Happy New

The observant amongst you will have noticed, I’ve been off-blog for a bit. For once, it wasn’t down to me throwing one of my occasional diva hissy-fits, but the fact I was writing the introductory chapter for Methuen’s snappily titled Modern British Playwriting: 2000-2009: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations (Decades of Modern British Playwriting). I told them I’d probably get it done by mid-November. I have since learnt that I should double any given time-period I first think of.

Writing it, and thinking about the subject – hint: my God, there was *a lot* of theatre in Britain in the 2000s. Certainly more than fits comfortably into 20,000 words – has been incredibly interesting (for me, and I hope for future readers) and I’m sure spending a long time thinking about the recent past will feed back into what I write. At some point, after I’ve had a bit of time to process the whole thing, I’d like to write a blog about writing the chapter, if it doesn’t feel too meta- and/or just hideously self-indulgent.

Anyway, this is just a quick note to excuse my absence before I get on with writing some new stuff.

It’s been tremendously frustrating, but perhaps also useful, to have had to sit on my hands while the last couple of months of the last year rolled by. Mostly, I was in Cologne, though, so I don’t have *too many* missed reviews to catch up. There are outstanding possible reviews of Andrew Poppy’s deeply strange Shiny Floor, Shiny Ceiling at Jackson’s Lane, the Print Room production of Howard Barker’s Lot and His God, Chris Haydon’s Trojan Women at the Gate, Lucy Prebble and Rupert Goold’s The Effect at the National, The Batsheva dance company at Sadler’s Wells, Calixto Bieito’s Carmen at ENO, Dieter Giesing’s German première of Wastwater at Schauspielhaus Köln, The Changeling at the Young Vic and Martin Crimp’s latest, In The Republic of Happiness at the Royal Court.

I also went to Kosovo and Albania for a piece I’m writing for The Stage which ought to be published in the next couple of weeks. And I suppose there are also all sorts of ancillary debates which I missed adding my 2p to, while I was mired in my chapter – although, mostly this seemed to be a re-run/resurfacing of the old New Writing/New Work “debate”, which is actually over now (Officially. According to the new Methuen book on the 2000s that false oppostion ended in 2009).

So, anyway, yes. All that.

It’s very nice to be back here. Happy New Year.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?