If the experience of playing a game is intended, for the most part, to be joyful, then consider that the experience of attempting to create a game – from scratch – involves much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Planning and brain-bashing for the Larkin' About and Library Theatre Company commission continues. How to estimate a duration and end point, to avoid fatigue or boredom? If I don’t want one winner and many losers, how do I gently console those who don’t complete the requirements, whilst still celebrating those who do? Are themes of memory, loss, mourning and the silent cry of purgatorial souls suitable material for a playful treatment involving balloons? What of unknown latex allergies? Ai-ai-ai. Still, the initial shape is done. The play test awaits. My craft box has a few more items I am unlikely ever to use again, but on the plus side I have some lovely Ladybird books purchased as ‘research’. Here is an image from a bison hunt, which may have something to do with the work in progress. Oh, and I have a name for it at last.

Prairieland.

I submitted two ideas, both of which they liked although I must now choose one to take forward, responding to a couple of obscure but fascinating lesser-known subjects relating to the city's past, as I wanted to avoid the usual suspects (industrialisation, sport, Engels, votes for women, the Baby computer etc. no disrespect to any of these areas intended!) The process will include a game mechanics workshop, one-to-one mentoring, play-testing and of course the delivery itself.

It's going to be a wonderful start to 2012!

The People You're Not - at Cornerhouse from Cornerhouse on Vimeo.

Fab animated trailer from the excellent folk at Design By Day for my group show opening next week. Feeling the pressure when the marketing is as good as this! I'll be giving an interview before it opens alongside Harry Hill with Kirsty Laing on BBC Radio 4's Front Row arts and culture programme. I'd better keep a dictionary handy and some big words, just in case I should dry up. Zeitgeist! Sequential! Baudelaire!

Having mugged up a bit more, I could now return to the full painting and make a choice from a number of distinct incidents within the overall melee that I felt could function as independent mise-en-scène. The intention then, as now, was not to create a functioning toy theatre with accompanying play script and interchangeable scenery, but to present a static tableaux, albeit future-proofed for live presentation.

Binge drinking throughout history...

The characters, to be drawn from living, dead and entirely fictional celebrity alcoholics and heavy drinkers, would stand alone but come provided with attachable rods for manipulation if required, while the backdrops, wings and flys could all ultimately be combined or kept apart. I would build the sets with help but commission six illustrators so that although the same model, each would be unique.

... and binge drinking now.

My choices of which scenes to focus upon were also determined by a wish to reflect then-popular performative genres, but they also needed to lend themselves to a contemporary, comedic update. In this way I was able to have fun translating six major themes, exchanging mugs of ale for bottles of WKD en route for Romantic, Pastoral, Pantomime, Classical, Gothic and The Orient.

Cinderella Toy Theatre

A tendency of that period was to grant a dual-name to a play (for example, Jack the Giant Killer, or The Magic Beanstalk), and by following this same affectation I could insert a semantic hinge between then-and-now: combining a deferential nod with a smutty wink. I really enjoyed coming up with these!

The Wedding Supper, or Till Decree Nisi Do Us Part, updates a society betrothal to the money drenched pages of Hello! magazine, featuring the sozzled likes of Liza Minnelli, Kerry Katona, Bender from Futurama and Shane McGowan as an example of the Romantic persuasion (artist: Gemma Parker).

Olympian Revels, or Two Pints of Ouzo and a Kebab exchanges the mythical seat of the Gods for a toga-clad pool party at a Mediterranean concrete pool resort, with Oliver Reed as Zeus, Keith Chegwin as Dionysus and Lindsay Lohan as Artemis in this Classical milieu (artist: John Powell-Jones).

Harlequinade, or Rita, Sue and Herpes Too does a terrible disservice to the early Pantomime, with roots in the Commedia del’Arte, as Columbina, Harlequin and Pantalone become stags and hens on the Great British High Street. Gram Parsons, Keith Floyd and Clarissa Dickson Wright trash Weatherspoons (artist: David Bailey).

Fête Champêtre, or The Battle of B.O.G.O.F. (Buy One, Get One Free), teleports a countryside picnic in the Pastoral vein to to a fantasy sequence inspired by Mary Poppins, as inebriated penguin waiters find the diners quite literally in pieces. Father Jack, Courtney Love and George Best suck on their juice boxes (artist: Simon Misra).

Studious Pursuits, or One More For The Road is devoted entirely to literary drunks, both real and fictional, as the Gothic genre provides a suitably spooky crumbling edifice and creeper-clad graveyard for these pickled ghouls to carouse. Hunter S. Thompson, Dorothy Parker and Edgar Allan Poe raise a toast (artist: Laura Barnard).

Mission to the Hindoos, or Pilgrims of the Porcelain Throne

Mission to the Hindoos, or Pilgrims of the Porcelain Throne celebrates the treasures of The Orient here, upon our own shores, in the form of a Chinese restaurant on a Saturday night. In a nod to The Last Supper, Janis Joplin blesses her posse, including Samuel L. Jackson and Patsy Stone (artists: Charlotte Gould & Hannah Gibson).

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George Cruickshank: British Valour and Yankee Boasting (detail) 1819

Breaking down my observation and response to Cruickshank's painting a number of factors stood out. The original has a strong sense of symmetry to the overall layout, distributing the multiple activities within a defined grid system. The use of squares and boxes are a repeat element throughout, from small structures to larger buildings and title plaques scattered across the seemingly chaotic (but actually ordered) landscape.

George Cruickshank's The Worship of Bacchus (detail) / image courtesy of Tate

Most striking of all is the retreating depth of field; ornately framed and loosely defined as fore ground, middle ground, rear ground and backdrop. To me this conjured theatrical connotations, while I also felt strongly that Cruickshank’s cartoons were reminiscent of the pen-and-wash style I’d seen employed in vintage toy theatre puppetry: from swashbuckling pirates to pantomime dames in teetering wigs.

