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Mugabe, My Dad and Me Q&A

April, 1980. The British colony of Rhodesia becomes the independent nation of Zimbabwe. A born free, Tonderai Munyevu is part of the hopeful next generation from a country with a new leader, Robert Mugabe. 

Mugabe, My Dad & Me charts the rise and fall of one of the most controversial politicians of the 20th century through the personal story of Tonderai’s family and his relationship with his father. 

Interspersing storytelling, live music from a Gwenyambira (a female mbira player) and some of Mugabe’s most unapologetic speeches, this high-voltage one-man show, at the SJT on 8 and 9 March, is a blistering exploration of familial love, identity and what it means to return ‘home’.

What sparked the idea for Mugabe, My Dad & Me?

In November 2017 Mugabe was disposed. That was really the moment I had the first feeling and thought, ‘oh I'm missing it, I'm not there’. At that point we were looking at it as a very jubilant turning point: a lot of emotions erupting, as we have recently seen in the news with Afghanistan. It's always triggering to anybody who has lived through this kind of political turmoil. When big shifting things happen on a political global scale it plays off in real life, rooted in people's real emotions day-to-day which I find really fascinating.

How did it develop from wanting to tell Mugabe’s story through his speeches?

I quickly realised that I needed to put it into context because he was a political figure, I didn’t know him personally, so I couldn't really have a take on him. What I knew was important was to talk about how Mugabe and his politics had affected my family, and through my family one could see how other families might have been affected. It became important to give it that context.

Is this your first one-man show?

No, I did a one-man show - another macabre piece about Mugabe’s policies, when his government destroyed the disenfranchised people from shanty towns. A charity collected seven stories from seven women-it was called Harare Files, How 700,000 People Lost their Homes. One of my most significant acting jobs was Sizwe Banzi Is Dead in which I did a 35-minute monologue at the Young Vic which was genuinely stressful and terrifying. Performing this (Mugabe, My Dad & Me) is different – I’m completely terrified because it’s such a personal story. And my mom recently passed away so it's raising a lot of issues. The idea of a one man show terrifies me but I'm glad to be given the opportunity to do it.

And you aren’t on the stage alone – there’s live music from Millicent Chapanda, who plays the mbira.

I thought it was important to have a female voice. It felt this play was really about my dad and me—it had a tight focus. My mother's in the story but the angle wasn't about looking at her story. Yet women are so central in the culture that a  ‘voice’ was important to include. Perhaps reminiscent of Mbuya Nehanda – a great female icon who was very central to the first war of liberation. So it felt like a very symbolic thing for the play. Certainly my mother has been the hero of my life. I am writing about her in prose which feels more comprehensive which suits her extraordinary story.

How do Millie and her music fit into the play?

Millie represents the rituals of of our culture, especially around death and the celebration of life. She plays a very emblematic and spiritual Zimbabwean instrument, the mbira. People use it to dance and have fun but it's really also linked to spirituality and possession.

Did you always know you wanted to act and write?

I grew up always interested in theatre, but, being a child of a migrant, it's a bit of a struggle for Mum to approve of it as a career. But I was really bullied at school so Mum thought, ‘oh great, do theatre because it makes you feel good about yourself but you should be a lawyer’. I was also good at religious studies, so I studied Theology at university. At the end of the degree I was sure I wanted to act so did training with the Actors Company writing came after graduation, I suppose because I could see there were more stories than the ones I was exposed to. Now I’m confident at doing both, I’ve been writing and pitching a lot, and hoping to do something magical that contributes to the canon of plays in a significant way. I’m also part of theatre company Stockroom’s (formerly Out of Joint) writers’ room, which is amazing as I’m employed by them on a salary with a lot of resources, which is quite unusual position to be as a writer.

What are your ambitions?

I'm trying to make work that is sustainable, that is thoughtful, political and urgent. It’s really about wanting to make something that five years from now can be put on again and has relevance and significance. That takes time to dig a little deeper to understand what it is that I’m working on, so that it goes beyond myself.

How did you feel about returning to Zimbabwe recently?

I'm always happy to go, but it's always an existential thing isn't it? I’m using my own country and my own experiences in my work, so I tend to worry— what right do I have? Is what I'm saying accurate? I do worry that I don't see the country as clearly as people who live there every day. It’s a heightened situation but I’m always glad to be home. It feels different – and not just the sunniness. It just feels like where I belong, the past meeting the present.

More information or to book

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Medea / Duende / Douglass

Jude Owusu, a core ensemble member of our Associate Company The Faction, discusses the iconic Frederick Douglass and starring in the world premiere of Douglass, a new play by Bonnie Greer, which comes to the SJT as one of a trio of short plays from 11 to 13 November.

I was first attracted to Douglass, Bonnie Greer’s new play, because I’d always heard of the name of Frederick Douglass. He’d always been this kind of mythical legend, especially in pop culture and Black history. So, the opportunity to explore what and who he really was, was something that I just thought automatically fascinating and interesting to do.

Anna-Maria Nabirye, Jude Owusu, Amelia Donkor © Christa Holka

Each performance I’m most excited to perform the parts of the play that are the closest to home. The ones that deal with family, and really iconic moments in a Black boy’s history of being British, or being in Britain.  

 The part of the play about Stephen Lawrence really struck home, because that was such a vivid time. I remember that so clearly, being a young child and hearing the news, and the impact that I was aware – and also unaware – of it having over the course of my life in terms of my attitude to being in inner city London, to policing, and as one of the earliest and clearest memories I had about racism, for what it can be to be at the end of a racist act and seeing the pain etched on the faces of his parents and the discourse around that.

 We’re still in rehearsals at the moment and the part of the play that I still want to fully grasp more within myself is the ending of the piece. I’m at the point of the journey in rehearsals when I feel like I’m really heading towards something and the ending is still a little unclear – which is terrifying and exciting in the same breath! So getting to grips with that and understanding what I want the audience to feel – and what I feel, actually – by the end of the piece is the interesting thing now.

 What strikes me most about Frederick Douglass was his pioneering image. The sense of self.  There’s a line in the play about self-liberation. I wasn’t aware of how forward-thinking he was in terms of constructing his image and being aware of the impact that would have for future generations. In my research there was a line from his great-great-great-grandson that the reason why he always posed in that exact same way in every photograph is because he didn’t want to be seen as a submissive, runaway fugitive. He wanted to give a version of himself.  He wanted to construct his own identity. And the play really explores that.

