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

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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