Bringing Letters to Life.

Tonight's performance of Letters Live hammered home my deficiencies as a writer. 

This may sound negative, but it isn't. Watching the show was a beautifully enriching experience. It served to remind me how powerful, emotive and evocative a letter can be. It can act like a direct channel to the thoughts and feelings of people of the past; more than a list of dates or statistics in a history book will ever do. 

It made me mourn the near loss of the medium as a form of communication. You could argue that the email has replaced it - but there's something sterile and emotionless about an existenceless collection of characters on a computer screen, when compared to sheet after sheet of hand-or-typewritten correspondence. It's less tangible, and somehow less valuable for it.

It helped that the letters were beautifully read. A whole of host of familiar faces stepped up to the lectern (their bodies were there too), including Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliet Stevenson, Toby Jones, Matt Berry and Kylie Minogue. Each person brought their letter to life. The show wasn't about celebrity, despite the present A-list. It was about what they read. We weren't interested in the famous person in the room, but the thoughts of the person that they were priveliged to subsume, absorb and relay.

Some of the letters were shockingly private and intimate. All were performed tactfully and with respect. The fact that they were mostly read by actors made me connect with the content quicker and easier than if I'd just been reading them to myself. 

I was struck by how conversational they were. This could be to do with the method in which they were written; the restriction of writing longhand or with a typewriter made it more difficult to self-edit, resulting in a more honest, more stream-of-consciousness outcome, Not that there isn't such a thing as a second draft. 

The show reminded me that we're essentially all the same. The human animal doesn't change. We all have similar worries and desires. We're all connected by the same emotions. I just wish I could convey mine as succinctly as the unwitting authors of Letters Live did. 

I once received a letter from the actress who played Dorothy Burke in Neighbours. I was sad to see it didn't make the cut.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...
Read more

Hoo-ray and up She Rises.

So much has happened since my last post in March that this blog risks sounding like an itinerary. The main news is that Hitchin Mostly Comedy will return in the summer at a new venue, the Queen Mother Theatre . The road to this decision was convoluted, though enough fell into place en route to leave me optimistic about this new start. The catalyst was a survey I ran via our mailing list a few months back, in which I asked, "If the club returned in the current climate, with tickets still around £15 (and with similar line-ups), would you still attend?"; the response to which, in simple terms, was a resounding yes. Nearly 250 mailing list subscribers responded in a single week, with around a hundred also taking the option to leave some feedback. And only two people were abusive, which counts as a win when you consider they posted their comments online anonymously. Imagine how many more insults we would have received if the comedy club was a woman. Particularly if she was Diane ...
Read more