Mr. G. French as Harlequin / image courtesy New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

On looking further into the history of toy theatres, I learnt that as a form of home entertainment they were reaching their peak of popularity at the same time Cruickshank was working (mid-to-late 19th Century); first as miniature souvenirs of actual live productions but soon developing into an affordable, mass-produced artefact and pursuit beloved of both children and adults.

Pollock's Toy Museum

Research trips included the musty, labyrinthine interiors of Pollock’s Toy Museum, the great glass cases at the V&A Museum of Childhood, Pollock’s Toy Shop in Covent Garden (I defy anyone not to make a purchase on visiting), and the raucous, mechanical funfair diorama held as part of The Museum of Everything’s Exhibition #3 displayed as part of the collected ephemera of Sir Peter Blake.

Picture plate from George Speaight's The History of the English Toy Theatre

As odd as it seems, I’d actually tracked down a rare edition of George Speaight’s The History of the English Toy Theatre a few years back during a late-night eBay graze, only for it to sit unread and untouched until needed. It turns out this book is pretty much the bible of all areas related to this form of juvenile entertainment, so I was able to swot up and chow down on this fascinating topic.

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George Cruickshank: Monstrosities of 1818

George Cruickshank (1792 – 1878) was a newspaper caricaturist and book illustrator capable of such grotesque depictions that some of his targets paid him not to draw them. A heavy drinker for much of his life, his conversion to the Temperance Movement resulted in The Worship of Bacchus (1860 – 1862). A hellish depiction of the danger of even the slightest drop, the streets of London are clogged with all grades of society, from beggar to aristocrat, whores and missionaries, the civil and the disobedient, all intoxicated to various degrees by the vapours of grape and grain.

The Worship of Bacchus (detail) / image courtesy of Tate

Held by Tate Britain and hidden unseen in museum storage for 92 years, it was only recently fully restored and proudly exhibited as part of an eclectic mix of periods and approach during Rude Britannia: British Comic Art during 2010. Although overall visibility since cleaning is much improved, I've chosen instead during this project to refer to and work from Cruickshank’s 1864 print, which in contrasting black and white offers even sharper clarity to the horrors on display.

The Worship of Bacchus (detail) / image courtesy of Tate

I knew what I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to replicate the original (there are hundreds if not almost a thousand figures in the painting, and the actual scale is intimidating); neither did I want to work in any capacity with real, breathing celebrities (as a former entertainment journalist I’ve had a lifetime dosage of empty-headed guff and worse, the surrounding, blistering miasma of PR).

George Cruickshank: Humming Birds, or A Dandy Trio (1819)

I’m also acutely conscious of copyright law, extending its nebulous reach to celebrity likeness, but justified under fair and artistic comment when sheltered, even nourished, under the shade provided by the umbrella of legitimate satire. Shows such as Have I Got News For You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks offer scathing and brilliant criticism, while if Private Eye were a muffin flavour it would be Brains ‘n Bowels. Schoolboy humour makes an excellent disguise for the best acerbic journalism in the UK.

Harry Hill at Rude Britannia / image courtesy of Tate

Harry’s successful television career and spin-off activities, in the principle form of Harry Hill's TV Burp and You’ve Been Framed, are not only of mass appeal at immediate face-value but on closer inspection offer more subversive, sarcastic comment. His exaggerated shirt lapels and wedge-soles are costuming suited to a pinstripe Jester, historically the one person at a Royal Court or wealthy household who could say anything about anyone, as long as it was amusing and delivered with wit and bite.

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Coming soon...

Work is now well underway on my next project in association with Harry Hill and artists Gemma Parker, John Powell-Jones, Simon Misra, Laura Barnard, Charlotte Gould, Hannah Gibson and David Bailey for exhibition at Cornerhouse later this month as part of the group exhibition The People You're Not featuring two further installations. During the late Summer of 2010, Cornerhouse, Manchester hosted Unrealised Potential: a collaborative group exhibition instigated by artist/curator Mike Chavez-Dawson. The show aimed to explore the creative potential of artists’ unrealised projects, blurring the lines between artist, curator, visitor and producer.

Unrealised Potential

Established and emerging artists all submitted ideas for unmade work which were presented as legal documents granting realization rights for a period of two years, after which the rights to any unmade work would revert back to the originator if they remained unproduced. All ideas were priced at £50. My own difficulty with choosing one of half a dozen job titles to describe what it is that I do, dependent upon context and future intention, mirrored the deliberate muddling of role and responsibility in this invitation to pick one of dozens of waiting batons to run with.

Harry Hill

I chose to purchase a pitch by artist, TV entertainer and popular satirical comedian Harry Hill, which unlike others that ran to multiple paragraphs of detail and step-by-step instruction, stuck to just one sentence: To recreate George Cruickshank's The Worship of Bacchus using known alcoholics. I had no idea at the time how I was going to interpret this, only that I wanted to respond in some way to Harry's public persona by creating a work that was accessible on multiple levels, and in doing so allow me to engage others as part of my ongoing collaborative methods.

More to come as I share my thoughts on the process behind the idea and images from the construction, illustration and eventual exhibition.

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image: Neil Shearer

An account of Cornerhouse's 25th birthday celebrations featuring Scratch 'n Sniff Cinema presents The Goonies, is now online. The retro colour-drenched photos are provided by local photographer Neil Shearer. Memories of the night include Debbie Chan as mostly hopeless inventor Data from the movie, who gets my vote as the costume-I-most-want-to-copy using plastic pound store finds, while smells including choc-mint ice cream and pepperoni pizza were perhaps the most effective yet!