Hello. My name is Kate. I am the Associate Director for Pentabus Theatre and I have been given the daunting task of writing the first proper blog for the new Pentabus website. I am feeling the pressure a little bit, having never written a blog before, but I think it is a case of just writing some words and seeing what happens. So far so good. And I am trying to avoid the overuse of exclamation marks, which I have a tendency to do….

So. I have been here for a little under three weeks, back in lovely Ludlow, to help out with PIGS, this year’s writers’ week, which finished last Friday and was I think rather a brilliant success. More of that later.

As I look out of the window over lamb filled fields, I feel pretty lucky to be here with Pentabus, particularly at this point in the Pentabus journey. It is busy. And exciting. A new website, their 35th year, a new play going to the Edinburgh Festival and then to TheatreSevern in Shrewsbury, several more in development….. it is all happening. I spent some time with the company about this time last year and this is the first time I have properly been back, with the official title of Associate Director. And I am completely thrilled to be a part of everything. Only thing I am not quite so thrilled about is my big shiny face on the website. Vain I know, but I actually have had emails from friends saying they have been quite terrified by it. A photo of less enormous proportions has now been taken and will replace massive head soon. Phew. Anyway. PIGS. Orla, the Artistic Director, spoke to me earlier in the year about this year’s writers’ week, and how it was going to focus on all things food, in particular, pork. It has been my job to seek out interesting people, visits, info, to feed to the writers during the week in the hope that they might be inspired, invigorated, compelled to find a story. Where to start? Well, with a lot of phone calls to farmers, food shops, abattoirs, food and drink festival organisers, butchers, restaurants, nutritionalists, chefs. Trying to convince them to let 6 writers rock up to their place of work and grill them about what they do. Orla befreinded the head chef of La Becasse, one of Ludlow’s Michelin starred restaurants, and after spending a day helping them out in the kitchen, mainly gutting fish, he said he would allow a writer a day to come and work in the kitchen. I did not get around to doing this, but after hearing about everyone’s experiences, and meeting all the chefs in the pub, I really want to go and do it. I return in June. I will do it then. If they will let me. Anyway, on the whole I was surprised at how willing people were to help us out. One butcher (wonderfully called Mr Tudge-bit of a local celebrity in the area apparently. Think it is all in the name.) accused me of ‘buttering him up with trowel’. Not sure about that, but my buttering worked and we spent the most fantastic couple of hours at his farm, riding on tractors, watching pigs cavort in the mud, sampling his freshly cooked bacon and talking about his life and his work. Other highlights included:
-Nosing around the writers’ accommodation. They stayed in apartments above where I am staying (a quirky little place I affectionately call ‘the cave’ (due to its lack of windows) all owned by the same lovely woman, who has a penchant for bizarre artwork and hanging dried hops on the ceiling. One of the rooms was huge, and had a beautiful big wardrobe in the centre. Nothing odd about that. Open the wardrobe and you discover a full and complete kitchen. Cooker, microwave, toaster, crockery, fridge, kettle, kitchen sink. I felt like I had walked onto the set of a play. So brilliant. And weird. I will attempt to upload some pictures so you can marvel at it also.
-Going to the Slow Food AGM (for networking purposes, not that exciting in itself) at the Feathers, a building that on the outside is just extraordinarily beautiful, all black and white timber, gorgeous, but is let down by a bar and restaurant that feels like a dingy roadside caff. But. The AGM was held in a room upstairs, and I had to hold back a gasp on entering as it was so amazing. Wood pannelled walls, low ceilings, roaring fire, I felt like I had been let into a secret room known only to members of Slow Food.
-Going to a pig farm and seeing pigs that were less than 24 hours old. All scrabbling around and crawling over each other to try and find the warmth. Someone in the group asking the farmer ‘don’t you just want to pick them up and hold them?’ Answer: ‘No’. Right. No time for sentimentality in this business as we were whisked from pig pen to pig pen, moving through the 7 stages of pig right up to seeing pigs that were due to be taken to the abattoir.
-Going to visit Douggie at his abattoir in Leintwardine. Walking into the tiny little shop, greeted with beautiful cuts of meat, jars of pickles and jams, the aroma of freshly cooked sausage rolls and watching a transaction between customer and butcher that took nigh on fifteen minutes. All she bought was some bacon. They had a lot to chat about. You don’t get that in London. Then being led out the back by Douggie, given a white coat and hat and trustingly following him into another building. Opening the door and being hit with the full on vision of animals being sawn in half with huge metal saws that dangled above us in true horror movie style, dripping with blood, when they were not in use. Knowing that these animals were alive not 20 minutes ago. Watching these men, engrossed in their job, skillfully cutting out innards, chopping off ears, the strange beauty of these carcasses as they are efficiently taken apart. I have never seen anything like it, particularly so close up, and I have to say it was a real education in many ways.
-Setting up a ‘taste workshop’ for the writers and after sampling a local cheddar, all agreeing that it was quite delicious and after mishearing the word ’round’ agreed it was quite obviously made from ‘rams’ milk.
-Eating. A lot. Mainly brownies. We had brownies on a daily basis. We had ones from the food centre, which were pretty bloody lovely, but not a patch on the ones we got from someone I know only as ‘Lucy from the market’. Oh my god. I cannot describe how amazing these were. Our enjoyment marred only slightly by John coming into work on Monday with a laminated picture of a brownie with the words 1 brownie=250 calories underneath it. It is now stuck on the cupboard door in the kitchen. Thanks John.
-My car window breaking and falling down into the door, ringing up Tim, one of the writers, who came to my rescue with a wire coat hanger and a plastic bag…..!
-Sitting around the table on the final day listening to where each writer’s head was at in terms of ideas and stories. A very special experience, listening to writers read their own work.

So. Perhaps this is enough for now. Lots more to say but I don’t want to overdo it on my first time.I feel like helping with PIGS has connected me to Ludlow in a way that I would not have been able to otherwise, engaging with people I wouldn’t usually meet, working out the networks that exist in the town and going to places that I would otherwise not think about going to. I look forward to my return in a few weeks, where I will be tootling around the countryside delivering workshops about our next show Origins.