I just caught the end of Imagine on BBC One tonight.  It was about the trip that the Berlin Philharmonic made to Asia a few months ago.  There was a big hoo-ha about it as it was the first time a western orchestra had been allowed to play in China for donkey’s years.

I’ve been thinking a lot about things recently; about ‘having something to say’ when you’re making theatre, writing, whatever.  And more and more I’ve realised that it’s the things that really wind you, that knock you in the stomach and make you go ‘oof’, those are the things that matter.  And they can take you by surprise.  The sight of thousands of people in a square outside a concert hall shouting ‘SIMON! SIMON!’ to Simon Rattle was quite mind-blowing.  That classical music can still provoke an almost hysterical reaction in people.  The sound of the crunch moment in the first movement of Beethoven’s 3rd. The feeling I had watching The TEAM for the first time, or Forced Entertainment, or the Wooster Group (on video, natch), or listening to Radiohead, or Sibelius 5, or reading Toni Morrison, or watching The Chemical Brothers at Sonar.  It goes on – the magic moments, the spine-tingling, hair on the back of the neck moments.  That’s what makes me want to get up and make something.