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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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Anonymous asked: Have you watched Lupin? What did you think? (And are you a fan of the books or other adaptations of the character?)

The short answer is yes, I have seen Lupin on Netflix. Overall I enjoyed it so long as I suspended my disbelief at certain things.

Unfortunately it took being struck down by Covid and being bedridden for me to actually to binge watch the whole series. So I was behind the curve when my friends, French and those outside of France, started to talk about it around me. I had to beg them not to give away spoilers until I had seen it all.

It did surprise me that it won rave widespread reviews outside France because usually French drama series don’t travel very well outside of France. I’m sure even Netflix had no idea how successful it would be for them. I’m sure being in Covid lockdown had something to do with it. In any case I don’t begrudge its success as it’s well earned.

However I wasn’t too surprised that within France itself the French reviews were decidely mixed and divisive. The critic at Le Point painfully hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “Le plus gros défaut de l'ensemble reste la pauvreté des personnages, tous unidimensionnels, caricaturaux et aussi épais que du papier à cigarette.“ - loosely translated as, ‘the biggest flaw of the whole thing remains the poverty of the characters, all one-dimensional, cartoonish and as thick as cigarette paper’.

There’s a growing amount of good French stuff on TV and streaming services but a non-French audience will not have had the chance to have seen all of it yet. I can think of any number of French television drama/dramedy/cmedy series that are much better than Lupin with better plots, characters, and even a truer perspective of French society and even modern day France (Dix pour cent (Call My Agent!), Le Bureau des Légendes, Engrenages, Baron Noir, and Paris Police 1900). But you would be hard pressed to find anything that comes close to Lupin just for the sake of something fun to watch during the Covid lockdown.

What makes the current generation of home made French television series so interesting is how much of it is a reflection of France’s own anxieities about itself and its role in a increasingly English speaking dominating world. In a funny way it sees itself as defiant plucky Asterix fighting off the Roman American cultural hordes from totally invading their Francophone culture.

For sure, it has societal and racial issues stemming from its colonial legacy and issues of immigration and integration (France has the largest Muslim population in Europe). However it seems to want to ‘resolve’ these issues through the almost sacramental adherence to French secularist ideals rather than American inspired ideas of social justice and equity. There’s always been something very admirable about the French - from the time of General de Gaulle and perhaps before - always swinging from snooty ambivalence to outright antipathy towards the influence of American culture ‘americanising’ French culture (no to Walmarts or fast food chains for example).

Is it any wonder then that Netflix’s ill-conceived American series ‘Emily in Paris’ was widely hated and mocked within France for just perpetuating those lazy American tropes of Paris and French culture?

Personally I know Francophile Americans, long resident in Paris, who were frankly embarrassed and spent a lot of time apologising to their French friends. I have one American friend who has told me that she was so mad that she would have blind folded Emily and shoved her hard in the car boot and drive her all the way to the poorest of the banlieues in the grimey crime saturated suburbs of Paris - Seine-Saint-Denis came to mind - and dump her preening arse there. She would slap her and tell the spoilt entitied brat to make her own way back home - you know, to her spacious apartment in one of the most expensive arrondissements of Paris that of course(!) any American intern working for French marketing firms can afford.

I digress. My apologies. Watching this God awful show gives me PTSD.

Onto Lupin.

Thankfully Lupin doesn’t try to play to non-French tropes of what Paris is or isn’t. It does skim the surface of current discontents within French culture and society (race, class, power, and money) but ever so lightly so as to not get in the way of just spinning a good crowd pleasing yarn. It invites you to have fun and not to think too much. I have to be honest and say I enjoyed it as long as I suspended my disbelief here and there.

Lupin refers of course to the character Arsène Lupin, the French gentleman thief who stole jewellery from Parisian haute bourgeois and aristocracy at the turn of the century. Lupin, as written in the novels and short stories by Maurice Leblanc between 1905 and his death in 1941, was the archetypical anti-hero, a Robin Hood who stole from those who deserved it but kept the loot himself. He was often portrayed often a force for good, while operating on the wrong side of the law.

