Ms TN is going to come over all bloggish and type an actual diary entry, since I'm sure you are all bereft since TN hefted herself into the northern hemisphere. Or perhaps, more realistically, some of you are mildly curious about what I'm doing. But first, a confession: I am typing this because the remote controls attached to British televisions are, like the First Sefiroth, wholly beyond comprehension. I unwarily pressed a button marked "P" and found myself in a labyrinth of commands which, after much cursing and frantic button pushing, finally led me to a television picture of grey snow. All this technology to take me back to the tv coverage of the 1950s, only without the comfort of warming valves. I miss the kind of remote that is still prevalent in the primitive antipodes, which merely goes to Channel 2 when you press "2".

But, I hear you cry in horror, what's this? Did Ms TN travel through a dozen time zones merely to watch television? Well, not really; but I was planning a night in with John McEnroe and the latest from Wimbledon, which is the kind of sports coverage that would make Channel Seven blush with shame, were the programming chiefs not actually giant lizards in the process of taking over the world, and so immune to human delicacies and shame. Yes, there are compensations for Britain's watery sunshine. Wimbledon and Dr Who (which is as huge on the wow factor as rumour rumours) are two of them. 

But I haven't only been glued to the BBC. I have been out imbibing some of that history the English are so keen on erasing with carparks. A weekend in Cambridge is enough to make you thoughtful on this point: on the one hand, exquisite 17th century colleges, their perfect lawns cut with nail scissors by armies of specially trained topiarists, and on the other, blocks of concrete dropped in from the sky. (This is, admittedly, rather unkind to Churchill College, which hasn't aged as gracelessly as most 70s architecture, though someone said that was because of its beautiful gardens).

On Friday and Saturday I stayed at the Moeller Centre at Churchill, a cutting-edge example of 70s Danish design with an alien hexagon dropped into its middle for reasons that are not very clear, but which creates a roof terrace that looks like a set for a movie in which sophisticated 20-somethings drape themselves carelessly over S-bend furniture and drop their false eyelashes into their martinis. It is clearly designed for MBAs in conference mode, no doubt with facilitators, and so boasts televisions, internet connections, classy shampoos and body wash and even white flannel dressing gowns. Which was, for me at least, quite unexpected.

On Sunday night I moved into a room at the rather less well appointed but undeniably more atmospheric Pembroke College, looking over the Library Lawn, which is just past the building you see on the right in the picture below. (The building that looks like a church is actually the Library, and the building on the right is the very beautiful neoclassical Pembroke Chapel, which is Christopher Wren's first building). And then I went to see the double bill of the masque Comus - John Milton's version and John Kinsella's eco-warrior "reply" - at Christ's College down the road, of which more In Due Course.


All this excessive history and expensively cut grass is probably why the Cambridge dons get all stern and modern. In fact, most people who live in Cambridge are dismissive of its gorgeousness.  One Cambridge don (I think he was a don) told me last night, as I was admiring the rooftops of Christ's College silhoetted against the miraculously luminous summer night sky: "The problem is that nothing has changed since the 17th century". A few things have changed: they let women in, for instance. But I suppose that carefully groomed privilege gets stifling, not to mention the peasants muttering as they rake the leaves. And I have to remember that this is a country where I can pick up the major left wing daily and read a columnist objecting to rude language (a) because it comes from the "lower ranks" and (b) because it is "inherently discourteous to women". (Max, what if it's the women swearing, eh? Are they being inherently discourteous to men?)

Still, as I had an hour to kill on Sunday, such considerations didn't stop me getting in a punt and floating down the Cam, watching the ducks nipping each other at close quarters. And there's no getting away from it: Cambridge is incredibly beautiful.

Now I'm back in London, less beautiful but more vital, planning some leisurely socialising and maybe even a trip to the theatre. After that deeply interesting week at UEA in Norwich (when I took copious notes, none of which I feel like writing up) and my Cambridge weekend, I've finished masquerading as a university person and am uncloseting as a tourist. It's quite restful, after 10 days which have mainly been concerned, one way and another, with talking about climate change and corporate depredation. 

