soho moves

Move 1: Oxford Circus to Poland Street. Go to club #1, a louche recreation of nineteenth century colonial bar in Singapore, dark wood, leather sofas, log fire, quiet. Meet Director #1, talk sound mix obstacles, strategy. Actress #1 pops in to pick up make-up in appropriate bag before heading for casting.

Move 2: Oxford Circus to Dean Street: Go to club #2, hints of Regency, more open fires, rules, smell of some Winchester music don’s living room, loud laughing laughers interrupting the quiet with late afternoon drunken laughter, shrill in the context. Meet Writer #1, talk staging plays, dearth of venues, feasibility of venture.

Move 3: Dean Street to Shaftesbury Avenue. Go to Curzon Soho, with Writer #1 who is going to meet Actress #2 who is in premiere of absent Danish director (#2), and will participate in post show discussion. Say hello to Actress #2, all glamour, see the bustle, the hum of art-success, slip away.

Move 4: Shaftesbury Avenue to Charing Cross Road. Go to Foyles. Browse. Flick through biography of a woman who as a ten year old walked from Belguim to Russia and back, was succoured by wolves, killed a soldier. Contemplate Musslich and Moseley, forego both. Flick through introduction of contemporary dramatist, friends of friends…

Move 5: Charing Cross Road to Frith Street via other streets. Time to kill. On Old Compton Street a woman says: We’re all so fucked. That’s why we need this meal so much. Quo Vadis is near empty. Think of Marx scrivening upstairs. Australia humbled by South Africa, seen through the window of The Crown and Two Chairmen. Head for theatre. No-one there. Make a call to Director #3, who’s in a Frith Street Japanese diner eating beef curry noodle. Head there. Talk about Julius Caesar, murder of Cinna, Writer #1. Cut it fine.

Move 6: Frith Street to Dean Street. Go to Soho Theatre and Writers Centre. Meet Director #4, editing her radio play with virtual help of writer (#2), who sends emails from Bora Bora. Run into writer #3, estranged friend of writer #1. Hurry to get in, run into writer #4 who is not coming to watch the play about RSI, but the reading of African play upstairs, and is emerging from theatre as everyone else tries to get in. Take seats but told the kitchen will be invisible from there. Director (#5) of show gives up his seats for us. Watch play with half body on edge of bench, half body suspended in mid-air.

Move 7: Dean Street to Dean Street. Go to Nellie Dean, forsaking overpriced theatre bar, with directors #3+5. Talk constraints of naturalism. Problems of Soho. Which theatres to take over. Actor #1 arrives fresh from stage. Talk constraints of naturalism. Actors infinite. Directors infinite. Writers infinite. The meaning of the six pint show. The lobster that walked from Newfoundland to Dublin.

Move 8: Dean Street to street whose name is too small to remember. Go to Star Bar to visit Actress #3, serving cocktails to lesbians. Talk Oldham Rep, Monday night, Carnival.
Decline to rediscover Writer #1 who is still with Actress #1, headed for Club #2.

Move 9: Back to Oxford Circus. Street cleaners leaning in green/gold uniforms, breathing in a cold which does not belong to them. Woman with dog on long lead attracting masculine attention. Crowds thinning out. Train strangely empty. Another day done.