The Palsy Podcast - Episode 19 - John R Wilkinson

Ciaran is joined on episode 19 of The Palsy Podcast by John R Wilkinson. John is a theatre director, and talks to Ciaran about his career, and growing up with Cerebral Palsy. John was an Agent For Change at Leeds Playhouse as part of Ramps on the Moon, and has directed plays including 'The Last Picture' by Catherine Dyson. John speaks here about his life and career. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Palsy Podcast with me, Kieran Fitzgerald. I'm a playwright, screenwriter, and podcaster from South Wales. And seeing as March is Cerbapalsy Awareness Month to market, I've decided to interview interesting people who have cerebalsy from Wales and beyond every day in March. If you like this episode, please stay tuned for more throughout the month and like and share. Now enjoy this episode of the Pulsy Podcast. Hello and welcome to episode 19 of the Pulsy Podcast with me, Q and FitzGerald. If you're tuning in for the first time, March is Cyber Palsy Awareness Month in the UK, and this month I've decided to interview someone interesting who has CP every day in March. And I'm delighted to be joined today by John Wilkinson. Hi John, thanks for coming on. Very good, thank you. Um the first thing that I'd like to ask you is what I've kind of kicked off most of these with, like, what was your experience as a child growing up with CP?

SPEAKER_02 1:35

So kind of remember being a child, it's a long, long time ago now. So um so I I spent the first ten years of my life in Aragorn because my dad had a news agent shop, which we lived which we lived behind and above. And um as I'm sure people will have experienced the version of, there was a lot of kind of um, you know, we would we would regularly go to the the child development centre at at Harriga Hospital and you know you would have a mixture of um you would have a mixture of sort of occupational therapy and and physiotherapy. Um and I suppose I was very lucky in that in that it was never we never made a thing of it at home. It was never a big thing. Um and when I was ten, my um my um I've got two siblings, a brother and a sister, and my brother was born, and we um my mum and dad decided that we needed more room, so we moved out to um my grandparents' farm towards Weatherby. Um so and very lucky got to live up, grow up on a um on a farm and sort of yeah, it kind of and I yeah, and we still did a lot of stuff in Harrogate, went to school in Harrogate, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Um were you able to get involved in the physical side of farming and helping out and farm?

SPEAKER_02 3:22

No, I wish I had. What I'm trying to think what I did. I would I always say I would I would have loved to because my dad's a trained farmer as well. Um, but no, not really. I mean my grandpa would take me on tractors and and you know, you when you're a bit more when you were smaller or a bit more mobile, you you could be you could be thrown about anywhere. And that was that was no, it was good fun. Good fun. Um and I was also able to, yeah, like I had a like we all had bikes and stuff, so I managed to get a yeah, I had a a bigger sort of trike that I could go around on. We also fundraised for a couple of couple of electric chairs that meant you know you could go around and you could do outdoorsy stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

And having that freedom to move around independently to explore as a child mean means so much, I think. I remember when I was younger, I used to use a relay and you know having a trike like being able to move so much easier, so much faster, made a big difference to me. So, what was school like for you? What was your experience at school?

SPEAKER_02 4:35

It's a really interesting one because I I I loved primary school, um didn't have a great time at secondary school, um, and I think that's but I under uh well my understanding of I have an understanding of that, if that makes sense. You yeah, we all when we get to teenaged, we've got our own stuff going on. So you had like a friendship group, some of which some of which moved from primary to secondary with you. Um and and then people started going through teenage years and you all drifted apart, and then and it was harder in that sense to kind of yeah, maintain and and do a lot of the same things that other people did. And um yeah, and I had what we managed to do. I've always gone to mainstream school because my mum fought for it.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Um I was going to ask you, did your parents have to fight to get you into a mainstream show?

