Making The Pilots

The End

2008-02-28T08:17:00.000-08:00

Mole says 'I think we're nearly there' and it's one hour before the work in progress at the Arnolfini. This is four months after we started and a week before the premiere in Leeds Met Studio where our journey began. Whatever happens tonight the tour begins next week. The shoes have been bought. The Pilots costumes have been made. Hand stitched insignias from an army surplus shop. We bought Club Tropicana from i-tunes and a cable to project it with and that's the end of the show sorted. We are set up in the Dark Studio where we arrived a week and a half ago with an empty floor and something resembling a set. We have borrowed fans, heaters and fire extinguishers. A camera case is open. We packed it ourselves. We are at the end and there is nothing left to write. Mole is saying 'I'm empty I'm an empty vessel'. I've wondered when I've been writing this whether it is half full or half empty. I am struggling to fill what I see with sense. I printed this blog out earlier and it has 130 posts. 30000 words about nothing. Or making nothing. Or making something that says nothing. And now here we are. Doing nothing. We hope you come to see The Pilots. We hope you have a good flight. Mole looks at me and says 'Do I look like a pilot?' in the last rehearsal before the audience comes in and I say 'Yes'. Tim turns the lights off and plays Club Tropicana. Mole says 'How do we end this?' Tim says 'What are we doing?' Mole says 'Nothing'. This is the end.

We're outside an airport

2008-02-28T04:37:00.000-08:00

Where are we?
We're outside a nightclub
We're outside an airport
We're in a theatre
We're in Bristol
Monday
Tuesday
Paris
Wednesday
New York
Thursday
Milan

When Tim asks 'Where are we?' he triggers a sound effect of a Boeing 777 taking off. It is loud. It is close. It gives the text an energy it didn't have before. They look up as if the plane is flying over their heads outside an airport and as its vapour trails linger they start to say the days of the week. We arrive in Bristol on Thursday. Where we are now.

It's not changing

2008-02-28T03:33:00.000-08:00

We're watching the video of yesterday's rehearsals and Mole says it feels a bit flat. I say what do you think it needs? More urgency. More energy. More emotion. More purpose. Mole says more direction I think. We're wandering around. I feel like we're stuck in this position of wandering and I keep slowing it down maybe we're too tired or something. Tim says I don't think it's too bad it just peaks and troughs I think. We just need more energy I think. For John I'm only dancing it goes up and then it comes down again. And if we play 'Club Tropicana' when Tim's on the floor it might pick it up again. Mole says 'Yeah'. We are not sure. It's not changing. We talk about the moment when he goes Fuck Fuck Fuck I've drunk too much coffee. Please someone take this text out of my hand before I explode. How it could be 'I'd drunk too much coffee when I wrote this.' And how Mole could be more upset in saying this. Like he is stuck in the future of the script. Folding the past into the present. The writing into the reading. And then when Tim has both copies of the script he reads from them both. Maybe moving from mic to mic. Before Mole asks him 'Is that all one person speaking?'

Feedback

2008-02-28T02:24:00.000-08:00

There were a lot of words in it
I'm not sure I've never heard so many words
Reckless shows are normally known for their
sparseness
It just took me by surprise
Good
A little bit of a departure
Or a shift
To the dark side
And that was only half
So there are a lot of words in the other half too
About the same amount of words
Exactly
There's a bigger set too
What does it mean?
Did you try the fire extinguisher yet?
We haven't got the right one?
If you pull the pin you're going to get very wet
It's going to have to be a prop one
Yes it was very poetic
Don't have a go at me
It's supposed to read like a script
Something that happens to the voice
When you're reading off a sheet of paper and
Something that happens when you're just speaking to someone
It's a really subtle thing
Sounds like you're still reading when you've learned your lines
One of the things when you polish it
Is when to sound like you're reading a script
And when to sound like you're not reading it
That's a practice thing
We're not really at that point
With this second half
We're also rushing it
I suppose the undercurrent that Spanish Train had
The uncomfortableness that it had in the world
It's a Pinter-esque show this one - very menacing
I've heard that before
It's fucking complicated
Fucking complicated
so many
Not just modes of performance
But also levels of performing
Performing
Not performing
Performing when you're not performing
As well as the relationship between
dance and theatre and what performance can be
The internal world of theatre
I had a question yesterday
Is it too knowing?
Yes it is quite knowing
It's in a place that knows quite a lot about theatre
If the knowingness had been a bit surface or a bit crap
It didn't feel like that
There was a lot going on
You could let it breathe a bit more
What like more pauses
Yeah - slow it down
Just that thing
Normally Reckless shows have lots of space
And very beautiful to look at
In quite a conventional way
But you have Pilots costumes
They're quite beautiful
Do I look like a Pilot?
When I asked that question
Did you want to answer me
Did you feel an urge
I thought you were directing that at Tim actually
When you're going don't look at me look at him
There are three of us in that
I think that also not seeing the first half
It\s amazing doing something and thinking
Things don't make sense when you're only looking at the second half
Do you start off as Pilots?
Quite impressive
Quite sharp
Quite dapper
Then you only put them on for two minutes
Think that was quite a nice construct for us
That we're actually not
The whole show is about preparing
For this moment to be Pilots
And as soon as we get there
It's finished
Then we put Club Tropicana on
Don't think that's what it's about
What did you think it was about?
Fucked up relationships
You know when you try and meet someone somewhere and you can never quite make it
Those moments with people actually don't happen that often
It felt like it was a lot of that
Yeah relationships
Your frustrations
With those things
It did feel a bit of a private world
Did you get in it?
Not as easily as I might have done
It's hard to judge
Then you used devices to get me in
Makes me know you're doing it for me
But still doesn't let me in
So there's a barrier
That's not good
But I haven't seen he first half
You do need to let it breathe more
Give me a space
Pauses
A way in
It was funny too
Made me laugh
I only heard you laugh once
I was smiling quite a lot
When I said
Did I pack that myself?
Because it's such a funny
I hate airports
What am I going to say?
I'm going to end up using the train a lot more
That thing about being a kid
It's quite Pilots and Air Stewardesses
It's quite glamorous
And it isn't really
It wasn't glamorous
Your show wasn't
But that image you have in your head
It was out of reach
It was expensive
And it's not glamorous
At all
Anything else
Is that useful?
It is useful yes
I think it confirms
What we were talking about
We left feeling quite empty
Knowing we had a lot to do
I think potentially
I think you can improvise
Really well
It's that thing of when you
Start to play the same tunes
And you know them really well
You can start to piss around with them
We need to let them breathe
We were hurrying
We need to see where your relationship goes from
It was quite intellectual
I thought
Two degrees and an MA between us
And a proofreader and a licensee
I wouldn't want it to go any further
It starts to be pretentious
You've got to keep the relationship the focus
Rather than what it's like to have a relationship on stage with an audience
If theatre doesn't refer to its means of production it tends to be rubbish
Any artform if it's any good
Engages with what it's trying to do
Where it comes from
What its framework is
If it doesn't
If it doesn't
It's normally crap...

Technical requirements

2008-02-27T08:46:00.000-08:00

We want something very simple and something that really refers to that space. The space that this project occupies. There are a few things that we will be bringing. A fan. A heater. A couple of microphone stands. A couple of stepladders. We ask that all lamps in the theatre be placed on the floor. That we work with fluorescent lights. That if possible we can see outside. If not through a glass window then through a CCTV camera that relays a live image from outside to a crappy TV monitor inside. We want to carry out a sound check onstage at the beginning of the show. We will be rigging one light from one of the ladders and focusing another from the floor. So we need a manual lighting desk and sound desk operated on stage. We will not be touring with technical support. We want to keep the travel associated with this project down to a minimum and if possible we will fit this project in a suit or a flight case.

Do I look like a pilot?

2008-02-27T07:01:00.000-08:00

Mole Is that my light? Is this my ladder? Is that my dance floor? Is that my microphone? Do I look like a pilot? Etc. (Mole continues reeling off a list of these questions moving around the stage ending up in the centre. Tim moves SL, sets up Mole’s floor spot, plugs it in, turns off house lights and moves to lighting desk taking his time. Mole gets more frantic with his questions until it reaches a desperate peak).

Someone take this text out of my hand

2008-02-27T07:00:00.001-08:00

Mole I’m vacuous. I’m fucking entertainment. I’m fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck I've drank too much coffee, someone stop me. Someone please take this text out of my hand before I explode. (Tim takes script out of Mole’s hand.)

Can I do this without my trousers?

2008-02-27T06:57:00.001-08:00

Mole Can I do this without trousers. It’s just that I'm a bit hot. Can I do it without socks? Just in my underpants?

Tim YES OK WHATEVER! I don’t know what that is.

Mole YES OK WHATEVER!

Programme

2008-02-27T05:06:00.001-08:00

We make a programme during a coffee break in the Arnolfini bar. We cut and paste entries from the blog. The first post from each venue we've worked at during the devising process. Leeds Met. Preset. Lakeside. Arnolfini. The writing gets closer to the end of the show but we still haven't made it there. It's not a mile off. The nature of marketing is always having to describe work that doesn't exist yet. To sit somewhere between the vague and the specific. The Pilots seems like a paradigm of this paradox because it sits somewhere between the ready and the unready. Half full and half empty. Half written and half unwritten. Half remembered. Half rendered. Half hearted. The work in progress will not feel too different to the finished piece. Two men reading scripts trying to work out where they are in the world and on the page. The programme itself is a work in progress. Text trying to find its place upon the page. Tim says 'Art comes in the door, common sense goes out the window.'

Fire Extinguisher

2008-02-27T04:33:00.000-08:00

It was really nice to see you in the introduction. Seeing you being you. Onstage. We need to find that energy more. Nervous energy. Also in the introduction I think you should say something about why we can't use the fire extinguisher. Like tonight we wanted to use a fire extinguisher but we were told it was hazardous so we can't use it. So there is this point where we use a fire extinguisher but we don't. There is something charged about the space now. There was a clothes rail in the room when we got here and it has found its way into the show. Birdies are hanging off the clothes rail with empty coat hangers. Shoes are on the floor. Ladders and microphone stands are beginning to talk to each other. There are two tables on either side. A fan. An invisible heater. A stack of chairs. A white screen. A video projector. We are waiting for Club Tropicana to show at the end. There is a fire extinguisher which we can't use standing centre stage next to the mic and Mole's brown shoes which were 20% off at Jones. Tim says 'Why do your shoes have to be there?' Mole says 'Because they have to be there. It's predictive.'

Interview

2008-02-27T03:06:00.000-08:00

Last week Tim and Mole talked with Tanuja Amarusuriyah at Theatre Bristol. For a transcript of the interview copy and paste the link below.

http://www.theatrebristol.net/content.asp?CategoryID=1247

I'm in a theatre

2008-02-27T02:59:00.000-08:00

Hello hello
Are we already here
Hello
It's annoying isn't it
What?
That clicking sound
Did Helen say she would introduce it
No I'll introduce it
So maybe we're here
Just larking about
Preparing
That's it the door's closed
Hello
Welcome to this thing...
Welcome to The Pilots (second half)
Some things you won't understand
Because we're going for page 9
I could give you a brief synopsis
But I won't becuase Tim won't let you
It's a work in progress
So it would be great if we could have a chat about it
Not you
Not just you
I don't know you
Although I'm sure you're very nice
We're having a book launch
It's a book about process
So it's a good time to be doing a work in progress
There's wine
I'm not sure how much it'll cost
Come back and see the finished show
It won't be like this it'll be different
It'll be in the theatre
I'm in a theatre

We had a meeting yesterday with the Arnolfini staff about the work in progress tomorrow and Mole decided he would introduce the show. We spend time working on the intoduction finding its way into the text of the work-in-progress. Half way through. Page 9. We talk about how even when they run the full show maybe there should still be a moment on page 9 when Mole mentions it would be nice to get some feedback after the show. 'It would be great if we could have a chat afterwards.' Maybe introduce a post-show talk. Or plug the book. Then realise where they are on the page and the stage and carry on. 'I'm in a theatre'.

