poetry set as practise for an online gig, but watching it back I knew this wasn’t the day for ‘live’ performance. It sounded flat and I looked bored. I guess I could’ve had another crack at it. I was sitting down at my desk, so I moved the ipad to the top of a bookshelf so I could stand up, and there and then I decided it was time to ADAPT. I still backed out of the online gig, but I’ve committed to - and I’m putting this in words so I have accountability - making a two-minute video once a week and posting it on my facebook page and instagram. This way I have to learn and practise one or two poems a week and get them online. We aren’t going back to sharing spaces in the way that we used to anytime soon, and it’s all I can do to stop everything turning to sludge. 

I’ve been so sick of seeing my own face on a screen during nearly every human interaction I’ve had in the past four months that I made a new puppet to speak through, so a different face was on the screen. She is called Wanda, and she is a womb. I wrote a poem about reproductive rights called ‘Pro Life’, in the vein of Desiree’s 90’s hit ‘Life’, then made a short video and submitted it to Grant Sharkey’s Radical You TV. It’s THE SEXY ONE on youtube. I’m so proud of my friends who are making great online work; hosting quizzes, doing podcasts, leading dance classes, and showcasing editing and animation skills, the likes of which I can only dream of. I’ve made a new puppet. But she’s cool, and maybe we’ll do some more educational videos together, if inspiration ever strikes again.

I’ve signed up to Peta Lily’s Advanced Dark Clown workshop at the end of July. This will be the first workshop I’ve ever done via zoom, and I always come away from working with Peta brimming with ideas. This could not be more timely and needed. I’m outraged at the events  happening in the world on an hourly basis, and I hardly feel much like writing anything new. It feels more important to listen for now, and to educate myself. And to not turn to sludge in the meantime. 


JJlF xx


A hush fell over the green opposite the kitchen window
The ducks paused mid waddle, beaks agape
As dusk fell, the best fed fox in Winchester, slinked from his lair, sniffed the air
And saw his nightly banquet was late
But in another space, another plane, tails started wagging, whiskers twitched
Fur faced eyes wide in eagerness
Yes! They said, She is returned to us.

The bird lady left her body that Spring
Blossoms bloomed but her spirit shrank
From a shell that brought her no pleasure
A fragmented mind
Holding humour until the very last
Dinky Bennett in present and past
We wished her wings rest
But never forget

Our squeals as she dried between our toes 
The mock indignation at the sight of false teeth
Yellow photographs, squares, over-exposed
An entourage of rowdy geese
The red warning triangles for ducks on Worthy Road

How we rolled our eyes when she pointed that camera
‘Look natural’ she yelled, while we were eating our dinner
Archers and lemonade over ice
A cheeky cream cake
A drawer stuffed with biscuits 
A teddy bears picnic
Her voice on the phone pricks up floppy ears
The scent on borrowed clothes foretells her appearance

Now they all line her path as she greets each one by name
‘Hello Chutney and Rio, it’s lovely to see you
And Toni, and Benbow, Abbie and Willow
There’s Jason, sopping wet from the river
Jamie, Louee, Pepai and Sophie the bunny
Candy, Kelly, Lady, Blu and Honey
Toby, Friday, Dominic, Blaze and Midnight
God bless you all, you’re a sight for sore eyes!’

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‘Nostalgia will kill the good girl. The truth is you should not waste your time on being good.’ Lisa Marie Basille, Apocryphal.

10/5/2020

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Last night I had a dream in which I was performing ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ at Edinburgh Fringe as a one-off in a new venue. Before the show there was a big queue out of the door, but those people were waiting for the famous comedian who was due to perform in the adjacent space. I still had a decent sized audience, but the problem was the stage hadn’t been set up, and I was moving chairs around, and faffing with my ipad in front of them, still not in my costume. I kept apologising profusely to the audience for not being ready, who seemed pretty non-plussed about my fuss, and as the performance was about to start, my unconscious announced it was the end of the dream and told me to wake up.

