But first let’s talk money.
I financed the first ten films myself. The actors were paid with what I had saved to go up to the cancelled 2020 Edinburgh Fringe. To fund the next films I decided to see if anyone else would chip in.
All I’ll say is that people can be exceedingly generous if they find something they want to support. Something, or someone. And I am incredibly grateful. I set up a Kickstarter page, and also a fundraiser on Facebook. My friends stepped up. As did people I’d never met but who could see merit in what I was doing.
If any of you who supported me are reading this, all I can really say is…
THANK YOU.
Your belief, and your financial contributions, meant the world to me. It validated the work. And it validated me. When you are working as hard as you can to create something in a largely indifferent world, knowing that there are people out there who get it, and want to support it, is precious beyond words.
So to launch Season Two of The Lockdown Theatre Company I wanted something that would land with a bang.
Hold on – ‘Season Two’?
Yes, I know that sounds a bit full of it. Calling a second set of ultra low-budget, short films, ‘Season Two’ ? Who was I kidding? But I’d just watched seven seasons of ‘Game Of Thrones’ and I got carried away. And the pretentious audacity of nicking the ‘seasons’ concept made me smile.
It may also have had something to do with the fact that I distinctly remember that one of the things I loved most about Elvis Costello when he first burst into the charts, and also my teenage consciousness, was that he had called himself ‘Elvis’. That was bold. And funny. And decidedly ‘I don’t give fuck about what you think’.
So ‘Season Two’ it was.
The right energy.
I first saw Georgia Nicholson perform at a Scratch Night of short theatrical pieces written, and performed, by people from a working class background. That such events are important is a real criticism of where theatre is, and has been, for some time. But that’s too big a debate to get into here.
What I remembered about Georgia was that she was a Geordie. And that she had an energy about her that drew the eye. Whatever she was doing, no matter how small, she somehow conveyed the fact that stuff was going on inside her. There was also an edge in her performance that was exciting.
I tracked Georgia down, left a couple of messages, had a conversation, she said she was up for the project, and for reasons that are still unclear to me the thought occurred that a Geordie baby could be a very funny character.
Especially if it was a Geordie baby waiting to be born.
On top of this the whole piece would be written, rehearsed and filmed during a time when all of us were stuck inside. So that came into play too.
When I write I try to layer-in meaning. There is the surface of what is going on, then there is the soup below the surface. While the surface is, hopefully, easy to understand, the soup offers more depth.
Not entirely sure if that analogy is completely accurate, but it is interesting.
What’s more than interesting is Georgia’s performance. It leaps straight out of the screen at you, takes no prisoners, and is very, very, very funny.
And if part of my aim with Season Two was to prove that this way of working meant I could create a kind of national theatre for next to nothing – Job Done.
Also, Ant & Dec if you are reading this, sorry guys but you aren’t the funniest people to come out of Newcastle anymore. That’d be Georgia Nicholson.
But why not watch the film, and judge for yourself, pet.
Coming next Friday: A war story you won’t forget.
But first here’s ‘Solitary’ featuring the fabulous Georgia Nicholson: