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theory & practice in a flexible, emergent university (part 1)
[D]igital scholarship is the inevitable future of the humanities and social sciences. . . . [D]igital literacy is a matter of national competitiveness and a mission that needs to be embraced by universities, libraries, museums, and archives. . . . How will younger scholars in the humanities and social sciences engage these new technologies and methods? . . . [I]f more than a few are to pioneer new digital pathways, more formal venues and opportunities for training and encouragement are needed. . . . A robust cyberinfrastructure should include centers that support collaborative work with specialized methods. (from "Our Cultural Commonwealth: The Report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences," 2006)
Through a long series of public and internal meetings, the University of Colorado at Boulder has recently started to think through the shape of a possible future school of Information, Communication, Media, Journalism, and Technology – an ungainly list of disciplines but one that gestures, I hope, to the possibility of a school that thoroughly supports interdisciplinary research and teaching. I also think this possible future school affords me the opportunity to think through what I would like to see happen – what would be my dream job? What sorts of research and teaching would I like to do that I cannot do now?
As one who writes, researches, and teaches between media studies, literary studies, history of computing, and artistic/literary practice, a future school or college dedicated to ICMJT would have to primarily support and stimulate 1) meaningful cross-disciplinary collaboration and 2) a flexible and emergent curriculum that is responsive to rapid shifts in education, technology, and even broader cultural values (regardless of the potential difficulties in creating a new administrative structure to accomodate such research and teaching). As Richard A. DeMillo asserts in From Apple to Abelard (MIT Press, 2011), "The institutions that will thrive in the coming century are the ones whose offerings are in demand in a world where there are abundant choices for higher education."
And so, ideally, a future ICMJT school at CU Boulder would learn from small-scale successes – centers and labs across the U.S. such as the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, the MIT Media Lab, the Critical Media Lab at University of Waterloo, the Digital Innovation Lab at University of North Carolina, or Stanford's Program on Liberation Technology – and create a largescale school, I believe the first of its kind in North American, which would also include labs. I imagine this school as one that is structured not by departments but rather by overlapping conceptual groupings (perhaps akin to the units in the Leeds School of Business). Examples of such groupings might be Computer Arts, Communication, 21st Century Studies, and Media Studies (including studies of the book, analog technologies as well as digital technologies). Faculty could, but need not, align themselves (and their labs) with several conceptual groupings as a way to faciliate the kind of meaningful interdisciplinary work I mention above.
While the ICMJT discussion groups have been urged to avoid concerning ourselves with administrative structures, I would like to point out that, since CU Boulder is a Research I institution – one whose faculty research is foremost and which often drives teaching – in order for this new school to be a success, it will have to create new and innovative guidelines for tenure and promotion that reward rather than penalize 1) co-authored publications; 2) substantial digital-based scholarship (such as data visualizations, information retrieval, data mining, and computational analysis) in addition to conventional academic articles and monograph books; 3) innovations in publishing including electronic journals and e-books; 4) and finally, related to the foregoing three items, practice-based work in addition to theory-based work. I would like to place particular emphasis on the importance of practice-based research and teaching in this new school. l believe 'doing' media studies (whether one is studying the book, analog or digital technologies) is an essential component of understanding and then theorizing media – theory and practice ought to be equally valued for both research and teaching in this future ICMJT school. In other words, 'doing' and 'creating' are important not only for innovative research but also innovative (and effective) teaching and learning. As the technology journalist Anya Kemenetz writes, "Workers at every level benefit from an education that emphasizes creative thinking, communication, and teamwork – the very kind of excellence already offered at top American colleges." With an appropriately innovative ICMJT school, CU Boulder, then, could be a in a position to become one of these "top American colleges."
As such, I would like to advocate for a core curriculum that involves at least one year-long class that is dedicated to both theories and practices of media literacy (or, I might suggest, 'fluency' which implies a much higher level of sophistication and understanding). However, beyond a small handful of core courses, I would very much like to see a wide of range of courses dedicated to teaching or investigating what DeMillo calls "patterns of thought" that cut across numerous disciplines and that appeal to students' desires to study cultural memes – especially in a way that cannot be captured by way of networks outside the classroom. I am convinced that DeMillo is right in observing that "universities that cling to principled but inflexible curricula are less likely to be able to survive the competitive onslaught that surely faces colleges and universities in the Middle." Thus, one possible way to establish a flexible curriculum that affords students abundant choice is to develop, within each conceptual grouping, several streams from which students might choose their courses. A curricular stream in, for example, Computer Arts might involve a course first in media literacy followed by courses (possibly co-taught by faculty in the same or overlapping conceptual groupings) in digital art, music, literature, and communication – all of which would tackle the tight interdependence of theory and praxis from different disciplinary perspectives. Such a system has already been instituted by Georgia Tech's College of Computing as they have created a "threaded curriculum" which allows students to choose any two threads to make a degree.
