little scratch: Shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize 2021

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This debut novel - now included in the influential annual Observer first novelist article - will I think be one of the most innovative I read in 2021 – and I would be not be surprised to see it featuring on Prize lists including the Goldsmith. The Goldsmith was of course won in its first year by Eimear McBride’s harrowing stream-of-consciousness novel “A Girl is a Half Formed Thing” which is the only time ever I have listened to an audiobook as a way of gaining entry to a book I had found it difficult to access in print (just for reference in a typical year I read around 150 novels and listen to 0 audiobooks) – allowing me then to read the novel. little scratch made made me work hard, and I'm not sure it has a 'payoff' in a traditional novelistic sense. The language is spiky and fragmentary and the storytelling style approaches its subject--a woman trying to cope with the trauma of sexual abuse--in a manner that mirrors that shattering dislocation. This review is from Hampstead Theatre in November 2021. ‘little scratch’ transfers to the New Diorama Theatre in April 2023.

What is striking about Little Scratch is Watson’s ability to connect her character’s inner monologue with her physical existence; she is never less than fully embodied. Her mental meanderings and digressions never feel like abstract exercises in portraying thoughts or testing language. Moments of self-harm or appalled recognition of the trauma that the narrator is living through are refracted through the commonplace experiences of drinking water or walking up a flight of stairs; Watson neatly sketches the alienation from one’s environment that carries over into the body, occasionally making her appear to us like a figure in a game, navigating space, avoiding pitfalls, getting through to the next level.The experimental comes gloriously to life, with a performance that has an element of music about it’ The Times Rebecca Watson’s novel works magnificently on stage. Miriam Battye and Katie Mitchell have turned 24 hours inside a frenzied mind into something like a piece of music’ Evening Standard It's clear the effort that goes into a show like this. Miriam Battye’s ability to create a stage adaptation which goes just far enough is nothing short of flawless and we are left in awe at these people who let themselves feel this, all of this, every day, as they look out to us and clearly see the impact landing. Besides hilarious passages right from ordinary live we also get to see how whatsapp forms the main platform for the main character to fret over her relationship with her Him.

Taking our seat and looking up at a simple set of microphone stands, lights overhead each one, immediately gives a sense of the context of this production - to be seen and to be heard is extremely important. As the show progresses, brilliant lighting design by Bethany Gupwell acts to reflect the changing energy and a subtle fading allows us to release a breath we didn’t realise we were holding. Sometimes it is best to close one's eyes and let yourself be carried away in the force of its current. But writer Miriam Battye, alongside Mitchell, doesn't make this easy. The script is washed in deliberate vagueness and often numbingly mundane descriptions of everyday existence.It is interesting to use columns to structure parallel events, so one column to quote e.g. reading of texts on the commute while another is the inner commentary on them but the book doesn't escape its own textuality. At times, this feels like an almost send-up of Woolf mashed up with Plath. I read Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan over Christmas. It’s really moving. The way he captures the romance of friendship is quite a rare thing. It’s also a beautiful celebration of spontaneous life, which feels really brutal to read during a pandemic. Another very impressive book from the very strong Goldsmiths list, this book follows a day in the life of its narrator, a young woman who works for a newspaper in what would once have been seen as a secretarial role. Less a stream of consciousness and more a flowing river, Katie Mitchell's adaption of Rebecca Watson's beguilingly experimental novel little scratch (stylised in lower case) is one of the more demanding experiences you can have in a London theatre. It premiered at Hampstead Theatre in 2021 and has now transferred to the indie powerhouse that is the New Diorama. Forest manager Steve Cooper, whose ‘disposition goes against the red-card-manner of managers such as Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola’. Photograph: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

I am so thrilled that little scratch has been adapted for stage. I'm a long-time fan of Katie Mitchell and have always thought of my novel as a kind of performance so this is a real dream for me. I can't wait to see what Katie, Miriam and the team come up with.” If I didn’t have the audiobook there is no way I would have the attention span or energy to decode the entire book. With sound score by Melanie Wilson, the team is also comprised of lighting designer Bethany Gupwell and assistant director Grace Cordell. The thoughts are a mixture of the prosaic, describing the sights, sounds and feelings of a working day sequentially, and deeper undercurrents which gradually come to dominate the book , as the reasons for the narrator's unease around her book are clarified.Among the administrative tasks, cost centre codes and cups of tea are conscious constants: the memory of her rape, the urge to self-harm, and the comfort of – and desire for – her boyfriend, “my him”. She rehearses telling him about her trauma but fears it would engulf their relationship. Her creativity, too, has been silenced as she cannot continue writing her novel, bringing underlying sadness to the bursts of witty wordplay in her thoughts. Somerset. Rooted in the land where she has lived her entire life, Louie Hooper’s mind overflows with its songs – more than 300 of them passed down from her mother. Cecil Sharp, a composer visiting from London, fears England’s folk songs will be lost forever and sets out on a mission to transcribe each and every one. He believes Louie’s music should speak not just for this place but for the whole of England. But whose England? I saw Rebecca Watson at Charleston, Sussex (20.05.2022) in conversation with Lucy Kirkwood (author of Maryland), moderated by Katie Mitchell. Miriam Battye and Katie Mitchell have turned 24 hours inside a frenzied mind into something like a piece of music' little scratch is the first novel in the impressive career of Rebecca Watson. It takes us through a single day in the life of a woman in the aftermath of an assault, attempting to, in the simplest terms, carry on. We are not just with this unnamed character but within them. At times, it is like we are some kind of imaginary friend to them and at others, it is like we are them and along with her, we get pulled and pushed and turned inside out through an intimate demonstration on themes of gender and mental health; the crowd figuring out gradually how close it was: the when, the where, the who, and clearly very close to home for Watson.