Getting to know The Preston Bill

By Georgette Purdey

I have been working on Fuel’s New Theatre in Your Neighbourhood for 18 months and it feels to me like we have all been building towards The Preston Bill. It’s the moment the project has come together in a perfect storm: great show, great venue, great artist. It’s a marketing gal’s dream team!

Andy Smith has been planning this show for almost two years. A Lancashire lad, he was the perfect artist to write a piece in response to Preston. I had seen an open rehearsal of the show in Camden People’s Theatre in London a few months ago and really enjoyed it. Fast-forward to the final night in Preston and the show has come on leaps and bounds.

The New Continental is far from what you might think of a Prestonian boozer: it’ s swanky and welcoming, nestled on the corner of a beautiful park. It’s the perfect intimate venue for The Preston Bill and Fuel worked hard to make sure the audience had more than just a good night out.

Gathered in the pub about half the audience arrived early for Garry Cooke’s work, a photographic journey of life through the past 80 years. As we sat with our pints we laughed at the juxtaposition of images from people’s own photo albums sandwiched next to world events. It’s important to remember that Uncle Ted washing his new car was just as mission critical in his life as NASA landing a man on the moon!

We then moved into the theatre space, which was bare apart from a chair and a ukulele. Andy held the audience spellbound with his beautifully lyric piece The Preston Bill. The embodiment of an ‘everyman’, the story of a life, an ordinary life. Sometimes that life seemed small and pedestrian but it illuminated much bigger debates and trends in society. I am not from Preston, but that didn’t matter, to me Bill was my Granddad born in South London, living through the Blitz, National Service, the Printers’ strike. His mother’s fond bedtime words were my Dad singing Que Sera to me every night as a child. He had captured the beauty and the pathos in everyday life.

As I looked around I had a bit of a ‘Henry Higgins’ moment – the denouement of the last two years of NTiYN. The audience were engaged, experiencing new writing, with a local artist in a versatile pub theatre. This was it – we had cracked it!

I couldn’t help but think about my childhood theatre experiences sat in church halls watching the work of companies like Eastern Angles – this was great storytelling stripped back to its bare bones.

In ‘the snug’ after, the Theatre Club was a lively debate fuelled by local pride and a sense of loss for the Preston of old. Understandably the dialogue moved to politics and although it’s easy to see The Preston Bill as partisan, I think that misses the point. The Preston Bill experiences life under Thatcher, Blair, Cameron – he is a prism through which we see the past 80 years played out. Things change, gay rights make advancements, some things don’t change so much. Throughout the play women remain benevolent characters but bit-parts, in a reflection on the ongoing fight for women’s rights.

The Preston Bill goes on tour in spring and I am confident that in theatres all around the country it will move audiences with its lyric narrative and leave them pondering on the legacy of their own lives.

More writing now

Intro by Maddy Costa: One of the joys of working on NTiYN has been encountering other people not only keen to write about theatre but doing so in voices that are thoughtful, vivid and distinct. On a trip to Colchester last week for the second After Show Party – Colchester’s brilliantly named take on the Theatre Club – I met Olivia Corbin-Phillip, a drama student at University of Essex who keeps her own blog, stagenstyle, covering theatre, fashion, travel and more. Olivia’s blog is lovely: she writes with care about what she sees, taking the time to consider why she responds the way she does to each show, rooting her opinions in description of the text and staging and also her personal experience. Her voice is bubbly, conversational and enthusiastic, but earnest, too: when she feels less enamoured of a show, her tone is full of respect.

In a piece posted last month, she confessed that she finds reviewing tricky, noting: “how hard it is to write about a performance in a way that highlights both the positives and the negatives without sounding like you don’t really have any opinion at all”. She also argued that writing reviews doesn’t make her special or her opinions any more important than anyone else’s: “I would love for everyone to take the time out after visiting the theatre to write down their thoughts on everything from the acting to the issues raised.” Three cheers to that.

