Nonsense in the Chaos

#35 Praying to Trickster; Howard Gayton and the power of Mask (Pt1)

• Jolie Rose • Season 2 • Episode 35

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This week’s episode of Nonsense in the Chaos is the first of a two-part offering, born from a rich, two-hour conversation with my dear friend and fellow fool, Howard Gayton. We properly connected during a 500-mile pilgrimage from London (or, as Howard rightly points out, Henley) to COP26 in Glasgow—though in truth, we stopped walking in Edinburgh.

Howard Gayton has worked for over thirty years as a theatre director, performer, and teacher specialising in Commedia dell'Arte and other forms of mask theatre, as well as puppetry, foolery and folk drama. His work is inspired by all manner of mythic tricksters, zanni figures and sacred clowns, as well as by the use of masks in drama and sacred rituals the world over.

In this deliciously layered chat, we explore the Trickster archetype through the lens of fooling, drawing on the historical threads of Commedia dell’Arte and the slapstick world of Punch and Judy. I could have talked to Howard forever—and very nearly did. I hope you enjoy our creative musings.



The music and artwork is by @moxmoxmoxiemox

Nonsense in the Chaos is available on all podcast platforms or you can listen to it here… https://nonsenseinthechaos.buzzsprout.com

I'd love to know what you think! If you want to get in touch with me about anything on the podcast then email nonsenseinthechaos@gmail.com or you can follow me on Instagram and Bluesky @kriyaarts or at the Nonsense in the Chaos Page on Facebook.

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Thank you for all your support -x-

The. Welcome to The Nonsense in the Chaos. I'm your host, Jolie Rose. You are in for a real treat tonight because I am interviewing a dear friend of mine who I knew vaguely before the pilgrimage that we walked together, but I got to know him properly. Walking from London to Glasgow on the. Spine of Albion pilgrimage that we walked to Cop 26. His name's Howard Gaton and he's a right dark horse. Actually, when we began the walk, I didn't know much about him. I knew he'd done fooling But then as we walked the pilgrimage, I discovered that there's a lot to Howard. he's a right deep character. I love him to pieces. He's very funny and very naughty and very exciting and easy to talk to. And because of this, our discussion ended up being two hours long. So rather than. Trying to edit that down and squeeze it into an hour long podcast, I decided to split it into two. So this week you have part one, and this is me and Howard chatting before we get onto doing the cards and the Chaos Crusade. part two, you'll, have the chaos element of us pulling the cards, but this beginning one, this part one, is us chatting about all things to do with fooling life, the universe and everything. it was an absolute pleasure and I hope you enjoy. So without further ado, here is my dear friend Howard Gaton.

Jolie:

so I thought it would be good to mention right from the offset that you are doing a PhD at

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

What's your research based on?

Howard:

So it's, it's practices research. So it's, I don't,

Jolie:

Brilliant.

Howard:

I don't do a lot of reading. I mainly do practice, and it started out being com kind of comedia connection to cabal. So I was interested in kind of western esoteric thought and couldn't, I couldn't get any grip on that at all. I just couldn't find a, a way in. But what I was interested is that kind of like mystical side to masks, that, that kind of other, the, the sort of metaphysical, and then I, I saw a, on my Facebook, I saw Jonathan's face saying, come and do. Fooling in he was in London, I think. And I'd, I'd done some stuff before with Jonathan. I actually took a workshop with him back in the eighties, like a full time. So I've sort of, and I've seen him a few times, so I thought, well, I'll do that. I was trying lots of different workshops, just try and find some inroad into this. And then basically did that the next week or so, I then sort of went off to Germany to, to do circle plays and it was, my mind was blank and was like, that's, this is what I'm into. So now what I'm looking into is full,

Jolie:

Mm-hmm.

Howard:

but the specifics are kind of how it affects my practice and other people's practice. So like, one of the reasons, this is a sort of weird thing'cause we're sort of interviewing each other in a way because I'm also so yeah, so like how,

Jolie:

I wanted

Howard:

yeah,

Jolie:

that at the top to say that. So yeah, this is more of a two way chat. We'll do the cards as well. We'll use the cards

Howard:

yeah. Yeah. That'd be good. Yeah.

Jolie:

element into it. And also the, unknown because that's what we're

Howard:

Yeah. Totally.

Jolie:

full.

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

so that's nice to add that in. But, yeah. So you then was your Explain what a circle play is.

Howard:

The circle play, as far as I'm aware, and I've, I, I've asked Jonathan this a number of. It seems to me very ceremonial so that a, a group of people gather around in circle, and as I understood it, and as, as it happened in, in Germany when I did it, the, the people on the outside are kind of almost dis not disengaged, but they, they're, they're witnesses to what's happening and they're witnessing from that place in themselves at the archetypal. So it's, they're kind of the archetypal world, witnessing what's going on in the circle. And what happens is it individually, people come into the circle with a question And then Jonathan kind of steers you through effectively the structure of the fall. So taking you into further and further into your question and, and acting out perhaps scenes, whether the question comes up and what happened when I was doing it? Well, I think he still does that. So if Jonathan made a move, then the rest of the people would also make the move. So you get this sense when you're, that you are kind of contained, you're supported, you've got people witnessing you, and you are going into a part of your, I mean, I, I think it's a part of the psyche. And the interesting thing, thing for me is a part of the psyche eventually where the psyche meets. The unity that meets the, the whole that I think you're trying to get, which is that kind of archetypal world in order to get some understanding or healing or something about the question that you've had. So you kind of come away with some, there's, there's been some movement in that question where you come away either I, I, I think I ended up, I, I, I found it quite deep. I was going in ended up, oh, I was crying quite a lot. You know, you, you express quite a lot of emotion in it, and the idea is it's being held and that what happens is if you've got like 20 people doing this and you do two per day, the buildup of the stories that you are seeing, they speak to each other, of course, because they're kind of archetypal. So you start, you start having your question seen in relationship to other people's

Jolie:

Mm-hmm.

Howard:

and, and they start to have this conversation in a, in a sense going on. And we did it for, I think it was like seven days straight. I think it, it's pretty intense.

Jolie:

Yeah. Yeah. It's my

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

bit of fooling. I do absolutely love doing the circle plays, and I found that the more we did them, more you became aware of what your flavor was. And that's what the, is in a way an answer to some of your question about how this has then affected my practice is with The Witch Fool You course. What that is for me is me exploring with people what their archetype is, because the thing that I got from the Circle plays was after a few times of doing it, I only, I've only done about. Well, I did about three with Jonathan and then we did a, a week of doing stuff with Max,

Howard:

Right.

Jolie:

interesting, where we started to invite audiences to sit and watch. So we still had that circle of witnesses and we still held that space where we did the circle play, but people were watching us as an audience and I was quite, yeah, like really it. But it blew these, they were students, they were 18, 19. It blew their minds. They said, I didn't know you could do this with theater. And it, it blew them. I know that that changed their lives. So I'm kind of interested in exploring how we might be able to do more with that. And I know that Max was interested in that as well. It's something that I'd like to explore more, but the, by doing the play a few times especially ones with Jonathan,'cause they were so intense, I started to notice a, like pattern or like an essence that was my character. That was my,'cause it's your inner world.

