DatelineSaturday 27 March

Scarborough

INSIDE TODAYWelcomesInfosCommentsand some other shit

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Page 1 - Noises OffPage 2 - ContentsPage 3 - From Our PresidentPage 4 - Step Outside Your Comfort ZonePage 5 - Bye Andrew :(Pages 6 & 7 - Advice to Young CriticsPages 8 & 9 - Don't Be a DickPages 10, 11 & 12 - A British Actress In ParisPage 13 - The Merge Arts FestivalPage 14 - What's Your Poison?Page 15 - Don't Take Things Too SeriouslyPage 16 - A Day In The Life of Nic WatsonPages 17 & 18 - Technically Ready / Technission Impossible / Setsual FantasiesPages 19 & 20 - Point Horror Drama Festival Chapter 1Page 21 - SASH Tupple TournamentPage 22 - Ceilidh Enthusiasts! / An Internet Love Story / Submit to Noises Off!Page 23 - The Good Egg Awards / Festival of HaikuPage 24 - Dream DiariesPage 25 - How to get Published / 5 Things You MUST DO at NSDF2010Page 26 - ClassifiedsPage 27 has been left intentionally blankPage 28 - Roll credits, cue houselights, the doors at the front of the auditorium will allow you easier access to the parking areas. Thank you.

CONTENTSThe bowels

Welcome, everyone here for the first time; and welcome back everyone returning for perhaps the umpteenth time. The NSDF's appeal is wonderfullyaddictive for most people: a rare cultural oasis in a sadly materialisticdesert where the life-enhancing arts seem doomed to bear the brunt of everygovernment's ignorance, lack of judgment and fiscal failures. Enough of that from me. We're here to enjoy, celebrate and learn, not tomoan, withhold merited praise or develop a liking for sour grapes. Pleasetake full advantage of the amazing plethora of workshops assembled by HollyKendrick, our painstaking Festival Director, who has somehow found time notonly to put together a fascinating programme of productions, talks anddiscussions to complement the unbelievable array of workshops, but has alsoyet again, assisted by Chris Wootton in the office, expanded the nationwideoutreach programme for the benefit of all student groups. With possiblecontinued help from the Arts Council and the generosity of our far-sightedsponsors, there could be even more of such valuable work to add to theFestival's remarkable value to the world of drama. Whoever you are and whatever your role here this week (even "just" aspectator) I hope you have a truly great time. I'm sure it will bememorable.

EDITORIAL

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From Our PresidentClive Wolfe

It may be moderately safe to assume that if you are participating in this Festival you have some interest in theatre, whether it is as an enthusiastic spectator or a seasoned practitioner. Whatever label you give to your passion the rest of the year, now is the time to forget it. NSDF is the unique opportunity for you to try something new: pick a workshop whose subject might have always secretly interested you. Better, pick a workshop on a subject entirely unfamiliar to you: use this week as an opportunity to explore something you have never tried. If you are an actor, why not try out a workshop on set design? If you are a techie, why not try a physical theatre workshop? If you are an adept of 'classical' theatre, why not dip your toes into something a little radical (and vice versa)? You get the gist: go outside, at least once, of the familiar zone you have delineated for yourself. At the worst, you'll have spent a baffling few hours; at the best you will have gained a new understanding and new inspiration.

The same rules also apply to the plays you will see at NSDF. The rest of the year you may choose to book tickets to shows according to your personal preferences, but for a week only you are in the dark. Some of the titles may be familiar to you, others almost certainly not, but whatever your personal reservations for certain playwrights, or genres, or styles, you will be seeing them all. Embrace the challenge. Try, as much as possible, to judge the works on their own terms rather than a rigid tick box of what theatre should be. You may be surprised at the places this will take you.

Next, come to Noises Off at any time. Hang out, talk to new people, and discuss, debate and decorticate your experiences at length. Do it critically, do it playfully, do it passionately, do it with style. Write about your inner turmoil, write about your discoveries, write about your disappointments (if there are any). The important thing is to do something productive with your thoughts and reactions, don't let them go to waste: they are an opportunity.

Finally, have fun, and forget the commanding nature of this missive, this is your week after all.

EDITORIAL

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Step Outside Your Comfort ZoneClaire Trevien

EDITORIAL

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Bye Andrew : (Phil Mann

Andrew Haydon, the previous editor of Noises Off will not be attending this year. In his wake is left a huge gap - hopefully to be filled by you, the reader, the Festival goer. We are NOFF and we'd love you to make the Vitadome, opposite the new bar in the Ocean Room your home for the week. We require writers, reviewers, satirists, cartoonists, graphic designers and anyone with a passion for words.

Turn up to find out how we make a magazine every

night. We stop taking

submissions at 1am and this year there is more opportunity than ever to

make an impact. You can use

twitter (@noffmag), email

(noffsubmissions@gmail.com) and a selection of computers or old-fashioned pen and paper to submit your thoughts and feelings from the shows, workshops and experiences. NOFF really is the heart and soul of the Festival and you'd be missing out on a valuable part of the Fest if you didn't take part. With 5 years of coming again and again, I speak from experience.

Now, replacing a respected colleague is always going to be a tricky negotiation between respecting the established tradition and encouraging new change. Andrew Haydon has been at the helm of NOFF since 2003. Having seen the magazine through hell (photocopiers giving up the ghost at 5am) and high water (the Arts Council reading in the

magazine about how the NSDF selectors do nothing except "sit around all day and eat cheese" ), he has been the - albeit often grumpy - staple of my Fest experience since joining the Noises Off team in '05.

When for our first issue last year, he spent between 4:00 and 5:00am slowly moving the word "Hello" around the front page before deciding it needed some more lyrics from This Charming Man, I'll admit I broke down in a fit of simultaneous laughing and crying until, sobbing, he was satisfied and we were finally allowed to carry on making the magazine. This tradition of the editor's fearsome grip on the deputy staff, allowing the most arbitrary whimsy to come in front of the magazine's production is exactly the kind of example I know Andrew will be proud to see carried on.

Normally, someone in my position would write a very flattering account of the way my predecessor developed me professionally, allowing him to rest on his laurels secure in the knowledge he had made a mark in the life of a strapping young man such as myself. But I know that many a fest behind a screen has withered his emotional capacity to little more than a weak electrical pulse that demands caffeine and nicotine.

Andrew will be participating by commenting on the Fest from afar, providing reviews of shows he hasn't seen and repeating in-jokes he is not party to. Come and join us to make this a Festival to remember and a magazine to be proud of.

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As you may know, this Festival includes awards given to promising student critics by The Sunday Times and by the magazine I edit, Theatre Record. This Festival magazine Noises Off offers you a unique chance to practice your skills with every freedom that can be extended to you, and with the benefit of advice from professionals (er, me). An impressive number of people have begun their reviewing careers here,: apart from myself (as well as that other gig, I'm now senior drama critic of the Financial Times) there's the deputy arts editor of the Guardian, several winners of the Allan Wright Award given each Edinburgh Festival for the best writer under 30 years of age, and a slew of others.

