June 2011 Archives

I’m deep in one of the luxurious red seats at BAFTA in Piccadilly enjoying sixteen films made by 3-year acting students at Arts Educational Schools London. It’s like a showcase but much more enjoyable than the usual theatrical take on it, because what we are being shown is quite polished, high quality work.

Arts Ed is an unusual drama school in that it devotes about half of its 3-year course to film work on the basis that while live performance is still, of course, very important, it is in film and television that most of these young actors are likely to get most of their opportunities. Therefore, the thinking goes, a drama school cannot afford to marginalise it. Hence these films and, incidentally, Arts Ed’s 5-term MA in screenwriting for which applications are currently being sought to begin next January.

I’ve been chatting (useful things, phones) to Edward Hall about Propeller, the all-male theatre company he runs, and in particular about his Pocket Propellers which are scaled down versions of Shakespeare plays for young audiences.

Most scaled down Shakespeare versions (at Open Air Theatre, RSC’s Young People’s Shakespeare or NT’s Primary Classics for example) start with the full text which someone sits down and cuts before rehearsals begin. Hall starts from the other end.

“Pocket Dream and our forthcoming Pocket Comedy are based on Propeller’s full-scale touring productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Comedy of Errors,” he tells me. “By the time we get to working on the Pocket version we’ve done the play together, perhaps a hundred times, all over the world. We know it so well that we can scale it down very easily and we do that collaboratively in rehearsal.” The company can, he continues, “edit the text very knowledgeably”.

Earlier this week I hopped on a big red train at Euston and took myself to Birmingham to find out what goes on at Birmingham School of Acting. I’ve seen groups of their 220 full-time students in action several times at London showcases and wanted to see and meet some of them - and BSA staff - on their home turf. Well, it was an enjoyable and very informative day and I was made very welcome indeed — of which more soon on The Stage’s Training page.

Meanwhile there are just two less than obvious aspects of BSA’s work which I want to mention here.

Shiny new performing arts books have a habit of holding meetings on my desk. They arrive individually from various publishers all the time and then huddle together in one corner - eagerly awaiting some attention. Well three of them are about to get just that, here and now, having worked their way out of their pile into my bedroom, sitting room, garden (if they and I are lucky) bag and car to be read.

Black and Asian Theatre in Britain: A History by Colin Chambers is a fascinating book which traces its subject from blackface and other representations in the sixteenth century to the work of cutting edge 21st century companies such as Talawa. Along the way Chambers discusses, among many other topics, Ira Aldridge, Paul Robeson, Dark & Light Theatre and Indian Art & Dramatic Society. The chapter on Aldridge (born 1807 in New York) and the ‘age of minstrelsy’ is particularly informative. Ironically, he played most of the great Shakespearean roles, whiteface, in London - among his many other groundbreaking achievements.

Although Chambers has been an academic - first Professor of Drama at Kingston University - he has also been a journalist and theatre critic so there is nothing dusty and obscure about his writing which flows compellingly. Black and Asian actors have been making a major contribution to the performing arts in Britain for a very long time and it’s good to see that spelled out in such an appealing book.

In a totally different mode and mood comes a slim book containing the play texts for four takes on Shakepeare plays. I,Shakespeare by Tim Crouch consists of I, Malvolio, I Banquo, I, Caliban and I, Peaseblossom. These are solo pieces which offer an entertaining commentary on Twelfth Night, Macbeth, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream from the point of view, in each case, of a feisty minor character being allowed to have a say. I saw I, Caliban and I, Peaseblossom at Unicorn Theatre a while back and was delighted to see how engaging these plays are for over 8s so I’m very pleased to see them in print.

Finally (for this time - there will, of course, be more another day) I have been sent On Making Off: Misadventures off-off Broadway by Randy Anderson. It’s a very entertaining, lively, wry memoir of a young actor who arrived in New York at the turn of the millennium and then struggled to make theatre, a living and something of his youth - with many lessons for anyone starting out in the industry in New York, or anywhere else, which is why I feel justified in including it in a training blog.

For example, he and others founded a company called The Beggars’ Group which has produced several pieces of fringe theatre. Anderson, who is a natural, pacey story teller with a gift for making good use of dialogue, pithy sentences and one-liners, details the how what and when - and the mistakes he made.

I must admit that my heart sank when this book arrived and I saw that it is self-published. Usually that’s a sign that no decent publisher would touch it because the quality is dire. But this time, I need not have worried. On Making Off drew me in immediately and made me laugh - and think - a lot. It’s a good read with nothing amateurish about it at all.

Of the theatre companies and venues producing, promoting and hosting fine work for young audiences, one of my favourites is Half Moon Young People’s Theatre, tucked away up a Tower Hamlets side street in a former small town hall near Limehouse DLR station. The relative remoteness of the location means that it isn’t on the itinerary of as many theatre critics as it could be. And that’s a pity, because I have seen some very fine work there over the years.

Well, there’s a good reason coming up for those who don’t know Half Moon to put that right.

When I’m not writing about performing arts, I am often to be found somewhere in the media banging on about children’s books and how vital they are to the development of whole civilised, thoughtful people. So I’m always thrilled when the two things come together.