Below I’ve pasted her review of the Fuel show Portrait, a scintillating set of reflections on being young, female and black written and performed by Racheal Ofori. I’m looking forward to keeping up with Olivia’s theatre adventures in Colchester: she seems to me someone who’s in this reviewing lark for the long haul.

By Olivia Corbin-Phillip

While at the Edinburgh Fringe this year I must have been handed hundreds of flyers. One of these was most probably for Fuel Theatre’s latest production, but amid the craziness of the Fringe it wasn’t something I ever came across directly and so I missed my chance to see it. That was until I saw it advertised at our very own campus, at the Lakeside Theatre. I have never been so glad I dragged myself to the theatre (it was one of those days) than I was tonight.

Although I tend to enjoy one-person shows, I’m always anxious to watch them. I mean, what if something goes wrong or it’s really bad and there is nobody to save them and help them pick it back up again? It’s every actor’s worst nightmare and I can’t help but think that when I go to see a one-person show. However when the lights went up on the first character of the night I knew that wasn’t going to be a problem.

In a 60-minute whirlwind Ofori managed to cover a range of issues from nightclub politics to university fees by presenting a catalogue of characters to whom we can all relate and have probably all met at some point in our lives. That was what was so great about the show, we were reminded that there is far more to us than the media stereotypes, and even if we do happen to ‘tick a box’ we each have a voice and, more importantly, a story to tell. Ofori gave them that voice and they were heard loud and clear. Transitions to and from each character were slick and effortless, with a basic set and limited costume, the world of each new personality was brought to life with simple lighting alterations or props. I think one of the main things I brought from this production was how unnecessary all the extra stuff can be if the words you’re saying actually mean something and come from somewhere real. In this case, the script was so flawless that there didn’t need to be any extreme decoration or embellishment, all that was needed was for each character’s story to be heard.

I laughed uncontrollably for a large part of the show, I was definitely caught off guard with the range of humour and the sassy characters that drew on definite similarities with my 18-year-old self. I went from nodding my head in agreement with the endless words of wisdom that were spouting from the school girl’s mouth to shaking my head in disappointment at the unfortunate truth in the idea of spending my life paying off my student loan. We heard of a woman doing the ‘walk of shame’ without being shameful, and it was awesome! Portrait concentrated on the positive within each story and didn’t allow the narrative to be bogged down by unattainable ideals. Instead the director (Katie Hewitt) pushed the importance of where these characters would end up, and what they gained from each experience rather than what the statistics say would happen. What is to one person a statistic, to another it is a reality.

It’s an immense job to talk about issues of race, politics, gender and identity without sounding preachy but somehow Ofori managed to voice what I know most people my age are dying to say, perfectly:

“I’m fed up, I have a voice and I want to use it.”

Portraits of a fiery evening

Intro by Maddy Costa: The second meeting of the new Margate Theatre Club took place last month and by all accounts it was a night of fireworks. The growing group met to see and talk about Rachael Ofori’s Portrait, a sharp and funny set of vignettes held together by the story of Candice, a quick-witted black teenager with an incisive view on gender and race politics. The brilliant volunteers who run the group managed to bring some first-timers to the Tom Thumb theatre, who stayed behind for the discussion, then wrote these energetic responses. Reading them, I’m consumed with disappointment at not being there myself. The group next meets on November 19 for KILN’s fascinating A Journey Round My Skull: a show that burrows into the brain in ways that should inspire another lively discussion.

By Kat Cutler-MacKenzie

I was inspired, horrified, engaged and even once insulted… but it was one of the best things I’ve done all year.

I knew about the Tom Thumb Theatre – it’s precisely 12 minutes and 14 seconds from my front door – but had I ever been in? Part of me was scared that I would be outnumbered by funky DFLs [Down From Londoners] and local hipsters, the only one who wasn’t ironically sporting a polar neck. I’m just not nonchalantly cool. The other part of me feared a desolate theatre; I imagined the local operatic society performing Cats (jazz hands and all), while myself and an overzealous usher were condemned to front row seats and skin-tight spandex.