 You can book for Medea / Duende / Douglass here.

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When Alan met ‘the funniest man in America’...

Our cinema reopens in May with two screenings of the classic comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World starring, amongst many other ‘60s luminaries, Phil Silvers. Best known as the immortal Sgt. Bilko, Silvers also starred in the first of Alan’s shows to be seen on Broadway – How the Other Half Loves, in 1971.

In Ian Watson’s book, Conversations with Ayckbourn (Faber & Faber, 1988), Alan remembered ‘the funniest man in America’…

Phil Silvers and Sandy Denny on the cover of Playbill  © Scarborough Theatre Trust

Phil Silvers was an amazing figure. This is the fate of the star system: Robert Morley having shaped How The Other Half Loves as it was, we then looked for a man to play it on Broadway. And eventually, after going through an awful lot of people, somebody came up with the idea of Phil Silvers. He had disappeared for a bit; he hadn't been in the public eye. Sgt. Bilko he was still well loved for, and he’d got one or two Broadway successes like Top Banana under his belt, but that was some time ago, and nobody knew much about him.

We found out about Phil that he was (a) an extremely nervous man and (b) an extremely nice man. But he'd had some form of nervous breakdown. He'd had – what can I call it? – a relapse, anyway. His marriage had broken up and it had upset him enormously, and he'd got a lot of daughters, all of whom he adored and never saw, because he wasn't allowed to. Anyway, he saw in this a chance and I think everyone else saw in it a chance for him to reconstitute himself. But it was a bit therapeutic, like all these occasions.

First of all, what had gone was his memory: he couldn’t remember any of the lines. How the Other Half Loves was a tour I followed very, very closely. I was with the play more than I would ever be nowadays – I know better. I came over for the early rehearsals and the director Gene Saks [probably best known as the director of the 1967 film Barefoot in the Park, starring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford] was a man who worked day and night really hard. Anyway, I left them in the early part of rehearsals, and it all looked pretty good. I came back at the beginning of the last week and I saw a run, and it didn't look any different from when I left it. So Gene and I went out and had a cup of coffee, and he said, 'What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, er, what's been going on for three weeks?' He sat there for a very long time and I thought I’d really upset him. He suddenly thumped the table and said, 'I don’t know what's been going on for three weeks. What the blazes has been going on for three weeks?' He said, 'Nothing's been going on for three weeks! I'm going to go in there and tell them nothing’s been going on for three weeks.' So he went back and said, ‘Listen! This man has come back from England, and he's just said, "Nothing's been going on for three weeks." We're opening in a week, for God's sake.' And it turned out that one of the things that hadn't been happening for three weeks was that Phil hadn't learned his lines yet… Phil was in an extremely neurotic state. We found he was taking Valium, which wasn't helping.

The first date on the tour was Palm Beach, the Playhouse there. And we'd got Phil as far as the third act, the last scene. So we had three scenes which we felt he could get through, with a little bit of help from his friends, but after that... So we said, 'Well, OK, we’ll get there. We can rely on the prompter for a week.’ We were a little flummoxed when we saw the stage, because it did not allow for a prompter. It was, like a lot of American stages, about 180 feet across. It was enormously wide, with an enormous fore-stage, and a big, billowing curtain like a maternity dress that came round the front. There was nowhere that you could have a prompter without a loud hailer, because the prompt corner was miles from the centre of the stage. So we looked at it, and this very old producer we had said, 'well, we'll cut a hole in the fore-stage.’ But the carpenter said, 'No, you can't cut a hole in the fore-stage: it's aluminium. It's an aluminium stage. You're cutting through pure aluminium there.' Myerberg said, 'I don't care about the cost. We're having a trap, like an opera box, in the front of the stage.' So they cut this hole, amidst great protest, and down into this hole went Gene’s assistant Tom Erhardt [later Alan’s agent] with the book, because we'd made no allowance for a prompter. And when he went down this hole, he was down there from the beginning to the end, because there was no way he could get out. Well, Tom was blond and fair and thinning, and when they put the lights on, you had this bright, shining head in the middle of the fore-stage, and it looked slightly prominent!

Everyone said, 'What's that?' Myerberg said, 'We've got to darken down his head: it's reflecting the light.' So Tom was equipped with a black beret, which made him look not unlike a Provisional IRA man, crouching in a slit trench. And there he is with his script when we get to the first night. Phil's going great guns: he's doing very well. And the manager is ecstatic.

Sandy Denny and Phil Silvers in How The Other Half Loves  © Scarborough Theatre Trust

And the big maternity dress draws round again in the scene change before the last scene, and it's a thin dress, it's not a thick curtain. And you can hear through the curtain Phil's voice shouting down to Tom in his hole, 'I need you now, baby!' So, the curtains drew and Phil starts the last scene, and certainly cues are coming thick and fast and people are covering, and then he gets to one line, which was one of those lines that nobody could help him on. He says, 'Well, I... I... I... think, Bob, that... I think, Bob, that... tha...' And Tom, the prompter, is not a prompter. There's a great art in prompting, to give the right key word and to give it quickly and cleanly. And Tom has a very loud voice, and a very slow voice. So Tom gives him, 'Possibly.' Phil, by then, you can see, has got buzzing noises in his ears, and he couldn't hear if you actually screamed it at him. He said, 'I think... I think, Bob... I... I...' And Tom's voice comes again, equally loudly, 'Possibly!' 'just that... think... think, Bob… or... you know, Bob...' And a man, right at the back of the

theatre shouts, 'Possibly!' Gene says, 'Oh my God, the audience are prompting him now!' At the end of the show, we walked round and round the block. Phil was prostrate. 'The humiliation! I'm a man who made millions laugh on Sgt Bilko.' 'It's all right, Phil, don’t worry, we all have bad nights.' 'Bad night! I've been prompted by the audience!'