A prospective ICMJT school at CU Boulder affords us the opportunity to make ourselves into one of the most innovative, forward-thinking, and relevant institutions in the country that could very well attract not only top researchers but also top students who in turn, once they graduate, will surely be highly sought after by employers.
criticismdigital media, educational change, higher education, information technology, media studies, pedagogyLori Emerson15 comments
Marshall McLuhan and the Avant-Garde
An Exhibit & Reading of E-literature at MLA 2012
15 thoughts on "theory & practice in a flexible, emergent university (part 1)"
Erin Costello (@erinmcostello)
Love it Lori. Now is this for undergrad and grad students?
Lori Emerson
Thanks Erin – it's actually for both, though I think you bring up a good point. I'll do a follow-up post on graduate education.
Grant Wythoff (@gwijthoff)
We currently have a working group devoted to the same question at my university, though it's directed more specifically toward the digital humanities and on a much more modest scale — "center" is the word being tossed around rather than "program," "department," or "school," implying that we wouldn't need to hire new faculty/staff but merely form a kind of connective tissue among the people we already have with this kind of expertise.
At our last meeting, we looked at digital humanities centers around the country — how they're structured, funded, the methods and assumptions behind their research, etc. I'm keeping a running list here, if it's any help: http://www.delicious.com/stacks/view/RXj9oK
Thanks so much for the Grant – your list is extremely helpful. I hope you have some success in setting up a DH center/institute. From what I've been told, it sounds like faculty hires will be involved in this new school – which is very exciting and gives me hope.
wordyweb
Hi Lori, very thought-provoking post. I wonder how one could incorporate a critical reflexivity in the conceptualizing of digital scholarship and the construction of centres. Am I the only one to find the quote at the head of your post slightly frightening, in so far as "[D]igital scholarship is the inevitable future of the humanities and social sciences" and that this is "matter of national competitiveness"? For instance, in Canada, the major funding body, SSHRC, favours the digital economy, thereby constructing the future of knowledge. So whilst I am super-excited about our research, the thought that it is integrated in the economy is uncomfortable. I understand that this is far from where you stand. My question is critical from the perspective of institutional imperatives. To me, it is a point of resistance, but one that comes from within the institution.
Emile, thanks so much for taking the time to comment and I completely see your point about the ominousness of asserting that digital scholarship is an economic imperative. Any kind of institutional imperative is alarming and I suppose I tend to think that, ideally, we'll soon reach the point where we need not forcefully argue for digital anything as attention to media, whether analog or digital, will simply be integrated into all kinds of scholarship. I don't know if this addresses your concerned adequately or not…
Hi, maybe my comment was a bit out of joint, and I am not sure myself where to begin in terms of "resistance", except through my own scholarly practice. A part of me wants to make it hard on the institution, to deconstruct its imperatives; and this might even be, in a contradictory way, a reaction to things like the exclusive use of open source software, which is the penny-pinching institution piggy-backing on (read co-opting) developers' resistance to proprietary software. But, as you might already know, I am coming from a particular place…
A bigger part of me is reacting to "usefulness" (aka instrumental rationality), which I think is squeezing aside critical questioning and knowledge as intrinsic (the latter is, at least in the West, at the origin of the question of philosophy — and by extension, the academy). I think the instrumentality is present even in some who are "critical", in so far as they are coming from the humanities' traditional approaches, but are tending more and more towards the social sciences, which in epistemological terms resembles the move of some humanists towards the natural sciences. I love these moves, but the crisis, I think, comes from losing sight of, on the one hand, the irreducible singularity of the humanities, and, on the other, the conditions that bring about such imperatives. Far from saying that we should stick to our traditional disciplines, I think that in crossing, branching out and reinventing disciplines, reflecting on the reflection on such a process is needed (no mistake in the last clause).
Thanks Emile for the clarifying post – I think I understand better now where you're coming from and I think you make a great point about the need to think more critically about what's at stake in changing the rules/stakes of the game. I admit that I have become…more pragmatic? more utiliatarian? in thinking about the worth of the humanities over the last couple of years but I have been mostly because it's so clear to me that only very few undergraduate students will go on to do graduate degrees or pursue academia in general. The vast majority instead will enter the mainstream work-force and so when they do, I love to imagine sending out little quiet shocks of subversive, critical intelligence into the system.
triproftri
The proposal sounds very fabulous, Lori. Right now, at this very moment, my university is struggling to re-define itself by crafting a vision statement for the next 10 years and a serviceable set of goals. In the room at 22 Associate VPs, 5 faculty (myself included), the Provost, and two researchers. The President conducted 49 town hall meetings over a 3 week period, the transcripts of which were analyze for recurring themes. Only 1000 people attended/spoke at these meetings — this on a campus of 8000 faculty and even more staff. We've tried to avoid limiting ourselves based on the failing budget, but it's difficult for some many administrators who have to say no on a daily basis to leave it behind. The biggest shock from the research is that we are a university of NO. And the verbiage used overwhelmingly was one that did not look towards the future. Interesting.
