6th – 10th July 2026
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Gradually, over the course of this week, I have put together a complete first draft of Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary. I performed a small segment of it to friends in August 2024, as I’d managed to get some free rehearsal space at MAST in Southampton. I did a more polished 15 minute version in October 2024 at an event called ‘Moving Voices.’ I’ve performed the odd poem from the show at an open mic.

It has been so hot this week. I have only managed 3 or 4 hours a day in the studio, and I took a break on Wednesday to complete some more bits of writing. But today I ran what I had; it timed at 36 minutes. I intend for the show to be 45 minutes long, or perhaps even longer. The other two seem happy at 45 minutes. But for a work in progress performance – which is what I’m doing this Autumn – that’s enough to learn for now. There are several parts that still need developing. But after today I am putting it away for at least a week.

I finalised the music this week (there is a lot of jazz) and timed it with the action so I could work out where to cut it. I made final decisions on costume and props. I decided today to switch the stage setting around, and it made more sense.

I read my words out loud in the space. I experimented with the RASA’s, but found it too tiring by day 2. I settled on an order, and where to place each piece in the space. I practised the two puppet parts I’d already decided on, and started devising a third. I discovered a jacket I’d decorated 10 years ago, and had somehow hung onto and forgotten I had – that is a perfect first costume. I rehearsed some parts with costume, but it was too hot to be getting dressed and undressed. I’m dreading next week when I’m rehearsing Frontal Lobotomy and Testy Manifesto, as there’s no point doing it without all the costumes.

I was reflecting today with a friend by the river on how long it’s taken me to finish this show, compared to the other two. I began writing Frontal Lobotomy in January 2016, I took the very nearly finished version to Edinburgh that August. The first poem for Testy Manifesto came in February 2019. I took the finished show to Guilford Fringe in July 2021.

I’ve heard that when you write your first solo show – and I remember watching tons of one-woman shows when I was gearing up to start Frontal Lobotomy – that you’ve had your whole life up to that point to reference in the show. All the theatrical ideas you’ve had, you get to try. At the same time you’ve never done this before, it’s very scary and you wonder if you’ll manage it. I had 2 years of training at LISPA and a year’s worth of research into Tom Waits behind me before starting to write Frontal Lobotomy, I had even toyed around with some poems. I find it odd that 2 years of physical theatre training turned me into a writer.

Writing a second solo show was much harder than the first. I felt like I had used up all my ideas, and over covid lost all sense of what it was like to perform in front of people. It took 2 years of regular performances for Testy Manifesto to feel comfortable to share. I have had two solo shows to look after while I am writing Pithy Obituary, so it has naturally taken longer. I have felt less inclined to share parts of it, and took 2025 off completely from working on this show..

I have been steadily writing Pithy Obituary since 2020. There are also many poems and stories I’ve written in the past 6 years that were never meant for this show. I have documented some of them in this blog, and on my patreon. My work as a funeral celebrant has been funnelled into this show. It doesn’t feel finished yet, and I say so in the introduction.

Here is a list of the pieces of writing from ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary’ - with the season they were written.

Celebrant Introduction – Summer 2026 (Still developing)
The World – Spring 2024
Sigh, Sway, Stumble – Spring 2023, finished Summer 2024
Taut Trunks Elongate – Autumn 2021
The House of Self Undoing – Autumn 2020
Celebrant – Summer 2026 (Still developing)
France – Notes made Summer 2023, I think finished early 2024
Words from Jeu Jeu – Summer 2026, but I had the idea at least a year ago.
Palestine  - Spring 2026, sort of finished Summer 2026
JJLFxx – Started Summer 2025, finished Spring 2026
Dinky Bennet – May 2020

There is a section after ‘France’ that I wish to extend, but I probably won’t do that until after the work in progress performances this Autumn. I don’t intend to perform this show again in 2027, but if a lovely opportunity comes up then of course I will take it.

I now have the weekend and Monday to digest the week, possibly do a bit more writing. Then I’ve got 3 or 4 days next week for running over Frontal Lobotomy and Testy Manifesto. I have some adjustments to make to the music, I need to check on all the props and costumes. I’m going to update the tech scripts and experiment with lighting a little bit. And when I say lighting I mean bringing all of my lamps from home to the studio..

When I perform Frontal and Testy in September I will have someone to operate my sound and lighting, and those shows are in small theatres. But when I perform Pithy Obituary I will be in community centres (which don’t have theatre lighting) and I’ll be operating for myself. I’m going to experiment with lighting up areas of the stage, rather than having it all pointed at the whole space. I will need to hold two versions of the show in my head – the one where I operate my own sound and lighting, and one where someone else does it.

11th October 2026

I never did make it back into the studio to rehearse the two older shows and work more on ‘Pithy Obituary.’ My phone got stolen while I was working at Wilderness Festival, and it took me several weeks to get back on track. Whoever stole my phone managed to hack into it and set up a recurring payment, so I had to open a new bank account. When I returned to the studio I found my props and costumes for the show strewn all over the room. I had tidied them away and put them behind a curtain, but someone had gone in there and decided to play with everything. I felt really weird about this. They had opened the small coffin and all the contents (decorated underwear from my burlesque days) had been left out. I quickly packed everything away in the van and didn’t go back. I did my rehearsals for the September shows (and the one I did last night) in my living room. My phone had all of the music for the three shows, edited and with timed fades on GoButton. So I had to download and edit it all again, which took a few days, and so I felt quite defeated at the end of the Summer.

But I had two successful double bills of Frontal Lobotomy and Testy Manifesto at The Stage Door in Southampton, and The Alma in Bristol. I had around 20 people in the audience for both events. The Southampton show had plenty of friends and family, many of whom had seen at least one of the shows before, some multiple times. In contrast, no one at the Bristol event had seen either of the complete shows. Of course nothing went completely to plan, but the photos came out brilliantly, both technicians did wonders with the lighting, and I amazed myself with how much stamina and memory power I can manage! I received some lovely feedback too.

The night before the Bristol show I took part in a scratch night at the Spinney Hollow woods, which is near where I live and where I sometimes sing in a women’s choir. They had just finished building an open air theatre, and I got to try out the ending of Pithy Obituary on the new stage. This also meant that I had to finalise some of the parts I had been developing over the summer. The very ending of the show involves me dancing wildly and crying at the same time. This isn’t something I could do properly on my own in a room, so having a chance to try it out safely was really valuable. It was very activating and I was quite shell shocked afterwards. People came up to tell me how much they loved it and how moving it was. One person said it reminded him of the kind of stuff they put on at Rimski’s Yard at Glastonbury. I knew I was on the right track, but I still had the task of learning the whole show ahead of me.

I began learning and drilling the lines for Pithy Obituary on Friday 2nd October – a week before I was due to perform the whole show. I rehearsed with props and costumes the day before the performance. I added another Celebrant part, and a kind of Reflection / Visual tribute, which was a mimed striptease from my old ‘Allo Allo’ act. I was surprised at how quickly I was able to memorise the lines, though even when I performed last night, they weren’t completely secure. I nearly forgot to have a run through of Frontal Lobotomy, as I performed that one last night too. Some things went wrong during the performance, the stage was quite small and my props are bulky – at one point I knocked the dressmakers dummy over – I need to work out where to drop all of my various bits of clothing, as the stage was too littered for me to move around much while dancing.

It went pretty well overall. I have work to do, more decisions to make. People seemed to enjoy the part where Jeu Jeu speaks, and so I could extend this. I might try to write a poem in French. It ran at 42 minutes – so I did it, I made a show that is the same length as the others. It is still very much a work in progress, I don’t quite know what it is yet.

