projects Martin’s ground-breaking Scrap and Scratch Opera was devised in the 1980s to mount large-scale community events. Performances were created in six hours from scratch with costumes and props made from scrap materials for up to 350 children and professionals – including celebrities such as Stewart Copeland, Dame Evelyn Glennie, and the cast of Les Miserables.
More recently, with friends and colleagues he devised a community version of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, reading Voice One, and has researched an illustrated lecture based on his artist father’s life and war diary.
My father painted two portraits at King’s College Cambridge: EM Forster and AC Pigou. He enjoyed the company of both men during sittings, and took me to meet Forster when I was a teenager. He walked me across the grass court from his rooms to the famous chapel opposite. “You can do this (diagonal) because you are with me” Forster confided. Impressionable, I was impressed. Pigou was not such a famous figure. That ought to change. Continue reading
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The highly-praised movie we made last year lacked one crucial image; that of the sun setting into the horizon precisely due west at exactly 6pm*. This – with the dawn due east 12 hours earlier – is the unique and universal property of equinoxes. The entire biosphere experiences it. It’s the USP of EQ and why Brean Beach and Down were chosen as our location: Continue reading
There was no post for Spring equinox 2023, but I was certainly busy, because at equinox adventurer-filmmaker James Levelle and I were on the beach, filming. Brean Beach and Down on the Bristol Channel are aligned N-S and E-W; ideal for explaining equinoxes and promoting EQ’s positive and universal message, and the sand under the cliffs perfect for raking out a large EQ™ logo. The plan was hurriedly put together on the phone, and in fine morning sun we met – for the first time – on the beach. Continue reading
A year ago, before COP26, I reflected upon the bald statement made in LIFE, the popular mainstream magazine, way back in 1953: ‘Man himself … may be the cause of our warming climate’. Now, after COP27, with some anaemic progress chalked up, what personal experiences resonate with global events and deliberations? Well, during a summer visit to NE Poland, on a riverboat trip in Gdansk, we witnessed bulk carriers loading grain and unloading coal… Continue reading
‘The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 10% in the last 50 years…Man himself then, may be the cause of our warming climate.’ Nothing unremarkable at first glance, but reading this a few weeks ago stopped me in my tracks. Why?
