After I performed the show last Sunday, a friend who was in the audience asked me if the text would be available, as it was compelling to hear, and would be interesting to read afterwards. He told me about chapbooks and so I made several copies of my own, it includes most of the text from the show, and a limited edition copy will be awarded to anyone who gives a £5 donation or more at my next performance. While stocks last!!

Despite having forgotten an important prop (again), the show went well. I will always ask friends for feedback and suggestions, and I'm grateful for any they are able to give. It was filmed....I can't bring myself to watch it yet, even though it's been nearly a week, but I know I need to in order to get any sort of concrete idea of how to move forward with this performance.

Here are some audience comments;
* There are more ways to perform each piece, you are already experimenting with different tones, but you could push this further.
* Several props are only used once, can more be reintroduced? Loved the black hole dress, can this be used again?
* You are much more relaxed than you were in the preview, you're much easier to watch now!
* The structure is great, it's really well-paced.
* Enjoyed the ship poem, like the fantastical language.
* Good use of voice.
* The letter is a nice addition, is helps to tie a story together.

I'm terrible at describing this show to friends; I normally start off by saying 'It's really weird.' And then 'It's basically an hour of me getting dressed and undressed and saying some things.'

I was thinking about the structure of the show this week, as a few people had mentioned it to me on Sunday, and I remember very early in my process that a loose structure had presented itself to me in the form of various costumes. I knew that I would need to get dressed and undressed several times in order to visually show the structure as I had seen it. I 'tried to represent the different characters that appear time and time again in Tom Waits' songs, and later on as the show developed into being more about the human psyche, it became about the different stages of recovery.
These were: Black Hole, Beatnik, Crow, Red Dress, Jet Trash, Gun Street Girl and Traveller. I've needed to find ways of representing each personified theme, and moving between them throughout the show. They also represent the stages of grief, not always in this order: Denial, Anger, Barginning, Depression and Acceptance. The doctor character was added much later in the process, and is the only character that appears more than once, as a motif - but I hope developing in content as the show continues.

It reminds me of how Camille O'Sullivan transforms herself throughout her stage shows, and the various costumes and characters she inhabits, tying in with the songs she's singing. I didn't realise this until this week, but I've been influenced by the structure of her shows from all those times I went to see her perform in London and Edinburgh, probably from 2009 to 2015. She used to enter the stage very mysteriously, wearing a long black cape, rip off most of her clothes at some point early on, and then later would put on very pale, almost clown-like makeup. By the end of the show she would be stumbling barefoot around the stage with her hair loose. The first time I saw her at the  Edinburgh Fringe in 2009 I was blown away. I probably would have passed the show by had my friend not pointed out to me in the program that she did cover versions of Tom Waits songs. There aren't many good videos of her on youtube, and I think she's really worth seeing live. I think I should go and watch myself on video now, this will be painful...

This November I have been pondering the big questions, such as; How many words actually rhyme with dime? With a week to go until the first show of the 'tour' I'm feeling the growing dread and excitement. These are the dates so far, with more to be added:

Sunday 4th December, 7.30pm. The Cavendish Arms, Stockwell (With Miss Glory Pearl)
Sunday 29th January, 7.30pm. The Albany, Great Portland Street (With Gimcrack)
Wednesday 1st – Sunday 5th February, 6.00pm. Vault Festival, Waterloo.
Friday 3rd March, 7.30pm. The Albany, Great Portland Street (With Eva von Schnippish)
Monday 13th March in association with Theatre in the Pound, The Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone.
Saturday 8th April, 7.30pm, The Beehive, Bromley-by-Bow.
Thursday 27th April, 7.30pm. The Cavendish Arms, Stockwell. (With Ellis and Rose)
 
To be Confirmed; Brighton Fringe 20th and 21st May

I've performed two different excerpts of the show this month, one at Barelesque on November 3rd, and another at Scratch That on November 15th. For both I tested new material. A video edited by Ana Morphic exists for the Barelesque show, but as weebly and vimeo aren't friends, I can't post it here - see my facebook profile/Jeu Jeu la Foille page. Watching that video back was the first time I had seen what the piece looked like from the outside, I wasn't horrified, but I've only managed to watch it once!
The audience for Scratch That wrote me some feedback, here are their comments - written word for word;

