I’m attempting to unpack the past three months, and clear the decks for another writing deadline I have looming. It’s been a gloriously busy Spring, I have been onstage a lot.

March and April were the rehearsals and then the tour of Grant Sharkey’s musical ‘Are You Worthy?’ We were a cast of six, plus Dan, our tech. We did eleven performances in Ryde, Totton, Cerne Abbas, Salisbury, Pilton, Andover, Reading, Colwyn, Birmingham, Northampton and London. Every venue was very different; there were theatres, working mens’ clubs and community centres, and one was in a beer garden. Before every show we unloaded and assembled the set, while Dan ran around setting up mics. For every show we had a sound check and had to renegotiate our entrances and exits. We developed roles and rituals as part of a team, and we also had time to chat and play. It was almost like the actual show became the least interesting part of our time together.

And ‘Are You Worthy?’ is a really great show. A bit crude and satirical, but wholly optimistic and very, very funny. It brought a lot of joy into rooms of people, and we had a hoot doing it. My role was primarily acting, I didn’t have to do much singing by myself. The singing was the aspect of the show I struggled with most, and worked very hard to overcome. My singing, and really the whole show was never perfect. Something always went a bit awry. There were awkward silences, missed cues, missing props, misbehaving props…The show found something new every time we performed it. I couldn’t believe how hard we all worked, I have not known a tiredness like that for a long time.

I didn’t fully ‘get’ what ‘Are You Worthy?’ was about until I saw what it was doing to audiences. Grant has built a huge following over the years, and it felt like it was just the thing people wanted/needed to see at that time. Again, the words “Just have fun” ring in my ears from people who have believed in me and gave me the nudge I needed. And also “Be where you are” which releases any shame in not being perfect. There’s so much more to say about what I learned, but I’ll say this: it was very different to all these years I’ve had as a solo performer, it tested my edges, but I was part of something very special.

I have a job three days a week as a Wardrobe Supervisor, and I do freelance work as a Funeral Celebrant and seasonally for The People’s Front Room. I run theatre workshops occasionally, and I have other writing projects happening too. None of this work I can turn down, the alternative to being busy is being poor, and I gratefully kept it all going throughout the Spring. I’m writing this at the end of May, having just got back from a weekend working at How The Light Gets In. I’ve got to slow down a bit in June.

On May 4th and 19th I performed ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto in Brighton as part of the fringe. My first evening in Brighton - the night before my first show as a friend had kindly offered me their spare room for the night - was quite traumatic. The day of the show I tech'd and then sat on the beach going over my lines. I did the show; there were six people in the audience, two of them were old friends I hadn’t seen in a while. I was so glad I had managed to get through it all. I extended Wanda the Wandering Womb’s section by adding a new poem, and a proper introduction from Wanda. I had to read the words from a sheet of paper for the new poem, but the audience are looking at Wanda then, so no one minded, and it was still the part of the show that got the biggest audience reaction.

In the period of time just before this show and the one on the 19th, the Man Versus Bear thing had blown up all over the internet. I really wanted to write another poem for Wanda, whose ‘poetry combines 4th wave feminism with 90’s popular music’ and it so happened that while driving home from the show I’d somehow managed to get through, the perfect song came on the radio and I had the makings of a new poem – that I again read from a sheet of paper on the floor for the second show. Wanda introduced the new poem as ‘a premiere as they say in French-speaking countries.’

I had a much bigger audience for the second show, lots of my newer friends came, and appeared to love it. My costumes changes didn’t go as smoothly as I would’ve liked, but the words were more secure this time, and it was one of my more emotional performances of this show. Perhaps because I have no plans to perform it again?

Before I make any plans, before I do anything else, I have to respond to an absolutely terrible review I received from this second in the run, and maybe the last time I do it show. He said nothing positive about the venue, the show or me. He quotes parts of my show copy and artist bio and says that he disagrees with it. He says that he learned ‘very little’ about intimate partner violence, and that I had little to say on the subject. He even blames me for escalating the argument I have with my skeleton at the start.

When I first read the review I decided to sit with it to myself for a day. Later I confided in two wise women friends and expressed some of my outrage; allowing myself to laugh about it too. Now that I am back at my desk, I’ve gone over the notes I made and the thoughts I had over the past six days, and I’ve just re-read the review. I kind of don’t know what to say, so I’m just going to re-write the notes I made yesterday. You can maybe see how the emotion rises as I continue.

• Getting in and out of costumes onstage and transitioning between pieces of writing and characters or ‘voices’ is difficult, but that is where I give the audience a rest from taking in words.
• Usually 3-5 stages in a narrative arc.
• Visual theatre lies in the gaps, and the way each piece of writing is framed by the objects, costumes, and positioning/posture.
• Laughter from the women in the audience.
• The French in TM isn’t meant to be understood in full, rather it’s to trick me into becoming more animated, and so that I’m in character as a kind of narrator.
• Resonates with survivors and those who know survivors.
• I knew it was a risk bringing two new poems that I hadn’t memorised, and one I’d only finished a few days before. But I know that Wanda’s part is the bit people seem to love the most. I looked at her during the first, original poem, and all puppeteers know that you look where you want the audience to look. But with two new poems I had to read them off pieces of paper on the floor (I’m crouched down low at this point, and the Wanda puppet is raised up on my left arm). So I looked at the floor for about five minutes, and up at Wanda when I could. But the words are coming out of her mouth, I even make my voice quite different. But still this reviewer thought that I was ‘only’ reading my words. There’s a puppet, you’re not meant to be looking at me.
• I trained as a mime artist and THEN became a poet. There is irony in there, and that’s intentional.
• Don’t tell me that you walk away from my show not having learned anything about intimate partner violence or systemic misogyny, I know that’s not true because of the amount of people that tell me otherwise, both to my face and anonymously.
• He even blames me for escalating an argument with my skeleton.

These were my actual notes. I left out one thing because it sounded too dramatic, another detail because it is private information about someone in the audience, and I added some description of my positioning onstage during the Wanda section. I am clearly upset about the skeleton comment to mention it twice. Some of these notes feel quite raw, and to be honest that’s how I felt when I first read the review. But I’ve been well-resourced enough to deal with it, and the only conclusion I can reliably come to is that the show triggered him somehow? I feel it sounds arrogant to say that, and feel ashamed to admit it. I mean, the review is so bad, but he gave it two stars. It can't have been THAT bad! The very least he could've done was spell my name correctly, when it's written right above in the title. Unless he meant 'Voile' which is the French word for veil.

I’ll leave you with Wanda’s new poems. She has her own spin off set now with three poems in total. I’m going to make her a miniature prop poetry book to ‘read’ from. I very much doubt that will be the last time I perform Testy Manifesto.. 

With love,
JJlFxx

Man V’s Bear

Hypothetical question
 
Man versus bear, which would you rather encounter
Well I’m that bear, and I care, stroke my tummy and you’ll find out
So run your hands through my fur and I bet you feel safety
Yes I’m Barney, yes I’m Rupert and just the necessities
I’m Paddington, and you are my Queen
Eat your porridge Goldilocks, and lick that spoon clean
I want you smothered in honey like I’m Winnie the Pooh
Kung Fu Panda, never need your anger
Just like Fozzie looking on the bright side
Yogi in his truck taking you out for a ride
Forever Friends
 
You and me baby, we aint nothing but mammals
Let’s call Ruxpin, Boo Boo and the Sylvalian bear families
You and me baby, we aint nothing but mammals
And have a picnic in the woods in man-free luxury
Marmalade sandwiches
 
Love, the kind that’s grizzly and emphatic
Like Sooty I’ll tell you secrets, and impress you with my magic
I’m terrific, let me be specific, I’m safer than an unknown man
If I attack you, its not to get back at you, or part of some sick plan
I shoot rainbows not guns, care bear stare, not a big scare
I grant wishes, no wolf whistles, it won’t matter what you wear
So you be Cindy, I’ll be Yogi
I’m Baloo, that makes you Mogali
And we’ll have a lovely picnic, no men, you and me only
Wocka Wocka
 