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Yeah, yeah. I mean I d I don't know the details exactly, but my mum, yeah, as I'm sure a lot of people have, they're like mum and dad pushed for so much, like, and I was always the first, yeah, I was the first I was the first kid in kid in a wheelchair to go to um the primary school that I went to, and I was the first um I was the first person in a wheelchair to go to King James's school and and in Nairsborough. And what was interesting about that is like when we were going, you got to go around and sort of interview and and and meet different schools, and there were a couple of schools in Harriga that just wouldn't wouldn't entertain it, and we were just you know, wouldn't entertain the idea of like and and because of all the adaptations and everything they had to make, this was this was way, way before all the EDIB stuff comes in, and it was a little bit more, you know, it was a little bit less thought of, shall we say. Um and then but we were very lucky and that the head teacher of the King James in Nasburg was very keen to very keen to meet us and and meet me, and it was one of those cases, and I'm sure everybody's experienced this.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

He talked to me, like as opposed to like talking around you, which and that should always that shouldn't be a rare occurrence, but so often it is because I've had experiences of people talking to the person over with like, but when you feel that you're you're being sent in, you're being spoken to, you're being interested, that is so important.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

I don't know if you've ever read um like you it still boils my blood every time it happens because yeah, I'm interested and within reason I'm um yeah, I can have a lot of whole you know, we can hold conversations and you know like and there's a brilliant book by um Christopher Bruckmeyer, and I'd never heard it articulated as well before, but there's this chapter in I think it's um a big boy didn't did it and ran away, and it's basically a satirical crime novel where it's two Scots, two friends in Scotland who one grows up to be like a like um work a menial menial job, and the other grows up to be an assassin, an international assassin. Um, but there's a bit, there's a chapter in that book where the the guy who's the guy, the friend who's the menial job guy, has been taken into the police station, has been interviewed about the this incident with his friend. And the um the and the policeman's doing this to him, and he uses the I think the like let me try and get this quote right, it's something like the incomparable frustration of being patronized by a stupid person.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

That's such a good phrase, because that's exactly what it is. Because half the time, even if you say that to somebody, even if you tell them, please don't do that, I've got X, Y, and Z qualifications, it doesn't make a blind bit, doesn't make a blind bit of difference. They can't they can't get it past their own, they can't compute it.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

And then if I don't I don't know if you're the same, but then having experienced those situations, when you go into situations where you've got to talk to people, I feel like sometimes I've got to prove myself, I've got to prove that I'm intelligent or worthy of having that person with.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

I mean, I suppose my version of that is is a is a self-consciousness around my speech and how we kind of like and you realise that it's not a problem, but you go in with these you go in with these can't use my words, you go in with these these worries and these these preconceptions that people are gonna read this and they're gonna judge this and yeah, whereas actually half the time we're alright.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

I think I think so. I think most people I think attitudes have improved. Um but I do think there's still still a bit that needs to be done, like but I I do think that we do I certainly tend to overthink things in that regard. So I'm gonna move on slightly. Like, so when did you first get interested in theatre?

SPEAKER_02 10:47

So I was so I didn't do drama at school. Um I was always English oriented, partly because the drama department we had at school, again, going back to the time when it was before all the EDRB stuff, it wasn't really that accessible. Like I could walk up, like I could walk up, like our our drama departments like right at the top of three flight three flights of stairs, and I could have done that if I'd wanted to, but at the same time, you know, it was it was it was hard. So I I ended up not ended up, I did English literature and language as opposed to drama, and I kind of left school genuinely not knowing what we what I wanted to do. And our our my fun chute was also the head of drama. It was a fabulous guy called Mark Mark uh Mike Garside, still alive, he's not dead. Um he um he kind of said, Have you gone, have you had a look at um there's a place called Breton Hall, which now no longer exists, but for for older listeners, it was a it was an art college um in the grounds of the West Yorkshire Sculpture Park. And so I had a year out, and then I so I applied there to do like to do theatre studies, and they had they changed the name of the course to theatre of dramaturgy, and it was the first dramaturgy degree in in the UK, and now we're quite we we were familiar with dramaturgy now, but back then, sort of 2000-ish, we weren't. Um I I kind of went there and and with no with no idea what I wanted to do afterwards. And when I finished I did an MA at Leeds, and I was like, unless you're very lucky or or you teach, it's very hard to get a job in that field. And I kind of I ended up getting a foot in the door job at York Theatre Royal on box office and and went from there, really.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

