Can something shrink, and expand, at the same time?
And let’s get specific here. Let’s name the ‘thing’ I’m talking about. It’s the world. So can the world shrink, and expand, at the same time?
By the laws of physics the answer is clearly ‘no’.
But this was 2020, and we were through the looking glass, people. ‘Unprecedented’ had long since merged with the much more Millenial ‘WTF’, and then both of them had morphed into a state where eyebrows didn’t even come close to being raised at some of the absurdity that was going on.
At one point in the UK the ever-shifting Covid guidelines kicked-off a serious debate, lead by a government minister, as to whether a scotch egg was a ‘substantial’ meal. Mind you, things were even more bizarre in the US. Over there the President – the ‘Leader Of The Free World’ – suggested that a good way for a person to fight Covid would be to inject bleach.
So the world shrinking, and expanding, at the same time? Why the hell not.
During the lockdown of 2020 I was only allowed to spend time with the my family, my immediate family, who I lived with. I couldn’t meet anyone else. Yes, I could go to the supermarket to buy food, but even that had to be ‘socially distanced’. And if I came across anyone I knew on the way home I could smile wryly, exchange a pained ‘You good?’, wait for a brief reply, then keep walking.
Social distancing meant social isolation.
So my world had shrunk.
Except, when you switch to living online, which we all largely did in 2020, your world expands. Geographical proximity is no longer an all-conquering gate-keeper of social interaction.
My extended family extends all over the world. During 2020, thanks to a weekly family Zoom my brother set up, I spent more time in the company of my cousins, and aunts and uncles, than I ever had before.
So the world shrank, and expanded, at the same time. And this anomaly didn’t just hold true for my family relations. It also held true for the films I was making.
Working remotely meant I could work with people from all over the country.
So I did. And then, in one of my more melodramatic and grandiose moments (which I do occasionally have), I thought ‘why stop at the borders of the UK’?
Why not turn The Lockdown Theatre Company into a creative force on a global scale?
So I rang Nigel in New Zealand.
Nigel was someone I had been at school with way back in the days when the late, great, Terry Hall was deadpanning his way through Top Of the Pops, and McDonald’s had just decided to take on Wimpy’s on the high street. (That’s a decidedly odd mixed bag of cultural references, but probably gives a decent insight to the contents, and functioning, of the over-stuffed attic that is my mind).
Nigel and I hadn’t been close at school. And we were even less close now because he lived in New Zealand.
He’d gone to live in the country just to the right (or possibly) left of The Land Down Under over 20 years ago and built a successful career as an actor, director, producer, and performer.
He’d worked with some great people. Then I rang.
The phrase ‘swings and roundabouts’ comes into my mind. No idea what came into his mind. Well, no idea apart from the word ‘Yes’.
So now I had an actor in New Zealand up for being part of The Lockdown Theatre Company’s global expansion initiative.
And a world that had shrunk when all the theatres had closed, had expanded far further than I could ever have imagined when I sat down at my laptop in March 2020 and decided to set up an imaginary theatre company.
Funny old world, innit.
Coming next week: I Write A Musical.
But first here’s the marvellous Sir Nigel Godfrey in ‘An Actor Resigns’. It’s about the nature of acting, is a critique of ‘theatre’, and maps out a possible way ahead for it all.
Oh, and Nige, if you are reading this, thank you for saying ‘Yes’.
Artistic validation is hard to come by when you’re constantly banging your head against a brick wall of theatrical indifference. So to be respected by someone you respect means a lot.