Lupin never really made much of an impact outside of France as he had within France where is revered with many French film and television adaptations. In England, we already had a Lupin type character in the form of A.J. Raffles, a cricket playing gentleman thief with his aristocratic side kick, Bunny. E.W. Horning’s stories of Raffles’ daring heists proved to be quite popular with the British public when Raffles first appeared on the scene in 1898. And even later Leslie Charteris’ The Saint took over the mantle from Raffles as the gentleman thief/adventuring Robin Hood.

I think Hollywood tried to introduce him to an English speaking audience (legendary actor John Barrymore even played him) but he didn’t really take off and eventually they found their gentleman thief archetype in Sir Charles Lytton aka The Phantom (played by David Niven and Christopher Plummer) in the Pink Panther movies. So Lupin never got the English audience he deserved.

I first got wind of who Arsène Lupin was when I was growing up in Japan as a child. As strange as it sounds Lupin was big in Japan especially after World War Two. The Japanese did their own take on the Lupin character using Japanese actors and plot lines but it was Lupin.

I don’t know how exactly but I remember watching these scratchy DVDs of these Lupin inspired films. I think it was one of my parents’ Japanese friends who was mad for all things Lupin and he had studied French literature in France. Jogging my memory I now recall these black & white films were done in the 1950s. One starred Keiji Sada and the other version I remember was with Eija Okada (he was in Resnais’ classic film, Hiroshima Mon Amour) as Arsene Lupin called (I think) Kao-no Nai Otoko. I didn’t understand most of it at the time because it was all in Japanese and my Japanese (at the time) was pitiful, but it looked fun.

There was even a Japanese manga version of Lupin which was called Lupin III, - so named because he was the grandson of the real Arsène Lupin.

The 1960s manga series spawned generations of TV series which I do remember watching and finding it terribly exciting if somewhat confusing.

It was French expatriate friends whom my family knew that introduced me to the real Arsène Lupin. They had a few of the books authored by Maurice Leblanc. It was in French so I read them to improve my French but enjoyed the story along the way.

I also remember them showing me scratchy episodes of the 1970s Franco-German TV series ‘Arsène Lupin’ with the monocle wearing Georges Descrières in the lead role. It was a classical re-telling of the adventures of the aristocratic gentleman-burglar and very family friendly viewing. I don’t really remember much of it to be honest.

It was some years before I actually started to read more of the Maurice Leblanc’s novels and short stories collection. I have them all now. I was a teen and I remember being stuck in a snowed in a Swiss Alpine chalet and with nothing else to do but pull out a few dog eared books from the bookshelves belonging to our French host and read to pass the time.

I read Les Dents du tigre, Arsène Lupin vs Herlock Sholmes, and Les Huit Coups de l'horloge and thoroughly enjoyed them in the original French. I was already reading classic detective and mystery novels (Sherlock Holmes, Poirot etc) so it was natural to read the adventures of Arsène Lupin.

I haven’t got around to reading all the novels and short stories but I have read most of them and I enjoyed them all immensely. In the same way Conan Doyle, through Holmes and Watson, manages to conjure a convincing picture of late Victorian and early Edwardian England, so Leblanc manages to give us a taste of Belle Epoque France through the eyes of his suave gentleman-thief, Arsène Lupin.

Indeed it's a lot like reading Sherlock Holmes in that you're always trying to figure out how he did it, but the difference is that you are rooting for the bad guy. You can’t help but be drawn to this gentleman thief who is charming, comic, playful, and romantic and generous. Lupin is not an intellectual puzzle-solver but first a master criminal, later a detective helper, who maintains his curious ethics throughout his adventures. In this regard he is very much the anti-Sherlock Holmes; and I wasn’t disappointed when I actually read the story where Lupin faces off with Holmes himself. Brilliant!

I’ve also seen the 2004 French movie with Romain Duris in the Lupin lead role and it also starred the majestic Kristin Scott Thomas and the sexy Eva Green.

