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Lee McShane: It's all just about Trial and Error!
17 Plays2 days ago
This month my guest is Lee McShane!
Join us as we talk about his writing! We go in depth on some of his poetry work like his two chapbooks ‘The House Built From Shadows’ and ‘Raised in April’.
We also talk about his role in Westovian theatre’s upcoming production of Cluedo, where Lee plays Reverend Green, as well as various other projects he’s been involved in as an actor, writer and film-maker.
Finally, we end with some talk about Brooklyn 99 and how great an example it is of being both funny and well intentioned.
Theme Song: Adam Sams
Show Logo: Craig Pearson
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to What Makes It Tick. This is an interview podcast where I, Ryan Watson, speak to actors, writers, filmmakers and a range of other artists from the northeast of England and sometimes beyond about what they do, how they make it work and the media that inspires them to do that work.
00:00:32
Speaker
With me this month is Lee McShane. Lee is a writer, actor and filmmaker. His poetry has appeared in anthologies such as Black Eyed Publishing's Rise of the Badger and The Great Shrubbery, Poetic Edges Away With the Fairies and multiple volumes of the Mulcombe Poetry Festival anthology. He's released two chat books last year's The House Built from Shadows and the very recent Raised
Acting and Producing Journey
00:00:52
Speaker
in April. He's challenging himself to complete supernatural horror novella Trapped by Halloween and on top of all this he appears as an actor in upcoming films on Malevolent World and Resurgence by Atlas Films and he'll be playing Reverend Green Westovian Theatre's upcoming production of Cluedo. He's also been involved as a producer on short films such as Suspicious Minds and The Robbery and Music Video Road Trip.
00:01:13
Speaker
Lee, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having us. What was weird help when people read only biotech? Oh God. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That was a, it was actually one of the the hardest intros I've had to write for a while. Cause I would just like, Oh damn, there's there's so much. How do I, how do i make this coherent? I mean, how are you doing? Yeah.
00:01:31
Speaker
all good? i'm good yeah' i will see it's it's busy with rehearsals for clodle because we're open in two weeks time it's fullon rehearsal more full on getting everything ready we've only been rehearsing for about two weeks i think
Path to Acting and Screenwriting
00:01:48
Speaker
since we got cowed and started rehearsal when he had five weeks to actually gave them to gall before the shore opened So it's probably one of the shortest times I've had to prepare for a show, but um ah I love the challenge. I really do. That's like a really quick turnaround, and um I feel like yeah you're quite busy with other things as well. am, yeah. Definitely got lot of me crazy. Also, I needed to mention before we start questions that you're part of an elite club, which is people that I've talked to on the podcast who have previously stabbed to death.
00:02:17
Speaker
Oh, my God, yes. Yes. I think there's three people. I think there's three people, including you so far, who's been on that I stabbed to death, all in that same film. Check out Malevon World, guys. It's going fun. Yes, it's coming. It's coming ah this, well, next month, but it'll be this month by the time the episode is out. Yeah, I stopped mentioning it for a little bit because it was mentioned on every episode I did.
00:02:41
Speaker
But yes, there might there might even be a secret little tie-in on my podcast then ah in a couple of weeks. ah Who can say? um But ah yeah, I guess ah so my first question is always just, can you tell me about your background? Because I know you do a lot of writing and a lot of acting.
00:03:00
Speaker
I've also been in films that you there as ah as a filmmaker behind the camera. um So how how did one thing lead to other and where did you sort of start with it all? It's a long story that everything connected. i got into acting to start with when I was 10 years old.
00:03:16
Speaker
And I'd done like school players in you know nativities before that, with primary school. It was never anything fancy. I was a sheep. I was ah this person, this person. It was never anything that sort of captured my interest until... and In my primary school, every before you leave school, every year, six class did this big on production.
00:03:39
Speaker
And the one my class did was a mix of... a Dad's Army episode and it stage adaptation of a Nightingale song, a film about World War II.
00:03:54
Speaker
And played the granddad in that and I didn't really know what I was doing.
Poetry and Creative Writing
00:04:00
Speaker
All I knew is messed around in rehearsals. I somehow learned the lines and I just went with it and...
00:04:10
Speaker
I was getting compliments of even weeks after the year the p play had finished and me drama teacher, who was the music teacher as well, said to us primary school that, you know, you've got this natural talent for acting, you need to try and get into it. So I was like, yeah, why not? Give us a purpose in life at 10 years old. And I did school plays, I did all that.
00:04:34
Speaker
And... That's when I'm going to Gator College, did acting there, did players there, got connected with people I know there, which led on to further developments and pod projects later on in life. And yeah, I've just been trying to do it as much as I can. And it seems each year I sort of get introduced to like people who I'll come to work with later on. Like I remember...