With all of that being said, I'm struck by the fact the conversations we've been having at this public, comprehensive, master's-granting institution parallels that of a research-focused university. We'd like to allow our faculty (and by that virtue, our students) to dream and dream big. In essence, we're asking them to think about things they perhaps had not yet thought out (akin to asking digital humanities to stop replicating the codex form online and employ the strengths of new types of media to convey and visualize intellectual discourse).
In my subcommittee, we were charged with creating goals around integrative learning (defined by the American Association of Colleges & Universities). We would like students, first and foremost, to understand that what they learn in biochemistry does not have to be discrete from the discussions in gothic novel and horror fiction. And that what they produce in each course can be understood, accepted, and expanded in another course of a different discipline. My dean (Arts & Humanities) has begun the long process of creating a Gaming "Program" with the help of all the other deans. It's currently housed in the Computer Science department but it will grow; and the English Department should be part of it to discuss narrative. Our Communications Department has also proposed a new kind of interdisciplinary curriculum that takes from each department courses that aren't even really on the books; they want the courses that offer production skills alongside those analytical skills. If we worked really hard, we could get the Library Science school's history of the book course to work with my (phantom) DH literary studies class and include Art's paper-making course. Can we do this? Why not? I don't work in any these fields discretely in my scholarship. Why should my students?
This is all to say that the proposal you've posted, Lori, is on track for pushing curriculum, well, into not being so curricular. And it works, it's already working. David Silver's courses at University of San Francisco combine service-learning, media, production, sometimes even architecture and food.
I have some suggestions, just added sources of information:
1) See the recent proposed guidelines for evaluating digital scholarship in literary studies — it's tenure and promotion guidelines that are being vetted by NINES and sponsored, essentially, by the NEH (http://institutes.nines.org/docs/). Though these are literary specific, it's a good starting place for any T&P process.
2) See the Collaborator's Bill of Rights (http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/mcpress/offthetracks/). Along with the program and new form of study, the university should consider the actual space and staff who will play a vital role in collaborating with faculty and students.
3) Create an institutional memory: reward publishing in open access journals & negotiating creative commons or author rights for deposit in your institutional repositories. Get this put into the university-wide tenure and promotion guidelines instead of the department-level guidelines. It's imperative to the success of any faculty member who wants to experiment.
Ok, this has already gotten way too long, but it's a grand, grand thing y'all are doing here!
Kathy, what fantastic resources you've given me to work with and add into this post and future posts – thanks so much for this. I think it's crucial to me to demonstrate that what I'm suggesting is far from radical and is far from being representative of a minority opinion, so, one last time, thank you!
Leonardo Flores
What you propose sounds so promising! It's the kind of flexible, interdisciplinary program that is in tune with the times. It is encouraging to hear the conversation is happening at such an advanced level (program, rather than center). It gives us lonely digital humanists in traditional programs a new hope…
Has the empire struck back yet? I can't imagine the ivory tower types being too thrilled with this kind of program, especially if it draws potential students away from their own.
Best wishes on the dialogue ahead.
Thank you Leo for the encouraging comment – I've only heard some mild concerns from other faculty, no expression of outright alarm quite yet. I hope that most people will see the school as something that will benefit the university as a whole, even for those programs/departments who aren't involved…I'll keep you posted on what happens—
Aaron Angello
Lori-
I think this is an amazing idea, and I'm glad to see it articulated so thoroughly. Thanks for doing this.
It seems to me that the University of Colorado is an ideal campus for a school like this; the facilities are here – the resources at ATLAS, for example, are extraordinary – and the faculty is here, at least in part. We just need to reexamine the "truth" and authority of the rubric of 20th century scholarship. The "stuff" is here, the mindset is not.
As you know, Erin Costello and I, under the guidance of Mark Amerika, were in discussion with ATLAS about pursuing a practice-based research PhD in media studies and new ways of writing within their existing program. We were really interested in creating something like you describe, only on a smaller scale. There seemed to be some positive reactions to the idea, but ultimately the problem of funding became an issue (of course). Mark needed to be relieved of some teaching duty so he could dedicate himself to the program. They were unwilling to do that. Rather they wanted us to apply, then seek out grants from corporations with the goal, it would seem, of developing some kind of product (very simplified, but you get the point). This is fine, I guess, but it undermines the value of scholarship for its own sake. I didn't want my graduate work to be focused on ways I could benefit Amazon or Microsoft, hence I'm getting my PhD in the English dept with the goal of working and teaching in a program, or school, like the one you describe.
Digital scholarship is the inevitable future of the humanities and social sciences, no doubt. The university just needs to realize it.
Let me know what I can do to help in moving this forward.