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

start to see what the flavor is of your inner world. then where I then went with that was I just gave myself absolute permission to fully embrace that. It was like my inner world is quite sexual. It's very adventurous. It's very brave. And, and I just kind of took all of those things and went, okay, well that's, that links to Aphrodite, that links to Artemis. It's working class trumpet. It's Nancy from Oliver Twist, it's Willow from the Wicker Man. It's all of these characters and they all belong to me and I belong to them. And then what I do with the Witch Faller You course is I, I support other people to find that. And we make altar pieces where we've got, you know, I've got Pat Butcher on my altar and I've got Miss Piggy and I've got like all of these. Bits of my lineage and then I own them all. And what I've then found useful about that in my everyday life is when it comes to making decisions, like when I was vegetarian for a while, I'm not now because I can't eat wheat and dairy or pulses. So it kind of limited. I had to sort of bring meat back in. But when I first became vegetarian, the thing that I loved about it, having been someone who could eat anything and would eat anything, was how actually too much choice is a bit depressing. I think it actually is bad for your, your mental health. I actually liked going into a restaurant and only having one choice. It was like, that's the vegetarian option. That's what I'm having. And that's what I feel like with the archetypal stuff is that once I know what my archetype is, I still could have anything else on the menu. Like they're all,'cause they're all in you, the inner divine jewel. You have your facet and, and it's a see-through jewel. So when you look through it, you can see all the other facets, which is why as actors and as fools and as performers, we can play all the parts. We can be a bridge, we can be a tree, we can be a Donald Trump, we can be any of these things'cause they're all actually within us, but our facet has a certain face. It has a certain thing that it's bringing to the party.

Howard:

Yeah, I get that with masks. So I work in Comedia, so with

Jolie:

Mm.

Howard:

like Italian half masks and when I teach students that, there's one of the things I say, I've sort of imagined it like a cookie D cutter, and that's the archetype of that mask. There's Zani or the RE or Pantalone, and we each have elements of that, of all of them in us. They all come out in different ways. So for one ACT actor, it might be they sort of do the head of that cookie CCUs or another one might be the, the. The limb or something. And so you get these different aspects of the mask. The mask is opening up, but it's still a cookie cutter. It's still a mask, but there's all these different relationships and you nearly always get the same thing where yes, you get people who relate to can do some or two, but suddenly they'll get one and they just, like, that's, you just, they literally just come alive. The masks suddenly come alive. And that's the most amazing moment when you see, you go, right, let's see, that's your mask.

Jolie:

Yeah,

Howard:

You are za or you are a pantalone, you are a doctor. And it, it has a similar thing. I think with that, I mean, what, what falling did me, I realized I, I had quite a hard time'cause I was, I was getting really annoyed that I couldn't do what Jonathan can do because you know, see if you've seen Jonathan perform live, if he's on, if he's on on it, it is my, and then I realized

Jolie:

blowing.

Howard:

I was doing punch and Judy and I realized that, that I'm not that kind of fool. That actually if I just sit in the fall that I do, which is punch and duty and allow that archetype to come through. And, and I realize that's where, that's where my fall expresses is in punch. It's in chlamydia. That's it. And it's, so coming back to my practices from doing this journey with fooling has totally changed my understanding of them, the way I do them, the way I teach them. It's just. It, it's like added. They were, I always thought they were three dimensional, but it's almost like they were three, two dimensional and suddenly you've put a light on their three, or maybe they were three, and they've got a dimension. There's something that the full brings, which I think is that archetypal, that that unashamed realization

Jolie:

Realization.

Howard:

is at its heart, metaphysical, that it, that it's about, the other, and theater, for most of its history, that's what it's been about.

Jolie:

yeah,

Howard:

then materialism came along and we went, no, it's all, it's not about that, but it is. I mean, you know, that, or, or certainly, you know, stuff that, that we do like with momming and things is all about that.

Jolie:

magic. I mean, I'm guessing you've read the death and Resurrection Show Have you heard of

Howard:

No, I don't think, no, you must send me a link to.

Jolie:

You're gonna love that back. It's really hard to get a hold of. I was talking about it with another guest Rebecca. It was yeah, it was fundamental in my journey, and I read it before I met Jonathan. So when I met Jonathan, it made complete sense. It's a guy called Reagan Taylor, who's a scouser. And he wrote it as his PhD. And then he went more into kind of football and football as a mass, like the, the cult, like the archetypal of football. So that's where his work is now. But he, just got it. He got what theater was in that he was saying that we, it began with the shaman and that as soon as we had near death experience, as soon as we had consciousness. So we became conscious. Yeah. And we suddenly feared death. And then anyone who survived death, we wanted to know how they did it and they would use performance to try and express it. And then that performance was then taken as being a, a healing act. And they became the healers and the shaming is the showman. And they would use performative tricks to enhance their. Healing performances. And they were all of the things that are Looney tunes, you know, like being able to change sex or walk on the ceiling or go in one door and come in through another. I mean, it's all, it's all Looney Tunes and Laurel and Hardy, it's all of this stuff. And then also the snake charmer and, and rope climbing and aerial performing and all of these things and being able to change gender. And it all is stuff that the shaman could do because the shaman wasn't bound by physics. then that then developed into all of the performing arts that we have. And one of the things they talked about was the caves where there's been cave paintings found actually have really good acoustics as well. And in those places they found like bones with holes in where they'd have been little flutes and things. So there would've been these ceremonial spaces that they painted and decorated and then had music and they would be in these spaces doing these performances. And my theory that when you are being observed, you know, there's that particle,

Howard:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jolie:

where they have the slits. Yeah. And when you observe the particles, they behave differently. When you are being observed, you feel like every atom in your body starts shaking. And it's that the adrenaline, but it's that nerves of, of suddenly kick in. And I think that we would hold these spaces and put people in the middle and observe them. We would then learn from that, that when we were out in a fight or flight adrenaline situation, we were more like the matrix because we were able to center ourselves and we could stay calm and we were able to, you know what's the word when you keep your nervous system balanced, but regulate, regulate your nervous system and not do things too fast, all of that stuff. And I've found it in my own life where I've been in like a car accident once where someone lost control of the car and everyone started screaming and I've sat behind the driver and I just put my hands on her shoulders and I was like, calm down, calm down. And was because I had that theater training that I was able to do that in that moment. So I think that that's one of my theories as to how we found that useful. That we would hold this space to observe each other, to train ourselves to be more comfortable with those situations.

Howard:

Makes me think of so it was about 20, God, 20 years ago now. 20 years ago. Yeah. 2004, five. I I went out to Arizona where my now wife Terry had an arts retreat, and I went out to go to native ceremonies because I was really fascinated by that whole mo, you know, they've actually got a, a effectively an unbroken tradition of, of what you're talking about. And one of the places we went was Hopi land, and we didn't, we didn't, I didn't manage see any of the Hopi dancers. I managed to see YY dancers, but the Hopi have, they have kivas, which are these underground places. And a lot of traditions have this, like the masks start underground and they're doing their ceremonies, and then the mask is called out. So they've been underground getting into a trance state, and then they get called out. I mean, we have that in, in here, like in Padstow, the masks that the asses are called out of pubs by a band, like piping them out. But there's that sort of sense of coming outta the ground, coming outta this, and they're in that mask state, and then they go around the town and do their ceremonies. But they're in, you know, they've been, they've really been put into the, that Mars state. And look, some of the dancers I saw the yucky dancers Easter dancers, they've, people have been out for six weeks in the desert taking peyote and doing all sorts of sweat, all sorts of stuff so that when they come in for the ceremony, they are really on a, they're clearly on a different plane. They're coming in and it's for the people that are observing it, it's for them that I, I saw at three o'clock, one, one morning there was like 20 clowns suddenly came in to the, to the space. But they, and they were clowning, but they weren't performing for anyone. They were just clowning. But in this sort of like thing, but it was like, it blew my mind.'cause that's like, that's clown. It's not, they were definitely still being clowns, but they weren't performing for anyone. But there was something about They're just doing it. Yeah. And they're just doing it because that's what needs to be done. And they, so it's obviously partly for the observer, if anybody happens to see them, but it's also partly for them, and it's partly for, you know, there's a lot of, for the land, for the people, for the, for the turning of the earth, there's, there's a

Jolie:

Mm.

Howard:

real connection to the needs to do it for, for a connection to nature.