00:05:03
Speaker
not knowing who Dan McQuaid was in 2024 when I first really joined Newcastle Film Club. And then fast forward a year later and I'm a zombie in one of his films.
00:05:17
Speaker
And then fast forward another year later and co-directing a short that he wrote and I'm going to be appearing in a feature film him that he wrote.
00:05:28
Speaker
It's really interesting and I've got a funny story about the filmmaking side as well. When I was in school in year 11, me English teacher and always talked to her about drama and all that and writing and acting and her daughter I had went to university for acting and halfway through, changed courses from now to start a new course because I realised, yeah, want to do acting anymore. want to screenwriting.
00:06:00
Speaker
And I remember thinking, I'm never going to be a screenwriter because i just it's too much of a challenge. And then fast forward six years later high and I started screenwriting and was like, remember when I said I do want to do this? Oh, well, look, look I'm doing it now.
00:06:13
Speaker
In God, yeah. I've wrote loads and had lots of stuff made and been involved with a few local production companies. it's just, it's amazing. It's not creatively decided. And from being a screenwriter is what gives me the experience and skills to be able to be a producer and a director. So it all sort of leads in because...
00:06:37
Speaker
It's good, I say, if anybody wants to be do filmmaking, don't limit yourself to just you know one role. Don't just be like, I want to just be a producer or I just want to be a director, be a writer, do everything what you can. I've mixed in as cameraman, I've been boomer, got braider, producer, assistant director, call director, director. I've done all of it, almost. because this is something I've been a Newcastle film club recently and something I've kind of struggled a bit with is like knowing how to, as someone who's relatively inexperienced with the actual filmmaking side, knowing how to put myself forward for things. I'm like, ah for example, camera work. I'm like, I'm like, I don't want to touch a camera. What else can I do? But then I'm like, I'm like, how, how, how do you go about so of picking those skills up?
00:07:28
Speaker
How did you do it? It's all about, asking the people who actually do those jobs, being like, what does it take? So i I wrote a short film that was filmed with Dead Real Productions,
00:07:44
Speaker
And I was meant be director, but I wasn't. I was assistant. And i was, you know, shadowing the director, seeing how they did the job. I was boom, I got great on
Managing Creativity and ADHD
00:07:55
Speaker
that. What they also did as well is they showed me the producing side of that.
00:07:59
Speaker
They showed us what goes into being a producer. And because that's something I always wanted to try. and even with Newcastle Film Club is they do all these workshops where they have these people there who are willing to share their skills and tell you what it's all about. And a good thing that they do, I like, is when they do their yearly film, they'll look out for roles and they'll say, apply for any anything that, you know, you may have an interest in because even if you've got no experience with it, you'll always get help with it. Like, if you want to be a cameraman...
00:08:36
Speaker
learn how to do that but you haven't touched the camera, apply for it because there's lots of skilled camera people there who are willing to be like, oh, I'll help you. I'll show you how I do this. I'll show you how I do that. Show you how to zoom and all that. Because I never thought
Current Projects and Roles
00:08:50
Speaker
I'd be camera person at all. I thought I'd be useless, but I learned from one my friends who she helped me Lots on how to and to where the point where I'm now comfortable filming with the camera. Like us hour I said, I was acting in a film where you were doing the camera work and I kind of got a bit confused at the time. I like i feel like Lee must be a film student who's just finished. you Because you seem so like to fully like know what you're doing. We do it with the camera. Yeah, so then where does the like the the poetry and that side of the writing come in? Because it's it's quite a different discipline from screenwriting. I did script writing at uni, and I got involved in some writing schemes, and there were a lot of poetry in it, and I just i just never had the the mind for poetry. It's a funny story, because technically poetry is something I've tried my hand at twice, and I've never really done anything with it.
00:09:43
Speaker
So in 2011, tried, wrote like one or two, nothing happened. 2017, I tried to give it a go, wrote a few, didn't really know what to do, didn't really know anyone who did poetry, so I was like, know what to do, so give a bit on there.
00:10:00
Speaker
And last January, My friend, who is also an award-winning poet, published poet, Charlotte Falkenbridge, she's done really well for herself, headlining loads of events. She messaged me being like, my friend who runs Poetic Edge Publishing, Ashley Edge, they are looking for 500-word fantasy short stories for their upcoming ah anthology, Way of the Fairies. was like...
00:10:31
Speaker
I could see, I could, and so I wrote two stories, submitted them, got one accepted, and I was like, oh, that's perfect. And because they co-run a ah Zoom poetry open mic, I was invited to read some of my short
Conclusion and Closing Remarks
00:10:50
Speaker
stories. i was like, oh, cool, ah I'll do that. I went along on that in January last year.
00:10:57
Speaker
read a piece, a short horror story out, got a good reaction. And it was just, I was the only one who didn't actually read poetry. So i was like, I feel a bit out of place.
