POLITICIAN GETS EDGE

The next Prime Minister of the UK will be a politician.

This shocking news follows heated debates on overnight radio talk shows and headlines in this morning's London papers, in a story only displaced by the devastating use of his military skills by an ex-US Army reservist in Texas, well-known as an oil-rich state with a heritage of gun-toting.

The next Prime Minister of the UK will come from the current government party, the Tories and is now a contest between the last two MPs standing. They will go before members of that party who will vote for one of them. In a long-cherished manifestation of a well-loved democratic deficit in the UK, the electorate will not vote for the leader of the UK, which is the person who has the power to blow the world up with nuclear weapons and lead the charge to war and ruin like a previous incumbent did, as revealed in a recent report.

Of course, with such high stakes to play for the candidates will be using all aspects of their experiences, characters and personalities to give them the edge so that their fellow party members will give them the nod.

A report appears this morning in The Times, a newspaper based in London not to be confused with The Times of India or The New York Times, The Irish Times, Antrim Times, Angling Times, Arab Times, China Times or The Times produced on a weekly basis in Brownsville, Oregon. No, this is The Times, owned by News Corp., a Rupert Murdoch business. Historically, the paper has been very close to the political and financial elites in London, so a front page article is a big thing for a challenger for the position of key holder of No. 10 Downing Street.

In this morning's front-page report one of the candidates offers a specific personal attribute as a reason why they would make a better Prime Minister than the other candidate. The question is what personal attribute could cause politicos and pundits, bloggers(!) and blabbers to get into the major froth that this report has produced? It appears both candidates are heterosexual, white and not living with a disability.

Can you fill in the gap in The Times headline?

Being a—gives me edge

While the candidate concerned has rejected the article as being the opposite to what was intended, the journalists who did the interview, Rachel Sylvester and Sam Coates, stand over it. They are reported to be reputable, and no doubt they can record spoken words and write copy and probably have everything backed up mightily. Some people might suggest that writing for a newspaper in the Murdoch stable of titles immediately draws into question their reputations, if not their technical abilities.

But what could it possibly be about a candidate that could, so early in an electoral contest, however democratically deficient, have led to this furore when one candidate claims a more real stake in the future of the country over the other one, said to be ahead in the polls of the 150, 000 members of the Tory party who will vote for the Prime Minister of the UK, a country of 65, 000, 000 people?

Rupert Murdoch won't let you see the full report on-line without paying money. The Guardian has its own version, free on-line. Between them you should be able to fill in the gap and all the other gaps such a headline leaves. One possibility is, of course,

Being a politician gives me edge

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/being-a-mother-gives-me-edge-on-may-leadsom-0t7bbm29x

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/08/andrea-leadsom-suggests-she-would-make-better-pm-as-she-has-children

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WHEN SHOULD YOU STOP READING THAT NOVEL?

Today.

Today is the day to stop reading Amnesia by Peter Carey. At precisely page 68 of the Faber and Faber paperback export edition of 2014.

Stopping likes this leaves you with mixed feelings. Elation, disappointment, resentment, amazement, that you started the thing at all and wonder as to how a splendid writer like Peter Carey could so lose the run of himself as to write it and how publishers and editors at an esteemed publishing house could produce it.

Over all, you feel better, though perhaps a little let down, as if you've been found out. You are usually so sound in matters of judgement in all areas of your life, none more so than in your choice of reading and here you are with nearly 70 pages of wasted time and effort behind you. Of course, you consider ploughing on. You considered it first at page 29 and the plough seemed viable enough at that stage. But no more.

Beyond the notion that a book, like a lobster claw, has to 'grab you', it's hard to say what didn't work for you with Peter Carey's Amnesia. Beyond the sense that it is shite.

You wondered for a while if you're weren't smart enough to get just how much parody Peter Carey was loading into the sentences and the paragraphs and then you began to realise that, far too often, you were putting the book down because one of the sentences just read wrong.