Interesting comment here Aaron – thanks so much for taking the time to write. And I think you're right – we do need to be aware or wary of becoming so utilitarian in advocating for theory/practice that we just end up churning out students for corporations (though there will inevitable be a lot of that…and as I write to Emile below, I do like to imagine sending out a little army of critical-minded subversives into the corporate environment…).
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Affordable and eco-friendly housing? It may sound too good to be true, but as time goes on, there are more and more options available when it comes to eco-friendly and affordable homes. This particular eco-house was actually 3D printed using a natural mixture of mud, rice husks and straw to create a small, efficient home. They call this a zero-kilometre structure because they are able to use materials that are readily available to them in their own community. Even though cob building and earth homes go back thousands of years, these days, there are new applications of this ancient building technique. Combining the ancient techniques of earth building and modern 3D printing is a wonderful idea for the future of affordable housing. This means that these homes will be able to be built easily and quickly as needed which can help people in times of crisis or poverty. So how does it all work? An Italian company WASP (World's Advanced Saving Project) created a 3D printer that's able to create structures using mud. The most recent project is called Gaia, and it was made using their infinity 3D printer called the Crane Wasp.
The Crane Wasp has been created to print buildings using materials right from the building site. The machine is 21.6 feet in diameter by 9.8 feet in height, and it's very easy to assemble and disassemble. So it can be brought into a site easily and then set up to create the building, then taken apart when the building is finished. More than one of the Crane Wasp machines can be set up to build larger scale projects, or o build entire villages of tiny houses. Could this change the way buildings are built? Not only are the buildings easy to set up, but they also incorporate passive solar heating and cooling systems which keep the homes warm and cool, but it helps the home be more efficient. This will make for lower utility bills and less energy use which is great for the environment. The small eco-house you see here was a demonstration to show how the home could be built easily by the Crane Wasp. Amazingly enough, the project took only 10 days and cost only $1,035 which was spent on the windows, doors, insulation, fixtures and protective coatings. Wasp worked with RiceHouse which is an organization that collects the waste from rice cultivation. They created a compound that consists of 25% soil which includes clay, silt and sand, then 40% straw from rice, 25% from rice husk, and 10% lime. All of the ingredients are mixed together to create a mud which is then added to the machine to be used for the 3D printing.
In the future, the company is planning to build an entirely 3D printed technological village called Shamballa which will be in Massa Lombarda, Italy. The village will be completely self-sufficient with a circular economy and homegrown food and homemade products. Eventually, that project would develop into their Maker Economy Starter Kit. The applications of the new technology mixed with the old building materials are endless. Schools, libraries, office buildings, stores, and more could be built using the 3D printer which would make for a bunch of sustainable buildings and a more eco-friendly world. It could be possible for people to rent or buy their own 3D printers to build these buildings as well as create their own furniture and household items. The options are endless for this excellent idea, and it could help us in minimizing the use of dwindling resources which would create a more affordable solution for everyone.


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Tag Archives: Paul Boyd
Paul Boyd: from Molly Wobbly's Tit Factory to the bloody Tower of London
Paul Boyd, ready to audition, at the Tower of London yesterday
My chum comedienne Janey Godley's weekly podcast has a new signature tune from today, written by the wildly prolific Paul Boyd.
"It's the same tune," he told me yesterday at the Tower of London, "I just brushed it up a bit, because I thought: They've had it for five years now. I didn't want to have an outcry from all her fans if I changed it too much."
"Probably wise," I said. "There's an awful lot of them and anyone connected to Janey is possibly dangerous."
On Monday, I had not been able to go to the launch party for Paul's latest music album One Night Stand.
"It is," Paul told me, "subtitled The Best of Paul Boyd, Volume 1 – I made them put Volume 1 in case anyone thought I had died."
The launch party had included performances by some of the artists.
"It was really strange," Paul told me, "to hear my songs sung out of context and not within the confines of a show. This is my 7th album but all of the previous ones have been cast recordings."
"How many shows have you written?" I asked.
One night stand but 22 musicals + much more
"22 musicals, 35 scores for plays that have toured nationally, 2 water spectaculars and hundreds of songs for cabaret, concerts and so on."
"You did two water spectaculars?" I asked.
"They're very big," said Paul, "in Japan, Taiwan, Serbia and Denmark."
"You did two water spectaculars?" I repeated.
"Huge water spectaculars," he replied, "that I co-wrote, scored and co-directed. One was called The Little Mermaid and the other one Sinbad. Boats were coming on. It was crazy. I really loved it."
"Serbia?" I asked. "Before, after or during the war there?"
"After the war. In Belgrade, there were lots of bullet holes in the walls, but I grew up in Belfast in the 1970s, so I was the only one not phased by any of it. There were about 2,000 people a night coming to see it. We were staging the show in the Olympic swimming pool which had become a bit dilapidated since 1984, so there was a real sadness to the place."
"Maybe the swimming pool was a bomb crater?" I suggested.