The world looks very different to how it did two months ago, and I’m amazed at the ingenuity and tenacity of artists who have moved their work online. I’ve watched a couple of live gigs from a screen; commenting with the applause emoji, hitting ‘like’ and tipping the paypal or crowdfunder. I’ve taken part in two poetry gigs, and while I’ve enjoyed not having to leave the sofa for any of these events, it’s really not the same is it? I know that my own performances were considerably below par, and I really commend those artists who have managed to still perform to an optimal level. It’s so strange, knowing that I am there watching them, but not actually there. The only feedback they are getting is the stream of hearts on the right hand side of the screen. I miss bodies in a room, but that’s not happening anytime soon, and nor should it.
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I was due to show my Frontal Lobotomy extract at DIY in Southampton this June, and was recently given the option to move it online. I wondered how that would work; I could perform the ‘lobotomy’ on my partner, maybe the cats would make cameo appearances, it might be fun. I still haven’t decided whether to do it. What I have realised is that moments from that show are now impossible - I simply cannot smear lipstick all over my face and then decorate an audience member with the same lipstick. Attitudes towards that sort of assault have changed, and what will I do instead? How much had I relied on a blasé and relaxed approach to basic sanitation, and the willingness of an audience to just go with it?
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I’ve not made any progress with ‘Testy Manifesto’, not written anything new or actioned any of the feedback I’d listed in the last blog. Nothing. I even avoided reading poems from that show in the online poetry gigs. My friend is curating a set of performances from domestic abuse survivors, that she has asked me to be part of. We don’t know when that will happen as it needs bodies in a room. I had planned on rolling out the next instalment of Testy Manifesto for the Cabaret Project in June, but have had no word as to whether that will happen online or at all. How would I get an audience to pass around a naked Barbie doll in a virtual performance? How can people watching through a screen smell the perfume I spray? We all need audiences as performers, but mine have to be really there for it to work as I want it to.
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This all sounds very defeatist, and in many ways I’m grateful that I hadn’t invested time and money into a packed summer of gigs, and that my sole income doesn’t come from live performance. It is much worse for many I know. I’m grateful for the chance to pause, and I have focused on how I can still make lessons for my A-Level students engaging and useful when we aren’t together as bodies in a room. Before the quarantine orders were given they were devising physical theatre pieces in groups, and I found myself freaking out about just how they were meant to make progress and keep socially distanced when we return to college. The antidote to freaking out was to get curious about what that might look like; how do you lift someone when you can’t touch them? I invited my students to consider this in our discussions, to use their imaginations, and to prioritise their well-being above all. And then I took my own advice.

I am working on something new; it’s a poem for my Grandmother’s funeral, which will happen at the end of this month. My mum suggested that I write something, and I had already planned to as it seemed like the best way to heal my grief and celebrate her life, but I cry every time I try to write it. I wrote this blog as a way of clearing the decks, to integrate all the mixed feelings I have, so that the words I really want to write will come. 

With love, JJ xx

​PS: I finally wrote some copy for ‘Testy Manifesto’, this is it so far....too cheesy?

Enchantress weaves words on inner resilience, recovery and revolution in a striking visual anthology.

Strange, poetic and acerbically silly, Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto combines linguistic acrobatics and evocative images to delve deep into the mechanisms of intimate partner violence. 
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Bear witness to a vivid story so many experience in an unashamedly personal exploration of misogyny, protest, and a game where to win is to survive.
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They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds.’ Mexican Proverb

12/3/2020

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Just this week two of the biggest burlesque and cabaret producers have been accused of sexual harassment, and a plethora of victim statements are being amassed. This hot on the heels of Weinstein’s trial, where the sentencing sent a clear message. No one is untouchable, those brave enough to speak out will be believed, and people are going to have to get used to having more uncomfortable conversations.

I announced an upcoming performance of ‘Testy Manifesto’ on social media earlier this month, stating that it made ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ look like ‘a prance around a sunny unicorn paddock in rainbow flip flops.’ As I was rehearsing for the performance last month I longed for slipping into that old show like a comfortable pair of shoes. I began to lose heart and really doubt myself. I know I have every right to tell this story, and to get me through I had to focus on why I was telling it, and more importantly who I was telling it for.