I negotiated a prescription for Dexedrine, a MacBook Pro, a Cabcharge account and, finally, a place to live until my wife forgave me for being myself.

You read this and realised you were simply not hip enough for this novel. There is no way you could negotiate a prescription for Dexedrine and all the rest. How many more times will you have to read novels where a seemingly hapless man, very often a writer, who causes pain and mayhem for those around him, as in this case, is 'saved' by having wealthy friends who own yachts, castles and pent-houses and who has a cousin in the CIA to sort passport, currency and immigration problems in cities labelled foreign only because the writer doesn't live there. Peter Carey lives in New York and even his home place, Australia, site of his luminous books, Oscar and Lucinda and Ned Kelly is foreign to him in Amnesia.

Living in New York doesn't help Pete Carey with the New York Times. Janet Maslin, writing in that paper reckons

“Amnesia” can’t sustain a sense of purpose throughout. For all Mr. Carey’s formidable powers and the righteous fire he means to light here, “Amnesia” isn’t one of his most memorable efforts.

It's just as well that you read that after you'd stopped. If the New York Times doesn't reckon much of the book, then maybe your judgement isn't impaired, just napping. If you'd read that review before you stopped, you might have heaved the plough out of the mire, in a rage of stubbornness, and driven your tractor on to the end of field, over the edge and into the despair of the reader who looks back on lost days when you could have been reading, say, Balthasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago or Pronto by Elmore Leonard or an ice-cold and refreshing short story by Nadine Gordimer.

Stopping is good, because it means you can start again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/books/amnesia-peter-careys-new-novel.html?_r=0

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IN MEMORY OF PAUL DEVLIN, THEATRE MAKER

Words in memory of Paul Devlin.

Magee theatre department, UU, Foyle Arts Building. 26.5.2016

Is mise Dave Duggan. Drámadóir is urscealaí is ea mé.

I'm Dave Duggan. I'm a dramatist and a novelist.

Is mór an onóir agus an pribhléid dom focail cuimhneachán a rá ar son Paul Devlin.

It is a great honour and a privilege to say some words in memory of Paul Devlin.

Mo bhuíochas do Lisa as an cuireadh.

My thanks to Lisa for the invitation.

Words are my business. Paul loved words. Essentially, I want to say and use four of them. Three S words and one F word.

Let's start with the F word. Paul Devlin was my friend. There are many people who were Paul's friends, and very much more: Kate and their fine daughters; Paul's wider family; men and women he grew up with, knocked about with at school and college; worked with, staff and students, here in Magee and elsewhere. Myself and Paul Devlin were friends as theatre makers and as men. There are misconceptions that men don't form friendships. Men do. That men don't share. Men do. That older men (me) and young men (Paul) – (the tragedy of Paul's death is a tragedy of youthfulness) don't become friends. We did. We'd be in the canteen, invariably with a plate of his chips between us, me ngucking them and we'd be talking about making theatre. Often with Adrian to add the seasoning.

Which leads me to the first S word. I quickly realised that Paul knew things. Deeply. That he was wise. That Paul Devlin was a savant. I saw him speak at a conference and was struck by the depth of his knowledge, his felicitous use of language and his humane yet wry take on his work and on the world.

And he did more than know things. He found things. He detected opportunities, airs in the zeitgeist, possibilities in the culture that could be explored by theatre. He was a researcher, yes, but in the fine tradition of unearthing that is the realm of the sleuth. Paul Devlin was a Shamus, the second S word.

I was not long out of hospital, recovering from a critical illness that had almost taken me away, when he asked me to make something about borders. I found a townland name on a map and we went there, to Brishmachree – an anglicisation of the Irish do bhris mo chroí, my heart broke – and I wrote and performed a theatre piece on borders, under his commission and his direction. It was a pleasure to take direction from him in this room/building. And then to perform the work on a June day of near persistent rain, down a muddy lane, where fine mists occluded the ancient sun fort at An Grianán in front of us and the medieval keep of the O'Doherty's beside us, but could not occlude the magic and wonder of Paul Devlin's making.