However, to my relief the evening began like one might imagine a fairy-tale. The entrance was a secret passage way, lit with fairy lights and nestled just out of sight; enchantingly mysterious but unarguably Margate. There was a golden glow, auditory and visual, that radiated from within. I knew that the theatre club would be cosy if nothing else.

Portrait (Racheal Ofori) was accomplished and particularly poignant to a young woman of 18. It provided an abundance of issues for debate, and drew from us the politically correct to the politely condescending (thanks Racheal). In what was only the second gathering of Margate Theatre Club I couldn’t quite believe that so many people would stay behind to discuss the work.

We agreed, we disagreed. I didn’t want the discussion to end. We were arguing gender, race, class – how could it? Yes, of course, there were the few who “just thought the play was marvellous” and were “ever so proud” of a young black woman setting up in the world. But the majority were sharp – they were quick yet thoughtful and certainly weren’t afraid to challenge my ideas. Ace.

An unfortunate clash of perceptions did leave me feeling a little bruised and it took a day or two to rinse out the sour taste. But it was nothing a drink from the surprisingly well stocked bar couldn’t solve.

The evening ended like a fairy-tale too: I was elated, the clock was slowly nearing midnight and the next day it could all have been a dream. In fact, my companion did lose her shoe on the step and yes, Portrait by Racheal Ofori was something I thought could only ever be wished for.

By Thea Barrett

On a rather chilly Saturday evening, almost the entire audience of Rachael Ofori’s show Portrait stayed in the tiny theatre after the performance to discuss the brilliant piece they had just witnessed. The discussion covered many topics, including racism, sexism and class differences, encouraged by the group leaders who were both thoughtful and enthusiastic, lending themselves perfectly to help the discussion at hand evolve and go deeper into the topics that were displayed so brilliantly throughout the show.

The show itself was thought provoking, as well as surprisingly funny and something most wouldn’t have discovered if it weren’t for Fuel and Margate Theatre group. A one-woman show was territory I hadn’t ventured into before, and was inspired to see a young black woman present such difficult topics that many would have hid away from, while doing so in verse, so brilliantly.

The group managed to be original in its choice of play, supportive of local business in its choice of location and enjoyable in its entirety. I was pleasantly surprised when entering the theatre, not just by its quirky atmosphere and design, but by the completely packed audience. There was most definitely a buzz in the air as people – like myself – weren’t quite sure what to expect, which continued into the discussion after. This featured a fairly wide range of people, yet it managed to stay on topic and, despite disagreements, was as thought provoking and funny as the play.

I will openly admit I left the theatre angry at parts of the discussion I had just taken part in, frustrated at not getting in the last word – but also waiting for the next session to occur, another show to discuss, another argument to present. The discussion was passionate to say the least, the argument heated and the group divided, never the less there was one uniting factor: how brilliant everyone had found the entire experience. As I left, I found myself saying “see you next time” to my previous adversaries, all of us preparing for the next group.

New connections

A brief introduction from Maddy Costa: I’m now well into handover with NTiYN, visiting communities not to host conversations myself but support local volunteers in hosting their own Theatre Clubs. And because they’re run by people in and for a place and a community, these Theatre Clubs aren’t just post-show discussions: they’re actual social groups who will meet on a regular basis to see shows, chat and enjoy spending time together. It’s basically my dream come true. Anna Bodicoat is one of the three new volunteers based in Margate: I hope her post inspires people to contact her and join in.

By Anna Bodicoat

I love theatre that makes you think and feel deeply, the kind of theatre that might sometimes ask you to put a bit of work in. I know not everyone feels completely comfortable with this, and maybe sometimes discomfort is partly the point. I wonder how tolerable that discomfort feels, especially if you go to the theatre without a chance to talk about it afterwards.

I am lucky enough, in my work and in the things I do, to have lots of chances to share ideas, explore feelings, and work out what I think through conversation. In many interactions I have I can be tentative and test out ideas knowing that it is a safe thing to do, that I’m not going to be shouted down or told I am wrong.

