You've got to laugh

I bumped into a local guy yesterday whom I hadn't seen for some time.  He asked how I was, so I told him 'I was doing fine now thanks.'  He hadn't heard that I'd been in hospital and had surgery, so I explained that I was recovering from cancer.  He asked me what kind and when I told him, he looked shocked and said, "Christ, you poor sod, it's incurable, that one!"  Since my diagnosis there's been many an occasion when someone has unintentionally 'put their foot in it' when I told them about my condition: my neighbour for instance noticed that I was looking a bit peaky and when I explained my diagnosis, she blurted out, "No, my dad died of that!" and then quickly added, "Oh, but you won't!"  I later had a card from her with the cheery message - "Let's hope they've got it in time!"  The night before I was admitted, my brother rang, "Well," he asked thoughtfully, "how do you think the operation will go?"  "Well Steve," I answered, "I'm hoping that it goes well."  When I finally got home following surgery and many complications, my sister rang to see how I was settling in, informing me that a cousin of ours we hadn't seen for many years had exactly the same cancer.  "How did it go?" I asked, totally sympathising with anyone who had to go through what I had suffered for many long weeks, "They got it," she told me, "but it came back again," she continued with dead pan seriousness.  Obviously it wasn't something I wanted to hear at that particular moment, and so I ended the call rather quickly.  Realising it probably wasn't a very good idea to break such uncomfortable news while I was still recovering, she rang back to tell me that - "They got it the second time, though... and er, I think he's all right now... but I haven't heard from him for ages so I can't be absolutely sure, but I think he's in the clear."  And when a mate of mine from Birmingham heard I was going to hospital, she rang to wish me luck, while assuring me that she wouldn't be praying for me because God doesn't exist.  I have to say the best reaction to my illness was the night I told my fellow band members.  After rehearsal, the night before my hospital admission I informed them I wouldn't be hanging out with them for a while and that I had colon cancer.  The room fell silent, no one knew quite what to say, but eventually our drummer announced, "I'm not surprised, you've had this coming is all I can say - I've told you about shoving bottles up your arse!"  Brilliant!  The one quip that literally made me laugh out loud, irreverent and totally what I needed at that moment...  By the way, the bottle thing - it's not true.

The Girl In The Box

There was a news story today that was deeply disturbing, citing that there are thousands of children being abused by gangs and groups in England every year.  The Office of Children's Commissioner study says there were 2,409 victims in the 14 months to October 2011, but the true number is likely to be far higher.  This report doesn't surprise me at all; I've been exploring these issues for a while for a play I wrote last year for East 15 drama school called The Girl In The Box.  Following that of course there came the horrific revelations about the Rochdale girls who were groomed, raped and abused by a Pakistani gang.  But it's all sorts of gangs that are involved in this sort of thing, and more often than not it can actually be teenage gangs that are exploiting very young girls too.

Some years ago I was paid to research a play that was commissioned for The Fetch Theatre Company about drug use in rural counties, and before long I was meeting users, carers, gang members and prostitutes.  The stories of the people I met were sad, moving and sometimes brutal.  But above all one person left a lasting impression on me; a young woman who had been groomed, hooked on heroin, and subjected to sexual acts that I couldn't quite comprehend.  Of course in city and urban towns, these problems are even greater and after seeing a documentary concerning the abuse of young girls by gangs, I knew it was a subject (as dark as it was) that I had to tackle, and so I began to investigate it as best I could.  It is worrying enough to even acknowledge that young girls could be subjected to such hellish ordeals, but this stuff really is happening all around us and we can't afford to turn our backs on it.  I hope my play in some small way shines a light on these significant issues and highlights a problem that we can no longer afford to ignore.  It's a dark play; even darker than my play Noise, and there is one particular event that has never been portrayed on stage before, but it's something that really happened to someone.  Sometimes the truth can be truly shocking, and for that reason alone we can't afford to ignore it; particularly when it affects the vulnerable and abused in our society.  I hope I can get a company to produce the play sometime, because it's an honest portrayal of something that our theatres should be addressing.  Below is a short description of what the play is about:

Monique sees X-Factor as an escape route from a life 'in care'; her best friend, Mel is keeping her options open and is seriously considering 6th form.  But Monique's ex boyfriend, gang member, Sam has other plans for them; unleashing a sequence of disturbing events that lead all the way to the girl in the box - A modern day parable tackling the worrying trend of sexual exploitation of vulnerable girls by gangs, and the dark consequences of drug crime.

