Thank you very much to Natalie O’Donoghue at Broadway World for taking the time to chat to me the other day. Click here to read the full interview about my upcoming show – Square Peg – a meditation on a midlife crisis, which is being programmed at this years Ed Fringe from Aug 4th to Aug 19th at Paradise at Augustines.
The preview show is on August 4th at 20:45, and is at the special price of only £8, as well as concessions; tickets for all performances available here.
Square Peg
tells a unique story, exploring, as it does, issues of masculinity in a time of significant upheaval for traditional gender roles. Many men feel adrift; the old standards that defined masculinity and maleness have been rightly held to account and found wanting; mid-life crises are as brutal as ever.
Whilst reminiscing about satin bias-cut dresses, Body Shop Cucumber cleanser, plucked eyebrows, cross dressing and makeup, sex and leather bags, one man explores the messy, ineffective, increasingly desperate and ultimately futile ways he has tried throughout his life to acquire love and acceptance.
As his failure to find peace becomes impossible to ignore he is forced to turn inwards to finally meet himself, as well as seeking out solace in the worlds of poetry and birds; perhaps the humble Black Bird, Thomas Hardy’s Darkling Thrush has an answer…
Midlife crisis
There are those who consider that midlife crises are not real. That they are, in fact, merely a western myth. Whilst that may be true, the experience of facing one’s mortality can be hard to stomach. Realising that you are mortal and that your life is finite can hit home hard. In my opinion, it’s not a bad idea to seriously re-evaluate your life around middle age. Time is of the essence, and mindlessly grinding through the rat race, offering little to the world but your money, get’s old fast.
You are more than your productivity, you are more than the sum of your grandiose ego-fantasies. Stop, slow down, really smell the roses, and let that smell lead your mind to wander a little, to a memory, to an idea, something gentle. Let it lead you to do one thing that might bring a smile to your lips and to the lips of just one other person.
After all, can it not be said that life simply isn’t worth living if we are not both moved by someone else, and that they are not moved by us in return?
To read the full article, head here.
To find out more about why I made this piece, head to my crowdfund here.