Bob Frith's VEIL BLOG FEB. 2007

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Wed. 28.2

We're over the first and second hurdle. The Arts Council have accepted the resubmission of our touring grant, and they're allowing it to be fast-tracked. Thank you Rose, thank you ACE - sighs of relief in the H+B office.

Katherina emailed through her first drawings for the design. The rich colours took me by surprise, but it feels right. I realise its going to take a while for Katherinas ideas to sink in, and Alison feels the same. We've pencilled in time over the next few days to focus on this. On Friday I'll get back to Katherina - probably with a list of questions....

Fri. 23.2

Well, it’s back to waiting… Rose has been working hard to rewrite our application (and slash our budgets). On Tuesday she has a meeting with the Arts Council in Manchester and with luck they will give us the go-ahead to re-apply for a touring grant. If this can be done speedily then perhaps we can save the tour. If not, the possibility of postponing the first (Autumn) leg is emerging as an option. The implication of not being allowed to re-apply, or failing a second time, is something we’re finding hard to confront.

There are some good things. Yesterday Rose spoke with Amanda (Belcham – CEO of the Dukes Playhouse, Lancaster – our partner in this) and she was unfazed, and very helpful. I guess in the subsidised arts you just have to accept that this kind of thing happens. At least we’ve been able to pay Katherina something in order to start the design work; and David Edmunds continues to provide good news on the bookings front. Theatres, at least, seem to be excited about Veil.

Wed. 21.2

We’ve finally heard back from the Arts Council about our application for Veil - and it was rejected. That’s the bad news – the (slightly) better news is that it was turned down, in the main, because of money, or the lack of it, and we can - hopefully - re-apply.

Of course it isn’t quite so simple as we can’t just stop and wait to see if we’re successful the next time round. The timetable for Veil dictates that we have to carry on with the process of making the show. It's going to be a problem finding the resources to keep things going in the short term – and Iain our Finance Man is on holiday!

Everything has been made even more complicated by the fact that George has left this week to start work at the Lanternhouse. Luckily, we’ve Rose Cuthbertson in place to take over from George, and Rose has been really fabulous. She has been talking with our lead officer at Arts Council North West in order to resolve things as quickly as possible. Yesterday I spent the day with Rose cutting back the budgets for Veil.

At worst the wait will be another 12 weeks; at best 6 weeks. We’ll have to rein back spending until we hear about our bid, but we’re continuing with all the absolutely essential work. Certainly Alison and I will be carrying on with making masks just as we always intended, and we’ve found just enough money to allow Katherina (Radeva) to start work on the design.

Of course this affects everyone and everything. Loz (Kaye) was planning to write music in March/April and there’s no way we’ll know until early April at the earliest. At the worst there are no guarantees even then. The artists like Loz who have turned down other work to do this are left with a major dilemma. But so far everyone is holding firm – holding on to the creative process and belief in the project.

Thurs. 15.2

Alison (Duddle) has finished the first mask. Actually it's a test - we need to create masks for the twin girls, so pretty much two identical faces. Alison has experimented with a mask cast from a plaster mould so she can make a copy for the second. These masks also need to be fairly close to llifesize, so they don't look unnatural when worn under an abaya. Meanwhile I'm making a mask for the Iraqi puppeteer, Mahmoud - again an experiment so we can figure out if his scarf (called, I think, a keffiyeh) is modelled and painted, or if it should be the real thing attached to the mask.

Sat. 10.2

David (Edmunds – our Producer) is doing wonderfully in getting theatres interested in Veil. In addition to the Dukes in Lancaster who are actively collaborating on the production, he has serious interest from the Lowry, Square Chapel (Halifax), Liverpool Everyman, Battersea Arts Centre, the Midlands Arts Centre, Northern Stage, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Oldham Coliseum, Burnley Mechanics. This looks good….

Tanzeela (Javed) and Farha (Patel) have got back about the Eid question, and whether we should try to provide a prayer room at the Dukes. They both said that having a prayer room was a good idea. They also agreed with Faliha (Kadhim) that a performance at Eid would be best held on the evening as prayers are normally said during the afternoon. This group of advisors have been absolutely fantastic, totally indispensible to getting things right.

Wed. 7.2

Yesterday met Leigh Gibson at the British Council offices close to Trafalgar Square. Talked about Veil and Leigh explained the BC’s current strategies and priority areas – one of which is the Middle East. Brief fantasy intermission of Veil touring Iraq, but more realistically it brought home the fact that we need to think about what sort of education programme should be developed to complement the show. Anyway, a positive meeting – we’ll have to keep the BC informed as things develop.

I spent part of the train journey down thinking about the 4 visions in Veil. These are tricky as they’re sort of parallel to the main story, merging with it only at the end, but they need to have their own quite separate look. The main problem is they come and go quickly so there’ll be no stage time to set up anything complicated. We’re currently thinking about projections, maybe live camera feed from a puppet/model – whatever the solution it’s going to need really serious coordination between the designer, filmmaker and director.

Sun 4.2

I have to think about Veil, about how to describe it. This is on my mind because we’re going to London to meet the British Council on Tuesday and I’m sure to be asked. Actually I find it a difficult question to answer. I’ve spent the past year writing the piece and that has been about keeping balls in the air – keeping all the various threads that make up the story in some sort of balance with one another. Having to describe the end result in simple terms feels like dropping most of the balls…

Sat. 3.2

Now it’s just a matter of waiting; actually it’s been just waiting for several months now. The script, the story, is in place; the designer, the film maker – but to do it we need some money. And that means a NTG – a National Touring Grant. George (Harris) put the application in (to the Arts Council) at the beginning of December and it’s a 12 weeks wait, so we estimate that we should hear sometime in the middle of February. Last week was the first meeting of most of the creative team; and then the next day (Friday) we went to Lancaster to talk to the people at the Dukes (Playhouse) and make arrangements about moving the show into their theatre for the final rehearsal period in October. These were both great meetings, with lots of enthusiasm and excitement; lots of potential.

 

CONTACT BOB FRITH bob@horseandbamboo.org

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