I’ve been speaking with friends on the subject of creativity a lot in the past three weeks. I’ve also managed to put my money where my mouth is and do something creative. I believe that creativity is the thing that gives us humans purpose; without it there is literally no point in living. I told a friend the other night that if I wasn’t being creative I would shrivel up and die. I often make dramatic declarations after three fruity ciders. But it was true.
I went to see the first draft of a friend’s new show at the start of April, and it gave me a very much needed and welcomed kick up the bum. I am thrilled that she has funding to create new work, and can pay a team to help her. Perhaps a younger version of me might have felt some bitterness or regret at having no such help to create my own work. I now see that this lack mentality has held me back in the past, and I’m done with thinking that I’m poor and alone and no one wants to help me. I’m going to keep going no matter what.
I work in a school, and over the Easter holidays the drama studio wasn’t being used. My boss let me use it for free – I made a short film based on French Sculptor Camille Claudel, I rehearsed ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ and ‘Testy Manifesto’ and I started putting together the full version of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary.’ I also made some costumes for a clown piece a friend and I are working on for this seasons round of festivals. On Easter Monday I got back onstage after six months at the Gallimaufry’s open mic night in Bristol. It’s like I’ve been blasting off the cobwebs these past three weeks, and really clarifying why I keep doing this. All the hard work that nobody else sees, all the rejection and disappointment…but I do have a team, and I do have resources. It just looks different to what I see other artists working with.
Starting to piece together ‘Pithy Obituary’ was quite confronting. Not knowing how to perform any of the writing I had done, realising I still had so much writing to do, constantly asking myself ‘What even IS this?’ Rehearsing the two shows that are already made felt like slipping back into a comfortable pair of shoes. But I remembered when they too felt impossible and insurmountable at one point. How I wrestled with myself and nearly gave up so many times. How when I put them together they felt completely foreign, made absolutely no sense to me, were awkward to perform, felt horrible and often traumatic to rehearse. But now they feel like joyful little nuggets of weirdness that I am very fond of. And proud of too.
I keep this blog as a reflective journal, and as a way to log my creative process. What follows is the rough structure I have come up with for ‘Pithy Obituary’, some notes on costume and ideas for visual elements; all from the notes I made during the research and development days - the days I mostly spent tap-dancing and listening to weird jazz – but I did set the space how I wanted it, and I think just seeing objects in the space brought it off the page and into 3D for the first time. Some of the pieces I’ve written for this I wrote as far back as 2020. I’ve included some notes on where the ideas came from.
The Celebrant – this is the narrator character. I’ve decided to structure the show like a funeral. It begins with my carrying a small coffin into the space. It’s a real coffin from a carpenter who lives on the Isle of Wight that one of the funeral directors I work for was able to get for me in October 2024. I start the show in a tailcoat and top hat that gets placed on a dress form I have placed onstage behind a music stand. This means the Celebrant is always present, even when I step away from the lectern.
Procession Music – Not decided yet. I’ve been very inspired by a track called St James Infirmary. I’d like to sing something like it. I don’t know yet.
The World – an exploration of funeral rites and rituals from around the world. I wrote this in August 2024 after a deep research dive.
Just a Closer Walk with Thee – This is popular New Orlean funeral hymn. I’ve created a puppet piece from a white handkerchief for it. I improvised this as a warm up for a workshop I was teaching online during lockdown in 2021.
A Step Home – This is a poem I wrote in a workshop in May 2023 and finished in August 2024. It’s inspired by ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee.’
Celebrant – This is the start of the funeral ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille was born…’
Children’s Story – Spoken by my devil puppet Rodney la Foille. He sounds just like Tom Waits 😉
Taut Trunks – Written in a lesson with my drama students in November 2022. Inspired by an image of a man walking through a forest. It will be a voiceover to cover a transition.
I Am – Written in the same workshop in May 2023. It was led by Chris Redmond of Tongue Fu, and called ‘How to Play a Poem like a Song.’ The poem was inspired by a video of another poet we were shown. I’ve done a search and I can’t find his name. I will keep looking.
The House of Self Undoing – A very bleak poem I wrote about Covid in November 2020.
France – A poetic monologue crafted from the diaries I kept during a solo trip to France in August 2023.
Celebrant – The middle part of the funeral. Reflection Music.
Words from Jeu Jeu – I still need to write this. I’ve seen a woman on Instagram who critiques the patriarchy while wearing a face mask and smoking a cigarette, and I feel like it’s something Jeu Jeu would do. She will change into a silk kimono for this.