Work in Progress

2008-02-27T02:45:00.000-08:00

Mole Hello hello welcome to the show
It’s great to see so many familiar faces
This is The Pilots – work in progress

Tim This is the second half

Mole This is the second half of the show
Which we’ve been working on for the last couple of weeks
We’d appreciate any feedback you have
Not during the show though – afterwards

Tim Book launch

Mole Book launch afterwards about another show
Not this show because we haven’t finished it yet
We couldn’t write one about a show we haven’t finished yet
If you want to see the finished show you’ll have to come back
We’ll be in the theatre
Not in this space
In the big space with seats and lights and stuff
I’m in a theatre
And I’m sorry

Noone's listening

2008-02-22T07:34:00.001-08:00

But there's no gun
But there's no gun
But there's no gun
But there's there's there's nothing
There's no bomb in my suitcase
There's no knife pressed hard against my neck
There's nothing stopping me
There's nothing starting me
There's nothing
There's nothing to worry about
There's noone
There's noone shouting
There's noone screaming
There's noone screaming
There's noone screaming
That's it that's the end goodbye
If you don't listen I'm going to kill you
If you don't listen I'm going to kill you
If you don't listen I'm going to take you all with me
Noone's listening
Noone's listening to me

Weakness

2008-02-22T05:15:00.000-08:00

There is a weakness here. Lots of stars on the text. We are trying to find the holes. You probably thought this was a bit of a joke. Has John gone? Yes John's gone. And then I say When did John arrive? Where are we? Page 7. No whereabouts in the world. Where are we? Has John gone? When did John arrive? Who is John? It's confusing but I think it's OK. Also - John was in the audience earlier but now he's gone. He didn't like what he saw. So we have someone walking out of the room. The door slams but noone has moved. This is a weak weak weak weak bit. It seems like the weak bits are when we go on a journey. We don't really know what the journey is. But we do know. So we need to change it on the page. Tim says 'Maybe we need to make the journey more clear or not as clear.' It could be simple. It could start very cold and we arrive very hot. We could arrive in Ibiza. It's actually not as loaded as it is here. In fact we're describing the journey to the Club Tropicana video.

Objects

2008-02-22T05:06:00.000-08:00

Objects. They need to be set in the space. We need to know the journey they go on. I think I need to wear your shoes. Are they my shoes? We need a place for you to change. I don't like that distraction of you changing in the monologue. You've got a jacket at the beginning which you take off. And you've already got the shoes on. We need to change your trousers. Maybe I'm wearing two pairs of trousers. Like when you're going to a night club and changing when you get there so you're parents don't know what you're wearing. Stripping off layers. We need to work out what the trajectory of the objects are. The fire extinguisher. The microphone stands. The clothes rail. How do we incorporate lanterns. Maybe we rig them on the clothes rail. We need to try something else. Something new. Something different. Something without a history. But we are using objects which have a history to do it.

When do we start to know it?

2008-02-22T05:05:00.000-08:00

Mole asks 'When do we start to know it?' All of this at the beginning is bad but good bad and we don't know it and I think there's a point where it reaches a fluidity. Then it crashes again when I lose my text. But I'm thinking I need to know that text to not know it. For me the graph of the whole show is an arc. Like we don't know it and then we do know it. It starts for me when I say it's January and it's the beginning. Just because that's before the monologue when I need to know it. That's the whole thing. For me that's the one which I should be reading off a script but I'm not. It's a bit backwards which I like. I think these are powerful moments. When you come back on. There is another point when you take control. That turning point is when you come forward to the camera and say 'It feels a bit flat.' I think it's good that we swap. That's the hinge of the show.

Club Tropicana

2008-02-22T02:50:00.000-08:00

Mole and Tim talk about the end. How they are both dressed as Pilots. How they might sit down in the audience where they began. How they might show the video for Club Tropicana. How they might use some of the movement vocabulary from Club Tropicana throughout the show. A cocktail waiter dancing. George Michael sitting on a beach. People sitting around a pool moving their heads from side to side. Two women on donkeys. Two men coming out of the pool and looking at passers by. Mole talks about collecting moments. Moments which he thinks we should call Brief Encounter moments. There aren't that many moments from the Club Tropicana video we can actually use but there are moments we make already which can be used again later. Becoming motifs. We are sowing seeds into the show. Adding and subtracting details. So people might see something and think 'Have I seen that moment already?'. 'Where was I when I saw it'. 'Was I sitting here?'

Nearly there

2008-02-21T06:53:00.000-08:00

Tim says 'At this point it all grinds to a halt' at a time when we don't know what we're doing and he's right. Mole says 'I think we're nearly there'. We look at the text and it says 'Where are we?' and Mole says 'Do we say we're in Bristol and it's Tuesday.' Can we say where and when we are performing at the time and where we will be performing next. Can it become another moment where we think whereabouts are we in the world and on the page. Mole says 'I think we're nearly there'. I think he means near the end of the devising process or he could mean the end of the journey The Pilots are making. Mole says 'I don't think it's a mile off'. We are talking about time and distance in the same terms. They are interchangeable. The end of the process has become the destination and the time it will take has become a geographical journey. We are finding out more about John and George and when we are pretending to be them. Mole says this is so much fucking better. We are nearly there...

Dance floor

2008-02-21T06:14:00.000-08:00

Who the fuck are you?
What the fuck are you doing?
I'm
You're
I'm
What
What are you
I'm
what are you
I'm anyone you want me to be
You can be John
You're John and you're dancing
Yeah that's good
Keep going
'She turns me on'
OK I get it now
you're John and you're dancing
You're You're You're in a night club
And you feel awkward
Do I?
You don't know whether this is the right song for this dance
You don't know whether this is the right dance for this song
You don't whether you should be doing this.
You wonder if you should study the movements of David Bowie before you start making movements like this.
You wonder whether anyone's looking at you
You wonder if you look cool if you look smart if you look sophisticated
You wonder if you look like you know what you're doing
But you don't
Well
Is that it?
Yeah
I think we're a bit stuck here
I don't think this is right
I can't remember what I should be doing here
I'm not sure where here is any more
I've forgotten what we should be doing
I'm just dancing
I'm dancing for a reason but I can't remember why
Just waiting for the end of the record

Your name's not down you're not coming in

2008-02-21T04:39:00.000-08:00

So who are you?
I'm John
You're dancing
I'm dancing
You're John and you're dancing - can we see that
And you're in a night club and it's quite dark
There are lots of people are on the dance floor
And you look cool and you look fantastic
And you know all the moves
But you don't
You're really going for it
And people around you stop
And they start looking at you
And they stand there and they stare at you
And you're still going but suddenly you've lost everything
You've lost your thoughts
You're still standing
You don't know what you're doing anymore
You're still
Who the fuck are you
And what the fuck do you think you're doing
That's the wrong show completely
Who the fuck are you?
I'm John I'm only dancing
Where are you?
I'm outside a night club but I don't think they'll let me in
You've not got no shoes on
I've got no shoes on

John I'm only dancing

2008-02-21T04:12:00.000-08:00

You're John and you're dancing

Do you remember that feeling of going to a club, a school disco? I think being in this room helps. It feels like a night club. A disco. A dark room. I have this overriding feeling of what are we doing here? Why are we in this night club and why are we dancing? Am I thinking about this too much here. Maybe in the overall scheme of things this is the lost, quiet, boring bit. There's been a lot of text. I have no concerns I just want to know why it's here and what we're doing with it. It does follow from Dear John and John's gone and are you John? And a nightclub is mentioned earlier on. Maybe I'm just thinking about it too much. Maybe we should try it again but this time you're John and you're dancing.

Rolling

2008-02-21T03:42:00.000-08:00

I think it's really flat I think we just need to give it more energy. And I know I'm not supposed to be here I'm supposed to be dancing but why don't we try it with a bit more energy.

Every time I start the camera I say 'Rolling'. Mole and Tim have never acknowledged the camera before. This time they walk towards the camera at the end of rehearsing. They walk either side of the tripod and I start to think that the camera might be in the piece and this might be a rehearsal for something they are getting ready to film. Something they want to leave behind. Something they want us to see after the show. Something they want us to see when they've done something. When they've done nothing. When they've gone. Like a terrorist's final message filmed in front of 70s wallpaper with pictures of prophets on the wall. Like a declaration of intent filmed by a gunman which he posts to NBC before he goes on a killing spree and shoots himself last. The Pilots filming their final rehearsal before pretending to be pilots.

Shoes

2008-02-20T06:46:00.000-08:00

Mole says I'm going to take my shoes off. Because I am Sandi Shaw. Because I like taking my shoes off before performing. It feels like I'm preparing. Sometimes I feel like this is same feeling I have when I played rugby. I think it has that same sense of being prepared. Sitting in a dressing room with lots of half naked men. Do you want this on the blog? No. Mole takes his shoes off. Yesterday he made a monologue about shoes. About their cost. Their colour. Their shape. Their style. His sense of fashion. We talk about what we might need to buy some shoes. And what kind of shoes pilots wear. I think about shoe bombers and mosques and changing for PE and taking my shoes off when I went round to a friend's house where they had a new carpet before I went in.

Just a minute

2008-02-20T06:09:00.000-08:00

Can we just talk about this for a minute. I really liked some bits and I really didn't like other bits. I liked it when you were feeding me my lines and also when you were fucking condescending when you said Oooh you got it right. I liked the look of shock on your face. I'd like to retain that. I liked the silence. I loved the feel of that. It felt like we'd edited this text by the process of doing it. Rewriting it live. I liked the moment when we didn't know where we were. What moment? Do you think I should go back to the chair? Yes. I like the bit when I say 'There's a line missing there. You bastard you stole my line.' It took us a while to warm up. It was interesting when you said do you remember we did it this way and I said I know but I want to do something new here and you said no no no that's fine. This is where we started to change direction. I like this transition. Can we try it again? Can we write it down. Is that it?

That's the end

2008-02-19T10:01:00.000-08:00

At this point Mole takes off his trousers. He turns to face Tim and he is ten paces behind him. Tim says 'we are miles apart' and Mole starts to walk towards him. I want him to count to 10. Like the countdown before Ground Control to Major Tom. This is another moment of predictive text where we see something we have been told about in the past of the show. People walk in. A chair moves on its own. A mobile phone goes off. The show is riddled with interruptions that become a part of the show. Mole looks around him and says 'Is that my structural pillar?'. Already the show is responding to where we are. He says to Tim 'Is that my jacket? and Tim says 'No - it's very nice though.' Tim says 'Have you got my tie?' Mole says 'Do I look like an airline pilot?' about ten times and I say 'Yes you do.' Tim says 'OK I think we get the message.' Tim starts to feed Mole his lines. You say you're brilliant and Mole says 'You're brilliant'. We are into the text again. We have made it to the end. We have made another half of the show. The return journey is complete. Mole says 'I am doing nothing' and 'That's the end.'