You and me baby, we aint nothing but mammals
Let’s get Bungle, and Sue, and SuperTed too
You and me baby, we aint nothing but mammals
Gentle Ben, your forever friend, men you find something else to do
 
 
Not All Men

Oh, baby, baby, how was I supposed to know
That my opinion wasn’t wanted here
Oh, baby, baby, I shouldn’t have talked over you
It’s everyone’s favourite argument.
Show me, honestly I’m a safe man
None of that is my fault, I need to know now, oh because
My entitlement still befuddles me
I must confess I still believe unconsciously
When I'm just trying to have a debate
Give me a meme, hashtag, baby it’s not all men
 
Oh, baby, baby, the curfew idea it’s really cute
Look, I’m one of the good guys
Oh, pretty baby, be grateful for the attention
That’s not the way I meant it
Show me how you want it to be
Tone police me, 'cause I need to know now, oh, because
The patriarchy is killing me too, and I
I must confess I still believe it’s all about me
When my good behaviour isn’t rewarded I lose my mind
It was a compliment for fucks sake it’s not all men

Oh, baby, baby, how were you supposed to know?
Oh, pretty baby, I shouldn't have blamed your clothes
I must confess that my self-concept is killing me now
Don't you know I still believe
In the social script, so give me a slice
Of the poisoned patriarchal pie.
My mansplaining is killing me, though
I must insist I still believe you asked for it
When I'm called out I lose my mind
Give me a pass, what about men it’s not all men
 
I must confess that my loneliness is killing me now
Don't you know I still believe
In the status quo, but I’ll give you this
It’s not all men, but it is too many of them.
 

Blog introspectively written as 2023 drew to a close, and then forgotten about in the throng and madness of early January...

Picture - first draft of my Brighton Fringe poster.

​Limericks.

I sometimes write them in birthday cards for people I know well. When I was nine I knew one of Roald Dahl’s ‘Dirty Beasts’ off by heart. It was the one about the pig, and I played Farmer Bland in a choir performance at Eastleigh Town Hall - now The Point Theatre. I once was so absorbed in a Dr Seuss book during library time at primary school, that when I looked up, the whole class had gone back to our classroom, and the teacher was left with me there, smiling. I kept journals and wrote angsty poetry in my teens.. I pretty much swerved poetry for the whole of university. I could never understand why poetry and plays were kept in the same area in every bookshop.  I remember one night in one of our student houses seeing the opening to the Mike Myer’s film ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer.’ In it he performs a very silly jazz beat poem. In that same year I must’ve heard Tom Waits for the first time. I started reading Jack Kerouac books. Slowly, I learned about William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg. I discovered a CD of ‘The Black Rider’ in Lewisham library, during very frugal times in the years following university. I borrowed many CD’s from them, until they started charging. I discovered Nick Cave then too. I made tapes of all the albums. And I received many tapes from others over this point too. Including most of Tom Waits’ back catalogue.

‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Frontal Lobotomy’ is existentialist in its tone. It’s very much under the influence of Tom Waits, but infused within are references to Medusa, mainly at the start. Then the show concludes with a myth about a child that was lost, and an evil influence that took over the temple. The final scenes involve me singing a song (badly) about a series of strange dreams I had, then putting my little Waits puppet to bed. It is a comforting ending, and a few people have fallen asleep during the show. I haven’t minded that all, I wonder what kind of dream they had.

I’ve taken that show to many audiences. And the reactions are so different. I will always be very fond of it, and I usually enjoy performing it. But I don’t push it on anyone anymore.

‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto’ (I began using rhyming titles from this point) was written while I was recovering from PTSD and first performed as a complete show when we began properly emerging out of lockdown in July 2021. This was quite a bumpy period in my life, I initially resisted it becoming a show, and covid meant that I couldn’t continue trying it in front of live audiences to even see if I liked what I was doing. In the meantime I’d turned ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ into a book and a film. At the end of 2020 I was all fired up. I got thinking more seriously about what I’d like to leave behind me, and there have been some profound moments of healing along this journey. I feel safe, but not attached to my life as it is now, as far as practically day to day.

I have begun to enjoy performing that show, and it reaches a new place every time I share it. But I’m very aware that it crystalises a moment in time, a speck in my life as a whole I hope. It’s a place I’m not at anymore. I hope to make a book and film of this one soon.

The final show I’m making as Jeu Jeu, feels like the long road home. I’ve done lots of new writing but haven’t wanted to share much of it. When I’ve told people what the show is about they’ve often grown quiet, or got very loud. I get all sorts of ideas for it, but to make it happen I need some sort of incentive, preferably a financial one that harms no one. There are costume and puppet ideas to try, but I’m going to make it with what I have available, like I always have. There are all sorts of other resources I can tap into too. I’ve made three unsuccessful funding applications since September 2020 and the latest I’m hoping for I won’t find out about until March 2024.

But most of what I do happens behind the scenes. The blogs I keep, mainly for myself these days, track things to an extent. And you can usually tell from the quotation at the top what kind of content I’ve been absorbing. I wanted to write here about where it began for me, and where I want it to go. I guess it’s a pivotal moment as I approach my 45th birthday. I want to make making art sustainable for me. I want to take my well-being into account, and keep learning to rest when needed. We aren’t only what we do out in the world, so much happens on the inside. I know with some extra money as a buffer for the year I could take a few workshops and see a few shows, things that I know nourish my soul and make it easier to create from. I want to create from peace and integration and connection, and this world is a hard place to do that from. I also recognise my tremendous privilege at being able to make and perform my own work.

I am coping with it all in my own way. Getting stuck into what is practical and achievable. I’m forever grateful for my home, and all the sanctuary it brings me. I’ve found joy in the company of groups of women this year in particular. All ages and types of women. But they all have healing, art, nature, good food and adventure in their offerings. And I am grateful for a seat at their table.

I took part in shows written by other people this year for the first time in a long time. I costumed several shows from a hut in the South Downs. I have a van, and a plan for it. The only big thing I have booked for next year is Brighton Fringe with ‘Testy Manifesto.’ There is another plan to go to Ireland in the late summer. Both are solo ventures. I’ve taken a bit of time to rest this Winter. I’ve no real plans for my birthday, but I intend to spend it well. There’s lots happening just before and just after, so I might not want to do too much. Last year I really splashed out, spent a lot of money (for me) because I really wanted to celebrate. And there have been many other reasons to celebrate over this past year. And long may they continue. But for now I am definitely out of money, and I’m going to need to work hard in these upcoming months in order to have another good year. I have cut back quite a lot, but there are things I need money for like converting the van, and getting to and from the fringes, and staying there overnight or for longer. I am very pleased with my van, it’s perfect for me, but it was the biggest purchase I have made for a while.

By this time next year I want to have finished a whole rough first draft of the next show, have performed extracts from it at various places, and have finalised costume, props and music. I will be mostly finished with ‘Testy Manifesto’ hopefully with a book and film nearing completion in some way. I have faith that the right things come at the right times. Everything might take longer than I want it to, but I’ve got enough to get on with for the next five years at least.

I realise now that I've been avoiding poetry open mics, and there are many reasons for that. I don't know how I move beyond those reasons. I think I'm probably hiding on some level.

