Tam Dean Burn
What are you doing for Scenes?
An excerpt from Venus As Aboy by Luke Sutherland. I adapted his novel into a one man show for NTS in 2007 and toured it following the story’s journey from St Margaret’s Hope in the Orkney Isles to Soho in London. Luke toured with me playing a score he created. He has composed a piece for the scene too.
The scene is a last message to camera from the main character in Venus who is dying, he believes, because he is turning to gold.
What are the constraints of performing in lockdown?
One of the constraints is fitting filming into our day whilst my partner works in the kitchen and our daughter does her home schooling in the living room. Luckily it’s a scene on a bed I’m shooting!
Have you done your own make-up and costumes, or had help from anyone in your household?
I’m only wearing pants so it’s just been a matter of choosing white or black ones. I’m experimenting with different make-up to bring a little gold sparkle to the scene. Some just arrived so I’m looking forward to trying them out.
How has the lockdown affected your work?
I’m having to rethink a play I’ve written and another novel adaptation. Both could perhaps benefit in some ways from the constraints, at least by beginning as online performances.
How has lockdown changed your life?
In many ways it’s similar to the fairly isolated life I led beforehand apart from the daily school pickup. But of course it has fundamentally changed things in ways we can’t even fully appreciate yet.
Are there any changes you will take forward? Having had pneumonia every year as a small child and an inherent weakness in my lungs I’m going to be very wary of exposing myself to the virus until there is a cure or vaccine.
How will coronavirus change the way we write/ act/view performance? Like with everything else, it will hopefully change us for the better in realising what is actually important and vital in life to face the even bigger challenges of climate change, which unlike the virus, we won’t get over if we don’t find world solutions fast.
What have you learnt in lockdown?
That more than ever we cannot afford capitalism any longer and that the world’s working class has the task of moving beyond it to a sustainable system that works in harmony with the rest of nature. That must begin with what’s abundantly clear from this crisis – we need workers to be in control of things, to put people and nature before profit.
What have you been watching, reading, and listening to?
We totally loved the series Babylon Berlin and Disney plus couldn’t have come at a better time! I’ve been sent some tracks by musician friends to put words to and I’ve begun reading/writing on a mosaic of memories.
Where would you like to be right now?
I’m totally happy where I am right now and wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else except right in the midst of the socialist revolution but maybe that’s exactly where we are!