And then worked your way up from there. So like after uni, was it dramaturgy that you were interested in or directing, which was the what was the dream at that age? Was it both?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Like no, no, I think it was no, I think it was it was very much um it was very much dramaturgy. I mean did I didn't train in directing at all. Um and I back then I was a little bit shyer than I am now, and I I kind of asked um I asked um I all my all my mates back then were like stage management. So we'd because like and I used to go to the pub with them, and eventually one of them said to me, Why don't you just have a word with our artistic director? Um and because you think artistic directors are these these sort of mysterious figures that hang around in in turrets and don't speak to anybody. Um but actually we had there was a well there's a there was a brilliant AD there who's up in Anik now called Damien Cruden, and he kind of both him and the associate director um sort of mentored me a lot and kind of all the directing stuff I learned kind of by watching them and watching different people and writing to people and going and sitting in a room and when I heard when I heard a word that I didn't know I'd kind of I'd have a notebook with me and I'd scribble loads of stuff down and then and I think a lot of the learning that you get it takes a while to bed in and evolve and and so there was no there was no intention of directing. I never set out to direct, I just was offered the opportunity to do it and and it went well. That's that passing.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

And and just you spoke about dramaturgy, had you written as well, were you interested in writing players or just the dramaturgy and script editing side of it?

SPEAKER_02 15:20

I suppose I suppose I used to I wasn't very good at putting myself forward, and I used to write for pleasure, I still write for pleasure, but more sort of novelty stuff than than than than plays. Um so it mainly it was mainly a knowledge of existing plays and and kind of going from there, although the more you go on, the more I'm quite I'm always quite jealous of directors who have been actors and you know ones that have written and directed because you learn a you learn different sets of skills.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Do you have a set process when you're directing something, or does it depend what the project is, what the piece demands?

SPEAKER_02 16:17

It's a really fun that's a really fun question. I I saw it in your list and I was like, oh that's good. Um I could talk about this for all day. Um I think when you're so we grew up in a time when when directing was it was very much anti-blocking. Like there were the there's people like Mike Alfred's and and and those kind of those kind of practitioners who who don't believe in it. They kind of look want an actor to find it themselves, which which to a point, yes, I I get. And I I read all those books and I like bought into that theory, and I tried, you know, you as you evolve your own process and you kind of try different things, and and the the the sort of democracy of that um was exciting, but then I as you again as you evolve there's the you you you sort of to use a weird analogy, it's like like um like in gaming when you kind of um when you get experience points, you skill up and that kind of thing. There's there's there's levels of things that you don't initially one thing, for example, that's really hard to get is transitions, now transitions work, yeah. And and I think blocking is one of them because I got to a point where I got to a point. Um I did one show where I tried to do the anti-blocking thing, and because I didn't have any found like because I hadn't got solid enough foundations in in in fallback, um you get into problems. So I think now what I what I do now the first thing I would do still, I suppose, is have a really good conversation with the actor or the actors, and and and sort of it's funny we're doing this around CP because I do a I do a speech at the beginning and I kind of say this is what this is what CP means for me, this is what it means in terms of stamina and speech and and and and sort of um oh that was really good. I'm gonna I'm gonna Google this because I can't um let me see what um my video gave me a brilliant phrase and um let me just um let me just find it while I'm talking to you. Um it's like to do with um anyway, it's it it's a it's to do with m um muscular control. Right. Um I'll find it by the end of the episode. Um and and so I have that conversation with an actor, and then I would say to them, so I've told you what I need, or or you do it with the design team as well, and you would say, This is what I need. Like, what do you guys need? How do you like to work? And for example, on this on this last play we've done, uh Robin Simpson the actor bless him was like, Well, just tell me if it's rubbish and I'll do it differently, and it's like that's exactly what you want to hear. But I think where I then go, where I then go to guard against that anti-blocking thing, is I have a very rigorous blueprint in my head because I found prior to all this anti-blocking philosophy I'm gonna sound like a football manager here, but there's there's lots of there's lots of older directing books that have rules, that old rules that we were never taught. Like there is there are only a certain number of positions on stage. Um there's your obvious ones that you like your upstage, downstage, center stage, or but within those nine spaces, there's different, there's there's different positions within that. And it was all to get a bit boring and historical, it was initially designed so that before any of this before creative access was a thing, um people could go to the theatre if they were hearing impaired, and they could they could read the story by positions on stage.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