The new show has a tentative title, it’s called ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary.’ I really had to wrestle to get this one to rhyme.
​
With so much love,
JJlF xx

I’ve started to write this not quite knowing where it’s going to go. Usually before I start writing a blog I will read the last two entries I made. It’s nice to reflect on where I’ve been since I last sat down. I sometimes cringe a bit at what I’ve written, but there’s something to be said for just how LONG I’ve been writing this blog! And how much I share, knowing for myself what I kept back. I haven’t made any more theatre since the last blog, but I did write one, quite long, thing. While I was in France last summer I kept quite a detailed journal. And three weeks or so ago I sifted back through it and extracted some lines that caught my eye. I then arranged them into a kind of poetic monologue, a bit like the one about the French Revolution towards the end of ‘Testy Manifesto.’ Of all the forms of writing I use in my shows I think the poetic monologue is my favourite. I have one at the start of ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ too, but it’s done in the style of Tom Waits - A Very Emotional Weather Report – and I mime playing the piano as a say it. When I wrote that piece it was an opener for the show, a kind of explanation, and a plea for the audience to relax. The one in ‘Testy Manifesto’ tries to draw all of the threads together. The personal and the political. I see the one I’ve just written as a bridge of some sort. That’s all I know.

I did a performance of the ‘Testy Manifesto’ extract at Grant Sharkey’s album launch at The Art House in Southampton. Such a lovely evening in so many ways. Grant’s audience were very welcoming to me, and although not everything went to plan for me as usual, we all had a good time. I had an interesting conversation with a man in that audience, who told me that his wife had been in an abusive relationship before she had met him. He said he thought she should see the show, that it would help her. And so now I know that I’ve at least helped one person, even if it was indirectly. And that was all that got me through the making of that show; the thought that someone who needed to see it, would/could see it, and that it would help them. And if not, then at least it would help me. Which it did. In the course of March 2019 to July 2021, which was the span of time it took to get ‘Testy Manifesto’ out, I recovered from PTSD. And neither one was an easy process. Parts of the show still trigger me when I return to them after a break, performing the show is still emotionally taxing, and I am often a bit shell-shocked afterwards, and need a couple of days to recover. But overall I’m feeling quite safe in my life, and returning to it over and over again, from a different place each time seems to help.

I’ve seen some great theatre this season. I’ve spent a lot of time sat at a sewing machine. I’ve started taking my weight training a tiny bit more seriously. Performing helps keep my mind sharp, I need to keep doing it. I need to read my new poems out loud – that’s my goal for next year. I’m putting myself back at square one and writing a new show. I’m taking ‘Testy Manifesto’ to Brighton Fringe in May and hopefully Dublin Fringe in September. Next year will probably be the last year I perform that show, I have grown so much from doing it. Perhaps another film version, probably a book at some point. But the show is done. I remember the desperation I felt as I wrote it, and as all of the pieces started coming together, and I started to share it with people, I started to understand it. I’ll do it as often as I am invited to, the same with ‘Frontal Lobotomy.’ Making ‘Testy Manifesto’ didn’t ‘cure’ my PTSD, and I definitely have more healing to do, but it started the process that I’ve thrown everything at in the last three years in particular.
Now what I need is a good long rest over the winter, and to hope that the creativity bubbles up in the spring. Here is my monologue from warmer days in France this year.
​
Love, JJlFxx

Paris and Versailles
Fifteen years late, the woman with the thorn in her heart, sweats and side-steps taxi drivers, looking for a name she couldn’t pronounce, peering past open doors into cavernous courtyards, seeing what had changed since she last walked these streets. Fifteen years ago Pigalle was grotty enclave, now littered with bars she will be too afraid to enter. Alone, with nothing to do but walk, and take photos of her feet. The feet that throb as if they were hearts. She envies the paddling pigeons, she gazes at cakes too beautiful to eat. On a park bench by a not too noisy road, a croque monsieur is devoured. Two men call out ‘Bonjour madame’ but knowing her accent will betray her disguise, she only nods in response. An hour long queue is rewarded with a hall of mirrors and ludicrous fountains spurting Baroque. Sustained with madeleines and apricots, she discovers a book shop filled with nooks, and is drawn to the area under the stairs. It so happens to be the ‘Death and Grieving’ section, and she parts with 18 euros. Long shadows and glass pyramids, the house where George Sand lived, the pilgrimage to lay her hand on the brass plaque outside Ecole Jacques Lecoq. Sensing what lies beyond, in the deeper side of Paris, trusting that the promenade plantee will lead her to the next thing.

Provence
The heat assaulted her the second she stepped off the train in Avignon. So the cicadas are here, a sound that had always amazed her, though she’d never seen even one. Until the day one fell on her and became lodged in her clothing. Shaking it free a bit too roughly, she watched in horror as the helpless, hideous creature was consumed by ants. I’m sorry, she said. Here is a chance to observe myself she thought. My favourite flowers are sunflowers and lavender. My favourite supper is cheese, nectarines and wine. I have seen enough Roman Ruins for the time being. Wine is the dominant religion here. The churches are empty but the restaurants are full. Shadow and shade are the same word. The word for diving board is ‘Le Plonge’ and they do actually say ‘Ooh lala’.
A crocodiles head in a pram, an empty marionette theatre, bubbles, a lullaby, a lone trumpet player, his seated audience of one, ‘My Way.’ She finds any patch of grass to put her bare feet on, she hires a bike for one euro and encounters a troll smelling of weed. A deep voice asks her in French ‘What have you found?’ Le velo n’est pas pour la compagne. A windy beach, sand in her ears and nostrils. A nudist beach, sand in every crevice. Leathery, naked men standing sentinel, a thousand flamingos but not one decent photo. No sound but the waves, sea water that is fresh but not cold. The word for chilled sounds like ‘fresh.’ It takes me a minute to relax she thought, but maybe I’m not very good at holidays. An epic crepe for three euros and a bus ride full of local people comparing sunburn. A croissant eaten in Van Gogh’s garden.
It twinkles here, the city appears upside down in the Rhone, my god it’s so fucking beautiful. A scoop of lavender ice-cream – three euros. A man hiding in the bushes over the bridge gets out his penis in broad daylight. His penis is red, she is so fucking angry. Maybe I cannot truly be invisible, she thinks.

Alsace
A whole new region, giant skies, fairytale castles clinging to mountains, she had never seen so many varieties of mustard in one place. She stores her food in a terrifying cellar, the host follows her everywhere asking questions about the Royal Family. The dog is called Papillon, and is disabled. A disabled butterfly. There are gnomes, witches and toadstools with faces in the windows, she spends an afternoon in the toy museum, she is now brave enough to wish the bus drivers a bonne journee. An explorer who chooses when to reveal herself. A day trip to a whole other country where she watches swimmers in the Rhine being taken by the current. The weather changes constantly and the church bells on Sunday morning are relentless. A last encounter with the astronomical clock, inside a cathedral so daunting. A final invitation into the unknown. While we are alive the days will pass, but time seems to stretch when everything is unfamiliar. She now knows what too many steps feels like. She vows to never again hide herself in her mother tongue. She wishes everyone could be this free.

It’s a rainy evening in Winchester. I’ve been to the theatre this afternoon, with my mum, in Eastleigh. I’ve learned how to tell if I’ve had enough excitement for one week or day, and that its ok to take time for myself. And that I have a lot to reflect upon.
​
Beginning with Faversham Fringe last week. My first proper outing with my new van. The first time the full ‘Testy Manifesto’ was performed since Summer 2022. Faversham was quite rainy too. I occupied myself in Faversham on the morning of my show by walking around in the costume of the French Revolutionary character, and summoning people to a ‘meeting’ at the Guildhall that evening, while sliding my flyer over. Later on that afternoon I stood outside the Guildhall with my skeleton, and called out to passers-by who made eye contact; ‘Bonsoir, it is a beautiful evening for a revolution, no?’

I had many funny conversations with people, they played along. Some spoke in French to me. A man asked me what had happened to my eye (I’m wearing an eye-patch) and I told him I had been fighting for the freedom of Faversham. It was way more fun flyering in character, and a lovely couple I accosted on their way to the pub were intrigued enough to interrupt their planned night. I had seven people in the audience, and six of them were women.

They actually hold council meetings in the Guildhall in Faversham. It’s an odd but beautiful building, and there are portraits of all of the previous councillors and mayors down the walls. I wasn’t overjoyed about my performance. I messed up the beginning, and I had to fight to get over myself, and just get on with it. I did kick myself a bit afterwards, even though it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, and that is how I consoled myself.