Eventually we get into Washington, and he's pretty well on the script, he's looking good. But by this time, he's being such a menace that nobody actually wants to know Phil, because he keeps telling you about his problems. So I'm with Phil a lot of the time. And I'm not sure if it is the Daughters of the American Revolution, but it's something similar, who have a luncheon, which they customarily invite the stars of the National Theater, Washington, to come along to. So they want, obviously, the lovely Mr Silvers and somebody else. The short straw is drawn and I get it, and I go with Phil. I said, 'Look, Phil is there. Phil will stand up. Phil will do the talk. You just sit there. And all Phil will forget to mention is that there's a show on. You tell them the dates, and where we’re playing, and the ticket prices, and where they can buy tickets.’ So I'm sitting next to Phil, and the chairwoman gets up – and Phil, I can see, is going into one of his lows. She says, 'Ladies, we have here today a man who I think can honestly be described as one of the funniest men in America, if not in the world. I'm very, very proud to present Mr Phil Silvers.’ Applause. Phil got up. He always wore his glasses with his contact lenses below them, because he was always recognised as Bilko, but he didn't need to wear them. He took off his glasses and said, 'Ladies, I know you think of me as one of the funniest men in America, and I thank you for it. But underneath this, I'm a very sad and lonely man. I suppose any man who had four darling little girls, all of whom he adored and is now unable to see...' And he went on in this vein. '...and a wife who refuses to let him see them, so he's left alone in a hotel room...'

And there's a drawing out of handkerchiefs, and mascara is running, and sniffing. Phil goes on for some ten minutes in this vein. The funniest man in America reduces the entire audience to tears. He says, 'All I can say is, if any of you are mothers who have children, God bless you. I love you all. Thank you.' And sits down. And then he turns to me, and he says, 'Knock 'em dead, baby!' I floundered on, but nobody could revive that audience.

He opened, and the play got reasonable reviews. He was very good eventually, but it was such hard work to get Phil to that pitch. What one was pleased about was that we reconstituted a very funny artist. I saw him some three years later, still the fall guy. He was playing in Bournemouth – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. And I happened to be there, visiting my kids at school. I said, 'It can't be Phil Silvers.' And I went along, and there was old Phil, with an audience, I suppose, a quarter full, giving absolutely everything. It was a super evening. And so I whistled round to see him. Kenneth Tynan was also round there. He knew Phil and admired him. I said, 'Terrific to see you. I'd no idea you were in Bournemouth.' He said, 'Well, there's been a foul-up, baby. You see, I'd understood l was coming over here to tour prior to a West End appearance.' l said, 'Oh, you're going to bring this into town?' He said, 'Well, I understood this.' I said, 'But it's been in, with Bob Monkhouse.' He said, 'I know. I didn't find that out till I got to Norwich.' Poor old Phil.

You can see It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in the cinema at the SJT at 2pm and 7pm on Tuesday 25 May. Alan Ayckbourn’s 85th play, The Girl Next Door, is in the Round from 4 June to 3 July.

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From the rehearsal room: The Snow Queen, Week Three

It’s all coming together! Find out more about the later stages of rehearsal from our Carne Trust Associate Director, Chelsey Gillard.

Jacoba Williams in rehearsals for The Snow Queen | photo by Chelsey Gillard

This week was the final week in our rehearsal rooms before we move on to the next phase – tech week. That’s when we start working on the stage, in the round, and add in all the sound and lighting that will bring the play to life. It’s when we put all the pieces together so it’s really important everything is ready in time.

Rehearsals are like a big experiment – you constantly try new things to see what works best, what gets the best reaction. Sometimes this means we think we might want a particular prop or piece of furniture for the show, but when we try it out it doesn’t work, or we come up with ways to modify the item and make it even better.

Jacoba Williams in rehearsals for The Snow Queen | photo by Chelsey Gillard

For us to be able to experiment the production team give us rehearsal props and furniture. This may mean that instead of using a bench we use a row of chairs. Or instead of using the Snow Queen’s specially made jacket we practise with another piece of clothing – in this case a silk dressing gown – to find out where we want the pockets sewn into the jacket or any other details we will need.

Whilst we’ve been experimenting our amazing production team have been working their socks off to get everything we need ready in time for the show. This time they have had to make two of nearly everything because we have two different casts!

Jacoba Williams in rehearsals for The Snow Queen | photo by Chelsey Gillard

Each day as we returned to our rehearsal room we found new things to play with as the rehearsal costumes and props were gradually replaced with the real things we would use in the show. Can you tell which things in the pictures are rehearsal props and costumes and which ones are the real thing?

Moving from the rehearsal room to the stage can be a really nerve-racking moment for everyone as the show gets closer and closer. But having the chance to try out some of the costumes, props and even the sound effects in the rehearsal room means we are as prepared as we can be. Bring on tech week!

#stephen joseph theatre #sjt #thesjt #theatre #christmas #pantomime #theatre in the round #Jacoba Williams #Polly Lister #The Snow Queen

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From the rehearsal room: The Snow Queen, Week Two

Two Snow Queen teams are currently hard at work in our building. Our Artistic Director, Paul Robinson, is in rehearsal room one with Polly Lister – you can read more about that here.

Meanwhile, our ‘alternate’, Jacoba Williams, is in rehearsal room two with Carne Trust Associate Director, Chelsey Gillard. Find out more below…

Jacoba Williams in The Snow Queen rehearsals - photo by Chelsey Gillard

Rehearsals are well under way, the show is getting sillier and sillier by the minute – but why do we have two Snow Queens? And how do we rehearse two casts at once?

As you may know this year’s Christmas extravaganza is a one-woman show. This will allow us to make sure it’s safe for the actors to perform whilst keeping all the show stopping songs, colourful characters and side-splitting jokes you expect from an SJT Christmas show.

Because it’s so exhausting to perform a whole show by yourself we have two incredibly talented actors who will perform the show on different days – Polly Lister (who you might remember from Little Voice) and Jacoba Williams. This also allows us to have an emergency backup plan in case either of the actors becomes unwell.

To ensure the show will go on each actor has their own bubble – a team with a director and stage manager – and the bubbles have to stay away from each other, as well as all the usual social distancing measures. They also have their own made to measure costumes and bespoke props. This also means we are rehearsing in two separate rehearsal rooms.

Jacoba Williams in The Snow Queen rehearsals - photo by Chelsey Gillard

Polly arrived at the SJT two weeks before Jacoba so the play could be workshopped and any changes could be tested out and put into the official script. During those two weeks I sat up on the viewing gallery of the rehearsal room, mask on, to watch and make notes.

