On being a writer...


A celebration of the writing process, of being a writer, of all the weird things that pass through a writing brain...


Monday 24 June 2013

Imagine

For the third year running Watford Palace Theatre is collaborating in Imagine Watford - a truly exciting couple of weeks of street theatre - ranging from dinosaurs on stilts to trombonists on roller-skates.  If you're anywhere near the town from Wednesday to Sunday make sure you take a look - it's all free.

But this weekend saw The High Street Odyssey.  We were issued with head-phones and taken on a trip down the High Street.  At first it all seemed like a fairly conventional:  Look more closely at our town and you'll see a round window you'd not noticed before and learn the history of the market.  But gradually the odyssey became something totally different - surprising, funny, disturbing and hugely creative.

This then is the art of great story telling - to surprise and delight.  We thought we were on one kind of odyssey and it turned out we were on an altogether different adventure.  When we're children, of course, we don't want that kind of surprise in a story.  We want the runaway train to be returned to the station or the princess to her castle.  We're not interested in derailments or broken hearts.  But as adults, we know that life is full of twists and turns which don't always end tidily.  The good thing about reading, or watching a play or a bit of street theatre, is that fate is in the author's hands, not .... fate's.

Hats off the High Street Odyssey for packing so much adventure into 25 minutes.
http://www.watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk/page/1/Home

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