"UM... I'm not very good at this sort of thing. Maybe you can make me sound interesting and witty" said Simon Blackman, comedian, performance poet, playwright and improviser.

I'm interviewing him, because he is soon to put on a play at the Palace Theatre, directed by Marc Mollica, called Hamlet in Pieces. Not only did Simon write it, but he plays several parts in it.

"To mark Shakespeare’s 400th celebrations, Hamlet in Pieces takes the bard’s seminal play about procrastination, madness and general faffing about, and boldly re-imagines it for a new age.

Featuring a ‘potentially’ award winning cast Hamlet in Pieces has it all - passion, poetry, rage and an appearance by Morrissey*.

Not for purists...

*Morrissey appears subject to work commitments" so reads the bill.

It's the genuine self deprecation shown in the start of our phone conversation, which makes Simon funny, the kind of deadpan funny that is, where you find yourself laughing at the things he says, then as he looks at you blankly, wonder if he actually meant to be funny, or if you should really be laughing.

If you've never heard of him, Simon is a man from Billericay, aged 42. Performance poetry is his main thing, notably being a favourite of the Sundown Arts organisation based in Southend which also tours up and down the country. He has also been a part of many an improvisation group, including the locally renowned Quirkish Delight, and one half of the Chip Shop Boys duo, where musician Chris Davison did the music to Simon's lyrics. The band was named after a poem/song Simon wrote, about his love for a girl who works in the chip shop.

His poems go like this:

No window at Nandos

There were no windows at Nandos

Why was that do you suppose?

Was it to stop passing chickens peering in

At dead relatives in repose?

Who knows?

Or:

I got depressed at the boot sale

I got depressed at the boot sale

I’d been taken against my will

like a six foot lamb to the slaughter

I aughta realised

what I was in for

with cheerful optimism I descended on Dunton

the horror

the horror

a heaving mass of humanity

refugees from some household holocaust

man pressed against stripped to the waist man

showing distinct lack of taste

in the choice of casual wear

it were as if the world had tipped out it’s cupboards

and left them bare

tat to the left of me

tat to the right of me

people’s lives laid out on blankets

critiqued by apathetic dead-eyed Sunday shoppers

man and woman cling helplessly to the plastic chairs they perch on

the only thing of worth and they’re not for sale

and I see from afar

string-less guitars,

jam jars,

pirate blu-ray ‘Avatars’

FOOTSPAS

FOOTSPAS

FOOTSPAS

I got depressed at the boot sale

I’d never felt quite so bleak

and yes you guessed correctly

I‘m going again next week

But back on with the coming about of Hamlet in Pieces.

"Me and a friend, Marc Mollica, had done stuff in the past, a long time ago, and then we stopped" said Simon. "Every year, we would have an AGM and talk about it, just talk and talk, but never did anything. Then last year, he had just finished Wizard of Oz at the Palace Theatre and wanted to do something else, so we started talking and talking and decided as it's Shakespeare's 400th anniversary we would re-do Hamlet. It started as a joke... but somehow it's happened. I usually do stuff out of being bored, that's my main source of motivation, being excessively bored.

"I don't really like Shakespeare" Simon added, "it's too close to school for me. But as a writer, I've found it's useful to have a story thing to pinch, not that I've been too respectful to the story.

"I'm playing lots of different characters, I'm multi-tasking, and Hamlet is played by a female... we decided that last night, although it could change, we are still rehearsing, it is a work in progress."

"It's going to be a good night out for the audience" added Marc from Southend, when I phoned him just after, who couldn't sing Simon's praises higher. "I did this as an excuse to work with him again really. I'd worked on a few productions with him years ago on things he had written such as A Day in the Life of John Lemon and sketch shows. He is a fantastically talented poet and comedian, and I think we get each other - I have a strong vision of how to put on his work, and he likes the way I direct."

Marc has been directing for many years, on London shows as well as locally. He trained as an actor, but found his natural character and interest in the production as a whole, was more suited to the role of a director and he began getting asked to direct plays for friends, with it eventually becoming his career, him setting up various theatre companies overseas. He now works within the education sector, working at the University of the Arts, in London, and putting on productions such as Wizard of Oz, Our House and this year Oliver! at Southend Theatres, under the popular Summer Youth Project banner.

"Hamlet in Pieces is our take on the story, a post-modern piece" he said. "We've taken it very seriously, as in the work and thought we've put into it, but then you'll see we haven't taken ourselves very seriously with regards to the story. It's very light hearted."

* Hamlet in Pieces is at the Palace Theatre, London Road, Westcliff, on Wednesday May 4 until Saturday May 7.

Tickets are £10 available from southendtheatres.org.uk