Le Petit Mort – I’m going to write a poem in French. I haven’t begun this yet, but I know what it’s going to be about. Risky.
Shrines – Another one I haven’t finished. Flowers on benches or at the sites of accidents.
Celebrant – End of Jeu Jeu’s Life.
New Orleans – I was there on New Year’s Eve 2025/6, and there was a terrorist attack. I had been on the street where it happened a few hours before. A few days afterward there was a vigil and procession through the streets, which I took part in. It was an odd thing to grieve in a place that wasn’t my home. I only finished this poem in March 2026.
Palestine – I interviewed my friend and long-time supporter Andy Buchanan about his activism for Palestine in January 2026. This is the one I’m working on now – I don’t know if it will be a poem. It might be dialogue. I might use Andy’s voice in a recording if he agrees.
The Myth of Innana – I usually include a myth in my shows, I also like the motif of the wronged woman. I first encountered Innana at an exhibition at the British Museum called ‘Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic’ in 2022. I want to re-write the myth, but I’m not sure how to do it yet.
Dinky Bennet – This is poem I wrote for my Grandmother’s funeral in May 2020. This was the moment when I decided I was going to look into becoming a Funeral Celebrant.
Dance – Recessional Music. I’ve recently taken up tap dance again after a 10 year break. I’ve also been studying jazz improvisational dance. There’s something strangely compelling for me about dancing and crying at the same time. Where joy and grief meet. I’ve seen it in New Orleans, and I want to try and recreate it here to end the show.
And there it is. I’ve given myself until the end of June to finish the writing. I’m not tied to the structure, but it feels like a good place to start. I’m planning on having another research and development week in the school drama studio in July. I’m also doing a van trip to Ireland in July, mainly for an adventure, but with a side quest of researching their funerals; so something from that may well end up in here too. What I present at the shows in October and November will be a work in progress. Then I plan to put it away for at least six months. I might try out a re-worked version in Autumn 2027, or I may leave it until the following Spring.
I finished the book version of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto and sent off for the proof copy. There’s a lot I want to change about that, but it’s a project that will have to go on hold for now.
I’m about to start work on a second short film / living portrait on another of the women from our ‘Out of the Shadows’ project. Now that I’ve been through the process with Camille Claudel I have a better idea of how I can film more efficiently. I really had no idea what I was doing, and there was something quite magical about that.
With love,
JJlF xx
I went to see the first draft of a friend’s new show at the start of April, and it gave me a very much needed and welcomed kick up the bum. I am thrilled that she has funding to create new work, and can pay a team to help her. Perhaps a younger version of me might have felt some bitterness or regret at having no such help to create my own work. I now see that this lack mentality has held me back in the past, and I’m done with thinking that I’m poor and alone and no one wants to help me. I’m going to keep going no matter what.
I work in a school, and over the Easter holidays the drama studio wasn’t being used. My boss let me use it for free – I made a short film based on French Sculptor Camille Claudel, I rehearsed ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ and ‘Testy Manifesto’ and I started putting together the full version of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Pithy Obituary.’ I also made some costumes for a clown piece a friend and I are working on for this seasons round of festivals. On Easter Monday I got back onstage after six months at the Gallimaufry’s open mic night in Bristol. It’s like I’ve been blasting off the cobwebs these past three weeks, and really clarifying why I keep doing this. All the hard work that nobody else sees, all the rejection and disappointment…but I do have a team, and I do have resources. It just looks different to what I see other artists working with.
Starting to piece together ‘Pithy Obituary’ was quite confronting. Not knowing how to perform any of the writing I had done, realising I still had so much writing to do, constantly asking myself ‘What even IS this?’ Rehearsing the two shows that are already made felt like slipping back into a comfortable pair of shoes. But I remembered when they too felt impossible and insurmountable at one point. How I wrestled with myself and nearly gave up so many times. How when I put them together they felt completely foreign, made absolutely no sense to me, were awkward to perform, felt horrible and often traumatic to rehearse. But now they feel like joyful little nuggets of weirdness that I am very fond of. And proud of too.
I keep this blog as a reflective journal, and as a way to log my creative process. What follows is the rough structure I have come up with for ‘Pithy Obituary’, some notes on costume and ideas for visual elements; all from the notes I made during the research and development days - the days I mostly spent tap-dancing and listening to weird jazz – but I did set the space how I wanted it, and I think just seeing objects in the space brought it off the page and into 3D for the first time. Some of the pieces I’ve written for this I wrote as far back as 2020. I’ve included some notes on where the ideas came from.