"No," said Paul. "It survived, weirdly. But there were little things like they didn't have enough diesel to heat the pool to the standards we required because, when you do water shows, there are so many rules and regulations about the amount of chlorine and so on and the temperature dictates the costumes your actors wear. So, in Serbia, we had all the costumes re-designed, made out of neoprene – the stuff you get in wetsuits – which has a slightly insulated quality. But we had to have two mermaids because they got too cold if they stayed in the water too long."
"You are," I said, "from Belfast, but the name Boyd…"
Paul's glorious musical Molly Wobbly's Tit Factory
"… is Scottish. yes. I'm from the Royal House of Stuart – well, a servant of… maybe we scrubbed their steps… There is a rumour that the Boyds were kicked out of Scotland for flirting with the King's men, which is a family trait I like to keep going. Now I'm working with the Beefeaters…"
"Which is why are we meeting at the Tower of London…" I prompted.
"Yes. because I'm doing auditions for chorus members here today. Next February – the 13th and 14th – there's a variety show – Live at The Tower – it's Valentine's Eve and Valentine's Night – which Historic Royal Palaces have asked me to direct.
"Like all royal palaces, the Tower of London needs to raise money every year to keep going – I think they need to raise something in the region of £2 million a year just to keep the gates open and keep everything functioning. We're hoping to raise money for St John's Chapel, which is the oldest Norman church in England – it's in the White Tower. Lots of people were dragged out of there to meet their deaths. It needs a bit of tender loving care so we're going to raise a bit of money for that.
Yeoman Warden woman Moira Cameron (Photograph by Joshd at en.wikipedia)
"The Beefeaters themselves – the Yeomen Warders – came up with this idea – Pete McGowran and Moira Cameron – the first and only female Beefeater. We didn't know what kind of show to do so I thought a variety show. I love variety, music hall. The Royal Variety Show is the kind of feel we're looking for and that's the kind of audience who will be invited along to pay the sort of prices we want for the tickets."
"Televised?" I asked.
"Not this year. Fingers crossed for future years. The idea is we launch it next year and see what happens."
"It's in the White Tower?" I asked.
"It's in the New Armouries building – There's a huge banqueting hall on the top floor which has the White Tower as the backdrop."
"That's in February next year," I said, "but, before that…?"
"I'm directing my first panto."
"Blackpool, the home of variety. At the Blackpool Grand."
"That's gigantic," I said. "And it's your first panto?"
"Yes," said Paul. "A lot of my shows started off as Christmas productions, like Alice: The Musical and Pinocchio and Hansel and Gretel, but I've never written a panto ever."
"Oh yes you have," I have.
"Oh no I haven't," said Paul.
"What's the panto?" I asked.
"Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs starring Sue Pollard with real-life little people. A lot of pantos don't do that now. A lot have children with big heads and pre-recorded voices. And some just have people on their knees. We're very fortunate. We have a very good-quality cast."
"Pantos," I said, "are very restrictive, but in a good way."
Paul's first ever pantomime – coming to the Blackpool Grand
"Yes, there are all the rules and regulations. Things like the good fairy always enters from stage right and the bad fairy or Wicked Queen always has to enter from stage left."
"Really?" I asked.
"Oh yes," said Paul. "If you ever see a panto where the good fairy comes on from stage left, it's wrong."
"Any trouble with Disney?" I asked.
"I imagine there's always trouble with Disney. But I think the only thing is, with the dwarfs, you're not allowed to call them Sleepy. Dozy, Doc, Bashful and so on."
"There was," I said, "the porn film Snow White and The Seven Perverts and, when Disney threatened to sue, the distributors changed the title to Some Day My Prince Will Come."
"I remember reading once," said Paul, "that someone was doing a panto of Beauty and The Beast – which is a Disney stage show as well as a film – and they had to have their posters approved by Disney in case they infringed any Disney rights."
"You are very prolific," I said, "but you have not done a new musical this year."
"I did have three shows lined up," explained Paul, "which all fell apart. We have had a really dodgy year in Theatreland this year."
"Well, there's a lot of people running venues in London who just really don't know what they're doing. That's the honest truth. I work in Rep theatres all over the country and other theatres all over the world but in London – particularly on the fringe – the lunatics are running the asylum."
"Can I quote you?" I asked.
Just some of Paul Boyd's successful musicals
"I think so, yeah. Though make sure you say there's some lovely lunatics, because some of them I get on with really well. But I've had a couple of run-ins with people who've taken shows almost to the point of production and then turned round and decided they're going in another direction. You don't do that. I'm not used to that. A lot of faffing around. There's no malice in it at all. A lot of people just don't know what they're doing and I think a lot of us, as writers, are finding it frustrating when our only outlet is the fringe and off-West End.
"One of the shows I had lined up with one of these fringe venues that didn't come off this year, we've decided to do next year and I've just started to co-write it with a very well-known, award-winning TV scriptwriter who is venturing into theatre for the first time. He's bringing a lot of cachet with him and a lot of people with big names want to be involved in it now. So having it fall through initially has actually helped the show."
