The last post?

Some pictures are here

Auditions

Did anyone see this?

A short piece from last March on the auditions - takes me back!

Tonight..Mum's night

Hi Guys

I just wanted to tell you what my Mum said tonight. I know it probably won't mean as much to you as it really does to me but I'm gonna tell you anyway. Apart from the whole 'we were all excellent' thing, she said that when we held the pics of June up at the end she wanted applaud JUNE and everything she did for herself ,her Mum, her family and everyone else because of what a courageous woman she was...she didn't coz no-one else was applauding then. To me it really showed how much of 'June' and this story we were really portraying across to the audience.

Whislt I'm here just want to say never worked with or met such an outstanding and wonderful bunch of people, I miss you all already like you will never believe in the whole world. I really hope we can all keep in touch and hopefully work together again in the future. You are all stars in my eyes and in the eyes of everyone who I know whose come to see it. I may cry now...bugger, I'm always so emotional.

Thank you to everyone for all your support and the laughs and giggles both in and out of the rehearsal room. Thank you to Alex for making this happen. Thank you to Ken for writing such a magnificent play. Thanks to Mads and Chris for telling us off when needed and bringing out the best in us. And mostly thank you June for being the inspirational, brave and amazing woman that you were.

Love you all and have loved every part of this production.

Thank you to everyone.

Alice xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

40th

I would love to thank all his absolutely lovely new friends for such a fantastic 40th, honest guys it couldn't have been better ....and the presents were excellent ,,,,not only a perfect birthday present but a terrific memento of our time together.... I shall never forget any of you!!!! ....and I believe I do actually have the sexiest ears in town right now ...he he

"Dust" gets to Westminster

Did anyone see this?

Early Day Motion
EDM 1890
ARMLEY ASBESTOS DRAMA 'DUST' AND ASBESTOS-RELATED DISEASES 14.07.2009

Battle, John

That this House congratulates the playwright Kenneth Yates, Alex Chisholm the Director and the cast of Dust, a dramatisation at the West Yorkshire Playhouse of June Hancock's legal struggle to prove that the JW Roberts' asbestos factory in Armley caused asbestos pollution in the neighbourhood, leaving a deadly local legacy of hundreds of mesothelioma victims; notes that the drama using the trial transcripts, testimonies and interviews brilliantly captures a story that is still not played out; and urges the Department of Health to devote more research resources to tackling mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.

Dust World Premiere

Great night Saturday - first of many.
We christened & closed the Warehouse
(How long before the blue plaque goes up?)

The Appeal is dismissed!

Pictures of the Dress -

I've uploaded an album of pictures of the Dress.

I tried to delete the embarrassing and/or crap ones, but I'm not sure I was wholly successful in that.

Run through in Armley

Well done everyone for the run last night. I think we've got a great show - everyone clearly upped their game in a new space and with a small but important audience.

Russell and Kimberley were very moved and happy with the performance - I told them it would be even better on Saturday.

Keep up the good work.

Alex

ps if you want to see yourselves - Calender is broadcast tonight at 6pm, Politics Show on Sunday at 11am.

Rehearsal pictures

>My phone takes pretty awful pictures but here they are.

Armley, 28th June

Several of us went to Armley to greet the cyclists on Sunday.

One of the better moments was watching these two try to meet the challenge of The World's Biggest Muffins.

Some photos of the Joyous Armley :)

Some pictures of our walkabout in Armley.

Language and Acting

I'm sitting on the train speeding away from Leeds and the WYP, thinking about last night's rehearsals. Two things are in my mind:

Firstly language. So many of the characters in the piece are experts of some kind and they are called upon to use the language of their profession in a legal context. I was amazed, listening to the rehearsals, how well this is beginning to come across. As people are learning the lines they are really taking charge of making the characters sound like experts. People are driving through these enormously complicated lines finding the stress patterns and emphasis which not only makes sense of this complex language but also begins to give us a sense of these characters opinions. 

I suppose the only thing to say is keep up the good work! Learn the lines exactly and carefully and the only way to find out how to speak them properly is to do it, without the script, in rehearsals. 

Secondly, I'm just massively impressed by the way in which people are taking charge of their own performances. Its great to hear people have strong opinions about how to play their character. As directors we love having those discussions. 

See you soon!