Andrew Haydon, NOISES OFF's regular editor who's sadly absent this year due to illness, is theatre editor of the Culture Wars web site, a Guardian theatre blogger and a regular Time Out reviewer.

All in all, this is an unparalleled chance for you to start looking to a future in arts journalism.

And what does that future hold?

Ah. Well.

Basically, you're fucked.

Hell, I'm probably fucked, and I've been in the game 20 years.

Festival judge and Sunday Times critic Robert Hewison regularly gives talks at NSDF on how to be a critic, how to do criticism etc. What he doesn't address - what we never address - are the realities of the job today.

On the one hand, you have more opportunities than ever before to get your work seen by readers. You young pups (writes the doddery 46-year-old) take the Net for granted, but its changes are still being felt in journalism and culture generally. Its democratisation has been terrific:

one of those things that no science-fiction work even of the recent past ever remotely envisaged, but which has just appeared and changed the world at a single stroke.

Suddenly, everybody who wants to publish stuff can do so with just a few clicks of a mouse. And OK, most of it is vanity publishing, but where a vanity-published book still had to be stocked in shops and only a handful of stores would ever take copies and put them in a dusty corner, online publishing is suddenly available to the whole world (tyrannical national firewalls excepted), accessible by anyone.. and that's marvellous. Literally, it's a marvel.

The downside is that it has given editors and owners of newspapers and magazines an excuse. The truth is that hardly any of them see a value in covering the arts per se. For them, it's cosmetic: they like their

Advice To Young CriticsPay some mind now to Ian Shuttleworth

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papers to be thought of as cultured, so they provide some space. They don't want it to be too much space, though: since I started working at the FT, the average review length has shrunk by 25-35%, and we're bloody lucky compared to some.

They also don't especially care how it's filled. Increasingly, papers and magazines would rather appoint "critics" who write fizzily but say nothing novel rather than people who know what they're writing about. This year's Critic of the Year laurel in the British Press Awards has gone to Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail, whose principal gig is as the paper's parliamentary sketch writer and whose reviews are filled with repetitive riffs about bad language on stage, the iniquity of public funding being given to filth and, I kid you not, the National Theatre's anti-Christian agenda. The Sunday Telegraph's theatre critic spends most of his working week copying out fluff for its daily sister paper's diary column; his reviews include gems of ignorance on an almost weekly basis, the classic being his not knowing which character in Othello might have been played by an actor blacking up.

Even the normally honourable Times has appointed as the successor to its venerable theatre critic Benedict Nightingale the columnist and "personality journalist" Libby Purves, who has a name people know and a complete absence of track record in the field. All of these, however, are as nothing to the New Statesman's decision earlier this decade to use as their theatre

critic the former Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Portillo. At least he only lasted a couple of years.

Employing "wrong" people is only one side of it; it means also that more and more "right" people are building up in piles on the sidelines, without the chance to move into the jobs they ought to have had by now. And jobs are even being axed altogether. My predecessor at the FT is now the dance critic of the New York Times... and he is now the only remaining dedicated payroll-employed dance critic in the United States. Even the supposed trade bible Variety has just laid off its chief theatre and film critics and plans to rely on freelances... even as it hatches a plan to sell its review coverage on to other publications. You'd be paying for the name of Variety, not for the name of the reviewer, still less for their knowledge. It really is a phenomenally dispiriting picture overall.

So NOISES OFF not only offers you the freedom of writing to whatever length you choose - a freedom it offered long before online self- publishing gave similar freedom to bloggers. The simple fact that we're here to put

your reviews in print, and that we take them seriously and care about giving you the opportunity to use such an outlet, is almost unique in arts publishing, and it will only get rare and more precious.

If you're thinking of a career in this line of business, and wondering where this counsel of despair leaves you, well, you're being realistic. God alone knows if I'll still be able to be doing this job when I'm 50, in four years' time, never mind when I retire.

But another part of that online revolution is in making your own arguments for attention. Already the blogosphere has more or less "shaken down" so that anyone who spends any time there knows which sites are the most useful, whether for in-depth analysis such as Matt Trueman's Carousel of Fantasies blog or really fun bitchiness like the West End Whingers (who have just lately broken global by dubbing Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies "Paint Never Dries").

The less inclined the old guard are to pay attention, the more you'll need to have to grab it... and you're already getting routine practice at that. Again, NOISES OFF doesn't have a house style (except that it insists you sign your reviews in your own name – don't say it if you're not prepared to stand by it), so you can pretty much experiment with whatever shtick you want to try.

One way or another, you'll never find another opportunity like this. Grab it, and make it hum like the Temple City Kazoo Orchestra's annual bee-keeping trip.

COMMENT

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August 2009, I'm sitting in the offices of an Edinburgh fringe venue. I've presented myself as a reviewer and I'm asking for free tickets to some of their shows on the promise that the reviews will be prominently displayed on our website. I don't confide in them that I don't actually work for the website I'm just friends with the person running it, nor do I tell them the truth when they ask how many readers it has, and I manage to completely side-step my true motivation for wanting the tickets (i.e. I just want free tickets). Before they grant me the magic tickets they do ask to see the website. "Of course" I say "I've actually written a review of one of your shows already."

The producer quickly summons up the webpage and scrolls down to the review in question, suddenly his face drops, and I

remember what the review actually says.

At this moment you are reading Noises Off. Hopefully you are thinking about submitting your own articles and reviews, and that's brilliant, you definitely should. I first visited the festival last year and one of the highlights of the trip was discovering this magazine, the people involved are encouraging, the atmosphere is informal and it's the cause of deep satisfaction to see your work published only a few hours after you first got the idea for it.

It's also a forum to praise, critique or spit bile about the shows on display. If you want to you can cut loose and say whatever you want, but its easy to lose sight of one simple fact, the makers of these pieces do read the reviews, and its as easy for them to walk

into the Noffice as for you.

Last year I twice I witnessed the perverse entertainment that comes when a reviewer is taken to task over a play they slagged off. In the case of the first reviewer, he had been blunt to the point of cruelty, but, luckily, he was able to stand his ground and defend what he'd written. Although they didn't part as friends, the actor at least saw that there was nothing personal about it. In the case of the second, he was not on such solid ground.

He squirmed and shrugged and eventually retracted his comments and admitted that he had been unduly cruel. Let this be a warning, if you write a bad review there is every chance that the subjects will find you and hold you to account, and you will need to justify your position.

Don't think I mean that you shouldn't write a bad review, if you think a show is rubbish, say

Don't Be a Dickif you need to read this it's already too late, claims Jon Brittain

[DICK][DICK]

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so, but there is a big difference between candidness and cruelty. If you have to denounce something make sure you make it clear why you are doing so. You know the companies are going to read your review, your opinion will matter to them, so take advantage of that.

I once received a review with a comment so cryptic I couldn't decipher what the reviewer had meant by it, and it drove me crazy trying to. Lack of specificity is infuriating and what's more, unnecessary. Although brevity is ideal, there is no word limit imposed by NOFF, if you disapproved of a lighting design then give your reasons, lest you have to clarify yourself to a befuddled lighting designer when you should be enjoying end of festival drinks.