Even so, I have loved the opportunities provided by Fuel and the NTIYN project, to be part of something that allows people to do that within a framework of exciting contemporary theatre. My first theatre club discussion was after This Is How We Die, a steamroller of a piece that left me in awe. Attending the discussion was as much a part of my experience as the show itself, and I want to shout about theatre club from the rooftops!

I want to tell people how great it is to be given the chance to talk about their ideas, to explore how theatre makes them feel and what it reminds them of.

I want to share what effect one such discussion had on me and the people who gathered in the upstairs bar at Theatre Royal Margate on October 2nd.

We picked Daniel Bye’s Going Viral for the first meet of Margate Theatre Club. The premise that piqued our interest and hinted that there may be a discussion to be drawn out of the play was: ‘An aeroplane flies from India to England. Everyone on board is weeping. Everyone except you. On the ground, the weeping spreads. Is it a strange new disease? An outbreak of hysteria? Or has the world become genuinely sad?’

We were led around the outside of the theatre and through the stage door to be seated on the stage behind the curtain, one of the first plays to be done like this at the Theatre Royal. This created a really intimate feel to the performance, added to by Daniel starting the play seated in the audience, offering nuts, and hand sanitiser and asking direct questions about our state of health! Throughout the play, he challenged the audience to look at each other, to imagine themselves inside the story. I noticed just how responsive we were as an audience, almost hyped up, performing ourselves, ‘acting’ as audience members. Maybe, in part, this was a response to what he put himself through, with scenes where he attempted to induce tears in himself, making us all wince and challenging us to feel for him.

One of the themes of our discussion was connection. We talked about the connection he was inviting us to make, with him and with each other. We wondered about our connection to the world and to people in need, particularly at present our connection to refugees. We thought about compassion and how we show it in a country famed for its ‘stiff upper lip’. I was taken by Daniel stating that the people that make Britain profitable apparently had immunity to the outbreak, saying something about the empathy deficit within the higher echelons of society and big business. We also talked about responsibility, and we thought together about what responsibility the main characters did, or didn’t, shoulder at a time of crisis.

Throughout the discussion I was struck by the bravery people had in sharing, how honest they were about what they thought, even if they may have been in a minority. Of particular note were a couple of people who did not see any metaphors in the piece, and we were able to talk about witnessing the play on completely different levels. A poignant moment for me was talking about grief and how the play explores it. We talked about private and public expressions of grief and sadness, and what is ‘permitted’ in today’s society. I was reminded of the experience in grief where you cannot believe the world still continues as normal, despite someone you love being dead. At a time like that, I want the whole world to be crying too, just like in Going Viral. I wondered whether the contagion of weeping people were carrying the sadness of the main character in a way that he couldn’t find a way to express.

Overall, the play and the theatre club confirmed my experience of the arts as a way of processing and exploring difficult emotions and topics. I think the space in the upper bar gave people a taste of what thoughtful and exciting theatre and discussion can be like. As long as people feel safe enough to express an opinion, and feel heard when they do, I think it is likely that they will use a discussion space to gain much more from a theatre piece, even if they come away with more questions than when they went in.

@Anna_Bod
@MargTheatreClub

Into the light

It’s transition time for New Theatre in Your Neighbourhood, as Fuel enter the final period of the research project and shift to doing this work – of building stronger relationships with theatres and communities – as their daily practice. A big step into that shift has now been taken, with the establishment of a network of volunteers in the five NTiYN towns, people who will act as ambassadors in their local communities, invigorating interest not only in Fuel’s shows but any intriguing touring productions in the upcoming autumn and spring programmes.

I have mixed feelings on the volunteer front: on the one hand, it’s great that this invitation to work in partnership with theatre-makers is so open and wide-reaching: the volunteers recruited over the past couple of months might be theatre fans, but very few of them are specialists or practitioners; instead they bring a variety of work backgrounds and an age range spanning at least three decades. On the other hand, they’re not paid, and that jangles.