* Volume lacking even despite the space (pub noise) but great, liked the darkness
* Excellent structure - starting with the lab was a great idea. The only....us was we couldn't quite hear at the back! You've got an exciting future ahead of you!
* I couldn't quite connect the two halves of your performance. I loved the laboratory concept but who was Tom and what did he have to do with the first half, apart from being a disembodied brain.
* Intriguing, really cleverly put together.
* Loved the props! The hat of Tom was good.
* Wondered if perhaps when you're using Tom's hat you could honour that a little more. Cool when he turns to acknowledge you, but as soon as we see you stop seeing Tom wearing the hat the magic broken. The little brain thing didn't quite read from the back - maybe a bigger prop would be better?

As I've mentioned before, I'm working on this show without an outside eye, so every scrap of feedback is useful, and when I can bring myself to analyse the Barelesque video, I'm sure that's going to help. I'm really grateful to Barelesque and Scratch That for giving me a platform, the show needed an airing this month!

On October 11th I submitted an application to the Arts Council for a grant to take 'Frontal Lobotomy' on tour in 2017, and it was successful! The grant will pay for publicity, rehearsal space and travel costs from December to May. I'm shocked, relieved and delighted - it took me days to complete the form, and I began writing the application in September. So.....HOORAY!!!

Finally, I wrote a new poem. It was inspired by a letter that one of Dr Freeman's lobotomy patients wrote him after her operation, and it's replaced one of the clunkier moments in the show....

Dear Dr Freeman,

Your surgeon's hands are steady and sure
I know you've done this many times before
They cut so clean, the knife sweeps through
I can't worry now, thanks to you.
An artist's hands, a musician's as well
Yours saved my soul from eternal hell
A straight course now is all that matters to me
You'll wipe my mind and set my spirit free.

Yours breezily,

Jeu Jeu la Foille xx

If you enjoy reading this blog, then you might want to hear about when I'm performing 'Frontal Lobotomy'? If so, I have a newsletter you can subscribe to. I hate spam too, so I promise to keep it occasional....

The past 7 weeks since I returned from the Fringe have been very strange; busy, but not busy. I've been preoccupied with booking gigs, keen on getting the show back in front of an audience again...but not really doing any actual work on the show. Today, I opened my prop and costume suitcase for the first time since I packed it all away in August, I made some costume repairs, and glued the brain prop back together. This sounds very dull, but it was quite a big step for me. I've been conducting further research into Walter Freeman (the man who popularised the transorbital lobotomy), and raking the show for problems and missed opportunities, and it's led me to a few conclusions;

* There are several moments between speech and music that could link more fluidly. Two come to mind in particular - the moment between 'The One that Got Away' and the third Walter Freeman section. and the moment between the ice-pick lobotomy and the 'Tit-Tape and a Tiara' poem.
* It's clear I need more explanation of the links I'm making between show-business and apocalyse, Tom Waits and Walter Freeman - the bit where I explain 'I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy' feels clunky, and the line after that feels hugely self-indulgent. It was meant to be a call-back to an earlier part where I've quoted JD Salinger's short story about PTSD, but I don't think the link is very clear.
*I've been watching this, I'd love to try something similar, but maybe in two chunks to try and cover the clunky links I'm not happy with....

* As I began writing the show last October, that's where the story begins in my opening poem 'In October everything turned on a dime'. As we are now in the following October, and I've got performance dates booked into May, I'm going to keep needing to add a line to that introduction with every month that passes. I can only hope there enough words left to rhyme with dime. - the first full show is in December, I'll need to write four more lines by then, and it could get very repetitive!
* The show very much adapted to its surroundings at the Fringe, and the shoddiness of the venue and the lack of a tech ended up working in its favour in my opinion. I'm wary of letting the show get too slick and polished, which sounds strange, but a new friend said to me after I'd finished my first Edinburgh show 'Try not to let it get too perfect.' So far I've worked without an outside eye, developing the show with the audience either in the moment, or through the comments of friends afterwards. Very soon I'm going to need an outside eye, and as I don't have access to free rehearsal space, this is going to be difficult.
* I've had a few ideas for developing the role of the band, as they only appear once, and then after a short gag with the puppets (this was developed on the spot with a very receptive audience early on in the run) they don't get involved again until right near the end. One idea could involve some audience participation and another music track, but I think I'll need to try it on a test audience first.
* A few people have suggested that projection would work well in the show. I didn't have those facilities in Edinburgh, but other venues might have a projector, and the original ensemble Tom Waits piece that I devised at LISPA (detailed on January 2016 blog posts) used film projection from a side project that I did alongside the actual devised piece. I've made a very simple powerpoint to illustrate the opening Walter Freeman section, that I will try when I perform an excerpt from the show at Barelesque in November.