Now I’m working with Jacoba and although the actors are working with the same script their shows will have some differences, moments where each actor can really show off their talents. We make sure we stay in regular contact, via video recordings and lots of phone calls, to make sure we are all keeping up to date with any script changes or new ideas for the show.

Even though it’s a one-woman show we do have some tricks up our sleeves that mean the actors won’t be completely alone on the stage – prepare to be surprised and amazed!

#sjt #thesjt #The Snow Queen #Christmas #theatre #pantomime #Paul Robinson #Jacoba Williams #Polly Lister #Chelsey Gillard

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From the rehearsal room: The Snow Queen, Week One

Our Carne Trust Associate Director, Chelsey Gillard, is currently hard at work in the rehearsal room for The Snow Queen, this year’s festive Christmas show from the SJT – she’s promised to send us a series of reports (delivered to us by a raven, of course!) on how things are going. Here’s her first…

Polly Lister in rehearsal for The Snow Queen © Tony Bartholomew

After last year’s Treasure Island I didn’t think the SJT Christmas shows could get any wilder, weirder or wackier – but here we are! The Snow Queen rehearsals are well under way and it’s an absolute joy to be in the theatre creating this magical Other Scarborough for you all to explore.

The story follows Gerda, a shy and nervous girl from Scarborough who has to find her bravery when her best friend Kai is taken away to The Other Scarborough by the frosty Snow Queen who wants to cancel Christmas!

Obviously, this year is a little different. We have two separate rehearsal rooms running – one for Polly Lister and one for Jacoba Williams. Both of these brilliant actors will be taking to the stage in this high speed one-woman version of the show on different days. This will give them time to recover between shows as it’s exhausting having to play The Snow Queen, her sister The Sorceress of Summer, Kai and Gerda, a Raven, a Deadly Robber, a flying reindeer and lots of other hilarious characters – as well as singing and dancing!  

So far we have been exploring how to best play each of these characters so the audience can get to know them. There are even moments where they have to play two characters at once, but somehow it’s never confusing. I am constantly astonished by our incredible actors who completely transform to become each new person in the story. They even sing the different songs in character, with distinct accents and specialised dance routines.

Polly Lister in rehearsal for The Snow Queen © Tony Bartholomew

As always the brilliantly talented Simon Slater has written the songs and the music to accompany Nick Lane’s zany script. The songs help to transport us from a Christmassy Scarborough, to the Sorceress’s summer garden (with singing flowers and a French hedgehog!), through the Forest of Shadows, all the way to The Ice Palace and back again. We even have a ridiculous performance poem performed by a Raven, which is mostly about poo.

I can’t wait for you to join us so you can help Gerda rescue Kai and save Christmas for us all!

#SJT #TheSJT #The Snow Queen #Christmas #Xmas #Pantomime #Scarborough #Polly Lister #Carne Trust

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Five Questions with The Snow Queens, Polly Lister and Jacoba Williams

Our Snow Queens, Polly Lister and Jacoba Williams, are getting ready for a busy Christmas entertaining local families. We caught up with them just before they got their heads down and went into socially distanced rehearsals…

Polly Lister and Jacoba Williams

Hi, Polly – it’s going to be lovely having you back in Scarborough, and at Christmas, too! You were last with us in 2017, playing the monstrous Mari in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, and the warm-hearted Di in Di and Viv and Rose. What have you been doing since? And Jacoba, welcome! How have things been for you recently?

Polly: Well, I've lately been doing lots of DIY on my flat and I've painted a huge cloud and sea scene on the floor of my lounge! I've also started learning the guitar and got myself a presenting job for UK Wrestling on Fite TV! I've completed a Community Theatre Training Programme in Co-Creation with Derby Theatre and I'm playing Beatrice in the first UK version of Much Ado About Nothing in a new translation by Ranjit Bolt via weekly instalments on zoom with 1623 Theatre/Play On Shakespeare. I also recorded an audio book, cut my own hair and put on a Covid stone in weight. But before lockdown I was at Chester Storyhouse in Blue Stockings and prior to that I was The Wicked Witch of the West at Leeds Playhouse for Christmas 2019. After I was last here with Di and Viv and Rose, we took the show to Stoke, to The New Vic Theatre and I returned there for Playhouse Creatures, Votes for Women and Table. I played Miss Havisham in Great Expectations in Derby and that Christmas 2017 was spent in Hull in A Christmas Carol. The Christmas in between was spent in Northampton originating the roles of Ada and Agatha Cackle in Jill Murphy’s Worst Witch, which played The Royal and Derngate and then toured nationally for nearly a year before going into The West End and winning an Olivier!

Jacoba: I’m very excited to be joining the team in Scarborough. During lockdown I’ve become a gardener: I’ve got sunflowers to boast about even now in November… watch out, Titchmarsh! I also did a lot of online teaching with a wonderful drama school based in London and Doncaster called Lets Act. Before lockdown I was due to open a version of Gulliver’s Travels at The  Unicorn children’s theatre in London. Prior to that I worked on some special shows: Queens of Sheba for Underbelly/New Diorama, A Midsummer Night’s  Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe and then a one-woman show, Before I Was a Bear at the Bunker Theatre.

Polly Lister in rehearsals for The Snow Queen © Tony Bartholomew

And now you’re both going to be with us throughout December in a one-woman Snow Queen. Polly, we know you’re very versatile – Mari and Di couldn’t have been more different women – and Jacoba, we’re told you are too. But we’ve just had the latest version of Nick Lane’s script, and so far, you have to be (wait for it…) – a sorceress, our heroes Gerda and Kai, a granny, a raven, a reindeer, the Wisewomen of Whitby and Filey and, of course, the Snow Queen herself. How are you preparing for this festive marathon?

Polly: I should be making an effort to get fit enough to have the energy to do Nick’s script justice! It’s going to be exhausting. I love the diversity of characters Nick has written for me and they are so beautifully crafted: it’s going to be a joy to get into a rehearsal room and explore them. They won’t arrive until we are all in a room together.

Jacoba: What a list! I think mince pies and festive feelings will be the fuel of show.

Luckily for you, various other characters, including a snowman, some flowers and a French hedgehog (it’ll all be clear on the night, readers!) are being supplied by the magic of theatre. Have you ever been in a show quite like this one before?

