I've been hinting that the bad news about my temporary break from Durham Dramatic Society becoming permanent was only half the story. I had to hang fire on the other half first because I needed to get some things sorted behind the scenes. Then because I wanted to allow a cooling off period between notifying the relevant people of my decision and going public with it. However, those things have now been done and I can finish the story. And, unfortunately, the full story is a lot worse than what I've previously announced, and has wider consequences than petty amateur dramatics politics.

I'll get straight to the point:

I will not be running the City Theatre for Durham Fringe this year. I wanted to, but circumstances have made this impossible for me.

I will still be getting involved in Durham Fringe, but I am only donating my time to acts who I already have a good working relationship with. For everyone else (either individual acts or Durham Fringe itself), I will be available if you need me - but I will have to charge.

Here's why ...

I had been unhappy with the way Durham Dramatic Society was going, but the one bit of the job I loved was running the City Theatre for Durham Fringe. Between 2021 and 2023, I played host to numerous acts, with both my experience of technical work and my knowledge of my way around the City Theatre to make this all possible. It was hard work keeping on top of this, but I gladly put in all the hours needed to make this a success. I've made some wonderful friendships from this, and I would never have had the courage to pitch It's Not Cluedo to the Rotunda without the support and encouragement of many of the acts I worked with during my time at Durham.

I was always under the impression I was doing everybody a favour. For Durham Dramatic Society, I saw to it that the City Theatre was a viable venue, and now Durham Fringe is the Society's biggest earner after the mainstream productions - and I can attest the society most definitely needs the money. For Durham Fringe's part, I can categorically say there is NO WAY the City Theatre would have functioned without my presence. (I suppose it could have worked if Durham Fringe had redeployed volunteers from other venues, but they were already stretched thinly enough amongst the other venues.) I willingly did this for free because I loved the idea of having a fringe in Durham, I wanted it to succeed, and it was in all our mutual interests that it did. Even when relations with DDS were at their worst, this one worked out fine for everybody: we might have had different ideas of how adventurous DDS's own productions should be, but Durham Fringe got me involved in things that DDS would otherwise never go near.

However, 2023 I was massively overworked. Although there were fewer performances than 2022, there were more acts, and it turns out the sheer number of get-ins pushes one person's endurance to the limit. This feeling was common throughout the venues, and everybody agreed that something needed to be done about it. I stayed out of discussions for a solution, because the solution all other fringe organisations use (pretty much) is to pay their techies. For obvious reasons, I did not want to be actively pushing for a solution that would benefit me financially. I was nonetheless concerned that - as one of the people this would affect the most - I was being kept completely out of the loop and not consulted at all.

Then I got wind that Durham Fringe was planning to use an agency to take the lead with tech instead of the existing volunteer techies. With still no information communicated to me, I checked what was going on, and it turned out there was communication over my availability, but it was ruled out when Durham Dramatic Society told Durham Fringe I was no longer involved in the society. It was based on that, so Durham Fringe informed me, they made the decision to bring in a new professional technicians from an agency, one of which would be placed in the City Theatre. I was welcome to stay on as one of the "volunteer technicians" supporting the "professional team".

There's just one problem: what Durham Dramatic Society told Durham Fringe about me behind my back simply isn't true.

Nothing has changed in my relationship with Durham Dramatic Society between 2023 and 2024. When I told Durham Dramatic Society I was suspending most activities in the society, I said I wanted to continue doing the Durham Fringe work, and that was agreed to. Durham Fringe were aware of the situation and were fine with it. If anything, I am more involved now than I was this time last year, because I have provided some sort of tech support for three of their last six plays. Now, I am going to be very kind here and keep open the possibility that this was a misunderstanding. Because the less charitable interpretation is that whoever told Durham Fringe that knew I'm still involved in the society, knew how much Durham Fringe meant to me, and told untruths anyway as some act of petty revenge.