Thus I find the third S word. Paul Devlin was shaman, a theatre maker of ritual and magic, rooted to our wondrous earth. One of his great shamanistic acts was the theatrical carnival of memory he directed in the department store, Austins of the Diamond. He led students and staff, and he included me, with my writer's kitchen, in a grand theatrical embodiment of living history, remembering and performing, which has particular resonance now that the shop, like Paul's all too short life, has come to an end.

We cannot shirk away from tragedy, in life and in theatre. Tragedy, as a concept and as a reality, as a manifestation of the cruelty of life, was often addressed in conversations Paul and I shared. Is tragedy ever a boon? Never. The boon is living, as Paul Devlin did. As savant, shamus, shaman. And of course, the F word. As friend.

Let us chose our words, then. S words and F words.

L words too. Live. Love.

Míle buíochas. A thousand thanks.

http://breathingwithalimp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/blogpost-special-new-short-drama.html

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IS YOUR MIND DEMORALISED?

John F Schumaker, writing in April 2016's issue of New Internationalist, reckons 'our' minds are demoralised and that it is 'our' culture, and not 'us' that is sick.

Western consumer culture is creating a psycho-spiritual crisis that leaves us disoriented and bereft of purpose.

John F Schumaker means those of 'us' who live within a version of 'western consumer culture'. He reckons the reported increase in depression is actually a rise in demoralisation, which used to be

limited to specific extreme situations, such as debilitating physical injury, terminal illness, prisoner-of-war camps, or anti-morale military tactics.

He reckons 'we' are suffering from an existential disorder, because 'we' haven't a clue who 'we' are, where 'we' are, where 'we're' going and what 'we're' going to do when 'we' get there. 'We' are disoriented, bereft of a map.

'Our' personality structures are undermined by

individualism, materialism, hyper-competition, greed, over-complication, overwork, hurriedness and debt.

Sticking with the journey metaphor, John reckons 'we' have no compass either, and are easy prey for a consumerism that is brittle and dispiriting. He invokes Noam Chomsky's 'philosophy of futility', saying that's about all 'we've' got if 'we've' got any philosophy at all.

'We're' all wankers, basically.

Resilience traits such as patience, restraint and fortitude have given way to short attention spans, over-indulgence and a masturbatory approach to life.

'We' are living in an existential vacuum and are

quickly engulfed by boredom, as well as jadedness, ennui and discontent. This steadily graduates to ‘existential boredom’ wherein the person finds all of life uninteresting and unrewarding.

He refers 'us' to Raoul Naroll (The Moral Order) and Erich Fromm (The Sane Society) for guidance as to how 'we' might give attention to 'our' needs for

belonging, rootedness, identity, transcendence and intellectual stimulation.

He asserts that 'our' culture is dominated by economic priorities and manipulates 'us' by sophisticated industries that trade in illusory consumer satisfaction and unsatisfiable consumer needs, to the point, John F Schumaker reckons, where

Being normal is no longer a healthy ambition.

All grandly analytical, true and feistily written, but from about five paragraphs to the end John F Schumacher starts down a road of prescription that is downbeat, itself demoralised, while crying out for

credible cause, or credible leadership.

The tone of the essay shifts from description to prescription and then it finishes with cataclysm. It becomes the siren cry of a

retired psychology academic

bereft of any hope or meaningful sense of options other than

global catastrophe.

What's striking about the essay's turn of tone, change of discourse and finale of despair is that it appears in the magazine New Internationalist which, in its own words, has been

putting the world to rights since 1973.

It's as if John F Schumaker didn't read the rest of the April, or any other, issue of the magazine, where he might find

credibility, meaning and purposeful action

at forestpeoples.org, wrm.or.uy and among other activists on forests and related issues. Or perhaps he could seek a conversation with Caterina Martins in Portugal and others across Europe firmly opposing the austerity agenda being promulgated by the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank. Or even have a read of George Monbiot's new book “How did we get into this mess?”, reviewed on page 37.