I've been fascinated with the extra research I've been doing over this time, I've been reading 'The Lobotomist' by Jack El-hai, and 'Girls Who Wore Black' edited by Ronna C. Johnson and Nancy M.Grace. I went back to Berlin for a short visit two weeks ago, and saw a Hieronymous Bosch animated exhibition. I've been listening to a history of medicine podcast called 'Sawbones', and I'm still listening to Waits...

And now I need to open the script again.

 ‘Songs are just very interesting things to do be doing with the air.’ This was how Tom Waits modestly brushed away the clamour for his genius at his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame speech in 2011. He’s a prolific, original and authentic artist, and I’ve been immersed in the world of his music since I heard ‘Underground’ from Swordfishtrombones back in 1997. Treading a fine line between darkness and sentimentality, brutality and humour, showbiz and apocalypse – Waits has a metaphor for every emotion, a set of intriguing images of those on the margins of society, and a way of structuring words that summons the musicality in every sentence.
As a burlesque artist, clown and physical storyteller, I wanted to find a way to bring together my interests in psychoanalysis, mythology and feminism, and take up the challenge of creating an extended piece that harnessed the rhythms  and references present  in the writings of Waits; and so came ‘Frontal Lobotomy.’ This was the way Jeu Jeu la Foille was finally given the opportunity to speak, and who better to channel my writing through, than the man with the most commented upon voice ever.
The show is a collection of myths, poems and images, all gravitating around seduction and danger, trauma and healing, cabaret and science. There is plenty in there the Tom Waits fanatic, and similarly for those who have never even heard of him. He’s an acquired taste!

Some of my favourite videos.....

Induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Speech
‘They say that I have no hits, and that I’m difficult to work with, and they say that like it’s a bad thing.’
A round up of his many faces, performance style and charming, rambling persona.

9th and Hennepin
‘All the doughnuts round here have names that sound like prostitutes....and the rooms they smell like diesel, and you take on the dreams of the ones who’ve slept there....’
Waits has a really evocative way of describing places, and there are some beautifully disturbing images in this spoken word piece about a street he specifies as in Minnesota. The video has a startling reveal halfway through that I just love!

Chocolate Jesus
‘The Immaculate Confection.’
Waits performing on the David Letterman show, with such style. He performs like he’s channelling spirits here, and that confetti hat strut is delicious.

Tom Waits on Everything and Nothing
Some Waitsian ramblings from various interviews matched with great animation on this video. He is a wonderful storyteller, and I love the way describes his creative process. Waits is notoriously difficult to interview, and journalists can never get a straight answer out of him. But buried within the conjecture is magnificent insight and authenticity.

Innocent When You Dream
Singing and standing a bathtub with bubbles floating all around him. Need I explain any further?! Such a whimsical and fantastical image to frame one of his most well-known ballads.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Waits has had an illustrious film and theatre career, playing off-beat characters such as drunks, crooks, inventors, and this case The Devil. In every film, in every scene, he makes an unforgettable entrance.

Pasties and a G String
This is the Waits most people think of first, slurring and swaying his way through the music. What I enjoy about this clip is that this performance sounds so different to the recorded version on ‘Small Change’, he goes off on a guttural tangent, and tangos with his cigarette smoke to a saxophone solo.

Mr Seigal
A resoundingly cool performance with beautiful saxophone and double bass backing.

Hell Broke Luce
A more political song from Waits, accompanied by shadowy, disturbing imagery in this video.