00:11:08
Speaker
And so they were taking a break for February. We were coming back in the March, and I was like, by the time March comes, I want to be reading poetry. i So i I just... I remember practicing. I remember reading poetry because I had Charlotte's collection, reading through hers.
00:11:27
Speaker
I remember looking, reading through other people's. i was like, okay. And it's just all about trial and error. You just write what you can, and you learn as you go. And and...
00:11:41
Speaker
It's just something that I find has come natural to us, the poetry. It is different to screenwriting, but in my head, if I'm going to be writing something for this like a screen a screenplay,
00:11:55
Speaker
I can switch my brain to that mode. If I want to write poetry, I can switch the brain to that mode. If I want to write just prose, I'll switch my brain to that mode. It's all about knowing the sort of... Depending on what project you want, knowing do you want this as a story, a poem, or something else.
00:12:11
Speaker
It's all about figuring... the pieces together in then you know I know how to write a poem I know how to write this as a short story peach or a screenplay What sort of goes into then deciding if you have a ah story what what sort of format is going to take have if you ever had anything that you thought might be a screenplay that you've gone actually i'm going to just make this into a problem instead i've had a few ideas where i'm like yeah i'd want to write this as a screenplay i've started it and i'm like o this would be too difficult to film
00:12:45
Speaker
without like a budget of maybe £100,000. Let's just turn that into a short story where it's easier. In the the poems that I do now, it's I used to try and create like storie stories to them, but now it's um I try to think about real-life lived experiences and try to dwell on the emotions of that because with poetry, it's all about emotions on the page where it's constantly going and it flows well and it kind of does tell a story.
00:13:12
Speaker
But it doesn't have to be like writing the story. It's just, you know, the hints of that. It's like the feeling of a story as opposed to the literal narrative for story. Is that is that a stupid person to understand? No, it is because it can be difficult because, um like I say, my first chapbook I self-published, The House Built From Shadows, starts off with two traditional poems to go with the theme of the book because it's all about this psychological horror house that sort of traps you and i will say it's um if you've ever seen grave encounters imagine it as that place as it distorts reality to its will to break you down and it goes from two regular poems to narrative poems which are a story but
00:13:59
Speaker
It's told in a poetry view. It's told in a poetic sense where you use like the words, the you know everything like that. But it's not a traditional poem. It's got characters, it's got dialogue, but it's written in that poetic way.
00:14:13
Speaker
And it can be confusing as well because there's also prose poetry, which is a poem, which is just a piece of prose, but which is different to a short story. It can be confusing at times, I know. LAUGHTER Because I think I've done before like spoken, it was called spoken word poetry, but I didn't even realise. It was like when I was counted as a young person, it was like working with this poet who'd got local writers to write something to perform as the opening act for his spoken word show. It was called Indiana Jones and the Extra Chair. But it was basically, I just had to write what I was thinking of as like a monologue about a family gathering. And I didn't even think of it as poetry, but on the day they were like, Like, oh yeah, we've got four young poets, which I guess that seems something similar to, a bit closer to prose poetry, except it were explicitly spoken word.
00:15:04
Speaker
it' But like for me with poetry, it's just, I'm scared of poetry because I feel like poets know something. like I think a lot ah a lot of writing forms, like you know with with prose, you can kind of vomit things out. And yes, you like shape it up and stuff, but you've got a lot ah a lot of room to kind of cover up your mistakes and things. things similar with like screenwriting it's like you'll do your redrafts you get it into the best shape but then someone else is going to take it and hopefully make it into something coherent and again kind of cover up your own mistakes where poetry it's all like like you're responsible fully for the presentation and for being concise and for conveying exactly what you want to convey and i think that's why i find poetry so scary well i've got a piece of advice i got remember
00:15:47
Speaker
getting from Ashley was there's no wrong way to do poetry it's all about how you want to express yourself so there's no right way and wrong way to do poetry it's just however you choose to do it maybe where ah Maybe we're getting into some of my insecurities when I'm talking about these things. I'm like, I don't know anything.
00:16:08
Speaker
But actually, it's really interesting what you say ah about creating a feeling because i' said I said it's quite a different discipline to to screenwriting and filmmaking. But then I guess if you take something like, like a lot of the most interesting films are something similar, you know, something like a David Lynch film or something like that, where the narrative is not necessarily as important as as the feelings and the sense of something that the film's trying to convey. Yeah, that is true. and It's all about just interpretation of it. And even with certain books, you can see, like, sort of poetry can help with writing prose because you want to describe something and...
00:16:49
Speaker
you might want to make it stand out and you use so ah some poetic verbs in there, some poetic license for it, and it can really highlight it But for me, I always say it depends on the genre because you can't exactly do something like that in, let's say, a Stephen King book. It has to be that sort of style.
