Music for the Rose Theatre, Southbank's Fringe-Award winning 'Pawnography' is 10!

Pawnography is the award-winning play that gained cult (script) writer (turned journalist) Tracy Keeling her status as The Rose Theatre’s Writer-in-Residence. I was approached to produce an original score and on reading a few plages of the play I was completely hooked, touched, and inspired; it not only made me re-visit ideas, feelings, and imagery that I had long forgotten about working with, but it is also an intellectual tour de force, a perfect union of head and heart. As its title suggests, Pawnography is about the manipulation and fabrication of love, a love story told the wrong way, a story about the death of love.

Keeling specifically asked for songs that could be used to open and close the play, that the actors could sing within the play at particular points (& specifically in one scene), & which could also stand alone as an EP in its own right. This is exactly the kind of challenge I love.

It’s always special when you get to work on a commission that really makes you think and draws things out of you you didn’t know you had (like having to write one of the songs on a bus when I got too busy with other things). It’s even more special, and rare, to work on something that changes you as a composer - it was doing this that made me think about writing songs again and not just composing for and with other people/organisations; I listen back and it sounds like I can hear the roots of where I went with this. We now know that became part of a path I ultimately took, and I am immensely grateful for this project, which will always hold a special place in my life… I will always wish Keeling still wrote too.

As a final note, I don’t think it would be right to write about Pawnography without special thanks to Chris Lane, who worked tirelessly finishing the production on this when I unexpectedly had to take compassionate leave, & made it sound great; a massively underrated musician & colleague without whom this wouldn’t’ve happened.