Chris x

Article and video in YP

Lovely article in Yorkshire Post on Dust - with some additional video footage with cast looking photogenic and artistic and co-directors looking awkward and trying to sound articulate!

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/highlights/Echoes-of-Erin-Brockovich-as.5371305.jp

Well done everyone - the play is really coming together - as I knew it would. And I'm very excited about the production.

Looking forward to rehearsals tonight.

Alex

Special Effects

I'd just like to say a big thankyou to Charlene for creating a sense of realism at the Armley site on Saturday, by stirring up the biggest storm-cloud of dust that Armley has seen since the closure of the factory!!! Can't wait to see what she has in store for us next time!!!

Seriously, it feels like we have moved up a gear now, since we have started going back over the play, and for me personally, it seems more exciting than ever as we get a better idea of how it is going to be for the performance. It's also brilliant to be part of such a friendly, supportive and well led team! More of the same I say!!!

Rehearsals in the space

Here are some shots of the run-through we did in Armley on Saturday. Well done all!

Armley disaster tour

Strange day Saturday ...


Acting as a holiday rep for a disaster tour of Armley.
Being interviewed by the beeb and piss-pronouncing - mesofeely ... Ah bugger!
But standing in an abandoned warehouse watching the scene with Kimberley and Russell watching actors portray themselves as they find out their Mum has cancer was highest on the strange-o-meter.


Thankfully they both seemed to like it and said how impressed they were with all the actors.


Here's some photo's from the post-industrial subterranean space that is the Dust premiere venue (otherwise known as 'back of Pet world')

Ken

Imagine a string through yer 'ead ...

"The factory was a friendly place where anyone could just walk in ..."

Now it seems real

Lots of people said to me last week that they felt it had taken a big step forward in the last fortnight or so - I thought so too. Reaching the last page confirms that!

I now actually believe it's going to happen - presumably Alex, Chris & Madeleine always knew this, but I bet they'll be reassured to know the cast think so too.


Roger

Ok I said I would blog it up a little to try and revive it, ideas though of in bars are always good!
Roger told me to so Im gonna do what the Judge says!
Had excellent times out with you all after rehearsal yesterday. We have definately bonded now...im so excited (which is entirely unlike me as you know)
Its a new revelation to me that in addition to everything im gaining from this experience, I might get to have some fabulous new friends too :)
Chris asked what we want to get out of this experience. You will not believe me, but Im hoping to get some additional confidence from being in this play. Real confidence, not the transient sort that tends to desert you just when you need it most. I come accross all confient but I think thats just my excellent acting skills! I also really need to sort my voice out. I talk for like six hours a day during term time and Im sure im damaging my voice/ not using it properly because I loose it so regularly. Not that I don't love my sexy gruff voice, but I don't think its going to go down too well infront of an audience! I need to understand how to use the volume of my voice in a good way, so I can be a better teacher...and actor too darling!
See you all soon, three days a week now guys!!! We're goin to be seeing a lot of each other :)
Jo xx

Asbestos Under The Microscope

As Roger's fibre photo showed, you can only really appreciate how dangerous asbestos is when you look at it under the microscope:

This is white asbestos (Chrysotile)

This is Blue (Crocidolite)

As you can see - there's a big difference. White is liked frayed rope which is why it can be spun and woven, whereas Blue is sharp and jagged like a load of little needles. At the Roberts factory they used White to make the mattresses (to lag boilers like those on steam trains) and Blue to stuff them with - which was done by hand.

White will certainly congest the lungs and cause asbestosis if inhaled over a long enough period, but Blue is regarded as more dangerous as its fibres are brittle and sharp and continually break down smaller and smaller and can penetrate the lining of the lungs and travel throughout the body.

A good website for everything about asbestos and keeping up to date with what's happening in the UK and the world check out the British Asbestos Newsletter (yep - BAN) run by the tireless Laurie Kazan-Allen who helped me a lot with the writing of this play - and which even gets a mention in the latest edition.

http://www.lkaz.demon.co.uk/

I wondered if people might like to see what it looks like: this picture has an asbestos fibre taken from a biopsy slide – it’s the elongated dark feature in the bottom right quadrant of the image.

The physical length of the fibre is about one hundredth of a centimetre: the original biopsy slide was enormous (about 20Gb) compared with this little bit.