Judith Kerr’s delightful The Tiger Who Came to Tea was first published in 1968. My kids loved it and so did I. Only last week my younger son, who has recently become a father, looked at the books I’d brought for the new baby and said fondly: “And please can we have The Tiger Who Came to Tea soon as well?” It’s a classic which works for every generation. It has sold over four million copies worldwide and is translated in over 20 different languages.

And now it’s reaching even more children and families as a delightful piece of 55-minute theatre for children aged 3 and over.

Never let it be said that I don’t notice what’s happening west of Exeter and the end of the M5. Only last week I interviewed staff from South Devon College, at Paignton, for a piece which is coming up in the print version of The Stage. Now I’m even further west (so to speak) at Falmouth in deepest Cornwall.

From June 17-24, University College Falmouth Summer Festival, sponsored by the Leadbitter Group, will showcase this year’s crop of graduating students from five leading disciplines across the schools of Art & Design and of Media & Performance.

Professor Anne Carlisle tells me that: “The Festival’s exhibitions, screenings, performances, and talks give friends, family and the whole community the opportunity to celebrate the pioneering work of our graduates as they launch into the creative industries.” She is keen to see as many people there as possible.

Of most interest to readers of this blog, probably, is the work of the Department of Performance which “invites everyone” to experience contemporary performances and contexture work by final year art, choreography, theatre, music, and writing students.

This event marks the end of the first year of Performance at UCF’s new performance centre on the Tremough Campus. The Departments of Media & Writing will present exhibitions and screenings in the Media and Photography Centres on the Tremough Campus as well as screenings and the Pixel8 film festival at The Poly in Falmouth.

All the details are at www.falmouth.ac.uk/festival

I have long had a very soft spot for Deptford and anything which goes on there. It all goes back (never mind how long ago it was) to my first teaching job - as an intrepid 21-year old and the first woman teacher in the “roughest” all-boys school in the district.

In those days the Albany Institute, as it was then called, was a late Victorian building near our school. Today The Albany is, of course, a purpose built dynamic, socially-engaged arts venue - in a central position - reaching a diverse cross- section of people across South East London and beyond.

For many years now The Albany has been establishing a strong tradition of programming theatre, dance, music and spoken word. Now it is building on this legacy and “focusing on the area’s thriving creativity and talent” (not just a publicist’s gush - for once I agree with the hype).

The Albany now plans to establish a resident Albany Young Company to provide regular development and investment in local young artists aged 13 -19.

I pounced with glee on David Bevington’s Murder Most Foul when it arrived from Oxford University Press last week.

I read this thoughtful, surprisingly entertaining study of Hamlet “through the ages” in just a couple of sittings — because although the author is a Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago where he has taught for over 40 years, his writing style is crisp, straightforward and accessible. Wordy or abstruse academic quagmires are conspicuously absent from this approachable, and rather delightful, 199 page book.

Arguing that Hamlet is reworked by each generation to suit the changing cultural climate, Bevington starts with the obscure “prehistoric” Danish legend, circulated orally, which was eventually written down as part of Saxo’s History of the Danes around the year 1200. I learned a lot from this - as would any student working on Shakespeare as part of a Theatre Studies A level or degree or who has reached the Shakespeare module in a vocational acting course.

I mentioned recently, in passing, that Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance is celebrating its 60th birthday this year and I continue to hear good news of things going on at the college to mark the anniversary.

For example, in August, during a special International Summer School, it is due to welcome its first cohort of Japanese students from Ariake College in Tokyo.

On Thursday, there will be an unusual showcase in Bristol. It starts at 6.30pm, on Thursday June 9 at the Watershed and will include two film screenings that document the recent work of artists in residence. There will also be a panel discussion, a demonstration performance of work in progress and a chance to meet the artists. The event is free of charge and open to the public.

I’m in the process of arranging to take myself to Cardiff to visit Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in the autumn. I don’t get out of the south east as much as I should and I’m making an effort to put that right. So there’ll be more from me about RWCMD after my Cardiff trip.

Meanwhile, there’s a lot of lovely stuff going on there this summer because the new £22.5 million facilities open this month. The Richard Burton Theatre and the Dora Stoutzker Hall look set to add a whole new dimension to the Cardiff arts scene.

When I was aged between 10 and 12, the book-gobbling habit, which has lasted all my life (so far), was already well established. By then I was on Pamela Brown’s series about children making theatre which began with The Swish of the Curtain. That was where I first heard of The Stage and plays such as Major Barbara and The Rivals, although it was many years before I read or saw them. I learned a lot from books such as Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes too. I also liked school stories from Enid Blyton to Eleanor M Brent-Dyer and Angela Brazil but, sadly (or happily) horses and ponies never did much for me.

So why mention all this here? Well I have always contended that fiction at all levels is an important education resource because the reader learns so much from the background. And I read large numbers of books written for children and young adults because I often review them - although not usually in The Stage.

Enter a hugely enjoyable, escapist, quite traditional series of children’s books from none other than Lyn Gardner, Guardian theatre critic and champion of theatre for young audiences.

Gardner has set her stories in a London stage school run by charismatic Alicia Swan. I don’t suppose she’s really modelled on Sylvia Young or Barbara Speake, but…