Today is the first day off I’ve had in what feels like a long time. A day when I’ve just done normal stuff, and not had to think about a show. I just want to let the dust settle for a few days. I filmed the show on my laptop from the corner of the stage, but can’t bring myself to look at it yet.

On November 21st I’ll be bringing Testy Manifesto and Pithy Obituary to Weeke Community Centre in Winchester. I remember how painful and awkward it felt to perform Testy Manifesto at the start, and I realised that now I absolutely love it. I grew into it, and I have to trust that this show will take at least few attempts to get it where I want it. My writing is strong, my style is unapologetically weird, and I have more stamina and memory power than I thought. I’ve been Jeu Jeu la Foille for a long time now, and she’s not going to leave quietly.
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With quiet pride and exhaustion,
JJlF xx
 
 

So I have found myself with an unexpected night off. The show I was doing costumes for got cancelled tonight, because of the heat. The school year is nearly over, and I have the studio booked for four weeks during the holidays. I’m excited about the summer. But summer is making me tired this week.
Time has ticked on since my last blog, and I’ve not made much progress on ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary.’ I’ve got a bit further with some of the writing, and I’m still researching into the Innana myth. The Barbie film that came out in summer 2023 was loosely based on the myth – whether intentionally or unintentionally. And up until a week ago, I had only seen it dubbed into French. I took myself on a solo cinema date when I was in Colmar; that was towards the end of a long stay in France, and I wanted to see how much I understood. I have a poetic monologue in the show about that time. It’s a stupid film in both languages, but the whole story begins because Barbie contemplates death.
I’m attempting to re-write the Inanna myth, the myth is the container. There is a story I want to tell within that. Barbie’s heels fall flat when she starts thinking about dying, but she first thinks of it in the middle of a choreographed dance number. I probably need a dance number before the telling.
I met up with my friend who organises all the Palestine protests in Southampton, to discuss with him what I’d written so far based on our last conversation. I told him to be savage, and that it didn’t have a container yet – as in the writing doesn’t know what form it wants to take. He was very kind about what I’d written. I showed him my New Orleans poem, that I’ve recently finished. I gave him a brief context beforehand, and he said that if I hadn’t told him what it was about, he would’ve had no idea. I confessed to him that I was worried this new show was going to be very depressing.
At the Summer Solstice sunrise, I said I was bringing in peace and rest. My feet have already left the diving board. I have booked and paid for the venues, done all the online stuff, had some flyers printed. From the start of September to the end of November I will be very busy, and I need rest too.
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The dates are:
Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Frontal Lobotomy and Testy Manifesto
Thursday 17th September 7-9.30pm The Stage Door, Southampton
Sunday 27th September 4 – 6.30pm The Alma, Bristol
The Stage Door and the Alma are listed buildings, and are not step free
Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Frontal Lobotomy and Pithy Obituary WIP
Saturday 10th October 7 – 9.30pm Wickham Community Centre (step free access)
Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto and Pithy Obituary WIP
Saturday 21st November 7-9.30pm Weeke Community Centre (step free access)

I intend to take a break from performing in 2027, as my time as a property guardian is coming to an end, and I plan to relocate to another city that has begun to win my heart. But I’ll return to the stage in 2028. Triple bill?!
So over the summer I have three big tasks ahead.

1. Rehearse FL and Testy Manifesto together. Re-do the Tech scripts and sound cues. Do any mending. Promote the double bill.
2. Create at least one Living Portrait film for the Out of the Shadows project – aiming for three.
3. Finish, put together and rehearse Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary. Make flyers.

That’s plenty. And I’ll have opportunities to step away and do other things over the next two months as well.
It was unbelievably hot the whole time I was writing this. I’m upstairs at Chez Jeu and sitting at my writing desk. It would be much cooler downstairs.

​With love and imaginary ceiling fans,
JJlF xx

I’ve been speaking with friends on the subject of creativity a lot in the past three weeks. I’ve also managed to put my money where my mouth is and do something creative. I believe that creativity is the thing that gives us humans purpose; without it there is literally no point in living. I told a friend the other night that if I wasn’t being creative I would shrivel up and die. I often make dramatic declarations after three fruity ciders. But it was true.

I went to see the first draft of a friend’s new show at the start of April, and it gave me a very much needed and welcomed kick up the bum. I am thrilled that she has funding to create new work, and can pay a team to help her. Perhaps a younger version of me might have felt some bitterness or regret at having no such help to create my own work. I now see that this lack mentality has held me back in the past, and I’m done with thinking that I’m poor and alone and no one wants to help me. I’m going to keep going no matter what.

I work in a school, and over the Easter holidays the drama studio wasn’t being used. My boss let me use it for free – I made a short film based on French Sculptor Camille Claudel, I rehearsed ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ and ‘Testy Manifesto’ and I started putting together the full version of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary.’ I also made some costumes for a clown piece a friend and I are working on for this seasons round of festivals. On Easter Monday I got back onstage after six months at the Gallimaufry’s open mic night in Bristol. It’s like I’ve been blasting off the cobwebs these past three weeks, and really clarifying why I keep doing this. All the hard work that nobody else sees, all the rejection and disappointment…but I do have a team, and I do have resources. It just looks different to what I see other artists working with.

Starting to piece together ‘Pithy Obituary’ was quite confronting. Not knowing how to perform any of the writing I had done, realising I still had so much writing to do, constantly asking myself ‘What even IS this?’ Rehearsing the two shows that are already made felt like slipping back into a comfortable pair of shoes. But I remembered when they too felt impossible and insurmountable at one point. How I wrestled with myself and nearly gave up so many times. How when I put them together they felt completely foreign, made absolutely no sense to me, were awkward to perform, felt horrible and often traumatic to rehearse. But now they feel like joyful little nuggets of weirdness that I am very fond of. And proud of too.

I keep this blog as a reflective journal, and as a way to log my creative process. What follows is the rough structure I have come up with for ‘Pithy Obituary’, some notes on costume and ideas for visual elements; all from the notes I made during the research and development days - the days I mostly spent tap-dancing and listening to weird jazz – but I did set the space how I wanted it, and I think just seeing objects in the space brought it off the page and into 3D for the first time. Some of the pieces I’ve written for this I wrote as far back as 2020. I’ve included some notes on where the ideas came from.
 
The Celebrant – this is the narrator character. I’ve decided to structure the show like a funeral. It begins with my carrying a small coffin into the space. It’s a real coffin from a carpenter who lives on the Isle of Wight that one of the funeral directors I work for was able to get for me in October 2024. I start the show in a tailcoat and top hat that gets placed on a dress form I have placed onstage behind a music stand. This means the Celebrant is always present, even when I step away from the lectern.

Procession Music – Not decided yet. I’ve been very inspired by a track called St James Infirmary. I’d like to sing something like it. I don’t know yet.

The World – an exploration of funeral rites and rituals from around the world. I wrote this in August 2024 after a deep research dive.

Just a Closer Walk with Thee – This is popular New Orlean funeral hymn. I’ve created a puppet piece from a white handkerchief for it. I improvised this as a warm up for a workshop I was teaching online during lockdown in 2021.

A Step Home – This is a poem I wrote in a workshop in May 2023 and finished in August 2024. It’s inspired by ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee.’