Jolie:

Yeah. That, I mean that for me has been the key, a key thing. It was doing sisterhood. So I took sisterhood on tour, which was a play I worked with my, I, so I went to, I did an ayahuasca ceremony and I mean, just going back to the circle plays, the thing I love about circle plays is that no medicine plants are involved in that. And I feel like it's the deepest work I've ever done. Ayahuasca is amazing and I love working with medicine plants, but being able to do it off your own sweat and

Howard:

Mm.

Jolie:

just from your body and your own imagination is, I think so powerful. I, that's what circle plays I just think are the deepest work you can do, and they're incredible. But yeah, I did this ayahuasca ceremony and it was dedicated to the divine feminine, and it was prior to that being a bit more of a normal, you know, we, that, we all know about that now, but this was the first time that I'd heard someone say. You are all aspects of the feminine, of the, the goddess. And we are going to worship the goddess tonight. We're worshiping the goddess in you and we're worshiping the earth and, and the feminine. that was the first time I'd heard that. And then we got worshiped all night long and I've never been worshiped before. And it was very nice. And they weren't like, mean. It was lovely. But no one was doing anything to us. It wasn't, there was no interference. It was just intention. there was a point where he sang, this is a, a charman called Kahoi, and he's from Columbia. And he sang into the back of his drum and it just sounded like an ancient singing from the back of a cave. And all of us had a group hallucination when it happened. We saw this gold beam of light come down and hit us all. And then we all had different experiences. And I atomized and turned into this like larvae queen bee thing that was just having a constant orgasm for like hours, which was, and it just became really sexual as well. And the whole tent was really sexual. And for me that was like, oh yeah,'cause that's what the feminine is. Feminine is sex. You've got the, and the men were kind of walking around like cock crawls. They were spreading around like cock crawls. And I was like, you've got the masculine energy. But the feminine was the sexual energy and it was so creative and. Gentle and gorgeous. It was so beautiful. And I woke up the next morning and I just knew I had to write a play called Sisterhood with my mentor and the girl that I was mentor to. And they didn't know each other, but I knew that I'd passed on my mentor's knowledge to my, my mentee. And I was just like, okay, my protege. And that was all I knew. I'd been intending to make some kind of like vagina monologues, some modern in my head, that's what I thought it was gonna be. in the end, we made this kinda Shakespearean, really long epic, very gentle gallows humor play about three women locks in a church and in the morning they're facing their trail for witchcraft. And then when we did the tour, we went to all the places where Matthew Hopkins, the witch finder General, had executed and tortured witches. And we did the play. And then we did a healing ceremony in each place. And we read the names of who'd been killed there or tortured there and just honored them and honored their memory. And the first two performances, thunder and lightning. And when I said we're forgiving and forgetting Matthew Hopkins, huge crack of thunder. Like everyone went, oh my God. Like what? And then we went to Manning tree at the full moon and it had been all rain and horrible. And we went, we did the healing ceremony and then we went outside to where these three trees were growing that were for the three women who'd been hung there. That started the witch craze. So that then led to all the other witches that got killed because of them. And we put the stones that we'd used in the healing ceremony at the roots of the tree and the sky cleared and the full moon shone right down on us from above. then the next morning, our next venue had a rainbow over it. And then for the rest of the tour it was sunny. And everyone was just saying, even people who'd only just been to that one performance where it was sunny were like, it feels like the atmosphere's cleared. Like it feels like something's shifted. And that taught me that nature will get involved if you allow it. If you are open to her being there and being part of it, she'll do that. And then that's what happened with the pilgrimage. And it kept happening with the pilgrimage. You know,

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

rainbows at just the right point and things like that. And that's geo mancy, like that's what I would call Geo is working with land magic. where are you at with all of that?

Howard:

Well, I think I, I, it's just really strange. Every now and then I forget that I've done it. And Terry will say, you've walked up the spot. I did. I yeah. They were, they were both quite something, but they're very different. I feel very different. The

Jolie:

Very

Howard:

one was, God only knows how we met, how it, how we actually all got up there in one piece. Because it was so, the stuff that you were having to deal with all the, all the stuff of how we were getting stuff, there was so much logistics in that one. It felt that there was a lot of logistics going.

Jolie:

Yeah.

Howard:

and I think for, for me, yeah, I mean I had some quite amazing experiences on it. I remember the, I think it was the, the, the church in Birmingham where I had a, like a, that kind of e energetic, like I was half dreaming, half I, I can't, I, I think I was awake, but half dreaming, but I don't think it was a dream and I can just like shaking, which was that I think the, you know, the, the Ellen, that energy of, of sort of that energy I, I mean one of, I remember going to that was it in Manchester? The, that amazing oh, ex church and having the blessing

Jolie:

Yeah,

Howard:

Yeah, that the Abbey, yeah, that was, that was incredible. That was really moving and very kind of deep in on that sort of crossing of the lay lines. Yeah, I mean, I think it was, it was, that was, that was quite in change. I think for me. I was quite inward with that. The one going across where we did the Moming play. That for me was, I loved that so much. I mean, it obviously, it ended slightly tragically for me with I. Are you talking about Dear man? So it ended tragically because my dog died Tilly died while I was there. And do you remember that? We, oh, it's the most beautiful thing. So we had,

Jolie:

mm

Howard:

we didn't know, I knew that, that, that Tilly was ill and we were at, was it Wellington,

Jolie:

mump.

Howard:

wasn't it? And we went up and there was a hound, hound tour or something. Was that a hound bump? There was a one that was sort of like a, a a a dog man, which was looking out to Glastonbury

Jolie:

Mm-hmm.

Howard:

just we, about

Jolie:

Wasn't it a dog nose?

Howard:

something like

Jolie:

a

Howard:

that. It was something to do with dogs

Jolie:

but we didn't know until after we, we,

Howard:

we didn't know until afterwards.

Jolie:

us while we were there. Yeah.

Howard:

Yeah, exactly. And then I got this call that I had to go back.'cause you know, Tilly really only had a, a day to, to live. And we did the show to the spirit. There was no one there, and we just did the show to, to the land. Yeah. And it was really, yeah, that, that felt really good. It, it was, it was like a a and we did it kind of honoring titty. So up until that point I'd had. Just the best time. I just loved that show and that, because that one we basically, we didn't have any logistics'cause we just have whatever you could have on your back. And that was it. That was it. You know, a 10 little individual stoves and we would camp. And had some amazing experience, didn't we? I mean, we camped only, we did some wild camping. We had a lot of times when people would just put us up and it was much easier.'cause there's what, seven, seven or eight of us most of the time. So rather than like 30 people.

Jolie:

It was so

Howard:

yeah,

Jolie:

like that's the thing

Howard:

I found it really liberating. Yeah.

Jolie:

Yeah. Just

Howard:

And it,

Jolie:

able to just camp in a bush, just like, yeah, we're just staying here. You just walk till you can't be bothered to walk anymore and then just go to sleep somewhere.

Howard:

yeah, exactly. And the show itself I found very liberating. It, it reminded me a lot of the early work I did with my company where you just turn up somewhere and just go, we'll do it here. Just, it was just so much easier to just do the show where we, I mean we did it outside of pubs, we did it in stone circles. We did it in out, we did it outside. When we went to st to the St. Michael's. And we walked all the way then, and then it was shut. So we did the show. Do you remember that? We did it outside the gate, so we did it outside the gate. It was a really good show. So really,

Jolie:

Yeah. It was brilliant.

Howard:

so I loved that, that that show particularly seemed to be very, that really much more adaptable.'cause it was, I know, 20 minutes long or 15 minutes long and, and that was really like a moming show. And that felt, that felt really good along that. That particular line, I think,

Jolie:

Yeah. Well it's so connected. I mean, it is the St. George line'cause

Howard:

yeah.

Jolie:

been looking at this again'cause I've been writing the book about the first one I did along that route and how St. Michael's, the inner world and St. George is the outer world. So they're both the dragon slayers, but St.

Howard:

Right.

Jolie:

inner world version and St. George's the Alta World version. But you'll often see them in churches together, the stained glass windows together and

Howard:

on the St. Michael line. So we perform,

Jolie:

Yes.