Polly: Never! I've seen Nick Lane’s Scarborough Christmas shows and love how ingenious they are. This particular French hedgehog is a hoot and I am going to be honoured to share the stage with him. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Jacoba: Not quite like this, I’ve done lots of different elements, like a one-woman show and family theatre, but never all together. I wanna know what Nick has for breakfast to come up with these wonderful ideas.

Polly Lister in rehearsals for The Snow Queen © Tony Bartholomew

What are you looking forward to doing when you get to Scarborough (that’s if you have any time off, of course – you’re going to be pretty busy rehearsing all those characters…)?

Polly: It will be such a joy to be back in a theatre and a rehearsal room.  Like many I have really missed live theatre, so I've already booked a ticket for all the shows (and films) that my rehearsal schedule will allow. I am looking forward to devouring an Eat Me Cafe Croque Madame with tripl- cooked chips; maybe seeing Seaside Danny Wilde again; taking a trip to Robin’s Hoods Bay. I am also excited to get into the sea! I remember loving it when I was last here over the summer of 2017. I’ve been going wild swimming through lockdown in a lake near to where I live and have loved it.  September into October has been getting noticeably colder so I'm pretty sure it will be icy but the sea is so inviting I want to give it a go. 

My cousin Emma lives here in Scarborough and I really miss her, so I’m excited to see more of her and spending some quality time with her, her boys, her partner and my aunty and my other cousin Mark. 

Jacoba: It’s my first time in Scarborough, so looking for some recommendations.  Being by the sea is a real treat for me, so maybe if I’m brave enough. I have been instructed to go to Baxter’s to get a takeaway roast dinner though.

And finally – what are you hoping Father Christmas will bring you this year?

Polly: An iron constitution and Covid antibodies.

Jacoba: A wet suit or goose fat to ride the Scarborough waves.

#thesjt #sjt #Stephen Joseph Theatre #Christmas #Pantomime #The Snow Queen #Polly Lister #Jacoba Williams

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My SJT: Alicia Mckenzie

A nut for a head, and a giant fan

As we gear up for our 2020 Christmas show, actor Alicia Mckenzie shares with us some memories of a Christmas past…

Alicia Mckenzie & Joey Hickman, A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol © Tony Bartholomew

I always had fond memories of Scarborough. Coming from nearby Darlington, Scarborough was often a seaside destination on sunny summer holiday days. So when I found out I would be spending Christmas 2017 there performing in the Christmas show, I was delighted.

A chance to get to know the town better, perform in a great theatre and be close enough to Darlo to make it home for present opening.

The town and the theatre are so tightly wrapped together in my experience there. As a company, we spent a great deal of time rehearsing but also really explored the town. And not just the nightlife, although I do remember one night out post-show dancing to ‘70s disco in Bacchaus which was promptly followed the next day with a walk along North Bay.

Alicia Mckenzie & Anne-Marie Piazza, A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol © Tony Bartholomew

Fun is a word I associate with my time there so much. Made all the more joyful by the people around me. The locals were really warm and supportive. The big lights switch-on: it was great to see so many people turn out en masse to enjoy the festive season. The staff at the theatre were so welcoming. Some of them were in a band and I was invited along to one of their gigs to enjoy an evening surrounded by locals and eclectic music in a too-hot pub near the town centre.

And someone was always ready to grab you a coffee or slice of delicious cake from a cafe around the corner.

It was also so much fun, I think, because the show was so much fun. I’ve never laughed so much in a first read through as I did for A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol. I had some of the most hilarious rehearsal experiences working on it that I’ve ever had. Which was great, because spending nine hours a day in an underground, strip-lighted rehearsal room in the middle of winter doesn’t immediately make you think you’ll doubled over with laughter at the appearance of the time worm or seeing a 6 ft 2” guy’s interpretation of Tiny Tim (well done, Elliott!).

Opening night was so adrenaline-fuelled that I barely remember the individual moments. One thing I did register, though, is that thankfully the auditorium was filled with laughter throughout. My personal favourite moments of the show were my surprise entrance out of a basket at the top of act 2, the hip hop style back-up dancing in the future rap, and wearing what are without doubt the craziest costumes I’ve ever had – a nut for a head, a christmas present, a giant fan (all whilst singing and playing instruments).

Anne-Marie Piazza, Elliott Rennie & Alicia Mckenzie, A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol © Tony Bartholomew

All in all a fab time on a hilarious show with kind locals in a welcoming theatre. I was due to head back to the SJT this spring touring another show (Quality Street with Northern Broadsides) and was so looking forward to it. I’d been

banging on to the company about how great it was gonna be. Oh, well! I’ll have to bank them for now and hope for more SJT fun times to come.

Alicia has just finished shooting a short film called Parent's Together Forever, which will be screened at UK film festivals. She is also currently working on her own creative project about Black History in Northern England

#sjt #thesjt #stephen joseph theatre #alicia mckenzie #christmas #xmas #pantomime #christmas carol

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Orpheus & Eurydice

The Flanagan Collective and Gobbledigook Theatre bring Orpheus & Eurydice to our Round in November, performed by Alexander Flanagan-Wright, Phil Grainger, Serena Manteghi and Casey Jay Andrews. The show weaves together two ‘sister’ shows –Orpheus and, yes, Eurydice – in a new presentation that has only been seen before in New York. Here, Alexander F-W gives us his take on the show, and the world in October 2020…

Serena Manteghi, Orpheus & Eurydice | c. Sam Donnelly

We don’t make fancy theatre any more, none of us do, none of us can, and none of us should. We should be giving people a reason to gather, to commune, to come listen to something outside of our day to day. And we’re heading to Scarborough to hopefully do just that.

This is a moment in history.

It’s strange to know we’re living through one. A before and after point. A point where, when people read about these times, there will be a before this moment and an after this moment.

Right now, we are in this moment. And being in a moment in history – living through a kind of future we wouldn’t have imagined – makes the present so much more important.

All the things which we didn’t value in the same way: being able to see our friends, being able to know our families are well, being able to spend time indoors, or outdoors and, for theatre makers like us, being able to give being a reason to leave their houses and commune together. All those things feel so much more powerful, more important, than they did before.

We’ve been telling stories for a good while, well over ten years. Serena and I met at University of York in 2008 (along with Chris York, writer of Build A Rocket) and have been working together, hanging out together, and telling stories together every since. Phil and I met at school when we were 14 and haven’t stopped playing music together since. Casey and I met maybe six years ago up at the Edinburgh Fringe, a ridiculous powerhouse circus of arts, and we’ve been building worlds since then too.