Celebrant – This is the start of the funeral ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille was born…’

Children’s Story – Spoken by my devil puppet Rodney la Foille. He sounds just like Tom Waits 😉

Taut Trunks – Written in a lesson with my drama students in November 2022. Inspired by an image of a man walking through a forest. It will be a voiceover to cover a transition.

I Am – Written in the same workshop in May 2023. It was led by Chris Redmond of Tongue Fu, and called ‘How to Play a Poem like a Song.’ The poem was inspired by a video of another poet we were shown. I’ve done a search and I can’t find his name. I will keep looking.

The House of Self Undoing – A very bleak poem I wrote about Covid in November 2020.

France – A poetic monologue crafted from the diaries I kept during a solo trip to France in August 2023.

Celebrant – The middle part of the funeral. Reflection Music.

Words from Jeu Jeu – I still need to write this. I’ve seen a woman on Instagram who critiques the patriarchy while wearing a face mask and smoking a cigarette, and I feel like it’s something Jeu Jeu would do. She will change into a silk kimono for this.

Le Petit Mort – I’m going to write a poem in French. I haven’t begun this yet, but I know what it’s going to be about. Risky.

Shrines – Another one I haven’t finished. Flowers on benches or at the sites of accidents.

Celebrant – End of Jeu Jeu’s Life.

New Orleans – I was there on New Year’s Eve 2025/6, and there was a terrorist attack. I had been on the street where it happened a few hours before. A few days afterward there was a vigil and procession through the streets, which I took part in. It was an odd thing to grieve in a place that wasn’t my home. I only finished this poem in March 2026.

Palestine – I interviewed my friend and long-time supporter Andy Buchanan about his activism for Palestine in January 2026. This is the one I’m working on now – I don’t know if it will be a poem. It might be dialogue. I might use Andy’s voice in a recording if he agrees.

The Myth of Innana – I usually include a myth in my shows, I also like the motif of the wronged woman. I first encountered Innana at an exhibition at the British Museum called ‘Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic’ in 2022. I want to re-write the myth, but I’m not sure how to do it yet.

Dinky Bennet – This is poem I wrote for my Grandmother’s funeral in May 2020. This was the moment when I decided I was going to look into becoming a Funeral Celebrant.

Dance – Recessional Music. I’ve recently taken up tap dance again after a 10 year break. I’ve also been studying jazz improvisational dance. There’s something strangely compelling for me about dancing and crying at the same time. Where joy and grief meet. I’ve seen it in New Orleans, and I want to try and recreate it here to end the show.
 
And there it is. I’ve given myself until the end of June to finish the writing. I’m not tied to the structure, but it feels like a good place to start. I’m planning on having another research and development week in the school drama studio in July. I’m also doing a van trip to Ireland in July, mainly for an adventure, but with a side quest of researching their funerals; so something from that may well end up in here too. What I present at the shows in October and November will be a work in progress. Then I plan to put it away for at least six months. I might try out a re-worked version in Autumn 2027, or I may leave it until the following Spring.

I finished the book version of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto and sent off for the proof copy. There’s a lot I want to change about that, but it’s a project that will have to go on hold for now.

I’m about to start work on a second short film / living portrait on another of the women from our ‘Out of the Shadows’ project. Now that I’ve been through the process with Camille Claudel I have a better idea of how I can film more efficiently. I really had no idea what I was doing, and there was something quite magical about that.
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With love,
JJlF xx
 

I began writing this blog in January 2026 but then abandoned it. Today I have put my phone on airplane mode and started a timer for two hours. I spent the first hour confirming dates with venues for an Autumn tour. The second hour I’m dedicating to finishing this.

I decided that I needed to approach my creativity the way I do with my exercise – doing it regularly, having a set time and structure, not negotiating with myself if I’m not feeling it that day. Just showing up and doing my best. Over time and with consistent effort the results of that have become visible, but more importantly, my nervous system has learned to trust the regularity. It’s harder on some days, but on other days I’m totally crushing it. I’m able to do things physically that I couldn’t a year ago. Creativity is a muscle too.

So what follows is what I began writing in January…

I can’t pretend that I’m not horrified by the events in the world currently. But this blog is where I reflect on my practise as an artist. Please read it in context.
Since I last wrote to you…

I finally started putting together a book of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto.’ There is still a lot to do with it before I send off for a proof-copy. I’m not putting a deadline on it just yet.
I began, but didn’t finish several new pieces of writing, including a new one for Wanda.
I interviewed ‘a friend and supporter of my work about his activism work for Palestine, and how collective grief might be demonstrated.
I’m starting to reemerge.
I’ve got a few ideas for the new show, but nothing new has materialised yet.
I’m talking to a couple of community centres about putting on two double bills in the Autumn. This is so I can perform the new show twice and make developments for the second showing. Doing one my existing shows first is a good warm up for everyone, and as they are each only 45 minutes long, it makes sense to pair them.

All of that feels still a long way ahead.

And I’ve found in the past that if I take some time to reflect, it kind of frees me up for the next stage. And I was thinking that maybe those pieces of writing don’t know what they are yet. Maybe all the spark is there, but it hasn’t taken form yet, so it doesn’t have a container.
Sometimes as I am writing something, the form it’s going to take becomes evident, and I follow that. Or sometimes I already have a form it’s going to take, like using the structure of an existing song for example.
I create mood boards and playlists sometimes. I’ve written a few things in workshops, or through an exercise in a book.
 
And so here is a list all of the containers I create for my words:
The Poetic Monologue
The rhyming poem – repeating structure
The blank verse, rhythmical poem, repeating words or phrases
The ‘Glossary’ Poem
The Beat Poem
The Lecture
The made-up Myth or fairytale
Interaction with objects, set and costume, music or audience ‘volunteers’
The Lip-synch or voice-over
The Haiku
The Sonnet
 
And back to the present day – March 9th, the day after International Women’s Day.

I am involved in a project called ‘Out of the Shadows’ which aims to celebrate women creatives who have been overlooked in the past. The project is spearheaded by my friend and local artist Michelle, who created exquisite portraits of 25 women who were all powerhouses and trail-blazers in their individual art forms, but most remain virtually unknown.  I have decided to resurrect my ‘Living Portraits’ project from my LISPA days (where I costumed each of my fellow actors as characters from Tom Waits’ songs, and asked them to improvise in front of a camera, using the costume as a stimulus) and start a deep dive into the lives and work of some of these amazing women.

It’s a project that will hopefully feed into the new show ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary’ that I’m presenting for the first time this Autumn. I may find some way to project and incorporate the filmed portraits, or I may create a way to access them separately. I work in an extensive theatrical wardrobe three days a week. It has taken me three and a half years to get it to a workable standard as it was abandoned over covid and the spiders and moths took over. I even had a rat living in the attic at one point. I now have access to an enviable resource, and I’m not taking advantage of it. That is changing this week. We hope to have a completed exhibition for International Women’s Day 2027, and there are all sorts of other spin-off projects happening and art being made for it. I spoke to several other women at the launch yesterday that are lovers of all things costume, so I might also have some collaborators.

I was wondering how to get my creative mojo back, but its action that creates drive, not the other way around. I now only have three minutes left of my creative time. So I will publish this blog, and go on with my day.
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It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to get done.
With love and daffodil trumpets,
JJlF xx
 

Puppets as Actors
One of the tropes in clowning, is that when the clown takes their bow at the end of the performance, they will acknowledge the props and puppets they have been working with and allow the audience to applaud for them too.
Years ago I saw a clown show that had two performers, a man and a woman. There was a step ladder that was part of their show, and when they took their bows at the end they both gestured toward the step ladder so we could thank them too.

