Good morning, good evening, good afternoon,
I’m JP Cooper, the one that writes Silence and acts . . . well loads of bloody characters; but mainly Alex Wenterton. I see Mr Doree has been posting his posterior off and thought it about time I get in on the act. This is the first blog I’ll have ever done . . . it feels a little like the writing equivalent of kissing a mirror, but I’m sure I’ll adjust.
In this post I’m going to cover a couple of bits and pieces :-
(There’s a lovely little numbered list below these words. Do feel free to use it with your eyes, but please return it to its proper place when finished)
1) Who I am, and what I’m up to?
2) Silence in C Minor the History Part 1
Feel free to flick to the bits that interest you, or if none of it does then stop reading and play ‘Which is your Nose’ with yourself in the mirror . . . now!
1) Who the bloody hell am I, and what the dawg gone hell am I doing?
(Please notice the use of ‘dawg’. An extra feature for all you readers that are into the hipperty hop)
Well, I’m a writer and performer called JP. I ended up going with the JP Cooper thing after I found another Jon Cooper who was a playwright and didn’t wish to get people confuzzled. I’m currently most produced most in radio and theatre, but don’t want to witter on about myself outside of Silence too much cause you can find that sort of detail here (www.jon-cooper.co.uk) if you’re really interested. (Yes I know it looks like a pile of un-updated pap, but I’ll re-do it once the Silence one has had the same treatment. Work over vanity
I will mention the following though:-
v I’m part of the Old Vic New Voices
v I’ve a short play called Observations going to The Latitude Festival with Theatre 503. Go see!
v My latest full length and generally serious play (on Alzheimer’s) “For Once I was” looks to be confirmed for performance sometime in a central London venue in January. (More details shortly)
So when you add the above into the work load for writing and performing Silence you can see why I’ve begun to say to friends who want drinks, “How you fixed for September?”
Now back to Silence. In relation to the writing I’ll cover a lot of different bits on this blog over time, but for now, I’ll answer the question most people ask about it . . .
“How do you come up with that?”
My answer used to be . . . drugs. No, seriously. It was. Now, it’s not. Now it’s just a combo of enforced sitting, daytime wondering and drugs (hold on a second didn’t I just . . . ah forget it). I also work a number of very tedious jobs that allow me to funnel the frustrations of the world I see around me. Ultimately I think most writers are pushed to write cause of their dissatisfaction with the world around them. I’ll take one example of where these ideas appear from and leave it there . . .
In episode one there is a discussion between James and Alex about money, and James’s misunderstanding of it as a concept. This was born of me standing out in the rain smoking and kicking the crap out of a kerb cause I couldn’t meet the rent again.
“Doesn’t money grow on trees?” Thought I, filled with annoyance.
“Well, technically in trees.” The person that lives in my skull replied.
“It is after all, printed on a form of paper.” Said a random passer by. Apparently I had been talking out loud.
So when I met friends in the pub later and proclaimed that there was comedy in money they all laughed at me. “Screw you guys!” thought I, and so the sequence was born . . .
That’s a true story that, a story you can tell your friends if you like . . . go on, I don’t mind. TELL THEM!!!!
2) Silence, an Exhaustive History – Part 1
As you can see from John’s previous posts things are moving scarily quick on the Silence front. We’re in rehearsals for the Edinburgh Show, recording Episode six of the radio show (which will release after the Ed Show closes), I’m making a new improved version of the site and we have just finished the wonderful Silent Cabaret! All this stuff got me thinking about where it all began, and how it got to where it is now . . . So put on some David Bowie and get a pint of cottage pie cause we’re going back in the day . . .
Hello and welcome to back in the day . . . It’s a Thunksday (the Patron Saint of dropping things day), and stupid bloody JP Cooper is walking down a path. Why is he stupid and bloody you ask? Well, he’s done what he always does and opened his mouth without thinking. He’s committed himself to writing an entire play about a stationary cupboard and people who work in an office and he’s also broken the cardinal rule of saying “It’s going to be funny”. He’s also mentioned he’s going to use a thing called virtual actors in it, and that doesn’t even exist yet! He was so convincing about it all that people in his University Drama Society actually took a vote, and he won. Now they want to see a play, and not a word of it has been written . . .
Meanwhile back in first person narration . . .
Looking back on it, this has become a bit of a cycle and partly dictates how I work. I have to back myself into a corner and just get on with it. A good tip for anyone that wants to proclaim themselves a writer! I was always the type at Uni to do a 5000 word essay the night before and still do all right, so it seems to be how I work well. I like stress. It makes me fire up, and in this case got my first real play written . . .
Back ‘in the day’ in third person . . .
JP is crouched and smoking over his keyboard, furiously trying to get two people who don’t exist to talk to each other. He knows they work in an office, he knows they are silly and strange, he just doesn’t know how he’s going to do all that he promised . . . He wants to cry . . . But he’s a manly man so he doesn’t . . . instead he . . .
And that’s the end of part one . . . WHAT! I hear you cry (quietly and in your mind), but you see this post will go on for hours if it’s not broken down and to wet your appetite I’ll end it in the style of Alex and James.
So join us next post when we’ll be talking about . . . The cupboard, the original cast, eating ice cream, virtual actors (oh that’s a good bit, just you wait and see) and the death of Silence!
