" So the last day of devising before CRUNCH time tomorrow.........oh hang on....this is something I need to get out of my head there's no pressure- tomorrow's showing is just a 'sharing of ideas', it does'nt need to be a 'polished piece'.....(something I'm finding hard to remember) It's just a 'work in progress presentation'.Tomorrow is just a chance for us to perform what we have to an audience, however abstract and muddled it may be. With that in mind, we agree that it would be valuable to include some of the earlier scenes we came up with.

Next step is working out the order of the scenes. We decide that for tomorrow's presentation we will show the 'penny motifs' in between each of the 'family' scenes. This will hopefully break things up a bit, but also avoid the audience from feeling that they are being presented with two different pieces.

Next stop is getting these motifs sorted. There 's been a lot of chat about the 'pissing the money scene', but we ve never actually got it on it's feet. Simon, Carey and Preston produce a brilliant sketch which is very funny (no pressure for tomorrow guys!) and if you've ever had the pleasure of hitting a Fulham club on a Saturday night you will definitely have a chuckle.

The rest of the morning we spend revisiting the family scenes we showed Abi yesterday, then onto the 'repeated movement sequence'. It feels good to return to stuff we came up with early on, as some of it was interesting. Our excitement at the discovery of Cary's genius Dr Crankson and our desire to create a 'story which makes sense', meant that we ditched some stuff which was rather good. So it was back to Lucia and her shoe, Preston and his telephone, Carey and his card, Simon and his caravan and me and my cheese (or bread, still have'nt decided....it changes every time).

Before lunch we have a stagger through the proposed order and feel like we have included what we want. (I still feel we need to keep insight what we are trying to say with this piece, but by including some earlier work, it feels like we have re-opened some doors we had previously closed.)

Lunch... Its been a long, productive, morning - which is good (but getting a bit giggly now and finding silly things hilarious) need food and fresh air and to be in a room that is'nt YELLOW.

A run with music follows lunch. The shorter sketches with the pennies, were really effective.

(though we all have smelly, greying hands from fingering them so much, and picking them off the floor at the end of each day is BORING!)

Catriona then arrives with the DVD, a promotional short film, we filmed during rehearsals and in St Andrews. We all crowd around the laptop to have a look (it reminded me of an early La Ronde rehearsal.... but the thing we are about to watch is quite different!) It's brilliant....we are all really pleased - it manages to catch the spirit of the company and both plays- you really get a taste of the hectic yet exciting, creative vibe we had during rehearsals... (plus we discovered that Cary has the LONGEST legs ever and that Lucia has nice hands.)

The work we have done today has been re assuring and after yesterday's questioning, I feel that by revisiting the material we discovered in the earlier part of the process, tomorrow's showing will share with the audience the various themes and styles we have explored. "

Ellie.

" Back at Deer Park Road where we did our rehearsals for the tour and, removed from the psychedelic cinema, the welcome addition of a window into the process. Suitably refreshed by sunlight we set to work on the reminiscences of the birthday and further embellished the script whilst working on some complementary physical action for the scene. This was in preparation for a visit from the director of Oliver Twist who was coming in to cast an eye over our efforts and give some feedback. It was to prove a very useful visit.

We ran through the work that had been selected for possible inclusion and strung it together according to the loose storyline that we had been discussing. It was still a fairly disjointed affair and very rough but importantly the presence of an outside eye was able to sort some of the stronger themes from work that was cluttered and unclear. Whilst we are going to retain much of the imagery that we have worked upon in the previous days and develop some of the themes we went on to spend much of the afternoon returning to the heart of what we want to achieve with the final result of this work in March. It proved to be a good exercise in sharpening cast focus in terms of content as we all returned to the question of exactly what we wanted the project to be about as well as what we wanted our audience to experience. This had become slightly muddied in the process of devising and through our discussions I think we have realised that we need to specify our narrative intent regarding whilst broadening our approach to what the end result of our work ought to be in terms of structure. We have also thrown off the shackles (self imposed) of the performance on Sunday being in any way definitive which I think had begun to take over.