Ten paces behind you

2008-02-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

So... I want to find a way of doing this without saying so...

So... at this point everything grinds to a halt. And at this point you're thinking what the fuck are they doing, what the fuck am I doing sitting here, what are they doing standing there...

How do you feel

This is torture really isn't it

I think you should do the Kofi Annann mime and I'll put a bag on my head...

[Someone walks in]

I think it's great people just wonder in...

And fucking look for about 30 seconds

Who are you?

I don't know where this is going Tim

You are nobody

I'm nobody. Convince me that I'm George...

Don't look at me look at him don't look at me look at him he's irrestible. I don't have a face. I'm nobody. He's the one you should be watching. Just go with the flow. Bastard. There's a bit more here. I think we need a bit more here. Ah fucking hell I've lost it.

What?

I've lost everything...

What the fuck did that? Did you see that? The ghost chair?

I think that's right

I think we're

Are we?

It's just so hot

That should be you

Can I do this without my trousers

The return journey

2008-02-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

You're supposed to be quiet. You're supposed to be paying attention. That's the rule. I speak. You listen. Because I'm standing here. It happens here and here and over here and over here

I think when we did this earlier we blocked it and you were moving around here

Yeah I know but I was trying something, something new...

I'm just trying to get my head around what it is

Something's missing. Just bear with us a second.

[Silence]

Someone's gonna walk in in a bit

Something happened I'm sure something happened and we've forgotten what it was

See when I did I did I err dance

It was after the dance

Was I was I was I really high was I

You could have been standing on something

Was it windy

I think so

The sun was out but it was windy

I can't remember

Was there traffic?

Yes

We were on our way somewhere.. we had to get somewhere... we're lost or were we trying to get lost. We followed a map.

That rings a bell

Was I angry with you was I walking ten paces behind you? Were you thinking about what was missing and what we've got?

It seemed really important but I can't remember

So do we know where we are

No where... where do you think you are...

I think... I think I'm in a night club...

The residency

2008-02-19T07:47:00.001-08:00

There are suitcases in the Dark Room. Opened up and spilling pants over the floor. Like they have been searched at the airport. We set up the technical desk and talk about what we do now. Where from here. Mole says we should work on from the line: 'Your motivation is this gun I've got pointed at your head' - the last line of the first half of the show. We start working on the section that we have not worked on before. We talk about what shoes Pilots wear. We talk about silence and how there isn't any. We talk about what happens if Tim takes Mole's text away and what might be missing. The journey the pilots have gone on and where they are taking us. What they have seen and why they can't tell us. We talk about how The Pilots is anti-theatrical. A non-event. An anti-climax. A show about two men pretending to be two men pretending. Tim says it's like a reconstuction of a crime that hasn't occurred yet.

The Dark Room

2008-02-19T06:59:00.000-08:00

February 19 February
3pm

Three O'Clock. Three men. Three laptops. Three weeks to go until the premiere. We are in the Dark Room at the Arnolfini in Bristol about to start work again on the final phase of The Pilots. We draw up a list of things we need in the space. A technical specification:

We need as many lights as possible on the floor, not live.
We will focus 2 lamps in the show.
One up a ladder, and one on the floor. Small 1K Fresnel and a floor flood.
Operation on stage.
2 Microphones on stands.
And to be able to play laptop or iPod on stage too.

The Pilots

2008-01-26T09:19:00.001-08:00

This isn’t the first time this has happened. We’ve done this before. Many times. We’re professionals. I know what I’m doing and he knows what he’s doing. And what we’re supposed to be doing isn’t this and what we promised you in the publicity or in the brochures or whatever isn’t what we’re doing now...

Two men are pretending. Two men are pretending to be pilots. Two men are pretending to be George Michael and Andrew Ridgely in the Club Tropicana video pretending to be pilots. Two men are pretending to know what they’re doing. The Pilots follows a flight path from arrival to departure on a journey into uncharted territory. Reckless Sleepers mark 20 years of cutting edge contemporary performance by going back to the beginning. A theatre. An audience. Two men pretending.

The performance is part of a series of works investigating acts of terror and is supported by Arnolfini, Bristol, Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham and Leeds Met Gallery and Studio Theatre.

The Photoshoot

2008-01-10T05:29:00.001-08:00

Images: Julian Hughes

The last post

2007-12-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

This will be the last post of this rehearsal period. We are finishing now for Christmas and working on the missing narrative. We need to work out where The Pilots are going and when they will get there? Why are they pretending to be pilots? What is the journey they are going on? Mole says he always imagined that as the journey of bombers to their terrorist destinations. What they pass on the way. Mole and Tim say the first time they talked about the project they were plotting a journey from where they were born to where they live now. We talk about the months and the passing of time and how that is a structural thing. At the moment we only have January and August. We've got some work to do. The Pilots meet again at the Arnolfini in Bristol in February 2008.

Watch this space

2007-12-12T06:48:00.003-08:00

This is the transcript of the section Tim and I worked on this week. Keeping the times when we lost our place or couldn’t work out who had to say what or stand where. Finding the gaps in between the text. Now we have to find out how to fill the gaps left behind. Watch this space.

Tim: It’s just so hot. That should be you.

Mole: Mmm… well maybe I’m standing near the heater here

Tim: Yeah you stand by the heater then

Mole: goes to stand near the heater, Tim comes back to mic.

Mole: Can I do this without trousers; it’s just that I'm a bit HOT

Can I do it without socks?
Just in my underpants

Tim: YES OK WHATEVER
I don’t know what that is

Mole: YES OK WHATEVER

Tim: There’s a line missing there
You bastard you stole my line…
This is so confusing

Mole: Shall we try it again?

Tim: No keep going
I think it’s fine

Mole: Err… we

Tim: Yeah

Finishing sentences

2007-12-12T06:48:00.001-08:00

No you’re not you’re…

Fucked up and insecure

You’re…

Fucked up and insecure

You’re finishing each other’s sentences. I do that all the time. did that all the time. I used to finish my Dad’s sentences. Now I don’t finish my own sentences. My mum does that. I keep guessing the end of her sentences. ‘Where did I put that… Mouse? Pterodactyl?’ We talk about how if Mole and Tim are filming their journeys from airports then they are living the role of pilots and coming to venues to work out who they are. When they are performing they are off duty. When they are not performing they are flying. When they are not flying they are performing. When they are performing they are not performing. The students who came to the work in progress last week said that you are very good at ‘Performing as if you’re not performing.’ Tim says in the new section: ‘Do I need to write this down? I’m going to write this down.’ As I’m reading it with him I see that line in the script and it still feels like it isn’t there. We are always performing not performing. Tim says ‘Yes I think we’ve really got into that mode with this performance.’

Narrative

2007-12-12T06:47:00.003-08:00

Mole asks ‘What is the narrative?’ and I say it reminds me of a transcript from 9/11 where an air steward is describing what she sees out of the window. ‘I see water. I see buildings. I see the city.’ There is something about describing what you see at the end. I feel like it’s something locating them or locating us on this journey we are taking or not taking. Maybe that’s what we’re missing at the moment. The sense of (dis-)location. We talk about how maybe Mole is getting dressed in front of the heater into his Pilot outfit. Getting dressed. Getting ready for the beginning of the Story Part Two. ‘We had passed the flyover etc.’ Mole says we have to work out what that narrative is and whether it’s just a description of places we’re passing. Or whether it’s something more clever. I wonder if we walk from the nearest airport to the venue and document the journey. Taking photographs of a power station, a disused railway line, an out of town nightclub and a grand old theatre.

Good Pilot Bad Pilot

2007-12-12T06:46:00.001-08:00

We talk about the moment where Tim says ‘I’m a good cop and you’re a bad cop’ and whether that should be a ‘good pilot and a bad pilot.’ One who wants to get you to your destination safely and one who wants to hijack you and commit an act of terror.’ I say ‘I have a knife in my pocket. In your jacket.’ because I borrowed Tim’s coat earlier for the Dr Zhivago moment. I’m holding something sharp to your throat.’ A box cutter. I think about what the terrorists used on 9/11. We talk about language and how this feels like I’m talking to the audience. Taking them hostage on an aeroplane. I am a bad pilot. We talk about how ‘Fuck’ was flippant earlier but has become a threatening word here.

I’m going to kill you, no I’m going to fucking kill you, if you don’t listen I’m going to take you all with me. I’m going to fucking kill you; I’m going to fucking kill you. If you don’t listen, I’m going to take you all with me.

Hello Tim

2007-12-12T06:45:00.001-08:00

Tim’s mum sends him an email to say ‘Hello Tim. I’ve read the blog. Are you quite sure you know who you are?’ Mole says 'I like the way you use the microphone'. You’re always looking to the front when you speak but you’re looking at Tim in between. It’s very clean. I like the pauses. The bits in between. I like the way you’re not sure who says what or who stands where. I think we should just transcribe what you did yesterday and see if the two ends of the tunnel meet. I think you should say ‘We passed the security fence or the cameras.’ Like surveillance cameras or photographic cameras. This is where it begins to be something else. Its only little things. Just words. I like this repetition here. It’s not just repeating it’s a point of reference. Referring to something that’s already happened. A point of reference on a map. It’s doing it again but its different but it has a different setting or the situation is different.

Something else

2007-12-12T06:44:00.001-08:00

We watch a video of Tim and I working through the untouched sections yesterday and Mole says ‘It’s starting to make sense. It’s about something else. That missing hole. Tim has this habit of repeating my first words. And for the first time I did or you did which means the roles have switched. It worked until the moment you put electrodes on Tim’s fingers. Then it became something else. Too explicit. Too in your face. I’m trying to remember when it began to make sense. And when it became about something else.’ We try the Trophy Text at the end of the day. After saying ‘It happened here, and here, and here, and over there and somewhere here’ I start dancing. It feels like a prediction. Later on Tim asks where I am and says ‘I get it, your John and your dancing?’ and I reply ‘I’m John and I’m dancing.’ I say ‘I’m in a night club and I’m vulnerable and I’m scared and I’m not sure whether this is the right dance for this song’ and it ties in with earlier when Mole says ‘I want to be vulnerable and alone’ and Tim takes his microphone away.

Thank you

2007-12-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

We spend the afternoon looking at the text working out what we've worked on and what we need to work on. We have the beginning and the end and in between we have the bits we haven't looked at - at the moment called The Pilots - Untouched. The first section of The Pilots - Untouched is called the First Trophy Text and it's an award acceptance speech. I wonder if this comes out of Tim being on the floor. His 'Please go on without me' text always sounded like a bad parody of an Oscar nomination clip and now I wonder if it was. And maybe he stands up and he takes a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and maybe he says:

Thank you, no really I thank you, I’m not kidding, please believe me…

I’d like to thank you.
No you
All of you.
For coming,
For listening.
For taking the time.

Stop

Its great to get this,
To receive this acknowledgement.
For all of the work, the struggle and the pain.
Its all been worth it, up until now I thought I was walking through the wilderness, I though that I was taking a pointless journey.

