Conversations, dispatches and ideas from the Bush Theatre.
Best place to see new plays, new work and why…
There is no place to see theatre in Lewisham. The council is putting up a Box Park near Ladywell next year and they had a questionnaire with local residents, the results of which are fly-posted on the streets. Out of 100 or so people polled, two voted for a live theatre, a dozen for a gig venue and seventy or more voted for a cinema. So… the people have spake…
“There is no place to see theatre in Lewisham.”
Best place to have a coffee and write…
There’s a place called Coffee Addict / Chicken Addict (pictured above) that is *you guessed it* a combined coffee shop and chicken shop. Baristas, croissants, drumsticks and deep fat fryers all in the same shop front.
The playwriting/theatre/artistic community in is…
Well… Figs in Wigs, Susannah Hewlett, Hannah Nicklin, Ellie Stamp and Eugenie from Little Bulb all live nearby but as yet we’ve not managed a get together. Oh and there’s a guy across the street who practices trumpet for four hours a day and he’s getting really good!
Where to go to get inspired…
I hangout at the Bowling Alley on Belmont Hill a bit. £4 games on a weekday, open late and a cheap bar. Can’t say inspiration ever *strikes* there but it’s fun to pretend you are in Five Easy Pieces or Big Lebowski…
N.B. This is not Lewisham Bowling Alley. Also that’s not Chris.
New plays from Lewisham are…
If there are any I don’t know about them! I can recommend, however, that you google and support the people I mentioned above, all of whom are from around here, all of whom are doing interesting work, all of whom are awesome people.
Three essentials…
Lewisham is known for being home to the largest police station in Europe, more knife crime per capita than anywhere else in the UK and being the streets they exercise the police horses up and down, rarely stopping to scoop the poop. Take from that what you will.
N.B. This is Lewisham Metropolitan Police Station
Writers to read …
From here specifically? Um… Ted Milton is a hero of mine and he lives not far away and recently published a book called The Milton Text Book, which pulls together his poetry and lyrics from nearly 40 years of his punk band Blurt.
Where to go when out of town…
Straight up the DLR.
An image that represents Lewisham for you.
I once saw a woman smack her kid really hard on the head by a traffic light. She screamed in his face something I didn’t understand. And the kid was five tops. I got so angry, flushed in the face, felt myself walking over to give her what for, when the person I was travelling with (a Lewisham lifer) said “you’re wrong. The kid was going to run out into traffic and here the traffic may not stop. I’d rather see the kid hit in the head than splattered allover this roundabout.” Now this revelation could’ve happened anywhere but it happened to happen in Lewisham so the two things are now linked in me forever. Please note: I don’t drive and I’m never having kids.
N.B. This is a roundabout in Lewisham.
