23.

It is, to be specific, 10.15pm Friday 21st May as I write these words. I’m in a different hotel room further downtown and I can barely hear the signals of central Manchester on a Friday evening above the noise of the aircon. Both the ice machines in the hotel are broken so I’m drinking warm diet Coke. It’s diet Coke because exactly a year ago in yet another hotel in Manchester I did the home test that revealed that I had become diabetic. All this is instantly, specifically, the case. I’ve just done the last performance of a new piece called Where You Stand which is partly made out of a collaborative blog. Working in that way reflects the question that burns most ardently for the moment. How can the work I make speak in high fidelity to the complexity of how we now live and the almost overwhelming challenge to work towards living better, in a way that feels less violent, less exploitative, more equitable, more joyfully queer? For the last couple of years I’ve had three tenets in mind, that I try to make every piece of work conform to. I thought I’d have improved on them by now, but I haven’t. I’ll finish up by talking about those.