If you're interested in why I'm moving, please read this post.
Thursday 4 July 2013
Moving this blog
I'm moving this blog! It's now called All for your delight and it lives at playreviews.co.uk.
If you're interested in why I'm moving, please read this post.
If you're interested in why I'm moving, please read this post.
Thursday 14 March 2013
#MyTheatreMatters, and so does yours.
Lovers of theatre, we are called to arms! A new campaign launched today called My Theatre Matters! Not only is this campaign important because it's being championed by Sam West and he's awesome, not least because he once gave me a pineapple, but there are other reasons too. I'm sure you know what they are but here are a couple of my reasons in case you've forgotten.
Local theatre is in trouble. Arts cuts will hit local theatre first because the government, your local council and even the arts council think they can cut funding to smaller theatres and we won't complain. And if we do they think they can pretend it's that or cuts to hospitals, or police and that will shut us up. And maybe you'll believe them, I don't.
But in any case we need local theatres. We really really do. As I explain not particularly eloquently on my post on the site (sorry, I wrote that on my lunch break) theatre gives me so much more than the occasional night out.
As a society we need hospitals and police. But we also need libraries, universities, music, laughter, and theatre. We need life but we also need to live. Otherwise we're all just monkeys in shoes.
I passionately believe that my interest in theatre, my joy in the arts, my compulsive creativity, these things are not genetic. They are not happy chance, or magically bestowed on me by some benevolent god. They are gifts given to me by the people who produced amazing plays just around the corner from my childhood home, by my parents who took me to shows, and by any teacher who organised a school trip whether it was to see Berkoff or Blood Brothers. And I am thankful to those people every day.
And I am thankful to any organisation or person who supported those early theatre experiences, or allocated them funding, or who voted in their local elections for people who would allocate them funding.
Small theatres fuel our creativity, make our communities better places to be, and nurture the very greatest of Britain's talent. If you want to see if Britain really has Got Talent, get yourself to London fringe or your local arts centre and see actors on their way to the top.
Personally I don't think something should only exist if it makes someone money. But I suppose I should point out that as well as making life worth living, local arts are good for the economy. Not just in London but across the country. For every ten North East arts jobs, for example, an estimated further four jobs have been created. In fact, arts in the North East generated £74.3 million of economic activity in 2010/11.
Those of us who love local theatre, and I'm guessing if you're reading this then that's you, need to fight for it. Because we're a quiet and friendly lot* but we need to get noisy and stand up for our local theatre and we need to encourage others to stand up for theirs.
MANY places have cut their arts funding 100%. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. Most recently Westminster, affecting Soho Theatre and numerous brilliant youth projects. Imagine if that was where you lived. In Croydon we've had a taste of what that feels like. And to me, it feels like my home town only exists to make money from me. Croydon's endless expanse of chain shops take my cash in exchange for cheap clothes that fall apart after 2 weeks and then try to persuade me that shopping is a leisure activity. And when all the theatres have gone I might just start to believe them.
Theatre fans, the fight starts here. Get the hell over to mytheatrematters.com and sign up for their mailing list, write every letter they suggest to you and put your photo on that lovely gallery they've got going on. I won't watch the UK theatre industry crippled without putting up a fight. Will you?
*Well, not me I kick off about stuff all the time. But, you know, we theatre goers as a group.
Monday 19 November 2012
The Effect, National Theatre
Not much time to type but need to recommend this. Unbelievable. Probably the best play I have seen this year.
Simply incredible, moving thought-provoking writing from Lucy Prebble. It's funny, disturbing, current, just simply brilliant. Acting is top-notch too and the whole thing looks amazing.
Sell your granny for a ticket. Hopefully it will transfer into the Olivier but it won't be quite as good. May well queue for returns and see it again.
Earthquakes in London and now this, Headlong might just be my new favourite theatre company ever.
Simply incredible, moving thought-provoking writing from Lucy Prebble. It's funny, disturbing, current, just simply brilliant. Acting is top-notch too and the whole thing looks amazing.
Sell your granny for a ticket. Hopefully it will transfer into the Olivier but it won't be quite as good. May well queue for returns and see it again.
Earthquakes in London and now this, Headlong might just be my new favourite theatre company ever.