I didn't know that at all. That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Yeah, it's it's so what it it's it's so clever, and so what I tend to do now is kind of go in with a version of that, so I can like so I can sketch out what we want, and then you know, if we want to break down and we want to do if we want to do a bit of talking into something, we can then do that. It's like you know, it that that is that is where I'm at at the moment, I suppose, in terms of process.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

And is integrated access an integral part of that process? And or is it something you're still because I think it's difficult, right? I think it's it's something that in the industry we're all kind of learning and developing and which we can be continuous thing to integrate access within performances. Is that something you look to do in your work?

SPEAKER_02 22:09

It's it is a really interesting one because I funnily enough I just did a load of training with um I just did a lot of training last Friday with Birds of Paradise.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Um and just for York and they were talking into creative access a little bit and obviously I did that bit of work with Amps on the Moon um yes so nearly 10 years ago now which made me shock to be the other day. And creative access was a big part of that and I think I think I always really I think I it's a learning it's a learning journey for me really because there is a there is an assumption that because because we're disabled artists we know about how to do that but it's a very particular aesthetic and there's also rights and wrongs like do you do you try and do everything at once do you like do you focus down on one element and the and the whole language the landscape and language is evolving all the time like I I heard the term sounds shocking I'd never heard the term to say disabledism until Friday I'd heard the word I'd heard the word able ableism but there's a distinction between those two was a new thing. So I think the conversations around access are always we're always learning and we've like we've got to in terms of work that I've done with it the I think the the only show that I've focused down on it was was Winter which was the young vic show where we tried to do something interesting with with audio description and and and sonically where um we I worked with a a fab actor called um Maisie Greenwood and Maisie is visually impaired and we did a whole thing where half the stage was half the stage was gravel and half the stage was carpet so there was a but you couldn't tell the difference until you stepped on it. So like visually all looked the same. So I think I think there's a there was a I saw an article this morning about a campaign that everything everything should be captioned which which which is interesting and so I think the element that interests me about creative access at the moment is as we as it evolves is there a way of evolving it that that adheres to the it can adhere more to what I would this is probably badly phrased but what I would like refer to as pure theatricality in terms of when we use when we use caption for example we're often reliant on video yes and that is that's a choice but it's also an intermedial choice in that you're mixing multimedia with with live performance. What I'd be interested in finding is a way of there are I know there are certain artists because birds of paradise were talking about it on Friday who who use analog methods of creative access.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Okay and I think that for me in terms of taste and my aesthetic that would be that would probably be where I'd where I'd be interested in looking at I I've never even thought that to use those analog methods that's that's really interesting and please let me know what you discover what what develops I will I will and I'm aware I'm aware that it's a it's such a nuanced conversation because if you do want to if we do want to use the technology the technology exists and it's brilliant but it's just is there a way of yeah and you you would obviously factor it into a design early on.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Yeah is there a way of but is there a way of capturing the liveness a bit more yeah that's really so yeah I I'm gonna continue to think about that some big questions um you're gonna move on slightly um so in Wales we've just had the launch of a thing called Cryse which is the Welsh version of a thing called Rams on the moon and you were an agent for change at Leeds Playhouse as part of Rams on the moon um so first of all what did your role involve um I mean I mean the great thing about that scheme was when I did it when I did it I'm trying to think how many partners there were I think there were four or five there were the there were five in Wales so there was there was Leeds Birmingham Stratford East um uh Nottingham I don't want to say there was one more I might have been Sheffield I might be wrong um but what it was about was was being a like being a a a constant presence in that organization and being an advocate for for disability and access for like front and back of house you know production everything trying to hit everything and I think what what they allowed you to do which was not whether they allowed you to do it but I kind of um what I enjoyed about it was you were able to like make progress in your own way like I would like there are lots of different ways of having the access conversation you can be very very you can be very activist and very sort of megaphone yeah I think that but there's a different there's a difference between I think there's a difference between activism and advocacy because I felt like I felt like the way I had to do it I was a bit more I I tried to do it slightly um slightly quieter in a slightly quieter way and I think it depends on the the culture of the building and the city um like I'm from I'm I'm well we have a Leeds postcard here so I'm I'm I'm just about from Leeds my mum's from Leeds so Yorkshire you have there are certain ways of doing things and and you kind of and so I I I progressed what I progressed and other people did it in different ways and I think that's the that's the best thing about um that's the best thing about that scheme.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Were the staff building receptive and did they put things into place?

