January 2012 Archives

Last week I saw and reviewed for The Stage the National Theatre’s 2012 primary school project play Island by Nicky Singer. As I wrote in the review it’s a fine piece of theatre which manages to pack in a huge amount of challenging learning for over-eights. I saw it in a primary school’s hall but you can catch public performances in the Cottesloe from 15 to 25 February.

Since then I’ve had a chat with playwright, Nicky Singer. “I’d never written a play from scratch before” said Singer who is a well known children’s novelist. Her book Feather Boy won the 2002 Blue Peter award, was broadcast and won a BAFTA in 2004. A musical version was part of the NT Shell Connections (now simply “Connections”) programme.

Approached by Anthony Banks, Associate Director of National Theatre Learning she was initially flummoxed and asked for time to consider whether she could write a play.

I know I’m sometimes too focused on London and the south-east. It’s partly because that’s where I live and operate and partly because it’s where a huge concentration of fine performance and education happens. But, for the record, I do worry about it and I’m well aware that most of Britain is, as it were, somewhere else and that there is good work going on in many parts of it.

That’s why I was so pleased to hear from Sarah Osborne, Artistic Director of Yew Tree Arts in Wakefield. Her new play Encounters is about two people with a history.

I’ve written a lot about Charles Dickens lately in various publications(http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/charles-dickens-a-tale-of-two-centuries-6292734.html)(http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/charles-dickens-a-tale-of-two-centuries-6292734.html)because, of course, 2012 is the bicentenary of his birth. So I was particularly pleased to see that West End Kids is performing at the Dickens Bicentenary Banquet at the Mansion House on February 7 - the great man’s birthday.

West End Kids was formed by Musical Director and specialist vocal coach Martin-Gwyn Williams in September 2001. It is based on the American system of training young Broadway performers.

Now pretty well known as a musical theatre song & dance troupe, the West End Kids appear across the UK with a busy schedule of events, performances and studio recordings. Last year, the West End Kids were seen and heard by over a million people.

I have mentioned here before that Britain is now producing almost no ice dancing champions. And it isn’t difficult to see why. One by one most of our ice rinks seem to be disappearing - Streatham’s -81-year old ice rink became the latest casualty when it closed its doors just before Christmas.

The problem with ice skating is that you need ice - just as swimmers need water - and it’s an expensive facility to maintain. Or do you? Enter Karen Coombes of Dragon’s Den fame who has invented an “off ice” boot and Herbert Justice Academy in Beckenham which has provided her with the facilities to get local people using it.

I’ve been chatting to Simon Dunmore, author of An Actor’s Guide to Getting Work, the fifth edition of which publishes next month. He’s also editor of Actors’ Yearbook 2012: Essential Contacts for Stage, Screen and Radio, now in its 9th year. Both books are published by Methuen Drama.

As soon as I mentioned on Twitter that I was about to do this interview I was spontaneously contacted by rising young actor Peter McGovern, who appeared as Braun alongside David Haig in the recent, highly successful tour of The Madness of George III. It re-opened this week at the Apollo Theatre in the West End with both Haig and McGovern still in the cast.

What McGovern, who comes from Yorkshire, wanted to tell me was that, in his teens, he knew nothing about how to train or become an actor and that there was little access to information in his community. “To a naive and clueless aspiring actor, with no idea about drama school or the acting profession Simon Dunmore’s books were an enormous help. At the time, they felt like my only real link with the industry I was hoping to enter,” he wrote.

Can you start an effective vocational school with just five students? Well, although they would obviously have liked more, James Bowden and Laura Roxburgh decided last year that, yes, they could. And Dorset School of Acting’s one year foundation course launched last September.

I went to the Lighthouse in Poole, where DSA is based, to find out more.

And still they come. No fewer than seven new books with training potential have reached me in the last fortnight. Here’s a brief run-down. Gregory Doran’s RSC production of Cardenio attracted a lot of interest and praise last year. Now Doran, always a compelling writer, describes his quest to piece Shakespeare’s lost play together in Shakespeare’s Lost Play, an account which takes him, and the reader, from the Bodleian Library to the Escorial and finally to the Swan Theatre. The official publication date by Nick Hern Books is February 16 and Doran is talking about it at National Theatre on February 20 at 6.00pm.

Another story of how an astonishing piece of theatre came about is told by Mervyn Millar in the second edition of The Horse’s Mouth: How Handspring and the National Theatre made War Horse from Oberon Books in partnership with the National Theatre. This new version comes with an additional introduction by Millar, explaining how the show, its script and direction has changed, developed and evolved since 2007 as well as the original detailed accounts of how those magnificent equine puppets were conceived and built with lots of quotes from practitioners.

I’ve long been fond of Oxford University Press’s A Very Short Introduction books and Michael Wood’s Film: A Very Short Introduction is the 300th title in the series. In it he explores the history of film, its venture into the digital age and its role and impact on modern society. Film, after all, is widely regarded as the dominant art form of the 20th century. Wood is interested in its role as a record of events, a modern mythology, a career, an industry, an art, a hobby and much more.