Sunday 23 September 2012
Discovering Howard Barker; Bench Theatre, 13 Objects
I'm aware that I have not written on this blog for a while. Rest assured I am still going to the theatre as regularly as I can though not as regularly as I would like. Plays I have recently enjoyed but didn't have anything blogworthy to say about, have been Birthday at the Royal Court, an excellently performed Winter's Tale from the Rough Mechanicals and a precise and beautifully designed Calendar Girls at the Miller Centre.
But yesterday I came down to Havant to see Bench Theatre perform 13 Objects, directed by Damon Wakelin. And not having seen a Howard Barker play before I wanted to record what I thought of it.
This wordy, philosophical play is just my cup of tea. It consists of 13 short plays each centred around an object. The Bench performed the play with a cast of 13 which was apt. The language is incredible, it washes around you like word soup. It is like listening to a poem and then fragments of the text jump out at you, by turns horrifying and funny, profound and absurd. By showing you snapshots of widely varying characters the play captured the many contradictions, the joy and futility of human existence.
Above all though, this was an acting triumph. We watched one brilliant, honed performance after another trotted out like a feast. I can't possibly give all the actors credit here, the quality of all of them was startling. I watched actors I have admired since I was a teenager give performances I didn't know they had in them.
I won't go through all the plays but just give some examples to demonstrate the contrast. The first play is about death, a nightmarish 'officer' ushers in two crying women and urges them to dig their own graves. He plays with them, perhaps he will kill one of them, or both. Neil Kendal played the murderous officer with relish, at times almost Dickensian. Not knowing what to expect and quite horrified by this grim start the audience was carried along through his monologue by his magnetic stage presence and casual brutality. Julie Wood and Claire Lyne cried through this whole first play, the crying became like background noise setting the macabre tone for Kendal's monologue.
Then the second play started in a bright coffee house and Alice Corrigan gave a incredible performance as a prim slightly unhinged lady who had lost her lover. She delivered a monologue about how many of the cups in the cafe had been touched by his lips, throwing one on the floor to break it as she dryly observed 'one less'. It was funny and touching and, like so many of the performances in the play, completely spot on.
I wish I could write about everyone. Julie Wood's petulant and dimly disturbing Queen Elizabeth, Sharman Callam's old woman, Robin Hall's understated adulteress, Kathryn Godwin's manic optician, (whose lines about our gluttonous desire to see everything, shoving sights into our eye sockets pretty much summed up how I felt watching this play.)
I particularly found Terry Smyth's billionaire who buys a painting for £4.5million and destroys it electrically entertaining. Like many of the plays it dimly reminded me of something else, in this case a Roald Dahl short story. As I watched the whole play images of other things flashed into my head: Blackadder, Cloud Atlas, Brecht, Amelie, 50 Shades of Grey. I think that indicates how wide the scope of the play is. To say this was an ambitious play to take on is an understatement.
One thing I found surprising about the play was how much the emotions and thoughts of the characters were spelt out in the script. Lines like 'I'm crying,' 'I am not unmoved' seemed superfluous with such precise acting performances. I particularly felt this in 'Cracked Lens' where the idealist photographer, unable to bring himself to photograph anything finds the camera turned on himself and this time agrees to a photo. He didn't need the lines about being trapped into exposing his idealism as narcissism, we already spotted that as soon as the girl took the camera from him. Strange that Barker felt the need to spell everything out rather than trust the actors to show it when he gave the actors so much freedom of interpretation in other ways, minimal punctuation leaving director and cast to make their own choices about rhythm, emphasis and pauses.
I can't finish this rather long and rambling post without mentioning the inspired staging. This is the first time I have ever seen a company rearrange the seating of The Spring's studio theatre into the round and it was inspired, making the plays incredibly intimate. The way the actors had to keep moving around to perform to all four sides also gave a natural energy to long monologues which added to the feeling of a play crammed full of life.
The positions and paths of the 13 objects were marked out on the bare black floor with different coloured tape. The genius of this idea was that while you were watching one play, you were also remembering the previous objects, and anticipating those to come. The stage was transformed into a palimpsest, not only tying the plays together but elegantly demonstrating the idea of these objects leaving indelible traces in the characters' lives. The minimal set and stylistic setting meant that the 13 objects themselves shone with so much more significance as soon as they arrived, because they were the only objects to focus on. It was as if nothing else existed.
Bench Theatre, you clever, clever people.
But yesterday I came down to Havant to see Bench Theatre perform 13 Objects, directed by Damon Wakelin. And not having seen a Howard Barker play before I wanted to record what I thought of it.