Theatre makers, please, I am not encouraging you to confront your critics, but, if you do, don't be a dick. Your show probably won't appeal to everyone and it's not the reviewer's fault that they didn't like it. Negative reviews can be extremely constructive.

Personally, although I wasn't over the moon at the time to receive them, negative reviews helped, and continue to help, me improve. If you engage with what the reviewer says then it can make your show better. So be nice to them, unless, of course, that after trashing one show they have the audacity to ask for free tickets for your other ones. In that scenario, you are entitled to be a bit annoyed.

Back to Edinburgh, I had not been kind in my review, I had not been measured. In fact I had tried

to be clever, to be witty and cutting and I wasn't, I was just unfair. The show wasn't that bad, it just wasn't as good as it could have been. I tried to tell the crestfallen producer that "I didn't not enjoy your show really, it was just..." "Its fine" he reassured me "it's not everyone's cup of tea." But I was dismayed, yes I hadn't enjoyed the show but I hadn't hated it to the extent that my review made out. I immediately contacted the website editor asking him to take down the review, or at least to let me sanitise it so it reflected what I actually thought. "No," was his answer, "you should stand by what you have written." He was right, the fact that I wasn't prepared to showed just how hollow my review had been.

I had to live with the fact that I had caused people undue hurt and not helped them improve their show. You don't. Think about what you write, think carefully, if you wouldn't be prepared to defend what you have to say in person, think why that is, because at the NSDF, you might have to.

[DICK]

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Dallying around the fringes of the contemporary art scene in London for a few years had left me with the rather uncomfortable impression that there was a big joke going on somewhere that I didn't get, so I ran away to Paris with a Spanish actor. We had gone to see a Sankai Juku performance at Sadler's Wells, a little flame was ignited inside me: I had fallen hard in love with the theatre and there was no looking back. Actually, there was constant looking back, but we don't need to go into that here.

Come on over to Paris, come on over. The streets are paved with croissants and pain au chocolat, the pigeons are all in love, every person is a story you may be able to defurl over a little foul tasting coffee, every interaction a whole horizon of possibilities as yet uncrossed (especially if it's anything to do with the labyrinth of state bureaucracy), every building a coquetry of history.

Life in Paris was a romantic dream for about two weeks. Then began the long hard slog which is settling into a new country. Finding a job, opening a bank account, finding a long-term apartment, getting an electricity bill, trying to hoist my A-level French up to the level of the "real" French that was spoken in Paris, not to mention trying to soldier on despite the day-to-day absence of all things dear to me that I'd left behind. "Chin up, it's exciting! It's a new start!", I told myself. But everything seemed

strange and disorientating and decidedly unfriendly.

I studied mime according to Etienne Decroux's method then physical theatre at the schools of Jacques Lecoq and Philippe Gaulier. And what schools they were! I spent many hours trying to be a storm or a majestic tree or glue or bacon frying in a pan or a giraffe or red. The teaching was rooted in the body, and was built upon discovering and harnessing the unique pleasure each performer takes in performing, or "playing". It meant I didn't have to "speak posh" or know huge swathes of great English texts by heart. I also didn't have to trawl through the most traumatic moments of my life to energise my performances; I could use a colour, an element, a sculpture, a vegetable.

These schools were so bouleversant (literally meaning they turned me upside-down) that it took me a while to know what to do with the training. This is something that I'm happy to say I'm still discovering.

Come to Paris! Café life full of old-beer-red-wine-coffee-machine smell, monsieur on the pavement outside who gives you the eyeflash because you look like a woman, newspaper and macintosh and neatly pruned facial hair, woman who flies into a temper because it goes with her outfit, lovers inside-lip-kissing bodies-like-a-sandwich, beggars sing-song ask for money on the

metro, the silent Africans, the heat of the Arabs, and the poetry unravelling from French thoughts full of air and intellect and highminded refinedness.

To say that the English and French cultures aren't the same is like saying that a tree isn't the same as a horse. The two cultures are on different axes, they revolve around a slightly different sun, they are constructed on entirely different foundations. It took me two years to come to terms with this and to accept that culture shock is a very real phenomena that no amount of sane upbringing or education or open-mindedness can prepare you for.

There were certain parts of me that I had always thought of as human, universal even, that I now had to redefine as merely English. I suddenly began to see that many elements of myself only existed because of the culture I had been brought up in. One result of this process was that I began to feel very English, and, I was surprised to discover, proud of my culture. Yes, English society has many problems: arrogance about our place in the world order, repressed sexuality and emotions, and widespread social alcoholism, to name but a few, but we also have a willingness to advance and communicate efficiently, a sense of hard work and a cracking sense of humour.

Every society has its light and dark sides. Being in a different

A BRITISH ACTRESS IN PARISBy la formidable Lucy Hopkins

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one meant that I could try out whole unused parts of myself, parts that English society didn't help me develop; the parts of myself that express my emotions and sexuality freely (I'm still working on those), the part that doesn't shy away from confrontation and gives as good as I get, the part that discusses all the big subjects of our world with strangers and isn't afraid to have an opinion.

I'm still here in Paris, learning away. And for the moment, I love this city.

In an attempt to try and express this wonderful/terrible experience to my hosts, The French, I am writing a show about an Englishwoman living in Paris. The show will be in French and will be built around what "Parisianity" looks like through my English eyes. I hope it will be

excellent. This is a professional endeavour; the subject isn't only a personal preoccupation, but one which I think the French, who are genuinely interested in how other people see them, will hand over a few centimes to explore with me. I consider myself ready to try and portray Paris now because I think I've crossed through the culture shock barrier. I'm over my own illusions about the city, I've stopped hating it for being wrong, I'm learning new things every day about where I live. It's just one culture of so many in our world, but it's the one I live in.

Viens voir! Paris is waiting for you! To tangle you up in her elegant, silken, filth-encrusted threads, she isn’t what you were expecting! Ah ah ah! (Ha ha ha)

In the meantime, I'm also performing in a clown show here. We are a trio of women, two

French and one English, looking for love. We are a good and ridiculous team. The show is full of audience participation and I'm astonished at how willing people are to join in. Recently we performed an extract of the show in a local bobo-chic café and after 10 minutes the whole café was answering our questions about love: Do you think you can love two people at once? Do you think that once you love someone that you love them forever? They even sang along with our funny songs; the couple having a quiet coffee together, the family outing, the fashionable young things, all of them. I hadn't expected such happy audience participation from such a cerebral culture. Paris is still surprising me.

About once a month, I play with an improvisation troupe in a theatre in the 11th arrondissement. For just over an

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hour, five of the ten-strong troupe put together a series of sketches around themes given by the audience. It's a hoot. The troupe are very generously delighted with my Englishness and language faults. I am delighted to work with such committed and enthusiastic performers, and to play for a French audience. It's true that the English and the French laugh at different things. Sometimes one of my colleagues will look at me with a knowing nod and say "Ça c'est l'humour anglais, ça". Apparently English humour is about a combination of dryness and absurdity. It's very highly respected here.