Howard:

it in the church, and now our church is

Jolie:

amazing.

Howard:

very well, when I do my os here, I get blessed in the church by the vicar and then blessed with the PA blessing. And then we're called out and this year we did. So we've set up now cha for mums. So when you like come through

Jolie:

off, aren't we in in

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

We're having a mum off.

Howard:

That's the aim. And we did, we did a version of Robin Hood in the church over Christmas. So there's a, we have a thing called Celebrating the Earth, which was started at the same time as, as that first pilgrimage, if you remember going up to Cop because it cop was in Glasgow. It was a big sort of thing. There were a lot of people from town set up a a thing called celebrating the Earth in the church for the weeks leading up to cop. And it was a non-denominational non, it was, it was just celebrating the earth and it was like finding a way for anybody, pagan, Christian, athe, anybody to come and just be in a space which celebrates the earth and it has poetry and all sorts of things. And it was so successful. It's carried on. So every month there's this celebrating the earth and it's all different. So, you know, the, the Moming Show was, was a Christmas thing. There's normally some people reading poetry or playing some music, and then there's a sort of time of reflection. And it's an amazing thing that's kind of happened that, that the, the, the actual, the the sort of elders of the church really like it.'cause it's bringing commun, it's bringing all community back into the church. And it's, it's, it's like suddenly the church has become all of ours

Jolie:

Oh, that's

Howard:

again. Our dog, our dog, our new Lotty.'cause she goes to it quite a lot. Whenever she goes past it, she tries to go in because she, because dogs are allowed in. So yeah. So it really nice.

Jolie:

which is what it should be. I've got a friend here who did the pilgrimage to BoomTown with me, and she's marrying a vicar and she's a witch. She's a pagan witch, and she's marrying a, she's marrying a vicar this year. And that's what they're doing, where they are as well. And it's this, she was saying is you've got these resources everywhere where there's these buildings that are set up for. Spiritual, you know, of spending time together and being in community and connecting with the inner world and they're not really being used. And surely we should be exploring how we reinvigorate them and bring community back and actually what is happening in chat food. So that's brilliant. I love that. I,

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

I, I mean it was wonderful to be there. It did feel really strange playing bu and the fires of hell the middle of a church. That was really funny. Mary Tinker being all sexual. It's very funny. yeah, it was wonderful. And what's great about that route as well is because it's a much gentler way of life. We found that different with the spine of Alium, that when we were doing the Michael Line, people told each other 10 miles ahead and we were being invited to places as we went along, so we're suddenly being invited to the school or, you know, that kept happening. It happened less on the vertical route because it's through cities and people are just busy. So they're not, they're not hearing that you are coming'cause they're going

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

lives. So that was quite different. We had to arrange it more in terms of arranging performances along that route. But yeah, that's the thing that I love about the micro route. I do feel, and this is just me finding patterns in things, but I think it's interesting that. East west is air, water. So east is air and water is west. And that's the, the inner and outer thinking and inner world. And then north south is, north is earth and south is fire. And that's more kind of action. So, and that's how I feel like the lines are. So I feel like when I walk the Michael and Mary Lines, that's about my own inner, it's like refilling the, well, like that's where I go and get a bit of inner time. It makes me think about things. My, my, my intellect, my brain gets inspired and gets ideas for stuff and what I feel spiritually fulfilled from doing it. And then the spine of alium feels like that's putting your action out into the world. It's making you physically do something. And that's more of a giving, and that's more of an outer,

Howard:

And it's like you say, harder, it's a harder physical route as well, isn't it? Because you

Jolie:

Yeah. It's

Howard:

like when you,

Jolie:

It's busier.

Howard:

it's longer,

Jolie:

more going on. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually not, they're both 500 miles. If you're going up to Edinburgh from is of white, it's 500 miles.

Howard:

right?

Jolie:

length. Yeah. But we did a shorter one when we did the micro. We only went to dragon Hill,

Howard:

Yeah. We did also, I found it quite funny in the, the first one where we were saying we we're walking from London to Glasgow and we actually, we, we left the main route from Henley up to Edinburgh, didn't we? I,

Jolie:

Yeah. It's ley to Edinburgh and, and in my head it was the Isle of White to the top, you know, to

Howard:

yeah.

Jolie:

yeah. I had a different, a different route in my head for what it was. It was like the most mind blowing thing I've ever done, like, without a doubt. That was unbelievable.

If you enjoy this podcast, then please consider supporting me on Patreon. This is patreon.com/joly Rose. I am dreaming of the day that this is my full-time job and I hope that this is something that I am able to work towards the. Difficulties of living on an island where there isn't a huge number of people to be the audience and to share experiences and events with. It means that I can once a year put on a festival and possibly I could once a year put on a show, but it's not the same as when I was living in Brighton or living in the UK where I could just put things on and do things constantly and get funding from the Arts Council and just live the life of an artist, which I've managed to do for the last 20 years and I'm very proud of. But now I've moved here and it was really important to me. To make this shift, like I moved to be more in nature and more in the land. But also I felt that the world of theater that I had been part of for the last 20 years had become quite toxic because it felt like the only people who were able to afford to make that living as an artist and work in that world where people with money in their background, and I'm not saying that anyone with money is. Not welcome to be in that space, but when it's only people with money, it just felt, it became more and more toxic feeling to me. And so I was not, I wasn't happy, like I felt like theater was already broken before the pandemic happened, and that the pandemic was almost like a handy excuse for myself, especially to segue outta that space where I no longer felt comfortable and I no longer felt like it was really. In integrity and I shifted into hopefully writing, but being more in nature and being in this amazing space where I don't need to be able to drive'cause there are no cars. The island is only one mile wide and three miles long. And for me to be able to connect with audiences and connect with people online rather than physically, I was on the road all the time and moving around all the time and going to meetings constantly and just my carbon footprint and. Hecticness was off the charts and I didn't want to go back to that life as well. Like it felt like we learned something from the lockdown, which was to slow down and to live differently and I've then found myself in this completely different reality doing that, and I want to. Stick with it. I want to keep, keep to still be an artist, but in this space, which is a completely isolated island, miles away from everybody else, but with the power of the internet. And we may not have this forever. Who knows how things are gonna pan out in the future, but while it still exists, I'm gonna try and. Build my career around it. And so any help that you're able to give me is hugely appreciated. This is work that I'm hoping nourishes you and gives you some sort of spiritual solace and strength and nourishment. And if you feel like it is doing that, then. If you are up for helping me to literally eat and be able to pay my rent and, buy new equipment, I'm not happy with the equipment I've got. I'd be amazing to be able to pay an editor one day'cause it takes me so long to do. I'm doing all of the, I'm doing everything on this and I'm learning as I go along. I wasn't trained in anything to do with sound. Previously it's been amazing to learn a new skill. I always, I love learning new skills but any help that I would be able to afford to pay for at some point would be great. And yeah, to be able to make a living from doing this would be amazing. So if you are able to help me the first tier of the Patreon is just three pound a month, which is, the same as you buying me a coffee to say thank you. That would be amazing if you feel like you would. Consider doing that. If we were in the same physical vicinity as each other, then if you're up for paying me a cup of coffee a month, that'd be great. And then if you do the second tier, which is nine pound a month, which would be the same as you like buying me a. I dunno, sandwich things are so expensive nowadays. It's not like you'll be buying me a meal, buying me a bit of a meal, buying me half a meal. If you feel like you would be willing to buy me half a meal to say thank you for the nourishment that you get from listening to this podcast, then for that you also get to see the videos of the podcast and any other free bits of, stuff that I get to share and discounts on courses and things like that. And mainly a huge amount of appreciation for me and I do appreciate so much the people who are already helping me. Thank you to my Patreons. I really, I. I can't say how much it means to me that you are supporting me. It feels such a treat. Whenever I see something's come up and someone's signed up, it's the best feeling in the world'cause you just feel so appreciated. So I really do appreciate you back for doing that. Thank you. And just to let you know about some of the things that I do that you can. Come and take part in is the moon ceremonies that I do every fortnight. If you want to join these, they're free and they're over zoom and all you have to do is follow on Facebook or Instagram, which are both at queer arts, K-R-I-Y-A-A-R-T-S. If you follow me, then you'll see the links. I put them up. Every fortnight and you just come along and they're really nourishing, beautiful spaces that I need. So they're like the grammar in my life. They make me stop, they make me sort my house out and make it into a sacred space. They make me connect to the. The cycles and the seasons and to every aspect of personality by following the Wheel of the year in astrology, you check in with every aspect of humanity within yourself and within the bigger picture. And I love it. So you're welcome to join me for that. It also by the time this goes out, is about a week before Beltane Festival. Which is just terrifying. I cannot believe that it's so soon. At point of recording it's two weeks away, but by the time this comes out, it will be a week away. If you want to come to that, there might be some tickets left. We are close to selling out, but it would be lovely for you to come if you're able to, and probably a bit late for you to be deciding to come from England, but you could try. But if you are in Guernsey or Sark, then please do come along. It's gonna be amazing Burning a Wicker man and dancing the Maple and Morris Dancers and Mama's plays, and then a host of wonderful bands in the evening. Looking forward to that. I can't wait. I'm also looking forward to The day. Yeah, just having that fun on the day. I love Beltane. It's my favorite day of the year. Don't tell the other days. So that's gonna be great. And then after that, towards the end of May is the beginning of the witch fall. You course. And I. Urge you to do this course. If you are in any way interested in the stuff that me and Howard are talking about in this podcast and can see or sense the power of working with archetype, then do get involved, do come and join for this deep dive and this deep journey. I'm really looking forward to giving myself over to this cycle. I do it every year and every year I learn something new and I'm. Yeah, I'm gonna rewrite a myth this time. I'm gonna rewrite the story of Venus where she bins off Mars and gets together with Mercury. That's what I'm gonna be doing this time, so I'm gonna be writing a myth, which feels like big work. So come join me if you're up for doing some God-like level archetypal work, really messing with the matrix and. Creating reality then come and get involved. And yeah, there'll be other things happening throughout the year, but that's it for now. I will let you know as other things come up. But yeah. Exciting. It's nearly summer. back to the show,