And on the other hand again, there is in the fabric of the network a different economic structure, an exchange mechanism which values endeavour not with money but barter. As a matter of course that will include free tickets to see Fuel’s (and, it’s hoped, other companies’) shows; but to get the network going, it meant something bigger. It meant the volunteers being brought from all over the country to Edinburgh, to spend a weekend at the fringe festival with Fuel, seeing shows, sharing thoughts and generally having fun – with travel, accommodation, food and tickets covered.

I joined the group to host a few Theatre Clubs, and to lead a writing workshop, as a way of encouraging the volunteers to create their own discussions and blogs as part of their advocacy work. It’s always fascinating introducing Theatre Club to new people; it’s based on the book group, but not everyone appreciates the absence of the theatre-makers and the chance that affords to articulate perhaps unformed, contradictory or deeply personal responses to a show; often there will be someone who feels frustrated, so full is their head of questions that dig into why and how this work was made. I particularly noticed, with this volunteer group, how quick I can be in dismissing the idea that the theatre-maker(s) should be involved: I recognised the extent to which that reflects my experience of working alongside theatre, and resolved to experiment more with ways of including makers in the discussions.

The group took the time to sit down together after each of the three Fuel shows we saw – Potrait, I Am Not Myself These Days and Fiction – and compare reactions. Portrait inspired a lot of praise for its writer-performer, Racheal Ofori, and some thoughtful political conversation about race inequality and feminism. All of us were impressed with the way Ofori makes direct criticisms of the social structures of white privilege without coming across as hectoring or alienating; and with her reflections on female experience, the daily battle with expectations around body image, relationships and ambition. Tom Stuart’s adaptation and performance of the autobiography I Am Not Myself These Days left some in the group shaken by its often visceral portrayal of a young drag queen’s obsessive affair with a drug-addicted male prostitute, while others were too aware of the virtuosity of the writing and staging to feel that deeply moved. Fiction was just as divisive: some in the group loved not really knowing what this dream narrative was doing or saying, others desperately wanted to sit down with writer Glen Neath and director David Rosenberg and interrogate them about the work and their thinking; some people were exhilarated by sitting in the pitch black with voices whispering, cajoling and barking in their ears, others experienced a nauseous sense of claustrophobia and needed to gulp down some fresh air immediately afterwards.

The writing workshop was illuminating, too: we talked through a set of reviews, some published by “professional” critics in newspapers, some from online theatre publications, some from local press, some from individual blogs, essentially reviewing the reviews. I always find workshops like this fascinating, because again, my involvement in writing skews my opinions on it: I incline towards experiment, personal insight and poetry – exactly the stuff that others find indulgent, waffly and obscure. We got off to a difficult start with many in the group finding the set of reviews of the Uninvited Guests show This Last Tempest intimidating: so wordy and full of knowledge that the volunteers felt they could never hope to write anything like that. There was much more excitement about a review presented as a Whatsapp conversation, and another that used memes and gifs to respond to a show: this felt, particularly to the artists in the group, like a brilliant, conversational and accessible way into writing about theatre. Sure enough, a couple of days after the workshop, one of the volunteers – Helen Lee, based near Colchester – sent in the following to response to Fiction. At the risk of sounding like a soppy idiot, I couldn’t feel more proud that this was what the workshop inspired her to do.

Update! Another new volunteer, Anna, has also written the following brief but tender reflection on one of the Edinburgh shows, this time I Am Not Myself These Days. And again, I’m ridiculously excited that this encounter with Fuel has encouraged her to start a blog and share these thoughts:

Last month I was swamped by fabulous theatre and fascinating discussions. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what I love about theatre but a big part of it is the transportation to other worlds, other ways of being and perspectives.

I Am Not Myself These Days showed me a world very different from my own, with the glamorous and fragile Aqua taking us on a tour through the world of a successful drag queen in New York, with all the booze, drugs and hogtied businessmen that that entails.

