Theatre In Education - Bristol Ferment

Theatre in Education is theatre in schools, youth clubs, non-theatre institutions often for young people, usually issue based and accompanied by an interactive workshop.

Actors doing acting, director Rikki doing directing, seated far side

I had the idea for Theatre In Education about two years ago. A TIE (Theatre in Education) company enter a youth club and get taken hostage by the kids inside. It’s based on a real experience I had, working with a real TIE company as an actor. We walked into a volatile atmosphere one evening in a youth club in Lawrence Weston and I had an epic one second daydream in which we were indeed taken hostage and given a monumental lesson ourselves. I didn’t actually think this would happen – we went on, did the play and workshop; the kids were fantastic and all was a great success – but I thought it would be quite funny if it did. To somebody else.

I’ve shared this idea with friends a fair bit and the general reaction is nonplussed – so what?  A good friend asked – why would you want to write that? And there are loads of reasons. Here are some:

1 I find few things more entertaining than the rapid fire exchanges of teenagers. These exchanges are in turn witty, absurd, wise, naive, outrageous, immensely quotable, loud, proud and hopeful. What’s not to like about dialogue like this? In my experience also, teenagers don’t tend to like to be seen as being overtly clever, so the more astute observations they make have to be disguised as regular shit talk. This is a useful exercise for writers who can be given, in moments of weakness to basically saying what their entire play is about through an impassioned line of dialogue from its central character – eg: “And that’s why you killed the NHS Mrs Thatcher – because you hated your mother!” or something else bad. This sort of weakness is I presume what led Luigi Pirandello to say demand, over a century ago that"Drama is action, sir, action and not confounded philosophy."

2 It’s a closed time/closed space play. I.e: a play set in a single location in “real time.” It’s a relatively rare form given that there are not many opportunities to do it – many stories require a longer time frame – we need the past to fully appreciate Willy Loman’s downfall in Death of a Salesman for example. It wouldn’t work so well if he came back from work one evening and over the course of 75 minutes got really cross. The advantage of closed time closed space is that it’s fundamentally dramatic: it’s a play so we need to end up somewhere very different from when we started and we’ve got 90 minutes, not twenty years, to do it in. The stakes therefore have to be bloody high from the off. Actually In fact, this play is not closed space – there’s a scene in the car on the way to the youth club and back – but I’d like that to be audio – so that we hear the company getting closer to the pandemonium that awaits them while we watch the kids in their youth club. On sat 21^st we’ll stage the car journey and that makes sense given the context. But you know – halfway there 

3 My experience of TIE is great – but many friends of mine have concerning stories to tell about ill-trained companies knocking out below par productions of issue based drama in search of grants to fund their lifestyle. Only a damn fool would condemn the entire TIE industry, but it’s an alarmingly crowded bath, and it’s reasonable question to ask is it all in fact good enough? Which takes me to perhaps the part of this I find the most exciting.

4 The bad play. The awful spoof play is one of my favourite things on the planet. And we have one in this script.

5 It’s a large cast play with characters ranging from age 15 to 50. I’ve always wanted to write a large cast play – the truth is unless you’re hugely successful you’ll never have one produced; I’m actively encouraged not to write large cast plays for this reason – but we may as well all give up now if we settle for that.

6 A play like this requires a group of people who collectively possess a wider range of experiences and training than you might normally find in a single company. I'm not dissing traditional drama training - 3 of our company have been through that process (and are very very good actors) and many are about to enter it, but many haven't and they have an aliveness to their performance that drama training (in my opinion) can stifle in all but the most talented and resilient actors. 

But that doesn’t answer what it’s about. Well, I think it’s about responsibility and disconnection. It is a huge responsibility to enter into a neighbourhood and make work that directly corresponds to the perceived lives of the people there. It's sensitive territory and you need to be incredibly skilled to get it right. I've always thought that if in fact people's lives are difficult, the last thing they need is a theatre company to present to them how shit that company perceives their lives to be. The youth orchestra programme in Venezuela strikes me as doing far more for young people in poor neighbourhoods because they open horizons. Rather than take "theatre to the kids" take them to the theatre. The writer David Eldridge grew up as a working class boy in London's East End - incidentally, he enjoyed this lifestyle - it's worth remembering that many people in "disadvantaged" situations quite rightly don't consider themselves to be disadvantaged at all - but it was a school trip to a theatre (The National I think) to see King Lear that changed his life and got him into theatre. Depressingly, this was the result of earning a scholarship to an exclusive public school that could afford outings like this - as we know not everyone is afforded this opportunity. Secondly, given that we enjoy such bewilderingly unequal standards of living  it's inevitable that fellow human beings are going to fundamentally fail to understand one another when they have so little experience in common. Everyone in this play is doing their best - however flawed and misguided. 

How have we got here? Having worked in TIE as an actor many times for a very good company, I’ve basically just taken all the good decisions they made and made them bad and ended up with Cut The Rap theatre company: convinced that all children love rap music and are impressed by swearing and simulated sex. This play is not a broadside against TIE - to be honest it's more fun than that. I hope.

Who is this we? How do you get nine actors to play the kids in the youth club? Well I contacted Tin Can Collective (previously Made in Bristol) who were so impressive in Bassett last year and recently caused shockwaves in Bristol and London with their devised piece I Would Not, and they decided they’d get enough out of the process to make it worth their while. They’re not being paid (beyond expenses). I wouldn’t normally bring cash up but it’s relevant when considering the growing absence of the large cast show from all but the best resourced organisations. From where I’m sat in the rehearsal (at the time of writing) they look like they’re having a great time working with Rikki (Henry) our outrageously talented young director. I think it’s fair to say they’re loving him – but you’d have to ask them to be sure. Many of them are off to drama school at the end of the “summer” and this is one of their last projects together. Even still, this project is only happening because they are giving their talented labour for free and for that I am uber grateful. Our other collaborators are Ben Callon and Emily May Smith who’ve just graduated from BOV theatre school and Felicity Montague who’s done...loads. Together we make 14 in the room. There’s been no sitting round tables – just action and enthusiasm. We’ve only got one day left – and I don’t want it to be over. We’ve agreed we’ll semi stage with scripts in hand the first three quarters of the play. It’ll be rough, but an audience will get a sense of the spirit of the thing and that’s all that matters to me.

But while they crack on – and I delete the odd line and explain the odd thing – I’m sitting in the corner writing the rest of the play. It’s a majorly good thing to look up and see all your characters in action and write something for them in the future.

Me by laptop, Rikki far side, actors in middle

It’s curious thing writing a project and getting people together who excite you to collaborate in it – Tin Can, Rikki, Felicity – now Ben and Emily. You start off as the focal point and as the company bring the script to life and bond and lark about you increasingly fade away. You’re outside and watching – and they’re inside, being. Indeed, Rikki doesn’t even want me there for the last day of rehearsals – either they’re all set or Rikki thinks I’m a plum. Or both. Mind, having acted in various projects, it is quite nice when the writer, you know, goes away. Even if everyone thinks the world of them it’s still fun to take the piss out of the odd bit of dialogue or laugh at something weird they said because they were being a weird writer person. I imagine when they all hook up next week they’ll be more concentrated on getting ready for Saturday – not talking about me – but it’s nice to have the option of being rude about the person who isn’t there – it’s a good bonding exercise.

So I’m in the dark from now on. I’m just looking forward to Sat 21^st, 6.30pm at Circomedia in St Pauls. I’m so delighted with this group of collaborators. They’ve managed to make this script feel alive, and that’s a lot to ask for in five days. Hopefully you’ll be there too.