Drama/Trauma plus feedback opportunity.

Well that was interesting, I did a performance of The Middle Bit as an almost totally audience driven improvisation session. It was interesting but might have had a tendency to become white noise rather than a symphony. Next time, as every time, I will do a few things differently. I learnt a lot, which is the idea, this time it was the more subtle suggestions that, on reflection, were the most interesting. Namely John Arbuckle seeing his own death and having a happy thought.

I was really rubbish with the feedback session, so if you have any feedback that you want to give then you can do it here by posting a comment and it can even be anonymously, so plaudits and brickbats are welcome in equal measure.

The trauma refers to Paul, from the first piece of the night, who came off his bike in a pretty nasty way, he was being looked after by a Spaniard called B when i cycled round the corner of Beauley Road, we waited around until the ambulance arrived. Hope your doing better if you end up reading this.

I'm sure I've said it before but it bears repeating- Prototype is of national importance. I don't know of any other scratch night in the country that draws such a large audience or has performances of such diversity and quality.

Now stupidly i didn't take an info sheet with me, so prepare for inaccuracies (details will be appended when i have them)-

The first company directed by Caroline Hunt, gave us a little segment of welsh weirdness, 8 men bashing seven shades out of an Afank (this was a monster and the most ambitious scratch night prop i have ever seen.) There were interesting dynamics in the group and the relentless and futility of the violence would work well given more time.

Next was me, but I've already gone through that. After which there were two guys doing pure improvisation, it worked out well, with moments of whimsy and comedy, it was play of a fine order, with complicity, good timing and sublimated games.

Oh not to forget the installation in the bar, a little hut for the viewing of an art work: lovely little time spent outside the cares of the world.

Then came Tom Marshman, this time in the guise of a soldier planning a doomed love affair. I liked the simplicity, silliness, poetry of the work, the projects of him running around a fort and the tiny plastic soldiers, with the extended metaphor of a relationship as military campaign.

Then to round off the evening Tom Wainwright, gave us a slice of his goldfish-guilt inspired nightmare, i haven't seen any of his previous work and this made me wish that i had- great physical control and awareness. So much of physical theatre only really works once you can do it well on the technical level, and not just that but do it well with feeling. So that was great to see, excellent choice of music, the harsh sounds of Grime fitting perfectly with the shopping centre paranoia face of the protagonist.