So the day has thrown up as many questions as answers, as many of these days have, but I feel that we are now in a position to move forward without some of the restrictions that we had placed on our work by the pursuit of a linear narrative. What it means for Sunday is not yet clear, but I think it will pay off in March. "

Simon.

" Day 3. Big Day. Arrived a little late, a little dishevelled, oops. Homework. Oooooh Yeah. Funny Story. Well not that funny. Not funny at all actually. It died. Yeah. Just like that. Dead. Out of the blue, you know. We really weren't expecting it. The whole family's devastated. I don't really wanna talk about it actually. Noooo, I haven't been out all night. Yes I have been home. I just look terrible. Shall we move on? Yeeaaahh. Probably for the best.

So. Homework. Monologues reminiscing the good times, Ellie's Birthday. Everyone reads out what they've done one by one. Lucia first, Of course it's brilliant. Very stern. The iron will of a child murdering mother. The iron softens to reveal a warm but firm kind of love. Sometimes even shocking herself at how sweet and lovely her offspring is. “Yes, I remember that.” Very Funny. Preston gushes over his little princess. Rose tinted teary eyed pride. Obviously relishing the memories of lavish excess and proper parenting. I sink deeper in my chair as each one finishes and eyes search vacant, unwilling faces for a volunteer. Are they vacant? Unwilling? No! Just projecting my face onto everyone else's to hide my shame. Another hand reaches for paper. Ellie's begins before the party's even begun. All wide eyed, exuberant anticipation. The Dress, the friends, the... hang on a minute, what's that accent? Over night she's become a character from a Virginia Wolfe novel. She's actually a little princess. Brilliant. An annoying little know it all, six year old sister, who always gets her own way. But quite sweet. Sometimes. Sterling work. Who's next? Oh God, he's even typed his up. Can I blag it? Pretend I'm reading from my notebook and just make it up? Easily done. But I'll be found out in the end. I'm not a deceptive person. Am I? Simon has lost about twenty years, and is now the much older and clearly much wiser, ten year old brother. Clueless, but obviously a man. If it were his party there would be none of this girly kids stuff, no. He would have played the temple of Doom amongst the hundreds of candles and made the bouncy castle tip over. Which to be fair is exactly what I did the last time I got on a bouncy castle, and that was only three years ago. So... Notebook in hand. It's my turn. I can't lie. I blurt out sheepishly that I haven't done it. Come clean that I was going to deceive them all. Undermine all their hard work and pretend I was reading from my book. So that's what I did... I laugh... Preston thinks it's a double bluff. Braces himself for the randomness that so often drizzles out of my mouth. “ Oh God, what have you written”. I begin the strange story of a loner lost in a party of pretty... Bouncing... Boobless... Beauties. Who is this man? Dr Crankson? Why is he here? Who knows? I continue on. Roaming the lawn lost and loving it. Until my pointless drivel comes to an end.

But not so pointless. Thus ensues a discussion on who is Dr Crankson. Friend? Foe? Or both? Is he a member of the family? Do we need to know? Well yes. Yes we do. Who is he? So far it's been kept purposely hazy and unclear. He's the mysterious stranger, with the air and the drugs. I prefer Eldest son. We throw ideas around. Family friend. Random Doctor. Imaginary friend. Hmm, been mentioned before but never seriously considered. That could work. That explains why I'm always there, and feel no anxiety about the systematic annihilation of a small child. Brilliant. Simon's imaginary friend.

Suddenly the entire room is fired into action and the play takes a violent turn. Whilst staying in exactly the same direction. We replay scenes from previous impro's with hilarious consequences, and form a coherent through line, well it makes sense in our heads, ish. We re-jig the monologues So I'm only ever mentioned by Simon, and stitch them together into an interwoven work of genius.

And break for lunch. Italian. Two courses for £4.95. Delicious.

After Lunch we decide on an order of play. Cut what doesn't work. Eric Stick Thin hit the cutting room floor, only to be dusted of and put safely in a draw. Just in case. The pooh scene, as it is now affectionately known, had to go. Probably never to return, but maybe in March. No point in crow bar-ing it in for no good reason, when it doesn't really fit. Alas the Pooh shall be dearly missed.