I’m actually starting to enjoy performing this show. I have a kind of fondness for it, and a fierce protection over it. I know its not perfect, and that it’s the best work I’ve done. I’ve edited out a riskier moment in the past three performances of ‘Testy Manifesto.’ It’s a small section of a part I’ve never really been entirely comfortable with, but it’s still implied in the music and costume. That particular section of the show, where I’m wearing nearly the least amount of clothing of all the costume changes, that’s never felt comfortable. So why make it even more awkward? That’s why I cut out the biggest risk (for me) I took in the making of the show.

The impulse had come to me during a rehearsal in the lead-up to the first performance in Guildford in July 2021. The feeling that I wanted to humiliate the skeleton character in some way. I tried it out in a very vulnerable first performance to an audience of one dear friend, in a barn on the Yorkshire Moors. They laughed and gasped so I kept it in. I continued to humiliate the skeleton onstage for the next several shows. But I decided that moment wasn’t needed when I did the show at Words and Whiskey in January 2023. There are already plenty of moments of discomfort. It was something that I had to try, but after a while it served its purpose, and that show (and I) didn’t need it anymore.

I have begun to trust the material more than I had before. I have begun to trust that I can pull it out of the bag when needed. And I might need to for the next performance, which is at Grant Sharkey’s new album launch at the Art House. The stage is very thin, but I think now I am ready to improvise a little bit. I think now at last I can have more fun.
That feels like a good place to end this.

But I still have niggling doubts that creep in the form of unexplained aches in my shoulder blades, wrist and neck. I know that I cannot be Jeu Jeu forever. But I am plodding on, and doing what I can to address those niggles. I’m making plans for more shows in 2024, and taking le plonge with writing a new show, and making myself accountable for that.
​
JJlF xx
 

Paris was intense. Avignon was hot, dry and unbelievably pretty. Colmar was lush. I explored a lot of the surrounding region of each city, took a million photos, and seemed to spend a lot of time in supermarkets. It was good to go on my own, I was able to do exactly what I felt like each day, though having someone else there might’ve helped me feel less awkward with the language barrier. It took me a while to acclimatize and feel braver speaking French. But as the holiday drew to a close in Colmar, I went to see the ‘Barbie’ film dubbed in French; really just to see how much I understood. I loved it.

Spending all that time in France was glorious, and coming home was amazing. But I must’ve picked up a nasty virus on the Eurostar on the way back, as for the next (nearly) two weeks, I could do nothing but marinate in snot. I’m never usually ill for more than a few days at a time, and this was frustrating. I came off social media for the summer, and so couldn’t even mindlessly scroll. I had returned feeling like a tornado; full of creative ideas and thoughts of people I planned to see, but was brought back to earth with a bump.

While I was away, I had found out that I’d been selected to perform the ‘Testy Manifesto’ extract as the Propel Scratch Night at MAST Mayflower Studios. Luckily I was well enough to do it, though not as fit as I like to be before a show. It was the first time I had done the show as an extract; I was pleased with how it turned out, and delighted that I had some friends in the audience.

There were four other acts; all very different, spanning genres and generations. Everyone gave written feedback after each performance. We had all sent in some questions in advance, and I received the feedback two days ago. I haven’t had anonymous written feedback for this show since the very first scratch back in November 2019. And reading it all the comments today, knowing how long and arduous this process was…well, it means a great deal.

Reading the feedback helped me see things that I hadn’t considered before. Quite often while staging and blocking performance work, I’ll do things intuitively, and not think too much about how they might be read onstage. The actions just feel right for that moment. And it’s similar with the language used and the structuring of scenes, though the poems tend to lead me to how and where they want to be expressed. Basically, I’m just feeling my way in the dark most of the time, and having some meaning reflected back helps illuminate what I’m doing, and gives it a sense of purpose.

Here is all of the feedback – everything – it’s all useful, even when someone doesn’t know what to make of it, or is critical. It’s all welcome. I’ve grouped the responses to each question because it’s more useful to me to see the overall opinion.

This is a 15 minute extract of a 45 minute show. Does watching this make you want to see the whole show, or have you seen quite enough?
Yes. It’s very engaging. I’d be interested to see how the elements come together and the journey for the performer/ character through the piece.
Might see it. Not sure what’s going on.
Yes, would definitely like to see more.
The whole show.
I would be interested in seeing the rest of the show.
Would like to see more – was very engaging. Might need to strengthen the links / have a greater clarity for audience to follow.
There was a lot packed in there. A veritable assault on the senses.
I would be open to see it.
Yes.
Either clearer links between scenes or each scene to be more distinct. In places I was confused. This is ok if it was deliberate.
Yes, I think so.
Yes I could watch more, but it needs to less disjointed.
OMG Absolutely! I would 100% come and watch this, and then come back and watch it again 😊
If I saw the rest of it, it might explain the 15 minute version.
Yes more please, but where is it going?
I would like to see it in context.
I would like to see it in full to see where it goes.
Would like to see an interplay between the various persona.
Yes I’d be intrigued to see the rest!
45 might be too long, but would like to see more, so maybe 30 mins.
Yes! Intrigued.
Loved the poetry. You’re quite a wordsmith.
I’d like to see the whole show based on this.
I would like to see the whole show.
Do I want more? Hell yes I do 😊
I wanted to understand more about the throughline of the piece, and I think seeing the whole show would help with that.
I want to see more!
I’d like to see the whole show.
I definitely want more.
Yes! I’d love to see how all these things link. I’d bring friends.
Absolutely! Was awesome. What an incredible journey and way to deal with such hard hitting and important subjects.
Would like to see it all.
Yes – definitely can’t wait to see more!

More French? Less French? Just the right amount of French?
MORE! If you’re in any way French. If not – about the right amount. More music please! What is the relationship between the French clown and the other character / the performer?
Right amount.
Just the right amount!
Just about – more I wouldn’t understand 😊
Enjoyed the French, it helps to create atmosphere.
Just the right amount.
Can never have too much! But for audiences as a whole – just enough.
Less French.
I thought about right.
Better French 😊
Just the right amount of French.
Un peu plus. NB: Face downstage more when talking to skeleton.
Give me all the French!!!
Just the right amount.
The right amount.
Bit less French.
Just the right amount 😊 Enough to get the character across, but not too much I got lost.
Just the right amount of French.
Just the right amount of French.
The French is about right.
Parfait.
No problem with the French (except dicey accent!)
Just the right amount! But I did do French GCSE.
Just the right amount of French.
I don’t speak French but was able to follow the French parts. They were fun. The right amount.
I’d be happy with more French as the storytelling becomes more visual through using it.
Just the right amount 😊
For me – perfect. I know French.
My French is poor. I got enough of it to enjoy it & I imagine many people got much more.
Just right (5% less) I fear I may have missed a joke or two.
Definitely not less French. It worked really well and the French used was really accessible.
Loved the French – right amount for me.
Just right!