Since the having the feedback from the performance at Cabaret Playroom in November, I’ve developed a few things they mentioned. The French character now appears three times (much like the Doctor character in ‘Frontal Lobotomy’) and speaks for longer. Learning lines in another language was a new and perilous challenge. The blocking of movements and a more effective use of the space was a priority this time around. When I performed in November, my main aim was to learn the words and somehow get them out. I noticed from the video that I only really used one area of the space, and the actual shape I was making with my body rarely changed. This time I experimented with movement and shape, seeing what came out instinctively as I repeated the words. I’ve still been very sparing with movement, I can be bolder with this.

I added three new poems to the extract, it now runs at just over 20 minutes. I haven’t worked with a director or anyone to give me an outside eye as yet, I just simply don’t have the money, or the timing have been off. I am relying on a video of the performance from the end of February, where I performed the newest instalment at Moving Voices at The Art House in Southampton. I watch many performances for my job, and here guide students as best I can through awareness of the playwrights intentions and the individual qualities of the actor. Here I am trying to navigate what my own intentions are, and seeing what my own qualities and short-comings as a performer are, and doing my best to stay as objective and encouraging as possible. I watched the video and made some notes....

  • Enter more slowly, give time for the image. Lift the skeleton slowly. The feet clatter on the floor several times - can I cover the soles with something to stop that happening?
  • Sort out the walking; I only bend from your waist and walk flat-footed.
  • Pronunciation of simplement. Practise the French more, you gave the character a good go. 
  • Not sure the sequinned headband works with taking an eye-patch on and off. Disappointed to let this motif go, and need something else as part of the costume for my head/hair.
  • ‘No harm in peeking’ Needs reaction, look, slight pause.
  • The first poem - the introduction - feels slow enough to be taken in.
  • I’m so stiff in my hips, my head sways side to side - work on this.
  • The ‘play’ with removing the coat needs to be front centre. The movement larger.
  • Clock the audience before the second poem starts.
  • ‘Help me.’ Needs emphasis, mark the moment.
  • Arms are too stiff to start with.
  • The crouching before the puppet looks good, could be bowing?
  • Puppet needs his head up more - fix his neck.
  • Do I throw the skeleton down or let him drop?
  • Exaggerate my leg creeping away - symbolic movement showing being dragged back in?
  • Voice changes when I stand up on ‘Power’ - do I want this?
  • Too much of my profile is to Stage Left.
  • ‘Got up my nose.’ Emphasise.
  • Barbie’s entrance, turn her to the front first.
  • Barbie can move more. Grabbing her by the hair worked.
  • Missed the last verse of ‘Handle with Care.’
  • Forgot some of Barbie’s occupations. The final line of this section worked well.
  • Should I turn away when putting on the beret and eye-patch? It seems fine to remove it facing front. 
  • ‘Je ne suis pas invisible.’ Play this up more, leave a space for reaction. 
  • With the banner - look around more towards the end of the poem, as if on the march.
  • Missed two lines from ‘Jezebel.’ 
  • More movement in the repetition part of the 3rd French speech.
  • Smile first before the final poem - I need to set up the intention before speaking.
  • Work more on ‘Ode to Recovery.’
  • Choose better moment or pause to put on coat at the end.
  • The ending should be punchier - it’s like I ran out of steam and limped off at the end.​

A woman approached me after this performance and said she was captivated. She added that she’d seen plenty of one-woman shows that seemed to have all types of cash and gimmicks thrown at them, but nothing like the heart or potential of this show. She then added that she was a  domestic abuse survivor too, and I hugged her. What she said next interested me. I have a placard I hold up in the show with the words ‘High-functioning domestic abuse survivors need support too.’ Last March when I took part in Million Women Rise, the protest to end violence against women and girls, I was waiting on my own at the start of the march, feeling pumped to be there but more lonely than ever, and I saw a sign that said that statement. On a little placard, scrawled in felt tip, were words that seemed to speak directly to me. I took those words and used them on my own banner for the performance. And the woman that approached me after the show, said the same thing; “Your sign was true, we’re ok actually, but it’s still not ok what happened to us.”

I’m not a typical victim, I have privileges other survivors don’t. The people that don’t understand why someone would return to their abuser don’t understand how coercive control works. The same people don’t understand why someone wouldn’t report a sexual assault or sexual misconduct until months or years later. It’s an insidious, gradual erasure of self. It makes you doubt everything you thought you knew as truth. It isolates you and prevents you from trusting those who might be able to help. On average a woman returns to her abuser after a violent incident 9 times. Think about that. Domestic abuse is the biggest killer of women worldwide. Think about that. Statistically nothing is more life-threatening to a woman than a partner who believes that if he can’t have her, then no one can. I’m ok, but there are many who weren’t, aren’t or won’t be.