I am not angry with Durham Fringe - I am merely furious with the leadership of Durham Dramatic Society. I accept they took information about me in good faith, unaware that it wasn't true. Maybe one bit of good practice we can adopt for the future is to actually run this past the person concerned (especially if you know there is a rift between the parties involved - which Durham Fringe did), but it's too late to change course now.

My reason for stepping back has instead come down to something quite different: the ethics of working for free.

As most of you are aware by now, I do all of my theatre stuff on top of a full-time job. Now, I could go into much detail about all of the grief that comes from having a normal career alongside a creative career - and one day I probably will - but there is one area where I have a big advantage: nothing that happens in my arts career is any real threat to my livelihood. I can say no to things I don't feel like doing. I sometimes fail to get jobs I thought I had in the bag, but I never have to worry about missed mortgage payments. I can work for free if I like, and I sometimes do. But I must never forget that other people who do similar jobs to me don't have these luxuries. So the one red line I set myself is that I do not undercut other arts professionals by doing work for cheap or free, if it could reasonably have been paid work.

For 2021 to 2023, there are two reasons I've given myself for doing this. Firstly, Durham Fringe was a new organisation, there was no knowing what its cash flow would be like, and we were all putting our time in unpaid to make this work. Secondly, with Durham Dramatic Society also an amateur organisation, I also saw this as a collective effort of everybody putting in their time to keep a theatre going. As far as I'm concerned, Durham Dramatic Society have forfeited the claim to the latter. As for the former: I don't believe this applies any more. Judging by the size of the audiences I see coming into the theatres, there is easily enough cash flow coming to pay the tech operators.

But the absolute red line for me is paying some staff but not others. I cannot in all conscience work in a system where - intentionally or not - some people making money off the backs of other people's free labour. So I'm now saying the quiet bit out loud: I am firmly of the view that Durham Fringe should pay ALL its tech operators, if not the entire production workforce. And if it means passing the costs on to performers, so be it. This is perfectly normal practice amongst all other fringes, and I do not know of a single organisation Durham Fringe's size that doesn't work this way. I'm not going to go to war with Durham Fringe over this. And I'm not going to tell other volunteers where they should or shouldn't be putting their time. But I'm in the unique situation where I often work professionally. That makes me a free substitute for someone who has skills and experience to full professional standard. I can't justify this to myself any more.

Anyway, here we are ...

I'm aware that some of word-of-mouth publicity of Durham Fringe on the fringe circuit has been through me. If you applied to the City Theatre and were looking forward to working with me, I'm sorry - I was looking forward to working with you too. Not bothered either way if I get takers for paid tech operation work. In case you're interested, my rates will be comparable to rates charged by other fringe venues. I am quite happy to go over and above normal tech work and do sound design for you if you like - that will be a freebie. (I'm also happy to offer the same for lighting design, but I'm not certain I'll be in a position to offer extra owing to the limited time available in the venues. Oh, and I'll give photography a go too, but I'd recommend asking other people first - although I can at least guarantee actually turning up.)

As far what happens after this year, I have told Durham Fringe that I hope we can learn lessons from this year, take a step back, and establish a new different more constructive relationship for the future. I hope, when we have this conversation, they will remember the many hours of work I put into this because I believed in it. Nothing much is likely to happen before September - most of the people I am currently reaching out currently have their hands full with Edinburgh Fringe. After that, everything is on the table.

But I will say this now: I may be stepping away from working directly with Durham Fringe this year - but I will never turn my back fringe artists in Durham. My loyalty will always be with the local grass roots. If have something you want to show the world but are denied the chance to perform it ... rest assured, I am on your side. Durham Fringe is a VAST improvement on the time when there "local" representation meant importing talent from Newcastle and saying that was the same thing, but as long as there is a single fringe act who is shut out, the job is not done. The most successful fringes in the country are all about inclusion, not exclusion. And whatever I decide to do from here will be driven by inclusion.

I want to make an opportunity out of a setback. I intend to be back soon with something better. And I hope it will be part of Durham Fringe. Until then, everybody, never stop believing in yourself. And never think you need permission to show what you can do.