For the time being I supplement the living I make from my theatrical projects by translation work. I translate cartoon scripts from French into English. It's fascinating, flexible and fun. And it works for now, until I produce my show and sky-rocket into the stratosphere of fascinating people that get funding to do international projects about the richness of the cultures on our Earth. Or until the clown show explodes into a joyous sell-out run in a respected Parisian theatre, and Paris laughs with us, ho ho ho! Or until I'm talent-spotted in the impro show and offered a lucrative film deal with an innovative and wildly creative team. Untils are all very well, but I'm building my life right now, on this foreign ground. In trying to breathe with people I don't recognise, learning their unfamiliar dances and rhythms and ways and words without losing my own, I have encountered the richest and most enlightening experience I have lived to date. And from here on in, I don't intend to settle for

anything less.

Old beautician with curled fingers and twinkle in her brown eye tears off another strip. "Ça", she says, and waves the hairy waxpatch at me with a knowing smile,"c'est le drame de la philosophie"...

Lucy Hopkins can be seen performing with Zarbi et Orbi in Theatral Suspects @ L'Espace Comedia this Sunday March 28th. Zarbi et Orbi perform every second and fourth Sunday of the month.Also watch out for les FEVs (Femmes En Voyages), coming to a small French festival near YOU this summer.

The FEV (Femmes en Voyage)

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What do NSDF award-winners do after the Festival's over? What's next? Some take their show on the road and tour it, possibly adapting it in light of their NSDF experience. Some take what they've learnt and let it influence their next show. But those who didn't have a show...? They have to make an entirely new one. In our case, the Merge Arts Festival.

The arts don't get enough exposure in Hull. Zoe and I were sitting in a pub in north London when we first decided that we should organise a new writing festival in Hull.

Isn't that how all ideas that seem great and then become complicated start out? We were mid-way through a day-long series of short new plays at Kilburn's Tricycle Theatre, and wanted to bring back with us some of the buzz we felt.

In a way, we're working towards something like the Tricycle's efforts (The Great Game, which returns in July, before a US tour). We've broadened the range from just theatre, and our Festival involves many more artforms. But we're still presenting them throughout the day - starting at ten in the morning and going through until late evening.

It's going to be a bit like NSDF, but without having to walk up any hills!

The Festival is a big showcase of

student performing and creative talent at Hull Truck Theatre. The Uni exists in a bit of a bubble, away from the city, and we wanted to bring the two closer together. Also, we know it's going to be tricky for students to find work in the performing industries at the moment, so our top priority is to offer Hull Uni students a chance to perform without relying on it for their income.

Hull Truck's a major city centre venue with a public audience. Hopefully, we'll be raising the profile not only of student performers and the Uni, but also of education itself - a City Council report a few years ago found that more than 40% of adults in Hull have no qualifications, and GCSE pass rates there are notoriously low.

The Festival runs from 2nd-4th June, and features all sorts of stuff. We've got new plays written by, directed by and starring students. We've got live music from a range of different groups across campus, and probably some dance in there somewhere as well. We've got a poetry and spoken word event, and even some dance and performance art

coming from Hull's Scarborough Campus. We're going to have film screenings of student shorts, and hopefully exhibit student photography or painting in the theatre's foyer. There's so much going in, I've almost certainly forgotten some part of it.

The Festival can be found on Facebook (become a Fan of our Page, Attend our Event(s)) and Twitter (twitter.com/merge_arts_fest). For more details, e-mail us at mergetheatrefestival@googlemail.com.

If you happen to be around, come along and enjoy the Festival in June. No event costs more than £2, and half of them are free. Experience what your fellow students are doing and soak up the creative atmosphere in the shiny new foyer at Hull Truck - there's a bar and the food's quite nice.

THE MERGE ARTS FESTIVALbrought to you by Richard T. Watson

PREVIEWBAD HOUSE

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What's Your Poison?Adam Z. Robinson Blabs About the Birth of Bad House

When Lucy Arnold and I first sat down on a damp autumn evening almost two years ago we seemed, instantly, to be on the same page about what Bad House should be. Good gothic literature, we thought, is necessarily and unapologetically purple; overblown and steeped in high camp. Great gothic literature, we agreed, peels back its own layers and rattles its bones for you. It hides under your bed and, in the dead of night, points a rotten finger at you, dragging you into its lurid world. It segues seamlessly from the alluring to the grotesque. In Kubrick's The Shining when Torrance enters room 237 and is met by a beautiful naked woman who transforms into a rotting corpse in his lecherous arms: that is the power of The Gothic. The language both tempts and reviles; it flirts outrageously and then treacherously spooks. There's a wonderful, guilty pleasure in experiencing its darkness. "Wouldn't it be brilliant", we thought, "to write something like that?"

We were aware, of course, of the difficulty ahead. I can think of only a handful of theatrical productions that successfully evoke the atmosphere and richness of the genre. Needless to say, any piece of ghostly theatre will solicit comparisons with The Woman in Black. In its twenty-first year in the West End, this wonderfully shocking, fascinatingly pared-down production is one of the most intense theatrical experiences I have had the pleasure of witnessing.

The longevity and appeal of The Woman in Black surely lies in its sensational shocks and creepy, lingering narrative. Even now, more than two decades later, its freshness and genuine ability to scare permeates the landscape of contemporary British theatre. But it too owes a tremendous amount to its source and to the centuries of gothic stories before it. This is a tradition whose appeal never seems to wane. But neither do its conventions alter a great deal. And yet, somehow, it never appears tired or passé; it exudes a timeless charm. One often has to remind oneself, for instance, that Shelley's Frankenstein and Stoker's Dracula were written almost eighty years apart (1818 and 1897 respectively), so comparable are their sensibilities and ambience.

The whole tradition seems to

invite tribute and parody. As a result, contemporary gothic often has a knowingly pastiche-y feel. It purloins from its own archive like no other genre I know. Angela Carter's seminal short story collection The Bloody Chamber, for example, beautifully apes not only the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, Anderson, Perrault etc. but also the writings of Sheridan Le Fanu, ‘Monk' Lewis and Horace Walpole (the Gothfather himself). With all of its self-satire and deliberate replication, though, great modern gothic above all reveres and loves its forebears; striking the intricate balance between imitation and homage.

Writing Bad House was going to be a colossal challenge. But we knew that whatever happened we were going to have fun with it.

We were immediately excited by the prospect of writing a playfully chilling script but also of delving into such a rich history of ghostly literature. We found ourselves getting carried away with the spirit of the stories and their boundless potential for the sinister and the ridiculous. The character of The Landlord, a grotesque urchin of a narrator, was born almost instantaneously. And from his lips soon came the three stories in our eerie portmanteau. It took us nearly a whole year to get the tales right.

