London, Brighton and other ideas

It's been a busy few weeks. The recording for the Under The Streetlamp album is complete (with Ali long gone on a plane to a much warmer place) and is now being mixed - it'll be about 6 weeks before it's mixed but a summer release for our first long player, aptly titled 'Ideal Mexico', is on the cards. In the meantime I've done a little more recording with Alighting, and last weekend I was also in the studio for another session with Bryan Shore. Generally I get the feeling there's going to be a lot of releases out there in the next few months with my playing on it, which can only be a good thing (for me). Next up is a few gigs with the mighty John Orchard (with the equally mighty Neil Cowlan on guitar) starting this Friday.

Theatrically things are equally busy. The weekend was taken up with auditions for our joint Brighton Fringe shows (myself and fellow playwright Gytha Lodge are teaming up for joint productions at the Ambassador Hotel) and the feeling was that too many good actors turned up, which only made things difficult for us. We're still undecided about who to use, but should probably decide soon because May isn't that far away. Last night my play 'Letters To Sparkle' was performed at RADA in London by simply the best actors, like, ever, and in front of the best audience, like, ever. I was thrilled, excited, terrified, awkward, and thrilled again by how it looked, I've not had a buzz like that about my own work for a VERY long time. I need to be in London more - this just wouldn't happen in Cambridge, I think I may need to move to London, it's the first time I've actually seriously considered it - last night gave me a glimpse of what I want on a very regular basis. The play itself is nice enough, with a nice enough twist, but the performance from Martin Allanson and Katie Hayes was immaculate, as was the direction from Mel Hillyard, and it was just one of those evenings when things just worked out. And everyone is just so NICE as well, I like that a lot. Hurrah, etc. Now give me more of this, please.