Jolie:

I'm really, so I've started writing that book at the moment and I'm really enjoying it because it's just so trippy and I'm writing it in a, in a trippy way. So when I'm writing, I'm writing the inner and outer world stuff. So I started it with the first book where I've got the, the the lines speak the ghosts of the places that I visit speak. And so any of the things that were kind of in my imagination that were in my inner world, I'm, I'm put into voice and that's gonna just get weirder with the next one. But then I'm, it's gonna be fun because what happened when we did that route again coming back down, you wouldn't, had the funniest experience, you know, that day, the day where we went over whatever that forest is wasn't a forest, that was just a great big hill through the rain where when we were standing in the wind, we were like at 45

Howard:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jolie:

But that route that, that day's walk. No,

Howard:

cloud.

Jolie:

up than that. It was when we had rods with us and we went up and over. We had been at the farm with the

Howard:

it

Jolie:

the scything.

Howard:

okay.

Jolie:

Yeah. And it was just crazy rain. And we walked with our heads down just 45 degrees into the wind for like the whole day. And sheep were hiding with us behind that barn while we ate our sandwiches and just absolutely crazy. was hilarious is, to me that feels like the most epic day of wilderness walking of just absolutely in the middle of nowhere. And it was so, like almost Lord of the Ringy. Like that was just such a mad experience. We went and did it again in the sunshine and the road and houses were literally right next to us. But

Howard:

I,

Jolie:

it'd been

Howard:

I know I

Jolie:

wet, we couldn't see'em

Howard:

with me when we did that, that route because we, we stopped off at that point. Two things happened there for me. One was we were going, oh God, but what if we get lost? And the couple of us said, there's an, a road. Like just, just there. It's, we were actually following air raid and the second thing was we stopped to try and find,'cause it was pissing down with the rain and we stopped to try and find something to eat. Really wanted we all really wanted to go to the toilet. And there was like a chemical, do you remember that? It was like a chemical toilet. It's like, like a festival toilet in the middle of, it's just like, okay, well that's that kind of magical thing. Just the weirdest experience. Just'cause it had like.

Jolie:

that when we did it this second time, that was all totally, it just looked all the way through. It looked like some footpaths between just where people lived. It was so funny. it made total sense that there was chemical toilets though.'cause there was just people everywhere. Like it was really funny.

Howard:

What that, was that the same? Was that the day where we ended up, we tried to cross a stream and then some of you actually went

Jolie:

that the same

Howard:

was that

Jolie:

it was And then we came down into Ray and then Yeah. And that's when you went well it wasn't you, who was it? Oh, it was di wasn't it? He went wading across the

Howard:

riding right across it? I, I decided to go back and go, kind of do a long way round road because I was just like, this is so,

Jolie:

as well. I think it was me. And re followed you because we were just like, we are too short and small to We're gonna get swept

Howard:

and then there was

Jolie:

river.

Howard:

up to there and, and just had to walk and just being Dill decided to walk through.

Jolie:

yeah, Jill just waded through it. And then it turned out we were a mile away down the road. It, we just went insane. Like there was moments of full blown

Howard:

I,

Jolie:

That was,

Howard:

not surprisingly, I mean getting walking and, yeah, I think it was, and I think that, well, you know, that what you say about what, what does it do to you in terms of fall? I mean that there's a sort of, the fall is in some ways insane. You have to go to that insanity that, and that changes you because you realize, so for ages afterwards, I realize we can do anything then, can't you? I mean, if you can walk up the spine of the country, you can do anything

Jolie:

Mm.

Howard:

and. That space of the full, that's one of the things I got out of doing these and I hope I better come back and do, you know, I haven't, I couldn't do last year'cause I,'cause my daughter got married and this year I can't,'cause I'm writing up my PhD, but I hope I better come back and do them again because there, there's, there is something freeing and freeing of the mind and, and this not being, not doing something normal. I, I, many years ago I did the Camino Santiago cycling and I, I had two weeks out from a massage course. So I thought, oh, I'll do it. I'll, I'll fly over with my bike and then I'll, I'll and I'll cycle. It'll be fine. I only have to do like 90 kilometers a day and it'll be all right. And I did it and it was mad. It was like totally insane. And then I didn't know how I was gonna get back when I got to Santiago and I had a day to get back to, you know, my, my airplane. And I'd met this French family who were cycling, but they were sort of then taking their bikes on. So I kept meeting them and they, they just said, oh, we'll drop you off at Bill Battle. So it's these magical, these amazing, magical things that happen when you put yourself out there. I remember you, you saying that, that your belief was, when we started that program, you said, look, magic things will happen. It will ha you know, stuff will happen. There will be times when you sleep in a ditch and that happens. But there will be times when.

Jolie:

though.

Howard:

The adventure. Exactly. And that is the fall, isn't it? And that's, that's the thing that the fall spends a lot of time in the king's chamber, but will say the stuff to the king that no one else will, because the fall doesn't actually matter. If he gets kicked out and, and chucked into the pigs, they'll just lie there

Jolie:

exactly.