PREVIEWTELL TALE

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Don't Take Things Too SeriouslySarah Davies Spills the Magic Beans on Tell Tale

I wanted to create not just a performance, but a process of adventure through devising, play and exploration with my cast. We have had a lot of fun, bizarre and energetic rehearsals. So we invite you to get off your sofa, turn off the telly and come cushion yourself up. The atmosphere we have created is important for the magic of storytelling and I wanted to invite the audience into the multicultural world of sharing. No one goes away empty handed. The original show was more intimate, and reliant upon being close to our audience, so we can only see what happens with heaps more people in the Clive Wolfe!

A mission that brightens, fools, enlightens and is devoured with gluttonous indiscretion. There is always time for a story or tale. A project of invention, resourcefulness and play devised exploring the methods of storytelling. Using some material from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories and inspired by the nonsense verse of Edward Lear, we prescribe your imagination with a child's

perspective reminding you what is important. The gift of storytelling, why?

We have been telling tales for centuries. From our great ancestors through families, lifting spirits of tough journeys and battles, wise teachings of fables and through myths and legends of the past to a whimsical child's dream. But with nothing. The human body, a voice and an imagination is all we have. It has always grated on me when I hear people over use the phrase, "I'm bored," and a strong believer in the notion that you make anything what it is. The show has a large, improvised, make-it-up-as-we-go-along quality, revealing and endearing. We tried to create everything on stage, there is no backstage. I want to invite the audience invited to share the simplicity of creation and music with us. A gutter pipe and a balloon, a bit of string into a flying machine or a double bass. That lack of play, games and

foolery in our digital age, 9 'til 5 routines result in us being stuck in our comfort zone. I wanted to remind my audience that is in our grasp. By using everyday objects, characters who don't know each other from Adam at the beginning come together embarking upon journeys to create, tell and invent. What is the message of the play?

Don't take things too seriously. Enjoy what you have around you. Make do with what you have, free your imagination and listen to others. You never know where you might end up.

The show touches on grieving, relationships, love, friendship; though shedding light on these matters through comedy. They find themselves in some bizarre and compromising situations, under the spotlight, thinking on their feet. The characters are very human and go on journeys one by one shedding the fears through play. You have to laugh at yourself before you can enjoy life.

Last November it was such a pleasure to see Bad House open its creaking doors to the public in Leeds. Brought to life by directors Nick and Lucy and by the whole company, I was extremely impressed with the sense of creepy familiarity that they managed to create. It was fun, elegant and, by turns,

genuinely chilling. I am thrilled that the company have been able to showcase the play once again at NSDF 2010. With the arrival and immediate success of Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman's Ghost Stories, currently playing at the Lyric Theatre, I am filled with a sense of child-like giddiness

and great optimism for the future of gothic theatre. I adore the genre and hope that, with Bad House we have paid tribute to this adoration.

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It's 08:30 on Friday 26th March. Fresh from his morning briefing with his loyal band of Technical Advisors and trusty Designers, Nic Watson emerges into the car park of the Scarborough Holiday and Travel Lodge and ever so coolly takes a Marlborough Light from its packet. He is ready to face the day, ready for the madness to ensue. For today is the day when the madness well and truly begins! Today is the day when the wonder that is the National Student Drama Festival begins! Well it is for Nic and his fabulous technical crew anyway! The trucks, jam packed with thousands of pounds worth of kit, wait patiently for Nic and his followers to begin their long day transforming empty spaces into the wondrous places where the magic happens! As bodies, fresh from a fabulous night's sleep pile into cars Nic is whisked away by his chauffeur to the Spa Complex. Upon arrival at his destination Nic is greeted by five of his most glamorous assistants to await the delivery of an extremely important package, the motors for The Wolfe! But alas, Nic and his companions are forced to wait outside as the delivery is delayed. Fortunately, and extremely incredibly, the sun is shining in Scarborough today, not even the howling wind from the Great British seaside will dampen Nic's spirits! He is positive that the day ahead is going to go swimmingly!

09:45. An hour and fifteen minutes later the package arrives, and the wavering confidence in all is forgotten and the high spirits

return! The package is removed from its couriers' hands and safely stored in the hands of the Nic's one and only Man With A Van. While the package is rushed at top speed to its final destination, Nic retires to his luxury office to ensure all is up and running as smoothly as possible. And who would ever think otherwise! After a few hellish office tasks that none other than Mr Watson himself has the guts to deal with, Nic and some of his closest advisors head off for more important meetings!

11:00. All the stresses of the build up to the festival and the pressure of the first day are getting to Nic so he requests some time alone to process his thoughts. A man of his importance needs time to relax and unwind.

Chaos and Mayhem12:30. Time for the most trying task of the day......The lunch order! With the aid of Mr Jenkins and his Wonder Rover it's off to the kitchens to collect and distribute 70 packed lunches. It is chaos and mayhem as Nic travels from venue to venue ensuring that all the ravenous crew are fed and watered, and that none of them are poisoned by the evil gluten monster. Eventually everyone has received their sustenance and it is back to work for all, including Nic.The Afternoon. Venues are starting to take shape and Nic is a happy man. Leaving the crew in the safe hands of his TA's and superstar Venue and Deputy Venue Stage Managers, Nic returns to the office to tackle the

ever growing mountain of e-mails and paperwork. He will next be seen at dinner.

18:15. The favourite part of the day for the entire crew has arrived. Dinner time: a time to sit-down and eat, catch-up on the day's progress and most importantly await the daily end of dinner speech from the one and only Technical Director. Nic's warm words of encouragement spur the crew on for the difficult hours still to come.

Mad19:45. After a wander through one of the venues to investigate the all important progress of the build, it is a mad dash back to the Spa to collect his computer from the office before it is locked away for the night. Nic then heads to the sanctuary of the Noffice to begin the seemingly never-ending task of the daily rota!

Panic22:30. More than two hours later, after a lot of head scratching and a panic over the dwindling supply of cigarettes the rota is done. The crew are e-mailed and texted their locations for the following day. You would think this meant it was time for Nic to rest...... But you would be mistaken.

Glued00:10. Nic has continued to conquer the paperwork and is still glued to his laptop in the Noffice, showing no signs of leaving any time soon. However the Marlborough lights have now run out.... This could prove dangerous!

A Day in the Life of Nic WatsonJennifer Willey describes 24 hours of Nic's hellish existence.

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This now my third year at NSDF and each one has felt markedly different. In 2008 I was the new boy coming in to shadow the lovely Anna Cole and learn the job of Technical Director. In 2009 I was still very much the new boy, but suddenly somehow kinda in charge. And now in 2010 I find that the job I thought I had learned over the last two years is something entirely different again. Over the last couple of weeks I have spent a long time worrying that I have

completely forgotten to do something really important. So far, whatever it is hasn't come to light yet, so I think I might get away with it. We'll see...

This year, crewing has been the big thing for me. I decided to go all modern and get the application process online. I can't quite decide if this was a good move or a bad move. On the bright side, I didn't have to spend the selection meeting typing in all

the scraggy paper forms as I'd had to do previously. The other benefit was that it really opened it up to a whole new audience and made the process so much easier. It saw a 100% increase in applications. Brilliant in many ways - it's nice to be popular. A real headache in others as it meant that I could only take on half of the applicants and had to reject the other 60+. Great to

have the choice, but horrible to have to disappoint so many people.