And this changes all that.

Ive never received anything like this.

Somewhere here

2007-12-10T07:46:00.000-08:00

Last week Tim and I worked together on what happens after Mole says 'Your motivation is this gun I've got pointed at your head?' and Tim head butts the microphone. It feels like he's dead but at the moment he's still talking. We find a piece of text on page 24. It's sad and mournful and it fits with Tim being still. Mole shifts his focus from Tim to the audience. The show travels from light to dark, comic to confessional.

Lift your head up and listen, you’re supposed to be quiet, you’re supposed to be paying attention, that’s the rule
I speak, you listen
You listen to me because I’m standing here.
I’m trying desperately to reconstruct something for you
I’m trying to make sense
I’m not lying; I’m not making this up.
This is all true,
This isn’t nothing this really happened.
It happened here and here and here and over there and there and somewhere here...

Who am I?

2007-12-10T07:32:00.000-08:00

I watch video of Mole and Tim working on Friday when I wasn't here. Tim is standing on a speaker and I ask why. Mole says they were thinking of statues and speakers as plinths and playing 'Who am I?'

Tim: Who am I?

Mole: Youre Kofi annan
Youre The King of Sheeba
Youre Dr Zhivago, I haven’t a fucking clue who you are

Tim: Who are you?

Mole: I’m nobody

Tim: You are Nicole fucking Kidman. You are George fucking Clooney. No, you’re George fucking Bush. You’re George…you’re fucking George. You’re George George. You’re George the fucking airline pilot. How do you feel?

Mole: How do you want me to feel?

Tim: You’re George and Its raining.

Mole: You’re George and Its sunny.

Tim: No you're George and its sunny.

Mole: You're George and it's raining.

Tim: I'm George and it's raining.
I am entertainment.
I am entertainment.

I move you watch
I speak you listen

Mole: Don’t look at me no don’t look at me like that I insist… Please I insist don’t look at me look at him, he’s irresistible, watch, watch him very very closely, he doesn’t move, don’t look at me look at him.

Fire extinguisher

2007-12-10T07:22:00.000-08:00

Mole sends an email to cheapfireextinguishers.co.uk

We would like to know if it is safe to use a foam extinguisher in a theatre performance on a person. And if so could this be something that you could supply for us.

cheapfireextinguishers.co.uk send an email to Mole

I wouldn't recommend that any extinguisher is used on a person unless they were on fire. There are Health & Safety implications regarding the Foam touching skin and if it gets in eyes, ears, nose, mouth etc or is ingested. I would recommend that you do not do this and find perhaps a safer alternative.

Les Dawson

2007-12-10T06:53:00.000-08:00

We talk about what is real and what is pretending. Tim mentions Les Dawson having to play the piano perfectly in order to play it badly. Mole says Les Dawson lived round the corner from him in Blackpool. He says we need to know this show really well to look like we don't know what we're doing. Really not performing but there being some confusion about what's on stage but what's not onstage. What's already there. Witnessing something rather than watching a performance or being told to. Performances are meant to carry you through. With this you're always knocked back. It puts you back into the real world. The theatre. It doesn't carry you away into a magical world. We are conscious. Constantly. Of where we are. We're supposed to take you somewhere. But we're not. But we are. It's going to take us ages to work this one out.

Power station

2007-12-10T06:42:00.003-08:00

In rehearsal last week we said the heater was a bus. Then it became a car. Today it becomes a power station. In this child play landscape where ladders are mountains and microphones are guns. We talk about how people we know used to say power stations are cloud machines. And how we use a fire extinguisher as a smoke machine which turns Tim into a cloud so it’s a sort of a cloud machine too. Mole says it’s an important moment. Clouds and smoke are the same thing. Or they look like the same thing. Tim and Mole talk about pyroclastic flows and smoke and ash and steam and bombs. We argue about how to spell pyroclastic. Tim says with an a. I say with an o. We still don’t know.

That's as far as we got

2007-12-10T06:42:00.001-08:00

Tim was typing up the text earlier and during the read through we get to the point where he stopped. He says ‘That was as far as we got’ and Mole says ‘It’s all right’ and then they carry on from ‘Have we got anything easy.’ We decide to keep it in the text at that moment. It makes sense as a bridge. Slipping in and out of the text. The rehearsed and the real. There is something about us acknowledging the unfinishedness of the script. The uncertainty of the future of the script that we’re stuck in.

There's an H in it

2007-12-10T06:41:00.003-08:00

There’s an H in it

There’s an H in what?

Hello

Hello?

Hello John?

Hello. Oh Sorry. My name is John and I’m an airline pilot.

I’ve got something here. It’s an airmail from John it says

‘My name is John and I’m an airline pilot’

We are bridging the gaps. Working out where to put question marks and how to get from one moment to the next. From Dr Zhivago to Hello. From Mole to George to Andrew to Tim to John. The Dear John letter always felt a bit incongruous. Coming out of nowhere. Now it appears like a plane on the radar bleeping across the screen. Like the phone that went off by accident during Tim’s Dear John monologue last week.

Question marks

2007-12-10T06:41:00.001-08:00

Monday 10 December 2007

We are at Lakeside in an empty space. We arrive late and there is nothing here. An industrial heater and a couple of chairs. Mole says ‘I’m sorry. I’m not in the right space.’ We sit on the floor and read through the script in the red glow of the heater. Mole says it’s like the old days with Station House Opera huddled around a fire in an old building. The weird thing about the read through is that it’s impossible to work out when they are reading and when they are making mistakes. The breakdowns in the text seem so real. When Mole says ‘I don’t know what to say?’ It sounds like he genuinely doesn’t know. Then he says ‘Can you put a question mark in red after ‘I don’t know what to say.’ And you realise it’s a part of the script. He says to Tim ‘If there’s some gaps in the text, some holes which we’re not filling, then I think that’s what we’re doing with the question marks. We're trying to fill in the gaps.'

Marginalia

2007-12-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

Mole is in a meeting. Tim is typing up changes to the script. I'm looking at the text trying to work out what to work on next. I find notes in the margins that I don't remember writing. I remember I was on a National Express coach on the way to Leeds. I remember borrowing a pen from the person next to me and forgetting to give it back. I don't remember the words and why I wrote them. I'm trying to work out what I was thinking when I made the notes. This is what I wrote in the margins.

Similarity / Simulacra / Simulacrum
Tapping into iconoclastic roles
Real show
What is this conversation?
Becoming Tim or finishing his sentences
Thinking / writing / reading
Love rhythm
Time check
Sound check
Rhythm
Starting point
I don't know where this is going
Is this you Mole as
Mole from Reckless Sleepers or
Mole performing Trophy texts
Crux
Internal
External
Munch waiting
Is
Isn't
About your relationship
Someone who makes me feel safe
I'm lost and confused
Waiting
Left
What is your answer
Is it an opportunity for you
to tell them about me
By now you should be there
It's got stuff in it
Presumption
What is here?
?
there is just enough space around the
metaphor for the illusion to perform
Important
SHIFT
You will stop coughing
Sometimes I
Cable
Heater
Liked looking up
Mic left hand
Planes
Dust etc.
I'm listening
Yeah
A heater as a seat
I'm in London
Big Ben
Burn sambuca turn glass upside down
suck gas out with a straw - only supposed to suck
Call it the Gas Chamber
Glocal
I'm busy doing nothing
Nothing the whole day through
King Arthur's space ship
Disney film
Introduction - echoes / collisions
Visual
Research
Heart murmur
When are you speaking to audience
Beautiful
Q&A
Introduction
It isn't finished

Praying

2007-12-06T07:13:00.000-08:00

There was a moment when you were on your knees on the floor and you looked like you were praying or a prisoner or an image of an execution. I don't want to load that on too heavily but that image is there. Looking back now as I write this I imagine the terrorists praying on a generic motel carpet on the morning of 9:11 or at the airport facing east. That inbetween space again between checking in and taking off. Or a prisoner at Abu Graib again kneeling naked in a pool of his own urine with a hood on his head and an American GI doing a thumbs up to the camera. Or You Tube footage of a hostage being beheaded before it is taken offline and you hear about it and half of you wants to see it and the other half can't believe it could happen. All these moments that deal with acts of terror are starting to emerge from the piece and I wonder if this is where the show is heading now. Heading into darker territory.

Tunnel vision

2007-12-06T06:45:00.001-08:00

Thursday 6 December

We watch a video of the work in progress. At the end of the show Mole says 'This isn't finished' and the audience laugh. I wonder if Mole should say that at the end of every show. After the video Mole says 'It's like a tunnel. We're digging a tunnel. We've got the ends and we've got the beginning. It's like when they build canals. One team at each end and they meet. I do know once they didn't actually meet. One end was higher than the other. We've got the end and the beginning and we're going forward. When you're making you always do the beginning and the beginning's always good. I suppose we're going backwards becuase we've got the ending and that's weird. Knowing how something ends before we've finished making it.' We talk about Oceans 13 and how they couldn't have bought the Channel Tunnel drills because they were left under the channel and how the drills were made of diamonds. And how the British bought a second hand drill and it was crap. Unbelievable. It's like my Dad was the production manager 'I've found this drill in the Sunday supplement'. 'I saw it in the Exchange and Mart.' We had this house full of batteries because half the house was battery operated.

Desktop

2007-12-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

Tim starts his rant at the audience and a mobile phone goes off on the desk stage left. The desk is covered in scripts. A laptop with a clock on its desktop. A cafetiere. A couple of cups. A plate with chocolate brownie crumbs on it. A pile of DV tape cases. An Arts Council annual report. Post for Reckless Sleepers. A Hi-fi catalogue. A watch. A biro. A copy of Reckless Sleepers' book. A mobile phone. And the phone keeps bling bling blinging and Mole laughs. Tim gets more and more annoyed with Mole. 'Stop laughing. It's not funny. Why do you never take anything I do seriously.' Afterwards someone in the audience asks if the phone was meant to go off. At the same time the phone was bling bling blinging I was switching my mobile phone off and it occurred to me that I could be ringing the phone on the desk if I wanted. To ask Mole and Tim how they think it is going. I don't think they'd answer.

There's something wrong

2007-12-06T06:19:00.000-08:00

We do another work in progress to invited guests and someone arrives late - Mole tells Tim to open the door to let him in. When he sits down he turns to the person sitting next to him and asks 'Have they started yet?' Mole says 'We could go back to the beginning' and does a summary of the show so far for the person who came in late. A fast recap of where we are and what they imagine to be in the space. Sunglasses and flash bulbs and famous people. The audience is quiet. Mole sings Space Oddity and stops singing on the line 'There's something wrong' as if there is something wrong with the show. A recurring motif. Mole and Tim respond to all the sounds. Sirens outside and someone in the corridor making a racket. They turn to look. Mole says 'There's something wrong. This isn't right. This isn't how I want to be looked at'. It feels true to this audience. There's something wrong.

Sometimes

2007-12-05T07:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I forget to ask how to spell Dr Zhivago. Sometimes I forget to start the music. Sometimes I forget to put on the coat. Sometimes I forget that I've got to count to 60 just at the point where Tim says I'll be back in a minute. There's so much in my head. It's got an H in it.