00:17:09
Speaker
He goes for a certain voice of it. It's the voice of the piece in from the author. But I remember reading the books, actually, yeah, what's the name of it? The Lady Upstairs by Jesse Elland, which is like a horror story with other bits in. And the way she writes that, it's ah it's very poetic because e the book starts off with the sky was marmalade.
00:17:36
Speaker
And I found that a very beautiful sort of visual. And so reading her book, it is very much... poetic in a sense but it's writing so it can be crossing over but it's all about making the work well and not making it like it not alienate the work this is quite enlightening you might uh you might uh you might have got me through something in my mind that i've struggled with about poetry for a long time I had the same thing. i was like, I could never do poetry because it's all this and that. But once you break it down and you learn what poetry really is, it's like anybody could do it. It's quite interesting because I think it's like in my mind, it's as if there's been someone there telling me like it's not appropriate for you to try poetry. But, you know, sometimes when you like start to think about it and you're like, actually, I'm the one who's been saying that. I made this person up. No one's ever actually told me that. So your two chapbooks, first one, The House Built on Shadows, that's all you and that's 20 poems. Is that right?
00:18:37
Speaker
It's 20 narrative poems, yeah. And it's all it's all focused on the house that's built on shadows. It's got a character and it's told for a pure way of this character, but the character's not named and not gendered.
00:18:49
Speaker
Because I wanted the person reading in the book to feel like they're the ones going through this journey through the house. So I made sure to never specifically say, he went like this or she did that. It was always, I walked through the gates.
00:19:05
Speaker
I had this happen to me. how um How do you go about building something like that out? Does it start with one piece that's not intended to be in a bigger book? Or did you go into it thinking, I'm going to write 20 poems that are going to build out this narrative?
00:19:20
Speaker
I wanted to create a a chapbook and I didn't really know what to do and I didn't even plan the book. It sort of came him as I was writing the poems and remember writing the first two and thinking, okay, it's going haunted house. Cool. He has the first poem. He has the second. And then I got to the third one. I was like, it won't be as good as a flow if it's just like this. I want to change it up. I was like, I'll write like this. was like, ooh, it's an out of poetry.
00:19:49
Speaker
And I was like, that's what I need to do. and I'd never planned anything. It all came to us as I was writing. So didn't know how the book was going to end when I started. i didn't even know how it was going to end when I finished. I had maybe an idea. But it wasn't until I started writing the last four poems, was like, I know how we're finishing.
00:20:07
Speaker
I know what's going to happen. It's quite a contrasting approach to your your other chapbook, Raised in April. Am I right that that you did make it in 30 days? I did. It was writing one or two poems each day for National Poetry Writing Month.
00:20:19
Speaker
which is April. And I didn't want them to just sit there doing nothing like some of the poems I wrote last year. i was like, I want them to mean something. I'll publish what I wrote for this poetry month as a standalone chat book. How is it? I've always wanted to do, you know, there's like, do they still do national novel writing month as well? It's still going. It's just unfortunate that the actual charity behind it has had to close down due to criticism. Yeah, this is ringing some bells actually. Yeah, um it was recent as well. i think was last year where they asked a question and they said, oh am yeah, if you want to use AI to write your novels this month, do it. him Then they partnered with them AI writing companies and the community was being like, I'm withdrawing support. I'm not going to partner with someone who's
00:21:09
Speaker
using AI writing tools, they had apologize, they had take back what they said, cut contacts with the AI writing tools, but the ah damage was done and few months later the company dissolved.
00:21:22
Speaker
which it's been taken over by a new charity, can't remember the name of it, that helps writers get together to do writing groups to help inspire each other. But National Novel Writing Month is still going ahead every November. It's just there's no official charity to help writers get together now. Another one's fallen to AI. Yeah, I know. I don't understand. i don't understand. i just it seems so obvious to me. he like Don't use AI for your writing. I don't understand why it's even a controversial subject. should just be pretty pretty clear. I know. There's all the strikes that happened not too long ago all about writing and AI as well as acting and AI. And they're going to be like, yeah, let's just ignore that and let's do this. Nobody will notice. I don't know. There's some tech overlords who's got everyone. I don't know. It becomes frustration and noises when I get too into AI. But yeah, man, well, that sounds bad. I think what was going to say is I'd always wanted to try and do it. I've said this this November, I'm going to take a crack at it. If I succeed, then that's a different story. But nearly 2,000 words a day is going to be a task. Harder than writing one poem a day, but...
00:22:36
Speaker
I guess it's like, it's just it's there for structure though, isn't it? But it's kind of like, if you if you get half a novel written, and you've only written 25 days of the month, you still got half a novel, and then you've got a good a good thing to build off. Exactly, it's still something you're proud of. Yeah, so I also wanted to, I guess it's kind of reflected in the in your two anthologies, but So I'd noticed, so you've done your workshops last year and they were focused on paranormal horror initially, weren't they? But now you're moving into more non-genre specific? Yeah, it's just regular, just creative writing. I started that because I was like, I'm very knowledgeable when it comes to horror.
