Sam Baker

I went to see Sam Baker on Sunday at the Maze.  I'd heard of him through friends.  Heard about him being blown up in a train in Peru, heard about his terrible injuries, losing his fingers, his hearing, the years of rehab, learning to talk, to write, to play the guitar left handed. 
He talked more than he sang.  Said he had to ramp himself up.  The songs were spare, austere, words pared down, the guitar pared down.  Not a word or a note wasted.  Not good because he'd had to overcome hurdles, not good like what an achievement, just good.  Very good.
Today I spent the afternoon in the garden dozing in the sun and writing nonsense in my notebook for the Plymouth play. I keep circling round what it's about, who the characters are, and for once, I'm not forcing it and something's on the way.
In just under two weeks Matt and I are off to Oxford for a week on Buckland - aka Giants in the Earth on the OTT website. It's going to have a read/sing through, two read/sing throughs on October 7th at the Natural History Museum in Oxford.  Already I think we know where to go next, how to make it bigger, more all encompassing without losing the particular.  I haven't done anything on it for a couple of weeks as Matt is busy composing and creating a score for the actors and the MD.  It's going to be hard to concentrate on making what we've got so far work when we know that a lot of it will be left behind in the next draft. 
Thank God we've got a year to go.