Despite how alien it was from my own experience, I was struck by the universality of love and relationships. The triangle of Josh (who works as Aqua at nights, whilst working in an office by day), Aqua and Jack (their partner) was shown to us in heartbreaking detail with all its messiness. As Josh navigates his, and Aqua’s, places in the world and in love, I was captivated and moved by their story, and laughed and cried (well, wept, if I’m honest) along with it.

I could see devastating similarities between Aqua’s spiral into despair and alcohol and that of friends, family and people I have worked with as a psychologist. At times I just wanted to give her a hug, and protect her from the world.

In our discussion group afterwards, it made us think about what we have to leave behind of ourselves in order to grow up, to be safe, to be happy. We talked about vulnerability and making mistakes, we talked about what mistakes shape us, and we wondered whether experiences that we don’t regret can even be counted as mistakes.

A good night out with Feral

A note from Maddy Costa: this review is by Lucas Murray, a visually impaired kid and keen photographer who first came across Feral in Poole when his family spotted posters for the show in the local shopping centre. Fuel had also arranged for Harry Webb, Poole’s local engagement specialist, to spend some time on the High St speaking to people about the show – which is how Lucas found out about the competition #mypoole, to make a one-minute film about the area. Lucas entered and was a brilliant finalist (you can see his film here). But he also got to have a very particular experience with the show, which is where he picks up the story. A longer version of this piece appears on Lucas’ blog, here.

By Lucas Murray

I emailed Fuel to ask for a touch tour which is when you get to go on stage before the show, and feel the set and meet the cast, because I would get a better idea of the story when I’m watching the show. They liked the idea of doing one because they had never done one before and they replied saying: “Can you come at 7.10?” We decided to dress up smart for the occasion so I wore shirt and tie and man’s perfume.

We were met by Hattie and Harry from Fuel who showed us into the studio to start the touch tour. I liked Jim the sound editor from Tortoise in a Nutshell (the theatre company) talking me through all the different sounds that are used in the show and the way he changed the pitch of his voice made me laugh! I got to feel the puppets which were made from a clay called Sculpey and when I was holding the Dawn puppet, I could move her head and pretend that she was writing something by moving the stick that was attached to her hand. The buildings were made from thick cardboard and the whole set was black and white. Lots of shops had their names changed so Lush was called Loosh, Bennets the ‘Bonnets’ Bakers was called Bonnets, the Dolphin Centre was called the Porpoise Centre. I liked learning how the different video cameras worked and how the guy used them to follow the puppets so that the pictures could be shown on the big screen. It was the first Touch tour they had ever done and I thought they were really good!

Then we went into the cinema where they were screening the finalists in the film competition. Mine was the very first film to be shown, and it felt really exciting to see it on a huge screen. After my film, the other people in the audience clapped and I felt proud. The show had really good sounds. I particularly liked the train crossing, the till, the paper ripping and the sirens. The story was about Poole park closing and a casino being built in its place. All the shops had closed and the people of Poole were very unhappy and then they were rioting. I was a bit upset that everything was destroyed. It was a very happy ending though as the Poole people started to make it look very nice again and worked together and the casino had completely closed down and all the shops had reopened. After the show, we got to come down on to the stage and take photos of the set.

[Here are some of Lucas’:]

Our Town

by Georgette Purdey

I was feeling quietly satisfied as I got out of the cab at the Theatre Royal in Margate. The cabbie had spent the entire journey from the station telling me about the show I was en route to see – she had heard Ross, the director, interviewed on local radio. This always bodes well when your job is to market the show.

Rather than just programme Tortoise in a Nutshell’s hit show Feral into the Theatre Royal, Fuel commissioned a new version – Feral in Margate – as part of New Theatre in Your Neighbourhood. This is a luxury few shows are afforded, but it made all the difference. The company spent a week in Margate conducting local-specific research and development, meeting with a variety of locals: councilors, schoolchildren and shopkeepers. And they reimagined their show as a result.

