As my current idea stands, there is a concern that the stories I tell will be interesting to me but not so much for an audience. Therefore, I am beginning to experiment with how I can make my idea more interesting for an audience and thereby creating a show rather than simply forming an idea. I have begun to experiment with adding comedy to my piece, using exaggerated mannerisms and voices of my family members (as a means of showing their foibles). For example, for my father I experimented with making my voice hoarser whilst accentuating his speech patterns (particularly focusing on words and phrases that have almost become his catchphrases).

I also have decided to play with the idea of time and fading memories. As such, I am beginning to experiment with cutting and pasting different memories in random places as a means of replicating how the brain often jumps between memories and forgets other aspects. For instance, I may be talking through a memory of when I was crossing the swamp and suddenly break out into Eye of the Tiger (the version sang by the inebriated tourist). Even then the song would act as a fleeting moment, only featuring for 10 seconds- as it does in my memory. This is not only as a means of adding comedy to the piece, but to replicate sudden thought changes and how the brain associates certain memories to others. My show would not be told chronologically, often shifting between different memories and years to represent how our memories are imperfect.

I want the piece to end with the memory concerning the Cliffside. By doing so, I want to create a parallel between everyone’s memories and the stories being told, suggesting that much like the cliff, memories can only go so far- there is a limit to how much we can remember. Though we can remember some aspects of our lives more vividly than others, we can never truly remember everything perfectly, just as a cliff is never perfectly straight and often has pieces breaking away or falling off. The cliff is therefore not only a practical element of the story, but symbolic of the loss and imperfections of memory. Though I am yet to decide on how the piece starts and what the audience come into, I have thought of starting sat on the cliff and ending it in the same way- repeating the opening section at the end (again fortify the idea that memories are limited).

Memories are like a cliffside, you never know what’s gonna erode away.

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Giggs, J. (2015) Menorcan Cliffs. Unpublished Photograph.

Giggs, J. (2015) Cliffside Erosion. Unpublished Photograph.