Tom Traubert’s Blues
Beautiful lyrics and melody, a sentimental Tom hunched over a piano, singing about ‘wounds that will never heal’ – it’s still strangely uplifting, and remains the only one of his pre 1983 songs that he will play live.

If you download the file, you'll see how much money I spent on taking a solo show to the Edinburgh Free Fringe, and what I spent it on. Not that the money matters, but as I was reminded earlier this week, taking a show to the Fringe is monumental....and it's not cheap either.

Had the Free Fringe festivals not begun, I doubt very much that I would ever be able to afford to take a show there. Although in my budget I have overspent in some areas, to add another £2000-10000 would have made it out of reach. The free fringe is donation only, money is collected in the hat of the performer(s) on the way out, and though I made a good amount after 16 shows, it was no way near to covering what it cost. I knew I was there to develop a show that was formed, but needed to be tested in front of an audience, and I could've spend that much on courses and directors to work with me - this was what had been missing.

I spent a little bit on props and costumes over the 8 months running up to the London previews, but much of it was recycled from old projects or belonged to me. The music editing, photography and graphic design were all done at mates-rates, and the show was produced for no fee other than gratitude and alcohol.

Every spare corner of Edinburgh is turned into a venue during the fringe, and the spaces used for the free fringe are pretty basic. I chose my venue - Southside Social - based on the time-slot they gave me: 8.45pm. I knew I didn't want a lunchtime or very late evening slot, and this was best on offer. The location was only slightly off the beaten track, but was still quite difficult to find. The room spec said it held 60 - it was 40 maximum, and the most wonderful thing was that the ladies toilets were at the back of the room, meaning that anyone who needed the toilet during a show was forced to walk past the performer and the whole audience! This made for some hilarious moments onstage for me, and some of my favourite performances were the ones with well-timed interruptions!

The room looked like a library reading room, which suited the show, although the only stage lights were two lamps that I had to switch on and off as part of the show, when I needed a blackout halfway through. This part of the show became it's own little skit, and was different every night.

Then there was a problem with the stand up comedy group, who had the space before me. Their show overran twice in Week 2 and twice in Week 3. With such tight turnarounds it's very impolite to do this, and I did have to say something to them. Some of the paying venues charge the company £10 per minute that they overrun. One night my show went up 10 minutes late, and I knew I had a reviewer in, which made me nervous for the start of the show. Having said that, my show has a lot of props and costumes, I found a specific way to arrange the room that worked better for me a week into the run, and I came up with a system for packing up and setting up. I didn't ever overrun as I had an hour slot for a 50 minute show.

The day after I arrived in Edinburgh, I started looking for a tech. I had some luck, a friend put me in touch with someone he knew, but my other leads didn't follow through, and I only had a tech for my opening night. There were only 7 sound cues, and I operated them from my ipad plugged into the PA at the side of the stage. There were a few hiccups, sometimes the music was too loud for certain moments, but I experimented until I eventually found what worked, I don't think it detracted too much from the flow of the performance, and gave me more flexibility in terms of cues.

The main problem with the fringe is trying to fit everything in, there are so many shows to see. I saw 26, 7 of them were ticketed shows, but everything else I saw either on the free fringe, or the pay what you want fringe. I only saw 2 awful things, and both were in shows where I'd turned up to support a friend doing an open spot, and one or two of the other acts were.......The three shows that have stuck with me since returning are Sheets (Kiki Lovechild), Pss Pss (Bacala) and The Expector (Madame Senorita), all three were clown shows, all quite unusual, and all brilliantly performed.

And finally....the bar staff at Southside Social were some of the nicest people I met, they were so supportive of me, and I told them the day I left 'I wish this pub was my local.'

