The Interview – Wrap Up

I cannot put into words how grateful I am to everyone who has been so supportive for this little project of ours! Thank you so much for the shares, the messages, and for the bums on seats!

I started writing this play in 2019 and it has been such an amazing process getting it on the stage. I still can’t quite believe that it’s all done! I can’t quite believe we got a 4 star review too!

I couldn’t have done this without the support from Katie Emma Silverson who read far too many drafts of the script, and still thought it was a good idea to get on stage beside me, so thank you!

Thank you to the team at the Bread and Roses Theatre for letting me put my play on, to Sean Carbert for telling me when to stand up and sit back down again, to Melanie Percy for her wonderful technical skills and to Maddie O’Brien for working front of house!

You can read the reviews below:

London Theatre 1 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“A thoughtful production that covers more ground in less than an hour than some shows cover in more than two”

Broadway World UK – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
“The show is promising. Bartholomew is a quick-witted writer and an equally charming actor”

We also had some lovely reviews from some of our audience members:

Stephen and Maria – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“The Interview held our attention throughout. We enjoyed its shifts in direction along with the actors/writing/and more”

Victoria – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“A clever two hander at this pub theatre in Clapham with strong sustained performances from both actors. A humorous start to the play is followed by a dark (and topical) twist. An interesting and very engaging play”

“The Interview” @ The Bread & Roses Theatre

Hello!

It has been a short while since I have posted on here, but I do have some exciting news!

I have written a play called “The Interview” which is going to be performed at the Bread & Roses Theatre in Clapham.

Tuesday July 27 to Saturday July 31

The shows will be starting at 7:30pm and will be around an hour long.

Robert Croft: Joshua David Bartholomew
Jane Sinclair: Katie-Emma Silverson

Directed by Sean Carbert

Nervous, flustered and with a tendency to overshare, Jane fumbles her way through her job interview. But as she learns more about the interviewer, can she trust that he has her best interests at heart?


You can buy your tickets here: https://app.lineupnow.com/event/the-interview/

See you there!

 

About “Isolation Songs”

Hello! I thought that it would be nice to try and write a little bit about each of the songs on my album, “Isolation Songs”. I talk about how they were written, where the ideas came from and some of my influences.

Before that, here are the links so you can listen to it for yourself:

SPOTIFYhttps://tinyurl.com/ya73ypwz
ITUNEShttps://tinyurl.com/y7lh3t6d
AMAZONhttps://tinyurl.com/ydfa484a
GOOGLE PLAYhttps://tinyurl.com/y9u5f9yr

Right, here goes:

The Album

When I had recorded the first few pieces of music, I thought that it would be a good idea to write an album that would really try to describe the things that were happening at the time, and have it all flow together in the same way as so many concept albums like “Dark Side of the Moon”, “The Wall”, “Tubular Bells”, “Tommy”, and the final tracks on “Abbey Road”.

Once I had finalised my track order, I set to work trying to make it flow, and some really happy accidents came along, like songs being in the same key, or the track “Parole” opening with the line “It’s hard to see somebody/Standing in the pouring rain” after the sounds of rainfall. I had to then play around with things, like the end of “Nor Can I”, changing the key of the final guitar parts to fade into the next track, or to have Donald Trump’s aggressive ramblings echo into the final song.

With all of my influences, both musically and otherwise, I really think that this album sounds like me, which is nice. I very much wrote this album for myself, to get my head around the things that are going on at the moment, and trying to articulate those things as best as I can. It is quite therapeutic to be able to write songs and put everything out there. I am quite lucky that I can pull songs out of thin air. All I really need is a little musical idea and I am ready to go!

Isn’t This The Life?

Written in 5/4, I have been collecting little 5/4 riffs for a little while, but none of them ever really came to fruition until I played the opening riff of this guitar. Like with almost all of the songs on the album, I recorded the music to the song first before I wrote the lyrics and melody. The song has a rather melancholy feel to it, which I think opens up the album well. At the moment, we’re all thinking about how things used to be, pre-lockdown, and this song is very much about that.

I wanted to challenge myself with this track. Because it is in an irregular time signature, it makes it a little more difficult to sing and play over. It was interesting trying to write a melody over the top of it. You really have to sit into the rhythm of the track. The idea was certainly rooted in tracks such as “15 Step” by Radiohead and “The Sound Of Muzak” by Porcupine Tree which both use time signatures that aren’t 4/4 or 3/4, but still manage to be very accessible to listeners.

Lost In The Silence

The riff for this song was also something that came from my acoustic guitar, and as soon as I played it, I knew that I wanted to put some 12 string along with it. In the second verse, I wanted to keep the bass line as simple as I could, and let the guitars do the work. For the choruses, I wanted them to have an anthemic feel. There is also a little bit of a Sam Fender influence in the melody as, prior to lockdown, I had discovered his debut album which is fantastic. There are some big choruses in there, and I wanted to write something that was just as big as those.

