A long overdue blog

Morning all,

Thought a new blog was well overdue - things have been pretty busy with Alt.Fiction, as well as a number of other projects going on right now, but I promise I'll get more regular bloggage from now on :-)

So what's happened since my last blog? Well, we ran the day of Christmas Spirits at QUAD, in association with 1623 theatre company, which was a fantastic experience. Having never done anything like it before, I was pretty terrified to actually get up on stage, but both the kids and adults alike seemed to enjoy the whole of the show and I got some nice compliments about my section, so that was all good.

Our afternoon show was a shortened version of A Christmas Carol, which featured Jane Upton as our narrator, Marcus Houden as Scrooge and me as... well, everyone else. That's Jacob Marley, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, plus Bob Cratchit and Scrooge's nephew Fred. I'm just glad we did cut it down, because it could have been many more characters... Highlights of the hour-long show for me was the reaction to me walking in as the robed and hooded Ghost of Christmas Future (that got a real gasp!) and the kids making the most of Scrooge's new-found generosity, going into the crowd and dishing out chocolate coins. The excitement of it was almost too much...

The show in the evening was a whole different matter, because I didn't have a costume or a host of characters to hide behind. Marcus kicked things off with a reading of The Tell-Tale Heart (always a favourite of mine), which set things on their way in a suitably atmospheric and spooky fashion. Jane was then up with her rendition of The Turn of the Screw, the superb closing extract, which I still say has one of the best last lines ever. These solo readings both went down really well, especially with the whole thing being set completely in character.

Into the second half, and it was my turn, performing Dickens' classic The Signalman with Marcus as the unfortunate signalman of the title. Despite my utter fear, I did my best to project nice and clearly, and having practiced the story to death I managed to avoid any big stumbles. The story itself got a great reaction, with a lot of people saying afterwards that it was one of their favourites, so that was good to hear. There will be some footage of the evening forthcoming, which I will of course post up here.

So will we be seeing another Christmas Spirits? Frankly, yes, you bet we will. Having sold out two shows at QUAD, as well as having had such a positive response, I think it'd be silly not to. And when that takes shape, you'll be the first to hear about it.

Other than that, it's all been looking forward, with plan afoot for a busy few months in May, June and July. I can't say a great deal at this stage, but if you live in Lincoln, Leicester or Nottingham, rest assured Alt.Fiction will be headed your way in the near future.

The last thing to add is that I was on Siren FM's Midweek Drive show yesterday, which was a great fun experience - thanks a lot to Alex Lewczuk for the invite. If you'd like to hear me talking all things SF and Fantasy, you can check it out at www.southsidebroadcasting.podbean.com

Cheers, and have a good weekend y'all!

Alex