New scene. Titled a scene to show their lack of money. They drop money. Embrace. Decide. The choice is made. Ellie is dead. The music is light. The tone is Dark. Donnie Dark o.

Running out of steam. Getting late. The carpet's freaking us out. Simon is sick. Preston is seeing green lines on the floor when they aren't there. Oh, hang on, they are there. This cinema is getting a bit much. Glad we're at Deer Park road tomorrow. Yeah me too. Oh Yeah. We've got to deal with transporting three thousand four hundred pennys. Suddenly everyone has plans for the evening. Preston and I shared the burden. Though I believe my share may have been considerably smaller then his. AND HOME. "

Cary.

" Having scripted some of the impro's we developed yesterday - we began this morning by sharing our refined scripts of yesterdays work. Cary had worked on a band new scene involving three of the characters we discovered the day before. Very amusing!

We then started thinking about the idea of story-telling and using the idea of "story" as theme as well as a re-occurring motif. Thinking in terms of the myth of King Erysikhthon - we feel this idea of "story" may become a strong strand within the piece. We talked about recording on video some real stories and incidences that actually have happened to us on tour. Then using this style of re-telling as a theme in itself. We are interested in how everyone remembers things differently. So an account of the same event may be very different, depending on who is remembering it.

We then collectively made up a memory for our "family" - that of Ellie's eighth birthday. We told the story between us, speaking as our character. The idea was to generate a pure and happy memory, of a time when the family was healthy and well off. A time before the world lost all it's money and the food became scarce. We seem to now be heading towards a piece of theatre which will have at it's centre the issue of a dead child. We thought it would be less sentimental to choose a memory before things went wrong - rather than remember Ellie after her death, when the families thought will be tainted by sadness, loss and regret.

After lunch we spent a couple of hours messing around with thousands of pennies. We got £30 changed into pennies at the bank and so literally had thousands of coins with us in the rehearsal room. This was a great resource and we came up with lots of striking imagery regarding, waste, loss and frivolous attitudes to money.

After a few more impro games, we re-visited some of the scenes we worked on before and tried to incorporate the pennies into each scene. We like the idea that by the end of our piece, we will have covered the space entirely in money. "

Lucia.

" We all arrived having researched our designated presentation's.

Simon went first with what he had found out about 'The Theatre of the Absurd', which was quickly followed up with what Cary had found out about Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. Both were closely connected and we were able to see a close resemblance to the type of theatre we wanted to produce. We also talked about Ionesco's plays, Rhinoceros and The Egg.
Then it was my turn but unfortunately my trip to the BFI (British Film Institute) had bee quite fruitless as I was past from pillar to post as each information desk past the buck and moved me onto another information desk and different buildings in different parts of London. Sound familiar?
Lucia's information on movement and dance seemed to come from love and music as the beat and rhythm of the music works with the heart. It was discussed that humans were the only living form that danced bringing out their different emotions but then it was thought that animals have their own forms of dance also ie; before mating.
Matt had researched different music and sounds and demonstrated how the sound of a ticking clock could feel uncomfortable and seem an incredibly long time even though only played for a minute.
Ellie went last with her research on the 'Credit Crunch'. Most of her information was coming from mortgages and the housing market. It seems that things were so good and that there was so much money that the banks were then lending to people with higher risk. Larger amounts of money was lent out earning the banks larger amounts of money through the interest. However, not all of these 'high risk' mortgages were able to be paid back. This meant that the banks had to borrow more money from other banks to keep the lending of mortgages strong. People became bankrupt, lost their homes and houses were selling for less. Panic set in and people who had savings in the banks wanted to withdraw their money but there was not enough money in the banks. I'm sure I've got this a little muddled up and proved to myself and all you reading this that I still don't understand The Credit Crunch at all, but hey, I gave it a go!!!!!

Just before lunch we found we kept coming back to one of our original thoughts, which is that 'the air is too rich' which came from an improvisation that Ellie did way back in August. With this thought in mind, I then mentioned how my Grandparents used to have an empty, very elaborate, decanter on the dinner table and convinced us grandchildren (we were very young) that it was full of air and that if we poured the air onto our food it made the food taste better. We believed them and it worked in getting us to eat our food. This made us discuss the possibilities of people being brainwashed into believing what ever they're told by the government.