It was a decent adventure flick and it was a clear confluence of different Lupin novels (The Queen's Necklace (introducing Lupin's childhood), The Hollow Needle (where the treasure is the macguffin of the story), The Arrest of Arsène Lupin (the gala on the ship as a backdrop) and Josephine Balsamo, (one of Lupin’s most memorable opponents in the The Countess Of Cagliostro).

Romaine Duris, a fine classical actor, was I felt miscast because he didn’t have Lupin’s levity of wit and be at ease within himself. I love Duris in his other films but in Arsène Lupin and even in his other film, Moliere, he seemed ill at ease with the role. Perhaps that’s just me.

The latest Netflix adaptation (or reimagining to be more precise) is a welcome addition to the world of Arsène Lupin.If you don’t over-think it, it’s bags of fun.

Omar Sy is immensely likeable. Sy is a deservedly a big star in France - he won the best actor César for “The Intouchables,” an international hit - and has played forgettable secondary characters in big-budget American special effects movies (he was Chris Pratt’s assistant in “Jurassic World” and a minor mutant in “X-Men: Days of Future Past”). It was reportedly his desire to play Arsène Lupin, whom he’s compared to James Bond (“fun, funny, elegant”), that led to the series, created by British writer George Kay. And it is on his charm that the series largely, though not entirely, rests.

So the basic story revolves around a jewellery heist. Sy plays Assane Diop, a first-generation French-Senegalese man in contemporary Paris. A collection of Lupin stories, a gift from his father - whose undeserved fate Assane set himself to avenge in long-delayed, Count of Monte Cristo style upon a criminal tycoon - has made the actual Lupin books a foundation of his life and profitably illicit career. This fan-ship goes as far as borrowing practical ideas from the stories and constructing aliases out of anagrams of “Arsene Lupin,” a habit that will attract the interest of a low-level police detective (Soufiane Guerrab as Youssef Guedira) who shares Assane’s love of the books. (That the detective also shares an initial with Lupin’s own adversary, Inspector Ganimard, is possibly not a coincidence.)

Among the many comic delights of Lupin, is an unspoken one. Time and again, the show’s hero, master thief Assane Diop is able to slip into a place unnoticed, or by assuming a minor disguise that prevents witnesses from providing an accurate description of him to law enforcement.

Why is this funny?

Because Omar Sy is six feet three (and, since most actors are short, seems even taller), is roughly as wide as soccer pitch, and is memorable even before he flashes his infectious million-Euro smile. This is not a man for whom anonymity should be possible - even allowing for racial bias in a majority-white country, Assane would be memorable and distinctive - and Lupin seems cheekily aware of this. Like the various incredible sleights of hand Assane deploys to pull off his thefts and escapes, his ability to be anyone, anywhere, is treated more as a superpower than as something even the world’s greatest criminal would be able to pull off.

At one point, when he’s slated for a cable news appearance as a much older man, we learn that Assane is also a master of disguise. The revelation of this skill arrives with a wink in the show, and it feels pointless to ask where he learned it, or how he affords movie-quality latex and makeup. Or rather, asking the question feels wrong.

We know this is impossible, the show seems to be asking its viewers again and again, but isn’t it so much fun?

The performances and the production - it has that particularly European filmic quality of feeling natural even when it gets stylish - keep the series warm even as the plot is made up of incredulous contraptions that require everything to go right at just the right time and for human psychology to be 100% predictable. Its physics are classical rather than quantum, one might say, and like the world itself, which becomes more curious the deeper you peer into things, it is best handled along the surface. You do not want to take too much time working out the likelihood of any of this happening. Just go along for the ride.

Somehow, though, it all works because Sy is so magnetic and charming that questioning plot logic feels wildly besides the point. Though he never looks appreciably different in his various aliases (including one ill-conceived live-TV appearance done under old-man makeup and a thick beard), he changes his posture and voice ( if you watch it in French that is) enough to allow for the willing suspension of disbelief, in the same way that any lead actor as Superman has to do when playing Clark Kent. But Sy and the show are at their strongest when Assane is just being his own Superman self, utterly relaxed and confident in his own skin, and so captivating that his ex-partner, Claire, can’t really resist him despite ample reason to.