Completing the brainmelt, I managed to get the television working by using another remote, although I'm quite sure it's using the wrong buttons, and my absent hosts will have to untangle whatever unholy mess I've made of the remote control programming. And I watched a BBC documentary which explained something I've noticed over the past few days: why English dress shops are full of cheap, gaudy tat. They are made, wholly unsurprisingly, by Indian children working in sweat shops: and the much-vaunted "ethical policies" of the chain stores are deeply dubious. It strikes me there are worse things in Britain than indecent language. 

A Sunday afternoon spent slowly ordering a chaotic house is always good therapy. As you know, Ms TN has been feeling a bit ragged lately. It's partly a result of overdoing things: I seem to have two speeds, hyperdrive and stop. I have made many resolutions over the years to find a few gears in the middle, since I am perfectly aware that this is not a sensible way of doing things, but so far I haven't found the golden mean. This is partly circumstance, and wholly my own fault. Like most writers, I have turned procrastination into an artform; but with me, it's taken a particularly pernicious turn. In order to avoid doing one kind of work, I think of another project: and then this idle diversion turns into a monster, which splinters off into further truancies, which in turn become other monsters: and before you know it, I'm like one of those crazed teens in Reefer Madness.

Take note, children: playing with literature is dangerous. It starts innocently with poems, and for a while you might be able to pretend that it's a harmless hobby ("recreational" literature). But before you know it, you've graduated to plays and libretti. And that leads down the slippery slope to novellas. But even that isn't enough. The craving only gets worse and, before you know it, you're mainlining Big Fat Fantasy Novels. But even that isn't the worst. The worst is when you discover blogging. Blogs are the crack of the literary world, they burn up your brains and leave you dribbling by the kerb, an object of pity and derision to all right-minded people.

When you pursue all these obsessions at once, and attempt to have a life as well, your head explodes. That sharp crack you heard wasn't a car backfiring, it was me. You should see the carpet.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that at present I'm pondering how to achieve a via media, a way of managing my writing life that bears some relation to sense. I don't want to stop doing anything I'm doing, it all being much too interesting to stop. But at the same time, it ceases to be interesting for anybody, and especially me, if all that emerges is mush. Which is to say, I think the balance between attending to my own work and attending to the work of others is a little top heavy at present. And to be honest, since I've always written as an artist first, this has been making me feel a little lost. I need to touch base. Have a little me-time.

For all that, I expect that readers won't notice a lot of difference on the blog. Perhaps it's more an internal than external shift. For example, I'm going to stop thinking that I'm not doing my job if I don't see everything worth seeing. As a solo, unpaid effort, it's ridiculous, even hubristic, to think that I can or that I should, and to feel guilty if I don't manage it. Away, little demons of the mind!

And finally, since it is always good to get back to first principles, let me point you to Mark Fisher's meditations on theatre criticism on his Scottish Theatre Blog, which are a model of clarity, and somehow very heartening.

Sunday afternoon, and back from a pleasant amble in the sunshine with the mutt before heading to an early session of The Hayloft Project's Chekhov Recut: Platonov. Of which more in due course. However, during my wanderings I found myself musing, in Coleridgean fashion*, on some recent arguments on - or even off - this blog, and this led me to pondering some occasions where people have taken exception to comparisons I have made. I am always happy if people argue with me - if they are arguing with what I say rather than traducing my character, that is - but it occurred to me that some of these arguments might stem from a misunderstanding.

Comparison may be odious, but if you're a critic, it is also inevitable. Just as no man is entire of itself, neither is any work: it is part of the complex ecology of culture. One of the things I seek to do here is to sketch a map of relationship, with which I might speculatively trace the genealogy and context of a work. And a misunderstanding might follow from mistaking this kind of comparison for a qualitative rather than a descriptive claim. Of course, it may be both; but usually I am primarily attempting to be descriptive.