This wordy, philosophical play is just my cup of tea. It consists of 13 short plays each centred around an object. The Bench performed the play with a cast of 13 which was apt. The language is incredible, it washes around you like word soup. It is like listening to a poem and then fragments of the text jump out at you, by turns horrifying and funny, profound and absurd. By showing you snapshots of widely varying characters the play captured the many contradictions, the joy and futility of human existence.
Above all though, this was an acting triumph. We watched one brilliant, honed performance after another trotted out like a feast. I can't possibly give all the actors credit here, the quality of all of them was startling. I watched actors I have admired since I was a teenager give performances I didn't know they had in them.
I won't go through all the plays but just give some examples to demonstrate the contrast. The first play is about death, a nightmarish 'officer' ushers in two crying women and urges them to dig their own graves. He plays with them, perhaps he will kill one of them, or both. Neil Kendal played the murderous officer with relish, at times almost Dickensian. Not knowing what to expect and quite horrified by this grim start the audience was carried along through his monologue by his magnetic stage presence and casual brutality. Julie Wood and Claire Lyne cried through this whole first play, the crying became like background noise setting the macabre tone for Kendal's monologue.
Then the second play started in a bright coffee house and Alice Corrigan gave a incredible performance as a prim slightly unhinged lady who had lost her lover. She delivered a monologue about how many of the cups in the cafe had been touched by his lips, throwing one on the floor to break it as she dryly observed 'one less'. It was funny and touching and, like so many of the performances in the play, completely spot on.
I wish I could write about everyone. Julie Wood's petulant and dimly disturbing Queen Elizabeth, Sharman Callam's old woman, Robin Hall's understated adulteress, Kathryn Godwin's manic optician, (whose lines about our gluttonous desire to see everything, shoving sights into our eye sockets pretty much summed up how I felt watching this play.)
I particularly found Terry Smyth's billionaire who buys a painting for £4.5million and destroys it electrically entertaining. Like many of the plays it dimly reminded me of something else, in this case a Roald Dahl short story. As I watched the whole play images of other things flashed into my head: Blackadder, Cloud Atlas, Brecht, Amelie, 50 Shades of Grey. I think that indicates how wide the scope of the play is. To say this was an ambitious play to take on is an understatement.
One thing I found surprising about the play was how much the emotions and thoughts of the characters were spelt out in the script. Lines like 'I'm crying,' 'I am not unmoved' seemed superfluous with such precise acting performances. I particularly felt this in 'Cracked Lens' where the idealist photographer, unable to bring himself to photograph anything finds the camera turned on himself and this time agrees to a photo. He didn't need the lines about being trapped into exposing his idealism as narcissism, we already spotted that as soon as the girl took the camera from him. Strange that Barker felt the need to spell everything out rather than trust the actors to show it when he gave the actors so much freedom of interpretation in other ways, minimal punctuation leaving director and cast to make their own choices about rhythm, emphasis and pauses.
I can't finish this rather long and rambling post without mentioning the inspired staging. This is the first time I have ever seen a company rearrange the seating of The Spring's studio theatre into the round and it was inspired, making the plays incredibly intimate. The way the actors had to keep moving around to perform to all four sides also gave a natural energy to long monologues which added to the feeling of a play crammed full of life.
The positions and paths of the 13 objects were marked out on the bare black floor with different coloured tape. The genius of this idea was that while you were watching one play, you were also remembering the previous objects, and anticipating those to come. The stage was transformed into a palimpsest, not only tying the plays together but elegantly demonstrating the idea of these objects leaving indelible traces in the characters' lives. The minimal set and stylistic setting meant that the 13 objects themselves shone with so much more significance as soon as they arrived, because they were the only objects to focus on. It was as if nothing else existed.
Bench Theatre, you clever, clever people.
Tuesday 3 July 2012
Blackadder on stage, The Chichester Players, New Park
When my little sister Daisy asked whether I would write a
review of this production I was a bit apprehensive. Anyone who knows me will
know that putting TV or film onto the stage just isn’t my thing. I’ve been criticized
for being too harsh in the past about stage productions based on screen.