The convenience also proved to be something of a problem too, as there seems to be less

commitment attached to filling in a webform than there does to a paper one. I've at least a dozen people accept places and then drop out at the last minute - and then beyond. Because everyone gave me emergency contact numbers when they applied, I even got to the point of phoning some of their mums when I couldn't get them to reply to my messages!The lad who emailed me a week ago with the 10 words "due to money isuess i am not able to atend" had me plotting unspeakable things with sticks of stale NSDF09 rock.Thing is, I can't blame people for being strapped for cash or having personal disasters. But I did get pretty peeved about those who hogged spaces that others had really wanted simply because they couldn't get it together to return a call/text/email.

Technically ReadyTechnical Director Nic Watson bares his tortured soul

TECHNISSION IMPOSSIBLEThis is how it works: we give the

techies a mission in each issue to be completed before the next issue!

There's no prize for succeeding apart from the prize of PRIDE itself!

We did a sneaky pre-mission this year. We asked the techies to 'Make the Noffice Nice' and told them that if they succeeded at this one, then we would be a bit nice to them for

the rest of the week and not give missions all the time that would involve them using all

their gaffer tape!

It so happens that they have done a MARVELLOUS job! They put up loads of lights and a STAGE for us! So now the Noffice is all warm and

cosy looking and we actually have a stage for our Copy Deadline Entertainment slots! Great, great job thank you enormously! So that brings

us onto the first official TECHNISSION IMPOSSIBLE!

#1 Your mission should you choose to accept it: to create a visual depiction of Festival

Director Holly Kendrick in any way you possibly see fit but that in no way uses an

actual photograph of her. Use your imaginations and your totally super-awesome skills! Now I'm going to self destruct etc.

Tick tick...

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There, I think I probably needed to get that off my chest! Having said that, I couldn't be happier with the team I have now, but at times it felt like getting the final crew in place was never going to happen. Today they have been legendary. We gave them a 2 hour induction on Thursday, then

on Friday morning 2 trucks full of kit weighing a total of 57,750kg arrived, were unloaded (by hand), distributed around our sites and then used to create the spaces you'll be seeing over the next week. The team have pulled a blinder - and some very long hours. Day one done and we've

made strong progress. When this edition of Noff is published we'll still be hard at it though, right up until the first shows open and then having a well earned drink. We'll be seeing you in the Ocean Room bar... And then doing it all again the following day for the other 10 shows!

Oi, Techies!We want to hear about your SETSUAL FANTASIES!Basically you think of the set that makes you cream your pants the most and then string some sort of tenuous plot around it. It can be brief and ridiculous, it's up to you. If you have the set ideas but having

Daily SerialHolly Jazz Lowe

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Chapter One

Madrigal squealed as the postman left her door. She knew exactly what he'd brought for her! She tore open the envelope. There, in a beautiful laminate of font and photo was her first ever ticket to the Drama Festival. Four of her drama classmates from Mount Jonas Sixth Form were also going to Scarborough for the week before Easter to sample the famous, and infamous NSDF. She'd heard the tales from the girls and boys in the years above.... the sea, the sand, the spa, the SJT and other things that didn't begin with s...but like, also things that sort of started with d: the dedicated workshops, the discussions, the (late night) discussions, the drinking, the debauchery, the dedicated workshop leaders.... the Drama!They met at the train station with tic-tac excitement. Tiny mints of freshness and innocence inside boxes inside pockets... Madrigal was the last to arrive and was pleased to see how happy her classmates looked. Even Bret, who always usually contained such excitement, gave her a tic-tac-row-of-teeth-smile as he turned around at the turnstile to greet her. "Off t' t'drama fest, t' are t' we?" Zach boomed in his best and most terrible North Yorkshire accent. "Aye t'about t'igh t'time that sleepy t'ittle t'own saw sum drama' eeh!""Oh Zach, you are such a Duke!" laughed Kitty whilst gently pushing his leather jacket-bound arm. He gave a mock lion's roar and Kitty giggled and screamed her way onto the platform.

"DUKE! DUKE!" Zach was roaring playfully. "Look at those kids" sneered Leon with disdainful affection while rolling a cigarette with one hand and unscrewing a hip flask with the other.

Madrigal was looking at her friends, could she call them her friends? Zach was always nice to her but then, Zach was always nice to everybody; even pigs! No, no, actual pigs! On a geology field trip once they had had to cross through a farm. Zach had caught sight of the pig shed and next thing anyone knew he'd hurtled himself through the door headfirst into a haystack and started wriggling around with all the squirming piglets. He was seconds away from offering them a teat when he'd caught sight of an interesting looking Flourishing Birch in the yard and distracted himself yet again. He was a ball of energy and zing, like someone had made a dough out of beans, lentils and crushed up coffee beans then sprinkled some of that stuff you get in the rainforest (what they put inside those Boost chocolate bars) and then baked him in a Handsome Oven and filled him with friendly jam and... you get the picture. Zach = nice guy, bit like a Labrador.

Her thoughts lingered briefly on bad-boy Leon. Was he her friend? (Come on, Reader, she's kidding herself to even ask that question). She didn't really know much about him at all, and he never seemed to be much in college anyway, in fact hadn't he recently been suspended? She started to wonder why on earth or how on

earth he even got onto this trip in the first place. Then there was the stunningly beautiful Kitty, with her Russian heritage of ice-blonde, ice-blue, ice, ice baby looks and her undeniable popularity chart toppery despite the fact that she'd only joined the college that year after moving to the town from somewhere further south. Rare for the new kid in school to actually be Johnny-come-lately, but somehow Kitty-come-lately had done it. She was nice enough, Madrigal liked her, she had no reason not to. Right? Before she could ponder this much further Madrigal awoke from her musing with a jump for she found the seat next to hers on the train being taken by Bret. Aloof and mysterious Bret; beautiful in a way that was does-he-look-too-much-like-a-girl-to-be-considered-handsome? He was unpredictable and moody but in an utterly compelling way. Madrigal was deeply attracted to him but at the same time socially crippled in his company. She sat in silence all the way to Scarborough, including the wait for the connection at the implausibly-cold York station.

By the time they arrived at Scarborough, however, the sun was shining perfectly for one of

Point Horror - Drama Festival!

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those very-early spring days. Milling in the cold but bright afternoon, there was a continuous outpour from the station and the coach stops of easily identifiable drama students. Hair bands, leggings, skinny jeans, dresses over jeans, cardigans, coloured thick denier tights, flicked eyeliners, tousled hair... and that was just the boys, Reader! Hurr hurr! Madrigal studied the map and concluded that they should make their way over Valley Bridge then make a left to descend onto the beach and to the Spa for the grand opening.