Howard:

up at the stars and enjoying the aroma and knowing that, that, that then, you know, that that world will turn, that fortunes will turn and they'll be back in the palace again. And that is a, that's the freedom isn't it? Of, of that it's the freedom of the performer in some ways. I think certainly performers that perform in street theater or in unusual places that we, we have these experiences that you couldn't pay to have. You, you, you know, you, you end up in the most incredible situations, like in palaces or performing in these amazing view. And then the next day you are, you are sleeping rough and you're fine with that because that's part of it. It's actually part, you actually want both of those things because it's what gives you a, a kind of freedom from freedom. Like you talk about on your things like freedom from the matrix. Isn't that, if you can, if you can do those things, if you can walk up the spine of the country trusting, you know, then

Jolie:

it is, it blows my mind. It blows your mind, and then after a while it becomes. Normal for miracles to happen, but it's not

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

them for granted. It's just like,

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

that happened. That's what happens. And it is, it's, it's extraordinary and it is that thing that I love about it is that humanity is so kind. Like as much as we get told all this awful stuff about the

Howard:

Yeah,

Jolie:

how bad it is, are just, they without fail blow my mind of how generous and kind they are. And that's the thing I love about it. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, I can't remember, I was just trying to remember his name. I think his name's Herbie. There's a guy who works in Punch and Judy and he told me the story of the original punch and Judy story that was like really ancient right back, like the original version of it that he goes to ha to, he goes to hell and then he ends up like, he goes to the other world and ends up making the whole of the universe disappear by accident. Do you know anything about that? I dunno that, oh

Howard:

I,

Jolie:

yeah. I'm gonna have to put you in touch with him because I, when he told me the story at Glastonbury last year he said this was the original, so he goes around London doing fake tours. Like he pretends that certain windows is the window in inspiration for Romeo and Juliet and stuff like that. And it's like a modern office window and stuff. He just makes stuff up. He's a brilliant fool and he knows Jonathan. He's got a bald head with mad professor hair. and he's a street performer from Covent Garden that's been doing stuff there forever.

Howard:

I.

Jolie:

I'll definitely have to put you in touch with them.

Howard:

Punch came from PO and po, which is the Italian n from Naples. I think the mask from Naples were born from a chicken egg. So born out of a, out of an egg. So'cause it po and egg is like chicken and so yeah, like poul, like little chicken kind of thing. So I, I love that idea. Like born from an egg, so a fool, you know, I mean born ridiculous birth story. And that would make sense. I mean, I, I,

Jolie:

I mean,

Howard:

so one of the things that my

Jolie:

things

Howard:

understanding of fall has done is changed a bit, my understanding of punch and duty. So I initially had this thing which I started to develop, which is, I think punches like the old, the, the archetype of anarchy doesn't want any control. So if you look at the, the sort of different planes of that, the first place is the domestic situation. Now my show doesn't have domestic violence in it. I think a lot of shows are changing now.'cause obviously it's popular theater, it changes with the times. But that doesn't mean there isn't slapstick. And it doesn't mean that there isn't this sense that punch rejects domestic any anything of like, we've gotta do this. I'm not gonna do that. And then you get this social, which is the police and the societal police and the Beatle. And again, he goes, no, I'm not having, I'm not having any control. And he hits, hits them. And the reason it's the hit is'cause if you've got. The, the easiest way to get rid of a cup and keep the main character is that, so the s slaps

Jolie:

Yeah.

Howard:

that comes before, and then the last bit is kind of like the devil and the ghost, and that's your sort of, so that's into your sort of metaphysical realm where again, punch just goes, no, I'm not having So this ultimate kind of archetype of anarchy, just no, I'm not having So domestic control, societal control or, or existential control. It, it's, so I still think that's the case, but now that I've been doing fooling, I, I now see that the bit, when I'm in the front of the booth as me, that's that play that Jonathan talks about. This is the start, start just engaging with the audience, playing about with them, getting to know them, seeing what's happened, taking some information from them. Then the play board, which is the, the sort of, you know, the literary play board, I mean, that's the front of the stage. That to me, that's the, the a play. So that's where

Jolie:

Mm-hmm.

Howard:

happens, which is, you know, punch and duty, and then the baby, and then the policeman and blah, blah, blah, crocodile and all that. And they can turn and talk to the audience. So they still got that connection, but they're in a play. And then the play, which is the archetypal, is me as a puppeteer. I'm, I'm channeling through this, this, these archetypes, the archetype of the fall, the archetype of the anarchist. And that's that darken, you know, I'm in a darkened space. I'm seeing through a gate, a, a, a gaze, it feels very much that that's my role. And so I now understand it in that full structure way. And I, when I first started, because I mean punch is chaotic, and I would have so much chaos in, in the booth Terry said, she said that you, you, you need to, you need to do a prayer to trickster. You need to like talk to trickster and say, please put the ca you know, you'll have, and I did it. I did it. And I said, look, you're gonna have much more fun. We'll, we'll both have more fun if the chaos is in the book in there, in the play board, rather than with me with stuff falling down and swallows swallowing swale and things and touch. Would I say this?'cause I, trier is my kind of my guiding spirit in many ways. Since then, mostly it has been there. So the improvisation, the chaos, that talking to it's all been out there where it should be. And not so much in the booth, but that it's, it's a booth has this kind of engine of chaos in there and you have to allow it to be channeled and you give it a channel which is out there. And the, one of the main things I told the trickster is, look, you like children's laughter and people's laughter. You will get much more of it out there if the chaos is there and the fund's there. Because the only, it is only me that can laugh at this in here and I'm not laughing. I'm really annoyed. So yeah.

Jolie:

It's really funny you say that because my ex-husband's surname was Booth, which is why I was Jody Be, his archetype was the trickster. And he, it was all in the booth. It was all in the booth, and he was so punch, you know, he was literally just like no to everything and just complete anarchist to everything and just running amok the whole time. So, yeah. That's hilarious. It's really funny you said that. I, it's interesting as well, having moved to Soc because Jonathan saying, put it in the play. I've spent 20 years living in Brighton, which is really liberated and, and you know at the forefront of what you would call Wokes and all the stuff that like is just. A, a given. We are all on the same page in, in Brighton and then working in theater where we are putting it all in the play and not doing it all in the booth. And now I live on an island where it is just one nonstop play, but just is all the drama is in our everyday lives. Literally nonstop. Honestly, it doesn't ever stop. It's quite exhausting'cause there is no, oh, I'll just go sit in a cafe and chill out. There is none of that. You go to a cafe and out of nowhere, someone's at you about something or something happens or da da da. Like, you can't escape it. there is no day off unless you hide in the house all day. That's pretty much the only way of it. But it's fun, but you just gotta go. Right. I'm in a play. This is just a, a very large stage.

Howard:

So can I ask, so since I'm sort of partly interview, can I ask you a question again going into this thing of, of how were you aware when you first came in contact with falling of what it was doing to your practice? Like your, your performance and

Jolie:

yes, because I, yeah, I drew to it because of what I already knew about it. I was so I nearly drowned when I was 11 and that I had a near death experience. I was at tutor reenactment, so. thought that a participant had jumped in to save me, and then it turned out a visitor had saved me who was behind me, and no one in t costume had saved me. So I had this bizarre experience where I knew someone had come for me and that I was okay, and like I then relaxed and that's when I blanked out very trippy for days afterwards. I was in a really weird lucid state for days afterwards and that was when I was 11, when I was 13, someone who was a pagan. And I didn't know anything about that at the time. Came to me having heard this story and said to me, you've had a shamanic experience. You are a shaman. And I was like, okay. I was like into Nirvana and the levelers and just had handed my hair and thought that was extremely cool. And so I'd had that kind of said to me and it did then set me off on a more shamanic path that was then I'd looked into what that was and started exploring it and. I into standup comedy and was, I did quite well at standup comedy. I went to Edinburgh. I was in the Channel four Comedy Awards and the BBC comedy Awards and went and performed at the Gilded Balloon. And so, like, the biggest gig I ever did was my first ever gig at Edinburgh, and it's gone downhill ever since. And I just ended up in smaller, smaller venues. But yeah, I was in this massive venue, like, and, and did really well and I really enjoyed it. But there was something about it that I couldn't put my finger on that I didn't find comfortable about it. And then two things happened. One was the, death and Resurrection Show Book came to me. I don't remember how I came across that in the first place, but also Clowns for Beginners. Strangely, their name is Joe Lee. The person who wrote it, it was called Joe Lee. And and it was this cartoon book of Clowning for Beginnings. And it's brilliant. And it starts with the Shaman as the superstar, the Showman. And it works its way through and it links to Chaplain and Laurel and Hardy and the Looney Tunes and all that stuff. And at the same time, I got the Death and Resurrection show, and then got my mentor. So this was like 20, 21. I've moved to Brighton and I went on the New Deal with Labored, like create the New Deal for people on benefits. And I said, I'm a theater practitioner. I want to be a theater practitioner, which was brilliant because they couldn't just like send you out of the job center to go get a theater practitioner job. So they're like, I'm gonna have to just give you money until we make that happen. And they said, well, we've got a mentor for you who's a theater practitioner. I was like, cool. And it was this woman, Andrea Brooks, and she was teaching Ma acting at E 15 for years. She's just retired, but she was teaching it there for years. Absolutely brilliant. The most witchy magical person I've ever met. She's magical. And she's the one that I wrote sisterhood with. And I met her and we went for a coffee and she had this a four sheet of paper and she wrote all these things on it that then became my life. So she wrote

Howard:

Hm.