At the end of Frontal Lobotomy, I gesture towards my ‘band’ now sitting in a row on the floor. The band that upstages me earlier in the show, but that I incorporate into a song about dreams toward the end, and now in a different costume. My band of furry animals (and they all have stage names, as well as real ones) usually get a big cheer.

But the last time I performed Testy Manifesto, when I took a bow, I lifted the black cloak that was covering the skeleton puppet that I use throughout, as if to acknowledge him as an actor too, and the audience booed. And I said to my friend in the pub afterwards, he’s actually a really nice guy, he just has to play the role of the arsehole. So when I do that show again Alfonse the skeleton will have to remain covered. The audience isn’t ready to forgive him.
Wanda the Wandering Womb also upstages me, this is what happens when you let your womb say what it wants to say. Bobby Cool the Tom Waits puppet makes an appearance at the beginning and end of the show, but the rest of the time he just observes.
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At the time, alongside all this importance I give all my puppets, I am the only alive thing onstage, so it is all just my imagination. And they are there to help me make it visible. Nearly everything onstage with me gets used more than once. The drinks, lipstick and mouthcoil I need to keep topped up.

Use of Costume
I even like the costumes to have more than one purpose. It’s hard to explain, but they need to have more significance than things I take off and put on during the course of either show. I get in and out of costumes in full view of the audience. Sometimes they have a mind of their own, and the transition isn’t very smooth. These are the places I try to use burlesque, because if I am going to change costumes onstage, I’m going to try and do it artfully and surprisingly. I haven’t seen many performers who do this.

I think an early influence for me was seeing Camille O’Sullivan perform. She seemed to blend the light and shadow in the same way I wanted to. She entered the stage through the audience in a black coat, sang a sad song, and then the band started up, and she ripped off her coat and thrashed around. She doesn’t do this in her shows anymore, they have become much more timid. I think she allowed me to see for the first time in 2008, that you could be all of yourself onstage. And that your costumes could morph as you did through the arc of the show.

One of my teachers at LISPA used to say ‘Every prop is an actor.’ We used to do a lot of work on just using body and voice, and sometimes not voice – you can’t speak behind a neutral mask. It seems the aim of those early weeks and months of the Lecoq pedagogy is to strip you back, and then gradually build you back, layer by layer. After this process I became a poet, and I brought back all of the props, set, costume, sound. It wasn’t a conscious rebellion against all I’d learned, I still carry that training with me.

Gecko
I did a week long residency with Gecko in 2022. Gecko have an interesting technique that they use in their ensemble performances. The actors mutter, usually in their mother tongue. We did a lot of it over that week, and I understood what it did, how it seemed to elevate the scene, but I didn’t know why. At the end of the week, when it was winding down, and we were having chats, I asked one of our facilitators who is an actor with Gecko, why we mutter. He said in a nutshell ‘because it keeps us in touch with our breath.’
I often dream of being a performer that can just walk onto a stage, without having to lug around my own props and set, and even lighting/sound. I can just mark out a space and do a solo platform piece. Or collaborate with a musician. I think once I have finished and performed my new show plenty of times, then this is the performer I will aspire to be.

New show update
So far I’ve made a list of research avenues I’m going to explore around the themes of the show. I’m working on a poem about the terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Years Eve of this year.
I’ve got plans to use the drama studio again at the school I work at. And also make more use of the facilities I have there. I want to do some filming and interviews. I want to visit some places, and try to soak up some art that isn’t mine.

And I also want to turn Testy Manifesto into a book, as I did with Frontal Lobotomy. And so unless someone offers me a really great gig, I won’t be doing any performing until Spring next year, when I hope to have the next iteration of Pithy Obituary ready to share. By next October I hope to have the show completed. So for now I will burrow down into my cave and maybe pop out for an few open mics or workshops here and there over the winter.  
‘With love in all directions’ (stolen from Zuma Puma – Thank you!)
JJlF xx
 

Written on Sunday 5th October 2025 – Thoughts following the double bill
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I know that external validation for the art we’ve made isn’t something meant to be sought. It’s not the reason to make the art in the first place. But sometimes it feels nice. The question is always about whether I can give myself enough credit. I certainly worked hard for it.

Performing my solo shows side by side was something I had never tried before. I didn’t know if I could do it, but I knew I had to try. The local community showed up and the room was full – I was so relieved. Many of the people in the audience were the woodland women I sing with, a few were people I’d met at Bunkerfest the week before when I’d performed the first two thirds of Frontal Lobotomy, ending on a cliffhanger. Some were close friends and family. There were two fifteen year old girls in the audience that my mum’s friend had brought. My boss from the school where I work and her husband came. Now she knows the debauchery that was going on the studio those five hot days in August when I rehearsed at the school.

The shows are wildly different in subject matter, but they share many of the same features…

• They are both about humans doing terrible things to one another
• Wronged woman motif: Medusa, Jezebel.
• They both end with a myth. The cave and the monument are metaphors for my body – I only realised this once I was line-running both shows back-to-back. When you speak the words enough they start to make more sense.
• They start with an interrogation done as a voice-over. It’s the voice of the same person in both shows.
• Puppets. Wanda needs her own show.
• Getting in and out of costumes, the changes are part of the action, and don’t always go to plan. I’m learning to enjoy the struggle.
• Simple set and many props. Every item is treated as another actor, but I’m very much alone. This is my imaginary world where the toys are alive.
• I operate my own sound and lighting – something born from necessity, but now it’s a feature.
• There is a narrator character that appears four times but stands apart from the rest of the ‘story’. Frontal Lobotomy has a doctor, Testy Manifesto has a French Revolutionary.
• In both shows I have a sign I display at the end that thanks the audience for coming.
• I open both shows with a rhymical monologue that asks the audience to listen and attempts to reassure them.
• I plagiarise wildly! I use structures from songs to write from, lines from songs, books, conversations, Wikipedia.
• They are hard to watch in places, but there is contrast, and beauty – I hope.

Halfway through the second show it was like something else took over. I can’t remember doing a large section of Testy Manifesto. I did the whole show, but I had to think back and check that I had.
There is a facet of the relationship with the abusive person (the relationship that inspired Testy Manifesto) that I only hint at in the show. We all know what physical, verbal, sexual abuse looks like. But spiritual abuse? It doesn’t usually get talked about, but for me it was the hardest thing to reconcile, the longest thing to heal from. I know that my soul was crushed for a long time afterwards, and that I still have a complicated relationship with God. I guess that both shows are searching for answers and knowing that they will not come.

The main difference between the shows is that I haven’t had a lobotomy, but I have been in a relationship with an abusive person. There is a personal element to Testy Manifesto that I didn’t come close to in Frontal Lobotomy. In that show every word is filtered through Tom Waits. My writing got more confident with Testy Manifesto, but I struggled to bring it to life. It formed piece by painful piece, and it took me a long time to get playful with it. It still takes a lot out of me to perform it, but when the first word of it is ‘Bonsoir’ and the audience respond with ‘BONSOIR’ you know you have them! It was a pleasure to perform for people who were rooting for me, it was such a lovely atmosphere, and my heart is very full.

People came up at the end to talk to me and hug me while I was packing up. I’m not sure what sort of shit was coming out of my mouth. I had probably said enough for one evening. There was one poem I completely messed up. My sound had a weird echo that hadn’t been there when I’d sound-checked earlier. I thought for one horrifying second that I’d forgotten to set the ice-pick – the most important prop in Frontal Lobotomy – but then found it in time. The mischievous theatre ghosts were playing a trick on me.