Then ask himself, his friends, colleagues and neighbours how 'we' might get out of it and when 'we' might make a start?

Resilience traits such as patience, restraint and fortitude

are everywhere in the world.

Read the magazine, John. Get active. Connect. Remoralise.

This writer doesn't know John, but guesses he's probably doing that.

Write about it, John. Push back, even in a small way.

'We'll' all feel better for it.

http://newint.org/columns/essays/2016/04/01/psycho-spiritual-crisis/

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JUSTICE. MERCY. POLITICS.

Antisemitism is widespread in the world, along with many other hatreds and discriminations based on religious beliefs, race, ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual orientation and physical and mental abilities. No surprise, then, that antisemitism exists in the British Labour Party. Hatreds and discriminations are potent political tools, used widely by opposing political groupings.

To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,

it will feed my revenge.

In a world where powerful states base themselves directly and indirectly on belief in gods, the manner of making critical comments about such states is compromised by the possibility of criticising the beliefs and the people who hold them.

The spectrum of theocratic and near-theocratic states is wide, running from the United States of America, where the head of state, the President, closes public pronouncements with 'God Bless America', to Saudi Arabia, where monarchs, great allies of the USA, oversee a despotic regime, consistent with their preferred form of Islam, which, like all religions, is comprised of many variations. The state of Israel privileges Judaism. Pakistan and Iran privilege Islam. The head of state of the United Kingdom, the monarch, must be a member of a particular Christian church. Could Putin and Kim Il-Jong be seen as privileging secularism into a form of 'god on earth', in Russia and North Korea, with leaders having access to nuclear capabilities?

The recent upheavals in the British Labour Party surrounding allegations of antisemitism show the potency of that manifestation of hatred and discrimination as a political tool. Particular orientations, in relation to responses to the circumstances of the Palestinian people, mean that criticism of the actions of the state of Israel are often on the lips of members of that political party.

That there is antisemitism in the British Labour Party is without doubt the case. That opponents of the party, and the current party leader, might use this as a stick with which to beat them is also no doubt the case. Ken Livingstone's mini-marathon of media recordings that launched the recent row says as much about the febrile nature of allegations of antisemitism as it does about the man (Drink taken? Loose cannon? Mouth almighty? Egotist? Celebrity ex-politician?) or the party's opponents (The Murdoch press? The Tories?) and their ability to use antisemitism as a political tool.

How do you make critical statements or express critical opinions about the state of Israel or the current regime there? With very great difficulty and with maximum sensitivity, that in making such criticisms you are challenging power orthodoxies based on huge international support for the state of Israel by the United States of America.

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison

us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not

revenge?

Even Shakespeare may be flummoxed. Any number of categories of people could be put into his great speech from The Merchant of Venice.

I am a Jew/Muslim. Hath

not a Jew/Muslim eyes? hath not a Jew/Muslim hands, organs,

dimensions, senses, affections, passions?

That the Middle East is the hub of these matters is no surprise. Three of the world's great trades have hubs there: weaponry, oil, digital security. Three of the world's great monotheistic religions have hubs there: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. There are problems with all states in the region, problems that are actual in themselves and also as proxies for problems across the world as experienced and promoted by the Great Powers.

The approach to criticisms then needs to be infused with a quality of mercy; something only found in the heart, where mercy should season justice, yet it is this very justice, as an ideal and as a lived experience, which is most contested.

Is it overly pessimistic to suggest that villainy is the order of the day and the basis of all human activity?

The villainy you

teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I

will better the instruction.

