Metta likes... Horror

In all honesty, I don’t think that we’ll be getting out the rubber gloves and mixing up the vats of blood for any of our shows just yet. However, lately I’ve been working with Theatre of the Damned on their production of Grand Guignol, which opened at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden yesterday, and it's got me properly thinking about horror theatre for the first time.

As a genre it often treads a fine line between the terrifying and the farcical, and I have a real respect for the skill it takes to balance that line – one misjudged decision by an actor or a director and the audience are lost, one laugh from one member of the audience and the atmosphere can be shattered for everyone. I can think of few types of theatre which are quite so fragile - it's not for the faint-hearted in any respect!

Metta likes...Puppets

I blogged a few weeks ago about Handspring's wonderful Or You Could Kiss Me - which features wonderful almost life-size wooden puppet men. But it seems like there's a lot of it about at the moment - puppetry that is. Last week I worked on some research and development for Aerial Choreographer/Director Layla Rosa's new show Beneath My Feet, which will be featuring puppets as well as circus. That was a great (as in large but also wonderful) challenge because the tempo of puppetry and the tempo of circus are somewhat at odds with one-another - you can't ask an aerialist to hang from a rope for 5 minutes, while it cuts into their skin and their arms turn to jelly, in order to give time for a puppet to slowly swim across the stage.

Also I'm just about to open a show at Theatre 503 called The Prophets and the Puppets (which I've directed as part of their Coalition Festival), which stars a marionette operated by one of this country's greatest puppeteers Ronnie Le Drew (most famous for his role as Zippy in Rainbow).

Metta likes... Intimacy

Great as it is to see large scale epics, with giant sweeping sets and dozens of actors (Marianne Elliott's Women Beware Women at the National was a brilliant example of this type of theatre), there is something truly magical about an intimate theatre experience. We love theatre that is so close that you can see the dust and smell the sweat.

Last week I saw Saturn Returns at the Finborough. It had a great script and fantastic performances, but one of the things that lent it real power was the close proximity of the audience to the action. The story was a deeply personal one, showing the same man at three different stages in is life at three different crisis points with three different women. Much of the script was the personal reflections of the main character, much of the action was his memories.

#ManWithTheFlower

Because it's winter, and grey and gloomy and miserable, we're cheering people up by giving away another set of tickets to our current show, The Man with the Flower in his Mouth.

Just tweet a picture of yourself with a flower in your mouth using hashtag #ManWithTheFlower by noon on Tuesday 30th November. Our 5 favourite pictures will be notified via Twitter by 4pm on the Tuesday and offered a ticket to any performance before the end of the run.

Anyone can take part - all you need is a picture of yourself with a flower of some sort. Real, wooden, paper, whatever and wherever you like!

“It’s an enthralling hour in New Cross” * * * * WhatsOnStage

“this delightful production is another reminder that this is a company to watch.” Spectator

“The setting is inspired, blending theatre with everyday life in a disconcerting mix” Londonist

Metta likes... Detail

I love seeing really close attention to detail in a production.

Peter Gill

I've just seen Over Gardens Out by Peter Gill Riverside Studios, directed by Sam Brown, and it's a production that demonstrates what I like just perfectly. Sam and his designer, Annemarie Woods, have paid attention to the detail both in the visual world they are showing us - Annemarie's costumes and set were wonderfully in-period, managing to locate the production in time and place perfectly and yet in a beautifully simple and uncluttered way - and also into the action as well.