Goodbye Mum

Today is the anniversary of my mum's death.  She died of cancer a few years ago, and boy do I miss her still.  I couldn't get over to the cemetery in the Black Country where she is buried, so I thought I would post this poem that I wrote about her as a kind of tribute, I guess.  I was there with her at the end of her life, and although she was amazingly brave, it was tough - how can those last moments be anything else?  The poem is called, Goodbye Mum.

GOODBYE MUM

The morphine kicks in,

Liquid lull of warm blood, mixing, melding,

Rinsing those last corpuscles of thought.

You are drifting away from me,

Bleary eyed,

Scared,

Tired and weary...

You are drifting away from me.

I hold your hand,

Knowing that I'll never be able to do this again,

Because you are drifting away,

And love and memory hammers at my heart and brain

As I feel the tremble of life in your fingers, fade...

Goodbye Mum,

God bless

And great big hugs.

It's the ecology, stupid!

On the eve of the American election, I'm hoping that Obama gets another term, because the thought of Mitt Romney as the next President is just too dreadful to contemplate; his acerbic rhetoric when talking about issues such as Iran sounds so much like Bush that alarm bells are ringing for me; frankly he sounds plain stupid.  The fact that there have been so many stupid American Presidents before him leads me to wonder how the American public can be so gullible when picking their prospective candidates, but I guess the fact that money plays such an important part in the race to the White House means that a person's intellectual attributes aren't particularly what is going to help them get elected - money talks, and in America it seems you need an awful lot of money behind you if you want to be President, not leaving American citizens with much of a choice.  I don't think Obama has been a great President though; in fact his term has been rather disappointing.  We all believed that the first black President might actually herald a new approach to American policy throughout the world, but he didn't close Guantanamo as he had promised, and he increased military capacity in many areas of the planet; including Afghanistan, a war that we hoped he might bring to a speedy conclusion.  Also his health reforms have failed miserably, but I do appreciate this is also because he is penned in somewhat by a hostile congress.  But for me the single most important issue that any American President should be focussed on is the environment, and I've yet to hear either candidate discuss this matter.  America and China are the two big superpowers that are most guilty of polluting the planet, but they both obstinately refuse to take responsibility for their actions, which have massive implications, especially for drought-stricken areas of the Third World.  The fact that extreme weather patterns are affecting all of us now in very significant and disturbing ways makes me wonder why the environment isn't right at the very top of every political agenda; but anything that might affect the economy of a country as powerful as the US just isn't going to make it on to the list of 'things to do'.  Rather disturbingly one of Obama's spokesmen announced that climate change would not be a major campaigning issue for Democrats, and this was while the US was recovering from the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy; an extreme weather event that scientists agree is a direct result of carbon emissions affecting the planet's eco-system.  But right from the very beginning of his Presidency, Obama steadfastly refused to commit to any reduction in emissions, and along with China were the only two countries that did not sign up to the Copenhagen agreement just after his election.  I think it's wonderful for the American people that they have a black President at last; it was a significant moment in the history of that country, and an example to the world that they had overcome their own prejudices, thanks in no small part to the struggles of the civil rights movement; but I do believe he was awarded the Nobel Prize a little prematurely; surely it was incumbent on those involved in the selection process to wait a while to see exactly what he might actually achieve in a job where he wielded so much power, and what he might contribute in the way of world peace.  He definitely in my opinion let us down with regards to the environment, and at the time of the Copenhagen summit I was concerned enough to write a letter to The Guardian newspaper titled - 'It's the environment stupid!'  It was never printed, but here it is anyway...

'Prime Minister Brown, President Obama and rest of our world leaders are obsessed with saving the global economic system, when what they should be focusing their energies on is saving the globe itself.  The reason our planet is facing a potential catastrophe is a direct result of market economies, which by their very structure have no interest in the future results of global warming, as there is no short-term financial benefit to be made from investing in something which has no instant return.  Surely this is a perfect moment in our history for the whole planet to pause and consider why we are where we are, and not how do we get to where we were before.  It's time for a change and to seriously debate the whole structure of commerce and technology; radical ideas such as doing away with personal transport all together, and actually paying third world countries to maintain the great rainforests that we all depend on for the very air we breathe.  Radical ideas for radical times, but I think its time to face the truth - President Clinton was wrong: it's not the economy - it's the ecology, stupid!'