If Assane seems practically perfect in every way, he is not perfectly perfect. His most obvious failing is that his criminal shenanigans and revenging make him less than reliable in his daily life, affecting his relationships with ex-partner Claire (Ludivine Sagnier, whom non-French audiences might recognise from “The Young Pope” and “The New Pope”), who despairs of his inability to show up on time to see his son Raoul (Etan Simon). Like Sy, Sagnier brings a lot of soul to her part - though onscreen far less, she’s as important as Sy to the series’ success - and the two actors have great chemistry. Also impressive and key to creating sympathy are the actors who play their flashback teenage selves, Mamadou Haidara and Ludmilla Makowski. Really, you could do away with action elements and build a series around them.

This is a pity because Lupin often fumbles its emotional reveals in other parts - the story of Diop being torn between his job and his family feels like wheel-spinning, rather than genuine emotional intrigue.

Soufiane Guerrab is wasted in the Young Detective Consumed by the Case role and spends most of this season pinning colour printouts of book covers to cork boards and getting waved off by his colleagues, who are all blinded or otherwise hampered by careerism.

But to my mind the weakest link is the villain himself and his daughter. Veteran actor Hervé Pierre hams it up as Hubert Pellegrini, a business tycoon who is the patriarch of the Pellegrini family. He just comes across as animated cartoon villain with no character depth (think moustache twirling Russian villain, Boris Badenov, in the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon shows). He just emotes anger a lot without any nuance or hint of complexity.

Even Clotilde Hesme who plays the daughter who is unaware of her father’s criminal tendencies is miscast. For the record I adore Clotilde Hesme as she one of France’s most talented classical actresses (that non-French outsiders will not have heard of). She is a classically theatre trained actress and is one of the best stage actresses of her generation that I have ever seen. I’ve seen her in plays where she is just mesmerising. She has said before that she’s more comfortable on the stage than she is on the screen. And when she has been on screen she still has been a powerful presence. She’s actually won a César too. Here in Lupin, she seems to have no agency and looks bored with nothing really to do.I really hope they give her more scenes in the next part of Lupin.

The series is at its best when following Diop enacting his plans, and when revealing each one from a different vantage, making us privy to every moving part like a magician revealing his secrets. The show captures the momentum of a clockwork heist, the tension of sudden obstacles and the ingenuity of improvised responses, with thrilling precision (especially in “Chapter 1 - Le Collier de la reine,” directed by Now You See Me’s Louis Leterrier).

Lupin is also politically incisive when it wants to be; it brings to mind Ladj Ly’s Oscar-nominated 2019 film Les Misérables, which adapted the broad strokes of Victor Hugo’s novel about the 1832 Paris Rebellion, and modernised the story by focusing on the police brutality faced by non-white Parisians.

Lupin opens with Diop disguised as cleaning staff and entering the Louvre after-hours, alongside dozens of forgotten, anonymous non-white workers as they pass by “La Liberté guidant le people,” Eugène Delacroix’s famous painting of the July Revolution of 1830 which replaced France’s hereditary rule with popular sovereignty.

Before any semblance of plot or character, Lupin centres broken ideals and promises unkept (without giving too much away, the show’s primary villain has much more nationalistic view of French culture and history which merely adds to a cartoonish caricature than a complex character). The rest of the episode is about valuable jewels once owned by Marie Antionette - one of the most recognisable symbols of wealth and extravagance in times of extreme poverty - which are put up for auction by the Pelligrini family, and bid on by other wealthy collectors with bottomless purses and no sense of irony.

Granted, beyond this auction subplot, explorations of race and class are largely limited to individual interactions, but the show continues to refer back to (and implicitly comment on) its source material in ways that wink at the audience. An elderly, unassuming target of Diop’s schemes seems like an unlikely victim at first - Diop, though he acts in his own self-interest, usually displays a moral compass - until this victim reveals the colonial origins of her wealth, immediately re-contextualising the ethics of the situation, in a manner that Leblanc’s stories did not. (The show is yet to apply this lens to Arsène Lupin himself, who Diop treats with reverence, but that’s a secondary concern since Lupin is entirely fictional in-world).

