Lenny Lives

This is exciting. I’ve just spent another day with the human embodiment of my fictional character, Lenny Gillespie. This is the actor Lisa Farren who will be joining me on Monday 20th August at the Edinburgh International Book Festival for a schools event in the Peppers Tent for Mavis's Shoe. Can’t wait. We will have action and noise, including some especially loud explosions. There will be an ARP helmet to try on and some very interesting slides (in my opinion).

Lisa makes an excellent Lenny. She seems to catch what Lenny is going through with extraordinary sensitivity. It’s the most peculiar thing hearing someone you made up saying the words you made up for them. Last year at the time of the launch we did a grander version using five actors and a sound technician. Lisa was part of that too. It worked well. This year we are just me and Lisa and it feels tight and fluent.

The picture above is last year’s cast in WH Smith in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, where we did a three person version. That's Lisa/Lenny on the right with all the scars. The people of WH Smith were lovely and so no doubt were the pipe band playing outside the door, but the two in such close proximity were unusual and difficult. But as you can see we survived and conquered.