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Yeah they were we had a I mean I mean I was trying to count I think I was I was either the second or third agent for change they had because the artistic director at the time at Leeds Playoffs was James Brining who'd pioneered the idea of an agent for change up in Dundee with Carol Caroline Bauditch and I think he un well he did fully understood what it what it was capable of and Leeds Playhouse has always been brilliant with its outreach and its creative engagement and and they had a massive department there who were you know there was Alpha Is when it was there when I was there but it was Sam Perkins before him and there were they were really you know they were real presence in the city and they cared about it and they kind of um they um oh lost me trying to thought they um so there were there was there was like a designated access person there who I who I sort of tag team quite nicely with um myriad Maria Thelwell who's now mind the gap and so so it wasn't like you it all it all begins with ethos doesn't it and whether like you've won you know half the battle is getting people on side and they were already already on side so that was fine.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Made it easier for you going in there to and people being receptive to change makes the change easier and develops the culture of that building really yeah and uh you recently directed the last picture by the lovely Welsh writer Katherine Dyson um can you talk a little bit about uh I was speaking to Katherine just before I came on to speak to you um yeah yeah she's she's wonderful um I and you can claim her as Welsh as well that's great um yeah absolutely absolutely reclaiming you and um so yeah it was a it was great it was uh like it's a beautiful play and um we we had a really nice time we've been it's been yeah I've been banging on about that play for about three years.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

I I first encountered it as part of the RSC's 37 plays and I would instantly like I like my my taste is sort of um I love I love destroying literalism and trying to like get into the into the um the um sort of mainland europe vibes so I I mean the the the un the the sort of layman's way of describing it I is I like I might I like making weird shit and like and um and it's a very clever concept it's a very clever conceit um and yeah we just had a we just had a nice time. Do you joke a little bit a bit about what the play's right what the concept is is yeah yeah of course I can it's gonna sound weird I saying we had a nice time when I talk about this because the the the content of the play isn't nice at all. So it's basically um Catherine it's really hard to define what genre of work Catherine makes because you you could quite easily compare it to like performance storytelling or Chris Thorpe or something like that but she she kind of exists in her own little space um and so the plays the play is about a it's told from it's a one person play told from the point of view of an emotional support dog called Sam so any age any gender can play play Sam and Sam describes the events of taking a year nine he's a he's a support dog to a class of year nine school children um taking them to a a Holocaust exhibit um well you you pretty quickly learn that it's a Holocaust exhibit and and all the pictures the the conceit of the play apart from Sam telling the story which are which operates as a kind of buffer to the sensitivity sensitivity of some of the content the conceit there's very few stage directions in the play apart from you don't see any pictures um you're not allowed to see any pictures they're all based on real pictures that are the Imperial War Museum but you don't see any of them so it's it's reliant on the audience to use her imagination to create the play um more so than more so than normal um it's just really clever and I mean I mean Catherine had Catherine is of Jewish heritage now uh sort of she's she had relatives that were that escaped Germany and and but uh she also wanted to explore the convention of um writing through the eyes of a dog and it's just it's just really clever.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