Jolie:

DeCastro clowning, and she wrote Jonathan K on there and a bunch of other things. And I went from that meeting and went and did an Angela DeCastro workshop, the why, why not institute? And I did how to be a Stupid and the New Deal filled in the form to pay for me to go and train how to be a stupid. And it was like, I can't believe I'm giving you money to learn how to be a stupid. I was like, this is brilliant. And I went and did that and did quite a few trainings with her and was part of a ha ha harmonics clown choir with her. And through that I met John Jordan, Created the Reclaim the Streets movement. And we were talking about how you could use clown as protest and how far you could go with it. you could go to prison staying in clown, we were like, you could really use this. So we then started using clown as protest and we created a protest group called the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army Circa, which then went viral, that went worldwide and we'd created like a training for it. And then that just went everywhere. And Coogie was one of the army. So she'd done the training and she was now someone who trained other people to become Rebel Clowns. So that went off and did that. And then I went and did the Jonathan training, but I already was working with his daughter and Daisy Campbell Ken Campbell's daughter.

Howard:

All right.

Jolie:

Ken Campbell's. Do you know about Ken Campbell?

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

Yeah. his daughter Daisy and Poppy both lived in Brighton and me and Daisy and Poppy used to put on cabarets together and did work together. And it was through that that Jonathan had lost his administrator. He'd had one of these moments where everyone had buggered off and left him and he had nothing. He was starting from scratch again. And Poppy said, well, Jolie does administration.'cause I was doing that on the side to kind of make my, make my money. And he came to me and said, would you be up for supporting me with tour? Creating a tour? And then we talked about he wanted to have people he could perform with on the stage. And I said, well, the thing is it takes, it takes a long time for anyone to learn how to work with you. So then I said, well, what about if we create a school? rather than trying to create a theater company that you are then teaching, if it's a school that people pay to come to, then out of that you'll then end up with people who can perform with you on the stage. And so that's how we came up with the Academy

Howard:

another,

Jolie:

And so Noah, yeah. And then ran that for a couple of years. So I worked with him for a couple of years just touring him. And then we got the academy going with the help of Batey Art Center and

Howard:

so how did, how

Jolie:

people

Howard:

impact your actual, like your thinking on what, like your performance,

Jolie:

well, so initially I wasn't performing. Initially I was, I was an outer, I was in the outer world with it, with him. then, and then I asked whether I could join and I joined in with it. And the, the thing that had not sat right with me, with, the standup comedy, which I then realized was that it was very masculine and it was very out world. It was almost like it was an ego competition of like trying to be the funniest and the banter and all of that. There wasn't the heart, there wasn't the emotional connection, and there wasn't the archetype at all in standup comedy. I think it can be there, like Bill Hicks is very archetypal, like it can be there, but that was the thing that was jarring with me. And so when I then worked with Jonathan and sunk into it, it was like there's a difference between telling a joke and being a joke able to laugh at yourself in a universal way where you're like, this is, this is my foibles. This is how I, this is my junk. And, and I see this junk in you. And then I can see that, you know, you are understanding it and that means I can be vulnerable with you. And then the audience are happy to be vulnerable and open up. And it's that. Connection and then, I mean, it then just goes so infinite. I mean, once you start, once you are in that space and you're connecting with that space, feels like, I mean, know, I can get to the point where I'm like, I think the whole, the whole thing's a play. So when I'm saying that so's a play, I think the whole thing's a play. And that's why I'm interested and keen on the, the archetype exploring, because that's like, well, what's my part in this play? What, what lineage am I part of that I'm here? What's the mask that I represent here on earth? then how I, far you can go with the whole create or be created. So for me, it is in my performance, but my performance is very much in the outer world. Like, I feel like I do more of everyday life disrupting than I do come and see me do a performance. I don't really do that much. Even when we do the Mamas plays, it's us disrupting reality by turning up

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

at your town and village and going, look at this bunch of weirdos and we're gonna do a play. And it just makes people go, all right, reality isn't this fixed construct. So yeah, for me it's very much kind of flowing that

Howard:

So, yeah. So

Jolie:

the outer.

Howard:

that for me is that kind of, that way that it starts to make your in and outer world. I, I was listening to some of your early podcasts, you talk about that kind of sphincter, like loosening it so that inner and out world starts becoming less tight. So you, you, you are, I mean that's my experience and it's experience I think of quite a lot of other falls, is that the. So I got this from, from Mia, our mask maker, Ninian Kne Wilson, who's dead now. Unfortunately, he's a superb mask maker, massive biker who used to ride a Harley Davidson. When I first met him. I was terrified of him. He's the nicest guy he could ever met. And that he said that comedia is, isn't, it's not a theater form, it's a way of life.

Jolie:

Yeah.

Howard:

And that really stuck with me. It's like touring with people, setting up your stage in someone else's space, the sun going down the stage. You eat on the stage, you lie on the stage, perform on the stage, and then you pack it away. So you are carrying this sacred space around, but it's also quite it's sacred and profane. It's like all of those things. And it's not, it, it's, it's not for everyone because that thing of, you know, sometimes we would be put up in hotels amazing. And other times we'd just be sleeping in the van on the stage and having to get drunk in order to fall asleep because it's so uncomfortable. And then the next reason really uncomfortable. And then so that, that kind of way of life thing. So I think that's something I found with the fall is, is that, and what's interesting is how much people seem to either be drawn to it. Like you, I think a lot of us are drawn to it because we're already sort of doing that. And then suddenly you come up with a teacher, in our case, Jonathan, but you know, Frankie or, or other people teaching you who start to give you a a like, well what if you, what if you take what you've got there? And think of it this way and start doing it that way. And it suddenly opens up that possibility and the possibility of, of this u kind of unity, isn't it? I mean, it's like the, that disruptor that, you know, the four being the mirror, the the, and the sense of which I, I, I go in and outta this. I, I lose this quite a lot of, of, but every now I come to it is exactly that thing that you can create your life and you, you're allowed to, there's a, and actually not allowed to, but you are doing it. It's happening. So

Jolie:

yeah,

Howard:

have sovereignty because we're sovereign beings and we create, we are naturally creative. It's just so many of us fall into patterns that are told to us

Jolie:

yeah,

Howard:

from somewhere else. And that breaking out of those, it's not to say break out the patterns.'cause actually look, as you say, it's like just being aware of the patterns. You might be in it,

Jolie:

yeah,

Howard:

but you can break out of it even while you're in the band. As long as you recognize it, as long as you're aware of it, you can then start playing with it,

Jolie:

yeah. it's fractal. So the thing that I'm having at the moment in the government, because I'm in the government here in s. And I'm

Howard:

Hmm.