My lab. does lots of work on pictures of this kind, trying to count things like asbestos fibres automatically. Computationally, the “needle in a haystack” simile comes nowhere near the scale of the task.

There are lots of pictures like this one publically available: but Leeds is an international centre for the advanced study of them.

Roger

More Rhymes

My Grandma taught us this one:

Eeeny Meeny macca-racca

Rare Rye Domma-racca

Ticca-racca

Pomma-racca

Pom

Pom

French

Odd isn't it

Also:

Ibble Obble black bobble

Ibble Obble OUT

I'll keep thinking of more

Cx

playground rhymes

On Wednesday a few of us were trying to remember plyground rhymes from childhood.
Here are a couple I recall:-
In and out the shading bluebels
In and out the shading bluebells,
In and Out the shading bluebells,
I'll be the leader

Tap-arap-arapa on your shoulder
tap-arap-arpa on your shoulder
Tap-arap-arapa on your shoulder
You'll be the leader.
An interesting variation one person added was instead of "In and out the shading bluebells" she remembered singing "In and out the dusty windows" which might be very relevant.

Another skipping game was:-
All in together boys,
Frosty weather boys
O U T spells out.
I'll try and rack my brains for more. Please add the ones you remember.

Maggie (Magpops)

Some Information about Mesothelioma

Thank you everyone for last night's work.
One question that was asked last night about Mesothelioma and how it differs from other cancers.

Mesothelioma:
Usually sudden in onset in previously unusually healthy non-smoking active individuals.
Very shocking because, in women particularly, very unexpected – presents commonly with increasing breathlessness. Frequently, GP thinks ‘chest infection’ and treats with anti-biotics for some weeks and then chest x-ray requested revealing pleural effusion (fluid in the chest cavity) this prompts admission for investigation as to the cause.
The fluid is drained, or aspirated off and biopsies taken from suspicious areas if any can be seen. At this point the breathlessness improves and the patient feels almost back to ‘normal’.
The patient is then likely to be referred to a thoracic surgeon for a ‘VATS’ (Video Assisted Thoracoscopy) this involves a general anaesthetic, a small incision in the chest and video viewing of the chest cavity. Further biopsy material is taken, and then a spray of talcum to the surfaces to cause adherence and obliteration of the space where the fluid collected (this is called a pleurodesis).
When this has been done and the incision healed, radiotherapy is given to the site to try and prevent the mesothelioma from ‘tracking up’ the wound and causing a lump on the site.
When June was diagnosed this was the accepted standard of treatment, it still is, but recently chemotherapy in many forms and with little success is being offered to patients with mesothelioma. Also, very early diagnosed patients may be offered extensive surgery called a ‘pleuro-pneumonectomy’ – this is the removal of the entire lung, part of the diaphragm, the inner linings of the chest wall and around the heart. The five year survival rate for this operation is still very poor. Most of this surgery is done by a very few experienced thoracic surgeons.

How the disease progresses:
The mesothelioma usually starts at the bottom of the lung (more commonly the right lung) and spreads from this point in all directions affecting the surfaces of the organs i.e. the lining round the lung, the diaphragm, the inner chest wall (it may invade the ribs) the heart, the oesophagus and trachea. It may track down past the diaphragm and affect the abdomen. In some cases this is where people get the disease to begin, then called ‘peritoneal mesothelioma’. Depending upon the cell-type (there are aggressive, medium, and slow types – June’s was the slow type) the person may live anything from 4 months to 3 years the average being 8 to 16 months. I think June lived about three years from diagnoses.

Particular problems associated with meso:
1. Pain control can be particularly difficult in a percentage of people. They experience complex pain involving nerve compression or erosion, this often requires expert help to keep control of, as it can be intermittent and very variable. The level of analgesics required for people with meso is on average double that of most other cancer sufferers. June suffered difficult pain problems when her disease was advanced and when she was dying.

2. Breathlessness is common to all sufferers, becoming worse gradually as the disease progresses, until towards the very end they are likely to be unable to get out of a chair or bed without assistance and require 24 hour care.

3. There may be problems with swallowing if the mesothelioma encases the oesophagus. This sometimes requires surgical intervention and the use of stents (not common).

4. If the meso encases the heart muscle is may cause a wildly erratic heart-beat which is itself a life-threatening situation.

