From Anarchist to Sleepwalker, and back

Dear readers,

I thought I'd jump forward in time (to today!) and talk a little about the new character Anna (pictured) and I are currently working on.

Following Dolly - whom we saw very much as a conformist and a conservative - we wanted to try & go to the other extreme with the next character. Our interpretation of Dolly turned out to be a control-freak who eventually has to break out of her perfection - with rather dramatic consequences, one could say. So, I was really tempted to give Anna the opportunity to show a completely different side to her, someone who is more loose and more comfortable stating her true nature.

We dreamed up Anarchist, a very direct character who asserts her needs and desires. Well, doesn't just assert herself, but demands change in society. We were trying to think of instances where people actually do this. Politics, maybe, to some extent - at least that's how I understand the word politics, that it should be about change, pushing for a (more) desirable state of affairs. I don't know why but when I tried to write a text that was totally earnest and critical of the status quo, I ended up writing a character that would probably be best labelled A Hypocrite...certainly not an Anarchist. So I scrapped that text for now, and we went back to square one.

We then tried to think of instances we were more familiar with, real people as opposed to (paid) politicians; individuals who stand up at Speakers Corner one day, because they have a burning desire to be heard, or indeed...people ranting on the bus. We thought about doing a Punk as our next character. Late 70s, early 80s, there was certainly a lot of Anger and Angst about. And interesting fashion :) But something still didn't quite click.

Then I spent some evenings trying to write a rap. Yeah, like...really. Those who know me will see just how ludicrous the idea is, me sipping on a glass of wine in Shoreditch and trying to rap some angry lyrics. Oh well. The idea of rap came because I was trying to find a tone in mainstream media that resembles sustained anger, the kind of anger that starts revolutions, whether small or large. Perhaps needless to say, this approach didn't quite work either, so we went back to the drawing board.

Then I wrote a new text, at the foundation of which I had the idea of individual need for freedom of expression. The text felt heavy and I was concerned it was too direct. But it was directness we had set out to achieve, so I asked Anna to read it. I was so excited to hear the text come alive - and realised it's possible to work completely against the text's bluntness by interpreting it more softly. So we went to the other extreme...instead of a Politician, or an Activist, or a Punk, or a Rapper - she is a Sleepwalker! More on this later - but I'm SOOOO excited :)

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