NTiYN’s mission is getting ‘new audiences’ into the theatre. It was obvious in the foyer that night that Feral in Margate had done just that. The theatre was open early to allow audiences to filter in and watch the entries to the #mymargate film competition – an invitation to locals to make something of their own, to accompany the performance. The 11 entries had been compiled into a show reel of people’s favorite Margate spaces: from the imposing Arlington House to some locals larking about in Fort Road Yard. I was sat behind some of the entrants who were giggling with pride seeing themselves up on the big screen.You can watch the entries here.

Winner Martin Spier with his bespoke piece of set.

After a free drink at the bar courtesy of NTiYN the crowd was in the right frame of mind to see the show. It was a crowd quite unlike any other I have sat in in a theatre for a while. Gone were the usual ranks of silver-haired middle classes, replaced by an eclectic mix of families with older children, arty types and a man who said quite loudly mid-performance: ‘It’s been ages since I haven’t had a fag for this long.’ I had that wonderful sense that the crowd was unpredictable. Their reactions to seeing their own town made in miniature on the screen shifted from excited to saddened as the story unfolded, and for most ended with hope as the town rebuilt itself.

As the show closed the audience didn’t shuffle off into the cold; instead they all stayed and joined the cast on stage to look more closely at their town, their history, their streets laid out before them. The crazy cat ladies, the local councilors, the shopkeepers, were all there in a beautiful coming together of a community. In the performance the Council is pictured as an authoritarian body, distant from the ‘real life’ of the townsfolk. Up on stage at the end the local town councilor was happily joking that at least her miniature counterpart was a man – so she might not be recognised!

Most residents liked it, some didn’t, but they were all on stage, examining the set and engaged in debate about their town. Not a chocolate-box, picket-fence toy town – but a real town with its old-school seaside charm rejoicing in a piece of work made just for Margate, being performed in its beautiful and historically significant theatre.

The show is best summarized in the words of the audience:

‘This was brilliant! I didn’t know what to expect but knew it looked interesting. Totally captivating from start to finish. Funny, thought-provoking. Can’t praise highly enough.’

‘The attention to detail was astonishing! The whole concept and production was so inspiring. Many congratulations on such excellent work! Please do more!’

Dinner with a difference

An introduction from Maddy: the following might seem anomalous on this blog, focused as it is on the New Theatre in Your Neighbourhood project. But I asked Humira Imtiaz, the writer I met at a workshop last October, to blog about Leo Burtin’s visit to Stockton with Homemade for two reasons: partly to keep encouraging Humira to write, mostly because I think what ARC is doing to transform itself into a community hub welcoming to everyone, even those who think “contemporary performance” isn’t for them, is inspirational and that goes far beyond their work with Fuel. This has been sitting in my inbox for a while, but Leo is taking Homemade to Bristol at the end of the month so do catch him there if you can.

Homemade: Bistro at the ARC
by Humira Imtiaz

Hosted by Leo Burtin, the pop-up Bistro offered a variety of delicious food – and an interesting alternative to ARC’s “Pay What You Decide” scheme. Rather than using money as a form of exchange, we used recipes, ones that have a special, subjective meaning to the consumer. It may not sound much, but this project does challenge the idea of monetary exchange as the only valuable exchange between people. It recognises that there are more important things in life, whether it’s sharing a family recipe of pakoras that your grandmother used to make or food that you’ve prepared yourself.

As you may have guessed, the pakoras were my exchange – though my anxiety made me throw in a little recipe for green chilli chutney as well, because you can’t have pakoras without that! I’m not exactly the most social person around, and when it comes to strangers my first instinct is usually to run. But the food and the familiarity of the personal memories linked to that – which can be emotional, ranging from “family favourites” to “something simple to impress the lay-dies” – encouraged conversation. The showcasing of alternative foods and encouragement of conversation between people of different backgrounds is another admirable side to this vision.

The recipe exchanges were written on little postcards and speaking with Leo about this work was quite enlightening. I think I’m going to miss this Bistro: it would be nice to see something like this more often and maybe it doesn’t have to end with food.

