no cigars

The winner of The Place Prize was announced last night: Adam Linder won for his work "Fois Gras". Place Prize website announcement. I never got to see Adam's work because it was directly before Gertrud in the running order, but it definitely seemed to polarise people's opinions!

It's fair to say I feel a bit disappointed right now (probably not surprisingly given the build up etc), but it was a great privilege to get to perform Gertrud over these last two weeks, and I feel quite strongly about the integrity of the work, its concerns, tone, and relevance. Developing the work also provided me with the great pleasure of working with Helen Cain and Amy Woods, whose work, care and responsibility for how Gertrud evolved just can't be overstated. It was also not particularly surprising to find that my performance was upstaged every night by the extraordinary voice of Shona Dunlop-MacTavish who managed to give the work both warmth and gravitas.

I am away for a bit now, but will update this blog as various things come to hand - images etc.

And Adam: if you are reading this ... congratulations mate. I enjoyed hearing your 'post-match' analysis each night as you and Lorena came off stage! You should be able to get an excellent home entertainment centre for £25k.