I haven't come across that before as a perfected and I think it's a really interesting thing to look at it from a dog perspective like it's has the tour finished now is there anywhere that people can see it in Wells well well the tour finished in Guildford a couple of weeks ago and we did where did we do it started in York then we went to Manchester at home then we went to Bristolovic then we went to um Yvonne Arnaud theatre in Guildford and it's finished now but we're we've you know the we're hopeful that it we'll have a some kind of um we'll see it again somewhere um because it's a it well and we just we were really pleased with it and it's it's really um the other thing the other thing that's important to say about it is she doesn't it's not preachy.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

It kind of gives you a very objective it places you in a very objective spot where you can make your own comparisons with maybe stuff that's happening now maybe stuff that we need to guard against and and and so keep your eyes peeled let me say that thank you I will do I'm really disappointed that I missed it and you you talk about making author drama through the lens of disability even when the subject matter isn't directly about disability so what what does that mean to you? Yeah I noticed I noticed you sent me that you've been reading my you've been reading my agent's biography um maybe maybe maybe not um I what did I mean by that I suppose I just mean I I'm sorry if I'm putting you on the spot you can no you're not no don't worry about it at all um I I think the one thing you talking about growing up with CP earlier and I think the one of many things that it gives you is a degree of otherness and a degree of like sitting outside of of the crowd and sort of um and I think that otherness which are talking about in terms of perspective and I think I think there is if you go back through the plays I've directed there is something about there isn't I'd like to think it was subconscious but it mightn't be which is worrying um but there's a subconscious thing about a lot of the plays deal with individuals in sort of othered situations and sort of on the periphery of things and I think that that is what I think that is what it that it's that's what it's given me and and the more I the more I kind of crystallize my views on theatre if you like and what it can do the more I think I get very very bored and it's gradually starting to creep gradually starting to creep in people are gradually starting to get this but I get very very bored with people banging on about stories because stories are very like marketing departments like to talk about stories a lot because it's an easy way in it's an easy way and it's what stories have become not to get very boring and and and academic on you but what stories have become a shorthand for language structure and marketing campaigns and I think what theatre particularly should be trying to do it's about imagination and it's about exercising our imagination and like I I took we've just talked about the last picture I used to and I said this a lot in the course of that broadly speaking you think about a spectrum of of of imagination and and genres if you're reading a book a book allows we call requires um slightly arbitrary number but a book requires 100% of your imagination to be used in in conjuring it film and TV you go smack to the other end of the spectrum because you've got a camera point to where it wants you to look it tells you what like tell you where to go often you get music that tells you how to feel so you're kind of using five to ten percent of your imagination theatre should exist or does exist somewhere towards the arbitrary again 75% to 70% so it's like how can theatre differentiate itself from it you know it shouldn't try and compete because it from film and TV especially if you want to get an audience and get an audience away from Netflix and Disney Plus how what what is gonna draw them to the theatre and it's that live experience isn't it it's also it's also dangerous because like I like talking about being in Manchester so the the the content of this play was obviously quite heavy and there was a the night that I saw it because obviously when you're on tour you don't go on it you don't go to every night the night that I saw the play there was a there's a family claim in it was a it was a um a an older teenager and he was with his with three of his family yeah and he was obviously really keen on theatre because he was like he was proper like leaning forward engaged his family what were not theatre goers and I say that because as soon as the actor came on they started laughing at really inappropriate moments and it was really weird and and the the particularly because it obviously the content isn't yeah there's moments of likeness in it but it isn't designed to be funny and it really threw the actor and we were turned about it afterwards and what you realize is that I think what that was is those people not knowing where to put their emotions when they're experiencing live stuff. So so I think there's a danger in that if we get too far down the line of you know being on a sofa, see it a needs To like help people like engage in that different way.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Connect with their emotions more directly and gain a level of emotional understanding, maybe? Is that kind of what you're getting at?