50 Shades Of Black

I have a play on in London that is doing rather well.  A couple of months ago I was contacted out of the blue by the producer of the 'Terror Season' at Soho Theatre to contribute something for the event.  It turned out that he had heard about from me my association with the 'In Yer Face' group of writers and from my play Noise which was a big hit at Soho some years ago.  Terror is the UK's only annual festival of horror theatre and they have had some great writers contribute, so it was good to be asked.  The idea I came up was 50 Shades Of Black, a dark comic satire on that book - 50 Shades Of Grey.  Sarah and Lucy and I went down to London to see it together with some friends and made a weekend of it, taking in a few exhibitions too, including the Pre Raphaelite exhibition at Tate Modern; but I discovered that I had pretty much seen most of the paintings there previously, which were loaned from Birmingham and other galleries I had visited quite a lot.  It was interesting to see them all together in one complete collection though; it gave a good perspective of the whole movement I suppose; Millais still stands out for me as being the definitive painter amongst them; amazing visual technique and vivid use of colours.  This year's 'Terror Season' as a whole has had mixed reviews, but my play seems to have been singled out by some of the critics as worthy of mention, including a particularly good review in 'The Telegraph'.  It's good to have a play of mine out there again, particularly in London, and more particularly at Soho the scene of past triumphs.  I think there was some merit in parodying that book as well; it's baffling to me how something like that has become so popular - a soft porn world wide publishing sensation about S&M that's not even well written; and I'll bet if you haven't read it yourself you know someone who has.  So even though the brief was to write a short play that was essentially about scaring the audience in an entertaining way, I also saw it as an opportunity to take a pop at something I think is culturally rather dubious at the same time.  Other good news - recent blood tests were normal, so I can relax now for another 6 months!

A chink of light

There was a news item recently that really upset me and I can't stop thinking about it.  A young girl went to a wine bar to celebrate her 18th birthday and drank a cocktail that was concocted using liquid nitrogen; a few hours later in terrible pain she was rushed to the hospital where she was told they had to remove her stomach or she would die.  I can't begin to comprehend what that must feel like for her, because her life will now be changed forever in a really profound way, and all because of a drink!  I have personal experience now of abdominal surgery, and I can tell you it's bloody painful, and like her I had no choice; if I hadn't had that operation I wouldn't be here now.  But what she is going to have to endure is way beyond anything I went through, and the consequences for her mean that she will never be able to function normally again; life can so cruel sometimes, but stuff like this shouldn't have happened to a little girl; because that is what she is - a little girl just turned eighteen, studying at sixth form with the rest of her life before her, and it is so tragic and unfair, and all because someone had the bright idea of constructing a colourful alcoholic cocktail that foamed and bubbled, to entice young people to drink.  I know now just how important a healthy gut is and how devastating it is for some people when cancer or other illnesses affect the stomach.  From the day I was informed of my cancer I never cried; I just for some reason apologised relentlessly to my wife, Sarah, because I somehow felt I was letting her down; worrying how she'd cope if I didn't come through it and all that kind of stuff.  And all through the pain and indignity of the whole medical process I somehow held it together.  But what affected me more than anything was seeing other patients in the ward who were really suffering much more than me; hearing them cry out in pain, clamping my hands over my ears as a doctor was breaking the bad news to a guy in the next bed that his illness was terminal, watching people struggle with the reality of having to face the rest of their lives with a bag stuck to their side.  But one guy in particular, called John really got to me; early twenties, he was a handsome kid, though terribly thin because he had had the whole of his large intestine removed and was in constant pain.  Every day his beautiful young wife whom he had just married would come and sit by him, stroking his forehead as he slipped into a welcome torpor as the morphine hit him - and believe me after a few hours of that kind of pain you long for that morphine shot.  He had been in hospital for a month, and things kept going wrong for him; constant emergencies where he would be rushed back into surgery and they would cut away yet another piece of his stomach.  He had a stoma, which he would have to cope with for the rest of his life, and many other complications that I won't go into; needless to say he was suffering a great deal.  I got to know him quite well, and we'd talk about stuff, football mostly; especially as we were both West Brom supporters, and one day after spending hour after hour vomiting up green bile, struggling to breath through his pain, he declared - "I just want a chink of light; just want to know that things'll get better than this one day... just a chink of light."  That stuck with me and always will, because it sort of summed up what we were all looking for in that hospital ward - a chink of light to signify we were on the mend and might one day recover and get back to our loved ones.  When I did eventually come home, frail and wasted and weighing less that eight stone, I sat on the sofa with Sarah and Lucy, not quite believing I was back, feeling somewhat disorientated and shell-shocked, and Lucy asked me what it had been like, and so I began to relate various stories about my treatment and of the other patients in there, and then I told her about John and how badly he was suffering and suddenly and for the first time since my diagnosis I found myself weeping inconsolably, sobbing and choking just remembering the poor guy and how fate had torn his life to shreds.    I find it strange that when some people learn that you have had bowel cancer one of the first questions they ask is "have you got a bag?"  What's that about?  Why do they want to know?  What business is it of theirs anyway?  It so happens that I escaped that particular trauma, but I now know people who do have to cope with it, and I think they're really brave, and I know that most of them would prefer to keep that piece of information to themselves, because why would you want to discuss something so personal with anyone other than your family?  I have always felt uncomfortable when someone jokes about disability, and the colostomy bag has always been a target for a cheap laugh - well you never know one day you or someone close to you might just find themselves having to carry one around stuck to their abdomen, then I think the reality of having to live with 'a bag' may just make those jokes feel rather unpleasant and tasteless.

