You
live in Southampton but you also call Ventnor your home....
I
moved there in 1989 with my parents and came to University in Southampton so I
was kind of flipping and flopping between the Island and here. I moved back
to the Island when I left University in 1992 and lived all over - but then settled
in Ventnor in 1997.
I was running my first theatre company (Ferret
Theatre Co,) and I was in a band called the Jones’s, at the time we were
probably the biggest band on the Island and we used to go down really well in
Ventnor. I ended up moving there in ’97 and lived there for five years
and just kind of got to know lots of people including The Bees, who all live in
Ventnor because there’s a real scene in Ventnor, but it’s very underground. You
look at Ventnor and you would think what is so special about this place, but it’s
the underground scene. Because there’s nothing to do we all entertain
ourselves by putting on parties and going down the beach. So as I met more
and more people I became part of the community and loved every minute of it. I
call it my spiritual home. Ventnor's also been
an inspiration too....
Absolutely, I was working with Ken Campbell and
we wrote a play in a hotel there in ’95. He was doing a show and he
got me in to help him with it. That was the first time that I'd had anything
to do with Ventnor. Ventnor's a weird place, if you live on the Island you
don't go there – it has its own thing and has a mad reputation that it’s
full of nutters, which it is. There was a classic front line in the County
Press in 1998/99 which said something like ‘One in Three People in Ventnor
Mad - official.’ How did you find out that
you could write plays?
Well, it’s an odd thing because the first
play I wrote was when I was 25 - up until then I'd kind of had a feeling that
I wanted to write but I'd had no training for one thing and I never really did
anything about it and then a mate of mine took me to a drama group. I went one
week and I thought ‘I could write something better than that’ so I
did. Within about six months I'd taken the whole
thing over, we were doing my play and I was directing it and, with practice I
got better at it. The first play I wrote was The Goggle Box - it was fortunate
because people liked it and it opened up a lot of doors, we got funding and I
started to get an audience for my work, which gave me a lot of confidence. My
target audience is people who don't usually go to the theatre – I call it
rock n' roll theatre because I'm trying to attract that sort of crowd. I've
been developing an aesthetic in my work and my directing that will make it more
accessible for that kind of crowd. I like rough edges in my work, not sloppy,
but I don't want it to be shiny and the way people think of theatre, I want it
to mess with their heads a bit. When did you write
Beat Freak?
I wrote the journal that it’s based on in 2001 when
I went a bit loopy and had a breakdown, I am one of the ‘one in three’!
So I just went off and kept a journal and then didn't know what to do with it
as by then I'd had enough of my career because I'd had so many disappointments
and I only got back on with it a year ago. But I'm going to Edinburgh this
summer so it’s all worked out! Just to be going with this show is very cool. Once
you'd written Beat Freak how did you go about the actual performance?
That’s
been hard, because I've never written a one man show before but Ken (Campbell)
is the one man master, so he’s helped me a lot and I've spent time with
him to see how he does it. I like the idea of performing in that environment,
you can't hide! I did my first performance last Friday to some mates to
try it out. I have scripted it but it’s different with a one man show you
have to devise it and you only get better the more you perform it. I'll
be doing 21 nights (in Edinburgh) so I should be on it by then! Tell
me more about the play….
It’s an hour, but it
whizzes by like you wouldn't believe! It’s really scary how it goes
by, I found that out on Friday when I over-ran so I've got to cut it a little
bit, I'm still a little bit loose on my words, it is a process of just finding
the show, it’s not like that with a play which I've got in my head and I've
planned it . I am the main character but there are
different characters that come in and out and I play them as well. I play
King Solomon, he turns up from time to time and steals the show, I like his character,
he acts as my guardian angel and turns up just as I'm about to do something really
daft and gets me out of trouble. And I play all the
different characters that I meet along the way, it’s got elements of drama,
there’s little bits of stand-up and I even lecture at some points! I give
these little speed lectures on culture and anti-globalisation just to fill people
in really because I name check it or refer to it in the show. What
are you like as a person, what do you do to chill out?
I like to go back
to the Island, but I can't live there anymore because it’s just too much
– it’s just one big party, particularly in the summer it’s just
loopy and I just can't do it. Living here is nice because then when I want
to I can go over there for three or four days and it’s like a little holiday
for me. Sometimes I go round to Paul’s (Butler, The Bees) and we just
go and jam in their studio. I write music as well and I'm into rap, it shouldn't
really work but I like doing it, I love music. I
adore the cinema but I tell you what I don't do, I never go to the theatre I think
that a lot of theatre sucks and it's totally against what I'm into. The
part of the theatre world that does know of me tries to keep me at arms length
because I'm trying to shake it up! A lot of my mates don't come to see my
shows because of the whole impression of theatre and I understand that. What
are your plans after Edinburgh?
Who knows anything could happen! I think
I'm at the best point of my career at the moment because this is the moment when
hopefully all those years of hard work will pay off and I'm definitely ready for
it! | 