"How strange that the railings curve in and over on this bridge!" remarked Kitty as they walked it."It's to stop people throwing themselves off" said Bret. "There was a huge problem with this bridge; massive suicide spot. Well, they say suicide, who knows. But you're pretty much dead if you go off it. So that's why they made the railings like this." Leon scoffed. "Jeez. Welcome to fucking Scarborough, mate!"Kitty asked "Bret... have you been here before? I thought this was the first time to Scarborough for all of us? Did you used to holiday here or something?""If you like" said Bret and unwrapped a green Chupa Chup lolly which he started to suck on."I'm not sure I've ever seen a green Chupa Chup lolly before...." Kitty said and they all drifted in reverie of every Chupa Chup they'd ever had."COME ON IN THE WATER'S FINE!" Zach was shouting in between splashes. The second upon seeing the sea he had

dumped his bag on Leon and run, without a pause, fully clothed into it. To be fair to him, Reader, he'd seen it from a fair way off too and so to be that excited for that amount of running time is commendable. Kudos to Zach. Ten points. The others did not join him in the water, however. Madrigal built a sandcastle only to then realise it was in the direct path of the donkey rides and within minutes, Rooney - the prize winning donkey of South Bay was not only stomping her glass-grain house down with hooves but ensuring its total destruction with a perfectly placed deposit of dung too. She looked around hopelessly to see Kitty talking to some other drama students (one would presume) by the 2p slot machines and Leon coming out of a seafront pub carrying two bottles of Corona and Bret..."Boo!" said Bret. Right behind Madrigal, close into her ear."Bret you scared me!" she startled, then could not say another word but only gaze at his red lips, his pale skin, his sharp blue eyes, his sharp cheekbones and sharply arched eyebrows, his sandy brown hair which sharply scuffled his forehead his... Look, it's easier to describe him as pretty much looking like the dude from Twighligt or maybe even a bit more like Leonardo Di Caprio when he's pretty much almost dead at the end of Titanic. Which is, let's face it, Reader, is Di Caprio at his fittest... worryingly. "Want to go on the speedboat, Madrigal?" he grinned.

"wh... Wh...I... I... g..." she started but they were interrupted by

Kitty's sudden presence, a hand on each of their shoulder."Come on, guys! Don't want to miss the Grand Opening!" and so they gathered themselves together, Zach obviously soaked but happy, and headed for the spa. The sun still shining its special welcoming beams; they passed a man by the sand holding marionette puppets and playing a squeezebox and singing a sea-shanty all at the same time.Leon, beer in hand, put his arms around the group. "You know what, guys! This is our week. No parents, no teachers, no college, no bars where they're well fussed about asking for ID, no worries, no...." here, he paused slightly, glanced at Zach and looked out to sea vaguely. For just a second there was a hesitation; "no... baggage" he said firmly. "Nobody knows us here. Guys! This is our time! No stresses, no worries! Just some drinking and smoking and parties and beach and girls and bars and hotel rooms and...."

"And like, some theatre?" Kitty offered. They all laughed."Yeah and some fucking theatre if you like!" laughed Leon and pulled them all close in again."NSDF" he said "at last, we have arrived!"

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SASH Tupple(TM) TournamentSASH TUPPLE TOURNAMENT at the NSDF 2010

It's such a fun game, great cause and brilliant prize!

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Cat Hobart who is running techy side of things down at the Ocean Room is Scottish and she wants a caleigh!She's putting out a shout for anyone here at the festival who can either play caleigh music or who can do the calling!Is this you?!Don't deny the FEST a caleigh now! Get in touch with either Cat or come and tell us here at NOFF. Strip that Willow now! Bosh bosh bosh!

CallingCaleighEnthusiasts!

I see you have a myspace page,I'm on myspace too,Don't hold stock with facebook,I don't know about you,Too much info on display,I wouldn't want on view,And my myspace page is comfortable,I'm not much good with 'new'.

But when I view your profile pics,Myspace seems sort of lonely,Cause it's myspace,and myspace only,And I think it might be nice,At least, there are things that could be worse than,If myspace,And yourspace,Became ourspace.Perhaps then we could meet in person.

An Internet Love Story A random poem about Myspace

I see you have a myspace page,I'm on myspace too,Don't hold stock with facebook,I don't know about you,Too much info on display,I wouldn't want on view,And my myspace page is comfortable,I'm not much good with 'new'.

But when I view your profile pics,Myspace seems sort of lonely,Cause it's myspace,and myspace only,And I think it might be nice,At least, there are things that could be worse than,If myspace,And yourspace,Became ourspace.Perhaps then we could meet in person.

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Noises Off is produced, as you should hopefully have gathered by now, by everyone and anyone at the Festival. This is usually interpreted in terms of the writing and other content, but an equally crucial part of its creation occurs once the content has been produced.

Indeed, every night of the Festival, from around 1am to the early hours of the morning, the magazine is typed, proofed, layed out, proofed again, threaded, and finally, eventually, printed out. This process could not be completed without a dedicated group of volunteers contributing in whatever capacity they can, be it by doing the above, or making cups of tea to warm the hands and brains of the workers, or providing entertainment and encouragement through their presence. No contribution is too small.

We will reward those that have been especially lovely at the end of the Festival through the Good Egg Awards. That means chocolate people! So come and say hi and lend us a few hours of your time.

THE GOOD EGG AWARDS

Jon BrittainA haiku? Right, erm,What about- no actually,Please ask someone else

Ben Curthoys Late into the night everything seems funnier dawn brings back our sense

Phil Mann You literally dranka red bull; you then becamelively but bleeding.

Nick WatsonNSDF techVenues springing up aroundBlack boxes of joy

Ian ShuttleworthIn the VitaDomeOn the first night of the FestHolly wants haiku.

I'm a helpful sort,Always willing to chip in,So I write a few.

Tony NewtonDonkey with carrot.Four helium balloons.That's NSDF.

Richard T. Watson Haiku? A Haiku?Could this be one Haiku?Haiku? Hm, sort of.

There was a young man from Timbuctu,who really wanted to write a haiku,he spent all his timetrying to get it to rhymethen remembered that they don't need to.

Gordon Nimmo-SmithBeen building all day,lots of fun with truss and scaff.Write more tomorrow!

Holly Jazz Lowe Scarborough South Bay,who are these misfits that walkyour shores so early?

Beach House - the band thatsound like their own Point Horrorstory of same name.

Fuchsia Voremberg To start a movementyou need: some friends, one moustache,enthusiasm.

Andy Wicks Sitting quietlyDoing utterly nothingCars rev, baselines thump

Michael Evans He and I trecked throughThe mist guided only byThe crashing of waves

Martin McVeigh It is cold up northbut unlike down in Londonthe welcome is warm.

Alex Mackenzie Only three hoursOf sleep is now possible.Tomorrow dwindles.

Billy Casper "Hey, he looks like you!"shouted the drunk girl to me,pointing at some boy.

FESTIVAL OF HAIKU!Collected by Holly Jazz Lowe

Holly Jazz LoweIn York my friend Tom Wateracre is setting up a sort of circus. There are loads of people I know among the streets like in Edinburgh at the fringe, but in York for Tom's circus. He lets me run the bow and arrow stall. As I'm gaffer-taping the floor to put the mark of how far people have to stand away, I point out to Tom that the floor is leaking gunge. He goes "sheeeeeeeit".