After lunch we did an improvisation by passing a sequence of words repetitively in the same order from one to another. We then moved this same sequence of words into a simple scene of sitting at a dinner table and passing a bottle of air around the table. Quite naturally we individually took on different roles and then we started to play the scene properly. Ellie became the person we had all ganged up on. We then split into two groups and created scenes, in a very raw form, stemming from what had happened with the dinner table sketch. Matt, Lucia and Cary worked using the sound of a travelling train, and rain with the idea that they were having a secrete meeting discussing how the plan to starve Ellie by making her believe that she was able to eat imaginary food with air to make it taste better.

Simon, Ellie and myself later explored the idea, using the sound of a ticking clock, that the 'imaginary food' plan had come from the government. The idea was that there was not enough food, so each family would have to choose a sibling to starve with the 'imaginary food' plan and eventually the family would have a person to eat once they had died from starvation. Quite sick, I know! It had to be played as though it was a very normal meeting in the houses of parliament to show how decisions, that involve us all, are made so easily by a couple of people in high positions. The question being; at which point would the eating of siblings to feed a family stop!

The day was left with Simon, Ellie, Lucia and Cary going home to write, some form of scripts, based on the days work.

My job was to write this diary entry. I hope you've found it interesting and not too confusing. I can't wait to see what the others come up with for Wednesday when we next meet. "

Preston.

Over night, each member of the Ensemble prepared a scenario in which to direct the others.

Scenarios
Simon played with improvisation off - setting his scenario off and then feeding the performers with suggestions on paper notes. This worked well as it took pressure off the performers.

With thoughts of family and identity, Lucia's scenario involved a family waiting to hear their deceised father's will being read out. Lucia set it up as an improvisation, and used her collegues imaginations to develop plot and character.

Preston explored the idea of two parallel plots running alongside each other, with Simon and Ellie as well-off Londerers dealing with her buliemia; and Cary and Lucia as two African's farming the food the Londoner's are eating, whilst dealing with their own starvation.

Repetition
Each performer took a newpaper article and found a domestic activity within it - faking a credit card - ironing a shirt - eating breakfast etc. The activity was then mimed in precise detail, whilst Matt played easy-listening music. Once the activity became routine, Matt then changed the style of the music, allowing the performers to explore the movement in new ways.

I brought performers out of the exercise individually to observe so they could get an understanding of how the music was affecting their collegues. 'Moonlight Sonata' brought out the mundane in Simon's bed making as a man living in a caravan. Lucia was changeing a nappy before beating the baby with a shoe. The different changes in the music made her actions chilling yet compelling.

'Stop'
We then explored an idea of Lucia's. Whilst they continued their actions, Matt stopped the music and they froze. I then said 'Stop. What are you doing? Why? Who's responcible?'. New music would then play and they would continue their action. This was then repeated with fresh changes of music.

The Next Stage
We discussed which exercises the group liked best - which issues - which themes. The present financial situation was the main choice, with the effect on family.

Research
Each performer has left with research, ready for a week of devising before November 2nd's presentation. Ellie is researching 'The Credit Crunch'; Cary, absurd theatre; Simon, Artaud; Preston, use of film; Lucia, use of movement and dance; and Matt, use of music.

All of them, will keep their eyes on the papers whilst on tour with Oliver Twist and La Ronde.

Here's to 'Project X'.

Neil.

Our aim for today and tomorrow is to work out what our 'Project X' is going to say. The breif for 'Project X' is to create a piece of theatre inspired by the Ensemble's work on Oliver Twist and La Ronde. It will probably not have a name for a while, but we hope to perform it once a week during our 3 week run at Riverside Studios in March 2009.

Before today, we had discussed the themes in both plays, coming up with 'Povery', 'Prostitution', 'Youth Crime', 'Family', 'Identity', 'Diverse sections of Society being brought together', and the Ensemble were left to scour the press for relevant articles.

