21/02/11

I have been thinking of changing Daydreamer by Menswear in Act 8 of the musical for Beetlebum by Blur and perhaps removing ‘Death of a Party’ all together. Menswear were such an iconic part of Britpop (in particular its disposable nature) and there's already loads of Blur in there and although Death Of The Party is one of the more obscure song choices in ‘the book’ choices I originally thought that it fitted really well and that the song effectively stands as Britpop's closing number. However, I'm having to play to the strengths of my performers at the moment and our Howard is essentially a different character from what I had originally envisaged. John is playing a brilliant role but I have had to compromise and re-imagine the character to fit his performing style. I don’t think that John would feel comfortable singing the Menswear number in the intention it was meant. Death of a Party presents its own problems. There are a lot of studio effects there which I feel we may struggle re-creating with in a live-situation. I'm considering also re-working the section where Sophie promises to hang-out with Nev at the bar in scene 8 at The Mixer. I feel I may need to emphasise the point that she has been making a lot of promises like this lately and in turn make it seem that breaking this promise is a real turning point for Nev rather than a knee jerk reaction. I am also thinking of changing a couple of the acoustic songs that Amy has to do. Perhaps changing Ten Story Love Song for Teardrop by Massive Attack as I think it would suit her voice much better. I realise that in a professional production changing what was intended by the writer would be a no-go. However, in these early stages and to push the production along I am willing to make changes as we go. The development of the script is still quite an organic thing and I feel that in the months to come I will review and rewrite sections of dialogue etc.