So, that's 3 weeks in Edinburgh, 16 performances of 'Jeu Jeu la Foille: Frontal Lobotomy', 4 open cabaret spots, 26 shows seen, hours and hours of flyering, and more alcohol units than it's possible to count! It's gone rather well for a debut solo performance that only really came into being on it's opening night, and every performance was both a learning curve and a pleasure. Here are some lovely tweets from audience members:

Passionate, poetic, powerful. Thanks for punching a hole in my nighttime mist.
Splendidly entertaining & just this side of a troubling performance. @JeuJeulaFoille She's innocent when she dreams
 If you haven't already, go see @JeuJeulaFoille 😘 she is superb think you'll like
Please go and see my friend @JeuJeulaFoille in #FrontalLobotamy @edfringe Just a few shows left @tomwaits fans will love it!
 Fantastic #tomwaites #cabaret poetry and props at #Edinburghfringe hope to catch you in London
Go see Frontal Labotomy @JeuJeulaFoille It's beautiful. Poetry in motion #southsidesocial
Happy to have seen my friend @JeuJeulaFoille for the second time in #FrontalLobotomy! Highly recommended #southsidesocial #TomWaits
#EdFringe cherry cracked as burlesque poet @JeuJeulaFoille channels@tomwaits versus the lobotomobile, strength in darkness @freefringefest
 Just seen @JeuJeulaFoille my first #freefringe show, burlesque performance poetry with teeth, or should I say an ice pick. #edfringe2016
Congratulations on a surprising, funny, sweet, emotional, educational, tantalising and thoughtful show. So glad I came tonight, utterly brilliant and highly recommended xx

A few days into the run, I found this preview from The Upcoming: The Top Ten Most Anticipated Shows at the Edinburgh Fringe

Jeu Jeu la Foille: Frontal Lobotomy, Laughing Horse @ Southside Social
Here’s a freebie for those who didn’t plan well enough ahead. Burlesque babe Jeu Jeu la Foille interestingly commingles original spoken word with the tantalising musical work of Tom Waits to create an intoxicating, sultry spectacle.

On the 11th August, I got a huge surprise, as I was given the 'Hidden Gem' stamp from Fringe Review!

'There’s a delicate cheekiness in the air. It’s a mix of disarming innocence, a coy smile and a theatrical wink which keeps you constantly intrigued by Jeu Jeu la Foille: Frontal Lobotomy.'

Read the full review here.

A couple of days later, a review from Three Weeks came out. They awarded it three stars, and gave it a nice write-up, with one blundering mistake - Using the name John Waite rather than TOM WAITS!! WHO IS JOHN WAITE????

See for yourself here.

At first I laughed...then I was annoyed at the ineptitude. It still hasn't been changed despite several emails from my producer, my friends and other reviewers.

Sick of the Fringe published a very well-written piece about the link between mental illness, Tom Waits and Beat poetry.

Read the full article here.

I was delighted with this write-up, as Sick of the Fringe is an organisation which focuses on the links between art, science and well-being - and that is something I set out to do with the making of this show.

The Scotsman published a review on the 19th of August. Another three star, and a good write-up - I don't think I'll ever understand the star system, but I was delighted that The Scotsman had been to see it, and especially honored to be reviewed by Ben Walters.

Have a look here.

I also got a little mention in SG Fringe for the open spot I did at Pollyanna Cabaret - 'Jeu Jeu La Foille’s whiskey-soaked spoken word burlesque skit gives us chills.'

In my final week I was approached as I flyered on the Royal Mile, and told I had been nominated for a Best of the Free Fringe Award - I won't find out the result until the Fringe is over, but it's amazing to have been selected from 300+ shows.

Reviews aside, the other thing that became the main topic of conversation both in real life and on social media, was audience numbers. I'm lucky in that my show doesn't rely on the audience unlike comedy, cabaret or improv shows, so I often joked that an audience of one would be fine for me, but rather intense for them! Luckily it never reached that point, and my smallest audience was 6, the largest being around 40. The biggest audiences were Friday and Saturday nights, the smallest on Sunday nights. It was steady throughout the week, and on average I had around 15 people per night. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason with flyering; on days were I had done minimal flyering I had a full house, and vice versa. Being a free fringe show I could never predict how many audience I would have or how much money they would give. Sometimes there were £10 or £20 notes in my hat, and on a few occasions people couldn't give anything, and apologised profusely! The money wasn't a motivator for me, and although I was far from breaking even, I made plenty to sustain myself and buy tickets or leave money in the bucket for other shows.