00:23:14
Speaker
haven't watched it and read it all my life and written horror stories and whatnot for years. But it was a little bit limiting when people were saying to us,
00:23:28
Speaker
I don't write horror, so I'm going to struggle. And the people, my regulars I was getting were like three to four people who were horror writers. And it's like, it's not very open and inclusive to other people.
00:23:40
Speaker
I thought I'd be helping people discover a genre, but people weren't really knowing what to do with the prompts I was giving them. So I talked it over with my girlfriend, Courtney, who was a poet as well. And...
00:23:54
Speaker
I told her what I want from the workshops, so now it's not just horror writing workshop, it's break the stereotype, it's creative writing, you can do prose, you can do poetry, whatever's feeling for you, there's no genre limit, you just can do whatever you want.
00:24:12
Speaker
We will be doing genre specific ones and at certain events, like obviously October we're doing a horror one for Halloween, Christmas one in December and whatnot, but Yeah, it's just I want everybody to feel like they can come and be open and do what they want, no matter what the genre. That's actually quite interesting, that because in a way, that's that's sort of what I was saying about poetry, that I see poetry and I feel like I'm not allowed to approach it. And and it's interesting to sort of hear that it seems like people were kind of approaching like the horror workshops in that way, like interested in taking part, but thinking that for some reason they shouldn't be trying horror. Yeah. that's That's quite interesting to to just kind of realise everybody has their own different things that that they're not sure if they're allowed, quote unquote, allowed to do.
00:25:02
Speaker
So, I mean, how has it been doing the workshops? I mean, the last one I did, I think, was March. We've been on a bit of a hiatus until because I've had a lot of things... um planned for when i would normally do them which is the last sunday of the month but in july the 26th will be the first break the year stereotype workshop and yeah so that's when it will be generalized for everybody to do no matter what you want you can write whatever you want if you want to just do poetry for the prompts
00:25:34
Speaker
Do poetry. Do whatever is comfortable with you. And it's always you don't have to write. If you can't think of anything at the moment ah during the moment, it's fine. Just keep the prompt and write when you do get the creative spark. Because I know a lot of people, and sometimes they struggle During the moment.
00:25:53
Speaker
With a prompt. Which maybe they don't click to. Immediately. But then maybe a few hours later. Or a day later. Something will come to them. And they'll write something from that. I know I've had to do that a few times.
00:26:05
Speaker
And yeah. If I think something is going to be good because I've had in workshops where someone's, because of the time limit, they've only wrote half a spot, something that they said is half.
00:26:17
Speaker
I always encourage them, go and finish it. I've done that. I got a 3000 word story once from a 10 minute prompt. How are you feeling about the new approach to the workshop? yeah Are you excited about sort of leading it? I'm very excited. It's definitely going to be different to what I was doing, but at the same time, it's going to be more, I think, fun because it's going to be a mix of people there who are comfortable with either just writing poetry or just writing in stories or...
00:26:46
Speaker
a mix of both i kind of know what that's like because last november for the national poetry day i did a workshop that was strictly for poetry and it wasn't horror and it was just something like that which it went really down well got lots of people involved and like i said i really hope i get a lot more people going to these ones especially with them being online and Especially, i' would say the name Break the Stereotype is because I am neurodivergent, autistic and ADHD. I want people to break the stereotype of, they're not creative, oh, they can't do this. Or if you're writing something about mental health, there's the stigma put to that. It's like, no, write what you want, break the stereotype and show them you can do this and you can do that. I think on the um the neurodiverse, specifically the ADHD thing, I'd seen you'd mentioned, this is why I actually mentioned a Trapped in the intro, because you'd done a post where you'd mentioned you'd been working on something else, and the ADHD just keeps bringing up all these ideas that you need to do something about. This is something I've been, you know, I've i've been going through this year going like, do I have ADHD? That kind of explains a lot. And I've also been trying to do some writing and make some radio drama. i've I've managed to focus and get one script written, but also it's the same. I keep having like, I've got i've got like four other ideas and I'm like, I want to get working on them, but I also want to treat this one properly and and and really work up to it. But then I have this like massive anxiety inside where I'm like,
00:28:19
Speaker
am I just going to end up ignoring all these other things? And so I guess it's like, I'm quite curious about like how you manage the number of ideas and wanting to do something about each idea at the same time as balancing that with treating a specific idea with the, I guess, respect that that it deserves. Like, do you know what I'm saying?
00:28:38
Speaker
ah do, yeah. It's difficult. I will say it's very difficult. The impulse can take over at times where, You're like, let me just try this out for a second. And then it's a few hours later and you're like, what happened? on mr I was maybe doing something for this.