There is a place for dialogue in the writing of this performance. It will have to be me talking to a voice-over, but within it I will examine and expose what a conversation with an abuser sounds like. To do this I’m going to have to recall actual conversations that I had, but I feel ready to do this now. In fact, although I doubt my own abilities as a performer fairly regularly, I don’t doubt for one second the importance of the message, why I’m doing it, and who it is for. And that is worth some discomfort.

Sans choix, nous sommes plus mortels que morts.  

Xxx
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Time has told me / You’re a rare, rare find / A troubled cure / For a troubled mind. Nick Drake

10/1/2020

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An old friend I met the other night told me that when him and his ex-girlfriend broke up, she wrote him a long letter afterwards (on an actual typewriter) explaining how she felt. In response, he wrote a series of poems, self-published the anthology on amazon, and bought two copies, one for his shelf, and the other he sent to her - with the handwritten inscription “This is how I feel.” I was deeply impressed. We spoke about how poetry was so pure, in that finding the right word, the right series of words, considering their musicality and playing with metaphor was very satisfying and could help pull you out of a dark place.

On New Years Day I wrote my first new poem for probably six months. I wanted to try writing an Ode, as I hadn’t attempted one yet, though thinking about it, the whole of ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ is an ode to Tom Waits. I climbed up a big hill that day, and decided when I got home to write an ode to the hill. I made the mistake of titling the poem before starting it, and that kind of dictated where it went. It didn’t turn out very Ode-y. It got heard for the first time at Poetry Platform this week, and I followed it up with Pablo Neruda’s ‘Ode to Wine’ so the audience could hear a proper ode from a proper poet.

This morning, Lisa from Cabaret Playroom and I had a phone conversation where she gave the audience comments and her own feedback from my first extract performance of ‘Testy Manifesto.’ This is what the audience wrote - it’s all here, I’ve left nothing out!

Write one line to the artist about their work

Really enjoyed it. Your act is brilliant
Brilliant concept, lovely monologue
Very disciplined work. Well done
Magnifique!
Some lovely writing and moments of performance
Enchanting, commanding and a bit Shakespeary
Very well done
Beautiful, honest and powerful
Mesmerising to watch and listen to
Very powerful and a beautiful rawness


Write a publicity quote for the act

Wonderful leftfield fun with arresting moments of pathos

French fun!
We all have skeletons in our closet. Barbie is one of them!
Enchantress shares thought babble
Poetry of beautiful clarity and honesty


What was your favourite/ memorable moment
The barbie

Barbie and the surreal text to link sections
Barbie
Barbie
Her honey voice and nice tits
The poetry - and the skeleton part was great too - scary
Barbie
The Barbie jokes were funny
Barbie made me laugh with her ‘edifying’ comments


One thing to consider for future development
Smooth out the technical difficulties. Ten Ten Ten across the board!