Newspaper Articles
We had collected lots of articles surrounding the 'Credit Crunch', from the transparency of 'finance', to the 'Bank Bailouts', to the Stock Exchange. This issue connected with all of us, and had come from the theme of 'Poverty' in OT. We looked at some of the horric reports of brutal attacks on women - 'Youth Crime'. A letter from 'John' to the London Paper about his visit to a prostitute roused our interest. A family who had been flooded out of there house and were having to live in a caravan connected with us, regarding the themes of 'Family', 'Identity', 'Diverse sections of Society being brought together'.

Music
Back in August, on the first day of rehearsal, we spent time exploring the individual actor in the space. A simple exercise requiring the actor to step into the space and just be, monitoring their emotional and physical responces. We repeated this exercise, but this time we chose an emotion for each performer to explore, and played a piece of music for the performer to work with or against. Matt, the Ensemble's technical manager, had researched contemporary music that he felt reflected OT and LR. Tracks from 'Declare Independence' by Bjork, to 'Prostitute' by Toyah Willcox.
This was very interesting to show how we could read a person's mind and emotions though their behaviour ro the music. As each performer took their turn, the rest of us observed and read our own stories into each piece.

Emotions Improvisation
An exercise that Jack Shepherd introduced to the Ensemble early on in rehearsals, and I used alot during the rehearsals for La Ronde, is one where the performers are given an emotion each and a very simple scenario. They would then begin the improvisation innocent of any further knowledge, discovering facts and relationships together during the scene. Each performer's emotion drives that character through the scene.
We chose family scenarios to explore. For example, Cary (with the emotion of Jealousy) and Simon (Embarrassment) were given the simple instruction that they were brothers. An extremely interesting scene, whereby Cary had not-so-accidentally pushed Simon's daughter off a table, followed. At times humourous, at times disturbing, at times affecting, the resulting scenes gave us ideas as to how to develop plots and scenes around our chosen themes.

Absurd Theatre
We then split into two groups, one taking a newspaper article on greed and the 'credit crunch', the other took articles on disintergration of society with 'girl raped and attacked whilst 999 opporater hung up', 'family still living in caravan a year after flood'. This resulted in Lucia, Cary and Preston presenting a sketch whereby a family fought over the only chair, and resorted to killing Cary - whilst only using lines from their newspaper articles. Ellie and Simon's sketch involved the owner of a huge supply of air, and the owner of a huge amount of dust negotiating.

Movement to Music
Again, spliting into two, each group explored one of the themes through movement to music. Preston and Ellie's involved the dance of a man remembering his dead daughter. Interestingly, both groups picked similar instrumental music.

Verbatum Text
Finally, we took a column written in The London Paper by a man explaining why he slept with a prostitute. This was to explore an article using the actual text. Simon and Preston split the text into a dialogue, turning the writer's argument into a debate. Cary mostly read the text whilst Lucia and Ellie presented the scenes he was refering to, behind him.

A really good first day. Lot's of exercises, helping us to explore what we want the project to be about.

Neil.

This November, we open our rehearsal process with 3 work-in-progress presentations at Riverside Studios, and invite your involvement.

Sunday 2nd November @ 1pm
Facilitated by Artistic Director, Neil Sheppeck, the Oliver Twist/
La Ronde ensemble present work fired and inspired by their rehearsal process, and relevant current affairs. Devised work fed by and in turn feeding the tour, that will conclude at Riverside Studios for three weeks in March 2009, where a developed form of this devised work will be presented.

Sunday 9th November @ 1pm
Jack Shepherd will lead a collection of regular Love&Madness actors, exploring Greek Theatre for a week, resulting in this presentation. The beginning of a process, that is leading towards a full performance of Sophocles' Ajax at Riverside Studios in May 2009.

Sunday 16th November @ 1pm
After the first week of rehearsals, the cast of Chantal Schaul's
Mirror Magic Market Tales will explore the interactive and imaginative challenges of prominade magic-realism theatre, presenting their work as part of preparing for a four-week festive run of the play at Riverside Studios in December 2008.

All presentations will last approx. 1hr and be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

Please join us at Riverside Studios for these exciting afternoons.

Good fortune, Neil.