Footnote: For the record, when I last performed at Durham Fringe in 2022, I paid my techie even though I didn't have to. The only time I didn't pay my techie for The Rats in the Walls was one occasion where the techies declined my offer. Don't intend going on a moral crusade over this, but I nonetheless have to set an example.

Well, the Bad News post got a lot of readers. Unfortunately, I'm not done with that. The situation is actually worse than I've gone public with - it's just that I need to get my ducks in row before I go public with the other half of this business. Turns out petty amateur dramatics politics has more wider-reaching implications than you think.

However, I'm determined to report something positive first. So I have some extra performances of Doctor Coppelius coming up. I did my first one last Wednesday (a private preview for Durham University Ballet Company, through the same links that had me ending up doing the lighting for their show), and now I've got two more public ones coming up. Immediately before my Buxton Fringe performance on the 11th, I've got a pre-fringe run-though at The Old Church in Sacriston on Saturday 6th July at 7.30. This is free and unticketed (I don't have a capacity of 12 to worry about here), although I will be taking donations for my Buxton venue's chosen charity, The Samaritans.

The exciting news, though, is that I am performing in Edinburgh. No, not Edinburgh Fringe, because I am not insane. But I am going to Edinburgh Horror Festival. (This hasn't been officially announced yet, but neither have I been asked not to announce this.) This is going to be on the 2nd November at 4.00 p.m. in Banshee Labyrinth. I'm getting increasingly confident my WIP Buxton Fringe performance will off-script, but I'm setting Edinburgh Horror Festival as my target for first full performance.

Anyway, that's all the news I can share with you now - hope to have more confirmed soon. In the meantime, here's a picture from The Sleeping Beauty with my lighting state, with the fabulous Dandya Chen. (More here, here and here.)

This is something that will only really be of interest to those people who knew and supported my work with Durham Dramatic Society pre-2020. For those of you who have followed this saga, it was always my intention to carry on directing at the City Theatre after Coronavirus was over. However, in late 2022 I announced that I would be ceasing activities for at least a year. I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow account here, but it was a combination of many issues culminating this year - from micromanagement, to dealings behind my back, to petty obstructive behaviour, to general disrespect.

I did not want this to be permanent. I had hoped that by disengaging for a year, it would lead to all parties taking a step back, reflecting on how we got to this point, and calmly discussing a positive way forwards.

Quite simply: it hasn't.

I'm sorry to say they're doubling down.

Shortly after I said I was leaving for a while, I was contacted by the chairperson who suggested - correctly, as it turned out - that something had happened which caused me a great deal of upset. I agreed to put in writing exactly what led to this, starting with the final straw and moving to the underlying issues that have been building up. We agreed I would do this when I was ready to, and I finally did it this March, in spite of my misgivings over their attitude to handling grievances.

Unfortunately, it turns out my misgivings were right all along. I have now received a response, and they've basically ignored everything I said. Instead, it's repeated a previously-used argument which, at best, half-addressed one of my issues. Their excuse for disregarding everything else is that it happened a long time ago, meaning "recollections will vary" and "nothing constructive will be achieved". (Not entirely true, I have paper trails for most of these things.) One would have thought - at the very least - they would have considered the incident that prompted me to leave, seeing as they specifically asked me about that one.

I've given up. I don't have time to persist with a complaints process that shows no sign of actually listening to what I have to say.

[In case you're wondering, the final straw was the Production Committee assigning me to slot for a play at a one-act festival, and the Chair of that committee then giving my slot to someone else behind my back else under the (completely untrue) pretext that I never accepted it. But the details don't really matter now. What does matter is that "Oh, that was over a year ago, I don't remember that" is considered an acceptable excuse to take no notice - especially when I was told I could take my time and give my reason for stepping back when I was ready.]