Casey Jay Andrews, Orpheus & Eurydice | c. Sam Donnelly

The stories we’re bringing to The SJT are even older, much older, thousands of years old. Those ancient stories have survived and thrived through no end of moments, through no end of history.

So it feels like a pretty amazing thing to be bringing those old stories – remade and retold with a bunch of very good, old friends – into a theatre at this point in history or, rather, in this important present. To invite people to come, to commune, to listen, to be a part of a present thing in a complicated time.

And the stories aren’t about Coronavirus, thank god, we have enough of those on every news channel. They’re about people. They’re about what we hope for, what we fall for, and how far we’d go for something we love. They’re about discovering ourselves and discovering other people. They’re about figuring out what we stand for and what we fall for. They’re about things which are true now, and were also true thousands of years ago. They’re about people. And they’re about us.

We last performed this version of these shows in New York, Off Broadway, In December 2019. We haven’t done them like this since. So, in a way, we’re transferring from New York to Scarborough, just as things should be.

We excited for a week on the coast, to look at the sea, to eat chips, to find a little home in the glorious in-the-round auditorium of The Stephen Joseph Theatre and, most importantly, to get lost in some stories with a real life, live audience. With you.

Casey Jay Andrews & Serena Manteghi, Orpheus & Eurydice | c. Sam Donnelly

There’s a lot of music. There’s a lot of spoken word. If you’re a fan of Kate Tempest, Loyle Carner or The Streets then this might be up your alley. If you’re a fan of Simon Armitage or you’ve read Carol Anne Duffy’s poem about Eurydice, then this might be up your alley. If you like Bruce Springsteen or Cindy Lauper then this might be up your alley. If you like gathering with people, being present in a room together, if you like stories, if you like music, if you hate Greek mythology but do like stories about people, if you like supporting your local theatre or if you’ve seen Serena in Build A Rocket or Little Voice, then this might be up your alley.

There’s loads of rules. We’ll figure them all out. You’ll be safe as houses.

And, although we’re not allowed to all socialise together, I can promise you that us four will be buying plenty of dinners from Eat Me Cafe... and if we all just happen to be there at the same time then... well... be sure to give us a wave.

Scarborough – we’re coming for you – and it’ll be a little bit of our shared history.  See you there.

Orpheus & Eurydice is in our Round from 19 to 21 November: https://www.sjt.uk.com/event/1069/orpheus_&_eurydice

#sjt #thesjt #Stephen Joseph Theatre #orpheus and eurydice #the flanagan collective #gobbledigook theatre #sam donnelly #theatre

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Telling these stories is not just a responsibility, it’s a duty…

October is Black History Month and to mark it, we’re asking friends and colleagues across the country to talk about their experiences and what Black History means to them. We’ll be publishing 13 monthly blogs, starting in October 2020 and ending in October 2021.

Here writer, actor and director John Rwothomack talks about the genesis of his play Far Gone, which was due to be with us in March, but will now be seen on our stage next spring.

Born in Uganda, at the age of 11 I took the long journey to join my parents in Sheffield. At 18 I began my actor training at Rose Bruford in London, and at 21 I moved back to Sheffield where I took more interest in directing and writing and hence creating my own work as a theatre-maker. And that when I started calling myself an artist as supposed an actor.

I would like to distinguish between the two. The actors’ ‘job’, if you like, is to uproot a character off the pages inked by the writers’ ideas, give them a voice, a body and through telling the story, make us connect and care about the character. None of which is easy. The artist on the other hand – theatre artist – has the responsibility of representing that part of him/her that exists in their society. Being Black African, that responsibility inevitably falls on me if I am to dare call myself an artist. All my work therefore, as a director, writer and actor aims to champion and navigate the audience through the culture of sub-Saharan Africa, whether it’s writing new material or recreating classics in the African context. These are the stories I hope to tell and hope to continue telling.

Far Gone is a great example of such a play and I am very pleased to be bringing it to the SJT next spring. The play itself is inspired by events that happened to me when I was eight years old. I nearly got kidnapped by the rebel group The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), who since their existence in 1998 have kidnapped over 30,000 children in Northern Uganda and forced them to be child soldiers: children who, through no fault of their own, were born in an unfortunate time in Northern Uganda’s history. Far Gone follows a story of one of those children’s journey from being kidnapped through to his transformation to a child soldier, whilst maintaining at the heart of it a family’s struggle through the unforeseen sequence of events. Of course both the Far Gone team and the SJT were rightly disappointed that we had to cancel the prior arrangement of performing the play in March 2020, but it is wonderful to be invited back for the 2021 spring season.

John Rwothomack,  Far Gone 2019

It would be unforgivable not to mention a connection between my work and Black History Month. Given that I am mainly focussed on sub-Saharan African stories, inevitably it’s all a recording of black history. A history of black people. When we say ‘Black History Month’, often what’s meant by that – I believe – is the history of black in relationship to the west, from the first Europeans stepping on the shores of Africa, to colonisation, to slavery, to the contributions black people made to the development of the west. Most of which has somehow been decisively undocumented. I aim to engulf both of the above historical branches in my work. To me they are the same thing. Far Gone, for example, I would argue serves both purposes. The abductions are being committed by black Africans against black Africans, but the ideologies under which the LRA is operating are that of Christianity and Western politics. Paul Sirett’s Bad Blood Blues, a play I directed in 2018, asks if Western multi-pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of African countries when carrying out medical research and testings. This too is black history.

To tell these stories is not just a matter of responsibility but a duty. I truly hope that by shading light on the history of the black skin and culture and educating people on the black contribution to today’s civilisation, we can eradicate some of the discrimination that’s unfortunately deeply rife in today’s Western society.

John Rwothomack will be performing Far Gone at the SJT next spring. He is currently researching for a World War Two play that looks at the East African 11th Division, who were pivotal in the Allies’ victory against Japan in Burma 1944.