One of the students yesterday said Mole should talk about how much he has happening in his head before he leaves the room. A list of things he needs to do. A mental checklist. Mole tries it as he comes back into the studio. Sometimes. We do one more run before a group of promoters come to another work in progress. There are more moments we can recreate. Mole tells Tim to watch the cable. Tim hears the Town Hall clock strike three and says he's in London and he can hear Big Ben. Mole sits on the heater instead of the window sill and I suggest he could say later on 'We're using a heater as a seat.' Mole goes to Tim's mic and it is too high for him so he has to stand on his tip toes and he looks like he's 'stopped for a moment to watch the planes take off.' We see that the shoes and the suitcase have connections to acts of terror. Taking your shoes off at the airport to prevent shoe bombers and carrying a camera case that gets searched by suspicious customs officers. Sometimes.

Fade In

2007-12-05T05:22:00.000-08:00

Tim is on the floor and Mole moves the mic over his mouth and then moves it away again. Slowly turning the microphone stand. It's like a manual fade in and out. A mechanical sound cue. Mole says 'I've been thinking about clouds, I've been thinking about foam parties in Ibiza, I've been thinking about gymnasts when they clap their hands and I've been thinking about bombs, clouds, smoke, steam, ash. It's the same thing. It's just particles, it's just steam.' Tim says 'Let's get a kettle onstage.' I wonder if he should keep talking about the kettle and making tea and coffee and being self-sufficient. Mole points out that in this section they are not having a conversation at all - they are on different planes. Maybe they talk to themselves rather than each other. Keep talking. Coming together for 'What's my motivation here.' 'Your motivation is this gun I've got pointing at your head.' The mic Mole fades in and out over Tim's face is now the gun he predicted earlier.

Time

2007-12-05T04:41:00.000-08:00

I know it's coming from you Tim. I'm pushing it up but I need to push it down. I was wondering Tim. He needs assistance etc. And then you say 'I don't know what to do here. I need assistance.' I was thinking that just repeating it but changing he to I. And then continue until 'What's my motivation?' And I can put the curtains up. I don't know how much Tim says for you to do that. This is preparation for me to be on the floor where we can perhaps push it a little further. It's all about death I remember. I think we're probably now getting back to where we were at the end of Leeds. I remember where we were. Can we try that? What we've tried before. There's a moment when Mole rigs a lantern and maybe he's rigging it for something that happens later. It's this separating moments as much as possible. This idea of time. The separation of time. And this sort of non-linear thing we have in Schrodinger's Box. Playing with time and the time it takes to play.

Sound Cues

2007-12-05T04:01:00.000-08:00

Mole says 'We stopped for a moment and watched the planes take off' but when he gets to moment a plane flies overhead and he pauses. 'We stopped for a moment... [plane flies overhead] and watched the planes take off.' Perhaps the show should only tour to venues beneath busy flight paths. Later on Tim is on the floor and Mole says 'What can you hear? Or what can't you hear?' and the clock on the Council House at the Old Market Square starts to strike 12. Sirens and cars slip into the piece all the time. I've been thinking about how if we make mistakes then the sound check will mean making sure the sound doesn't work instead of making sure that it does. The sound cue is to miss the sound cue. At the moment the soundtrack to the piece is the sounds outside the space. Aeroplanes and town hall bells are our accidental sound cues.

Object to object

2007-12-05T03:31:00.000-08:00

Tim and Mole do an 'object to object' run a sort of stagger through what we have so far working out where they stand and what goes where. It's like skimming the surface of the show. But it gives them a freedom away from the script to try things out and they start to climb ladders. Singing from the top rung. Leaning on speakers. Moving from object to object.

I'm here

Where?

Who?

You

The lights are out

I don't know where this is going

Oh shit

I stand here

Let's do a sound check

Hello

Put the sound on first

Let's do a sound check

Hello

Can you hear me

Hello

Hello Tim

I think we need a lead up here

What do you mean?

Like one two

One two

Three

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

It's no good

2007-12-05T02:39:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 5 December 2007

Tim: It's no good I can't go on any more you go ahead without me it's OK please leave me here and you go on

Mole: Please don't stop I think this is some of your best work

Tim: Just leave me I can't go on any more go on please don't stop

Mole: Time's running out we've got to keep moving

It felt weird yesterday. I was a bit confused about who was saying what. Who was playing who. It felt like we were both the same voice. I don't understand that line. This sounds like some kind of war movie to me - a man down in the jungle - an oscar nomination clip. We tighten up who says what. Mole starts to sound like the man in control of Tim again. The child playing with a broken action man on the floor. Tim says: 'It's my legs you see?' I'm not sure how it fits but it speaks the same language of old war movies like Donald Pleasance in the Great Escape because of the way Tim says it. I wonder if it's another prediction and later on something happens to Tim's legs. Maybe they get broken like the goalkeepers arms in Escape to Victory. 'Make it a clean break skip?' Everything is threaded together. I find a note on my script from three months ago: 'There is just enough space around the metaphor for the illusion to perform.' I've no idea what it means. It's no good.

Predictive text

2007-12-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

In this predictive text we are gathering new histories for objects, for performers, for the show itself. Mole now says 'We are using the microphone as a gun' before we use it as a gun. Mole moves a ladder for Tim to throw across the stage later in the show. Tim says 'He'll be back in a minute and then we will move on' and after Mole goes out he comes back in a minute. Literally. We predict the show will be 58, 59, 60 minutes long. We say it takes about a third of this for us to warm up. And it does. And it's happening as we say it. There is always this notion of us being stuck somewhere between past and present, the rehearsal and the performance or the performance at one venue and the performance at another. Wherever and whenever it takes place this show is a work in progress. The text is evolving to involve previous occurrences and accidents. The Pilots is gathering histories as it goes.

Mistakes

2007-12-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 4 December

After a talk about the company history, Reckless Sleepers do a work in progress of The Pilots for BA Theatre Arts students from New College Nottingham. It is a very different experience. We do the technical set up with an audience. Mole takes down a light. I plug in a laptop to play the music but forget to check if it's on mute. We don't check the levels of the mics or even if they're switched on. Again the audience are talking as Tim starts the show. One of the students turns to me and says 'Has it started yet?' There are so many accidents. It feels unready. Unsteady. Underprepared. There is a moment when Tim forgets to turn on Space Oddity but Mole waits until he finishes the sound check before asking him to start it again but this time with the music. He starts again and plays the music but nothing comes out because I forgot to turn off the mute. Mole says 'Sorry. Can we do that again? Honestly that was a mistake. That wasn't supposed to happen.' When Mole goes out for his Dr Zhivago walk he forgets to start the Dr Zhivago soundtrack. When he comes back bringing with him the smell of cigarette smoke he says 'I forgot to start the music'. After the show the students say they never doubted any of it was a mistake. Can we make any more mistakes?

Clouds

2007-12-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

As we stand there and stare at the clear blue sky the wind suddenly gets up and starts gusting from the west and this cloud appeared and moved across the sky. A big white fluffy cloud like you see on the weather forecast with three bulbous blobs. And the cloud suddenly gets bigger and bigger and greyer and greyer and these black lines start to come out of it and it's raining and pouring and pouring and the rain slowly slows down and the cloud slowly evaporates into the blue. The cloud disappears into the blue sky. I look up at the blue sky.

Tim reads the text as he slowly drops to the floor. Mole has a lightbulb moment and says 'It's about smoke. That's the subtext.' We remember a conversation we had on the last day in Leeds. Talking about smoke machines, foam parties in Ibiza and fire extinguishers. The smoke of a bomb. The smoke of a smoke machine. We print that entry on the blog out. Mole and Tim are on their feet. We film them reading the text of the conversation we had in Leeds on the last day. From a conversation in the ICA dressing room to a conversation in Leeds Met Studio. Rolling.

Get in

2007-12-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

We spend the afternoon setting up the space. Two mics. Two speakers. Four ladders. Four speaker stands. One heater. One fan. Four cables. A lighting desk. A sound desk. A desk. A pile of papers. A packet of Belgian Marlboros and a spare microphone. A packet of Swan filter tips and an HDV camera. A packet of Drum tobacco and a mobile phone. A row of chairs for the audience tomorrow and a tripod. A dustbin. A TV monitor on a stand. A yellow floor stand. Tim stands centre stage.

Nothing

2007-12-03T04:28:00.000-08:00

Mole says he wants to write a book. A little book about nothing. I've realised a lot of the work we do is about nothing. The text at the end of The Pilots is about nothing. 'What are you doing? Nothing.' Busy doing nothing. Nothing the whole day through. We talk about Beckett and how he said Waiting for Godot was a play where 'Nothing happens... Twice.' We talk about non-events and anti-climaxes and how nothing happens in The Pilots. Mole's performance lecture was about nothing happening. We ask what happens in a show where nothing happens? I don't know what happens. Maybe nothing happens... Once.

We didn't take you anywhere

2007-12-03T04:19:00.000-08:00

About half way through the work in progress Mole says 'I'm sorry we didn't take you anywhere.' It feels too soon in the show to say this. Tim has already said 'We are supposed to take you somewhere. But you're still here' Maybe it should be 'I'm sorry we haven't taken you anywhere... yet.' We apologise in increments for not taking the audience on the journey we said we would in the publicity, before they sat down, before the show began 56, 57, 58, 59... minutes ago. We know how long the show should be because it says so in the script. The work in progress finishes. It's 30 minutes long. We're half way there.

The edge of melodrama

2007-12-03T04:12:00.000-08:00

I forgot about the music that Mole plays before he leaves the space. Tim talks over the Dr Zhivago soundtrack. There's an H in it. The music adds so much to the scene and Tim plays it on the edge of melodrama. Letting the audience make it funny. He walks to the window and on cue Mole appears on the hill beind the studio walking into the wind and imaginary blizzard. The audience laugh. Watching it now Mole says 'This is a really important moment in the show. There's so much happening in this moment. Timing.' When Mole comes back. Catching his breath. Saying hello to the audience like a breathless lover. He loses his place in the script and after three months what felt like a moment feels like a minute. 'We need something there,' says Mole. Tim nods.

One Two

2007-12-03T04:01:00.000-08:00

Tim and Mole do a sound check. One. Two. One. Two. I realise on the video there is a symmetry. Two men. Two pilots. Two mics. Two ladders. I wonder if there is two of everything. Two monitors. Two lamps on stands. Two projectors. Two of everything. The Leeds Met Studio seen through a wide angle lens looks like a theatre space within a theatre space. Like Schrodingers Box. A place of mathematics and rules and codes and numbers. A space of symmetries and dualities. Tim is floating to David Bowie again. With his script in his hand. Like he's stuck in space but also stuck in the future of the script we talked about.

Fade Out

2007-12-03T03:55:00.000-08:00

We watch the video of the work in progress at Leeds Met three months ago. The audience are chatting waiting for it to start. Mole says 'I like this. We should use this.' Tim stands up to start talking and the audience become quieter. 'There's a real fade out. A real focus.' I wonder if we can recreate this. Like a Janet Cardiff installation. A choir talking before they're about to sing. Off duty. Offstage. I wonder if we should revisst the conversation from the ICA dressing room. Tim and Mole offstage. Off duty. Before the show as part of the show. And when the show finishes. Is there a way of a post-show discussion being part of the show etc. Something Teresa Brayshaw mentioned after the work in progress at Leeds Met three months ago. Back to the beginning.