Basically I love theatre, there are thousands of brilliant plays which don’t
get performed enough. With all those on offer, I don’t understand why you would
decide to perform something that anyone can rent on DVD, or just watch on
YouTube. Particularly amateur theatre groups. The Miller Centre performed a
great Swimming with Sharks last year but it’s hard to concentrate when you know
you have a DVD of Kevin Spacey performing it at home. I was just sitting there
thinking, “Really? Do you think you have something to add to this that Kevin
Spacey missed? No? Then …why?”
So that was my initial reaction when Daisy told me she would
be appearing in Blackadder on stage with the Chichester Players. But I figured,
I’ve only ever seen the Chichester players once before and it was a great
production of The Crucible which I enjoyed immensely. And, I might be a tiny
weeny bit biased, but Daisy is brilliant on stage. She is, she’s brilliant. OK
none of our family are exactly Dame Judi but Daisy has a concentration of her
character and a uninhibited confidence on stage that makes her an asset to any production
she gets involved with.
Bearing this in mind I headed down to Chichester to see Blackadder.
And realised I had forgotten something else about this kind of ‘fan fiction’
production. The infectious joy of it. When you watch people performing
something they love, that energy sparks off stage and makes you happy. And you
can forgive little things like a couple of the actors being a bit quiet (not so
bad for me as I was near the front but I felt a bit sorry for those at the back
at points) and missed lines, and even bigger things like the use of a prompt and
clunky scene changes.
OK I can’t quite ever forgive clunky scene changes. During
the last hospital episode, the two hospital beds were loudly dragged out and
off again about every 2 minutes, the change lasting longer than some of the
scenes. By the end, this was making me giggle more than some of the play. I
strongly feel that the director should have had some weary characters (perhaps
Baldrick?) bringing the beds on and off again with a weary ‘oh we’ve got to
bring these beds on again’ look at the audience, it would have brought the
house down. Elsewhere there was some clever use of curtained off areas of the
stage so different scenes could emerge and disappear, which worked very well in
places, like in the first episode, Beer, where Blackadder had two parties going on in
different rooms of his house. At other points, lighting different areas of the
stage would have been more effective and less clunky. Better still, the play
could have used some editing to be more like a play with longer scenes and less
like a screen play where, of course, you can cut to another scene every few
lines as and when you feel like it.
Even better than that would have been a theatrical framing
device where Blackadder and Baldrick enter at the start of the play and
introduce it, explaining that they are going to re-enact some of their
adventures for you, maybe some jokes about Baldrick always wanting to be an
actor, and a call to turn off mobile phones because they haven’t been invented
yet etc. That would have set the scene, given it a theatrical setting and
brought the whole production together as a play.
Anyway. While the staging was a little clunky the costumes
were marvellous, taking us through the different historical periods without the
need for complicated scenery. Queenie, played by a polished and very endearing Carrie Allen wore a large Queen Elizabeth
dress, making her being chucked in a cupboard at least 30% funnier.
They wouldn’t have been able to pull this off without some
excellent lead roles who were cast so well you couldn’t help but wonder if the
company were performing this play because a lot of them looked a bit like characters
in Blackadder. Tom Worthen did very well as Blackadder, he reminded me a lot of
Rowan Atkinson and even had the mannerisms right. He had a tendency to mumble some
of the longer lines but on the whole it was an expert performance. James Allen
was also a great Baldrick, he had his comic timing spot on.
Although he was a
little quiet, I also loved Steve Jupp’s delightfully dotty Prince/Lieutenant George. Especially his kind of vacant look when he wasn't talking and didn't really know what was going on. At the end of Act 2 my mum, who doesn’t remember Blackadder very well, said to
me ‘Prince George just looks ridiculous’ I said ‘yes, he’s meant to be like
that.’
Roddy McKerrell turned a brilliant shade of magenta as the
angry Captain Darling which was most entertaining. David Brown had a great line in
Stephen Fry-esque acting with a fabulous moustache which I was sorry to see
that he shaved off immediately after the last performance! Young boys Nick
Holland and Wilf Bond as Pitt the Younger and Pitt the Even Younger did
magnificently on their lines and volume. The poker faces of Lord and Lady
Whiteadder in Beer were great too. I
really can’t go through and mention all the actors but special honourable
mention to director Mark Clark, forced to take on several of the smaller
comical characters as one of the actors had hurt his back. I thought he was
hilarious.
On the whole while this wasn’t the most polished production
I’d ever seen it was fast paced and entertaining with some great little
touches, like Baldrick on a spit with an apple in his mouth. The fun the actors
had creating it was infectious and we had a very enjoyable evening. And my sister was brilliant, naturally.