I received lots of lovely feedback on the work, and even on the food I’d made. I actually made more money than I’d spent (roughly £200) which I was grateful for, as money is tight for everyone I know right now. There were people in the audience who’d seen all or parts of either show before, and wanted to see them again. Some people have said to me that they get better each time, they notice different things, or the work resonates long afterwards. I wanted the evening to be an act of service. I have grappled with being an artist and calling myself that for many years. I’ve often thought why couldn’t I have been a human rights lawyer, or a war correspondent, or built houses, or saved lives. You know, useful things. But maybe, making weird theatre is my way of serving. And I don’t feel so alone and useless anymore. Overall, I’m delighted with how it went, and maybe I’ll find the motivation to do it again, as there were many people who couldn’t make it and asked if I would do it all again…
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I am writing a new show. It’s about grief, death, decay. I want to bring in other voices, collective grief, international grief, the ritualising of grief. It’s so big and I’m overwhelmed. But I know how it happens now; piece by painful piece, eventually finding the humour, the playfulness. And then cooking up a storm and serving it, whether people are ready for it or not.
 
August 2025
When I returned from walking the Camion de Santiago in April I had a newfound focus, and got moving on doing a double bill straight away. What follows are notes on the various things I’ve done and money I’ve spent over the past five months to get ready. I’ve added to this as time went on and will post this blog the day before the performance, to ensure it’s as up to date as it can be.
Not the most interesting set of writing I’ve ever done, but I keep this blog as a record of my work, as well as a way to reflect on performances and the feedback received afterwards. Sometimes it isn’t very poetic, it’s just a case of putting the hours in.

Total Cost: £304.61
Without lamps and dress: £285.61

PREPARATION
Announcement, Initial Advertising and Review
26th April: Venue visit
27th April: Show announcement on SM.
28th July – 10th August: FB event and invites. Cleaning, repairing and repacking props and costumes. Watched videos of FL and TM. Did flyering in Southampton July 30th. Sent out email invites on Aug 6th.

Notes from viewing of ‘Frontal Lobotomy’
Playing with knowing the audience are there – removing black silk. Connect more during the struggle. Putting on the hat, big moment. Controlling the piano, also controlling me. A little rain never hurt no one. Passing light between ears and through body. Throwing it out to see if it comes back. Making sounds like they barely recognise words. Time to play with audience. Old carnival music, transforms into Doctor. Lipstick lobotomy. Futtocks exposed. Privacy of changing clothes, unaware of audience. Anger. Angle of icepick as I pull it out. Does the wink work? Turning off of lamps at close of pasties poem. Lifting arm up to the moon. Are there any volunteers. Surgery of the soul. All that’s left is us Tom. Tank girl boots. Lip sync is funny. Just me then. Wild look in eyes. Slightly sanctimonious as Doctor. Overalls, sadness, thoughtful, resigned to work. Vocal attack on tongue twister poem. Got to practise final story. Picture of innocence. Careful ritual before bed. It’s a very sweet show, far better crafted than I imagined. Sense of style. Make more of changing music on phone.

Notes from viewing of ‘Testy Manifesto’
Cloaked figure bringing in a skeleton and covering it over. French at the start, very oblique. Reveal of ballet shoes. Talking with the skeleton. A word to open eyes on. Move hands towards skull ‘sucks you in.’ Move Alfonse more. Bit with mouthcoil before Famous Last Words. Cocooning paper, then change music. Disguise bit is very intense. Impossible positions of Barbie. Funny bit. Angry undressing. Murder with stilettos. Deeply uncomfortable. Wanda’s introduction – sound effect? I have something for the memory – switch music. Sensual delight in red dress. Imaginative style. Outwardly nothing has changed. No singing, the next song you sing. Need a few more visual elements. The writing is better, but doesn’t have the same refinement as FL. I assume a character and then break it, FL draws you in gradually. What stays consistent and what do I shake up?

REHEARSALS
11th-15th August: Rehearsal and re-making damaged props and costumes.
Notes from Rehearsals 11th – 15th August
Monday: Unloading van and setting up space. Re-made Doctor Freeman picture. Did a walk through without costume changes of Frontal Lobotomy. Notes: It takes a while to switch off all of the lamps – start earlier in the text or go from the mains. Dress undoes at the back when I sit down – put on more stud fastenings. Extracts to learn better: Lamppost, Freeman 3, Ice-Earth Myth. Dressing gown when changing over set. Had idea to put a loop on Alfonse’s foot so I can get him to stamp during the poem.
Tuesday: Re-dyed overalls. Made Thank you and please donate signs. Run through of both shows working out the staging for changing music cues. Re-hem black trousers. Practise with mouthcoil. Bring wine from home – remove label first. Very Emotional Weather report needs re-learning better – just the right amount of music. Edited In Shade and Bella Ciao to go straight into first track when already onstage.
Wednesday: Ran through whole of Frontal Lobotomy with costume changes. Too exhausted to do anything else after that. Show felt nice to perform again.
Thursday: Ran through all of Testy Manifesto with costume changes. Show doesn’t feel as awkward as it used to – I’ve made peace with the pain.
Friday: Ran both shows with half hour changeover. Wet run eg used lipstick, fluids, etc. Very sweaty – there was a heatwave this week. Packed up and re-loaded van. Everything is staying in the corner of my living room until after Oct 4th.
First half of week: Re-making props, mending or swapping costumes and props. Editing music. Working out new staging for operating sound – I’ve decided to do this myself for Testy Manifesto. Running over lines, trying to find newness. Adding a mouthcoil into Testy Manifesto.
Second half of Week: Rehearsals – built up to a full run of both shows with a timed changeover.
Still plenty to do with learning lines. I can do basic run throughs at home. I had to have a break from working on the shows after this as I was on site at Shambala for 9 days. Then I needed a week to recover from Shambala. Then I was in Yorkshire for a LISPA reunion.

FINAL STAGE OF PREPARATION
30th August : First round of text invites.
2nd September: Second venue visit.
Vocal acoustics
Plugging phone into the PA
Plug sockets for lighting
How I will arrange the seating and tables
Cooking equipment they have there
Publicity
3rd  September – 3rd October: Line revision, shopping and cooking food. Separate performances on Sept 10th and 28th in which I ‘plugged’ the show and gave out flyers.
Notes from Final Stage
I am performing two of Wanda’s poems (the newest ones) at a comedy night in Winchester on Sept 10th, so that gives me extra incentive to learn them.
I am performing an abridged version of Frontal Lobotomy at Bunker Fest on Sept 28th, so I’ll have incentive to learn it better for that.
The rest of my rehearsals will have to fit around other work. Today (Sept 1st) I began to plan what I was going to cook for the supper and think about how much beer and wine I’d need to buy.

I was asked today ‘How has the Camino changed you?’ I replied ‘It’s subtle.’ And then later in the conversation when asked again, I said ‘It’s made me braver.’

In April I walked the Camino de Santiago, from Porto in Portugal to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. This is a pilgrimage that began in the Middle Ages, and now is a popular hike with a spiritual theme. It has a lovely community and sociable element too. We walked 280km in 12 days. This was a relatively short route. The first 7 days were the hardest, and it rained hard the day we made the final climb to Santiago, but we got there. We made all of the mistakes that first timers on the Camino make. I’ve already made plans to walk at least one Camino (or part of one) a year, for the foreseeable.