And now I find myself crying for a person I don't even know - a young girl for whom a chance event has left her forever dependent on medical help; her stomach has gone and I don't need to point out what that would mean to a young woman just beginning her journey into adulthood; the implications are just too horrible to contemplate, but the poor soul will have to learn to live life in a very different way from here on.  God damn any fool who would take smallest risk with such a young life by selling them something so inherently risky as a drink that is made using liquid nitrogen!  The alcohol industry sees our young people as potential consumers, and something like this is the consequence of their cavalier attitude when trying to reel them in.  I hope that she finds her chink of light eventually, but my God the poor girl has got a momentous task in front of her. 

Glorious 9th

Some work at last!  Just a few days acting, some radio drama for the BBC at the Mailbox in Birmingham, but it's the first booking for ages and I'm anxious to get back to it.  Also good to meet up with fellow performers; I'm not really very good at the 'networking stuff' and consequently don't bother attending some of the events where those things happen, so I tend to lose touch a bit with what's going on locally, including a few castings.  Some great dramatic scenes for me though playing the villain again - I love it!  I bumped into an old friend while I was there - the producer Rosemary Watts, who very kindly arranged the choir music in my radio play A Miracle In No Man's Land some years ago.  She sings in a choir herself, and so I asked if she had anything coming up, and it turned out that her choir was at Symphony Hall that very evening performing in Beethoven's 9th Symphony, conducted by Andris Nelsons, and Rosemary thought there might be a chance of picking up a return ticket or two if I turned up early enough.  I love Beethoven, and the 9th has always been a piece of music I've wanted to hear live - I knew I couldn't miss this opportunity, so I rang Sarah and Lucy: they hopped on a train and I met up with them in town following my recording and we hung around the box office for absolutely ages waiting for returns... but they were all too expensive, we could only afford the cheap seats.  However after a while someone took pity and sold me a £20.00 ticket for a tenner and then another, finally just before the performance someone else turned up at the box office with a return and the woman at the booth pointed me out, saying that I had been waiting all afternoon and would he consider selling it to me; it was pretty much the best seat in the hall and way out of our financial reach, but the guy shrugged, grinned and said he could see how much I wanted to see the performance, so he didn't want anything for it - he gave me it!  And so I sat just above the orchestra and was just blown away by the whole experience.  The evening began with a short tender piece by Brahms called Nänie, which I've never heard before, but was quiet moving, the choir really hitting a poignant spot for me, lots of colour and delicate tones.  And then - the 9th!  Wow - it was incredible; I know it so well, but to actually experience it live was an event I will never forget.  Nelsons is a brilliant conductor, I couldn't take my eyes off him; he conducted the orchestra with his whole body: his face was bright with emotion, expressions changing with each bar, sometimes stern, sometimes pleading, sometimes joyous, often he would clench his baton in his fist and literally jump up and down like a mad general, the next moment he would be leaning over his score reaching into the string section as if he was pulling the music out of the instruments himself; energetic and personal summed him up - he was living the score, feeling the nuances, experiencing them and translating them into sublime sounds - amazing.  The soloists too played their parts to perfection: I was anticipating that bass voice which begins the vocal section, but when it eventually came and Georg Zeppenfeld's deep rich sound filled the hall, it took my breath away, and then of course came that intricate balance of tenor (Toby Spence), mezzo-soprano (Mihoko Fujimura) and soprano (Lucy Crowe) which just sent shivers and shudders straight through me, and then - that massive choir and the 'Ode To Joy' just erupted like a musical volcano, and together with the titanic orchestra of the CBSO it eventually reached Beethoven's amazing climax.  It's the first time I have heard the 9th other than on a recording, but I don't think it has ever or will be played as well again; I just can't imagine it.  I can't stop reliving the whole evening, the music is still ringing in my head - I've even been dreaming about it - one of those things you should do before you die has now been ticked of my list.  Thank you Andris Nelsons and the CBSO and the generous stranger who gave me his ticket...  I'm not bothered if I ever hear it played live again, that will do for me.