00:28:54
Speaker
But it's all about keeping a note of the ideas. My phone's full of them. it's I could be working on like a book, which I have been doing this year. And most days, something else takes over to it. I've barely worked on it now for a few weeks. And it's like I need to get back to it.
00:29:10
Speaker
But every time I do... I'm working on it and then some my brain will be like, I've an idea for this other thing. like, can you just work? No, I have to work on that, go back to this. It might be a slow process, but at the end of the day, it it will all come together.
00:29:23
Speaker
It's just all about trying to keep distractions at a minimum but also never losing the ideas and writing them all down, just so you know one day something come from it. That makes sense. it's like It's almost like having a person there that just keeps interrupting you, except that's you.
00:29:40
Speaker
You're like, will you shut up for a second? Oh yeah, the impulse takes over all the time. It's like, oh, really want to do something. I'd be like, oh, do you want to deal with this? But yes. And then it's like, hang on a minute. I've got something planned that day. No, I can't.
00:29:53
Speaker
And it's just sometimes I've said yes to something and a few hours later I'm like, that was a stupid idea. I can't do that. I've had to pull out be like, sorry about that. Can't do this. What um actually makes me curious about what is your, like, like work, i mean, you don't need to go into too many details or anything, but what's your sort of working situation like? Because you seem to be able to spend quite a lot of time on on some of these projects. But I mean, are you... Technically not employed, but I am a carer. Unpaid carer is what it's called. So, I mean, I guess it's, I guess really I'm sort curious about just just finding the the time to be able to do it because you do so much. We've talked for half an hour just about your writing and I could keep talking about it and I've not even mentioned your filmmaking or acting. So I guess, how do you go about balancing your time? It's all about trying to just find an hour to set aside, to focus on it. So it's normally for me, it's between 7pm and 8pm where I will be like,
00:30:46
Speaker
I'm going sit down, going to have phone on side and over there, and I'm just going to work on it. And 8pm could come, and I could still be in this flow, so I'll keep on writing. And I'll just write until I'm like, ok okay, that's good enough for now.
00:31:01
Speaker
It's all about trying to just keep that... as a schedule, as a routine. You have to be sort of firm with yourself, even though it's yourself, and you're like arguing with yourself. It's like, no, I need to do this. So I wanted to ask about Morecambe Poetry Fest. Like, is that... Why Morecambe? Do you visit Morecambe a lot? Not really, no. It was just last year I saw a post from the guy who runs it looking for poems, and i was like, sure. Sure.
00:31:27
Speaker
I got published in their anthology last year. was meant to go, but I was too busy with something else down London. And so this year, I've sent something over again. Still waiting here if I get involved and published in that one this year.
00:31:43
Speaker
But I definitely want to plan to go to the festival to be like, yes, I'm finally going to make it. It's like I was in... the m and A little pamphlet this year from the Worcester Literary Festival, but I didn't go to the Worcester Literary Festival. I did a headline there in Worcester, but i was like weeks after the year festival.
00:32:04
Speaker
It's just literally festivals like that, if they put out an anthology, they'll just ask around the UK, you know, ports, send in your stuff. And it's all about finding those opportunities. Well, Morecambe specifically interested me because my nan ah used to live there. So I literally went there every, well, I went over the school holidays. I'd go there basically every school holidays.
00:32:25
Speaker
But, you know, sometimes you saw ah family trips that show you a different side ah of those places and it would just interest them. Well, like, it never really occurred. mean, Morecambe could have ah a poetry festival. All we did is went to pubs and watched my nan and dad drink. ah And they gave us a quid to go on the arcade. So how do you hear about all these, is ah that like the poetry festivals and the anthologies then? Is there like a particular resource? Is it just from keeping your eye out on on social media and things? a few of them come from Facebook. Others have come from people I know on social media. Like one of them I got published in in January was because I followed this person on Instagram and they were looking out to do an anthology I got published there.
00:33:10
Speaker
Friends who I know who might run certain things They'll publish on their Facebook and I'll see them. I managed to get published in, it's called All Your Poems.
00:33:21
Speaker
And they do another one called All Your Stories. Because I went on a website in, God, when was it? November 2024. And think it was called like Word Grinder, something like that. And it's, you put in how many words your story is, its genre.
00:33:39
Speaker
And it will go through and list all the places that are open for submissions. And so I was able to find all your poems and all your stories and submit to them through that site. And there's another one I found recently, which does a lot of paid stuff. It's called The Horror Tree. And that lists magazines and anthologies and books that are looking for publication, like horror stories.
00:34:03
Speaker
Okay, that sounds like it's quite a useful resource. I've only ever opened a bunch of tabs and clicked on whatever the first link on Google was. Yeah, so I guess let's talk a bit about your acting and filmmaking because I've just asked you loads of questions about your writing and I'm like, Lee man, Lee man, you do too much. I know. So you're in Cluedo. Tell me about Cluedo. Cluedo, it's a stage adaptation of the 1985 film Clue, which itself is an adaptation of the board game Cluedo. Is Cluedo called Clue in America? Is this the thing? Yeah, it's Cluedo in the UK, but Clue in America. Were you familiar with the film before auditioning for it?