You have to hand it to the ebullient Felicity Jackson whose ignominious sacking from The Apprentice last year you can see here:

A trained actor, she turned her hand three years ago to running training events for performers.

And she did so with such energy, enthusiasm, efficiency and competence that Surviving Actors - the third London event is on Saturday 21 January - has grown out of all recognition. It is now a big, ‘buzzy’ event attended by many hundreds of professional actors, dancers, singers and performers in training aged 16 and over.

Attendees are given the chance to develop their career by meeting photographers, show-reel companies and other industry-related professionals, all of whom provide services to progress an actor’s career. Actors will also meet companies that provide additional training for professional actors in order to refresh, focus and develop their craft.

It won’t be long before the showcase season starts again in earnest and I find myself reviewing a spate of them, all featuring keen, and often talented, young actors due to graduate this summer.

I won’t pretend that showcases are my favourite thing to review because, of course, the innate and inevitable bittiness does not necessarily make for a rounded and satisfying theatrical experience - but that is not, of course, what a showcase is about. Its purpose is to demonstrate to agents and casting directors what these performers are capable of. It is nothing to do with the entertainment of theatre critics. Neither should it be.

No, what really gives me pleasure in relation to showcases is seeing participants at a later date doing well in a professional show. The astonishingly talented James Corden has been in my mind recently because I saw One Man,Two Guvnors last week. Sadly I didn’t see Corden’s graduating showcase, which must have been around 2000 or 2001 and probably wowed everyone present - because LAMDA has a policy of not inviting the press to showcases. Our loss.

There’s a lot going on in Guildford, where the four year old Performance Preparation Academy seems to be giving the much longer established Guildford School of Acting a run for its money. The latter is now part of the University of Surrey and has been without an artistic director since the sudden resignation of Peter Barlow in December 2010. Business manager Jeff Saunders has now been ‘Interim Head of School’ for over a year.

The independent PPA, on the other hand, seems to be very focused, to know exactly what it what it wants to do and where it’s going. Under the leadership of Rachel Crouch it has really put itself on the training map in just four years. And earlier this month it moved into its sparky new building, Regents House, which was opened by its patrons, Kerry Ellis and Bonnie Langford.

The much hyped 2012 Dickens bicentenary is already bringing a spate of dramatisations and books, most of which have a bearing on education and training.

At present I’m reading in proof-form, for example, Simon Callow’s delicious Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World (Harper Press) due out next month on 07 February, Dickens’s birthday. It’s a biography by a man who a) has such an intimate relationship with Dickens that he’s virtually the face of Dickens for the 21st century and b) who stresses Dickens’s lifelong love of theatre and puts an actorly theatrical spin on nearly every page. Callow’s deeply convincing one-man storytelling shows have won great acclaim and there are more to come this year.

And what about all those dramatisations? The BBC treated us to that sparky new Great Expectations over Christmas along with Ayeesha Menon’s reworking of Martin Chuzzlewit as The Mumbai Chuzzlewits on Radio 4. And across Britain and beyond there will be much more this year.

It is always a pleasure - and interesting - to hear about a training provider who is new to me. One such is Court Theatre Training Company whose principal and founder, June Abbot, wrote to me last year.

Now, please understand that this isn’t a recommendation because I haven’t been to CTTC or spoken directly to any of its movers and shakers. All I have is the prospectus and website. But I think, however, that it looks pretty professional and, while it can’t produce the glittering alumni lists that, say, LAMDAcan, its graduate employment record is decent - recent leavers having worked at RSC and National Theatre, in the West End and on big name TV series.

A new year should bring new ideas, new opportunities and new challenges. And 2012 is going to.

One of the things I’m very much looking forward to this year is being part of The Stage Events. It’s a completely new venture for The Stage, masterminded by the dynamic Jo Eames, appointed head of The Stage Events last year. It offers training sessions presented by people connected with The Stage.

To begin with there are just six expert presenters offering a range of sessions. Based in theatres in London’s West End, each practical ‘how-to’ session has been very carefully planned and prepared to give you just the right insights to shape your future in the entertainment industries. They include How to nail your audition, How to get seen by the right people, How to give your child a head start and how to work with agents - among others.

The cost is £39.00 plus VAT for a three-hour session.

I am presenting How to fund your training on February 21 and April 03 and How to find your path to performance success on February 09 and March 22.

Other presenters include Jo Hawes, John Byrne, Barbara Eifler, Richard Evans and Thomas Hescott and you can read all about us at http://www.thestage.co.uk/events/expert/.

These sessions are suitable for anyone aged 16 or over and we’re hoping to see a wide range of interested people from all sorts of backgrounds and spheres of interest.

Jo Eames and her colleagues have plans to expand The Stage Events to include more presenters and more topics later in the year. Watch this space. Get the knowhow — as the The Stage Events advertising slogan has it.

Happy New Year, meanwhile.