Look, contrary to what some people seem to think, I have no intention of using Durham Dramatic Society as a vehicle for my own adventurous projects. I have more than enough ways of doing that elsewhere. There are many fantastic mainstream plays with wide audience appeal out there that I would love to bring to their stage, using my experience of professional work to give the actors and audience the best production we can. But it's impossible to work with a play selection procedure which makes arbitrary decisions on what's not mainstream enough. A Harold Brighouse play wasn't mainstream enough. A Tim Firth play wasn't mainstream enough. An Alan Ayckbourn play wasn't mainstream enough. Alan Ayckbourn, for crying out loud. How is anybody supposed to work with that?

For those of you asking why I'm not on stage any more, that's why. For those of you in the society who liked working with me as a director, I am really sorry it's come to this, because we could have done some great things together. For those who fought my corner when things were getting bad (you know who are), thank you, I know you tried. I'm not quite cutting all ties; I am still happy to work with a few people in the society with whom there is mutual respect. But it sadly been made impossible to work directly with the current leadership of the society. As it stands - and I would dearly love to be proven wrong on this - there is no hope of things getting better with them.

I will always be grateful to Durham Dramatic Society for the opportunities it gave me in learning how to get from page to stage. I don't know how I'd have got where I am today without. And I wanted Durham Dramatic Society to be with me on the journey every step of the way. It's too bad that some people don't see it that way any more.

Postscript: This is a VERY simplified account of what's led to this. If I was to write the full list of grievances it would go on for pages - I don't think anybody wants that. However, if anybody from Durham Dramatic Society reads this and thinks it's unfair that they can't respond to this without the details, I'm happy to send you the details again. Or if you want to whole lot discussed out in public, I'll be happy to oblige. You had your chance to settle this quietly in private. If, how and where we settle this now is up to you.

The news page has been fairly quiet lately because I don't have much to announce just yet. I've got a couple of bits of news coming up: one is quite exciting, the other one ... well, you might want to get your michael_jackson_popcorn.gif ready for that one. Not my doing.

However, I've got one small but exciting thing I can announce now. Quite by accident, and with quite short notice, I've ended up teching at the Gala Theatre this Friday and Saturday. Long story that goes back to the the recording of my Reiver play, but Durham University Ballet Company has kindly offered to be a first test audience for my upcoming Doctor Coppelius. They also asked me if I knew anyone who could tech their end-of-year ballet show as they were struggling to find somebody. Well, the only techie I know off-hand is me, but I've always wanted to get my hands on the Gala's tech. Having narrowly missed out on teching the Gala at least twice before, I wasn't going to pass it up this time.

I've never teched any lighting more complicated that eight lights plus a colour wash before, so I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do here. I've got about ten hours to learn how to do this. If you want to see how I do, it's at the Gala Theatre this Friday and Saturday (14th and 15th June) at 7.00 p.m.

I'm back in Durham after eight days in Brighton, and I've had my first non-preview run of It's Not Cluedo. And we've had a busy house. Sadly the photo didn't come out well because we didn't switch on the house lights, but this should still give you an idea of what sort of audience we had.

At some point I'll write up these mysteries, but for now I'll just remind you that Boris Johnson was murdered with by Lady Punchy with the Tea Cozy in Maternity Ward. Many thanks to Stephen Catling, Hill from Hill and Jones, Mark Tournoff, Tanieth Kerr, Annie Foreman from Dawn Again, and Alexander Denley Spencer for being my guests.

I'll be back on the 25th with a second a final showing for Brighton Fringe 2024. Looks like these people enjoyed it, so you can come and enjoy it too.

I said I had another thing I was almost ready to announce, and here it is. My play about the Border Reivers, Endgame, has just gone online. You can read about the background to this in my last Reiver post, but let's get straight to it:

Many thanks to Jake, Mickey, Paul and Lowena for being part of this project. I may write a glossary of the terms used in the play at some point, but hopefully you should pick this all up easily enough.

For anyone with issues accessing Youtube, it will also be appearing on Spotify next week.

Enjoy. I've got to get a move on with comedy game shows and tragic villains now.

Since the shortlist has been announced, I think this means I'm allowed to announce this.