Filed under Music, Theatre
Tagged as Disney, Historic Royal Palaces, janey godley, Moira Cameron, Molly Wobbly, musicals, One Night Stand, pantomime, Paul Boyd, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, theatre, Tower of London, water spectaculars
Jan 17, 2015 · 4:48 pm
In Paul Boyd's wonderful Molly Wobbly musical, one Tit has been chopped off
Paul Boyd's "astonishing" show at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe
Paul Boyd wrote the intro and outro music for my chum Janey Godley and Ashley Storrie's weekly podcast.
He has also written 22 musicals. So he is an interesting man.
When I saw his musical Molly Wobbly's Tit Factory at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe, I wrote in my blog that it was "astonishing. It has more catchy tunes in it than all of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals combined… It is a combination of Rocky Horror style exuberance, British music hall jollity and the best of West End musicals… Its effervescent vitality is quite something to behold."
Now the show is about to start at the Leicester Square Theatre with a week of previews starting on 27th January, followed by an initial six-week run. The cast now includes Spike Milligan's daughter Jane.
Paul outside the Leicester Square Theatre
I had a chat with Paul Boyd in Leicester Square this week.
"I see," I told him, "that the title has lost the words Tit Factory. It is now just called Molly Wobbly. Is that for commercial reasons?"
"Yes," admitted Paul. "The pressures of commercial theatre. Not so much for London but, if it ever ended up touring the regions, you would never get the original title into a brochure. The one thing I always fought for was the title, but I finally gave up last year when I had a fight with Transport For London who would not advertise it. They wouldn't advertise Molly Wobbly's T*t Factory and they said: We wouldn't even advertise Molly Wobbly's *** Factory.
"I thought: Well, if I've got those sort of problems in London, imagine what it will be like in Bridlington or Bath. At Leicester Square, they are selling it as Rocky Horror meets Carry On meets Little Shop of Horrors. That's fine. If you can sell it as that, do it."
"Well," I said, "my view on most things is: Write it as Art. Sell it as baked beans."
"Well, that's it," said Paul. "And, if you can sell that title…"
"I think it's a really good title," I said. "And pure kitsch is saleable."
Flyers for upcoming Leicester Square Theatre's production
"That's how you market it," said Paul. "But, if you sit down to write it, you have to be prepared not to tie up loose ends. You have to think: I'm just going to go completely off the wall. All my other shows are very neat. When I sat down to write Molly Wobbly, I had no idea where it was going or how it was going to end. With Molly, I didn't even know what a Tit Factory was when I started."
"You thought of the title first?" I asked.
"Yes. Because it was for a competition I did not want to win. In 2006, Cameron Macintosh ran a competition to write a musical for a theatre which was opening in Inverness."
"The Eden Court?" I asked.
"Yes. I was asked if I would submit an entry, but I didn't have time to write a musical. I was touring South Korea or Taiwan with another musical and had loads on. The rules for the competition said you could submit 'up to ten minutes' of material from the full-length show. I didn't have the full-length show, so I wrote a 10-minute musical and made it sound like an extract, and, to make sure they would never ask for the rest of it, I decided to call it something that no-one would ever produce and the words just came into my mind: Molly Wobbly's Tit Factory. And, inevitably, it got short-listed. I had to pull out of the competition because I had no time to write it and no idea what it was about.
"It stayed as a 10-minute musical for about four years and then the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, heard the 10-minute extract and wanted to commission a full-length show and they twisted my arm and convinced me and I sat down thinking: What the hell is a Tit Factory and what happens there?"
A song from the original Lyric, Belfast production is on YouTube:
"What was your elevator pitch for Molly?" I asked.
"I've never found a succinct way of selling it. It's about giving a woman a makeover and, by the end, the town of Little Happening has got a makeover. It's about people bettering themselves and getting their ideals, whether or not that's everybody's ideal – and people, under the influence of a potion, deciding how they can be sexier or more beautiful."
"With laughs," I said.
"Lots of titters," said Paul.
"How does anyone decide they want to write musicals?" I asked.
"Well," said Paul, "I did Gilbert & Sullivan at school in Belfast and I'm a big G&S fan to this day. I had a good music teacher called John Ross Dallas – JR Dallas."
"Like me," I said. "I had a music teacher at school who loved G&S – They are SO clever and SO funny."
G & S + Carry On + Rocky Horror Show = Molly Wobbly
"At the age of 16," Paul told me, "I played Coco in The Mikado and, at 17, I played Major-General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance. I performed those things and I suddenly realised that there was something I was good at. All my teachers who had ignored me, because I was useless in all of their classes, were suddenly talking to me. I remember the Physical Education teacher came and congratulated me. I hadn't spoken to him about anything other than chilblains for about seven years.
