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Above, a sample of the plates filled in by our glorious audiences on the last Saturday of Juice Festival. Below, a poetic selection from their family gathering ‘top fives’…

Underlying tension and sibling rivalry. Chaos. Too much food.
Nibbles, alcohol, a controversial granny.
One child under a table. Chaos.
Cracker jokes. Drunken parents. Love train/conga
Chaos. Too much food. Arguments over
whether we should read through the rules of the game
before we start (which takes ages!)
or just start and learn as we go along.
Chaos. Not enough chairs. Karaoke.
Christmas presents. Batteries not included.
Grandparents: war tales and medical updates
At least one embarrassing incident
Good company ,Silly games, chaos
Too much food…

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Hi Steven, thanks for joining us for this final blog-post in our mini-series introducing the local writers we’re collaborating with for the project up here in the North East. I’m hugely looking forward to performing in Newcastle for the first time this week, have you got any performance experiences in the area that particularly stand out?
One of my best performance experiences was when I performed as part of a student festival in my mid teens. The experience was fantastic because I performed on the Theatre Royal stage in Newcastle, which is something (growing up in Newcastle) that is amazing to actually do when you see real productions on there yourself. With it being part of the festival too, there was a great audience of excited participants, families etc., so the buzz of excitement was brilliant and I had a lot of fun performing.

Great stuff, can’t wait to see you do your thing at the events for this project on Saturday! Our plan with the blog is give people a little taster of what they might expect from you at the performance events, so maybe you could tell us the tagline for your piece, and even treat us to a little extract?
Ok, so the tagline is: “It all starts with the opening of the packet, and winning has never tasted so satisfying.”

and here’s a little quote from the piece:
“The day started like no other. The cool, brightness of the early morning sun washes the room with a haze of bright light. The soft, fluffy, dark green carpet nestled between my toes as I walk towards the phone.”

Intriguing! Sounds like a domestic setting then – maybe the family home? On that note, another thing we’re asking you guys is what’s the speciality dish when your family get together?
It would probably be a meat based dish of delight. Usually pork chops, with Sunday roast inspired vegetables and Yorkshire pudding. Perfect any day of the year.

Ha ha, nice one – a popular choice! Final question then, who was (or is) your childhood hero?
I was just like many young kids when it came to action heroes. With things like Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles particular favourites (and to which I’m sure is true with regard to teenage mutant ninja turtles!). But, my hero as a kid has to have been Spiderman. He was just fantastic, what he stood for, how he flew around the city but ultimately just because he is so cool.

Quality, thanks man – consider yourself introduced!

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In our first session, our writers put their heads together to compile a poetic list of what they feel are some of the key ingredients for a family gathering. If you think we’ve missed any out then feel free to add your own suggestions in a comment!

Cooking for hours and eating in minutes.
Cross-generational wii tennis tournaments. Photos. Photos.
All possible combinations of everyone present for photos.
Then looking at photos. The ones you’ve just taken.
A 6 week monopoly game. Cards, scrabble,arguments, cards.
Overstayed welcomes. A very intense game of trivial pursuit.
The traditional Christmas pizza.
Chaos in the kitchen. Naps. Awkward silences,
or everyone talking at once.
Buffet banquets. Obligatory charades.
Way too much food. The huge tin of sweets
that only comes out when everyone’s full.
And gets wolfed down in seconds.
Underlying tension diffused by bad jokes.
And a grandma with total, absolute control of the tv remote.

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Hiya, Simon here…

The idea for the blog is to introduce you to the brilliant local writers involved in the project (who I met for the first time at the weekend) and give you a taster of the type of stuff they’re working on with me. We’ll also be documenting our creative process more generally as we move towards the performance events – hopefully offering out some interesting insights and opportunities to get involved along the way…

As for me, you can find out plenty more than the average person would need to at my website, but as a starter I used this poem as part of my introduction to the group at the weekend, mainly because the incident it describes is one of the proudest moments in my life!

You can check out a video of me performing the scratch to the show on the ABOUT page, but most importantly keep tuned to this blog to watch the project develop!

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