Barring some nagging structural problems - like cutting to flashbacks when things are getting exciting, or epilogues that feel ten minutes too long - Lupin mostly works. It plants a few personal seeds early on, which it keeps hinting at without fully addressing, but by the time its scattered elements come into focus, the show finally figures out how to weave them together, and delivers a mid-season cliffhanger that renders many of these flaws irrelevant.

Lupin manages to have fun even with an antiquated premise - the story of a suave con-man who charms his way through high-profile robberies - while adding just enough new spin on the concept to feel refreshing. Omar Sy may not have much to work with, but his alluring presence makes Assane Diop feel like a worthy successor to Arsène Lupin.

Lupin isn’t going to win César, BAFTA, or Emmy awards, or even turn heads for its ability to develop tertiary or even secondary plots or characters - that doesn’t really matter. You’re there to see a difficult hero be difficult and heroic - everyone else is there to be charmed, vexed, or eluded by them. Sy’s performance bounds off the screen, and is almost musical. He floats through scenes like he glides over the roofs and through the back alleys of Paris; he outmanoeuvres his foes with superior literary references and sheer athleticism. He is irresistible and also good at everything he tries, even kidnapping.

I would encourage anyone to watch Lupin for a fun care free ride. But the only caveat I would make is watch it in the original French.

If you don’t know French then put on the subtitles to understand (that’s what they are there for). The real crime is to watch this (or any film or television series) dubbed in a foreign language. It’s disrespectful to the actors and film makers and it’s silly because it’s comical to watch something dubbed over.

Please watch it in the original French.

Then go and read the books. You won’t regret it.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #lupin #omar sy #netflix #tv show #culture #personal #arsene lupin #japan #maurice leblanc #france #french #society #arts

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creativemorningsedinburgh · 5 years

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#CMEdi Speaker Catch-up: Hazel Johnson

In Edinburgh, since 2014, the month of May has signalled a creative pilgrimage. A flocking of creatively inclined folks, forming community and reclamation at Hidden Door Arts festival. In September of last year, we had the good fortune to welcome their director, Hazel Johnson, as a speaker at CreativeMornings Edinburgh!

Fresh out of their 2018 line-up, Hazel and her team were still wiping the sweat from their brows - whilst simultaneously running an emergency campaign to secure the future of the festival. Since then, the Save Hidden Door campaign has achieved phenomenal success, thanks to donors, volunteers, and community ralliers just like you!

So, here we are, in May of 2019. The stellar Hidden Door Arts Festival 2019 line-up launched, with tickets on the go, and a whole new round of fun in store for the creative city that is our home. What better time to catch up with Hazel, reflecting on her introduction to our CMEdi community, and all of the inspiring things that have taken place since!

Photography by Suzanne Heffron 📷

Audrey: Hey everybody! Audrey here, with Hazel of Hidden Door Arts, following up on our CreativeMornings Edinburgh event last September - where Hazel was our speaker, on the theme of ‘Chaos’!

So, it’s been a fair few months now…

Hazel: Yeah, a while ago now!

Audrey: A good amount of time for many things to have happened. And, perhaps, some positive, productive reflection?

Hazel: More chaos!

Audrey: Oh, I bet! It’s all looking great though!

So, thinking back, to the preparation for your talk - can you give us a little insight into how you went about that?

Hazel: I had a really useful phone call with Alex (CMEdi host), talking through the theme, event, Hidden Door, and the spaces that CreativeMornings Edinburgh community create. My paid employment also gives me a lot of experience in giving lectures and presentations. So, I wasn’t too phased.