I know where you are

2007-12-03T03:26:00.000-08:00

Mole wants to film the Club Tropicana video in Blackpool. Where he was born and raised. He says it hasn't changed much. We talk about cities changing. Landscapes shifting. Unfinished buildings. Streets that look like works in progress. I talk about a street in Bristol I walked down last night and how every facade was covered in scaffolding. Tim says 'I know where you are'. But I'm not there any more. I'm in Nottingham. It's as if he is saying 'I know where you are in your head.' It's another 'Whereabouts in the world?' moment we had in Leeds. Confusing realities and notions of time and place. It's good to be back.

Reunion

2007-12-03T03:05:00.000-08:00

Monday 2 December 10am

The Pilots. Reunion. We meet up again at Preset in Nottingham. Sitting round a table in the Reckless Sleepers. Coffee. Notebooks. We remember what it's like to talk about The Pilots after two months away. It's about pretending. We talk about pilots outfits. Whether they need to fit or not. And going to Blackpool and riding donkeys on the beach. We talk about filming the Dr Zhivago moment and whether we need live CCTV footage of Mole leaving the venue. Or whether we can prerecord it. We see a lantern in the office. Like a search light. Something that says film premieres and air raids, glamour and war. Something from another time. Another world. Something with a history. We decide the show needs a van. And a projector to show the Club Tropicana video. Set up in the space. Like the lights. And the control desk. On show. Onstage.

Q and A

2007-09-29T06:45:00.001-07:00

Transcription of post-show discussion at Leeds Met Studio.

Q. I wanted to know if this is a work in progress. If it’s a work in progress then something else needs to be done but that in itself was a piece of theatre. Because the whole idea is to make people ask, what is this, what is the drama, what is the story. I don’t know what else you need to do.

A. There’s a certain pressure on us in the industry to create something that’s an hour long. I think this is really about establishing what the rules were, what the codes were. It’s a couple of weeks writing and then about 5 days working on it in the studio.

Q. Are you taking it somewhere else?

A. At the moment it’s very site-specific. What happened is because we’ve been making it here the space has had an influence on what we’ve made. It’s dead easy to rig lights here. Ourselves. And sound and the curtains were open the day we arrived. Often in dark places, like casinos are notoriously dark and have no clocks, you lose track of time. We are very conscious of the outside world here. There was one rule we gave ourselves which was if you hear an aeroplane overhead then you stop. There’s one overhead now.

Q. Do you want to say something about why it’s called the Pilots?

A. The project is part of a whole series of works which are loosely tied to an idea of acts of terror, or terrorism. And obviously that’s a starting point that’s it’s moved away from massively. I think the idea for us was pretending to be pilots and I took the idea of pretending to be George Michael and Andrew Ridgely in the Club Tropicana video pretending to be pilots. Which is why you got a little bit of George and Andrew at the end.

Q. There’s quite a minimal aspect to it are you keeping that or is that part of your rehearsals?

A. I’d like to keep this. It’s not normal. I mean it is normal when you’re in a theatre when it’s not operational, exposed and open. I like the idea of being aware of the space. I trained as a theatre designer, trained in the idea of toothpaste design, a bit of red here a bit of green there. I’m quite into using the space but often had arguments at art school about what a theatre space was, you know, it’s a big space we share with an audience and that was never recognised. It was always flat, fourth wall. I’m always interested in how we can use the space. I love the fact that working here for a few days has made us think about how to make a piece of work. Bring the lights down and just have two lanterns. It’s so simple and really nice to tour with.

We were thinking about starting off like this and ending the show with it being complete so the ending is sort of a beginning so it’s all set up for a performance. There’s a lot on the blog about this but it’s about pilots and points of departure and arrival and what they mean.

Q. Did you just have one idea like The Pilots? Did you just take the word pilot?

A. It came from this idea of acts of terror and September 11 and airline pilots and not airline pilots then and it’s gone on an huge journey since then and it does on tangents. It’s more about trying to find out where we are, who we are and why we are. There’s another narrative we need to find, a sub-narrative. We started about a year ago on letters that I’d written but never sent, we called them angry texts, like when you get pissed off by British Rail and you never send it but it’s really about cleansing. So we used those letters and then threw them away. And the idea of the time it takes before sending and receiving, it’s very old fashioned. We spent a couple of weeks in France writing and now a couple of weeks here with a critical eye which can augment what we do. I’m also making three other shows at the same time and these ideas all come together and fuse somehow.

Q. There was a moment of fear for me at the start when I saw that you were doing a play within a play, you know a performance within a performance. I’ve seen things before that have just been self-referential talking about drama and it’s just been pants. But that speech that you had about ‘I’m going to tell you things that are on your mind’. Is that part of the idea of the performance to take away the normal consciousness of what theatre is? I don’t know what the question is I just wanted to say thank you very much for not being what I expected.

A. It’s all about identity and communication and throughout it we use different tenses so half the time we don’t know who we’re talking to. Am I talking to him or to you? Are you my audience or is he? That was the whole idea. It does become self-referential.

We’re conscious of that which is why we’ve inserted the idea of it being wider than us. It’s very much about me and Tim and our relationship of 10 years of making work together.

Q. It was really involving I felt completely involved as an audience it was almost as if I wanted to say something while you were doing it I felt that much a part of it.

A. That’s nice.

Q. I was wondering how you come across the process of it all. You know do you have a script one minute and then improvise? How does it work? What do you do in the space.

A. We have to challenge ourselves every time to not become familiar with how we’re working. It\s something we’ve talked about that’s familiar territory that’s the way we’ve done something in the past let’s try and divorce ourselves from that way of working. This is the first piece that’s gone through quite a traditional conventional form i.e. writing. That’s new for us which is quite liberating to have some text. I think we work on our feet most of the time. I think it suits the project. I’m working on another project for children and we have a huge amount of earth and that’s a very sculptural process. It’s important to ask these questions about how we make work and how we communicate that work.

This one has been different in that the finished script was brought here and we videoed what we were doing and the mistakes that we made we started to put into the script. Like ‘Where are we?’ That came out of a thing on the bus there was a piece of news in the newspaper and I said ‘Oh my god a student’s been tasar-ed’ and Mole said ‘Where?’ and I said ‘Page 11’ and he said ‘No whereabouts in the world?’ It becomes about where you are. And you know. ‘Where are you?’ ‘Page 11’. ‘No where in the world.’ And it comes out as what are you talking about. Where? What does that mean? So mistakes come out of reading text sometimes.

We play and video and go ‘I like that bit.’ Normally the first thing that we make is the most interesting and we try to get back to that first experience of making this thing alive on a piece of a paper or onstage or an idea. That’s the big process. And this that we showed you was very different it had a completely different energy which we’ll have to look at. I was nervous. I’ve been doing this for so long and it’s still scary. It’s weird.

Q. I was reading that article on the bus too. A student was tasar-ed for asking questions.

Q. Whereabouts in the world was that?

A. America.

Q. Is there anything specific that you want to have answered by us?

A. I think all our questions have been answered. That’s a good question. I think when I go out of the space I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what’s happening. The main question is that beginning and whether it works.

Q, I was interested in the scripts. I really liked the quality of reading the script. I imagined that when you do it you might not have them. I wondered what you thought.

A. We were talking about that today. Whether we have scripts or not.

Q. I like moments when you lose your place in the script. Getting lost in it then finding the way out. It seems to me that that is what the piece is about. Stuck in the future of the script.

TAPE ENDS

In the clouds

2007-09-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking abut clouds. Whether we have them or not.

Real clouds?

Stage clouds?

I've been thinking about foam parties in Ibiza...

Where are you?

I'm in the clouds

I've been thinking about how gymnasts clap their hands and make clouds

I've been thinking about bombs and clouds and smoke and clouds and it's...

Sorry he's gone

I'm listening

If you look at them they're the same kind of thing

It's just steam isn't it?

Yeah

Let's have a kettle on stage.

Without it being so tricksy - this is what I'm thinking about. Everything else has been really open and clear. Do we have something easy.

Easy?

You know like two big fluffy clouds made out of cotton wool.

At the moment you're using the tools of a theatre, lanterns as mirrored sunglasses and a microphone as a gun. The natural extension of that would be a fire extinguisher.

Well I fucking hate smoke machines

I'd rather use a Fire Extinguisher!

In fact why don't we use a fire extinguisher.

Turning Points

2007-09-28T04:38:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of things in my head. I need to get out. Tim's on the floor and he's floating. And he's like David Bowie. And it's about loss - I think of being with a loved one when they died - and it's about death and the end of the relationship. You know 'Let's take it slow.' And there's a turning point when Tim hits his head on the microphone when I say I've got a gun pointed at his head. And there's a turning point when you say 'swap'. And it's the turning point at the end of Space Oddity when Mole turns off the music and Tim says 'That works then' and the scene becomes a sound check. And there's a turning point at the end of the Dr Zhivago moment when Mole comes back in and says 'It's got an H in it.' These are all triggers. Pivotal moments. That throw us off course for a moment and take us somewhere new. And it's a see saw between me and Tim. The tussle for control and the wrestle between comedy and melancholy. But the counter weight is not very balanced. I think also it's a turing point for the audience. I think they might be trying to predict where we're going here and we're saying it could go in different directions and letting it take on its natural course. And if this is half way through then it's the natural place for a see-saw. I think we've created our world and now it's time to destroy it. Tear it down. There are a lot of things in my head. I think we should have a break.

A queue of starts

2007-09-28T04:06:00.000-07:00

Let's start again

We're on page 17 and the text says let's start again. We've done this before. Many times. We run out of DV tape. Mole tries to find somewhere on tape and we talk about how his parents made home movies and would re-record on the same tape over and over again. When you watch the tapes back there is a queue of starts. The show is like this. A queue of starts. Beginning again and again and again and again and again and again. A narrative of departures and arrivals.

Who's in control?

2007-09-28T03:40:00.001-07:00

In the monologue I describe who I am. But you don't - not in a 'This is my character' way but... I'm just conscious of who I'm playing.

This is the who. We've asked a series of questions about where we are, what we're doing and now we're moving on to who we are. We're asking the question about who we are in this space. The piece starts with Mole turing a light on and ends with Tim turning the lights down. And we ask who's in control? Who's at the control desk? Who's in control of the control desk? Who's in control of the text? The Pilots?

The end of the beginning

2007-09-26T05:20:00.000-07:00

Its cold
You can do the rest

I feel a bit dry, and empty inside.

Emotionally

Emotionally
I’m empty
I’m nobody I'm an empty shell, a vacuous void, there is nothing inside no ideas nothing, nothing of any substance.

Come on check my pulse there is nothing

You're brilliant

Yes I’m brilliant
I'm brilliant at doing nothing

What are you doing?

Nothing.

We finish the ending. The end of the beginning anyway. Tim approaches the mic and tells Mole he is in London and Mole is in New York. Mole draws the tabs closed and finds his shoes. He walks around the space asking questions of objects around him. Is this my light? Is this my laptop? Is this my moment? Tim fetches a flood on a floor stand. Then a cable. Then switches the house lights off. By the time he gets to the lighting desk Mole is asking if Tim has interfered with his baggage. Tim says 'I think we get the idea' and turns on a cold, blue fresnel. This triggers the end. The nothing scene. And as we said at the beginning of last week the final image of the show is the first image. A man standing in a stage light doing nothing. This is the end. I think.