I made it to the longlist of the North East Playwriting Award with #IStandWithVincent. This was quite a nice surprise, as the entry deadline was last August and I'd half-forgotten I'd entered this.

This is, to some extent, an extended version of Ask Me Anything, which I wrote for Elysium Theatre back in 2022. Previously, the charismatic Vincent Arthur only existed as someone Lucy only talked about - however, I wanted to bring this character to life. Someone who has be revered so often as a hero who can do no wrong he believes it himself. I do actually have some plans for this that are running independently of the competition, so this might not be the last we'll hear of this.

Anyway, congratulations to Sam Honour and Miles Kinsley who were shortlisted - I saw plays of theirs at Laurels last year which I really liked. Also congratulations to Connor Dorian who was shortlisted for the under-25 award; he's part of Brainsoup Collective who show bag of promise with clowning and physical theatre. I'll be joining you on Thursday to see who's won this, then it's probably back to It's Not Cluedo. Got some good news about that, but this can wait for another update.

It's time for the second of the three things I've been itching to tell you. I'm going to Buxton Fringe with a brand new script. Bit of background to this: I had the idea for this play in January. Yes, a month ago. I had expected to do It's Not Cludeo at Buxton, but with by co-producing venue Rotunda now not coming to Buxton (long story), it wasn't practical to do it without them. But Buxton is probably my favourite fringe to perform at and I wanted to do something there - and then I realised I could make this one work.

Doctor Coppelius is the story of the tragic villain from the ballet Coppelia. If you don't know the ballet, don't worry. I assumed everybody knew Coppelia, but nonetheless, the whole story of Swanhilda, Franz and Dr. Coppelius is included in this. But also, I hope, a new dimension. Why dedicate his life to a mechanical doll? What made him do the terrible thing he did? I have written a whole new backstory - and also written what happened to him after.

I decided to take this to Buxton when I realised that this script can work as a straight storytelling piece. This can be considered a work in progress until I have a better idea of how to do this. So there is one performance only in Scrivener's Bookshop on July 11th at 4 p.m. Entry to this is free, because you are doing me a favour by coming along to be a test audience. Oh, and the room has a capacity of twelve, so if you want to be certain of a place, please contact me and I'll put you on a list. If there's a big demand, I'll consider doing more performances, but there's one committed so far.

If you're not coming to Buxton: I intend to do more performances. I have one or two ideas for how to do an the same early version near Durham, but I'll get back to you if and when I get round to arranging this.

Two announcements done. One to go, and I'm absolutely not allowed to mention this. But it's a good one.

At long last I can announce one of the many bits of exciting news I've been itching to tell you but had to keep quiet. You might remember there was a competition Elysium Theatre launched late last year for three new audio plays to follow on from Steve Byron's Reiver Trilogy. At the last minute I decided to have a go. This is unusual for me, because I don't normally write to someone else's request of subject material. But I had an idea, wrote the whole lot between Christmas and New Year, and found out in January it had been picked. I can now tell you this because it's just been recorded and announced by Elysium.

For those of you new to this, the Border Reivers were clans based in the border regions between England and Scotland. For centuries, the border region was a lawless region because the English nor the Sottish rulers considered the area worth taming. Only when England and Scotland ended up with the same King was their grip on power broken. And in this story, we hear the voice of a Reiver chief. The game is up for John Croser. He got mixed up with the Irvines, and the Irvines did something really bad, getting the full attention of the Crown. Is the notorious John Croser really destined for the gallows, or does he have one final trick up his sleeve?

This was rehearsed last Friday and recorded today. It's now ready for post-production and is expected to be released in mid-March. Micky Cochrane (the farmer in the original Reiver play Blackmail) has done the voice of Croser. No decision yet on which platform this is going on to, but I'll let you know when I know.

I'll be adding this to my projects list shortly - in fact, you may want to have a look there anyway, because I'm making a lot of progress with my back catalogue. And don't go away - I have more news coming very soon.