One example: I got some friendly schtick recently when I compared a short film to Tarkovsky, Malick and Herzog. Put baldly like that, it might seem over the top. But I actually said: "It's not hyperbole to say that this genuinely poetic film recalls Werner Herzog (it bears affinities with Aguirre: The Wrath of God, but lacks Herzog's Eurocentric shonkiness), or that in its poetic rhythms, particularly in how it makes landscape a character in the film, it has qualities you see in the work of Andrei Tarkovsky or Terrence Malick." After the poking, I read over my comments carefully, wondering if I had been having one of those "best actor of his generation" moments (yes, such statements make me blush in retrospect, however richly deserved they might be) and I remained unswayed. The film does bear affinities with Aguirre, and it does have those qualities. And that is what I meant.

Still, very few people will read with the same care as the anxious writer. I remember, chastened, the colleague who taxed me with the claim that I had said TS Eliot was a "minor poet". This was such a complete misreading of a complex and carefully qualified argument that I could only blink: where does one begin? Is it worth chastising myself if I lapse into windy generalisation or unsupported claim-staking, if nobody notices the difference when I don't? The answer goes both ways: if I wish only to avoid public censure, then of course it isn't worth it. But in the end, I guess I have to earn my own respect as well.

* Many a man, who has contrived to hide his ruling passion or predominant defect from himself, will betray the same to dispassionate observers, by his proneness on all occasions to suspect or accuse others of it. ...As long therefore as I obtrude no unsupported assertions on my Readers; and as long as I state my opinions and the evidence which induced or compelled me to adopt them, with calmness and that diffidence in myself, which is by no means incompatible with a firm belief in the justness of the opinions themselves; while I attack no man's private life from any cause, and detract from no man's honors in his public character, from the truth of his doctrines, or the merits of his compositions, without detailing all my reasons and resting the result solely on the arguments adduced; while I moreover explain fully the motives of duty, which influenced me in resolving to institute such investigation; while I confine all asperity of censure, and all expressions of contempt, to gross violations of truth, honor, and decency, to the base corruptor and the detected slanderer; while I write on no subject, which I have not studied with my best attention, on no subject which my education and acquirements have incompacitated me from properly understanding; and above all while I approve myself, alike in praise and in blame, in close reasoning and in impassioned declamation, a steady FRIEND to the two best and surest friends of all men, TRUTH and HONESTY; I will not fear an accusation of either Presumption or Arrogance from the good and the wise, I shall pity it from the weak, and welcome it from the wicked.

- from The Friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Seen outside a shop for camping supplies in Hawthorn (some time ago, so sadly I can't supply a photo):

This is the winter of our discount tent!

Taking a deep breath before leaping into reviews of the two other shows I've seen over the past week (Ranters' Holiday and Angus Cerini's Chapters from the Pandemic, coming up - I hope - tomorrow), it occurs to me that it might be interesting to some readers here if I write about the process that informs these reviews.

This blog exists for two major and extremely selfish reasons. Firstly, I adore going to the theatre, to the point that it is something like a obsessive passion: it's an artform that for me never loses the crude enchantment of innocence. Secondly, I have this compulsive desire to talk about almost everything and, in particular, an uncontrollable compulsion to talk about art.

When I first began to think critically about art, in my early 20s, the medium that offered itself as a way to begin to explore my evolving ideas was theatre. In fact, my involvement with theatre, at first as a practitioner and increasingly as a critic, has informed every aspect of my artistic practice. (My next collection of poems, due out with Salt Publishing next year, will be called Theatre: Poems). It's crucial to my creative writing to keep my critical faculties supple, and a continual engagement with a dynamic and various artform is an excellent means of keeping mentally fit.

