Another Mini-Series? | The Friday(ish) Update

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday Update, in which I give a little insight into what I’ve been up to for the past seven days.

First and foremost, a quick apology for the delayed posting of this! I was at my best friend’s wedding last weekend and so, whilst I’d written it, I didn’t get a chance to actually upload it!

What have I been up to this week?

It’s been another mixed week over these past seven days.

I kicked off Monday morning by recording a podcast with Leena Norms for her series No Books On A Dead Planet. Some of you might remember Leena from appearing on my podcast Induction a few months back.

Leena’s show focuses on books about the climate crisis, and we spent an hour or so chatting about a book called Half-Earth Socialism (which I believe I wrote a few words about in these Friday Updates at some point). It was really good fun and I’m looking forward to it coming out!

Then, it was on to planning our luscious looking end-of-year special!

The a-roll shots from the video (which we shot a few weeks ago) are looking *amazing*. It was filmed in a cracking venue with a pretty great costume. As such, we’ve been landed with the tough task of designing some motion graphics which can live u to that.

Finally, I’ve ended up with another big decision about how to present the project after-next.

In an interesting echo of last year’s prevarications over a video about the monarchy which ended up being adapted into Treason Fest, I’m thinking of splitting what was going to be one video into a trilogy.

The goal was to write a video about how disposable vapes are a representation of all the worst elements of contemporary capitalism (in particular, waste and the exploitation of captive markets). But, I’ve fond myself with so much to say on the topic that I’m thinking of converting it into a mini-series with each instalment focusing on a different way in which this one particular product represents our economy.

It’s perhaps a much weirder trilogy than Treason Fest but I think it could be quite cool. Feel free to let me know your thoughts below!

And outside of work?

Last Saturday, I went to London to take part in the National March for a Ceasefire in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.

I’d been planning to go for a few days prior, but the night before I read reports from Medicins San Frontiers workers who reported sniper shots being fired through the windows of the hospital they were working in with the intention of wounding staff and patients; and that very much steeled my resolve to go.

It was a long day; London is around three and a half hours away from me so seven hours of travelling.

The event was bigger than I can even try to express. I later saw estimates of between 500,000 and 800,000 people having attended.

On street level, it’s obviously hard to get a sense of that but the streets were packed and we moved so slowly along the march route.

In four or five hours of marching, I only made it half-way along the planned route before I had to turn back for fear of getting stuck and not being able to get my train home.

It was also a fantastic mix of people. Families, children, older people, “working age” people.

The context for the march taking place was obviously horrific. But, particularly against the backdrop of a media ecosystem which is determined to tell us that war is proper and good, it was heartening to see so many people calling for peace.

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

On Tuesday, my wife and I went to the theatre to see a try-out performance of a new musical called Mermaids at our local theatre.

I’m not entirely sure what we were expecting from it but it turned out to be much more high-end than I thought it would be!

While it was very much concert-style with no set or anything, they had around ten performers, a band and the auditorium was packed.

More than anything, I’d assumed it was a semi-professional affair at best; but the cast and musicians were actually incredible.

The show itself had Come From Away vibes, if Come From Away was set in Cornwall and had a “save the village hall” plot rather than being set around the World Trade Center attacks.

I’ve seen a lot of scratch performances of shows in my previous life as a theatre maker but I don’t think I’ve been to an event for what seemed to be intended to be quite a high-end musical like that before.

It was absolutely cracking though and I can’t wait to see the whole thing if they manage to get it made.

That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of the Friday Update. I hope you’ve found it mildly insightful.

Thanks as ever for your generous support and I’ll look forward to updating you more next week!!