The nice thing about having the opportunity to chat to Alex on the phone was that she painted a picture of what exactly it might be like, and managed my expectations of crowd size. And, even little things, like with the length of the presentation, knowing that it was ok to run over a wee bit. So, preparation wasn’t too much, but just enough. To set the scene like that with me, it was really good.

I also really appreciated that training was offered. Had I wanted or needed it, the fact that that was something I could have pursued was very, very good actually.

Audrey: I’m so glad that the chat with Alex was so helpful, and that you weren’t very nervous about speaking to us all.

It would be great to hear about the lectures and talks you give with your work, too. Can you give us a little insight into this experience?

Hazel: That sounds a little bit grand! *laughter*

So, my job is with Historic Environment Scotland. In project management and policy review. There’s a lot of going out and speaking, letting people know about what we’re doing. Or at least there has been that element of talks over the course of the projects that we’re doing. As well as facilitating workshops, and that kind of public interaction.

On top of that, I get asked to talk about Hidden Door fairly regularly. More so over the last two years. For example, I do an annual talk for students of the Festival & Events Management course at Edinburgh Napier University.

It’s experiences like these that make the process of getting up in front of a very friendly bunch - which the CreativeMornings Edinburgh crowd definitely are - very easy.

Photography by Suzanne Heffron 📷

Audrey: We were are all very excited to see you!

Hazel: Yeah, it was great! The reception was wonderful. It was a very stimulating environment to be invited into. Lot’s of interested people, and at that time in the morning there were some very interesting faces as well... everybody seemed a lot more awake than I was!

Audrey: We’re always really keen - even from the queuing, on our way in!

Hazel: Oh yeah, that queue!

Audrey: It was amazing. Early risers, all so eager to see you!

Hazel: It was crazy! Awesome… Good queue CMEdi! *laughter*

Audrey: Yeah, that was pretty special! Good queue folks!

Was that at all what you were expecting? Even just in general - the people, the vibe?

Hazel: There were probably more people there than I expected, which is good!

With the vibe, I didn’t know what to expect - but it was so much warmer than I could have expected. I know that sounds like quite an undefinable thing… I expected it to be a group of interesting people, but I wasn’t really sure why, or how much, they would want to hear about Hidden Door. But, actually, they were all super, super interested from the word go.

The sea of faces was a very warm and receptive one, so it was all even better than I had expected. It was a particularly welcoming environment.

Photography by Suzanne Heffron 📷

Audrey: So, that was your first time at CreativeMornings?

Hazel: It was! And with the added bonus of being able to hang-back and hang-out with members of the community, after the talk.

Audrey: Oh, that was so lovely. It meant a lot to us all!

So, looking from the outside in, before you’d been to the event, what was your impression of CreativeMornings Edinburgh?

Hazel: It was really good! I don’t think you could improve the way you convey the real nature of the events and community. You facilitated enough information for me to go and look up what the event might look like. Seeing the photos of previous events, and the way that this is all connected to a much wider, international group of talks. There was a lot of great information available so I could ready myself!

Audrey: So, when you were up on that stage in that moment - you’ve already said that there were lots of happy, smiling faces looking back at you. How did you feel? Did you feel like you were all of a sudden part of a community?

Hazel: I would say I felt like I was speaking to a community, which I could readily become a part of when I join at more events. I absolutely intend to come to them in future!

But, the “speaking to a community” absolutely didn’t change the fact that I felt welcome. I felt a part of it.

An interesting thing for me, when I’m giving a talk, is that it’s almost form of performance isn’t it? So, there’s possibly a line drawn; but that’s my own line that I’m drawing, rather than one that was drawn by somebody else, for me.

Audrey: And, now, you’re not up on the stage. You’re a part of the community… we feel that!

Hazel: Oh, I have made made to feel that, too. Absolutely!

Certainly, being invited to join everyone for coffee afterwards, the newsletters that I now have signed up to and get - it also helps that I work with Chloé, one of your organising team members! And Chloe is an absolute Diamond of a person!

I would definitely say it’s something I feel I am now a part of.

Photography by Suzanne Heffron 📷

Audrey: Were there any special moments during your morning with us? Perhaps even interactions or things that came about as a result that stand out to you?

