Crying Out Loud Blog

Joining Crying Out Loud as a DCMS Jerwood Assistant Producer, Daniel Pitt gives an account of a single day at COL as a window onto the glamour of the producing life, the eating habits of French acrobats, and (just glimpsed) the blazing fire of his own long-term career ambitions.

My second official day (a month ago now, blimey) with Crying Out Loud didn’t take place at Toynbee Studios, the company’s base, but instead down in Poole, Dorset, notable for its natural harbour, Brownsea Island, and the fact that the train line cuts impractically right through the high street. At Lighthouse (Poole’s Centre for the Arts, apparently the largest arts centre outside London) I was attending a weekend meeting of the Cross-Channel Circus Arts Alliance (try saying that 10 times fast). Part of the Carte Blanche festival, a celebration of Northern French and Southern English circus, the centrepiece of the weekend was Le Grande C by French acrobats Compagnie XY (produced by Crying Out Loud).

The show combines elements of contemporary dance with extremely demanding feats of balance and acrobatics in a tense but beautifully peaceful show. Staying in Poole for the weekend, I was on Saturday night (after more conferences and performances) left alone in Poole by my colleagues to see that the company managed their second performance without preparatory hiccups; to find something that they’d eat in Britain (they love flapjacks and pineapple juice, NOT orange juice – just so you know); to help the company run some workshops with school pupils; and to ensure that they then got on their way to their next tour dates.

I have very little French, and most of the acrobats had very little English, but we muddled through with me apologising many times for being a typical Brit that can’t learn foreign languages. Annoyingly, when I thought about it after, less panicked at the simple prospect of talking, I am certain that much of what I said in English I could have at least got out in broken Frenglish. I need to take some lessons. I’m really beginning to admire those who are at least mildly bilingual.

I am making this sound worse than it was (if I told you how glamorous it really was you’d be too jealous). It wasn’t much of a baptism of fire really; it was great to have the opportunity to have some responsibility so early on in the DCMS Jerwood placement process and I enjoyed it. I’m never happier than when I’m running round the backstage of a theatre making sure someone washes costumes correctly (as if I know!). I also got to have some really good fish and chips by the sea one night. Alone. Cold…

These were not typical days in the office though, clearly. I have spent a lot of my time composing emails. This may sound boring, but I’m writing them to people who I would never have had the opportunity to deal with previously, so it’s still very novel. And I’ve been to meetings with lots of people I would like to end up in the positions of! They’d better watch out. But that’s still a long time away – I am, of course, as a DCMS Jerwood Creative Bursary recipient, just out of university, and very thankful for the opportunity to be here at Crying Out Loud. Life in the office is relaxed (usually) and I already feel right at home amongst the slimlined Macs, old school (literally) chalkboard and vintage three-piece-suite. The office lights are always atmospherically dim too. I am, as I keep being reminded, the first and only male in the company. These last two facts are definitely not connected.

If you’re lucky enough to pay a visit to the office, you’ll also be greeted by my artistic handiwork, covering an empty wall with a Tetris-style mosaic of Crying Out Loud’s history in flyers. Glamorous, I told you.