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Yeah, yeah, I think so. It's kind of they've they've they've no there's no there's no not like a screen, you can't turn it off, you can't you can't to an extent you can't lose focus. Like there's that awful thing in there's that awful thing in TV right now which is called second screen, and writers will say about this. Yeah, and writers will say, Re writers will get notes saying, Oh, it's not second screen enough, and it's like, oh well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

That that really annoys me. If you're watching watch something, and like hopefully this encourages people to to maybe give us a go. And and what do you enjoy most about working on new writing and what what draws you to a piece of new writing? What makes you think oh that's a piece I really want to work on?

SPEAKER_02 45:15

And what excites you? I think there's two things. I think one is to do with the one is to do with the one is the nature of what you're being asked to do, and one is the quality of work that you've been asked to make. And what I mean by that what I mean by the nature is you're you're helping a writer develop something from from dot. And I think there is there is a there is a really interesting thing about judging judging like variance and just letting them it's really hard, isn't it? It's it's you you're a conjure and then you've got a you you've got a shape um their thing as opposed to as opposed to if we're working on an extant piece of um text, yeah. There is a danger that you will put so much of yourself in it that become conceptual and become like become like a sort of some kind of um calling card. Um and then the other thing is when I say quality of the work, I I hate and it's easy to tell what I don't like than what I do. I think we've gotten to a point where so much work can be um can be um preachy and tell an audience, give an audience a position. Whereas again, to refer to back to the last picture, what that did really brilliantly was was set us in a position where there wasn't an opinion offered, but it was given like we were given the opportunity to form our own ideas about subject X, Y, or Z. And I think that's much more exciting than somebody somebody saying to an audience, right, this is on you, this is your fault, this is what you have to solve.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

I I agree completely. I I don't like being preached out when I go to theatre, but if I can form my own opinion, yeah, yeah, I think maybe we've lost a bit of that in theatre. Um but John, it's been been lovely talking to you. I've got one last question, which is how I attempt to round these up. Uh, what is one thing that you wish people knew about cell call palsy?

SPEAKER_02 48:21

Um I'm gonna cheat and I'm gonna refer back to Chris Chris Bruckmeier quote, the incomparable frustration of being patronized by stupid people. Like we can we can yeah just just because just because a person presents in a certain way doesn't mean you can't talk to them.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

Yeah. Like regardless, like yeah. Make an effort talk to people.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

Don't change your people. Don't assume, I suppose, if you want to like an easy sum up.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Yeah, that's really good. Don't make assumptions, everyone's different and engage with yeah. I completely hear what you're saying, it resonated so much with me what you said earlier. Thank you, John. It's been lovely to meet you. Thank you for coming on the podcast. That's alright, thank you for asking me. And yeah, hopefully we we can work together on some stuff in the future as well. Um, thank you all for listening and watching and joining me on this episode of the Paul Z podcast. Uh please stay tuned for more episodes every day throughout March on the next episode. We're staying with the artists, but uh speaking to actor Lizzie Alice on the next step, or she is currently in Undersalt Marsh, which has been on Scoutland Deck and has performed at the old and the rest end, so please stay tuned for that tomorrow. But for now it's goodbye from me and goodbye from John. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Pulsy Podcast with me, Kieran Fitzgerald. I want to thank my guests for joining me, and I hope that you'll stay tuned for the next episode and more throughout March. Thank you.