Seven Energy Levels

Loved the session tonight. It was so interesting to see how characters can change using a different energy level.Thanks, Madeleine, for making it so enjoyable. I feel I am really beginning to feel a part of a talented group. I know now we are going to have fun doing this production.
See you all next Wednesday.

"Just Breathe"

I thought Saturday was excellent. It’s so amazing that it is actually possible to heal yourself doing not much more than standing correctly and breathing. It was really difficult to keep your mind completely focused on one thing without letting it wonder and it really is astonishing to hear that it can be done for over 6 hours. It has also made me really want to do some martial arts, the thought that you could basically knock someone out using breath and being relaxed sounds so cool!!!! Although I’m sure it takes a lot more hard work and self discipline than that.

It felt great on Saturday at the end when we were all breathing together, it was like we were all in tune with one another, without really knowing anyone either. It really makes excited to think about what we will be able to achieve.

Looking forward to Wednesday.

See you all there.

Alice

What are your feet doing....?

I was buzzing from the rehearsal all last night!
It feels like its really real now, and I agree that last hour was fantastic. The breathing together almost bonds us together as a group I thought, despite not really knowing anyones names yet!

Absolutely LOVE Jason and his "for the rest of your life" no nonsense approach.
I think he must have been quite expensive to hire out, so Thank you Directors!
I have got so much out of his training, on a personal level, and I know I will be using the neutral pose and controlled breathing a lot at work in the future!

Cheers again,
Jo x

Don't Stand Like That!!!!!!

Wow......well I never knew that breathing and standing correctly could be such hard work!!!! I must say though, I did manage to get straight off to sleep last night by using the 4 second breath technique..........or was it the Guinness???!!!!!

.......(breathes in ...2.......3........4......and out ........2........3........4...)

It was very interesting for the last hour, to get a little sneak of how things may take shape, this being my first time involved of anything of this nature. It's surprising to find that, although I'd never heard the word "mesothelioma" prior to Dust, when speaking to my Mum about it, she told me that her best friend's father actually died from it.......and guess where he spent a lot of his life??

Look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday!

Paul

Growing up in Armley

Reading the play brought it all back to me, growing up in Armley, spitting distance from the Roberts factory. The factory had closed down by the time I was born, but it was still contaminated, as a child we played there all the time, the yard had open access. There was a field close by where we used to go and pick blackberrys, I remember blowing the dust off them before we ate them. People did used to say "You shouldnt play there its dangerous" but tell a child not to do something, and they do it anyway. I remember when I was a little older, in the summer time. There were two metal silos, just inside the main gates. Me and a friend were playing in them, and he came up with a dare, who could stay in them the longest. He went first, and was not in very long, then it was my turn. I was full of determination to show how much better I was than him. I remember the intense heat, and how hard it was to breath in there, my lungs and chest wracked with pain. When I came out, it took me five or ten minutes to recover, the things we do as children. It wasnt till I got older that I realised the implications of playing there, and just living there. My mun and dad used to tell me off for smoking, I used to say whats the point, the chances are Im going to die from an Asbestos related disease. I have had many friends die from being in the factory or playing near it, its like a loaded gun with a bullit with my name on it, and its the not knowing when it will happen, but knowing it will.

Useful Websites

Here are some websites to have a look at:

http://www.asbestosforum.org/

http://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/hiddenkiller/index.htm

http://www.junehancockfund.org/

http://www.mesotheliomainternational.org/

If anyone has anymore useful sites please post them on the blog.

Chris x

Site Specific Venue

Here is an image of the site specific venue we're hoping to perform in for the I Love West Leeds Festival performance. Obviously there's a lot of work to do on the venue but I thought you might like a sneak-peek.

Chris x

Welcome

Hello everyone and welcome to the Dust Blog.

The blog is here to enable all participants in the project to record their thoughts and feelings about the project between rehearsals. We hope it will become a useful record of the process of making this show together.

Please feel free to comment on any part of the project as it develops but here are some ideas to get you started:

1. What were your feelings after the audition? What exercises did you particularly enjoy?
2. What are your expectations about the project?
3. What skills do you hope to develop during this process?
4. Did the session with Russel and Kimberly give you some useful context for the piece?
5. Are you apprehensive about any part of the process?
6. What are you looking forward to?
7. What have you enjoyed so far?

I look forward to reading your comments over the coming weeks

Chris x