---------------
While I was writing this entry I got an email from the National Theatre reminding me that London Road is coming back! If you missed this amaaaaazing production first time round have a word with yourself and go and see it this time. Book it, book it now.
---------------
NEWSFLASH
While I was writing this entry I got an email from the National Theatre reminding me that London Road is coming back! If you missed this amaaaaazing production first time round have a word with yourself and go and see it this time. Book it, book it now.
---------------
In case you would like to see them, here are the episodes of Blackadder which the Chichester players put on stage:
Wednesday 9 May 2012
How can we save the Warehouse Theatre in Croydon?
Argh Blogger has changed the layout of this page where I post my blog and I DON'T CARE FOR IT! Changing fonts in self defence.
So this week's sad news from the Croydon Guardian is that the Warehouse theatre in Croydon is in administration. So, you may ask, why is a nice little theatre right next to East Croydon station in trouble? Here's what I think:
Why is a nice little theatre right next to East Croydon station in trouble?
1. Because of cuts to Arts Council funding
Remember the Arts Council having to cut everyone's funding because the government decided it cares more about the people on the Times Rich List than the UK's position as a leader in the world of arts and theatre? So it kept funding amazing big places like the NT so people wouldn't get too angry and instead cut off the life blood of smaller local projects that it thought fewer people gave a crap about. If you don't remember you should have been paying more attention.
2. Because Croydon Council decided not to fund it either
Because Croydon Council have higher priorities like their own pay rises. Also they are only really interested in helping out Fairfield halls because that's the place that makes the money (largely it seems to me by billing racist comics and sick 'mediums' who con large amounts of cash out of the bereaved by pretending they can talk to dead people because there are some people in the world that hell, if it existed, would be simply too good for. But I digress.) Also isn't Fairfield where the wives of people in Croydon Council work? And isn't one of the Councillors on the board there or something? That might be wild speculation which is allowed because this is a blog but ANYWAY the Tories in charge of Croydon, like the ones in charge of the country, only consider the arts worthwhile if they make money or win votes, preferably both. Fact.
3. Because The Warehouse Theatre is sitting in a building site
That can't be good for business. The situation as I understand it is that the Council tried to move the theatre but they elected to stay put. So they were promised a swanky new building as part of the redevelopment. The redevelopment hasn't happened (so far) because they can't sell/rent the office space because Croydon is already basically a graveyard of empty offices. So the theatre has been housed in a run-down building in a building site for years and years. It looks like that old bloke's house at the beginning of Up. Sadly, it seems they can't afford any balloons.
4. Because The Warehouse Theatre is badly run
This is based on my experience of the Warehouse which is limited. The reason my experience of the theatre is limited is because it is badly run. I go to the theatre A LOT. I live in Croydon. Take a look at how many of the 52 plays I saw last year were at The Warehouse, the closest theatre to my house. ONE. It's not for want of interest. I went to see a play there right at the start of the year. Looking for ways to see 52 plays over the year, I spotted a poster that said they were looking for Front of House volunteers. I spoke to the lovely lady at the desk, explained that I lived just up the road, had previously worked as a Front of House usher at Chichester Festival Theatre and would love to volunteer. She seemed interested and took down my details to pass on to her manager. I never heard anything. I went back and repeated this process three more times, spoke to three different people all of whom said someone would get in touch. Nothing. Why put a poster up?
Hearing nothing from the theatre is something I have got used to. I don't get any emails from them (I've booked online so must be on their list) I spend half my life on events websites and never see them mentioned. They have never requested a review from RemoteGoat (unlike most other local fringe theatres like the Brockley Jack and indeed Fairfield Halls who do so every time they have a professional play on.) I don't see posters or ads, I get nothing through my front door or through Facebook. I go to the theatre all the bloody time, I get an email about a new show somewhere in London about every 5 minutes. If the Warehouse are not marketing at me, who are they marketing to?
5. Because The Warehouse Theatre is not engaged with the local theatre scene
Maybe there just isn't the demand for a small theatre showing professional shows just up the road from Fairfield and right next to a station from which you can be in the West End in 15 minutes. OK. But there is a screaming demand for a space that the many high-quailty non-professional Croydon-based theatre groups can hire to perform. Breakfast Cat and Exit have to go out to Carshalton to perform at the Charles Cryer, while CODA continue to bankrupt themselves hiring the Ashcroft.