Ben CurthoysI dreamed I was out in the woods. A couple of other people were there with me, and one of them had a car and offered me a lift, but for some reason I refused, even though night was falling and we knew the woods were full of wild animals. So they drove off, and I started walking back to the road. To my right, I heard a ...noise. A wolf had pounced on something small, and was eating it. The woods either side of the track were full of snow and small movements. I started running.

Bob Fischer Had a dream last night that I was trying to do some writing at a very old-fashioned typewriter in the middle of my old school field. However I kept being attacked by a skeletal pirate called 'Bloodbones'... he was literally an ancient, walking brown skeleton with a few piratical clothes on. I kept clobbering him and shoving him over, and he'd fall to pieces... only to magically reassemble and jump at me again with his

cutlass... Brrr....

Tom Wateracre I dreamt I was walking round a record shop with Vampire Weekend.

Jon Giuliani I dreamed I was back stage getting ready to be a sad clown during a performance, I have detailed memories of the make up I was putting on but with no knowledge of stage make up I suppose most of it is absurd....

Jon BrittainI dreamt there was a kangaroo in the back of a van I was driving, the kangaroo began to talk and I remembered that kangaroos are notoriously intelligent creatures who can communicate with humans. I knew something was amiss with this as I don't own a van.

Suddenly the kangaroo became evil and jumped onto the front seat. It tried to bite me, which was rather disconcerting, not being a driver I was trying to concentrate on the road.

I attempted to brake hard and send the kangaroo flying through the windscreen which it would do as it had been unable to do up its seat belt. Unfortunately I could not get sufficient speed to do this and the kangaroo just bounced back and forth as I stopped and started. Eventually the van became a motor bike and I flew away.

Ian ShuttleworthI'm in a theatre - fringe theatre, I think - wide, shallow stage, few rows of raked, plastic-bucket seating - like Pleasance Upstairs on the Edinburgh Fringe or the old Riverside Studio 3 in London, but feels a bit bigger, deeper shadows. I'm in the audience; there's hardly anybody else in, actually at the time only one man, so maybe even without the slight spotlight on him and my recognising him, I'd have sussed that he was a plant. I realise it's a show I've seen before, Irate Man In Row B. Although he's sitting some way away, I put the long, thin metal rod I've been carrying (I'd been using it as something between a walking-rod and a staff of office in an earlier dream that I can't really remember) upright in the gap between the seat beside me and the railings down the side of the seating bank, reckoning that irate man won't either knock it down with an embarrassing (to me) clatter or impale himself on it if it's there.

Nick Watson (Tech Director)After five hours of fretting and TRYING to get to sleep I finally fell asleep only to continue fretting in my dream: the entire rig of The Woolfe collapsed and it was incredibly upsetting. <sadface>

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DREAM DIARIESAnother anthology gathered by Holly Jazz Lowe

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How to get publishedBen Curthoys explains how to get your reviews, opinions, comments, and drunken ramblings into Noises Off

1. Every visiting artist is capable of giving you your big break in the industry. Why not ask them to do so? Remember, it's rude to be too forward, so broach the issue indirectly and mask your request in as subtle language as you can. Also remember to pay them plenty of compliments about their work, whether or not you've actually seen any of it.2. Technicians are always treated with respect. Next time one does a job for you, why not ignore them? Better yet, treat them with contempt and show them how impatient you are. Put them in their place for once. [Disclaimer:

irony has just been employed, techies are awesome, treat them nicely.]3. Try and win a gollywog from each and every penny arcade on the seafront.4. Tell NOFF editor Phil Mann he looks like Heath Ledger as the Joker.5. Go to the beach and take a photo of yourself mid-jump and in the air. Use the photo as your facebook profile picture so people will think you are arty.6. Use the word 'knickers' while asking a question in the first group discussion on Sunday.7. Search for any visiting artist on

IMDB, find their most embarrassing credit (e.g. Christopher Eccleston and G.I. Joe), then find them and congratulate them for their work in it, insist it is their best work and ask why they have not been as good in anything else.8. Play a game of chess on the sun court with actual people as the pieces. Upon victory run to the top of the hill and declare yourself ruler of all you purvey.9. See a film, Alice in Wonderland is on at the Futurist Cinema on the seafront.10. Submit an article or review to Noises Off!

5 Things you MUST DO at NSDF 2010Jon Britt talks you through the Festival's unmissable experiences

LOO

K!

CLASSIFIED ADS

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Na'vi Translator - Pandora / Work From Home

Job: Na'vi TranslatorArtform: Poetry / TranslationPaid?: I may let you connect your braid to my five-legged horseLocation: Pandora / Work From Home

Qapla'! I am a Klingon poet looking to branch out into new markets,and so I'm looking for a translator who can turn my brutish Klingonverse into lyrical Na'vi.

My poetry, similar to most Klingon poetry, is striking, guttural, andusually concludes with a solid headbutt. Subjects include war, roughsex, fighting, bat'leth repair, punching people in the face with theheel of one's hand, and traditional Klingon mating rituals. Theserituals are also basically fighting.

I would like a translator who is able to take my poems and make themrelevant to the Na'vi of Pandora, whose culture of nature worship,bioluminescent skin, and fondness for trees, I would greatly admire,if that wouldn't make me some creepy little petaQ.

I believe there's some real money in poetry, and also in the Na'vi,who admittedly don't have any pockets, but do have unobtanium out ofthe wazoo. I also want to appeal to the "Earthling Who Is DangerouslyLonely and Getting Lonelier" market.

You will be fluent in both Klingon and Na'vi, and have a genuine skillat translating poetry celebrating gutsy violence into mimsytree-hugging bullshit.

I cannot pay for this translation, but can offer a reference,connections within the Klingon High Council for future Na'vitranslations, and - as stated above - I may let you connect thetendrils of your sentient ponytail with the back of my five-leggedhorse's head, although I can't say I approve of that, and mayaccidentally punch you.

Apply to NRAJ Box 4notrealartsjobs@googlemail.comNotRealArtsJobs

WANTED URGENTLY

Bucket of wet sand required by production for fire safety reasons. We have looked all over town and cannot find anyone who can sell us one.

If you know where we can obtain one, please contact us at the Ocean Room, Spa Complex, ASAP!!!! THANKS!!!!

TO LET

Last minute vacancy in sea front B&B. All modern facilities available, with easy access to a "telephone box" within 5 minutes walk, and in recent refurbishment we applied another layer of authentic 1973 flock wallpaper from our stores, adding to the cozy, homey, psychdelic timewarp atmostphere. Our regular clientelle are friendly and extremely curious about the drama festival, and one appeared in an amature production of the Mikado as recently as 20 years ago, so they'll be delighted to make you feel welcome!!!

ADVERTISE HERE

too late, it's gone over there now.

CreditsTonight in Noises Off, in-your-endo we were...

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