The guitars are quite folky, and I have the D string droning through the verses. I had been experimenting with more folky guitar styles, and I think having it run into a huge chorus helps keep people on their toes as it might not be where people would expect the song to go!

Reached The End

The guitar part for this track came out of the riff for “Isn’t This The Life?”. I think I was playing around on my guitar when I came up with them both pretty much one after another. It is quite a political number, and is written almost as a criticism on how thing have been dealt with recently, that things could have gone much better.

We’re All Mad Here

This was the last song that was written and recorded for the album, which I wrote with my girlfriend, Katie. I wrote the music on the piano first, and is the only song I wrote on piano on the album. I had recorded the music for it before we started working on the melody and the lyrics, which took a few days. Normally, I can write lyrics very quickly (whether or not that is a good thing, I don’t know) but working with someone else meant that it took a little longer to get right!

I originally was going to have a guitar solo in the bridge, but ended up taking it out as it didn’t work. Fortunately, I had recently watched a video essay about the Pink Floyd track “The Great Gig In The Sky” which features non-lexical vocals. So I asked Katie to improvise some melodies over that section and used them all, which creates a really interesting soundscape, and is much better than the solo I had originally tried.

Parole

I wanted to write something that had a nice groove to it, but was quite simple. There is a little bit of a Red Hot Chili Peppers influence, especially in the chorus, and I wanted to follow that influence a little more with the bass line, but one that I wrote for it wouldn’t fit right. In the end, I went for something that was much more simplistic that works much better for the track – sometimes less is more!

On the first version of the track, the final chorus repeated twice, but I felt was a bit much, so I got rid of it, making the song a little more ‘to the point’. The rain at the start of the song was recorded at the same time as I was recording vocals for “We’re All Mad Here”, and I knew that I wanted to put this song after that track, and it works out really well for the opening line!

Lyrically, the song is influenced by the Stacey Dooley documentaries Katie and I have been watching, and drew some parallels between prisoners being released after serving their sentences, and the general public coming out of isolation once this is all over.

Tearing My Hair Out

The bass line that opens the song was the first thing that I came up with for this track, and knew I had to record it before I forgot it. It is the bass that really drives this song. There is another political element to the lyrics in this track, again critical of how people are running things at the moment, and the stresses that come along with that. I am quite proud of the guitar solo for this track, using some tapping and a really interesting scale that I can’t tell you name of that is influenced quite heavily by Muse.

Although I have enjoyed having so much time to myself, doing things that I don’t often have the time to do, it is certainly very frustrating when you are unable to visit your loved ones, go out somewhere nice for food, or even go to the theatre. This song, I think, does vent some of those frustrations which we all have, certainly at the moment at least.

Touch The Sky

This was the first track that I recorded in lockdown. I pretty much just clicked record and went wherever the guitar took me, and then used that as the structure. The song features a bass solo that I thought would be quite nice to expand on, were the song ever to be performed live. It is quite a simple tack with only a few layers to it, and not many instruments. I was certainly influenced by the band Vulfpeck, whose concert in Madison Square Gardens I had been watching before the lockdown begun. It is just a straight funk rock track with lyrics about the excitement when you first start a relationship, though I think I only really figured that out once the lyrics were written and the vocals had been recorded.

Pace Of Life

I have no idea how I came up with this one. I know I wanted a funky breakdown section that happens before the final chorus that leads up to a big final chorus, but the rest of the track I think kind of just happened. Lyrically, It is about someone trying to date and not doing particularly well to start with, and then taking their time when something decent comes along even though society has a tendency to make you rush into things. That’s what I think it’s about anyway.

Nor Can I

The music to this track was around a little bit before the lockdown began, but it was completed during the lockdown. It started off with a riff I have had for a little while, and wanted to make use of, and it developed from there. The chorus is a little different to anything else I have written, which I am really proud of. Also, I really like the riff, so I literally put it everywhere I could in the song. The lyrics are very much about trying to stand up for yourself, despite other people trying to bring you down. A little bit of motivation against the things that are stopping you from doing what it is you want to do.

We Will Meet Again

Not the Vera Lynn song. I hadn’t made the association, and the title comes from one of the final lines of the Queen’s direct address to the nation. This one was written immediately after “Herd Immunity”, where I felt that there needed to be something that preceded the opening riff. Influenced by Jimi Hendrix and the track “Are You Experienced?” I felt that some guitars playing in reverse would song really cool and dark. Once I had done that, I felt I could really set the tone with some random audio clips of press briefings and broadcasts from the beginning of the lockdown, featuring the voices of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Matt Hancock, Donald Trump, Sir Patrick Vallance, Nicola Sturgeon and Queen Elizabeth II. Some of these people also appear later in the following track. It is very much a prelude to “Herd Immunity”.