I’d been mulling over whether I was going to do any performing this year. I’d also been thinking ‘What if I did both shows in the same night?’ There are a few fringe festivals happening in the Autumn that I could’ve applied to, there were a couple of theatre venues I thought I would contact, but in the end I decided to hire a community centre – with a kitchen – for an evening.

I needed it to be local, accessible and relaxed. I’m going to have to do a lot more work to set up the space how I want it, and I’m going to trust that the help will appear when I need it to. I put a post up on the socials, and the response was very positive. Jeu Jeu is going to reappear this year after all. But I’m going to need to do a lot of work. The Camino taught me that if I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and rest when I need to, and accept that it’s hard sometimes, and great other times, then I’ll get there in the end.

The performance will be on Saturday 4th October at the Edmund Kell Unitarian Church, downstairs in the community hall. Doors open at 6.30pm with a vegan help-yourself dinners, teas, beers, etc. ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Frontal Lobotomy’ at 7.15, then ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto’ at 8.30ish. I’ve got the hall booked until 10pm, and I will have a lot to pack away afterwards. There’s so many thoughts I have about the task ahead.
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To help me get to the ‘why’ of these shows, I’m going to write a bit about each one below. I know why I’ve decided to package myself a bit differently this time, but I don’t know what these shows still hold for me. It seems like I wrote them in another life time. Just before a cataclysmic event in my life, and just after. The third show I’m writing for Jeu Jeu is taking a painfully long time to take form. Maybe if I try to understand how far I’ve come, and why these past shows are still so important to me, then I can move forward. I’m hoping with some reflection, and performing them together for the first time, I can make sense of it somehow.

Pre-show Lecture Notes
Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Frontal lobotomy was first performed as a ‘whole’ in May of 2016. It was excruciating. But I persevered and took it to Edinburgh that year, and then on tour for half of 2017. Back in those pre-covid days, I used to put lipstick on audience members, I don’t do that anymore. Frontal Lobotomy is an anthology show about Tom Waits and experimental brain surgery. It’s all based around his well-known quote “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy” I’ve always operated my own sound for this show, one day I might add some slides. I also have a live ‘band’ for this show, who you’ll meet later.
Set up space
Unload food and drink
Set up props and get into costume
The Doctor
Is everyone comfortable? Welcome to this lecture demonstration. My name is Jeu Jeu la Foille, and this is my Frontal Lobotomy. I hope you’ve all read your pre-show lecture notes. Normally when I do this show, I mean lecture-demonstration, you come into my space and I’m already onstage doing something weird. So I’m going to need you all to close your eyes, count to 30, and then open your eyes. There will be music playing, so please be in no rush, leave the rushing around to me. 1,2,3
Do the show
Change set and costume
The French Revolutionary
Bonsoir, it is a beautiful evening for a Revolution, no? There has been a secret declaration of espionage delivered to you, do you understand our vision for liberte, egality, sororite, oui?
I will read it in my English voice
Dear audience, some of what you are about to see maybe a bit hard to watch. It’s called ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto’ I struggled very hard with making this show. Some of my poetry got better, but the subject matter got darker. I also wrote some of the show in French, which may or may not have been a good idea. The hardest thing about making this show was needing to distill a very difficult period of my life into something that wasn’t torture to watch, because you don’t deserve that either. In intimate relationships when conflict arises, we dance between victim, perpetrator and rescuer.
And then it ends, dot dot dot. I don’t understand it either. Ok, I press play, I go back there, you never saw me, ok?
Do the show
Pack up
 
 
The Camino taught me that sometimes it feels like you have walked 2 hours, but then google maps tells you its been 20 minutes. The Camino taught me that sometimes I need to have a minor freak out when things are going wrong. The Camino taught me that as the big sister it’s my duty to be the responsible one. The Camino taught me that my Spanish is better than my French. The Camino taught me that you take the best photos when you look behind at the path you’ve already walked. If you are open to it, the Camino can’t help but change you – imagine what will happen when I do a longer route next time, and I’m doing it alone.
Buen Camino,
JJlFxx

Yesterday I travelled to London with a group of friends to see ‘Hadestown’ in the West End. I had expected it to be good, and I wasn’t disappointed. But what I hadn’t expected was to be so thoroughly moved by the ending – the sentiment of which was that how we love to re-tell the saddest of stories, even though we know how they end. I’m lucky in that I live close to London, and often pop up to see a show or go to a party. It’s not the same as when I lived there, I can’t believe how much I used to cram in. Life is slower now, but I find myself hankering after city life again. Not London necessarily, just the pace and people of a city.
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The end of 2024 and the first week or so of 2025 were spent in a place I have been dreaming about for many years. I finally got to visit New Orleans, and it was every bit as wonderful in real life. Unbelievably pretty in some areas, lovely, lovely people, and the best music I have ever heard – every night of the week, all day in some spots. Such an interesting place, it will haunt me for a long time. On New Years Eve I had been out exploring all day, and by the evening had found myself on Bourbon Street; quite amazed at how many people were out, and how jubilant it all was. I’d watched lots of different bands, in bars and on street corners. I was knackered, still trying to cope with the time difference, and looking a total mess. I remember seeing the road sign for Canal Street around 10pm, thinking ‘OK, I’ll have one more drink, then that’s the way I need to walk home.’ I was staying in a hostel in Mid-City, about a 40-minute walk up Canal Street. There was a streetcar but I knew it wouldn’t be running, and I wasn’t sure how the fares worked yet. It was at that Canal and Bourbon junction a few hours later that a maniac drove a pickup truck two blocks, killing 14 people and injuring about 40 others.

I had gone into what I had heard was the only decent jazz bar on Bourbon, a place with the unfortunate name of ‘Fritzel’s.’ It was there I got chatting to a woman from California that was visiting for the day. We then met a chap from Colorado who was in town working for the Sugarbowl. The three of us went to Jackson Square to watch the fireworks, and then headed to Frenchmen Street at the other end of the French Quarter for some music and dancing. We managed to see Kermit Ruffins play at The Blue Nile. The Californian woman and I got into an Uber at 3am, dropping me off first before she headed back to her hotel in the Quarter. I woke up the next day to a barrage of texts asking if I was ok. Being 6 six hours ahead, everyone in the UK had seen the news – I had no clue what had happened at first. If my new friend hadn’t got into the Uber with me, she would have been right around the corner from the attack.

I was devasted for the city. New Orleans has a pretty bad infrastructure, practically everyone who lives there works for the service industry, and they rely on tourism. Media from around the world flooded in, even Joe Biden was in town on Jan 6th. Ironically it was probably the safest time to be there. Bourbon Street was reopened after 48 hours, but I noticed that the street musicians didn’t return for another week. There was a vigil and jazz memorial on the Saturday night that I went to. I painted my name on the wall near to where all of the crosses and candles had been placed at the site of the attack. I mourned with them.

I spent a lot of New Years Day in a daze, reading accounts of the attack on social media and watching the news. The following day a friend I had made at the hostel got me a ticket to the Sugarbowl. The day after I went on a tour; kayaking in the Manchec Swamp and visiting the Whitney Plantation. My favourite day of all was going to a Second Line, that lasted 4 hours, and went all through Uptown, to places not mentioned in the guidebook. I was with a friend I had made on the swamp tour, and was so glad I got to share that experience with someone. I love travelling on my own, but sometimes it’s fun to say, ‘Isn’t this crazy?!’ to another person. We had the best time sampling dodgy cocktails and hot dogs sold by street vendors. That evening we went to The Preservation Jazz Hall, and had a photo with Greg Stafford, who told me about the places he had been to in England.

