My blog, my blog, why hath I forsaken you?

The observant among you might have noticed that I haven’t exactly been prolific this month. There have been a variety of factors at play, not least that last week on Monday I had organised the final Finborough Forum - which turned out to be a brilliant discussion between panellists Chris Campbell, Ian Shuttleworth and James Graham.

This came shortly after watching Michael Moore’s SiCKO and Lagerfeld Confidential for a recording of Culture Clash (a review of the latter is in progress, a review of the former is largely unnecessary) on Tuesday afternoon, shortly before going on to see two of the plays in Daniel Goldman’s Tangram Theatre Casa Latina festival (review again forthcoming). On Wednesday I saw War Horse at the National and Kebab at the Royal Court. Thursday saw me knocking up a piece on Short Plays for the Guardian. I also spent a good proportion of last week running around like a headless chicken organising this Sunday’s Political Theatre, Political Animal debate at the Institute of Ideas’s Battle of Ideas weekend. The results of that debate should be turning into a blog post shortly, probably for the Guardian. So that was what I laughingly call my week off. Now I’m back at work it might all calm down a bit.

All of the above has left me curiously little time for writing, much less reflection. Hopefully I’ll be back in the habit shortly. Still, at least while there are a steady stream of spambots making tracks for my Ugly One review - Lord knows why they love that one so much - at least my stat counter will be happy.

I have also embarked on reading Michael Billington’s epic The State of The Nation - his survey of British theatre since 1945. All the early indications are that it is an impressive bit of work, all the usual objections - which he himself concedes graciously in a very modest introduction - notwithstanding.

In other news, Andrew Field and Chris Goode have both been putting me to shame on the productivity front. And both continue to be quite brilliant. If you’re not already a regular reader, I can’t recommend them highly enough. Also, Maxie Szalwinska’s stuff at the Guardian continues to be essential reading. Also worth a look is Chris Wilkinson’s latest piece on the lack of support networks for young actors. Finally, there is some excellent new stuff on Alison Croggan's Theatre Notes blog.