Long Term Happiness.

Hello, I hope you are having a Happy day. We would like to tell you that a member of The Strange Names Collective called Philip recently had a Happy thought. He realised that he was Happy. He suddenly understood all the reasons why he was Happy and why there was no reason for him to feel otherwise. While Philip is aware that this might seem to be a moment of psychosis or just an unbearable outpouring of emotion, Philip would like to share how Happy he is with as many people as possible. So Philip is going to take a day to explain to you all the reasons why he’s Happy. Best wishes and lots of Happy love, The Strange Names Collective.

‘Long Term Happiness’ is a 24 hour long improvised monologue exploring how we perform and express happiness. I will stand in a given space and explain all the reasons why I am happy. I will move through various categories and explain how my experiences in this category are providing me with happiness. Through this the piece will explore how we respond to declarations of happiness, how much happiness we can take from someone over 24 hours, how long someone can sustain happiness, whether we really believe people who tell us they are happy all the time and why we find those people quite disturbing.

‘Long Term Happiness was performed at Camden Peoples Theatre in London, March 2003 and at The Waygood Gallery in Newcastle June 2004.

Find here a lots of images from the second performance of Long Term Happiness in Newcastle.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.