But there's more to it than that. We all know that theatre is an impure artform, a form in which economic necessity rubs up against artistic ideals. It is impossible to pretend that theatre is not imprinted by its time and place; in other artforms, this can be less obvious, or even completely hidden. Theatre takes place in real time and in real space, and is made by real bodies. It costs money to make and to see. And yet, what crucially happens is an exchange: something is offered by the artists who make it. When I sit in a theatre and watch a show, I am the other half of that exchange. I am not a critic. I am a member of an audience.

"Exchange is creation," says the American poet Muriel Rukeyser. "In poetry, the exchange is one of energy. Human energy is exchanged, which is consciousness, the capacity to produce change in existing conditions. But the manner of exchange, the gift that is offered and received - these must be seen according to their own nature."

She is speaking of poetry, but what Rukeyser says applies equally to theatre. When I watch a show, I am receiving a gift. And no matter what it is, I do my best to receive that gift openly and without fear or prejudice, to offer in exchange the gift of my attention. I do my best, within my limitations, to perceive a show for what it is: not to expect a tragedy when I am watching the circus, not to let my own biases or expectations blind me to the gift that being offered.

Sometimes the exchange is not a happy one. Sometimes the exchange fails in the space between the auditorium and the stage. Theatre doesn't always live up to its ideals, and neither do I. But all my critique, positive or negative, stems from that experience in the theatre, during which I pay all the attention of which I am capable. My later intellectual response - the intellect is always later - is totally conditioned by what I feel in my body when I walk out of a theatre.

My qualitative responses - whether I think a piece "works" - rely on something utterly inarticulate. There are shows that I have not understood at all, or which have aesthetically or intellectually challenged every belief I have: but if I leave the theatre feeling light, excited, stimulated, alive, well then: I will have to rethink my ideas. Or, on the other hand, if I leave the theatre feeling depressed, heavy, trapped, then something is not working. The exchange is compromised; the gift is not received.

In truth, I know of nothing else to work with. "Reason," says the philosopher Gillian Rose in her beautiful book Love's Work, "is forever without ground". And the same might be said of my critique. What is most important to its formation is not at all defensible. That is just how it is: experience is incorrigible and unarguable.

Everything else - the intellectual and aesthetic framework which is articulated on this blog - is arguable. And I hope that framework is clear and informed. It's a framework that I have worked hard to create, by reading and writing and thinking, by seeing a lot of theatre over many years. But what it rests on is something any child can know and understand.

The process of critique is for me an intellectual working back, an attempt to articulate or understand why a particular work has engendered those particular effects. Sometimes it's easy to know why, sometimes it's a struggle that leads me beyond my given knowledge. But it's always a process that I find fascinating and illuminating, and that's why I keep doing it. It's really icing on the cake that other people read, and argue with, what I have to say.

This process is why I don't believe that any critique - and certainly none of mine - can ever be the last word on any work of art. It would be the height of solipsism - and even I am not that solipsistic - to think that I, alone of 50 or 200 or 800 other people in an auditorium, can have the only authentic experience in the theatre. It would also be rather dull. Any response is, rather, the beginning of another conversation. And it's all these conversations, shimmering skeins of them, over dinner tables, in newspapers and journals and blogs and pubs and cafes, that make what I understand to be a living culture. And I am very proud to be one talkative thread in the whole noisy tapestry.

Scene: Coles New World, Douglas Parade, Williamstown, around 10.30am this morning. Shoppers, dogs, people gossiping, etc.

Two YOUNG MEN suddenly slam open the supermarket's emergency exit, setting off all the alarms, and bolt into Douglas Parade. They are carrying a blue freezer bag. About fifty open-mouthed shoppers stare as they skid around the corner and bundle into a bright yellow car, in which they make a screaming getaway. Some shoppers are manifestly amused, others are noting down the car's model and number plate, and still others are calling the police.

I guess they got caught in Melbourne Road around five minutes later. What I want to know is, what did they steal from Coles?