Why on earth couldn't The Warehouse rent out it's theatre for a week once in a while to these groups? I think their audience would have loved Macbeth. We could have done it for a few nights at the Ashcroft and a few at the Cryer. It would have sold out, we would have paid them for the space AND, importantly, it would have brought to the theatre a wealth of new local audience members who they could have marketed all their other shows, professional and non-professional, to. There is no reason a theatre can't show both quality local theatre and great professional shows. The Spring in Havant might not be perfect but it has a theatre programme The Warehouse should be green with envy at, everything from Brecht from The Bench, improv comedy from SOOP, internationally renowned companies on tour like Faulty Optic, and Proteus and more than one cracking young people's theatre group too. The Spring (or Havant Arts Centre as it used to be rather more sensibly known) and the amazing groups who perform there are the reason I am interested in theatre today.
People reading this might be muttering to yourselves that I don't understand what The Warehouse is about. I'm not the target market. It has a closed membership. Explain it to me. Explain why, for me, this little theatre in my town is not the beating heart of my theatre world. Because I should love it. I should be furious that it is closing. And I am, but I am as furious with them for failing as I am with Croydon Council and the Arts Council and the businesses who are not renting office space in Croydon and the businesses flogging the offices making them too expensive so companies like the one I work for decide we can only afford to operate in East Grinstead and relocate. I have enough rage to go around, believe me.
The only thing I love about living in Croydon* is the community of friends I have in the local theatre groups. The Warehouse could be a centre for this love and community. It would make people's lives better, it could reduce crime, improve Croydon's reputation, boost the local economy and make hundreds of people happier and prouder to live here. Sounds far fetched, but imagine Havant without The Spring. That should make The Warehouse a priority. So let's save it ...and change it! This is my wishlist for The Warehouse:
What I would do if I was God and could do whatever I wanted with The Warehouse Theatre
- Relocate it to the Croydon Clocktower
- Have a resident non-professional local theatre company who perform there 3 times a year
- Rent out the theatre by the week OR by the hour to local non-professional companies
- Offer a programme of touring theatre companies and professional shows, including popular favourites like Dick Barton and plays which are on the syllabus in local schools
- Hold live music events
- Extend the existing young people's theatre club to start from age 7, a younger group meeting separately to the older group.
- Hire Stephanie Darkes to market the theatre to the Croydon community
- Relaunch with a Croydon Playwriting competition in which plays written and submitted by local writers are performed by the resident theatre company and the winner is voted by the audiences
- Install a second hand book shop in the theatre with an extensive play section
- Get rid of the local Council and instate some people who cared about the arts and could see the benefit of the above to the local community so they would fund it
- Hire myself to run it all
Anyway that's enough ranting blog for today. If you disagree with my condemnations of The Warehouse, the Council or the Government please do comment. In my opinion the internet is all about creating a massive argument. And your views are as valid as mine, unless or course you're wrong which I'll happily point out for you. Also do you think this font is easier to read?
*Apart from the excellent transport links to London and the rent being cheaper than nicer places.
So this week's sad news from the Croydon Guardian is that the Warehouse theatre in Croydon is in administration. So, you may ask, why is a nice little theatre right next to East Croydon station in trouble? Here's what I think:
Why is a nice little theatre right next to East Croydon station in trouble?
1. Because of cuts to Arts Council funding
Remember the Arts Council having to cut everyone's funding because the government decided it cares more about the people on the Times Rich List than the UK's position as a leader in the world of arts and theatre? So it kept funding amazing big places like the NT so people wouldn't get too angry and instead cut off the life blood of smaller local projects that it thought fewer people gave a crap about. If you don't remember you should have been paying more attention.
2. Because Croydon Council decided not to fund it either
Because Croydon Council have higher priorities like their own pay rises. Also they are only really interested in helping out Fairfield halls because that's the place that makes the money (largely it seems to me by billing racist comics and sick 'mediums' who con large amounts of cash out of the bereaved by pretending they can talk to dead people because there are some people in the world that hell, if it existed, would be simply too good for. But I digress.) Also isn't Fairfield where the wives of people in Croydon Council work? And isn't one of the Councillors on the board there or something? That might be wild speculation which is allowed because this is a blog but ANYWAY the Tories in charge of Croydon, like the ones in charge of the country, only consider the arts worthwhile if they make money or win votes, preferably both. Fact.
