This is James Oldham’s music studio, which he kindly invited me into for our chat. Just livens up the documentation process, y’know?
All these ideas of Moran’s are purely hypothetical, and just things he’s enjoyed thinking about and observing and figuring out - currently there’s been no scientific research into this because it’s just something he’s puzzled over by himself. Either way, whether there were a huge wealth of documented evidence supporting the theory or refuting it, I think it’s fascinating. James even said that, if I were performing a show to an audience, it would be the group that dictated the tempo of the performance, not the other way around. At some point before the show starts, perhaps in the bar beforehand or in the queue, or sitting in the seats themselves, the group would unconsciously establish their rhythm, and when I came onstage, I would need to tailor the exact timings of my show to that tempo, rather than being able to use what I was doing onstage to orchestrate the unconscious rhythms of an audience.
I found this idea really fascinating. Ultimately, I don’t know if I 100% buy Moran’s theory as a universal, cosmic rule - I think the tempo of a group can be rewritten midway through, in the way that a group walking around a zoo looking at the penguins would suddenly and radically change tempo if, say, the gorilla suddenly smashed its way out of its cage. But I suppose maybe his point is that you can only alter the tempo of a group by radically altering the purpose and nature of that group (ie. group enjoying day out at zoo becomes group trying to run away from gorilla). All this is stuff I’m still turning over in my head, and I have no idea yet how any of this will feed directly into the show I’m making, as I only went into the rehearsal room with Ben Target and Alex Hardy for the first time today, but I’m very aware of how busily the cogs in my head are turning now (this phrase in itself is about sub-conscious changes of internal rhythm, wow!) and am excited about trying to figure out a way of making a comedy show that in some way responds to and explores some of these ideas. Absolutely no idea how I’ll do that. That can be next week’s problem.
A Cool New Thing In Comedy - There’s a new series of Would I Lie To You? and my friend Zoe produced it, so I’m very pleased and proud of her.
What’s Made Me Laugh The Most - This week I filmed a final pickup for a short film I made with Stuart Laws, Stevie Martin, Ali Brice and Lucy Pearman, and just after we wrapped Stevie’s dog Piper punched Stu in the face and it was great.
Book Of The Week - Bird By Bird: Some Instructions On Writing And Life by Anne Lamott. This is a really nice little book for writers who don’t just want technical advice on writing, but wisdom about what it means to write and how to live with a writer’s mindset. I really enjoyed it.
Film Of The Week - I watched Licorice Pizza this week and, contrary to what I usually use this section to do which is to recommend stuff, I absolutely hated it. I have good friends who loved it, so I may be talking nonsense, but I thought it was pointless, tedious, self-indulgent, emperor’s-new-clothes rubbish, quite frankly.
Album Of The Week - Bright Red by Laurie Anderson. I listened to a couple of Anderson’s 80s albums last year and couldn’t get into them, but this 1994 album is great. It’s mostly spoken-word pieces over weird, spooky, Brian Eno-penned ambient tracks and it’s really odd and atmospheric and haunting and beautiful.
That’s all for this week! As ever, if you wanted to share this newsletter with a friend or encourage people to subscribe, I’d hugely appreciate it. Let me know what you thought, and take care of yourselves until next week. All the best,
Joz xx
PS Here’s Ben Target dressed as my keep-cup.