Baggage

2007-09-26T05:17:00.000-07:00

Andrew
George

I’m a bit lost where are we

Well you’re in London
And I'm in New York

We're miles apart?

Are those my shoes?

Sorry
Are those my shoes?
Yes
Is this my Dog?
Is this my ball?
What Time is it?

Could you read that in the space?
I’m going to have to write that down

Are those my shoes?
Are those my sunglasses?
IS that my case?

Is that my case?
Is that my personal baggage?

Did I pack that myself?

Could any one have interfered with it?

Are you sure?

Is it safe?

All right all right stop it now I think that we get the message.

Mole and Tim become more active. Walking around the space. Mole closes the tabs at the back. He finds his shoes. He asks questions of the objects around him. Tim moves a floor light in and goes to the control desk and turns it on. There is a pause. Mole says 'Let's get out of this habit of being fucking 3 metres apart. You be me. I'll be you.' This is not part of the show. Tim and Mole become more active. Walking around the space. Tim closes the tabs at the back. He finds his shoes. He asks questions of the objects around him. Mole moves a floor light in and goes to the control desk and turns it on. There is a pause. The piece like Mole and Tim is still finding its feet. Baggage is being interfered with.

Is this who where we are really

2007-09-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

Hello my name is Andrew and I’m an Airline pilot, do you want to be Andrew? I don’t mind. If you were Andrew where in the world would you be right now well I was just thinking where in the world would Andrew be right now. Are you asking that as Andrew? No but if I was Andrew…yes I would be yes moving? Yes moving yes are you Andrew because if you don’t want to be Andrew I’ll be him, it’s not such a demanding role. Is that all right if I’m Andrew do you have any objections George?

Is that all one person talking?

At the moment yes

Mole and Tim work on a new section where they slip in and out of character. In and out of Andrew and George. In and out of Mole and Tim. In and out of the studio. In and out of the text. In and out of knowing the text. In and out of performing and watching themselves perform. In and out of stage persona. In and out of first person and third person. In and out of the past and the present. In and out. Out and in. At the top of the page it reads 'Is this who where we are really?'

Sits on the edge

2007-09-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

Mole and Tim walk in with the audience. They sit on the front row. They are us. We are them. Then Tim takes to the stage. Tim gets the mic. Mole goes to the mic. He counts down. Space Oddity starts to play. Imperceptibly. It is difficult to know whether it's on or not until it plays. Mole counts, Tim sings. David Bowie counts. Mole sings. Tim floats. Mole climbs the ladder stage right and rigs a fresnel. He turns off the florescent lighting above the audience. Tim is now side lit. The music stops. Mole thanks us. He thanks us for coming here. He thanks us for taking the time. He thanks us for believing in them. Tim sits on the window sill. There are moments here where I don't know what's in the text and what isn't. Ot even whether there is a text. This sits on the edge. Mole and Tim sit on the edge of not knowing the text. We sit on the edge of not knowing whether they know the text or not. Mole leaves the space. Tim confesses to us that 'What we're supposed to be doing isn't this.' And we relax. Mole knocks on the door. He is at the Fire Exit. He comes in and answers his own question about Dr Zhivago. Tim says his name is John. Mole says his name is John too. Mole reads a Dear John letter. He tells us he can't go on. Tim asks if John has gone. He reads a Dear John letter. Mole rigs a birdie. Mole laughs. Tim says it's not funny. Mole laughs. Tim throws a ladder. Mole asks if John has gone. Tim asks where they are. Mole asks where Tim is etc.

I'm in a theatre and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for bringing you here. I'm sorry for taking up your time. I'm sorry we didn't give you anything to believe in. I'm sorry we didn't take you anywhere. I'm so very sorry.

Empty Space

2007-09-26T02:32:00.000-07:00

I come back to the studio after two days away. Mole and Tim have been working towards a showing later today. This is what I see in the space.

A ladder down stage right.
A ladder upstage left.
35 lanterns - fresnels, parcans, profiles scattered across the stage in a sort of technical arc.
A two step tread stage right.
The whiteboard we drew the Flight Plan on Day One leaning against the wall.
Two microphones.
Two floods on floor stands.
One lighting desk on the floor.
One sound desk on a table.
Bits of script.
The curtains are open.
A monitor and camera wired together on a table.
Two pound coins.
A set of headphones.
Mole.
Tim.

The letter

2007-09-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

Dear John

I'm sorry to tell you this, and I'm sorry that I have to tell you in this way. This is the hardest letter to write and, probably, the hardest letter to read. But I can't go on like this any more, I can't stop pretending, I can't go on with this facade. We used to know each other so well and now we've become like strangers you and I. You don't listen to me anymore; We used to share everything, but now I feel like you're a closed book, a brick wall. And so for once I want you to listen to me. There's so much I want to say and so little time to say it. You are my audience, you will pay attention, you will not move, you will not talk. You will listen to me and do exactly what I tell you to. You will laugh in the right places, you will applaud at the end, you will leave with a feeling of fulfillment and a smug smile on your face which suggests you understood exactly what this was about.

We talk about the idea of Tim reading the letter with punctuation e.g. I'm sorry to tell you this comma and I'm sorry I have to tell you in this way full stop. To expose the workings of the letter like the workings of the show. We de-rig the lights, leave a ladder centre stage and go home.

Dear John

2007-09-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Dear John

I'm sorry to tell you this
And I'm sorry that I have to tell you in this way
This is the hardest letter to write
And the hardest letter to read

I can't go on like this any more
I can't stop pretending
I can't go on with this facade
We've become like strangers you and I

You don't listen to me anymore
We used to share everything
But now I feel like you're a closed book
A brick wall

And for once
I want you to listen to me
There's so much I want to say
And so little time to say it

You are my audience
You will pay attention
You will not move
You will not speak

We talk about how the Dear John letter is not a suicide note but an end of relationship note. The end of a relationship between Mole and Tim, Andrew and George, Tim and the audience. 'You' moves from John to Mole to Tim to audience. The brick wall is an invisible wall. The fourth wall. Which we are building and destroying, building and destroying. The hardest wall to build and the hardest wall to knock down.

Punctuation

2007-09-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

Tim performs the first text. Written like a poem with short lines and no punctuation. It is slow. Stop. Start. And you can hear the pattern we talked about the other day. Da da da da da. It's hypnotic and you stop listening to the words. You just listen to the rhythm. So we try the second version with dot dot dots. I mention a phrase I heard where someone said 'It's like a dot dot dot not a full stop.' I turn every short sentence into a string of dot dot dots... and suddenly there is a different energy about Tim... he is correcting himself... and it sounds like he's thinking not reading... making it up as he goes along... Tim says 'Basically I wanted a way into the text - it's as if Mole is asking me on stage Can we recap? What's going on? Where are we on the page?'

Dot dot dot

2007-09-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

It's January… It's the beginning… This is the beginning... I walk… I walk on... I'm wearing a coat. Oh sorry no… I walk on… You're wearing a coat… And I talk… I talk about things… I talk about you and I talk about me… I try to talk about the rules… I try to talk about what the deal is here… But before I talk about things... You walk off… You go for a walk while I… While I tell them things they didn't already know… I tell them what's on their mind… What's on your mind… I tell them things that I can't say… In front of you… I tell them things that I can't say... In front of you… So you go for a walk… While I get them up to speed.

This isn’t the first time this has happened… We’ve done this before… Many times… We’re professionals… I know what I’m doing and he knows what he’s doing… And what we’re supposed to be doing isn’t this and what we promised you in the publicity or in the brochures or whatever… isn’t what we’re doing now... It takes a while for us to warm up… It takes a while for us to get into it… It takes us a while to feel comfortable with our surroundings… It takes you a while to let yourselves go… It takes you a little longer to get to a place… where you leave all your baggage behind… It takes you about a third of the way into this for you to relax properly… And then before you know it… It will be dark again and we will be finished… And you might say to the person next to you… Is that it? Is that 55 minutes already… Is that 56 minutes already… Is that 57, 58, 59…

There are of course things we're just not telling you… There's supposed to be magic… Some mystery to what we're doing… We're supposed to take you somewhere else… And at this moment in time… We're still here… Still stuck in the future of the script… He will come on again in a minute… And we will move forwards… You will laugh at his appearance… But please don't… He will try hard... He will pull out all the stops… He will use all the tricks in the book… I haven't got long… So I just want to take this moment to give you some details… Some clues… You see… When he's not around I'm somebody… I'm someone who you can trust… I'm someone who makes you feel safe… But as soon as he comes back on I'm nobody… I'm lost and confused… I'm not sure… I'm not sure who I am… Or to be more precise… I'm not sure who I want to be… I talk about the weather… I talk about the weather in January... He's coming...

Text

2007-09-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

It's January
It's the beginning
This is the beginning
I walk
I walk on
I'm wearing a coat
Oh sorry no
I walk on
You're wearing a coat
And I talk
I talk about things
I talk about you and I talk about me
I try to talk about the rules
I try to talk about what the deal is here
But before I talk about things
You walk off
You go for a walk while I
While I tell them things they didn't already know
I tell them what's on their mind
What's on your mind
I tell them things that I can't say
In front of you
I tell them things that I can't say
In front of you
Because...
I talk about the weather
I talk about the weather in January
So you go for a walk
While I get them up to speed

This isn’t the first time
This has happened
We’ve done this before
Many times
We’re professionals
I know what I’m doing
And he knows what he’s doing
And what we’re supposed to be doing isn’t this
And what we promised you in the publicity
Or in the brochures
Isn’t what we’re doing now
It takes a while for us to warm up
It takes a while for us to get into it
It takes us a while to feel comfortable with our surroundings
It takes you a while to let yourselves go
It takes you a little longer to get to a place
where you leave all your baggage behind
It takes you about a third of the way into this
For you to relax properly
And then before you know it
It will be dark again
And we will be finished
And you might say to the person next to you
Is that it?
Is that 55 minutes already
Is that 56 minutes already
Is that 57, 58, 59…

There are of course things we're just not telling you
There's supposed to be magic
Some mystery to what we're doing
We're supposed to take you somewhere else
And at this moment in time
We're still here
Still stuck in the future of the script
He will come on again in a minute
And we will move forwards
You will laugh at his appearance
But please don't
He will try hard
He will pull out all the stops
He will use all the tricks in the book
I haven't got long
So I just want to take this moment
To give you some details
Some clues
You see
When he's not around
I'm somebody
I'm someone who you can trust
I'm someone who makes you feel safe
But as soon as he comes back on
I'm nobody
I'm lost and confused
I'm not sure
I'm not sure who I am
Or to be more precise
I'm not sure who I want to be
I talk about the weather
I talk about the weather in January

He's coming

Stuck in the future of the script

2007-09-21T07:13:00.001-07:00

There are of course things we're just not telling you
There's supposed to be magic
Some mystery to what we're doing
We're supposed to take you somewhere else
And at this moment in time
We're still here
Still stuck in the future of the script
He will come on again in a minute
And we will move forwards
You will laugh at his appearance
But please don't
He will try hard
He will pull out all the stops
He will use all the tricks in the book
I haven't got long
So I just want to take this moment
To give you some details
Some clues
You see
When he's not around
I'm somebody
I'm someone who you can trust
I'm someone who makes you feel safe
But as soon as he comes back on
I'm nobody
I'm lost and confused
I'm not sure
I'm not sure who I am
Or to be more precise
I'm not sure who I want to be
He's coming

This isn't the first time

2007-09-21T05:05:00.000-07:00

This isn’t the first time
This has happened
We’ve done this before
Many times
We’re professionals
I know what I’m doing
And he knows what he’s doing
And what we’re supposed to be doing isn’t this
And what we promised you in the publicity
Or in the brochures
Isn’t what we’re doing now
It takes a while for us to warm up
It takes a while for us to get into it
It takes us a while to feel comfortable with our surroundings
It takes you a while to let yourselves go
It takes you a little longer to get to a place
where you leave all your baggage behind
It takes you about a third of the way into this
For you to relax properly
And then before you know it
It will be dark again
And we will be finished
And you might say to the person next to you
Is that it?
Is that 55 minutes already
Is that 56 minutes already
Is that 57, 58, 59…

Talking about the weather

2007-09-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

We've done this before

2007-09-21T04:05:00.000-07:00

This isn't the first time this has happened
This has happened before
Many times

We talk about how this could mean 'We've performed this before' or 'We know what we're doing - we're professionals.' Like co-pilots who have flown before. Many times. Reassuring their passengers. Don't worry. This isn't the first time. You're in safe hands. I know what I'm doing and he knows what he's doing. Except we don't. We haven't got a clue.