On Jan 6th I took part in the annual Joan of Arc Parade, which is the first parade of the season, and marks the start of Mardi Gras. I had seen a call out for volunteers on facebook, and wrote the krewe an email. I realised on speaking to other people in the parade, that taking part was very special, and it was something that not all local people even get to do. January 7th was my birthday, and I celebrated by watching Rebirth Brass Band at a club  called The Rabbit Hole. In the second week of the holiday I was able to get out to jazz bars that only mainly locals go to, and saw more amazing music. I loved the Bywater and Treme neighbourhoods. I managed to cram a lot into 12 days, but still left with a list of about 15 places that I didn’t have time for. I will go back one day. 

At the moment I am rather disenchanted with the Fringe theatre scene. I have decided to pull back from the gig treadmill this year, and concentrate on writing, travel and workshops – and earning the money it takes to do those things. I’ve just finished a hefty commission for Winchester Youth Theatre – people are paying me to write now, it’s extraordinary. So I’m calling myself a proper writer, and treating it like my actual job. I hope to get back on the stage in the Autumn – I’m toying with the idea of doing a double bill of ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ and ‘Testy Manifesto’ to see if I can hold that many words in my head for an evening. In April I’m walking the Camino de Santiago (Portuguese Costal Route) with my sister, and now that Winter is ending, I’ll get out exploring in the van again. We spent all last summer converting it, so apart from a couple of late summer festivals, a night at a campsite near Bristol in October for a clown workshop, and a stealth camp in a London car park after a party last weekend, I’ve not had much of a chance to sleep in the back.

I’m also very fearful for the world right now, and looking for ways to mobilise, support progressive movements, and centre joy and community in my life. I will make another show, but it will happen in its own sweet time.

Welcoming back the light,
JJlF xx

The other night, at the start of an evening where I was to perform later, I was searching for a word, and the word I eventually found was ‘crucible.’ I looked it up today - it has three meanings; 1) A vessel used for melting a substance that requires a high degree of heat. 2) A severe test. 3) A place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development.
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I was describing to two friends how performing a new piece of work feels to me. I love writing and creating new work, and I love having meaningful conversations with interesting people AFTER I have performed the new work. But the actual performance, the most important part, feels like a crucible to have to step through and overcome. I don’t enjoy it, I never have, but without it I get nothing at all from being an artist. I’ve often said ‘I perform so I create.’ There is nothing like the fear of an audience to motivate you to get your shit together. I admire every performer I see, because I know what it takes; to risk being seen, to dare to have something to say. I don’t love everything I watch, but they have my attention just for being there.

Could I have made art that was a bit more chill and easily digestible? Yes. Could I just write books and never see the reactions in real time?  Probably. But where’s the fun in that?! Four years ago, having experienced a lot of death and grief; literally, metaphorically and collectively, I decided I was going to write about dying.

I wrote and delivered my first proper funeral in March 2021, and have done dozens more since. Every service begins with a paragraph called ‘Words on Grief’ in which I try to distil what I think grief means to the people I am speaking to. I change the words each time, but the same phrase reappears; ‘It is said that our grief never diminishes, only our capacity to bear it grows larger.’ Grief is not only crying, although that is a big part of it. Sometimes it is laughter, and dancing and celebration. You can feel grief for the passing of people you have never met, and we experience many ‘deaths’ that are not literal, only endings.

We are all going to die, and yet we pretend it isn’t going to happen. These days I look at everyone who is in my life and think ‘You’re going to die one day, and if that happens before I go I’m going to be really sad about it.’ But rather than being sad about it now, I vow to live more truthfully and love that person more wholly.

And so I became fascinated with dying, and I began writing poems and stories about it. And I began to think about living with the knowledge of dying and finding out about how cultures around the world honour their deceased. I booked a trip to New Orleans for the end of this year because I think their jazz funerals are just beautiful. They play a dirge to the grave, intern the body, and then dance on the way back to the church or home. I keep discovering more on death rituals, and the role of the elder woman archetype as death doula, and honestly this new show I’m writing could end up being five hours long at this stage – but, wildly paraphrasing one of my excellent teachers, Jonathan Young;  ‘What you leave you leave out, is just as important as what you leave in.’

Here is a collection of comments from the first performance I did of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary’ at Moving Voices on October 25th 2024:

‘Fascinating beginning, all the stuff about cultures and death.’
‘Loved how you took the flower from your hair and laid it on the coffin – I love how something insignificant becomes important.’
‘I was really upset when I saw the small coffin, but when bubbles came from it I felt happy.’
‘You seem to know it really well, it’s in you already.’
‘Is there something Sisyphusian about the rolling of the ball?’
‘Very cool, you don’t need the microphone, and the coffin needs to come forward.’
‘Is there something about the awkwardness of funerals you can explore?’

I managed to present something that was 15 minutes long. It had 6 pieces of writing (one short poem was played as a track), there were 3 pieces of music, 2 significant props, a puppetry moment and a special effect finale. It involved everything I usually include in my shows except for the costume changes and a narrator character. I have been wringing my hands for the past few years, thinking I was getting nowhere with making a new show, and meanwhile it was all forming as background noise, without me realising. All I needed to do was take the components I already had and put them in an order, invest some time in rehearsing and making, and then believe that the composite was good enough for an audience. One of those poems I had written in November 2020, the puppet piece I had improvised to warm up for a workshop I was teaching in 2021, the small coffin I had got hold of a week before.

I keep a file of ideas for new poems, I call it ‘Poem Seeds.’ There are 10 seeds in there that require planting to see if they amount to anything. Frontal Lobotomy and Testy Manifesto each have 21 pieces of writing in them. This tells me that I have much more writing to do, especially as several pieces I wrote for both shows didn’t make it into the final version. I’m aiming for 6 more pieces written by the Spring, one a month feels doable, though there are a few other projects between now and then that will need my attention. And I need to earn money too.

What I am trying to do is hold it all very lightly. The words and images will arrive when I’m ready. I did a clown ritual workshop in Bristol the other evening, and one of the intentions I set there was to see rest and non-productivity as a creative act in itself. I don’t need to be constantly booking gigs and shouting about it on the socials to feel like I am contributing and growing as an artist. I did a lot of performing and creating in 2024, and I’m happy to take 2025 a bit slower.

This blog will become a place to share bits of writing or research, or maybe I’ll take a long break from this too. I guess I will share when it feels right to do so, which is how things normally work for me.

Signing off for the Winter.

JJlF xx

PS: My Poem Seeds…

Le Petit Mort
Pere Lachaise
The Myth of Innana
Funeral Flowers
Prostitutes Cemetery
The Plague
Santa Muerte
Fairy story about 3 big betrayals – 27, 38 and 41
Decomposing
Flowers in plastic at sites of tragedy, memorial benches
 
 
 

The other evening I read back over some of these blogs, and it made me laugh how often and how cryptically I had ‘mentioned’ that I was making a new show. Like repeatedly saying I was going to do it would make it happen somehow.

Well, dear reader, I DID A THING. I managed to score some free rehearsal space at MAST in Southampton as part of their Artist Summer Takeover. I worked for a day and a half on the humble beginnings of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary’ and showed about 15 minutes worth to two invited friends on Friday 16th August at 4pm.

