“Well, you never said anything about a dead dog…” the man behind us whispered to his wife in an accusatory tone. “Or a garden fork!” He had a point. The stage at The Theatre Royal has been graced with many things since it opened in February 1837, but a dead dog, pierced right through with a garden fork must be among the most bizarre.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time tells the story of a teenage boy, Christopher John Francis Boone, who describes himself as “a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties.” We are never told precisely what Christopher’s disorder is, but instead are invited into his world, where we can see ordinary things in a different and surprising way.

The story tells us about Christopher’s family, his mother and his father, with whom he struggles to connect. And about his neighbour’s dog. Who has been killed in mysterious circumstances. Circumstances which Christopher intends to solve.

The novel on which the play is based was first published in 2003. It was remarkable for a number of reasons, the first being that two issues of the book were published, one for adults and one for children.

The second unusual aspect was the author’s use of first person narration. The book opens with the lines, “It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream.” The book also used prime numbers to mark its chapters.

Playwright Simon Stephens continued this bold and playful narrative style, allowing the characters to slip out of character and address the audience directly. This breaking of ‘the fourth wall’ of the stage allowed the actors to reflect on their scripts, on the characters they played and on the curious position they found themselves in.

With a few simple props: a train set; a desk; a chair and a stick of chalk, Christopher took us with him on his investigations. The stage became a suburban street, a crowded station, a silent exam room and, perhaps most memorably, a busy tube platform, complete with escaped rat and an oncoming train.

The stage play, adapted from the best selling novel, was brought to life with lights, choreography and pulsating music as Christopher made sense of the world around him. In the words of my daughter it was “A bit sweary Mum! And very fantastic.”

by Katherine Wildman © 2015

Katherine Wildman, Creative Director at Haydn Grey, www.haydngrey.co.uk. The friendly, professional and knowledgeable creative agency. Original writing, photography, web design and marketing to build your business. Let’s shake things up around here. Get in touch and say hello on 0191 289 3170. We’re registered with NBSL, so you could qualify for 40% off your new website, brochures or blogs.

I know when my son has friends over to the house as the air fills with chimes, bird song and the occasional quacking duck. It isn’t, however, like a scene from a Disney movie. The bluebirds don’t come and line up the giant shoes that fill the hallway or hang up the pile of hoodies that collects at the foot of the stairs. There aren’t even seven dwarfs as most of them tower over me.

Instead, the chimes are from the collection of phones and gadgets that seem to accompany them wherever they go. Alerts ring out as they climb the stairs, checking their screens as they disappear into the teenage den at the top.

So, it was with some trepidation that I leant across the seats at The Empire Theatre in Sunderland and whispered “Phones off guys!” as the violin music from the pit made its way up to our seats in the Gallery. Would they survive for three hours with no digital interruption?

We’d come to see Blood Brothers. Willy Russell’s award winning play, originally developed as a school play in conjunction with Merseyside Young People’s Theatre in 1982.

It’s a peculiar thing but of all the books I love, all the plays and poems I enjoy, it’s the ones that I studied at school that I hold dearest. Possibly because they’re the only ones where I had someone to explain what was actually going on – “Heart of Darkness and the Imperialist nightmare” anyone?

This year schools in the region are studying Blood Brothers, the story of two brothers, separated at birth by poverty and a mother’s desperation. The idea was to cement some of the learning that had been done crouched over wooden desks in hot classrooms with a bit of moonlight and magic and dance.

But would they sit still? Would they resist the lure of their phones?

As the curtains rose and the first song began the boys sat up straight and their eyes widened. We watched Mrs. Johnstone’s heart break as she gave away Edward, one of her twin babies, watched with wonder as the brothers reunited as young boys and then again as grown men – with fatal consequences.

And, apart from the slow motion movement of Malteser to mouth, the boys didn’t move. They remained focused and entranced. Facebook had nothing on this. Even Twitter couldn’t keep them still for three whole hours. And as we saw the tears pouring down the face of the big burly bald bloke in front of us my son turned to his mate and whispered “It WAS really, really sad wasn’t it? Just look at him!”

by Katherine Wildman © 2014

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.

Peter Mayle had his love affair with France. Bill Bryson is enamoured of the British Isles. Me? Me, I love Japan. I’m not quite sure when it started. Perhaps it has something to do with Clive James’ late night television shows about the Japanese game show ‘Endurance’. Perhaps it was Graham Norton’s trip to Hello Kitty land but my love is there and last month I was able to thoroughly indulge it.

It started with an exhibition of photography at Tate Modern on London’s South Bank by Daido Moriyama. Moriyama is an obsessive photographer of Japanese street life and I studied his work when I lived in Singapore a few years ago.

The exhibition was enormous. And magnificent. Moriyama’s images capture something so magical and fleeting about the minutiae of everyday life. From the cramped living conditions of young Japanese salarymen to the street life of Shinjuku district. I found myself sitting in front of a slideshow of his images with tears rolling down my face.

A video documentary that included an interview with the man himself at the end of the exhibition showed him, a non-descript middle aged man – wandering the streets of Shinjuku, holding up a compact camera and shooting above people’s heads into barbers shops and restaurants.

“My approach is very simple – there is no artistry, I just shoot freely.”

There were no piles of expensive equipment, just a compact camera – and a breathtakingly expert eye.

Later in the month a taste of Japan arrived – quite literally – in Newcastle with the showing of the film ‘Jiro Dreams of Sushi’ at the Tyneside Cinema. The film tells the story of the 85-year-old Michelin-starred sushi chef, Jiro Ono, and his lifelong quest to make the perfect piece of sushi.

Working at his restaurant ‘Sukiyabashi Jiro’, which lies beneath the Ginza subway station in Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Jiro has been declared “a national treasure” in Japan. The film features scenes from the incredible Tsukiji fish market in Central Tokyo, shows the months and years of training that goes into each piece of sushi that is served in his restaurant and follows Jiro’s two grown sons, Yoshikazu and Takashi, as they attempt to follow in their father’s footsteps.

I visited Japan in 2007 and was swept away by the beauty of the place. Not just in the hills around Mount Fuji but in the everyday. The stuff of Moriyama’s photographs: the signage in backstreet restaurants, the attention to the seasons – even the packaging of the wet wipes that accompanied our traditional breakfast. And, Oh! What a breakfast…

Just writing that has made me miss it all over again. Time to turn on the rice cooker and pull out my rolling mat and soy sauce. “Itadakimasu!”

by Katherine Wildman © 2013

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.