#thesjt #sjt #Black History Month #John Rwothomack #Far Gone

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My SJT: Alison Skilbeck

Scarborough Memories 

Actor Alison Skilbeck was a regular at the SJT in the 1970s and ‘80s, and discovered how the company became part of the fabric of the town… 

I joined the company on the Sunday before August Bank Holiday 1975. It was the end of what had been a pretty good summer, but little did we know we were in store for the amazing summer of ’76, when pallid holidaymakers became attractively tanned, and even the local ladies left their cardies at home of an evening; little did I know either that I would stay with the company for nearly five years, perform in world premieres of six of Alan’s glorious plays, tour the UK and Northern Europe (where he was compared to Beckett and Arrabal), get my teeth into Chekhov, Miller, Anouilh, Pinter; would direct (The Guv’nor), and be encouraged to write. The SJT, and above all Alan, have had an enormous influence on my life. I returned in two plays in ’89, and then since 2007 I’ve been back with two of my own one-person shows: Are There More of You? and Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London. 

Sisterly Feelings: Judy Bridgland, and Alison Skilbeck in that suit!

I joined on the same day as Malcolm Hebden. We sat together at the old Library Theatre to watch the play that was in repertoire, Bedroom Farce, starring, well, the whole cast: Chris Godwin, Bob Eaton, the late lamented Stephen Mallatratt, who became such a terrific writer, Janet (Lucy) Dale, and Polly Warren. Malcolm and I turned to each other at the interval: “Oh God – they’re good!” I think we both debated taking the next train home. Our first Ayckbourn original experience was that classic of ‘Ayckbourn Bleak’, Just Between Ourselves. The script was due just before Xmas, and finally came through the door of my digs with a covering note from Alan: “Here it is – should break up many a happy home!” As my own first marriage was then teetering, and finally tottered the next year, life certainly imitated art. Alan challenged and delighted me by casting me as the disgruntled, negative wife, Pam. Over 20 years later I played the traumatised wife Vera at Salisbury. I only have the horrendous Marjorie left! There was a particularly glorious moment of audience involvement one night, after Denis (Chris G), the ultimate in unreconstructed husbands, is warning his guests ‘not to laugh’ if Vera does anything silly, falls over, or drops stuff at the current outdoor tea-party; of course the dour Pam and dyspeptic husband Neil have forgotten even how to smile, and it is Denis, when Vera predictably upsets the sugar and drops the teapot (in one tightly choreographed comic sweep) who finds it all hilarious and walks away from the devastated table, convulsed. At this point on that memorable evening, it was a man – unusual that – who leant from his front row seat and plucked Chris by the arm, saying: “Don’t do that, she’s really upset.” 

But the Oscar for best audience intervention has to go to a Scarborough lady. It was that summer of ’76, a matinee at the Library, and on stage, at a white-draped table in Bob Eaton’s musical adaptation of Moliere’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme, All The Best People, were Malcolm Hebden, as our hero, Stephen Mallatratt as the Marquis, both with dewlap wigs, and yours truly as the Marchioness, complete with high wobbly lacy headress. Enter chorus of cooks and flunkeys, all in white, bearing wobbly dishes of jelly, spoons, tureens, all singing and dancing. Notable in the line-up were the late Diane Bull, sadly missed, in her first job, Chris Godwin, writer Stephen Lowe, and a very young Nigel Le Vaillant having a pre-university gap summer on the boards. All singing and dancing like billy-oh. I think now there must have been a break in the music, and into that break, a comfortable Scarborough matron, second row up, centre, let out a delicate but totally audible fart. The chorus lurched on, half of them no longer singing, and all of us at the table wobbled and shook but just about coped. But then, another break in the music, and she saw her chance to make amends, with a gracious and well-projected: “Ooh – sorry!” Most of the chorus scarpered, only consummate pros Godwin and Bull staggered on, Malcolm actually disappeared under the table, Stephen hid in his wig, and I think I wept into my lacy napkin. Unforgettable. 

It was just a magic time. Even that’s a quote, from Joking Apart, I think. It was a time when actors stayed long enough for the town to feel they owned you, and we in our turn felt we belonged: family. One last postcard from that time: I always loved shopping for costume with the designer (often the brilliant Michael Holt), though it could be embarrassing when we found some (to us) awful-but-right garment, and enthused in the shop: “It’s ghastly! Wonderful!” I treasure the memory of an entrance of my character Abigail in Sisterly Feelings in the sort of smart lady outfit I would never have been seen dead in: costly yellow fine wool dress’n’jacket with black piping, and 4-inch patent stilettos. Scarborough ladies had different ideas. I swear it was two or three of them in a Yorkshire chorus who declared before I could open my mouth: “Eeh, doesn’t Alison look lovely in that suit!” 

Scarborough remains part of my inner landscape: the castle above a boiling sea, the Grand Hotel etched against a sunset, the deafening seagulls, and a few times, when I lived in the old town, the sound of the lifeboatmen clattering down the cobbles in answer to the warning maroons. 

Thank you Scarborough, thank you SJT, thank you, Alan, for the ‘time of my life’. 

Alison Skilbeck was a regular member of our company throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, peforming in Brontës, An Englishman's Home, What The Devil! Charlie's Christmas Countdown and The Chimes in 1975; Just Between Ourselves, All The Best People and Robin Hood And The Enchanted Forest in 1976; Dear Liar, Relatively Speaking, Fallen Angels, Ten Times Table, Westwood Coronation Day Street Party, The Rehearsal, Pygmalion, A Man For All Seasons and Hindle Wakes in 1977; Joking Apart, Plaza Suite, Travelling Hopefully, Rookery Nook, Barnstable and Patriotic Bunting in 1978; Sisterly Feelings, The Seagull, Taking Steps, Kidstuff, Saint Trixie, Old Times, The Crucible and The Golden Pathway Annual in 1979; Suburban Strains in 1980, and Wolf At The Door and Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1989.

#Alison Skilbeck #theatre #Scarborough #Theatre in the Round #Alan Ayckbourn #Scarborough memories #UK theatre #actor #acting #plays

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My SJT: Bill Champion

Sports cars, gorillas and raincoats 

Actor Bill Champion has appeared in many shows at the SJT since his first appearance in They’re Playing Our Song in 1997. Here he takes a whistle-stop trip through many of those shows. 

Bill Champion in Season’s Greetings | Photo by Tony Bartholomew

I’ve been a professional actor for 35 years, and I’ve worked in TV, films, and theatres all over the country, but when I think about ‘My SJT’ what I see in my mind’s eye is a kaleidoscope of some of my happiest times in the business. 

Here’s some of them. 