3. Because The Warehouse Theatre is sitting in a building site
That can't be good for business. The situation as I understand it is that the Council tried to move the theatre but they elected to stay put. So they were promised a swanky new building as part of the redevelopment. The redevelopment hasn't happened (so far) because they can't sell/rent the office space because Croydon is already basically a graveyard of empty offices. So the theatre has been housed in a run-down building in a building site for years and years. It looks like that old bloke's house at the beginning of Up. Sadly, it seems they can't afford any balloons.
4. Because The Warehouse Theatre is badly run
This is based on my experience of the Warehouse which is limited. The reason my experience of the theatre is limited is because it is badly run. I go to the theatre A LOT. I live in Croydon. Take a look at how many of the 52 plays I saw last year were at The Warehouse, the closest theatre to my house. ONE. It's not for want of interest. I went to see a play there right at the start of the year. Looking for ways to see 52 plays over the year, I spotted a poster that said they were looking for Front of House volunteers. I spoke to the lovely lady at the desk, explained that I lived just up the road, had previously worked as a Front of House usher at Chichester Festival Theatre and would love to volunteer. She seemed interested and took down my details to pass on to her manager. I never heard anything. I went back and repeated this process three more times, spoke to three different people all of whom said someone would get in touch. Nothing. Why put a poster up?
Hearing nothing from the theatre is something I have got used to. I don't get any emails from them (I've booked online so must be on their list) I spend half my life on events websites and never see them mentioned. They have never requested a review from RemoteGoat (unlike most other local fringe theatres like the Brockley Jack and indeed Fairfield Halls who do so every time they have a professional play on.) I don't see posters or ads, I get nothing through my front door or through Facebook. I go to the theatre all the bloody time, I get an email about a new show somewhere in London about every 5 minutes. If the Warehouse are not marketing at me, who are they marketing to?
5. Because The Warehouse Theatre is not engaged with the local theatre scene
Maybe there just isn't the demand for a small theatre showing professional shows just up the road from Fairfield and right next to a station from which you can be in the West End in 15 minutes. OK. But there is a screaming demand for a space that the many high-quailty non-professional Croydon-based theatre groups can hire to perform. Breakfast Cat and Exit have to go out to Carshalton to perform at the Charles Cryer, while CODA continue to bankrupt themselves hiring the Ashcroft.
Why on earth couldn't The Warehouse rent out it's theatre for a week once in a while to these groups? I think their audience would have loved Macbeth. We could have done it for a few nights at the Ashcroft and a few at the Cryer. It would have sold out, we would have paid them for the space AND, importantly, it would have brought to the theatre a wealth of new local audience members who they could have marketed all their other shows, professional and non-professional, to. There is no reason a theatre can't show both quality local theatre and great professional shows. The Spring in Havant might not be perfect but it has a theatre programme The Warehouse should be green with envy at, everything from Brecht from The Bench, improv comedy from SOOP, internationally renowned companies on tour like Faulty Optic, and Proteus and more than one cracking young people's theatre group too. The Spring (or Havant Arts Centre as it used to be rather more sensibly known) and the amazing groups who perform there are the reason I am interested in theatre today.
People reading this might be muttering to yourselves that I don't understand what The Warehouse is about. I'm not the target market. It has a closed membership. Explain it to me. Explain why, for me, this little theatre in my town is not the beating heart of my theatre world. Because I should love it. I should be furious that it is closing. And I am, but I am as furious with them for failing as I am with Croydon Council and the Arts Council and the businesses who are not renting office space in Croydon and the businesses flogging the offices making them too expensive so companies like the one I work for decide we can only afford to operate in East Grinstead and relocate. I have enough rage to go around, believe me.
The only thing I love about living in Croydon* is the community of friends I have in the local theatre groups. The Warehouse could be a centre for this love and community. It would make people's lives better, it could reduce crime, improve Croydon's reputation, boost the local economy and make hundreds of people happier and prouder to live here. Sounds far fetched, but imagine Havant without The Spring. That should make The Warehouse a priority. So let's save it ...and change it! This is my wishlist for The Warehouse:
What I would do if I was God and could do whatever I wanted with The Warehouse Theatre
- Relocate it to the Croydon Clocktower
- Have a resident non-professional local theatre company who perform there 3 times a year
- Rent out the theatre by the week OR by the hour to local non-professional companies
- Offer a programme of touring theatre companies and professional shows, including popular favourites like Dick Barton and plays which are on the syllabus in local schools
- Hold live music events
- Extend the existing young people's theatre club to start from age 7, a younger group meeting separately to the older group.