00:34:47
Speaker
No, hadn't seen it. I hadn't even played Cluedo. I don't think I've ever played Cluedo, actually. I've definitely looked it. I knew about it, I just never played it. So how how's it going? So you'd mentioned rehearsals were quite intense, turn around. Yeah, we're off book, even though the last three pages and are still not in my head, probably.
00:35:07
Speaker
It was our first bookdown rehearsal yesterday, which went really well, apart from you know a few hiccups and me needing a lot of prompting during the last three pages but we're getting there compared to what we a few weeks ago we've blocked it out we know what we're doing it's just smoothing it out and making it a perfect product that people are going to see um 8th of july to the 12th of july restoring theater south shields how are feeling have you done have you done those kind of runs of acting before I used to be a member of the West Overn Theatre years ago from 2013 to 2015. That's basically how they normally run things. Four shows or some five shows a week. I'm really excited to be back at the West Overn Theatre because I haven't been there since 2015. So it's been 11 years and I've been, I can't say kept meaning go back, but I never really did. And it wasn't until me agent told us, you should probably go back and it it'll help you out. It'll give you credits and keep you active? I was like yeah, I'll do it.
00:36:07
Speaker
So I went to an open audition that they had in literally... Three days later, i got offered the role. Has it changed much? Are there people there that were there back then? like There's like completely new faces. i think there was only two people who I remember recognizing, and then there was just like all these new people. I'm like, wow, this is... if The theater itself hasn't changed. It's just the people, the faces are different. It's like returning to school or something years later. Yeah. That's what it would feel like. I mean, we've we've mentioned A Malevolent World and Resurgence a a little bit, but ah yeah, I mean, are you excited for A Malevolent World to finally come out? I can't wait. I can't wait. There was so much fun filming. No, it was. it's ah Yeah. were you Were you just in the second the the second half that were filmed first?
00:36:53
Speaker
Or were you in, did you go back? i remember I was in two months. It was August. It was July. I filmed a lot of zombie scenes. In August, I filmed some scenes as well of my character turn. Before the apocalypse. Yeah. Are we allowed to say all that? know what the, is this one? I don't know what we're allowed say. I don't know. I were about to tell you about the ah the secret ah epilogue that I filmed, but I'm like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Sorry, Dan, if we've spoiled it. You know what? maybe we shouldn't Maybe we shouldn't talk. But, yeah, it's exciting. It's finally coming mean, it was physical. I loved it. I loved doing... That's why Reverend Green is physically comedy. Being that physical in the film, I loved it. Like I say, I've always wanted to be a zombie, and I was i loved doing it. loved just going wild with it.
00:37:39
Speaker
ah Yeah, it but, i like, it were a lot of fun. ah I joked at the start about stabbing you, but it was fun doing the, like... Because it's sort I mean, I think this is in a trailer or something. This is... Wait, no, is it even a spoiler saying that stabbed you? Oh, God.
00:37:55
Speaker
I mean... Okay, moving on, moving on. um Yeah, I mean, tell us about some of your producing work and then we'll start to wrap up. Your producing in general, behind the camera filmmaking. It was because in 2020, I'd never had any producing work at all. And I was always like, I want to be a producer to see what it's like. Originally, was with Newcastle Film Club in 2020, pre-pandemic.
00:38:27
Speaker
And I applied to be a producer for what was going to be their first short film. I can't remember the name of it now, but it was all about Northeast folklore. But that never came about because obviously pandemic shut the whole thing down. And then when they did reopen again, I never went back until 2024. And I kind of got my first, I'd say, producing experience during Dark Forest with...
00:38:51
Speaker
Dead real films. And I got to see what goes into it. and I put out a casting call. They put out a casting call. I made the Indiegogo to fund it. I had to promote it. I would go to casting. Go to the auditions.
00:39:06
Speaker
Had to discuss with them who I thought would be good. Who... It was a maybe, it was a backup, helped scout locations. It was really intense and it's all hands-on.
00:39:17
Speaker
But I liked it. I liked the challenge of it. Like I said, I liked the challenge myself. And since then, I've obviously worked with Vision Ed Media. um with lola produced lots of things like music videos and short films it's all about you know just knowing what you can do trying to find the best places trying to contact the actors who you know putting out casting calls and it's it's a little bit of everything it's trying to find a crew in a team and getting it all together as well as finding places
00:39:51
Speaker
for the teams and the talent to go in film. And it's all about communication. I'd say if you want to try and be a producer, you need to be good at communication. You need to be good at sending emails. You need to be good at looking places up and reaching out and knowing social media.