Herd Immunity

Basically one, long, progressive rock riff. I really love long tracks that take you to all sorts of different places, and I think this song does that. There are more words in this song than any other song I have written, but it isn’t the longest track I have written. I wanted to write something that really tried to convey everything that was happening during the start of this crisis, and almost hold people to account, while also trying to voice the things that were happening to the general public.

The song is heavily influenced by Steven Wilson and Pink Floyd and that whole progressive rock genre. I would love to perform this song live, and I think it is something that I try to keep in mind when I am writing songs, but it was certainly something I was considering as I was writing this, with all its ebbs and flows. The chorus on this song is very anthemic, akin to Muse’s “Stockholm Syndrome”, and it has a rather hopeful message attached to it, ending the song on a positive note; “We will get through this”.

I Don’t Know

There are no electric guitars on this track at all, using a Spanish guitar and a 12 string guitar. The song was written on my grandfather’s Spanish guitar as Katie was on a zoom call with some friends of hers, and I was quietly writing away. It is the only track on the album that I wrote the music and the lyrics at the same time.

As I came to record it, Katie was on another call with a friend who was jokingly repeating the phrases I was singing. Though I felt incredibly self-conscious about this, I then played with the idea myself, and used it on the final chorus a couple of days later. I am not too sure what this song is about, but I think it is about growth, about trying to be a better person than you were the day before, but not knowing who you will be in the future. Deep.

If you have made it this far, and want to listen to the album for yourself, you can check it out at these links I have conveniently placed down the bottom here:

SPOTIFYhttps://tinyurl.com/ya73ypwz
ITUNEShttps://tinyurl.com/y7lh3t6d
AMAZONhttps://tinyurl.com/ydfa484a
GOOGLE PLAYhttps://tinyurl.com/y9u5f9yr

I really do hope that you enjoy, or have enjoyed listening to my album!

Stay safe!

Josh

Isolation Songs – Album

I’ve recorded an album!

Trying to be as productive as possible in lockdown, I gave myself the challenge to record an album at home. In 6 weeks, I recorded 12 tracks – 55 minutes worth of original music – on an album I have imaginatively called “Isolation Songs”. You can listen to what I have come up with from today by visiting the following link:

https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/joshuadavidbartholomew/isolation-songs

There is a mix of genres on the album; some funk, some ballads, some pop and some straight up rock tracks. Most of the tracks on the album, directly or indirectly, are influenced by what is going on at the moment. I tried my best to try to look at everything with an element of positivity, so I hope that positivity comes through on at least some of the tracks!

Hopefully there is something for everyone on there!

There isn’t any particular story that flows through the album (there may be, but not one that I have come up with) but there are plenty of themes and ideas that run throughout. I have put a lot of work into this, and I am very lucky to have had the time and the opportunity to be able to do it. I have enjoyed hiding myself away in my bedroom, earphones in, writing and recording each track. I have had some really lovely feedback from people I have shown it to, and although I don’t have the most up to date equipment in the world, a real drum kit, or a massive, state of the art studio, I think I have come up with something someone, somewhere, may enjoy.

I really do hope that you enjoy listening to the album as much as I enjoyed making it and let me know what you think!

Thanks!

Top 5 Fortnightly Tracks

Now that I have released a song every fortnight for the past year, I thought it would be a good idea to post my Top 5 tracks from the past 12 months!

You can have a listen below, and don’t forget to let me know what you think!

Thank you for listening!

Joshua David Bartholomew – It’s Too Late

Joshua David Bartholomew – Waiting For You

Joshua David Bartholomew – Not The One For Me

Joshua David Bartholomew – A Broken World

Joshua David Bartholomew – Wait For The Signs

Waiting For You

“Waiting For You” is my final fortnightly song! It is a solid rock track, catchy chorus and a rocking solo.

Thanks for listening to my songs over the past year, and I really hope you’ve enjoyed listening to them!

Make sure you listen to it in HD, and let me know what you think!

Joshua David Bartholomew – Waiting For You

"Waiting For You" is my final fortnightly song! It is a solid rock track, catchy chorus and a rocking solo. Make sure you listen to it in HD, and let me know what you think!Written, Recorded and Produced by Joshua David Bartholomewyoutu.be/LPLDcW_MRcshttps://soundcloud.com/jdbartholomew/waiting-for-youWEBSITE – www.jdbartholomew.comSPOTLIGHT – www.spotlight.com/cv/9098-0163-2281FACEBOOK – www.facebook.com/JDBartholomewActor/SOUNDCLOUD – soundcloud.com/jdbartholomew/YOUTUBE – www.youtube.com/user/JoshyBarth/

Posted by Joshua David Bartholomew – Actor/Musician on Friday, 4 January 2019

 

2018 – A Year In Review

2018 has been quite a busy year for me, certainly much busier that last year for sure!