Which moment stood out for you the most?
Barbie! The juxtaposition of the humour and hard content. Wanda. Strong writing – interested in more form holding the different sections.
The scene with the skeleton – the straw, the last straw.
The abused woman part.
‘Barbie’ moment / Reference to feminism / Female inequalities / Outstanding acting / Wanda.
Barbie. Wanda. Really beautiful and poetic writing.
Loved the talking womb!
The Barbie.
All the scenes were effective, but I’d pick the first – bullying in a nutshell.
The Barbie gag.
The positive bits!
Start – expected more comedy and dance from intro. Barbie’s jobs. Wandering womb.
I really resonated with the journey of the straw, you perfectly encapsulated an experience which can be so hard to explain to people but you did it perfectly. The same when talking about the friend and her partner.
The skeleton straw bit.
The monologue about the abusive boyfriend was very poignant.
The conversation with the skeleton. The puppet and the French character.
The quality throughout was mainly very good.
When the skeleton was thrown to the floor after their conversation.
The Barbie moment / monologue.
Wanda.
The dramatic entrance. NB – Please use unperfumed spray. Perfume can cause anaphylactic shock.
The poetry – there were some amazing lines.
After the scene with the male voice/skeleton.
The beautiful poetry of the spoken set pieces. Also Wanda the Wandering Womb – she was hysterical! (Sorry for the pun)
Puppetry and clowning. I’d like more of that.
Wanda the Wandering Womb. I enjoyed the moments of absurdity. Though the piece is analogue, I wonder if lighting and sound might help with its pacing and tension.
The story about the ‘friend’ and the detriment of female empathy.
Critique of Barbie – so topical! Use of props.
The very powerful description of coercive control. Such a short length of time to deliver such an intense, authentic punch – really got me in my chest.
I liked the skeleton scene and its abrupt end. Also the domestic abuse poem that ended in splits.
Not going to lie – it was all so bloody fantastic – I want to give constructive comments but all I can think is how marvellous and needed your work is!! Thanks for sharing!
The talking womb, the physicality, the poetry.
Wanda the womb.

If you were describing this piece to someone who hadn’t seen it, what would you say?
Feminist clowning and punchy spoken word. Engaging performer.
Nicely performed. Good poetry. Not sure what’s going on.
It’s a piece about the female condition. Thank you. I really ‘enjoyed’ it.
Cutting deep.
Spoken word. Creative. Multi-rolling. Emotive.
A timeline of a feminist.
An illustration of how women are doomed in an amusing and non-didactic way.
A little bit bonkers and a bit of a mish-mash of styles and ideas and writing. Leftfield 😊
Very interesting. Beautifully played. Disjointed.
A miscellany of opinion and monologues seen through the performers eyes. Fringey.
That it’s a piece about the human experience as a woman with comedy and refreshing links to the past.
Be open minded. One woman show.
A feminist manifesto in French-lish.
Off the wall fringe show with feminist info.
Quirky one woman multirole feminism and revolution show (Definitely worth seeing!)
Different language styles. Varied female persona.
A slightly disorientating but thought provoking monologue that had me entertained throughout. France also. It was quite brilliant.
Gosh! No idea. Very entertaining, wonderfully performed, but have no idea how to describe it…Be ready for surprises.
Surprised. Couldn’t quite work out whether it didn’t hang together because it was a short version, or whether it was meant to be this disjointed.
An intriguing, absorbing piece of performance. NB – Your use of fragrance could be problematic! My friend has a fragrance allergy – she was at the back of the theatre, but had she been at the front she might’ve had to leave, which would have been a shame…😊
A one woman show about her abusive relationship.
Electric and engaging performance piece with serious issues but a sense of fun. Slightly campy (in a good way) Beautiful writing.
Beckett meets Avenue Q meets The Good Fight.
An exciting incite on enacting and continuing revolution.
Clever use of language, playing with words. Theme of age-long struggles – political and very much the personal.
You have to see this!! I don’t really know how to describe it, but it’ll make you scratch your head, fill your soul with imagery and thoughts, rock and roll you, smash you up and warm your cockles and ok I’ll stop now – it was very poignant, but also made me feel RAAA. Powerful.
A creative, funny, considered meditation on femininity.
Powerful, impactful and really thought out. Felt like you were transformed into a different world with the poetic language. Really impressive!
A series of ideas being performed beautifully to make you think, think and think some more!
Powerful and poetic.
 
What a great set of responses! I guess the French works then, and people could even handle a little bit more. As for the piece being less disjointed, I don’t think seeing the whole show is going to make it any clearer for those who prefer their stories to be linear. I’m sure I’m not the first person to make ‘anthology’ theatre, I’m definitely not the first person to mess around with narrative. The etymology of anthology is from a Greek work meaning ‘a collection of blossoms’, which I like a lot. I enjoy linear stories, but I’m not interested in telling them…yet.  

Wikipedia says this: ‘In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors… Alternatively, it can also be a collection of selected writings (short stories, poems etc.) by one author.’

I did have to make some of the changes and transitions more abrupt in this version. I needed to drastically edit some pieces of writing, and cut others out completely. All of the music was shortened as well, which I think usually gives an audience some time to process what has been said. But what I presented was true to the overall shape of ‘Testy Manifesto’, and seeing a longer version won’t necessarily make it make sense. In the same way as ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ was, it’s an album of sorts, a dream that you have while awake. But while the Lobotomy show was ultimately meant to soothe our troubled spirits, this one could rouse us and make us go RAAAA!! I’m glad it did that for some people. I will continue to experiment with how to give the individual pieces more form. I hope to continue to grow into it, until it feels like the comfortable, elasticated trousers that ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ now is.

What is the purpose of the third Jeu Jeu show I’m working on? What is the meaning I’m searching for? Why do I want to make another fucking show?! What I’ve written feels so vulnerable and unfinished. Poems used to come out of me in one go, like I’d plucked them from the air. Now it’s fits and starts, orphaned lines, everything is swimming and nothing wants to take form. Ugh, it's so frustrating. The first two shows were just as difficult in their own ways, and taught me so much Maybe I haven't lived enough life yet. FL taught me to be brave, TM taught me to get out of my own way...what do I need to learn? I'll understand one day, and probably laugh at how dumb I sound here.

‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto’ gets its next outing at Faversham Fringe on the 19th of October, and it’s the whole she-bang this time. I’m toying with the idea of adding another poem that I wrote during one of the covid lockdowns. It illustrates the feeling of being trapped, and is one of the most viscerally bleak things I’ve ever written. At the very least there will be a new red dress - the old one is getting a bit fragile.
 
Love and overgrown courgettes,

JJlF xx

PS: The use of perfume always goes on my risk assessment – but I think from now on I will provide laminated signs. The fragrance is an ‘aide memoire’ in the story, and it’s important that it’s real. Sorry.

PPS: I hadn’t realised I was doing the splits at the end of the monologue about ‘the friend’, (see photo) but now I see that it looks like I’m being pulled apart – again this is something I did intuitively, and now I understand it cognitively because someone pointed it out to me. Hooray for audiences!

Photo: Aaron West for MAST

I’d never seen myself as a street performer, always preferring the artificial light of a theatre, and an audience who had chosen to come in to my space and sit down. But a few days ago I performed my Frontal Lobotomy extract on a stage in the middle of Gunwharf Keys, which is a large outdoor shopping district in Portsmouth. Anyone who happened to be passing could witness a sexy lobotomy and a very public ‘drunken’ breakdown in the middle of the day. It wasn’t the container I would’ve chosen, but a large crowd gathered, many with confused and curious expressions, and I unapologetically gave them a show. I’ve probably traumatised a few of the kids.

I was invited along to Portsfest by Nomads 483, Rishi and Majid, who had seen me do the extract last April at the Theatre Royal in Winchester. Later that evening I opened for their final night of the festival, which had brought together such a mix of artists, many of whom were refugees. During the evening I chatted to some lovely dancers from El Salvador, and watched an incredible rap artist who blended Spanish and Arabic.

I’ve wrestled ‘Testy Manifesto’ into a 20 minute extract, where I have managed to keep all four appearances from my French revolutionary character, all of the music and costume changes, a few key poems, and the monologue about Paris – which is my favourite piece of writing from the show. Turning ‘Testy’ into a shorter extract was something I didn’t think was possible a year ago, but in a similar way to what the ‘Lobotomy’ extract has become, it is the edited highlights of a longer, much more existentialist piece. In the old days I made short vignettes, now I make longer shows and eventually condense them to their essential parts.