The Celebrant – this is the narrator character. I’ve decided to structure the show like a funeral. It begins with my carrying a small coffin into the space. It’s a real coffin from a carpenter who lives on the Isle of Wight that one of the funeral directors I work for was able to get for me in October 2024. I start the show in a tailcoat and top hat that gets placed on a dress form I have placed onstage behind a music stand. This means the Celebrant is always present, even when I step away from the lectern.
Procession Music – Not decided yet. I’ve been very inspired by a track called St James Infirmary. I’d like to sing something like it. I don’t know yet.
The World – an exploration of funeral rites and rituals from around the world. I wrote this in August 2024 after a deep research dive.
Just a Closer Walk with Thee – This is popular New Orlean funeral hymn. I’ve created a puppet piece from a white handkerchief for it. I improvised this as a warm up for a workshop I was teaching online during lockdown in 2021.
A Step Home – This is a poem I wrote in a workshop in May 2023 and finished in August 2024. It’s inspired by ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee.’
Celebrant – This is the start of the funeral ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille was born…’
Children’s Story – Spoken by my devil puppet Rodney la Foille. He sounds just like Tom Waits 😉
Taut Trunks – Written in a lesson with my drama students in November 2022. Inspired by an image of a man walking through a forest. It will be a voiceover to cover a transition.
I Am – Written in the same workshop in May 2023. It was led by Chris Redmond of Tongue Fu, and called ‘How to Play a Poem like a Song.’ The poem was inspired by a video of another poet we were shown. I’ve done a search and I can’t find his name. I will keep looking.
The House of Self Undoing – A very bleak poem I wrote about Covid in November 2020.
France – A poetic monologue crafted from the diaries I kept during a solo trip to France in August 2023.
Celebrant – The middle part of the funeral. Reflection Music.
Words from Jeu Jeu – I still need to write this. I’ve seen a woman on Instagram who critiques the patriarchy while wearing a face mask and smoking a cigarette, and I feel like it’s something Jeu Jeu would do. She will change into a silk kimono for this.
Le Petit Mort – I’m going to write a poem in French. I haven’t begun this yet, but I know what it’s going to be about. Risky.
Shrines – Another one I haven’t finished. Flowers on benches or at the sites of accidents.
Celebrant – End of Jeu Jeu’s Life.
New Orleans – I was there on New Year’s Eve 2025/6, and there was a terrorist attack. I had been on the street where it happened a few hours before. A few days afterward there was a vigil and procession through the streets, which I took part in. It was an odd thing to grieve in a place that wasn’t my home. I only finished this poem in March 2026.
Palestine – I interviewed my friend and long-time supporter Andy Buchanan about his activism for Palestine in January 2026. This is the one I’m working on now – I don’t know if it will be a poem. It might be dialogue. I might use Andy’s voice in a recording if he agrees.
The Myth of Innana – I usually include a myth in my shows, I also like the motif of the wronged woman. I first encountered Innana at an exhibition at the British Museum called ‘Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic’ in 2022. I want to re-write the myth, but I’m not sure how to do it yet.
Dinky Bennet – This is poem I wrote for my Grandmother’s funeral in May 2020. This was the moment when I decided I was going to look into becoming a Funeral Celebrant.
Dance – Recessional Music. I’ve recently taken up tap dance again after a 10 year break. I’ve also been studying jazz improvisational dance. There’s something strangely compelling for me about dancing and crying at the same time. Where joy and grief meet. I’ve seen it in New Orleans, and I want to try and recreate it here to end the show.
And there it is. I’ve given myself until the end of June to finish the writing. I’m not tied to the structure, but it feels like a good place to start. I’m planning on having another research and development week in the school drama studio in July. I’m also doing a van trip to Ireland in July, mainly for an adventure, but with a side quest of researching their funerals; so something from that may well end up in here too. What I present at the shows in October and November will be a work in progress. Then I plan to put it away for at least six months. I might try out a re-worked version in Autumn 2027, or I may leave it until the following Spring.
I finished the book version of ‘Jeu Jeu la Foille’s Testy Manifesto and sent off for the proof copy. There’s a lot I want to change about that, but it’s a project that will have to go on hold for now.
I’m about to start work on a second short film / living portrait on another of the women from our ‘Out of the Shadows’ project. Now that I’ve been through the process with Camille Claudel I have a better idea of how I can film more efficiently. I really had no idea what I was doing, and there was something quite magical about that.
With love,
JJlF xx
RSS Feed