When mercy seasons justice, might there be some possibility of criticism begin heard and acted upon? But then again are not 'mercy' and 'justice' political tools, often aggressively used as such?

http://opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/playmenu.php?WorkID=merchantvenice

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BLOGPOST SPECIAL:LAUNCH OF A GRAPHIC NOVEL ON FRANCIS LEDWIDGE

BLOGPOST SPECIAL:

TALK AT THE LAUNCH OF A GRAPHIC NOVEL ON THE LIFE OF FRANCIS LEDWIDGE; TOWER MUSEUM, 21^st APRIL 2016

© Dave Duggan April 2016

The Decade of Centenaries is a box of curiosities we look into with awe, and a little nervousness. Lift the lid and see: people, events, cross-actions, armies, a new franchise for women, political promises, an arms race, extreme wealth, extreme poverty, aristocratic families across Europe, all inter-related and inter-married, falling out with each other, swathes of the south of the globe divided among countries and corporations in the north of the globe, imperialisms, repressions and rebellions. We're nervous - I suggest - both locally and globally, because the decade of centenaries is not in the past. It is now. And so we get creative, as with this new graphic novel by Marty Melarkey, Danny McLaughlin, David Campbell and Revolve Comics.

Of course, that will be challenged as an ahistorical, even an anti-historical view. And - shock horror - in a museum. Then, I work as a dramatist, not as a historian and I suggest that, while facts are to be fought over, fictions are to be enjoyed. As Alfred Hitchcock said, drama is life with the boring bits left out.

So, I go into the box, relishing the complexity of it all. Instead of one or two grand narratives, I see a mesh of multiple stories and anecdotes, half-hidden occurrences, most of them unearthed by assiduous historians, as we will hear, from Dr. Catherine Morris, in the case of Alice Milligan. And there I find, Francis Ledwidge. One hundred years ago, he was on the Eastern Front, fighting with the British Army against Turkish and Bulgarian troops, mainly young peasants like himself. Ironies of slaughter litter the box of curiosities.

It's the complexity of Ledwidge's character that leads me to write Still, The Blackbird Sings, a play on the life and times of the poet soldier in Ebrington Barracks. He returned to Ireland, to Dublin, a city devastated by the violent events of the Easter Rising. He is devastated himself by the death of his fellow poet and friend Thomas McDonagh, one of the executed signatories of the Proclamation. From this devastation he creates his best-known poem, Lament for Tomas McDonagh, featured in the graphic novel.

He shall not hear the bittern cry

In the wild sky, where he is lain,

Nor voices of the sweeter birds

Above the wailing of the rain.

Perhaps Francis Ledwidge was more lyric rhymer than soldier, more farmer/nationalist/labour activist/road mender/day-labourer than warrior, though he possibly killed people in hand-to-hand combat.

How does a person hold these two drives together?

The drive to killing, in soldiery. The drive to living, in poetry.

These are the questions that take me rummaging in the box of curiosities and find me responding artistically.

All artistic work benefits from the work of the historians. Now, one hundred years after his time in Ebrington, this graphic telling of Ledwidge's story is launched, composed and drawn by artists who are seeking to face chaos and horror with beauty and order, by forging fact and fiction, in the fires of imagining.

Imagine a young man, a poet, who has dodged death on bullet-riddled beaches in Turkey. Who has possibly killed in action. Who has been injured and recovered in a military hospital in Cairo. Who returns to Dublin to find a friend and fellow poet executed by soldiers in the same uniform as the one he wears. Who is posted to Derry in May 1916 and stripped of his rank, because of tardiness and insubordination. Who sees reflections of his beloved Boyne river in the glorious Foyle. Who learns of thousands of fellow soldiers slaughtered in battles beside the river Somme, in France in July1916.

Who lives with men petrified that they too will be sent to the human abattoirs of France, knowing that the odds on them dying are shortening.

How do you live like that?

And yet he did. Lived like that. Died like that.

His poetry remains.

And when the first surprise of flight

Sweet songs excite, from the far dawn

Shall there come blackbirds loud with love,

Sweet echoes of the singers gone.

But in the lonely hush of eve

Weeping I grieve the silent bills."

I heard the Poor Old Woman say

In Derry of the little hills.

There is a new pub, round the corner on Foyle street, called Blackbird. Francis Ledwidge would have enjoyed a pint there.

