Why Not Now?

My grandfather used to have a small marble slab about three inches by four inches sitting atop wayward bundles of court summons on his office table. It acted as a paperweight and had a three-word question emblazoned on it. A question intended to strike fear in the hearts of the procrastinating. It simply asked 'Why Not Now?'. This question may well have been the first words I read out as a child. Partly because the words were short and partly because the font size was big and easy to read.

This past week, I found myself revisiting this provocative question. As an individual artist, I was recently commissioned by Farnham Maltings to carry out a community theatre project called Jukebox Telephone Line. My idea for a call centre which people could ring and ask for songs and have conversations with volunteers manning the telephone line and feel less isolated had been one of six to be selected from a pool of ninety odd applications in response to an open call out. I partnered with friend and firebrand theatre-maker Nisha Anil to bring the week-long project to fruition.

One of the key questions we grappled with early on was the timing of the project. Should we do it now, leaving us less time to promote the event or should we wait until later when the current chaos has calmed down? In the end I asked myself 'why not now?' There was no compelling reason to postpone the event but there was enough evidence to suggest urgency given the tumultuous times we live in. So we ran Jukebox Telephone Line project just two weeks after getting the nod.

In retrospect, it was the right thing to do. Sure, there were fewer calls to the call centre than Nisha and I had hoped. We had not given ourselves enough time to promote the event and to get the word out to the weak and the vulnerable who would have benefited from the service the most. But then again, the calls that came through - memorably one from the carer for a gentleman who had dementia who then sang along to Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison - convinced me that that was the right time to have run the project. After all, how much of a notice does one need to make a phone call? And if not now then when?