The Golem - Flyering

The run of Broken Glass Theatre Company's "The Golem" finished on Sunday, and what a run it was. I didn't write about it during the run, because it soon became clear that the main route for people to find our website was through search engines, and with the huge number of online listings for the show (timeout etc.), I didn't want any blog posts to appear in the way to distract people from the broken glass website. The show ran for 4 nights, and you can see a series of blog posts posted during the run by one of the cast members here.

Camden Town is a unique place - it seems to contain people that only exist in Camden; I'm not sure any of the tattooed, mohicaned, ear-lobe-plugged, dressed-in-leathers-with-metal-studding people ever leave Camden, or if they do, they are so quickly diluted by the less eclectic of us that they go relatively unnoticed. In Camden however, they suddenly burst to the top of the demographic pile, so that those of us dressed in jeans and a t-shirt suddenly fade into a minority.

There are also, of course, a large number of tourists in Camden, who waft around in the breeze of Camden-residents rushing from stall to stall picking up random paraphenalia emblazoned with the Union Jack. In trying to discern who to hand a flyer you find yourself trying to calculate people's grasp of the English language from 10 feet - if someone says "merci" on taking one of your flyers you know you've probably wasted it. But then you never know, the Frenchwoman who briefly forgets the English for thank you might be a massive fan of physical theatre regardless of whether or not she can understand the language. Even then she might be multilingual. At the end of the day, you have to hand out your 500 flyers to the first 500 people who show an interest in taking one from your hand. I'd love to know what they flyering success rate is. Perhaps 1%?

More Camden Fringe related posts to come - I'm going to split them up, because there's so much I could talk about!

I'm back home. The car took a long time to cram, mostly because I decided to bring my bike home. This involved pulling off its wheels (easier said than done, as some of the screws had rusted), and then balancing the frame on the back seat. The chain had to be wrapped up in a plastic bag to stop the seats getting oily, and then wheels were balanced on the middle of the frame. It needs a lot of work doing to it (cleaning, gear lever broken, rust removing, mud guard filing etc), and I'm most likely to do it at home.

The Golem has gone well - we're all rehearsed up now until we begin before the performances in August. I've written out a full score and musical prompt sheet, and must remember to keep practicing this holiday, both so I remember it, and so that I maintain my callouses.

My room in London is now impassable for boxes - it's amazing how much stuff you accumulate over a few years. Today will see a massive unpacking session, and also some bicycle fixing.

In other news, I've put some new pictures up on deviant art

The Golem

The Golem rolls on. It's all slowly coming together. All the scenes have now been rehearsed, and the next few days will see the slotting together of everything into a continuous piece. I'm very excited about the music now, having written myself a short prompt sheet and the whole score (in mandolin tabulature). I'm managing to use the mandolin in a number of diverse ways on top of the usual string plucking or strumming. The body makes a perfect percussive drum, while the strings behind the bridge sound almost like clanging metal when plucked, all of which are proving invaluable in the performance. It's thrilling to hear such a range of sounds coming out of one small instrument, and really is putting it to its maximum use. The last few days have also seen the creation of the publicity flyer, and soon the poster. My recent discovery of photoshop, and the wonders that can be performed with a few mouse clicks have made image design much easier, and the flyer is looking very good. Alex's brother has designed a very classy image, which, with a little digital juggling, has fitted beautifully. Hopefully it'll be online soon.

If you want to see the play, it's being performed from Thursday 13th August to Sunday 16th August at 7.30 pm at the Studio Theatre, Roundhouse, Camden. Click here for more details, or here to buy tickets.