Present Tense

2007-09-21T03:58:00.000-07:00

Tim finds planes on his page. Inkjet marks left behind from a previous printout that look like tiny aeroplanes. We are distracted. We talk about tenses and how this text is divided into three sections. 'This is', 'This isn't' and 'This will'. Three levels of description like a plane taking off from the runway to the 30,000 feet mark. Tim will work on the third section now. Predicting what Mole will do and how the audience will react. The text plays with tense all the time. From past tense in the first person to present tense in the third person. It's difficult to pin down. The text starts with Mole as you and the audience as them. Then the audience are you and Mole is him. Now we're using the future tense. Still stuck in the future of the script.

Soliloquy

2007-09-21T03:36:00.000-07:00

so·lil·o·quy

1. A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself or reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener.
2. A specific speech or piece of writing in this form of discourse.
3. The act of speaking to oneself.

Tim says this this is like a Shakespearean soliloquy, an aside, and that though Mole probably wouldn't admit it there are often those theatrical devices in his work. He sets up the camera to film himself reading around the text. To improvise a voice in the act of speaking to itself.

He's coming

2007-09-21T03:29:00.000-07:00

He will come on again in a minute
And no doubt you will laugh
Because he just does that
But please don't

He will try hard
He will pull out all the stops
All of his tricks he has learnt

He's coming...

Tim says that's the problem with not having Mole here. Not knowing what he means by this. Not being able to ask him. I read my notes from yesterday. In the margin of the same page of text. Is this about your relationship? Waiting. Left behind. What is your answer to 'How do you spell Dr Zhivago?' This space is an opportunity for you to tell them about me and bring them up to speed. I remember Tim said it was like a Shakespearean soliloquy. Like an aside. He's coming. And then when I come back you say 'It's got an H in it.' As if all you've been doing was nothing. Tim sighs.

Isn't this

2007-09-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

What we're supposed to be doing isn't this, and what we promised you in the publicity or in the brochures isn't what we're doing now.

This idea of 'isn't this' seems important. What we're doing by including moments that happened outside of the text like 'Can we have the other light on' and 'I'll just read it through' is a way of not doing what we're supposed to be doing. Like opening up the tabs and taking down the lights. I write down the moments in the scene where Tim reads around the text not from it.

Can we have the other light on
It's bit dingy
That all right?
I'll just read it through
Just from the very top
We've changed that bit
That's where he leaves

Didactic

2007-09-21T03:07:00.000-07:00

didactic \dy-DAK-tik; duh-\, adjective:
1. Fitted or intended to teach; conveying instruction; instructive; teaching some moral lesson; as, "didactic essays."
2. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively; moralistic.

I don't know what it's supposed to do
I'm having a problem with this bit of text
It's a bit... and I'm going to check this word
Before I use it
It's a bit... didactic
It's a bit preachy
It's a bit teachy
It feels like we're telling people how to feel
Telling them the rules

Wankers

2007-09-21T02:49:00.001-07:00

I hardly ever sit on benches, because most of them don’t move.
I don’t like being stuck, I don’t like not moving.
I find it hard to stand still in any space.
I’m no good as a statue.
I’m no good at playing that game.

If I would sit on a bench, its more than likely it wouldn’t be on the street,
Its more than likely that it would be looking out to the see, or a mountain, or a field, or something that hasn’t got any people in it, that hasn’t got things in the way.

I sat down on a bench in Nottingham,
But in no way was it my favorite,
It was placed next to a bin, and since the smoking ban these bins have become small focus points or meeting points for those still stubborn enough to fight the ban, most of the buts don’t make it to the bin, but they seem to be getting closer.

I tried on this bench next to the bin to work out where everyone was headed who they worked for, why they chose that shirt, that pair of pointy shoes that pair of drainpipe jeans...
But I had no answers.

But

I sat on a bench on a bus this morning, it didn’t face front, so technically it’s a bench.
It was on the street, and so I think it still counts, as a bench on a street.
Although not my favorite still, I haven’t found that place yet, its not where I live and its not where I'm staying right now.
It’s perhaps somewhere warmer, somewhere over there, but on the bench on the bus.

I was in a bad mood, I carried a heavy bag, a heavier suitcase, it was the driver, he put me in that mood, he was aggressive and short and he wanted to make this journey a hell. And he did, it was an evil bus full of wankers and the driver was a wanker too.

Under my breath

I called him a wanker and a twat,
And because I was the closest sitting to him I am sure that he heard me,
But there again I wanted him to.
He was driving like a twat; he drove too fast and stopped too suddenly
So all the passengers even those who weren’t wankers had to dance the same dance, with the wankers even if they didn’t want to.

The guy who sat next to me wasn’t a wanker, he looked like a bit of a twat, but he wasn’t a wanker.
The guy sat opposite me looked even more of a twat no he was a wanker, he took over 2 parts of the double bench opposite, he took these 2 parts until an older woman who got on with a suitcase as big, but not as heavy as mine got on, he moved to the side and let her sit next to him,
But I still thought that he was a wanker, er, until another old person, a man, with no hair, no hair on his head, or his face got on, he took a newspaper from under the one on the top of the pile, and the wanker who sat opposite me asked the old man with no hair if he wanted to sit down.

He stopped being a wanker.

But another wanker got on and quickly filled the empty vacancy, it wasn’t free for long, he stood in front of my massive suitcase, in the way of everyone that got on the bus, he didn’t read the newspaper on the top of the pile, he made it his job to stand in the way of everyone else, in his hat and drainpipes, and his floppy hair, to get in the way, So I whispered out wanker,
And the twat who had now become a wanker who sat next to me shuffled like a twat and the biggest wanker the bus driver pushed his breaks harder, so I said wanker again, but this didn’t improve a thing.
Until we reached the steps and then for 2 more stops there was enough room to breath.

And so I got off the bench when the bus had stopped moving, and the breaks had been applied.
I got off the bus and said to my friends, there not wankers but they act like a couple of twats,

What a wanker…

And so we all agreed what a wanker that bus driver was, what a miserable wanker, what a wanker of a driver, and the wanker and twat conversation continued until we stood in a line in front of the bar to Costa

And the first time for what had seemed a long time I smiled.

Not you three again she said smiling and laughing to herself because she knew that we were a bunch of twats,
You 3 are always together, and she’d only know us for 3 days.
You need to get out a bit more, get a bit more independence.

I saw you three walking on the street last night and it was raining, I knew it was you 3 she said and she laughed.

We’d got off the bus so we decided to race it, as it wasn’t moving, the bus was full of loud speaking wankers talking wank really loudly talking wank about football, so we moved downstairs, and it was no better there it was full of loud talking girls talking a load of wank over each other about this and that that I didn’t understand and shoes and parties and white shirts and black essentials so we had to get off.

That driver wasn’t a wanker, but he knew what we were up to and he wanted to have a race too, so he passed us on the Otley rd.
She passed us there too.

Which is where she saw us.
Twats and wankers.

Where are you?

2007-09-20T06:52:00.001-07:00

Where are you?

I’m over here

Are you in a hotel? Are you on a train? Are you on an aeroplane?
You’re outside a gasworks. A school. A theatre.

I’m in a theatre
And I’m sorry

Questions are turning into statements. Acceptance speeches are turning into apologies. And they’re locating us. They’re saying we’re not actually in other places we’re in a theatre. I suppose by describing those other places we’re taking people on a journey and we’re destroying it.

Journeys

2007-09-20T06:42:00.000-07:00

On a train...
In a school
In a theatre
In a hotel
In an aeroplane or an airport
In a nightclub

This is where it gets confusing for me. In this bit we're trying to tell the story of a journey. And it feels like a different piece. It was written for this but it sounds more like Spanish Train. Acts and Parts. This is Acts. This is a different voice. This is a real change. And I think the rest of it comes out of questions. Where are we? I'm in a nightclub and you're on a donkey. I should go soon. I've got quite a clear image of what it is - this other story - but I'm not sure where its going. I'm not sure we're going down this line any more. The only line that seems to fit this world is 'In a theatre...' Let's cut it then. Or let's not cut it. Let's change it.

Corpsing

2007-09-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

Corpsing is a theatrical slang term used to describe when an actor breaks character during a scene by laughing or by causing another cast member to do so.[1] Though the origin of the term is unknown, it refers to almost literally murdering the scene.

I made this show in Alsager and this girl kept laughing and I said keep laughing and every time she did it she kept laughing. And she just got stuck. Everytime I did it I believed her. Whether it was just incredible acting or it was real. I believed her. The other girl would say ‘What are you laughing at you twat?’ And she kept laughing. It once happened to me in a show where I couldn’t stop laughing. I kept laughing and I felt horrible afterwards. This would be for me the way to do it. I would pass a piece of paper. I wrote on one of them ‘My girdle is killing me.’ Tim wrote on the back of the cards something funny. Or a word that reminded him of something funny. It’s happened to me loads where I’ve written something to make people laugh. And it had the opposite effect.

Four seasons

2007-09-20T05:43:00.000-07:00

I’m getting this idea of not knowing what time it is because the seasons are merging. It’s still light at night. Winter is happening in March. April is coming later. It’s becoming noticeable more and more. And there isn’t any snow any more and nobody’s noticed. Is it still Summer? Or is it Autumn? It’s the end of September and there are still leaves on the trees. We don’t really get winters any more do we. I miss hard frosts.

Dr Zhivago Moment

2007-09-20T05:41:00.001-07:00

It was 1982. It was a really really big snow storm just before Christmas. It was the week before school closed for Christmas. So I didn't really not not want to go to school And of course school was cancelled.
And we walked to school anyway and had a massive snowball fight and we took photos of the fight.
And I looked at the photo recently and I saw my Dad in the background. And he was walking to work. He walked to work in a 3 ft snow drift - it was 8 miles. 8 miles there and 8 miles back. In a snow storm.

My Dad was there, but I didn’t see him.

That's a Dr Zhivago moment.