I was lucky enough to go to some Young Vic Directors' workshops last week - I felt lucky before I'd even gone to them, but now, with the benefit of hindsight, I am immensely thankful I got to participate in them.

One was on clowning; the other, puppetry (or 'object manipulation' which captures the fact that we weren't working with purpose-built puppets, but bringing random objects to life). I've next to no experience with clowning, and very little with puppets (mainly a recent production where we conjured up lions with artfully dyed mops), but as someone fascinated by a performers interacting with the audience, and how much an audience's imagination can be stretched, both seemed perfect areas for me to explore.

The clowning workshop was immensely fun but at times equally terrifying, since so much of clowning technique involves being rubbish/being told you're rubbish. When you're basically plucking whatever ideas you can out of thin air, on the spot, it's immensely satisfying when something gets a positive reaction, but equally awkward when it doesn't. Once we started applying elements of clowning to actual scenes (in this case, the final scene of Romeo and Juliet when both suicides occur) the effect was incredible - genuine, imaginative performances that brought a freshness to their well-worn content.

The puppeteering workshop has, for the moment, left a slightly stronger mark on me, to the extent that I've begun planning and writing a puppet show, hopefully to be staged at some point next year. I've always had quite a bit of faith in an audience's imagination and suspension of disbelief, but I never thought (especially in such a rough and ready format, presented after only minutes of preparation) the following could happen:

- The sound and movement made by a cardboard box would make me instantly identify it as a WW2 veteran who missed flying.

- I would cover my eyes and look away from the interaction between a bin bag and a jam jar, because it felt simply too filthy to watch. 

- The meeting of a clothes peg and an alarm clock could be so touching and inspiring. 

- A slight tilt and swivel of a balloon would immediately have me wanting to see the incredible view that it was enjoying. 

I'm constantly thinking of those moments, because occasionally, I find I can have an idea, be its passionate advocate for a week or so, and then, distanced from what first inspired me, lose momentum. And some of the best things I've done have been from forcing myself into a corner so that there was no option to back out of an idea. So next year I will be doing a puppet show. I've already written the main story, and have started the initial steps in getting a company together. It may be a longer process than I'm used to, but I'm determined to make sure I don't lose momentum with this. Because I genuinely think it's going to turn out to be something very special.