Speaking of the old days, and by old days I mean 2009, when I decided on a whim to become a burlesque performer. I haven’t performed burlesque since 2017, and just a few little gigs between 2017 and 2019. But it was an important part of my identity, and brought me so much joy for a significant chunk of time. I wouldn’t be doing what I am now without it, I wouldn’t have gone to drama school, and I certainly wouldn’t have had the guts to lay it all out to random passers-by in Gunwharf Quays of an afternoon. That gung ho, fuck it attitude that was fostered and nurtured in the burlesque world brought me here. I stopped making new burlesque acts because I knew that ultimately it wasn’t my audience, and the kind of work I wanted to create just didn’t have the ‘tah-dah’ factor that I knew they expected. But my gosh, I have zero regrets, it was absolutely the right thing for that time.

And now I’m tentatively gathering new pieces of writing together for a third and final show as Jeu Jeu la Foille, working with a theme which is so large and so taboo, that I wonder if I’m ready for it. But I’m feeling my way; taking workshops, listening intently, exploring my edges, adding books to my reading list, and holding it all lightly. I don’t feel called to share any of it publicly at the moment; it’s too vulnerable, and I don’t know what I have yet.
​
When I describe ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ I say it’s about Tom Waits and experimental brain surgery. ‘Testy Manifesto’ is about the Paris revolutions and intimate partner violence. I bring strange things together. With this final show, I only know one of the themes, I haven’t found the other one yet. It’s hidden in a book I’ve already read or have yet to read, it’s somewhere waiting for me. It’s hidden in an overheard conversation, a chance encounter, on an unfamiliar street.

I’m off en vacance in a couple of days to la belle France. I decided last September that I needed to get away for decent length of time, and so began saving my pennies and reading every guidebook the library had. I’ve not been abroad since 2019, and not away from home this long since 2016. I think the last holiday I had that wasn’t linked to work or study of some kind was in 2012. I intend to write, see some theatre and the Paris Catacombs, swim a bit maybe, but mainly I just want to walk, explore… as a free woman, with nothing better to do with her life. Sounds great, doesn’t it? I think so.

With love,
JJlF xx

I am writing this on the eve of my 13th birthday as Jeu Jeu la Foille. She was birthed at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, at a regular burlesque event they had there called ‘The Tournament of Tease’, and her first incarnation was as Mary Poppins. My burlesque swan song was in April 2019, but I’d been ebbing away from all that since Jeu Jeu got poetical in 2016.

Putting together a one-woman show was really just an experiment to see if I could do it. I had my recent Lispa training and the help of a Tom Waits obsession behind me; the writing came easily and I had tons of images to play with. At least a third of the show was written during a drama therapy and somatic healing retreat in Berlin, and I think that accounts for a lot of the weirdness in ‘Frontal Lobotomy.’ I am forever grateful that my intuition led me towards a book titled ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel Van Der Kolk during one of the research stages of that show. A seemingly haphazard course of events, chance meetings, lucky breaks, random conversations and salvaged pieces of costume created that show. And I had proven to myself that I could do it.

I began writing ‘Testy Manifesto’ in early 2019. I had just escaped an abusive relationship and was literally going out of my mind. By May of that year I had finished eight poems, and knew that one day there would be enough for another show. It was very painful the first time I read them in public, though no one would’ve been able to tell. I think only two of those poems made it into the final version. I had to dig deep to make ‘Testy Manifesto’, and I’m proud, so proud that I was able to take an ugly, devastating experience, and distil it into a beautiful and healing piece of live art.

I now find myself on the precipice of writing a third solo show, and (probably) the final one I will perform as Jeu Jeu la Foille. And I’m asking whether I can write without the help of Tom Waits or PTSD. I’ve found it very difficult to write for the past year, and I’m trying all sorts of methods to loosen up the creative gravel. I’ve performed in two plays recently, that were written by local writers, and it’s been liberating to interpret characters that are out of my comfort zone. I am singing in a women’s choir in the woods most Sundays, and I’m learning all sorts about costume in my new job. I’m sure that everything will align eventually and the words and images will come.

I’ve done a couple of performances of ‘Testy Manifesto’ and ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ for local poetry nights this year, but have decided to not go on tour with either of them again this summer. I want a proper holiday! I’ve been learning French for the past three years, and want to just chuck myself in the deep end with the language. Maybe I will understand Jeu Jeu better in her motherland. Anything is worth a shot at this stage; so I’m going to Avignon, via Paris and Colmar in search of my clown kin.

A couple of summers ago I was up in Yorkshire, having a bit of a creative retreat at my friend’s farm, and they had a book called ‘How to Grow Your Own Poem.’ I leafed through it and made a note of a few of the exercises. One of them suggested taking your existing poems, google translating them into other languages, and then back into English. A few weeks ago I did this with the whole of ‘Testy Manifesto’ and I used the following languages; Polish, Hebrew, Basque, Klingon, Korean, Icelandic, Cantonese, Amharic, Hungarian, Gujarati, Finnish, Inutikut, Hatian Creole, Malayalam and Tibetan. I then selected my favourite lines, and edited, and re-edited. I ended up with this:

I'm going to tell you what it all means
I'm not going to let anyone win
We're going to keep the secret before we get it.
I don't want the justice I want.
But I promise you, yes.
It won't hurt you either.
But I have a sling. A lot of jealousy. You'll get used to it.
When it's all said and done, look at what's in your mind
Just reply
No, this is not a riddle, it is completely simple.
I don't know why you're so nervous
A copy of satire
It's more curious, of course.
Their bones surround and blow away the thin ones.
Your heart gives a slow signal of help
White light and freckles.
Your true hidden face, little by little deleted
Its smell expels blood-stained sheets
You trusted it
The darkness in that pit
Absorbs all life
I refuse to forgive
I need these rules
Bubbles break and opinions are sad
The lines wither like a net around me
Pathetic shouting, I'm having trouble breathing
Contractual instruments, recalibrated rules
I'll lie more when you follow me.
Jealousy sucks and whispers at speed
Did your students spell horror?
Play a torn timeline of constant pain?
There is peace in memory today
A few lines can be cut before mastering them
And although verbal snares are rare
You knew it would excite me, I almost answered
I'll let go of joy not having anything to say to you
Sticky liars, the net slacks
Like shrimp...
My friend said to go out ... examine
It's terrible... Throw something at him ... Keys, plates, cats, meows
Crying all day... Emotional woman ... Never have I ever hit you ... You provoked me ... I'm on drugs...
I'm sorry... I need medication... I need medication to relieve my pain ...
Knock on her door ... Knock, knock more than once next time
You can tear the barrier
Exposed wires you see
May stab, cut, or impact
If she ties a string to the wheel.
Glass or sharp edges
Puncture of the lungs you can poke in the eye.
It lacks the fat the body needs to have a cycle, and she has trouble holding her head.
Now, it's clear that she's also a whore.
Laugh it out in a deep place
Crying out of his liquid intake
Their eyes flow and run
Feet Are Hard and Not Running
False calf rests on weak ankle
Crooked teeth held by fake weapons
The lungs surrounding a large tail
It has an irrefutable object
Animated anime appears in a smoke breath
Slope on thin ice, weapons defensively
The dark era was not allowed to be in dark era.
Those who have specimens of things that have specimened and only by no means, almost certain conditions for the surface of the unfortunate constitutional power of things.
But there were no speeches of his hands, and the general utterance of his hands, and then there was a speech from the speech.
No shape of love.
Life- oriented, life-oriented, pro-life
I have no other option, I don't have the courage
So the concept begins life
We live in the first place.
A narrow path that flows along the edge
It resonates wherever you go.
We've always had some trouble.
The gap that divides the houses has been closing for years
A slab of a collapsing staircase was replaced.
Pet bones are slowly sinking
This is the place where we can escape.
When the cry becomes too loud
Hand over the rod of blame
The sound slowed down.
The leafy avenues were piled high with corpses, the streets turned into streams of blood.
Paris twitches her sleeves, saying, please believe me.
What a desire you have to dig your fingers into the bark of Paris.
Fear fades, anger passes, and grief is buried beneath it.
Wheels and wheels and wheels
Extinguished Fire
Dirty dirt
Final inventory deduction
I'm studying holes
Shortness of breath
You can look for a little bit
But maybe you're not as bad as you are.
I know that we can get this road back to the road
Whichever access
Climbing mountain climbing
I can't breathe
I'm still here if I don't speak
My heart is sad for good reason
I don't want to say
But I knew it all
The mouth of the cave is small, non-talking, unspoken and angry.
It's still wild, wild and elegant, and there are three people living in the cave.
Initially shrouded in haze, then shaped into a white rose, petals dried slightly and her stumps broken.
The legs were fragrant.
There was a flash, a crazy bravery that removed their inertness and allowed them to move.
The winds lifted them up and the rubber flashed, until all three of them were on fire..
They went down like milk, and they were cold as they walked.
 