This is what I managed to come up with:

Pre-show
The audience follow lines from a poem, like a trail of breadcrumbs to their seats. These are the words – they aren’t mine, but I had used them for a funeral I had been writing that week, and they were swimming around my head:

In times of darkness, love sees…
In times of silence, love hears...
In times of doubt, love hopes…
In times of sorrow, love heals...
And in all times, love remembers.
May time soften the pain
Until all that remains
Is the warmth of the memories
And the love.
 
Struggle and play with a big, blue exercise ball. This looked like me wrestling with the world. While this was happening I played a recording of me reading the translation poem that I did to summarise ‘Testy Manifesto.’ It had a disconcerting David Lynch soundscape behind it. Go back to the blog from 31/3/2023 and you’ll find the poem. It’s long and so weird.

Monologue ‘Going Home.’ I’ve been researching funerals and death rituals from around the world. Here is what I have so far;

Here, this.. sphere. This big, blue. bauble. Full of air. Full of people. Full of bodies. Space is at a premium.
The soul moves on, only the bones remain. We go home? But here is home? Then where is home?
Over here, the dead return to earth once a year. November is pleasant enough. Many petaled marigolds entice spirits with fragrance. A photo with a candle. Their favourite food. All Souls, for a day.
Over here, the one who is sick, the one who is asleep must wait to go home. The goodbye is lavish and expensive, and someone has to pay for all that.
Over here, there is a passport to go home. Tablets of metal or stone with instructions for navigating whatever comes next.
Over here, bodies laid on tall platforms of leaves, spirits depart on wisps of smoke.
Over here, ceremonial suits of jade, over here a burning of a bamboo bull, over here you will remain under the kitchen.
Over here, the bones are turned, there is perfume, dancing, fancy garments, offerings to absent eyes.
What is the vehicle for going home? Here, a sports car, a rocket, or here a biodegradable woven willow casket. Maybe a vertical departure in a hollowed tree, blindfolded and placed in the doorway, a lit cigarette placed between retracted lips. The dead don’t favour red, but a smoke puts them at ease.
Place them high up to go home, leave an outline of stones for waiting vultures. Or light fires on rafts, drift down a murky river, to a wasteland shore inhabited by dogs, the blood red sun keeping watch.
Encase them in earth within 24 hours, encase them in beads, memento mori, take the hair as tokens, hire a professional photographer to capture the grief. Weep openly and encircle. Don’t weep, don’t you dare cry.
Set them adrift, let them plumet. Don’t let them sink, don’t let the ground swallow them, rest them on solid stone. Waft a white handkerchief, send them home to deep, brass, jazz.

A piece of music then plays – it’s from the soundtrack to ‘Treme’ and is called ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee.’ I wrote a poem based on this piece of music during a writing workshop in May 2023. I have been obsessed with New Orleans funerals for quite a while now. I combined this with a little puppetry piece using a white handkerchief, which I had devised way back during lockdown. The poem was unfinished when I began this rehearsal process, here it is in full:

Sigh, sway, stumble
Wisp of air through toothy gap
Hooves scrape on steaming cement
Wheels turn, barely
Slug drip from rheumy eyes
Swollen knuckles, frozen with upward palm
Bones crumble
A hollow frame housing insects
Hair falls, gathers with straw
Feathered alveoli grasps at nothing
Liquid seeps and oozes from crevices
Matter sinking, spirit rising
Cadent frills ruffle lightly
Still that secret smile
And a smooth serenity
Knowing there is nothing stronger than nature
A swagger, a jist
A step home.

Then there was another recorded voice over while I sat on a chair and put on my tap shoes. This part was very under-developed, but eventually I’d like to create some rhythm with my feet under the words. Here are the voiceover words:

Taut trunks elongate
Punctate space
In alien net of hanging breath
The road less travelled
A lone figure makes liminal traverse
A war of two worlds
Silently regarded amidst rotten leaves
Tiny branches imprison
Death surrounds
Death hovers
And static web draws the darkening of the dark

Here is the next poem – this is the one I am exploring the rhythm tap with. Again this was written during a writing workshop in May 2023. I’m not happy with it yet

.I am standing here
I am true grit
I am clinging on with a vice-like grip
I am glued to the saddle
I am the dust between leather and cloth
I am the single bead of sweat falling toward crevice of waist
Wasted in the sand
A drop in the ocean
The ocean that dried up, leaving hard, white, cracked sheets
Reflective after rain
The pebble that looks like every other pebble, but fits so neatly in your hand
I am the dew
I am the smell of the bark at twilight
I am the screech of a hungry owl
I am the greeting of someone you think you recognise
I am the velvet curtains closing on the coffin
I am the last rites
The desperate haggard breath drawn after maniacal laughter
The song deep within the cliff face
The song the river whispers
The song of stretching shadows

I then delivered the final poem, which I wrote in November 2020. I staged this against the back wall of the theatre:

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
 
And that was it. There are more poems I have written, but I thought that these were enough of a start. I had lots of space to use, so I used all of it, and the piece travelled all over the room. This new ‘Pithy Obituary’ has been in my head since 2020, it was good to finally get it into the space.
 
My friends gave me some feedback, and I made notes on what I could remember afterwards.
 

• A lot was achieved in a day and a half
• Good writer, good performer – can the work be less ‘patchy’?
• I need a narrator character to string this all together, but who is she?
• Jeu Jeu’s funeral – saying goodbye to my youth?
• Patchy, or a patchwork?
• I’m not fond of narratives, but structure and contrast are important to me
• Lots of ideas but they need development
• I need a tighter writing routine
• The speech on death rituals at the start works well – my friend recognized her contribution from when I asked for input over the socials
• Universal theme, liked the start – following breadcrumbs
• Later in a text; ‘I admire you tackling such a difficult and important subject matter…it’s good to see someone who takes the arts seriously for a change.’

 
There’s nothing else for it – I’m going to HAVE to go to New Orleans for a research trip! And probably Mexico too. Maybe Indonesia 😊
 
Over June and the start of July I was involved in the opening ceremony for the 50th anniversary of Winchester Hat Fair. What a blast that was. Nerve-wracking too. I was very proud to be a Wintonian that weekend. This was my second writing commission for Playmakers, and I got to perform at the Theatre Royal again – in a white robe and head mic. I played the sentinel of ‘Look Forwards’, proclaiming the future of Hat Fair. The three sentinels of Look Back, Look Forwards and Look Up, were hoisted onto Autin Dance Theatre’s giant wheel and spun around while delivering overlapping text. Terrifying, but it had the desired effect – you could actually hear people gasp in the audience.
 
Throughout the month of August I’ve been making décor for The Peoples Front Room, which is an independent pop up music venue. We were at Wilderness and Shambala festival, which were both excellent in their own way. It’s been amazing to be part of a crew like that, and I definitely want to do it all again next year.
 
In fact, the whole of this year, especially the Spring and Summer, have proven to me what I’m capable of when I get out of my own way. I’ve loved the collaboration and the challenges. I’ve loved the chats, the laughs, the people, the possibilities…and all the sweat.
 
Over Autumn and Winter I’m going to turn ‘Testy Manifesto’ into a book. By chance at Shambala I saw my friend who I took rhythm tap classes with back in 2015. I’m taking this as a sign that I need to pick that up again. I need a stricter writing routine. I need the freelance work to carry on being abundant so I can save for a trip to New Orleans.
 
And one more thing - over this summer I also completed turning my van into a mini-camper. It’s all insulated, it has shelves and hooks everywhere. We will go on a few more adventures I’m sure.
 
What a bonkers year. And there’s still four months of it left.
 
Looking forward to conker season,
​
JJlF xx