"Then I went to the University of Ulster to do a History degree and changed subjects to Theatre Studies. I ended up doing a terrible course which was so bad I decided the only way I was going to have fun was to write a musical. I was 19 and wrote a show called Macbeth: The Musical in 1992. A producer came to see it, bought the rights and toured it all round Ireland. So I had a show touring at the age of 20 and I haven't stopped since, maybe because I'm afraid of trying anything else.
"Originally, writing musicals was an accident – a way of having something to do as an actor. Then I stopped acting in them and just wrote them."
"You've written rather a lot of musicals," I said.
"Molly Wobbly was No 18 or 19. I've done 22 now."
"But not," I said, "without problems in Molly's case…"
Gary Wilmott in unseen Hackney Molly Wobbly
"2013 was a very strange year," said Paul. "The show had been a big hit at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012. The Leicester Square Theatre wanted to put it on at Christmas 2012, but it wasn't my call in those days: the show was owned by other people. There was this idea that it would go to the Hackney Empire and it was happening and then suddenly it wasn't happening. It fell through at a day's notice."
There is a promo on YouTube for the unseen Hackney Empire production.
"We had rehearsed the show for three weeks," explained Paul. "We had a fabulous cast and had wonderful production team – we had decades and centuries of experience. It was Friday morning and we were due to open that night. Then the finance all fell through on the day we were due to open. The money suddenly wasn't there.
"Then, in 2014, I got the rights back and I was free to do what I wanted with it. So last year, we did a stage concert of it at the Phoenix Artists' Club and then we were invited to take it to the Leicester Square Theatre.
Things – very much looking up this week for Paul Boyd
"There was a guy called Christopher Malcolm, who has now passed away. He was involved in the Rocky Horror company – he played the original Brad, directed all the big Rocky Horror shows in the 1990s and, in 2012, he started working with me on Molly Wobbly's Tit Factory and helped me shape it from the 2011 one-Act version to the Edinburgh Fringe shows which you saw in 2012.
"Christopher's plan for the show was always to start it small, like they did with Rocky Horror – to start it as a cult thing. He was always wary of the plans to take it to the Hackney Empire or anywhere that big – not because it was Hackney, but because it was a 1,200-seater theatre.
"He passed away in February 2014, so he never got to see it at the Phoenix, but that was very much in keeping with his plan. The Lyric in Belfast was 300 and the Edinburgh Fringe venue was 400. The Phoenix Artists' Club was 40 or 50.
"Where we are going to be in the Leicester Square Theatre sits 70. So it has the right feel. You're actually sitting in Mammary Lane. It's almost immersive. It feels like an undergroundy show with room to grow. If it grows, fine; if it always stays a little cult show, also fine."
The YouTube promo for the original Lyric Theatre/Edinburgh Fringe shows gives a good flavour of the show:
Tagged as Cameron Macintosh, censorship, Christopher Malcolm, edinburgh fringe, Gilbert & Sillivan, Hackney Empire, Leicester Square Theatre, Lyric Belfast, Molly Wobbly's Tit Factory, musicals, Paul Boyd, Rocky Horror Show, theatre, Transport For London


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text:
Capitive in Kunming
Kunming, Yunnan, China
Oh! The banality of travel mishaps.
The Nujiang had been a challenge. After returning to Dali, I spent 14 blissful hours in an affordable, comfortable hostel, before continuing what I knew would be an arduous 3 day commute to Xian.
My plan was simple, and I was becoming increasingly confident navigating China's public transit system. From Dali, I'd catch a bus to Kunming, before seamlessly changing to a sleeper train that would spend 35 hours traveling to Xi'an in China's northeast.
Me utterly unimpressed with Kunming.
The bus from Dali left as planned, and spent 8 hours on a barren, boring highway with unappealing views before entering the outskirts of Kunming.
A few people had recommended Kunming as somewhere to go -- I have no idea why. Disembarking the bus, I was greeted with a smoggy, dusty city that had less charm than any other I'd seen all year. There are mountains nearby, but the views are obscured by thick pollution haze. I was grateful my scheduled visit to the town was no more than a few hours.
I darted straight for the train station. I'd learned from the past to book my train ticket ahead of schedule: China's trains are usually sold out, leaving little room for spontaneity. For the first time, I felt truly organised and ahead of the game in China.
Kunming's train station was chaotic. Here was my first taste of one of China's big cities. Dozens of ticket offices had queues stretching 30 to 40 meters. Of course, there was no English language help, signs or guidance -- not that I expected as much -- but it made even converting my digital ticket into something tangible a headache.
There's a bit of a misnomer about China. Everyone tells you it is an example in ruthless efficiency. My Kunming station seemed an acute example of chaos and disorder. Those brave ticket attendants manning the booths put on a stoic face, barricaded as they are from a horde sweaty, grumpy travelers, who pushed and pulled their way towards the front.