I had quite an international audience: French, Portugese, Danish, Spanish, Lithuanian, Polish - and those were just the people I asked on the way out. I wish I could've asked everyone I didn't already know why they had come, and some I did - several were Tom Waits fans, others were interested in my training, some were into poetry, and probably many just rocked up and took a chance on a strange little show in the upstairs of a pub, down a lonely road in the Southside of Edinburgh.

There's so much more I want to write, I haven't even mentioned all of the amazing shows and talented performers I got to see - I'll have to save that for Part 2. As for 'Frontal Lobotomy', I hadn't thought beyond this point, but it's definitely not done with yet. More to come!

In one sentence tell us about your show.
It’s a surreal exploration of brain surgery, mythology and show business; inspired by the  music of Tom Waits, with burlesque, storytelling and puppets.
What made you decide to bring a show this year?
I’ve been creating short comic burlesque pieces as Jeu Jeu la Foille for several years, and I needed to see whether Jeu Jeu had the stamina for an hour long show.
Any advice you've heard or can give to anyone coming to the Fringe for the first time?
It’s like a bubble – magical, directionless, and easily burst. And don’t hug a performer directly after their show, as you’ll probably catch festival flu from their sweat!
What makes your show stand out from all of the others on offer?
It’s enchanting and disturbing, beautiful and strange, and I have  a 4 piece puppet band!
What show, other than your own, do you not want to miss?
Kill The Beast – ‘Don’t Wake the Damp’. It’s an apocalyptic, sci-fi musical…with puppets.
Finally, the boring but essential bit...
Name of the show: Jeu Jeu la Foille: Frontal Lobotomy
Venue: 264 Southside Social, upstairs bar
Dates: 4th – 21st August, not 8th or 15th.
Time: 8.45pm

The previews are done, the suitcase is packed - it weighs a ton - and I leave for Edinburgh early tomorrow. I had a mix of experiences with the previews. The one at the Rosemary Branch was amazingly well-attended and received, but I felt my own performance was lacking. Nerves got the better of me again, and I froze a couple of times. The preview at the Bread and Roses a week later was more intimate in terms of audience, though it was the first time I had properly connected with the piece, and felt I could defend it.

There's no doubt that what I've made is strange, chaotic and difficult to catergorise, but audiences have also called it striking and disturbingly beautiful, and said it made them forget where they were. I took on board the feedback from the first two previews, and by number three it was starting to feel like something was gelling. Here follows a round up of all of the audience comments from preview number three that I can remember:

* It's very beautiful, and once you've done a few shows you won't feel for your lines as much, and using the props will be second nature.
* Watch that your real voice doesn't escape on the lip-synch, it's very good though.
* It's the type of show that would work if you had one person in the audience or a full house, it doesn't rely on the audience like some shows do.
* Play with the piano mime, I love how you discover it works on it's own, you can play with the dimensions now, use it to underpin the words, it's your image so have more fun with it.
* It needs audience interaction now, the frontal lobotomy part should be done on an audience member. Put lipstick on them, make them complicit in your world. Make them feel guilty for laughing at you.
* By the creation myth I totally forgot where I was.
* Scream when you lobotomise yourself.
* Love the puppet band, so much fun.
* Love you way you presented the song.

Here we go, sixteen performances. I'm excited to see what will happen. Xxx

PS: I have a feature coming out for This is Cabaret...more later x

It's incredible to think that just over half a century ago, it was a viable 'cure' for mental illnesses to cut into parts of the brain. To separate sections of the brain, and literally pluck out the sorrows....as if painful thoughts were trapped foreign bodies than needed to be extracted, like a rotting tooth, or a wasp sting.

'Frontal Lobotomy' has it's second public viewing at the Rosemary Branch Theatre last night, and I had an interesting conversation with some friends afterwards about whether it was ever 'a good idea' to give someone a frontal lobotomy...If someone is psychotic, or suicidally depressed, then at least there is a small chance that it could take the pain away. But does pain define our humanity? If we don't feel pain do we have an honest sense of self?

I was asked some probing questions on what point I was making in this piece after the performance last night, questions that I can't fully answer yet. For a piece of theatre that doesn't fit neatly into a style or dramatic territory, and seems to deal with several thematic layers, it's difficult to pin down the overall message.

