After writing the piece I realised it was quite similar in style to other works, which include Peter Handke’s Offending the Audience and especially Commonwealth by Andy Smith. It works by setting the audience a series of instructions and sets the audience down a particular line of though, making it quite linear, despite asking the audience to use their imagination and memories of a previous performance. It sets out its relationship with the audience almost immediately, providing them with information and giving them specific instructions. Despite providing instructions to the audience, the performance seeks to not have the speaker as the centre of the audience’s attention, rather that the audience listens, follows the instructions and focuses on recollection.

Tim Crouch performing Andy Smith’s ‘Commonwealth’

The main criticism with the performance give was to give it a reason to be live, as opposed to being a purely audio experience. One way in which this could be addressed is by having the performance make more use of the audience, maximising their presence and interacting with them to reinforce the idea of the piece. Testing whether the audience could remember an earlier part of the performance would play on the concept that people don’t fully recall previous performances they have witnessed. To the extent that they most likely can’t recall minor details from earlier in the performance they are watching. Related to this there could be potential to involve the audience more directly by having an audience member direct a section of the performance that occurred earlier.

Other further developments that could be done on this work would be to streamline the script more. As it was a continuous writing exercise there is some repetition, and so evaluation and restructuring would be required before adding any more material. It perhaps deserves some more attention as an idea, through researching the work of artists such as Handke, Smith, and similar, and working on what the piece is trying to present and the form in which it does so.

Tim Crouch’s Royal Court surprise theatre show (2013) [Picture] At: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/R5u6-iNMjpg/hqdefault.jpg (Accessed on 12 February 2016)