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16/12/17 Hello A little break post-Hommo. I was tired.  My next show is picking up speed. 'The Sea' runs March 1-3 at The Camden People's Theatre. I can't work out if I'm stressed yet or not.  It's all about London and being in a big city and being lonely. It picks up the theme of the difficulty of communication that Hommo approached a little. 'Hommo's men who can't talk about their feelings have become 'The Sea's lonely person who can't talk to anyone.  I wanted to write a play about being just one person. One individual in a crowd of so many others. One bus ticket on a jammed packed number 253. One Oyster card in Holborn. One bike on Waterloo Bridge.  I think everyone I've spoken to at a university in London has said they felt lonely at some point. I think everyone moving to a big, new, different  city felt a bit odd at some point, but with London I feel you have to fight off that loneliness. There's so mu...

17.10.17 So I thought I should opening by asking if the pun in the title is queer-baiting? My good friend and key-fan, Charlotte Dougan, accused me of queer-baiting, which involves mentioning, or alluding to, queerness in a title or narrative or plot, in order to get people interested. The motivation behind queer-baiting is to attract more views than otherwise, rather than an actual representation of the queer community. Answer me: is key-fan Charlotte Dougan right? - So today I want to talk about the male gaze, again. There’s more to it. Last time, I talked about the ethics of the male gaze. In a very uncertain way. I want to talk, more certainly, about the sexuality of the male gaze. I think the male gaze can have a sexual part. I see the male gaze as an essentially introspective attitude in which men look at themselves and each other and seek out weakness in order to eradicate it. The male gaze seeks to perpetuate androcentrism and the maleness of everything else. ...

26.9.17 So, this is something I am guilty of. I have a male 'gaze' (sorry). The things I write about are written from a male perspective, because I am male. This is the strict, logical interpretation of the term, 'male gaze'. It's a bit limited and not very helpful, however. A broader interpretation is not just about the stuff I write about and the way I write it. The male gaze, in my (male) opinion, is about the whole male experience of privilege and entitlement. Male privilege (as I will now mansplain to you) is the experience of having the world set up for you, by other men, in order to propel other men into success, with as a little effort as possible. Male privilege makes life easy. Male privilege is being able to walk home alone at night without being scared. Male privilege is having better employment prospects. Male privilege is being listened to more than women. Male privilege is being respected in the workplace. Male privilege is all the things men do...

16.9.17 Don’t worry. I have been doing research before. But I haven’t really done research in order to say something in particular. The research has been building up different experiences of masculinity. So it’s been talking to lots of different people. So I spoke to a lot of male friends. I have wanted to avoid making this too narrow a project- I don’t want it to be overly male. But I suspect that the female experience of hypermasculinity is likely to be one of toxic, or even aggressive masculinity. Not that these experiences are in any less valid. More that I want to understand what the men are thinking when they perform their gender, rather than the reactions from the audience for that performance. So I have focussed my research mostly with men. I would, of course, like to speak to some non-binary people and trans people, but need to be careful to avoid making the conversation something of a ‘curiosity’ event. Which is something writers can easily find themselves doing. ‘...

12.9.17 So I want to follow on from my *highly* controversial blog about Elvis, mixed in with a little Daily Show and the ethics of blog-writing. So: Elvis. I argued that Elvis’ appropriation of black music and style meant that I didn’t really understand his masculinity. I argued that my understanding of masculinity was different from his because he mixed cultures and warped the pattern of masculinity I’m used to. My understanding of masculinity is obviously 50 odd years later than his, and there has obviously been change and (d)evolution. I focussed on ethnicity/culture as a key part of that transformation, but maybe this hasnt changed. How many prominent male black actors have been chosen to play the good guy in the last ten years in any Hollywood film? (Note- this is rhetorical: of course there have been- John Boyega in Star Wars and Detroit, Will Smith in anything, Morgan Freeman in anything. But when did Samuel Jackson play the nice guy?) How many black men have been chose...

10.9.17 So I thought I should tell you: So when I was about 15, I was pretty sure I was gay. It only really lasted a month. I remember exactly when the thought occurred to me. I was sitting on the bus, just about to get off and I saw an Italian-looking guy with curly brown hair. Tall, slim, raincoat, walking with his bike. I thought to myself ‘He’s really hot.’ And then a moment or two later, ‘Maybe I find guys attractive’. So obviously this didn’t last. I’m not gay. And this experience doesn’t necessarily mean that I was gay. That’s just what my 15 year old head told me. ‘You find guys attractive. So you’re gay’. It wasn’t a scary, or particularly surprising possibility. I’d heard of gay people, and they seemed fine. No problems there. I wasn’t particularly bothered about the possibility that I might like guys rather than girls. Or at least as well as girls. I think the factors leading to this moment were not uncommon. It was probably just that most men don’t dress very...

6/9/17 The play I’m working on, Hommo, is about masculinity and the (homo)sexuality of hypermasculine relationships when they come into conflict. I see this sexual conflict in the gym and on the sports field, as the obvious examples, but it can also be seen in radically different circumstances. I want to ask what circumstances create the use of ‘gay’ as a negative term, and why men say ‘that’s gay’. ‘Hommo’ follows two men as they plan to kill a woman, and simultaneously one dates a different woman. This narrative confronts sexuality on many levels: heterosexual desire for the woman as a sexual object, both in the act of sex, and assassination. But the central focus is the sexual-conflict between the two men as they battle with each other to establish their total masculinity. . I feel that all relationships, of any gender, exhibit what’s known as the ‘master-slave dynamic’. All couples, partners, lovers, will have realms of life in which one is the superior, the more capable, ...