More humour
Director. Performance needs shaping/editing
Shakespeare went over my head and so did she
Not sure about the French intro & outro
Keep going with it and keep in this direction
Why take off eye patch and beret so soon?
More movement to go with the storytelling
Just brilliant! Your poetry is really powerful - at times you could have let it breathe a little more (slower pace).
From the notes I made, Lisa’s lovely, helpful feedback, and through interpreting these comments, I’ve made a list of things to edit/change, develop and interrogate. I’m much harsher when giving myself feedback, but believe me when I say I have taken onboard all of the positive things too.
  • Trust a techie. Get someone else to operate the sound. Doing my own tech worked out ok for ‘Frontal Lobotomy.’ Not this time.
  • Slow down. The words are good, let them land.
  • They loved the Barbie bit, they needed to laugh at that point, so the structure is working. Where else can I include more humour? Leave space for laughter.
  • In the conversation I have with the skeleton at the start the language becomes more heightened. Can I work on more stylised movement for this section? Lisa said that I looked like I was a good mover - remember that I am, and I trained in physical theatre FFS. I can be bolder here. The opening image with the skeleton was striking, I think the audience were expecting more of this.
  • The language is dense, flowery, like Shakespeare - but my likeable stage presence makes it natural and accessible. I remember one review of Frontal Lobotomy’ called it ‘Fantastical, yet accessible.’ Is this my trope? Could be.
  • The French character needs developing, we need more of her. I’m going to get some French language CD’s from the library to play in my car - but only for the easy journeys. Writing in another language that I barely speak, and in a way that a mainly native English speakers will understand is a big challenge for me. And then delivering that correctly and confidently...fuck. Ok then, better get better.
  • The subject matter is compelling, and there’s enough potential material to easily fill an hour. Aim for this.
  • It worked well using a mic for the Barbie section. It was a nice contrast to the fragility of everything else. But although I could be heard fine during the rest of the piece, I need to be more aware of projection when music is playing underneath the speech.
  • The music is lovely, using French music helps to maintain the convention that is introduced at the start.
  • Work with a director / outside eye. This is the next step, and I really must get more comfortable with asking for help.
  • Keep the simplicity and rawness, and find contrasts within this. It’s elegant, but at points can be theatricalised.
I’m aiming for a half hour version of this for Moving Voices in Southampton on February 28th, where I’m the guest poet. That’s double time wise what I managed for Cabaret Playroom. Time to stop dicking around. I’ve hidden, shrunk and drifted for too long now, and I need more Jeu Jeu back in my life.
With much love,

JJLF xx


The Ode to Recovery
It’s steep

And speeding up on the approach to a blind bend
Braking in a breath
Only a moment
The next kerb in view
Snatches the wheels and flips the car
Then the straight road reappears.
It’s long

And a walking fire hazard ignites a tree, she also can’t see
That putting out the fire
By rolling in the dirt
For the next pair of eyes just flint
Until at last the countenance clears
It’s narrow

And the question is answered with a gunshot and screech
I’m checking for holes
They say it takes a village
And the next time you sing
Will be the only song you’ll need
It’s bleak, today
But my heart is pounding for the right reasons
Taking in a breath
Look up for a moment
The next track starts to play
Sure, a good deal of it is classic PTSD
But maybe your bad points are just your personality


I know this ode to the road to recovery wasn’t really an ode
Neither is the road
But the signs get easier to read I’m told


They say climbing a hill diagonally
Makes it easier to do
This somehow seems absurd to me
I make it difficult
I save my breathlessness for the view
Am I still here if I’m not speaking

They say don’t go around, go through
Still my heart is pounding for the right reasons
I’m gasping
But all along I knew


PS: Photo Credit James Millar. Thank you!








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‘It only believes, in a pile of dead leaves, and a moon that’s the colour of bone.’ November, Tom Waits

2/12/2019

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All feedback is helpful. Even the more negative feedback, depending on how vulnerable I’m feeling, has a use somewhere. I often feel that the things people say to me after a performance, reveal a lot about them and their own experiences. When I was performing burlesque regularly, sometimes a well-meaning woman would approach me after the show, either when I was leaving or at the bar, and tell me how much she enjoyed my act, and that she was glad that I wasn’t skinny. This proves, at least to me, that anyone else will view my work through their own lens, and that it’s up to me to take on whatever is helpful, which it all is, in a way. 

I’ve had a lot of very useful feedback on the first extract of my new show over the past six weeks, and it’s time to record some of it here to try and make sense of it.​

At the start of November I presented the very clunky beginnings of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto’ (still not sure if I’m keeping that title) at Lost and Found at the Railway in Winchester, It’s a unique gig; all the artists and audience sit in a circle, and everyone shares a couple of songs, poems, and whatnot, then the audience can ask whoever has just performed a couple of questions, and a bit of chat happens, then the next performance. It’s informal, lovely and inclusive, a good place to try something I wasn’t at all comfortable with.

My bit was fairly intense, I remembered that I’m not good at answering questions, or even speaking properly when I’ve just performed. Nerves and cider got the better of me, I forgot nearly all of the lines I’d tried to memorise for the past two weeks, and I hadn’t rehearsed at all with the skeleton puppet I’d decided to add at the last minute. So I faffed about a bit with the props and read my words from a folder. People said they enjoyed my writing, they showed me images on their phones that it reminded them of, they told me to think big, they asked me if what I was doing was ‘performance art.’

