Tom Marshman
A Bit Of A Roundup:
Artist Diary #3
Being part of A Bit Of A Do has been very informative and has opened up the way I think audiences can access my work. I have loved thinking about how to make the work more accessible, particularly how audiences with visual impairments can engage with my shows.
The way I have begun to develop an audio describer as the voice of my Dad that feels integrated with the show as a whole I will continue to build on as this show and future shows build.
I am working with another company and I am imparting what I have learnt to their immersive theatre show opening next year, so it is great to share this knowledge further afield.
The day of the show itself was chaotic and I ended up in the wrong place, completely the wrong end of London, despite my access worker giving me clear instructions from Bristol. Sometimes it feels like when I am happy with the work I have made and when everything is going well I sabotage it with my basic actions. I arrived stressed out and with limited time to try out what I needed and initially gave myself a hard time for messing up. I couldn’t help but blame myself.
It was amazing though to meet Crin the tech who was very calm with me and was absolutely the best person to be teching this show. She had been a tech for The Gay Sweatshop theatre company who I mention in my show, in my A-Z of Section 28. That was perfect. To work with someone that was so connected to the history and the theme of the show.
The space I performed in was beautiful but I was struggling to connect with the audience. They seemed so far away and not many of them so I couldn’t ascertain what their responses were. I think because of my chaotic arrival I felt that they perhaps hadn’t connected with it more than was really true in actuality. In hindsight this was just a symptom of my negative headspace on the day.
I am very grateful to have been a part of A Bit Of Do and have learnt so much despite me personally having a Bit of an off day.
Love and honesty Tom
A Bit Of An Update:
Artist Diary #2
A Bit Of An Introduction:
Artist Diary #1
Tom Marshman
My Name is Tom Marshman, I have been commissioned to present my piece A Show of Shows for A Bit Of A Do in Croydon. I make shows about LGBTQI+ histories, often collaborating with historians and archivists to uncover the queer stories that are sometimes hidden. I see my role as an artist as shining a light on these hidden stories.
This show explores the impact of Section 28. I ask the question: did growing up within that time make me more of a show off, more compelled to share queer stories? And within this process I am looking back at my long back catalogue of shows, a lot of which are still in storage.
Last week I presented a very early day's work in progress at the Kensington & Chelsea Festival 18 SHOWS. It is the 3rd time I have been to this festival, it has a very relaxed vibe and I am totally obsessed with the Mona Lisa Cafe just a few doors up on the Kings Road. I love a Full English before I perform! I am just beginning my process of putting together the parts of this piece, and this was a good moment for me to get the material I have created in front of an audience, see what they think and how it lands. It was billed as a work in progress and it very much was…I also decided to have an aftershow chat. For me, it only begins to make sense when I can share it with an audience.
A key thing I am playing with is my onstage and offstage personas. I wanted a camera in the dressing room broadcasting on stage so I could speak to the audience when I am changing costumes, as moments of reflecting on my life in theater; the rejections and the memories of all the shows gone by. For the work in progress I couldn’t get this to look very elegant, everytime we did it we had to switch between a QLab file and a Google Video call. I just need to connect with a tech specialist to make this dream come true! I am sure I can find a solution to this.
Another thing I started to play with is using the stories I have collected from queer communities in Bristol and playing their voices on stage. I want to lip sync to them so that the piece isn't just my story, so that I can be a conduit for other stories, stories which allow different ways into the themes.
My next step is to work with some academics from Bristol University who are experts in history and law, their knowledge will feed into the next stage of development. I currently don’t know if their research will directly be in the show or if it is in the background, informing my thinking. There will certainly be some podcasts, and the next blog will be more about this academic collaboration, bringing rigor and a sense of history to the piece. I am interested in how we can talk about the era that Section 28 spans, and consider how it impacts us today. This research and process is important to me, because as a queer person it feels like we are in a dangerous time of history repeating itself.
Tom