How to please critics – have a strong through-line

Post 15 of Dream, create and make money in the arts – My Series on becoming a Successful Creative
Whats your central message or theme? Does the story move and resolve somehow?

If you have been following this series from the start you will have a clear event and deadline  that you are creating for, if not no worries you can hop on the creative train here.

Your event, cabaret show, play all need to have a central theme. You can come at this from a few different angles.

You have to have a through line, a story arc and a sort of resolution, especially if you want great reviews. The critics love a through line. I know this as I have done plenty of shows without a strong through-line and got the attendant bad reviews. Not that we are chasing the press but a through-line and a story end, even if it is not expected leaves the audience with a nice happy feeling of being on a journey too along with the characters.

Or you can just sing songs or read poems you love or have written as long as you can link them well, again improvising a through-line.

Is there a group of songs you want to sing, do they have a central message – love, loss , friendship, weather?

I did a themed evening once where I did a show, a collection of stories and songs inspired by the brilliant film All About My Mother. I performed half the show, we then showed the film and then I did the second half of the show.
In retrospect I was half asleep after the film so  starting to sing I should have showed the film after but it was a really great evening. I did it in conjunction with Daniel Sparrow who was about to start producing the stage version of the film and we also linked it with Europride, the Gay Pride festival  in London so we gave some money from door receipts to the Pride charity.

Hence my starting point was the set theme, so I learnt two songs from the actual sound track of Almadovar. He has picked some beautiful music. I will always remember my guitarist Steve being convinced I was singing ‘record my ass’, rather than the actual lyric  “recordaras’  meaning ‘Remember’ in Spanish. I also sang some fairly diva, drag queen classics in line with the film and told some comic tales.
The evening was a great success, the audience had never seen a film and a cabaret show based on it, hey sipped champagne, enjoyed some cabaret and watched a film most of them had never seen

About this series – Being a Successful Creative – The Business of Creativity
 This is a series of daily blogs for you on how to dream up, build, market and sell a creative event, gig, festival, book launch, cabaret night, exhibition of rude plastic cupcakes or whatever creatively inspires you. It is time to create and put on that play about your family, a series of drawings about hedgehogs, the album you have talked about making or the short film you always wanted to write and make.