In the bedroom of my Balham flat, growing up in the 60s, I’d always have a night-light on. I’d have one on now, but at 63 I’m 99% certain the Bogeyman doesn’t exist. I would, with the light’s reflection, enact shadow dramas onto my bedroom wall.
My dramas would involve a rabbit’s ears, Dennis the Menace and a pre-historic bird with a beak which could open and close.
In my teenage years I travelled one night with my mum to Hampton Court to watch a son et lumière (with Balham’s café society being like Paris in the 70s, it was the natural thing to do).
The drama employed actors whose silhouette were the only thing you’d see; they depicted some violent scene from the life of Henry VIII.
After this, I decided my career lay in film direction, using only silhouette. I felt I could create anything – except The Invisible Man.
Returning, excited, to my bedroom that night, I hurried to bed early, turned on my Flopsy Bunny night-light and felt like Balham’s answer to Sergio Leone.
In my bedroom, in total darkness save for a forty-watt bulb, I thought Shakespeare would be the best place to start. I’d started to study him at school and felt my wall would do him justice. It was at this point when I realised that there are no rabbits, birds or Dennis the Menaces in any Shakespeare play – except the opening scene of Macbeth when all three are ingredients in the witches’ cauldron.
But, as we say in Balham, je regrette rein (looks like rain)
Micky's Up blog 