A couple of days before Lost and Found, I had done an extract performance of Frontal Lobotomy for Write a Note in Southampton. Normally I have debilitating fear before performing, and am impossible to speak to directly afterwards. I honestly really enjoyed this gig, it was like putting on a comfortable pair of old shoes. I know I know Frontal Lobotomy, and I know it works. At least by making something new, I can now direct my abject fear onto that, and I’m doing my best to continue performing the old show, though it seems like every prop and item of costume has worn out and needs replacing.

I also made a very unimportant announcement that after April 1st 2020, which is my 10th birthday as Jeu Jeu la Foille (the anniversary of my first burlesque performance), that I’m not going to perform any of my old acts anymore. There are three left that I perform on request, the seven or so more I made were retired a while back, some only made it to the stage a few times, two not at all. This doesn’t mean that I won’t still perform as Jeu Jeu, but it will only be what I made after April 2016. I’m letting all the old burlesque acts go, though I may end up doing one final send off.

The real challenge for me over the month of November was getting something performance ready for Cabaret Playroom. I had a drastic reshuffle of what I was going to perform after feeling the difficulty of Lost and Found. I rearranged some of the poems, cut the poem that was most explicitly about domestic abuse, put a ‘softer’ poem at the end, added two new bits of music, and reintroduced a French narrator character to bookend the whole thing a bit more theatrically. Once I was as happy as I could be with the structure, I approached three friends and asked them if they wouldn’t mind me sending them the extract to read, and letting me know their thoughts.

I received such varied and generous responses, and I’ve paraphrased some below. All three readers had seen the full Frontal Lobotomy this year, so they knew the kind of thing they were in for.

  • Writing wise, very strong, its going to need to be performed dynamically. Reminded of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Fleabag, A Midsummer Nights Dream.
  • How does the Barbie bit fit in with the rest? It feels like three different shows, or three distinct stages to a show.
  • The French narrator character? Is she an unreliable narrator? 

Even to respond to their feedback and answer their questions was really helpful in cementing exactly why I was saying and doing this script. I also realised that I was asking a lot of the audience, and was going to have to trust myself. As well as all the specific notes, I received a lot of encouragement and practical help from this point on. It had been me and four walls for a long time, and so I was brave and asked for help. I covered my skeleton puppet in brown paper, and a very practical person performed emergency triage on him. Together we discovered how to edit music cues on GoButton. I spent a week frowning and talking to myself. I painted some old ballet pumps silver and bought a dress that I’d be unlikely to wear in real life...and was less than £20.

Cabaret Playroom is a long-standing event and testing ground for new cabaret work. There were five other artists/groups performing new work last week. The audience filled out feedback sheets, we will receive a video of our performance, and a skype meeting to discuss the feedback given. There was one other performer on the line up who was concerned that his piece was more on the performance art side of cabaret, and was worried that he’d stick out. I reassured him by assuring him that he wouldn’t be the only weirdo, and adding that my piece was ‘depressing as fuck.’

I had three friends in the audience who spoke to me once the whole show was over. So what follows and rounds off this blog, is some of the paraphrased feedback from them that I’ve retained, and the conclusions I drew from it, intermingled together. It’s keeping me going, and its made me want to carry on with making this thing.

  • Get someone else to operate your sound, particularly the first cue when you’re wearing an eye-patch. What about your lighting? Use of a shadow. Think bigger.
  • Vocal delivery too fast at times, let it breathe.
  • The Barbie bit was funny. The house poem was evocative.
  • Raw and personal, but held. Feels like a privilege to be allowed to see, non-apologetic, not holding out for laughs, but getting them anyway, on your terms.
  • You’re showing a side of the issue that we don’t normally hear of, we were totally in the unknown, we couldn’t have known. 
  • ‘You’re a long way from Cherry Tree Lane now.’

That final line belongs in a poem. 

JJ xx

PS: Title image by Franz Fiedler, 1920’s
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    Jeu Jeu la Foille

    Tom Waits and puppet obsessive. Loves clowns, performs burlesque striptease on occasion, enjoys crafternoons.

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