I know my point of departure was the world of Tom Waits, the impetus to make the piece came from several sudden life events, and the work has unfolded and developed through encompassing the experiences of the past nine months. I've written something that covers mythology, psycho-surgery, psycho-analysis and feminism, and somehow within that what ties those themes together is the sense of self. What is the self? What is My Self?

I start the performance already onstage as the audience enters, with my back to the seating, but viewing the audience through a mirror. The reasons for this image are that through my research I discovered that traumatised individuals have no sense of self - they literally do not recognise themselves in a mirror. The other reason is what Peter Levine calls the Medusa approach to healing, in that we don't face trauma face on, for the danger that it could 'freeze' or re-traumatise us. Instead we tackle it indirectly, such as in the Medusa myth. Perseus doesn't look directly at Medusa, but he can see her reflected in his shield. I don't expect the audience to pick up on these details; the image stands alone as something powerful and visually arresting enough to open the space, and it's a good way of 'meeting the audience', which I've seen other performers do as a way of putting everyone at ease. But maybe it can resonate on a deeper level, I hope so...

So, here is as much of the feedback as I can remember from last night. A large portion of the show did not go as planned, though I was overwhelmed by the support I received from friends in the audience.

* It's very difficult to define what you've made here. It's like a visual representation of a poem, in the Modernist tradition, like TS Elliot.
* It's like a dream. I don't understand it, but it takes me somewhere.
* I'd be happy just seeing you read those poems aloud, but all of the other theatrical elements you've added make it really beautiful.
* You're very powerful onstage, very engaging, but you're being too careful. What's underneath? You could move a lot more. Think about vibrations.
* You seem much more playful than last time, I love how much you engaged with the audience, and the story at the start brought us in.
* Perhaps you get tied to the piano, I think you can let the mime at the start go, and then come back to it. What you're saying is more interesting than the mime.
* I liked the song at the end, own the singing, even if it comes out wrong.
* It's very strange. I don't know what to call it. Maybe performance art is closest.
* The Walter Freeman bits seem to stick out too much, and don't fit with the rest of the style.
* Loved the Showbiz and Apocalypse. Like a sad clown. It was quite dark, not what I was expecting.
* You should try and enjoy it when it goes wrong, it will go wrong now and then.
* The solo puppet is disturbing, and I love the band! Can you make more of them?

I know I've made progress since the last preview in May, and there's so much further I can take it. I feel like after Edinburgh it will be a different show altogether, and I might know the some of the answers to the questions my friends asked me last night.

I have one more London preview to prepare for - Tuesday 26th July at The Bread and Roses in Clapham. I have two rehearsal days to try and work in some changes, but what excites me now, is that I know this piece will never be 'finished', and the mistakes and mishaps are really little gifts. And I'm fine with that!

There is a fairy tale about a lamppost in 'Frontal Lobotomy.' It has some resonances of Narcissus and Echo about it, and was inspired by a nighttime 'drift' in Berlin. The five weeks in Italy that I have recently returned from, gave me some more opportunities for photographing lampposts, except this time I often had company, and had to try and explain why the lampposts of Bra, Turin, Milan, San Remo and Bologna interested me. People found it funny or were intrigued by the story, so here it is in it's current draft;

Once upon a time there was a very tall lamppost. She stood in a garden, just West of a place near a river. Forgive me, I can’t be any more specific. One Winters night, as she was standing, glowing, she happened to glance down at the river near her base, and saw a circle of amber light looking back at her. She had never seen such a pretty colour, all of the other lampposts were white, and she stared at her reflection in disbelief and wonder for a long time.
 
As the dawn came, then so did her tears, for the pretty amber light faded, and the river became a mirror for her long, thin body, which she detested, and now was forced to look at during all of the daylight hours, waiting for the night when her amber light would return, and she could gaze at its reflection. Winter became Spring, and the days grew longer, and she began to see her amber light less and less, until it began to fade to yellow, and then to white. Appalled at her pale reflection by night, and disgusted by the sight of her long, thin body, she detached herself from her post, and floated up higher and higher into the sky. But it was to no avail, for wherever there was water, and the Earth had plenty of that, she was confronted by her pale face.
 
