MORE! TOO MUCH! ENOUGH!

4

/

1

25th March 2026

Last night I ran a workshop for Bristol A Cappella, a champion mixed barber shop chorus. They are conscious that the world in which they move is pushing towards greater theatricality in its performance, and wanted some support in helping their members act through the songs they sing. At the end of the session, one of the members showed me a big red cardboard sign that they have, emblazoned with the words TOO MUCH. They use this if the choir over act. Apparently it is rarely required.

This instantly made me think of Robin Hemmings (top actor and musician, long time collaborator, professional idiot, close friend) describing how he approaches my directing style, ‘I try something out. If you laugh, then I do it again. If you are silent, I try something else.’ That laugh is encouraging MORE, and I realised that is what I am always encouraging.

I have definitely articulated this to a number of casts over the years – just keep doing more, it’s my job to tell you when you’ve taken it too far. I rarely have to do this – in fact, I think there are only three actors who have ever had the note ENOUGH. (For those interested in such things, they are Roddy Peters, Fintan Hayeck, and Robin Hemmings – there are probably others.)

On the bus back to Weston super Mare – oh, the glamour of the freelance artist – I thought about this further. Am I asking for ridiculous, over the top performances? Is my taste really crass? No, because sometimes MORE means more silent, or more still, or more sensitive. I think that what I am doing is creating in the rehearsal room, the right conditions for an approach to performing that I teach, something I call the Cycle of Improvisation:

I try something out. If you laugh, then I do it again. If you are silent, I try something else.

Do nothing.

Find something.

Know what it is you have found.

Make it more.

Know when to stop.

Repeat to fade.

By letting actors know that I will tell them when they have gone too far, they don’t have to worry about Step 5 of the Cycle, and I am fulfilling what I think is one of the key jobs of the director – letting the cast know that there are boundaries in place to protect them. Like children they are free to play – they can do MORE until they are told TOO MUCH and that’s how we discover what is ENOUGH.

Read More

22nd July 2026

Since working in theatre, I have always had a distrust of directors who approach a play with a big idea – ‘The Tempest is about control, Prospero coercively controls the narrative and characters, and so I will set my production in a circus ring with Prospero as ringmaster.’

23rd Mar, 2026

Every new website comes out of the box with a painfully generic, automatically generated post titled "Hello World!" But considering you have spent the better part of your life crafting entirely original narratives, leaving a standard robot greeting sitting on your new digital desk felt like a crime. So, Andy and I decided to hijack your very first entry.