Jolie:

so I can't go fight Trump. I'd love to, but I can't. But I have tendrils of his archetype on the island in the government with me, so I can't. There's no point in me spending any energy worrying about Trump But what I can do face, head on the fake news and the, the lies and the bullying that is, and the fascism that is occurring in front of me. it's like a root on a tree. So if I you know, if there's this fungal attack happening on this root in front of me, by me stopping that, by me fighting that, that then sends a message up the whole of the tree. And so it's kind of just dealing with what's in your pixel. That's the thing that I often describe it as is there's the bigger picture and you have your pixel and you can affect the pixels around you. And it was a, an indigenous leader who did a speech at the museum association meeting once I was there with the Museum of Ordinary people. And he was saying that for a shoulder of fish change direction, and I can't remember now whether it was 2% or 10%, whatever it was, it was a percentage, but it wasn't the whole, it wasn't the whole shoal. Same as the murmuration. You only need a percentage to change direction before the whole thing does. if you've got a pixel, you know you are pixel in a bigger picture. But if you change your pixel and then that affects the ones around it. The whole picture will change.

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

we are literally making the whole thing up. And yes, there are scientific things, but even that gets weird and, and you know fuzzy at the edges. You know, it's

Howard:

Oh.

Jolie:

it's only things that are in focus in the middle. Like it's fuzzy. The,

Howard:

I mean, there's nothing,

Jolie:

is fuzzy. Yeah.

Howard:

what we know is there's nothing else to be solid.

Jolie:

Exactly. And so

Howard:

is energy frequency.

Jolie:

for and and

Howard:

And I think, yeah, I think it's,

Jolie:

do it. Yeah. Just go for it. Like

Howard:

my,

Jolie:

Go for it.

Howard:

my, my response to this that, that I've been taking on board is that every time something comes up like that, you know, political stuff, I'm first of all, I'm trying to ignore as much as possible.'cause I think giving them any time is what they need. Whether it's you getting enraged or not,

Jolie:

Exactly.

Howard:

that's fine for them because it's just attention. It's just energy. So trying not to give them attention, but also every time there's something really terrible, rather than getting enraged, although I do get enraged, is to, it's like the answer is always love, isn't it? The answer is always to connect. Like you say, with people that you can connect with. Go and make that phone call. You haven't done for a while. Tell a friend with me, I connect a lot with my mum at the moment with that. It's like, well, I'm gonna care with my mom. That's what I'm gonna do. When all we, we planted five when Russia and invade Ukraine, we planted five apple trees in the garden as our peace orchard. It's like we can do those things and eventually all those things, you know, you do something here, you do something there, and eventually they're gonna join up, aren't they? And eventually, if we all do that. We are more, you know, that that is a more powerful thing. It, it takes, it's, it's easier to destroy than create, but ultimately creation is stronger.

Jolie:

mm

Howard:

I mean, it has to be and

Jolie:

Yeah, it is. Although evil's proactive, that's one of the things that

Howard:

yeah.

Jolie:

annoying because when you are just going about your everyday life, you are not paying attention, which is why evil is always able to take advantage because you are just going about your everyday life, not taking any notice. And they are taking notice and going if I do this and I do

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

can get this result and I can manipulate the situation. yeah, there is an element of that. But then I guess there's I suppose what, what we are both saying is it's about being proactive in creating other stuff and that, and like you say it, planting a tree to someone who's proactively doing evil in the world, that doesn't make any sense. And also they're like, and how's that meant to affect me? But they don't see that it does,

Howard:

Don't see it. And for me it's, it's like in, I'm planting it.'cause in 30 years time when I'm no longer here either'cause I'm no longer here or'cause I'm no longer here there'll be people sitting under that tree and that's, you know, having apples or.

Jolie:

because I put up a, I don't haven't, I don't really put things up political on, on social media because I don't want the algorithms to know stuff about me. But I did put up one the other day that was years from now, we are all going to agree that we didn't agree with this. And I just thought that was so spot

Howard:

Yeah,

Jolie:

And,

Howard:

yeah,

Jolie:

the trees, I, I think, are an indication of that.'cause they'll be there in 30, 40 years time when we all agree we didn't agree with it. And

Howard:

yeah.

Jolie:

is living proof that some people didn't agree with it and it was

Howard:

Mm.

Jolie:

their silent protest in a place, in a time where they weren't really able to vocally necessarily say things without that being possibly a dangerous thing to do. You know?'cause that's how I'm, I mean, I, I'm doing it with the podcast. I'm like, well I already kind of stuck my stake in the ground, so gonna get burnt by it. There's

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

can do about it.

Howard:

Well, I love it. I love that.

Jolie:

now.

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

scary now, like,

Howard:

nonsense in the chaos. I know. It is a scary time. And I've, I'm not massively into astrology as such, but I'm, I do listen to quite a lot of astrologers and they, they've been talking for a while that this is a, a time, and the other thing that, that they advise to do is to ground, like

Jolie:

Yeah.

Howard:

there's so much energy going on that people that are aware of it, one of the things we can do is ground it because we need to be grounding this. And actually, you know, the nonsense in the chaos, the ca we all knew that that actually stuff needed to be changed.

Jolie:

Mm-hmm.

Howard:

You know, the normal, as we found after lockdown, we going back to that as normal, that that wasn't, that wasn't good.

Jolie:

Mm.

Howard:

So we know it needs to change. And change always has this chaos in it

Jolie:

Yeah. Of course.

Howard:

How, and keeping, keep, trying to find a way of keeping belief, love, all these things. That is how the most likely way that this will turn out well is if we do that. There's,

Jolie:

Yeah,

Howard:

there's something that always says as well, which is that there was some people who are not meant to be on the front lines. People are meant to be making soup and you know, art is making soup because it's, it's doing, you know, all the things that you are talking about in, in our art, in, in ways. Even if it's going and just saying, Hey, we, we could, we could this is a car park, but it could be a theater space and look, we can show, you can be a theater space. Even that just saying, oh, you then when people go back, they go, oh, they, that there was a theater space there Once it, it, it's breaking that, that conception of, of architecture and all that sort of normal that says this is, this is a car park. Well, yeah, but it doesn't have to be,

Jolie:

But it

Howard:

it can be whatever want,

Jolie:

yeah.

Howard:

you know.

Jolie:

and you can't touch the floor quick.

Howard:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Jolie:

And it is the, you need people to be bringing joy and you also need storytellers to be disrupting the narrative because they're

Howard:

Yeah.

Jolie:

narrative that they want us to believe in. there have to be people that go. And also there are other alternative narratives is not just

Howard:

Yes.

Jolie:

Yeah. It's not just this

Howard:

Other options that you can, yeah, exactly.

So that was the unbelievably awesome Howard Gaton. And I could have, I mean, I just sat there listening to this, editing it, and I was completely lost in the conversation. And then it came to an end and I was like, oh, oh, I could have listened to that forever. And I literally could have talked to Howard forever. that is the initial preamble chat. We didn't get as far as the pulling cards, but we have a whole. Additional podcasts of us pulling the cards and discussing the chaos crusade watch this space and you'll hear more from Howard. I hope you enjoyed that. I really enjoyed listening to it and editing it. He's absolutely awesome and such a rich, juicy conversation. There was so much in there that I was just, yeah, like inspired to listen back to and. I love talking about art, like really getting in there to the nuts and bolts. Talking about art is probably my favorite thing in the world to do. I remember once hearing a musician going, I only want to talk about music. I'm only interested in talking about music. And I was like, oh, I can't really do that.'cause I dunno much about music, but I do know what he means.'cause when it comes to talking about art, I could just do it all day long. So I hope that you enjoyed that tea and that that's, even if this isn't your world, that there's some interesting glimmer and insight into exploring or looking into the parallel universe of. A pair of artists discussing their art and whether that has, um, been insightful or interesting. I hope so. I found it really interesting. That's why it went on for so long. thank you ever so much for being here, and we'll be back next week and until then, I shall see the anon in.