Once a month she turns her face away in relief from the shame, but still the tides in the water pull her back, and for a few nights a month, she faces the full extent of her full and pale light. It is said that those back on Earth who stare too long at her, also lose the colour in their light, float up into the sky and turn away from their reflections. And so there she is, the tallest lamppost in the world.

The feedback from the preview in May seemed to point me towards referencing the lobotomy content in more depth, so I have removed three poems that I felt were weakest, and replaced them with some scientific explanation. I intend to perform these new sections as a grotesque caricature of Walter Freeman, this I hope will give more vocal and character variation.
I have looked into presenting the different pieces in a more physical and playful way, and introduced some visual elements. The thought was that I didn't need anymore words; just to play with the words I did have. One suggestion was to have some kind of magic trick, and as there are several moments where light in mentioned during the piece, I ordered some d'lites, and have been watching video tutorials, like the one below;

The next preview is on July 20th at The Rosemary Branch Theatre, and I'm about to enter an intense week of rehearsing, music editing, learning new skills and essentially re-drafting the whole piece. See you on the other side xx

Last night 'Frontal Lobotomy' got its very first outing. I performed at The Canal Cafe Theatre in London, to an intimate and lovely audience. It's safe to say this show is different to what I normally do as a burlesque performer. I'm a clown, and a storyteller, and although some of my more recent acts have been darker in content and style, this was a leap into the unknown. I think friends that have known me for a long time, and seen me in full ridiculous mode with the A-Team or Baywatch, were surprised at how personal it was. The over-riding feedback I received was that I had a show - seems odd to say that, but when you put it in the context of an Edinburgh preview, where ideas are usually at a more larval stage at this point, it feels positive to have something solid to build on. I know I have a lot of work to do, mostly just figuring out how I present what I have, and several technical things that need fixing.

What follows is a round up of the feedback I can remember from last night, it won't make a great deal of sense to anyone who wasn't there, and this is a blog for my process, so that's ok! I'm so grateful to the people who were there, and who engaged with me in this way, I hope they come back and see it again. And also to the people who sent their apologies, I know they were cheering me on from afar, and that meant a lot.

* Is there potential for a 'real frontal lobotomy? Can you take that further with some gore? Also, the angle of the ice-pick didn't look right.
* The puppet should be bigger. (I'm going to get one made, I made the one for this show to see if the idea worked, and I agree!)
* In the breakdown you should go to town with smearing the lipstick, take that much further, more extreme.
* Liked the burlesque poem (I did mess up the lines on this, but good to know it still resonated)
* It's dreamlike, you take us on a journey, there's not a story as such, but the themes correlate.
* There's more potential for comedy. Can you be more ridiculous?
* You have enough words, and the writing is strong.
* Experiment with different voices for the pieces, stand in different areas of the stage, embody some of the characters.
* You probably don't need the mic.
* Potential for some more stage business, what about having some magic tricks? A disappearing cigarette, pull things out of Tom's hat, disappearing whiskey bottle.
* Can more things (props) appear?
* Liked the creation myth (This was an amalgamation of two stories I wrote in Berlin, with a Tom Waits reference thrown in at the end, I'm so happy it worked)
* This is so different from what I've seen you do before! (I know!)
* It's very personal, you in relation to Tom Waits, but what about Tom Waits in relation to frontal lobotomies? Didn't you tell me that the year he was born was the year they really took off as 'a cure' for mental illness? How can you bring that in? I remembered the title of the show halfway through.
* It's always felt that we were in the present, but there is a bit of a 30's vibe going on, do you always have to be in the present?
* Cabaret feel.
* Introducing the band, you should have a band (I wanted to pull out different puppets for this part of the show, so they became my band, something to work on)
* Was it all your own writing? (Yes! Although I quote a lot of Waits, and there are some Neitzsche, Jung and JD Salinger quotations too)
* It's a sweet show, a lot of work has gone into it.
* You're a great physical performer, we need more of that.
* You should decide on what your relationship to the audience is, at one point I wanted to heckle, is that invited? I wasn't sure.
* There's lots in there for the Tom Waits obsessed, and I liked how you introduced him at the start.
* Push it further, it's going to be more beautiful than it already is.

Gratitude. Gratitude. And yet more Gratitude. Xxxx