In praise of: Amy Rainbow

by Maddy Costa

One of the (many) ambitions for this blog is to contribute to movements already happening in the six NTiYN towns to develop a more vocal and vibrant local critical community, whether it’s by flagging up writing on here, or giving workshops to inspire writers to be more adventurous in how they review. Someone I’ve been meaning to flag up for a while is Amy Rainbow: based in the Malvern area, she writes for a site called Behind the Arras, and has a lovely, friendly, no-nonsense voice. A brave one, too: I love the fact that, when writing about Fiction, the new Glen Neath/David Rosenberg show that takes place in pitch darkness, she does so fully confessing that she had to walk out, it made her feel that queasy. She’s since seen two other Fuel shows, Uninvited Guests’ endlessly gorgeous Love Letters and the same company’s This Last Tempest, and her writing on the latter is full of tenderness and admiration. It’s a while before Fuel’s spring season kicks in, but I’m already looking forward to reading what Amy makes of it.

Facts and fictions

I’ve known my friend Andrew for 22 years, and for most of that time he’s lived in Ingol in Preston, which ought to mean it’s the place I know best of all the NTiYN towns. Sadly, I’m quite a rubbish friend, so have relied on him visiting me in London, and haven’t returned the favour since 1999. So we were both really excited when I started working on this project at the prospect of seeing more of each other – even though he quickly confessed an element of cynicism about the work I would be doing. The New Continental has good music gigs, he told me, but isn’t really a place that attracts a theatre-going audience. And, he argued, the best thing about going to theatre is that it finishes early – no frantic dash for the last bus home – so why would anyone want to stay for a post-show discussion?

It’s taken a surprisingly long time, but on Friday night I finally had my first visit to Preston, and the Conti, for Fiction. It was a chilly night of squally showers, and as we made the 15-minute walk through winding back streets from the bus stop to the venue, Andrew and I feared the worst. Our journey was well over half an hour: who else was going to do that if they didn’t have to? In the dark and rain? And the Conti isn’t on the same side of town as students, making it even less likely that people would come. Let alone stay for the Theatre Club.

Settled into the pub’s lovely snug – with roaring fire! – Andrew and I got our first gratifying surprise: we discovered that the show was sold out. The capacity was 60 people – even if only a tenth stayed, I argued, that would still be enough for an interesting discussion. But at the end, everyone poured out of the theatre – and it seemed Andrew’s dire predictions were coming true. Except they weren’t. Everyone had disappeared to take advantage of the offer of a free drink for the discussion, and within a few minutes, people started coming back in. First two people, then five, then a whole crowd: we’d arranged the chairs into a big circle, but it just wasn’t big enough, and people crowded at the back so they could join in, too. In the end we had about 30 people, half the audience – one of the biggest theatre clubs I’ve ever led.

And it was brilliant. Fiction takes place in an astonishingly complete darkness, and lots of people talked about the insecurity that made them feel; one woman confessed that it induced a state of such panic that she’d had to leave. We talked about whether the makers take enough care over communicating just how dark it’s going to get, and the games that can be played with the imagination because of that darkness. We shared our different experiences of visualising the things described in the show, and how that was affected by the different qualities of the recording. We compared the extent to which the many invitations to fall asleep in the text of the show had affected our alertness; one woman talked fascinatingly of her experience of hypnosis, and how similar this had felt. We asked who had “understood” the show, and whether not understanding was frustrating, and enjoyed the way that the movement and content of the text is as surreal as a dream. One man actually said this was the best instance of surrealism in theatre he’d ever encountered. Apart from a brief moment of splitting into small noisy conversations, for most of the hour we talked as a single, albeit huge, group, listening attentively to each other, enjoying everyone else’s individual perspective.

As we travelled home, Andrew confessed he was amazed – and that his cynicism had been overturned. He’d not only really enjoyed the conversation, but the event had proven him wrong: people in Preston WOULD come to this sort of thing, AND have a brilliant time. This shift in his perspective showed me again what’s properly great about the NTiYN project: it can make people who’ve lived in a town for decades reconsider their relationship with it, and discover that it’s not what they thought it was. And it does this patiently, one person at a time.