Hazel: Oh yes. The interactions on the day, with yourself included. Everybody was so welcoming! Briana, Alex, and you. And, the chap on camera and audio…

Audrey: Oh, Callum!

Hazel: Yes, he was great. He had to come and hook me up for the microphone, and test. But he did it in a very natural way.

When I’m doing presentations, one thing that can freak me out is being mic’d up. Not because I don’t like being amplified, it’s because of the idea that I might break the equipment, or it might go wrong. Because, you can be fairly confident about what you’re saying, but to roll with the punches of the technological failures is something that everybody is perhaps a bit more concerned about.

So, he made that whole process really easy. Which is nice. It might seem like a small thing, but, you know… going in, as the first thing in your morning, that was - for me - quite an important part.

Also, the coffee! Absolutely important! Then, afterwards, quite a few people stayed back to talk to me, ask questions, and chat about the content of the talk. One or two potential opportunities potentially, also, came out of it.

Overall, it’s so very worthwhile. Oh, and! I got invited to do Creative Circles, about a month later. And Morvern [the organiser] was really upfront - she said “Off the back of your talk, would you mind coming and doing another talk!” She’s fantastic.

Audrey: That’s fab! So, would it be right to guess that you might recommend others join in at CreativeMornings?

Hazel: Yes. Hands-down, definitely. As a speaker, and more generally as part of the community. I can’t wait to get more involved.

Audrey: Were there any other highlights to the experience of the morning?

Hazel: That venue was a really nice environment for taking part. In the number of times that I’ve been to the Fruitmarket Gallery, it was nice to go there and feel like I was actually contributing something, as well as going there and looking at all of the other amazing stuff that everyone else is always doing.

These are very important spaces, for people to go, learn, and see things. I felt like I was a part of that - on this particular morning, especially.

Audrey: That’s a very interesting way of looking at it. When we do a talk in a museum or gallery, recognising that it all of a sudden becomes a contributor to the space. Not just a sense of being visitors. That’s really special.

Hazel: Along with breakfast. It was amazing! Everyone was just really going for it.

Audrey: Oh yeah, those mini breakfast taco-bowls and beautiful cakes, they were flying off the tables! Thank you Homespun Kitchen!

Photography by Suzanne Heffron 📷

Hazel: There was also the ice-breaker activity. With the theme of ‘Chaos’, everyone took someone else’s name badge, going on to either find the owner of the badge or become who they imagined them to be. That was really, really fun.

Thanks to Alex for coming up with that idea, and getting me to contribute in on it. I can imagine there’s a lot of fun to be had when you create ice-breakers like that for different themes and speakers!

Audrey: Something that we see after events, related to the more personal level for individuals, is a shift in perspective. About creativity, community, and themselves. Related to that, how did you walk away feeling, after spending the morning with us?

Hazel: That’s a really interesting question actually. I think I always find that preparing a talk does focus your mind slightly. Now, the theme obviously means that you’re writing it with an angle, perhaps. Or, a steer. But, with what we’d just come out of with Hidden Door, has been a huge period of uncertainty - and I hadn’t given a presentation or talk since the festival in May 2018. Usually I give tours and presentations during the festival, but we came out of that festival with quite a lot of debt - despite it being hugely successful. This meant we had leapt straight into fundraising, right after.

So, being able to almost press pause on that train of thought, and look over all of the previous years’ successes, and challenges; all of it together was a really nice way of resetting myself, and my approach to the organisation. We’ve been in emergency mode. To be able to talk and, I guess, reignite my own enthusiasm for the project - that preparing of the presentation was actually quite meditative. A really good opportunity for me to stop and go “You know what? Yeah. Of course. This is why we do this.” It doesn’t matter that we had to go out and find funding.

Being right in the middle of the ‘Save Hidden Door’ fundraising campaign in September 2018, when doing the CreativeMornings Edinburgh talk, was pretty much the beginning of when we were having to sit down and figure it all out. So, it was good.