I had been teaching as part of the Sherman Youth Theatre, as well as assisting on their National Theatre Connections production of “[ B L A N K ]” by Alice Birch. I also helped with workshops for primary school children as a part of the Sherman Theatre’s “Primary Expressions” projects, helping the children write and develop their own scripts before performing them on the Sherman’s main house theatre stage for their families. I was very fortunate to be on both the development side and the performing side of the project, and I was very proud of the work we had all created!

Inspired by how prolific the young writers were, I tried my hand at writing a few things myself (usually at work at my old job whilst I was managing conference calls!) more as something to keep myself busy, trying to be productive with my time! I doubt any of my writing will come to fruition any time soon, but it is certainly something that has kept the creativity flowing!

Every fortnight this year, I have managed to ‘release’ an original song of mine, in a wide range of styles. I have released 26 songs, with one more coming in the new year. I am really proud of the music I have made, and I am very grateful for the feedback I have received!

I also played the role of “The Missionary” in Evolution’s “Ann Rolls Green”, which should be appearing on Amazon Prime in the near future. It was a great project to be a part of, and it was great to work with some very talented people!

I have seen some incredible shows this year, and I am very fortunate to have seen some excellent pieces of theatre in Wales and in London:

Wicked – Stephen Schwartz and Willie Holzman
The Birthday Party – Harold Pinter
Dublin Carol – Conor McPherson
Network – Lee Hall (Based on the film by Paddy Chayefsky)
The Wood – Owen Thomas
A Number – Caryl Churchill
The Motherf*cker With The Hat – Stephen Adly Guirgis
All But Gone – Matthew Tevannion
Light Speed From Pembroke Dock – Mark Williams
Quiz – James Graham
Macbeth – William Shakespeare
Consent – Nina Raine
Allelujah! – Alan Bennett
Dust – Milly Thomas
Stories – Nina Raine
Girlfriends – Howard Goodall
Company – Stephen Sondheim and George Furth

I have been very fortunate to see some incredible bands live too:

Steven Wilson – St David’s Hall, Cardiff
Nashville In Concert – Cardiff Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff
Robert Plant, Imelda May, Midge Ure – Bath Festival, Bath
Stereophonics – Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff
Rolling Stones – Cardiff Principality Stadium, Cardiff
Ed Sheeran – Cardiff Principality Stadium, Cardiff
Roger Waters – Manchester Arena, Manchester
Eminem – Twickenham Stadium, London
Muse – Royal Albert Hall, London

Moving to London from Cardiff was a very big step. I was struggling to find as much acting work in Cardiff as I would have liked, so I decided to try my luck moving to London where there will hopefully be more work available. A few months after settling down here, I managed to secure new representation, and I am now represented by CBL Management!

CBL MANAGEMENT
20 Hollingbury Rise, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 7HJ
01273 321245 / 07956 890307
enquiries@cblmanagement.co.uk
cbl-mgt-laptop@hotmail.com

I am really excited to see what the new year holds. I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities that will come my way, and I will be trying my best to make sure that I am ready to take them when they arrive!

Happy New Year!

Josh

Company

This is my penultimate release of my fortnightly songs, and today’s track is an upbeat little number called “Company”.
Make sure you give it a listen below in HD!

Get It Right

“Get It Right” is a track that I originally wrote on piano. When it game to recording the track, something wasn’t quite working. I decided to go for some rock guitars, and the song came together quite quickly. Have a listen to the song below in HD, and let me know what you think!

Joshua David Bartholomew – Get It Right

"Get It Right" is a track that I originally wrote on piano. When it game to recording the track, something wasn't quite working. I decided to go for some rock guitars, and the song came together quite quickly. Have a listen to the song below in HD, and let me know what you think!Written, Recorded and Produced by Joshua David Bartholomewhttps://soundcloud.com/jdbartholomew/get-it-righthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkukhGBuAAWEBSITE – www.jdbartholomew.comSPOTLIGHT – www.spotlight.com/cv/9098-0163-2281FACEBOOK – www.facebook.com/JDBartholomewActor/SOUNDCLOUD – soundcloud.com/jdbartholomew/YOUTUBE – www.youtube.com/user/JoshyBarth/

Posted by Joshua David Bartholomew – Actor/Musician on Friday, 7 December 2018