Phil

Though I hadn’t realised back then, it was meeting Muhammed Ali when I was twenty-one that showed me the power of personal stories. Since a kid I had always come alive listening to him speak courageously, as well as watching him fight. After several exhibition rounds that night, Ali came to the ropes, and told stories of his life – for TWO HOURS! I had pushed through the crowd to get closer; to soak up every word. It felt like magic because I could feel the power of his heart - and he made me feel mine.

This memory, along with others, swam around my body for years and fueled a growing desire to speak about my own life experiences, at the same time being frustrated that they never seem to come out well.

As a Navigating Officer for ten years in the Merchant Navy, travelling to many different countries and cultures, I had an outer world education. More outer success came starting and running my own Art Gallery business, among other enterprises. Then in my late thirties I was thrust into the realities of my inner world by a deep and painful descent. Disorientated and distressed, I couldn’t function as I used to. By this time, I was married with two growing daughters. I got curious about my root system and I began wading upstream to explore and get a closer look at the river I had travelled down. Stories came raw and fast, and I needed a space for them.

I had mixed success telling those stories for many years learning to speak in public. An urge to write a memoir, of my growing up years, grew into necessity. I recalled and worked with so many scenes passing through a succession of 1960s orphanage institutions and local children’s homes in Yorkshire. The five years of writing and editing freed me from many of the burdens I had experienced and gave me a new appreciation for life. My book ‘Fatherless’ finally came to completion only when it became a work of art. Alongside that it became a wonderful apprenticeship in crafting autobiography.

During that time, I had made a trip to the Far East. While in Cambodia I learned in detail about the genocide there in the late 70s. I was moved by the profound reconciliation coming from communities staging performances of their personal experiences. I had also been inspired by seeing a well-crafted solo autobiographical performance by a friend in America. I fell in love with the emerging art form and knew I would stage my own shows.

I had also been helping public speakers craft personal stories for their presentations and it became a natural progression to facilitate and direct people to try their hand at a solo autobiographical show. My extensive training and decades of experience as a personal Life Coach fed into the work. Deepening that knowledge led me to work with master storyteller and mythologist Michael Meade and ritualist African shamans Malidoma and Subonfu Some.

I see the work as ritual theatre, which means the transformational aspect of the work is equally important as performing. My own three solo shows, performed at local festivals, have taken me on a journey of awakening. And my years facilitating men’s groups have brought me to form the Rough Diamonds school of Autobiographical Theatre with my partner Agata. It’s a creative space for the rough diamond, of you and I, to play and craft our stories.