Devising (Inspired by an awful show on the Fringe)

Having spent 3 years studying how to devise theatre, admittedly a little bit weirdly and postmodernly, I was really disappointed by what I saw watching **** ***** recently.

Devising starts with games and ideas and then the ideas take shape. You workshop them in different ways and somebody watches and takes notes and writes down little gems that occur in rehearsal. Devising needs an outside eye. You need a director to hold it all together - a writer to cut all the crap that actors love to throw in.

You CANT, and I repeat can't just throw in an idea half way through a devised piece that has no relevance to anything that has gone before. For example, let's say the premise of something is great. Okay, so who are our characters? What are their relationships? Where are the shades of grey? Okay, so it's going to be naturalistic is it? Great. Then you really cannot...cannot throw in a bit of physical theatre at the end because it looks nice or that's what your company specialises in.

Ideas need to be set up in the narrative and then fully explored and moulded and then shoved around but there must be a strong narrative line.

It really annoys me that companies can bring something to Edinburgh, fully funded by the arts council and lottery and put on complete crap because it just so happens to be topical and relevence to something oooh important in society. Oooooh maybe it'll get people thinking about something important. Ooooh, let's throw lots of money at it.

It drives me mad that great companies who thrive for excellence and integrity are completely overlooked because their application might not fit in with what is cool and in this week.

Anyway, back to devising. I love it. I worked with a group of 7 people for two years whilst training that were fantastic to devise with. But we needed an outside eye. We needed someone telling us that our acting was shit or that idea really wasn't right and there wasn't enough strength in that part etc...You cannot direct from the inside.