- Hire Stephanie Darkes to market the theatre to the Croydon community
- Relaunch with a Croydon Playwriting competition in which plays written and submitted by local writers are performed by the resident theatre company and the winner is voted by the audiences
- Install a second hand book shop in the theatre with an extensive play section
- Get rid of the local Council and instate some people who cared about the arts and could see the benefit of the above to the local community so they would fund it
- Hire myself to run it all
Anyway that's enough ranting blog for today. If you disagree with my condemnations of The Warehouse, the Council or the Government please do comment. In my opinion the internet is all about creating a massive argument. And your views are as valid as mine, unless or course you're wrong which I'll happily point out for you. Also do you think this font is easier to read?
*Apart from the excellent transport links to London and the rent being cheaper than nicer places.
Thursday 19 April 2012
Macbeth in Croydon: Using my own words
The reason we need writers is because sometimes even the most eloquent of us have feelings and thoughts that we can’t express. We find someone who has written something that says what we are feeling and we empathise with it, we recommend that book, we perform that play, we ‘agree’ with that Guardian article and share it on Facebook.
But sometimes we can be guilty of trusting these writers too much and thinking they will instinctively see what we are trying to say and turn our stilted interview or clumsy press release into the words that are in our hearts. And by we, I mean me. I. I am guilty of that.
At the moment I am performing in a production of Macbeth with the Breakfast Cat theatre company. I’ve done some assistant directing of the production and lots of promotion for it. And I love it. I am so proud to be a part of this production because it is everything a Shakespeare production should be.
This production of Macbeth is set in Croydon during the riots last year. Because this is topical some of the local press have picked up on it and written stories and blog posts about it. All of this coverage is welcome because it all helps to spread the word about the production and we love it when local people are interested in what we are doing. But that doesn’t mean we have to like the coverage. Some of the stories have made me feel uneasy and a bit sick. One of them made me cry. But that isn’t their fault, it is mine.
The people writing these stories and those reading them and the people who read my tweets and emails about the production think that a Macbeth set during the riots is a novel idea. They think we are linking the production with certain specific violent episodes in Croydon to sell tickets, to make a point about Croydon. That isn’t it. They have missed the point because they have not yet seen the play and I have not been clever enough to explain to them why I think this production is great, not because I am involved with it but because I love it. If someone else had created it I would love it too.
To help me explain this I am going to use a clever writer’s words again. Here is Tim Minchin, who I adore beyond all reason:
The point is that humans are humans. Macbeth is not about some Scottish bloke in a field wanting to be king. If it was we would not still be performing it today and Paul would not have been so excited to direct it. It is about that feeling you get when your world is being pulled apart and nothing is certain any more. My character says in the play “Cruel are the times when we are traitors and do not know ourselves. When we hold rumour from what we fear, yet know not what we fear but float upon a wild and violent sea each way and move.”
Because Shakespeare was a clever and eloquent writer, those words portray exactly how a medieval Scottish Thane would feel if his king, who he thought was God’s representative on earth, was violently murdered. And then succeeded by a man who the Thane has previously thought was a great guy but was now systematically killing all their mates and shouting about ghosts over dinner.
But because Shakespeare was a genius those words also describe how I felt as a Croydon resident when the riots happened last year. I was angry. I was sad about a negative image of our town being confirmed. I was confused about whose side I was on and I was frightened because our house smelled of smoke and the world was burning down.
That’s why I believe that by setting Shakespeare in our own time in a tragedy that we lived through we are doing it right. There is no point performing Macbeth in Scotland hundreds of years ago because you are taking what the play is about, the feelings and human reactions and distancing your audience from them by hundreds of miles and hundreds of years.
I’m sorry, and I wish I had written this blog sooner, to tell you in my own words on my own blog why you should come and see the show. But it is not too late, you have until Saturday to come and see us!
Come and judge us for yourselves. And please don’t judge us merely on our acting, we are non-professional actors doing our best to do this play justice, (although happily many of the cast are brilliant actors too!) Judge us on our decisions, on our ideas and on our passion.
Above all, don’t judge us on the articles and don’t judge us on this blog. The play’s the thing wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the king.
Thanks.
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