00:40:08
Speaker
in it because it's a full-on job but it's worth it okay well i guess uh i usually just like to end by asking about a film or tv show or book and the piece of media of your choice that you just want to have a quick chat about to wrap up the show um it's difficult to pick there's been a lot of good things i've watched recently but one of would say one of my favorite tv shows i love to re-watch is brooklyn 99 nice yeah so I just, ah I remember finding it in the year it got cancelled the first time before it got picked up. I was like, trust me to get into and then all of a sudden it's cancelled. I was like, damn it.
00:40:44
Speaker
But it was just, I just remember watching on E4 daily, every single time there was episodes out, even when the new series were coming out and we got them like a few weeks after America. Yeah. The premiered in the UK. I was always on the sofa watching them when it came out. And just because it was a comedy, yeah, but it was just perfect writing. It was a comedy that didn't actually make fun of people.
00:41:11
Speaker
It was clever, smart writing. It had all these characters who weren't stereotypes of sort of the people playing. And it was just one of the most inclusive shows ever.
00:41:21
Speaker
Like you had Captain Holt, the black gay captain, but there was no jokes about his skin colour or his sexuality. It was, all the jokes were a about his sort of, his voice and how he acted.
00:41:33
Speaker
Every single character there could have had some sort of as they say, offensive of a a personality or jokes about them, but none of them did. It's the most perfect writing of a comedy I've ever seen, and it's just something that will stand the test of time. You can re-watch that in 50 years, and it'll still be relevant as it is today. it's just The creators of that show are just he's just one of the most perfect people for comedy. there someone who worked on Parks and Rec involved as well? Because loved Parks and Rec at the time and I was like, oh, this is just trying to do some of the stuff from Parks and Rec. And when I first started watching it, it's like, you know, the two... um
00:42:12
Speaker
hitchcock and hitchcock andulia and scully and scully and i was like well that's just like jerry from parks and rec uh and i was really like cynical about it for the first few episodes but then i had this stage um it were a couple of years after i finished union uni and i was struggling for for finding a job and i had it were like a few weeks where i just i think there were three series out at the time and i just watched i just watched them and i just i was like this show's just amazing i love it and And you know when you're just like, you've like approached something really cynically to start and you're like, well, this is just like this and they're just trying to do this again. But then it's just like, it's like you say, it's just such a show with with with heart. And a I had to really pronounce my T there because my accent makes heart. I say heart. Yeah.
00:42:54
Speaker
ah it's it's Yeah, there's just like so much heart. ah I'm getting in my head about it now. But yeah, like like to your point as well about like you know all the comedy, like each character, there could be something offensive and they're not and they're all just like,
00:43:10
Speaker
perfectly like human. um And it really sheds some light on all these ah all these comedians saying, oh, we're not allowed to say anything anymore. ah Comedy is dead. We can't say anything. But like Brooklyn Nine-Nine managed to make perfect comedy every single time without actually having to make anything offensive or take shots at anybody. and It's just the way they're able to deal with real life issues and really hard hitting storylines while also keeping the comedy going is something really special that the Raiders do and it's just amazing. Okay, I think that is probably a good place to end the show. Do you have anything you'd like to plug and can you tell us where we can find you? Okay, um first of all if you want to sit catch my books they're both available on Amazon The House Built From Shadows and Raised in April. They're really good read. Lots of heartfelt ones, I will say, Raised in April.
00:44:04
Speaker
If you're in the North East, if you're in the Tyneside area, like I say, 8th of July to the 12th of July at the West Overn Theatre, Cluedo is on. Really funny, great cast, amazing director. have to give shout-out to Hannah there for that. if Tickets are available on the night at the box office, or you can get them online at the Sand Dancer shop in South Shields, I believe, are selling them.
00:44:27
Speaker
If you want to follow me, I'm on Instagram at the underscore Lee underscore Unruly. If you want follow me poetry stuff, it's Lee McShane Poetry on Instagram and Facebook. Okay, that's great. um And thank you again for being on the show. It's been nice to talk to you. I shall see you later. See you.
00:44:46
Speaker
What Makes You Tick is hosted, produced, and edited by me, Ryan Watson. Thank you to Adam Sams for the theme music and to Greg Pearson for the show logo. And thanks again to Lee for speaking to me for this episode. The next episode of What Makes You Tick will be available on Wednesday the 5th of August. But that's not all. We're doing a special episode this month to celebrate the release of a certain indie slash zombie slash apocalypse film. Yes, it's in a leveling world.
00:45:06
Speaker
We've recorded a fun, slightly unhinged, sort of in-universe podcast featuring Len Daniels and Jack Henry and directed by the man himself, Dan McQuaid. That will be available on Wednesday the 15th of July, so keep an eye on at Makes You Tick Pod on Instagram for a preview of that and all future episodes. Thanks for listening.