It’s pretty terrifying, and I love it.

If there are any poets reading this, can I please urge you to translate one of your pieces into Klingon and see what happens?!

Happy teenage birthday to me,
Love JJlF xx
 
Photo by RKP at The Art House, February 2023

Oddly enough when I sat down at my laptop a few minutes ago to start writing this, the default language had somehow been changed to French. Maybe Jeu Jeu was playing a trick on me…?

I’ve just completed a mini-tour of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto’, and now that the props are packed away, the costumes are washed, the invoices have been paid, and the thank you’s have been written, it’s time to do some emotional unpacking.

I am DELIGHTED with how the show has developed. It’s now in a place that’s better than I could have imagined or hoped for. I have performed the entire thing, with full theatrics, three times in the last two weekends, and four times in total. I began writing it in 2019, did four WIP performances from November 2019 to March 2021, and a scaled back version in September 2021. It feels very old, but I still feel very new to it, if that makes sense.

I returned to the script on an extremely hot day in July, fresh from a week’s residency with my favourite theatre company: Gecko. Spending five sweaty days working in such a physical, ensemble-based way opened me up to some new possibilities with the words, or maybe I had been changed, cleansed in some way. Gecko work a lot with a full expression and range of emotions, all accessed through the breath, and played out to their maximum through the body, in a way that was playful, and at times slightly traumatic. I was in a good place to return to the text I had written what seemed like so long ago, but now I was different. No longer shy or scared of big emotions, letting them rise up authentically and float away, allowing the movements to emerge, breathing, always breathing, searching for a balance between precision and freedom.

There is still much work to do, but I am starting to find my boldness, and it’s coming from a centred, grounded place. I’ve noticed that my hands don’t shake as much when I’m onstage, though I am as nervous as ever. I’m going to give a breakdown for each of the three performances; how they went, the feedback I received, what they cost me, and what they’ve made me realise I need to work on next.

Yes, next! I thought I might pack this show in early, as writing it and making was such a wrestling match with myself. The pandemic slowed things down, and I began to prioritise my physical and mental health in 2020/2021. Just performing ’Testy Manifesto’ for the first time at Guilford Fringe July 2021, and having my family there, felt like enough. I had done it, and I had nice photos to show for it.

But the show works, people like it, and I enjoy performing it, so I’m carrying on. The rest of this year and into next year is a period of experimentation for me. I’m going to work more intentionally on my design skills, which fell by the wayside over the past few years as I concentrated on writing. I have an idea for a third solo show, which will be my final one as Jeu Jeu…probably.

Ventnor Fringe
I just knew as soon as I saw the pretty park in Ventnor, with the colourful tent that I would be performing in that it would be fun. Their slogan is ‘Keep Ventnor Weird.’ There is no way to get to the Isle of Wight without going on a ferry. I hadn’t been there since I was 11. I was excited.

It cost me £70 to register, which included the venue hire and tech person, and once I’d paid for an AirBnb for three nights, so I could have a little holiday there too, the total cost of this fringe was £300. I decided to go flyer-less and keep all of my publicity digital. I saw that Ventnor Fringe had printed out a picture of Tempest Rose – another burlesque performer – and included my show details below it on their billboard. This was a bit of an oversight on their part, and I hope no one came to my show expecting to see Tempest.
My tech was on the Saturday afternoon, the performance was a few hours later at 6pm. I was surprised that 19 people had pre-booked, and even more so when at least 25 people showed up to watch – including a sweet dog. The audience were lovely, they actually laughed. At the start of the show I give an introduction in French, and then remove my beret and eye-patch and start speaking in English. A man in the front row said ‘Oh, thank God!’ when this happened.

The raised stage was a bit awkward to get around, and maybe the performance wasn’t as smooth as I would’ve liked. At one point I was carrying the skeleton around the chairs in the centre to place him on them, and I clunked him on the lights behind me. A while ago I had bought a beautiful vintage perfume bottle to use, not realising that it could only be stored upright, and it leaked very expensive Opium perfume all over my suitcase and the props inside. The smell was quite overpowering.

Several audience members who I didn’t know approached me after the performance, to say how much they liked it. There were words like ‘bold’ and ‘inspiring.’ I received a text message that said ‘Your performance was a treasure box of rich expressions.’ Two young women came up to express their thanks and say they’d never thought about Barbie in that way. One more elderly man gave me his feedback in French. I couldn’t understand it all, but I know he talked a lot about his heart.

People comment a lot on the dialogue I have with the skeleton at the start, it seems to really set the tone and provide a way into what a normal conversation with an abusive person sounds like. I never wanted to be preachy with this show in a kind of ‘Hey guys, domestic abuse is bad’ sort of way. My intention was to show victimisation, without being a victim. This was one my main sticking points with the show – how to be personal and authentic but separate enough from the story so it doesn’t become confessional, and yet still move an audience. I think I have achieved this.

Camden Fringe
This fringe happens over a whole month, in multiple theatres throughout North London. I’ve done it twice before with my theatre company The Mist: We Are Not Cakes, but not for a few years. This time I was at the Hen and Chickens in Islington, which is a place I love. A cute 50-seater above a pretty pub in a nice part of London.

The registration fee was £99, but the venue and tech were not included, so I paid another £300 on top, taking the total cost to around £500 for two nights. As a former Londoner I know plenty of people there, and so didn’t need to pay for accommodation. Sadly not many people were able to come, and my audiences were small. I did get the second performance filmed though, which was my main reason for taking it to London so my friend Ana Morphic could film, and I’m seeing this as a steppingstone. There’ll be a trailer made, and I’m hoping this will pique more curiosity.

Looking through all the other shows on offer during Camden Fringe, I also realised that I’d priced myself far lower than most other companies. The Hen and Chickens normally make you pay a £1.50 membership fee, and so I’d set my tickets at £8.50, as I didn’t want anyone to pay more than £10. I didn’t realise that they waive this for the fringe, so I could’ve set the price a bit higher. The theatre also take 25% of ticket sales revenue, so it’s safe to say I’ve nowhere near broken even. I don’t expect to make money or get paid, but I always hope not to lose money. I did as much as I could to publicise, I’m just one person with limited means, and I did my best. I wrote to all the publications with my press release, and although I kept my flyers digital, I did print out a few for the venue. I remember when I did Brighton Fringe a few years ago, I got flyers printed and went there a few weeks before to distribute them in as many pubs, venues, cafes and shops as would allow. I got good audiences then, and maybe flyering is worth the time, money and steps. It always seems like such a waste of paper to me, but I can see how it could make a difference now.

I was really happy with my performances, especially the Sunday night one – but I have yet to watch the video back. The real bonus was talking to the audience afterwards, some of whom were friends, and others strangers. They all had a lot of profound thoughts and questions. Many asked about what the cave story at the end meant, and what the tricycle, rose and frog represented. And I told them, though it is too personal to share here.

Overwhelmingly the response was that I’d managed to build and release the tension expertly. There was a delicate balance between what was heart-wrenching and moments when the audience could laugh. The French character, Jeu Jeu the Revolutionary, narrates the story and appears four times; “Bonjour encore, C’est moi!”, the music also provides breaks, and a chance to process what has been said. My friend T who saw the show twice had some really interesting points to make on the idea of the skeleton being ‘a body with no body’ and the way that they pass Barbie’s small naked body around, touching and controlling her. She later wrote in a text to me; ‘You play with what is there and not there, the absences within a presence.’ Wanda the Wandering Womb was a hit as ever, I am planning a little spin-off poetry set for her.