It reignited my optimism, because it felt familiar. It was nice to be able to talk about something we had been working on for 5 years, and frame it in a way that said “This is a really special and important thing to me” and, as it turns out, to a lot of other people, too.

Audrey: Quite a few members of your team came along, with you. Did that make it seem like a team day? A kind of celebration, and reflection?

Hazel: I didn’t put it on them to come along, so it was incredibly lovely to have them there. Although, it did heighten my fear that I would say something wrong about their areas of expertise at Hidden Door! *laughter*

Within our team, everyone one is so skilled and dedicated, and has a lot of autonomy over the different things that they do. For example, I don’t do any of the content.

But, no, it was so nice that they came along. That’s one of the nice things about Hidden Door; we are very supportive of each other’s endeavours. I did say to them “Please do come, by all means! But, can you sit at the back? So I don’t have to look at you?” *laughter* That is one of the few things when I’m giving a talk… what will make me a little bit nervous is when there’s people I know really, really well in the audience. It’s the only thing that can really rattle me!

Nevertheless, a particularly lovely thing was that some of our events volunteers came along, as well as members of the core team. These were volunteers who had just done stewarding shifts at the festival, along with some people who had asked if they could be involved in future, so they could learn more about it. And, we had people come along who had worked with Hidden Door in previous years.

While I knew, with some confidence, that I’d see hands go up in the air when I asked “Who in the room knows Hidden Door, or has been to Hidden Door?”, I was overwhelmed at just how many hands would go up in the air. It was lovely to see those familiar faces, and catch-up with a few folk that I hadn’t seen in a while.

Audrey: It sounds like you have a fundamental understanding of that special vibe we find so hard to describe, in the context of CreativeMornings. Sure, Hidden Door has a different cycle in time, and magnitude per occurrence, but it has that ‘special something’. You’ve done that. You’ve got people giving their time, and wanting to see you again.

Hazel: Yeah, absolutely. There’s something that, whenever we get a new influx of volunteer stewards - there will be brand new people, but there also will be people who said “my friend can’t come this year, but they said I should definitely come and do it, because they had such a good time previously.” or something like that. And then, you have the people that keep coming back.

And, when you really look at it, what we’re asking people to do is invigilate artwork, or steward drunk people. They get perks, and hopefully get a lot out of it. We try and work it so that they do. But, we’re asking something of them, and yet they come back! I’m always just a bit like “Wow! I can’t believe you’re here again!”, and it does remind you that people are good. People are really good!

There are people out there who just like doing something because it’s a good idea. Rather than necessarily thinking “oh well, what am I going to get out of this?”. Sure, they might get some free tickets, but, in the grand scheme of things, their time is so valuable. I’m always very aware and appreciative of that.

Photography by Suzanne Heffron 📷

Audrey: Do you have any messages you would like to send out to the CreativeMornings community, local and global?

Hazel: I would love to send out my thanks. Thank you for thinking of me, inviting me to contribute to your community and space. It was such a beautiful experience.

Also, for the opportunity to shout about the work we were doing specifically around the fundraising. The awareness raising of the festival and organisation is great. It looks big and shiny from the outside, so to be able to talk people through how it actually happens - that it is all volunteer run - is no small thing. Thank you for that, as well.

Thank you so much to Hazel for taking the time to catch-up with us, and for sharing these incredibly valuable behind-the-scenes insights!

If you’re in Edinburgh between 30th May and 2nd of June, 2019, make sure to make time to head on down to Hidden Door, at Leith Theatre! There’s visual art and performances, both filling and surrounding the venue, all free for you to explore. As well as a mind-blowing array of night-time performances, for which tickets are flying off the digital shelves - grab yours on their website at hiddendoorblog.org/tickets/

If you can’t be there this year, cure the FOMO by following them on instagram @HiddenDoorArts, on Twitter @HiddenDoorArts, and on Facebook @HiddenDoor 📲🎨

#CreativeMornings #Edinburgh #CMChaos #Creative #Community #HiddenDoor #CMEdi #Interview

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