Fruit Salad Therapy Tapes
I write a (more or less) weekly newsletter about comedy, art, creativity and other stuff that floats through my mind. It has a really lovely engaged readership who I love exchanging ideas with. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s thoughtful, sometimes it’s just a place to provide creative accountability for a community of other makers! Do feel free to delve in and join us. The community is over at Substack, where you can subscribe to the newsletter and join the chat, but I’ve archived every issue here for the sake of completism.
Browse the 139 Fruit Salad Therapy Tapes below.
Tape 49: Comedy Is Not A Solitary Pursuit
Leicester Comedy Festival I’ve just got back from the Leicester Comedy Festival, which I’ve been performing at as part of the “Weirdos Weekend” more or less every year (pandemic notwithstanding) since 2014. These days, it’s always a bit up-in-the-air whether or not the final weekend of the LCF is actually called the “Weirdos Weekend” or not, […]
Tape 48: Power Source
Power Sources I’m going to kick off this week’s Tape with a question, because I’ve not asked you guys a specific question for a while and I used to enjoy doing that, I liked the conversations it opened up. So, this week’s question is: What is the source of your power? Is that still working […]
Tape 47: A Writing Lesson
A Writing Lesson Another of my occasional writing-update-newsletters this week, in which I share the latest lesson I’ve learned from my on-the-go scripted projects. I’m currently back to working on the scripts for The Dream Factory, my upcoming Radio 4 sitcom. They’ve been in a pretty decent second-draft state since just before Christmas, and this week Miranda […]
Tape 46: Explaining What Things Mean
Explaining What Things Mean Last week I said I’d follow up my R&D diaries with one or two Tapes exploring some bigger ideas that emerged from the process, so, as promised, this week’s is about an emergent theme of showing, telling and explaining what things mean. Explaining what things mean is a horrible trope in […]
Tape 45: R&D Week 2
R&D Diary – Week 2 First up, a huge thank you to all of you for your replies last week. Part 1 of my R&D Diary ended up being the most popular Tape I’ve ever sent in terms of striking a chord with people and receiving lots of replies. I’m very sorry that happened to […]
Tape 44: R&D Week 1
R&D Week 1 – A Sort Of Diary This Tape is a day later than it usually is, because I’ve been in the midst of the R&D for my new show, which I first mentioned last week. As it turns out (and this is a terrible indictment of what my usual working week looks like), […]
Tape 43: R&D Week 0: The Tempo Of Groups
R&D Week 0: The Tempo of Groups I feel I’m in a good position to be writing out these Tapes for the next couple of weeks, as I’ve just started the formal 2-week R&D process for my new show, which I mentioned last week, and it mostly involves just talking to interesting people about fascinating […]
Tape 42: Coming Up In 2022
VAULT Festival 2022 First up, thank you so much for all your replies to Tape No. 41! It was really lovely to read about all your various plans and hopes and promises for the year to come. Some of my favourite Words for 2022 I’ve heard back about include Action; Patience; Gratitude; Bloom and Build. I hope that one week in, […]
Tape 41: A Word For The Year
2022 – A Word For The Year I know that everyone’s inboxes and social media feeds get a bit flooded with New Year-themed blogs and end-of-year roundups around this time, so apologies for sending another one, but I took a couple of weeks away from this newsletter over Christmas and thought New Year’s Day was […]
Tape 40: Thank You – A 2021 Round-Up
Thank You – A 2021 Roundup I’ve made the judicious decision that this, Tape Number 40, will be the final Fruit Salad Therapy Tape of 2021, because from next week I’m going to be very consumed with house-move admin, and then it’s Christmas, so it makes sense to wrap this up now and then return to it […]
Tape 39: Do Two Things Well
Do Two Things Well I’ve been thinking about workloads and to-do lists recently, and struggling with feelings of overwhelm as a result of telling myself I have too much to do, and am trying to learn the lesson of a new rule I’ve imposed on myself recently. As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m currently in […]
Tape 38: Directing Comedy
Directing Comedy I’ve been waiting to properly announce this until I’ve had actual tangible links to share about it, but with the launch of VAULT Festival this week I now have that, so I’m delighted to announce that this year, for the first time, I’m directing two comedy shows by really brilliant writer-performers. The first […]
Tape 37: Some Thoughts On Writing
Some Thoughts On Writing I usually like this newsletter to be a sort of free-form back-and-forth chat about the stuff I’ve been thinking about recently, but I’ve not really done much actual thinking this week, as I’ve been very busy and stressed splitting my time between writing, looking for flats, and crying (related to the […]
Tape 36: Cutting Through & Protecting Yourself
“Cutting Through” I’ve been thinking a lot about making shows for the Edinburgh Fringe recently, so this newsletter might be of particular interest to those readers who are fellow writer-performers, but hopefully it’ll have some broader ideas in it which might be of interest to all of you. I’ve been discussing the making of shows, and the […]
Tape 35: Work/Life Balance
Work/Life Balance I mentioned last week that I’d started reading James Suzman’s Work: A History Of How We Spend Our Time, and this week I’d like to talk a bit about the stuff it’s made me think about, and gather your thoughts on some of it too, if any of you would like to share them with […]