I walked to a side queue that was empty, and, I think, dedicated for special purposes. But the gracious attendant welcomed me. What followed would be a distinct example of the bureaucratic inflexibility of Chinese organisations.
I'd booked my ticket through CTrip, and inputted my details as requested. On double checking at the ticket booth, a single digit of my passport was entered incorrectly. The dozens of other personal details I had to input were, of course, all in order. But a solitary digit astray caused enormous issues.
"You'll need to cancel your ticket", the attendant told me. "Then, you can buy it immediately back, from me".
It seemed silly. But I had no capacity to reason or argue.
I cancelled the ticket on my phone , and showed the waiting attendant.
"Can I buy it back now?", I asked.
The attendant gazed into her computer, mashed the keypad for 20 seconds, and then looked back with the same emotionless expression that she'd had all along.
"The train is sold out", she said.
I didn't understand: I'd just followed her explicit instructions. In the 6 seconds between me cancelling the ticket and repurchasing it, the train had sold out. The next option was for tomorrow morning.
Defeated, I purchased that one. But then noticed it went to the wrong city! She had sold me a ticket that, if used, would have taken me 1200 kilometers northeast of Beijing. She'd almost sent me express to the North Korean frontier. More negotiation, more waiting. It was rectified, eventually, and I was on the 35 hour train to Xian scheduled for the next day.
Oh! The banality of travel mishaps. Such triviality can occupy so much time and energy. My initial elation knowing I could leave this unwelcoming mess of a town was so rapidly replaced by the dour realisation I'd spend at least 16 hours there.
I walked away from the station, defeated, in search of a room. A pain, of course. But I soon found a shoebox on the twentieth floor of a fire-trap apartment complex. What a misery of an evening that followed: I strolled the streets and ate a meal that consisted mostly of offal and grease offset by the familiarity of soggy rice. Inedible. Truly abhorrent.
I ended my night in a room the size of a single bed, drinking an unrefrigerated can of beer and eating a cup of noodles. I felt sentenced to 24 hours in the slammer, being in Kunming. After the virtues of Western Yunnan, it was a dramatic upheaval. I laboured through a restless sleep, yearning for daybreak, and early the next morning headed back to the station. My ticket, this time, was valid. I left, onwards towards China's swollen northeast.
Edward Cavanough April 14, 2018 china
North-North East: From Kunming to Xi'an
To The Valley's End (Part 3: Dimaluo)


Space Shuttle Atlantis is a 90,000-square-foot attraction devoted to NASA's 30-year Space Shuttle Program. There are more than 60 interactive experiences which give you the perspective of what it's like to be an astronaut. At the center of it all is the actual Atlantis shuttle, with its hatch open for viewing, still intact after 33 missions and 26 years of service. It is an emotional experience to watch the video describing the years of dedicated work which lead to the creation of the shuttle program, then walk into the giant hall to see Atlantis, with its scars and scorch marks still visible.
Space Shuttle Atlantis. It was a goose-bumpy kind of day.
The Girl bounced from exhibit to exhibit, taking over a control panel, operating a robotic Canadarm, and climbing through a mock space station suspended from the ceiling. We all enjoyed the thrill of the Shuttle Launch Experience, which re-enacts the first two minutes of an actual launch. Strapped into your seat, you're pitched every which way.
Who hasn't played Angry Birds? Anyone? This fun attraction includes five interactive stations, the highlight being the Eggsteroids Slingshot. Kids (well, grown-ups too) take their best shot at two Space Pigs. The Boy enjoyed the Red Planet Lazer Challenge the most, as he worked his way through a laser beam obstacle course on a timed mission.
After meeting an actual astronaut, we were ready to check out the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame six miles from the Visitor Center, which houses the world's largest collection of personal astronaut memorabilia. Nearly 100 astronauts from the U.S. have been inducted into this Hall of Fame, and you can learn about their careers on the tall plaques lining the hall.
My kids, of course, were more interested in the hands-on exhibits, like the Mission Control panel and the shuttle lander simulator There are also rooms filled with thematically-displayed artifacts and displays which give glimpses into the lives and careers of these space heroes. You'll see Jim Lovell's Boy Scouts sash and Buzz Aldrin's high school football jersey, for example. I got a kick out the old T.V. broadcast scripts from the NBC coverage of the Apollo 12 launch.
We were at The Space Shop, one of a few different retail spaces within the Visitor Complex, but in itself, the world's largest store devoted to space memorabilia and gifts. It's two floors of clothing, gifts, toys and games, collectibles, and of course, a full assortment of dehydrated astronaut ice cream. Awesome!
Only 45 minutes from Orlando, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex opens daily at 9 a.m. with closing times varying by season. Admission is $50 + tax for adults and $40 + tax for children ages 3-11.
Disclaimer: Our visit was hosted by Kennedy Space Center.
All of this sounds so cool, but viewing the actual Space Shuttle Atlantis must have been amazing!!!


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