The subject matter hits home – pun intended – it’s pretty damn relevant topic. What I need to do now is upgrade the props, work with a director, play a bit with lighting, and figure out how I can attract more audiences. With ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ I made changes to the writing during the Edinburgh run and into the 2017 tour, and again for the 2019 revival. For this one I don’t feel the need to change anything, I have achieved what I set out to do in terms of the piece, what it needs now is some polish and more people to see it.

This was an almighty beast of a blog, I hope that someone finds it useful one day.

With love and sunflowers,

JJlF xx
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PS: Our performances at the end of the Gecko Residency were filmed. You can check them out at this link if you’d like.
https://youtu.be/xrS2YSd4XRc
 

On Saturday 30th April I had the honour and pleasure of seeing a 30 ft wicker man being set alight for a Beltain celebration, and it was quite honestly one of the most spectacular things I have ever witnessed. It made me think of that quotation, something along the lines of; ‘Life isn’t measured by how many breaths you take, but how many moments take your breath away.’ I thought about other moments in my life that I could truly call ‘awesome’, and about the real meaning of awe. I don’t think we can ever really experience awe without a tiny bit of fear. Awesome does not mean ‘great’, awesome means the extent of that magic is both terrifying and amazing. I must stop calling everything ‘awesome’, and I also must stop saying that everything terrifies me, because it doesn’t.

I finished writing the play. It’s the strangest writing I’ve ever done, and that’s saying something. For the past two years I have been methodically recording my dreams. When I wake from a dream I reach for my phone and make a voice memo of everything I can remember. Then when I have a collection of about ten recordings, I transcribe the dreams pretty much word for word into a notebook. During the recordings I’m often thinking ‘This makes no sense at all’, but I’ve often been surprised at how coherent I am, and the images, symbols and people that recur. Once I got into a habit of this ritual my dreams came thick and fast; my subconscious knew I was listening.

During some covid induced self-isolation time, I sifted through my dream diaries, made separate notes, then constructed these into short scenes, pieces of dialogue and poetic passages. I became fascinated by these liminal spaces that dreams describe so well, and I thought about how so many important moments in life are about crossing thresholds, and about how uncomfortable and confronting uncertainty is. I took the song titles of Taylor Swift’s album ‘Red’ and named each scene with a song, then I cut up all the scenes and arranged them into an order. I called the play ‘Grey Area.’

The feedback I’ve received so far has included words such as ‘vivid’, ‘wild’, ‘scary’, ‘beautiful.’ It is the stuff of nightmares, and I really had to dig deep to find it. Staring at a blank page for several months was a bit of a worry, but it needn’t have been because I did most of the work while I was asleep! It reminds me of a story that was read aloud to us at LISPA. I can’t remember it fully, but it was about two animals on a boat, and one tells the other to go to sleep while they create. Then they wake up the other animal who tells them what they see. It’s something to do with taking the rational mind away so that creation can happen – I wish I could find that story again now.

At the start of April I hosted a local talent night at the Winchester Theatre Royal, which is something I’d never done before in that capacity, and I could’ve so easily have turned down the offer and suggested several other people who I knew would do a better job. But I did do it, I did it pretty well, and I enjoyed it too. I performed the extract of ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ that I’ve done so many times, but has not been in front of a live audience since 2019. I think being ‘warm’ from the hosting helped me out, and it was the best performance of that material I’ve ever done. I needed that. Apart from a few open mics, I’ve not done much performing for the past six months, the focus has been on teaching and writing. And I was fine with that.

‘Testy Manifesto’ is coming out of the suitcase this summer. I’m performing as part of Camden Fringe in August, and there are a few other dates still to be confirmed. I haven’t begun rehearsing yet, but I’m preparing, getting fit and healthy, clearing the decks. I’m looking forward to going back to the text, seeing what has changed in me since I last performed it in September. I don’t think I will make many drastic changes, but I know there is more to find. That show is a slow burner, it took so long to write, longer to stage, and I was paralysed with fear right up until it got birthed at Guildford Fringe last July. I think I can hold it with a looser grip now.

I received some news this week that took my breath away, and not in the good sense. I have been trying to process it, and dashing off a few written lines when I feel too sad to dance and sing is the only way I can. Here is a poem for C.
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Have you seen the email they asked
I read it, I dreaded it
Scrolling down the thread
I didn’t want to cry
You’d lost your left eye
Air rifle bullet lodged in your brain
Stopped in my tracks
Why does art imitate life
The synchronicity almost mocks
And the shock was enough
To blow my mind
Bad choice of words
But what can you say
Other than that I’m glad you failed
Your teacher is glad you failed
 
Give everyone you love an extra-long cuddle today.
JJlF xxx
 
 

Blog posted on patreon January 2022.

Did I actually do anything besides work, drive, eat and sleep since I wrote the last blog? My diary says I did go out, and I did do creative stuff, but the period between getting home from work and going to bed got shorter and shorter. I’m going to a poetry evening and the theatre this week, and I’m just hoping I can stay awake past 9pm.

Any spare energy I have left over from teaching has gone into writing the play I got commissioned for last year. I’m about a third of the way through, and sent a first draft off last week. I’ve never written for anyone else but me, and I wonder how I even managed to churn out two solo shows. The next deadline looms, and writing this blog has helped clear some debris and get me moving in the past; maybe it will work again.

I’ve begun the application process for a couple of fringe festivals to take ‘Testy Manifesto’ to in the Summer, when perhaps the increased daylight will make me more Social Butterfly, and less Grouchy Bear. Doing those applications triggered a couple of old injuries – just niggly aches – from absolutely nowhere, and I wondered what my body was trying to tell me. I now feel stronger, healthier and more peaceful than I have in years, but that little muscle in my left arm, and the other little muscle behind my right shoulder blade wanted a word about my self-doubt. They’ve quietened down now, and I’m still listening.

I was on the RADIO in November, talking with fellow poets Issa and Damian about lovely ARTISTIC THINGS with host Andy Bungay, this is the mixcloud link if you have a spare few hours to listen! Saturday 27th Nov: Solent Special (extended) ft Victoria Jeu, Issa Loyan Farrah, Damian O'Vitch by Andy Bungay | Mixcloud The conversation was broad and lively, and I spent a lot of it laughing.

The ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ film got finished, and it will be unleashed at some point. It was quite a reckoning watching it back, and I put it off for weeks. I needn’t have worried as I think we met our goal of capturing the show as more than just a filmed performance, and using some of the jiggery-pokery that cameras, lighting and editing can bring to the experience. One of my goals for 2022 is to record an audio version of the book I published last year – then I really will have rinsed that show for all it’s worth.

Speaking of goals, I’ve made a great many for this year, that I will aim to achieve, but with no real attachment to whether they happen or not. One thing that wasn’t on the list though, was something I’ve been practising through my teaching since September. I made the decision to avoid immediately giving my students the answers to questions or solutions to problems when they asked, and give them space to figure it out for themselves. I decided to put my own ego and tastes aside on what I think constitutes good theatre, or a productive rehearsal, and meet them where they’re at. Basically, I stopped trying to control the outcome, and it’s taken me twenty years of being a teacher to get comfortable with that. It means that all the progress is taking longer than I would want it to, but it’s making each day, each interaction, more meaningful.

Last Winter in a therapy session, I said something to my counsellor which I thought was so lame at the time. I said that all the trees and the ground look so dead at this time of year, but that under the surface things were starting to move and grow, and that just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

I wrote a poem based on a Winter photograph not long ago. It has a rather wholesome story behind why I wrote it, but the poem itself could not be more bleak and ominous. I quite like it.
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With love,
Grouchy Bear xx
 
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


Image from Dave Clamp