Today, historians and artists open the box of curiosities and peer inside, discovering facts and creating fictions, often forging them together. Delicate work. With this graphic novel, we have a marvellous instance of the work of artists, aiming to introduce young people to the life of the poet-soldier Francis Ledwidge. I commend it to you.

Please allow me to conclude with an extract from my play, Still, the Blackbird Sings, which I hope Creggan Enterprises may take on a tour of non-theatre venues, as a script-in-hand performance, in September.

Francis Ledwidge stands on the edge of the square in Ebrington, above the Foyle. He is with his squad. He is relishing his poetic voice and foreseeing his death in a bomb blast, as he looks over the river.

A sparkling river. And a bridge, bedecked on every side with roses. Smell them lads! Pink ones. Ruby red ones. Yellow ones, the flaxen yellow that sweeps from a girl’s hair and gladdens a man’s eye. White ones. White roses. Innocent as peace. We’re at the crossroads. The five of us. Mugs of tea in our hands. Just like now lads.

We’re laughing and telling stories and I have new poems about blackbirds and robins and the way the water runs silver in the river. Oh! The river! Oh, my darling Boyne river, by the high reed banks where we hear.....The bittern cry! Stand to lads!

http://nervecentre.org/news/renowned-irish-poets-remembered-new-graphic-novel-exploring-events-1916#.VxnkTenpWvE

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CAN BOTH THESE SHOWS BE THEATRE?

Two shows on the same stage, one Saturday after another.

Bag for Life by Colin Bateman, produced by The Playhouse, 2016.

Puckoon adapted by Vincent Higgins and Zoe Seaton, from the novel by Spike Milligan, produced by Big Telly, 2015.

An opportunity for an 'old school' essay.

Compare and Contrast.

Bag for Life TELLS and shows.

Puckoon SHOWS and tells.

Can both these shows be theatre?

In Bag for Life, one actress stands on a box and tells a story in the 'I' voice, supported by digital images on screens.

In Puckoon, six actors show a story in episodes of action, movement, song, dance and explosions.

Bag for Life uses the long tradition of story-telling theatre, with a modern day 'seanchaí', pinned to one place in the metaphoric space created by her history and the circumstances of her world.

Puckoon acts out a narrative in scenes of riotous energy and invention, with jump-cuts of telling to set-up/move along/comment.

Bag for Life brings a tv drama aesthetic to bear, with live action images, graphics and animations augmenting and illustrating the telling.

Puckoon use the traditions of physical theatre, farce, vaudeville and melodrama.

Bag for Life is a staged tv drama, with the 2D attributes of the genre.

Puckoon is a live absurdist romp, with the benefits of the form.

Bag for Life uses the digital effects offered by pre-recorded moving and still images, which dialogue with the actress a number of times.

Puckoon uses costume, props, set and staging, quick changes and smoke/bubbles machines for effects.

The language in Bag for Life is a spare, quasi-realist argot of the north-east region of urban Ireland.

The language in Puckoon is overloaded, embellished, thrilling, poetic and punning, heard somewhere in Absurdia.

Both stories are 'thin', in different ways.

Both Bag for Life and Puckoon are delivered by effective performances and productions.

Large audiences attend both performances. Reactions each night are generally positive, with some dissensions. There is little overlapping of the audiences.

Generally, the Bag for Life audience knows and likes the work of Colin Bateman.

Generally, the Puckoon audience knows and likes the work of Big Telly.

Bag for Life goes for shocks.

Puckoon goes for laughs.

Bag for Life offers tragedy, being concerned with murder, grief, madness and revenge.

Puckoon offers comedy, being concerned with caricature, jokes, playfulness and satire.

Both are concerned with threat and violence.

Both are touring.

Can both these shows be theatre? Do they work?

Go see.

Enjoy.

http://www.derryplayhouse.co.uk//events/details/bag-for-life-by-colin-bateman/636

http://big-telly.com/performance-work/puckoon/

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