Driving on in a full-size sports car (yes, a real one) being operated by ropes and some straining stage managers under the stage (They’re Playing My Song). 

Being pelted with wet sponges while wearing a gorilla suit (Intimate Exchanges). 

The craziness of performing a two-actor version of Moby Dick. 

Doing lunchtime shows in the restaurant, as deafening fire engines hurtle by but you’ve got to have the windows open or you’ll boil! 

Running to make a quick change backstage, three months into the run of Intimate Exchanges, a play with multiple characters and a multiplicity of endings, and being so punch drunk that I tried to tear my own hair off thinking it was a wig! 

Having my own Bill Champion memorial raincoat that I wore in every one of the first five or six shows I did at the SJT. 

But the more I think about it, the most significant memory is of the first time I ever walked in to the Round auditorium and was surprised at how small it seemed. I think it had loomed large in my imagination during all the previous years when I had been desperate to work there. 

Then being shocked by how large it felt when you walked on to stage for the first time with an audience in. 

And then by how enormous and all-engulfing it was when that audience burst out laughing. You are so surrounded that it feels like the laugh actually goes through you. It’s a feeling like no other, and one that I’ve only ever experienced at the SJT. 

Bill in Henceforward... | Photo by Tony Bartholomew

Then on top of all of this, the best bit about my SJT, is the people. When I think about all the folk in my life that I consider friends, that I admire, respect and love, a very large number of them have been given to me by my SJT and for that I am forever grateful. When this extraordinary time we are all living through returns to something like normal, I know where I’m going to want to resume treading the boards. ‘My SJT’. 

Bill Champion has appeared at the SJT in They're Playing Our Song (1997); Comic Potential, Memories Are Made Of This, Love Songs For Shopkeepers, Later Life (all 1998); Haunting Julia (1999); GamePlan, FlatSpin, Role Play, Split (all 2001); I Ought To Be In Pictures, A Chorus Of Disapproval (both 2004); Moby Dick (2005); Intimate Exchanges (2006); Woman In Mind (2008); Absurd Person Singular, Surprises (both 2012); Arrivals & Departures (2014 tour); Henceforward…, No Knowing (2016); Season's Greetings (2019).

#Bill Champion #Alan Ayckbourn #theatre in the round #theatre #actor

[thesjt]

My SJT: Liz Jadav

Ego-boosts, laughs and bewilderment 

Liz Jadav appeared in both Ayckbourn plays in the SJT’s 2018 summer season, and the smile hasn’t worn off yet. 

Liz Jadav in Better Off Dead | Photo by Tony Bartholomew

“Ooh, aren’t you the one in, you know, that thing? You are, aren’t you?” 

Stop it, I’m blushing. 

What do you do when you spot someone you recognise from the stage or screen? Standard practice for an SJT/Ayckbourn regular in their natural habitat is to elbow a neighbour and whisper, “Look, look there he is,” as Sir Alan enters the auditorium, or (ignore the darkened house, the actors) to proclaim with satisfaction, “It’s him again,” as Russell Dixon makes his first entrance. Meet an SJT audience member in the street, though, and you can expect to be approached politely and told, “Oo, we did like the play.” Then, “That Sven” – or whoever Leigh Symonds was playing – “was very funny.” 

I love SJT audiences. As an actress without the kind of fame that leads to stalkers and the compulsory wearing of sunglasses in public, I enjoy the rare occasions when I am recognised. A summer season in Scarborough gave ample ego-boosts, a few laughs and the odd moment of bewilderment. 

Liz alongside Christopher Godwin in Better Off Dead | Photo by Tony Bartholomew

First, before I’d set foot on the stage, a message from an old classmate. Guy’s grandfather had had donkeys on the beach, and now Guy, a loyal Scarborough man, continues the tradition. He’s on the SJT mailing list, and he’d seen me in the season brochure. I was chuffed. I looked forward to more, but I’d reckoned without Michael Holt’s wigs. 

I got used to conversations along the lines of: 

“What are you doing in Scarborough, lovey?” 

“Working at the SJT.” 

“Oh, we saw Joking Apart last night. Very good. And what do you do at the theatre?” 

That all changed when the second Ayckbourn of the season opened; in the St Catherine’s Hospice shop in Ramshill one morning, during previews for Better Off Dead, I was greeted warmly by another customer and introduced to everyone present; such encounters became pleasantly commonplace. For Joking Apart, though, never a flicker*. Even in the bar immediately after the show, sans wig I was anonymous. One or two people who’d seen the show before meeting me clearly thought I was making it up. And one or two folk were hard to convince on a different point of recognition. 

Liz in Joking Apart alongside Leigh Symonds | Photo by Tony Bartholomew

Dinner with my aunt. The restaurateur is chatty. The aunt is proud: “My niece is performing at the SJT.” 

“Oh yes,” says the chap. “I saw the play last week. The 39 Steps. Very good.” I explain that I’m glad he enjoyed the play, but I wasn’t in it. “Yes you were.” 

“I wasn’t.” 

“But there was an actress who was –“ 

“Brown?” He was embarrassed. My aunt was kind. I was cruel; I enjoyed his discomfort. 

Then an old teacher and dear friend made the same mistake. I was more bewildered, but less cruel. You know, our eyes aren’t what they used to be, and what with the costumes, the lights, the speed of the action… I understood. However, that hasn’t stopped me repeating the story. 

In fact, I told it when I ate with some of the 2019 Ayckbourn company, having just seen Season’s Greetings. And later I realised, after we’d had our laugh and shared our shock, that I had made the same mistake myself – not an hour earlier, I had asked, “Who was the guy who played Neville?”, to which the guy sitting opposite said, “Me.” 

So, what do you do when you recognise someone? My policy is now to stare to the point of rudeness in case I’ve made a mistake. Then I can say confidently, “It’s you isn’t it? From that thing?” 

Liz in Joking Apart | Photo by Tony Bartholomew

* For those who saw Joking Apart, I played Olive. 

Liz Jadav grew up in Scarborough and she loves it. In 2018 she had the time of her life with the companies of Joking Apart and Better Off Dead, and their writer and director, Alan Ayckbourn. She doesn’t really mind not being recognised; playing characters as far removed from her own as she thinks Olive is is one of the perks of acting. When she is spotted it is often with comments like “You’re that bad hen”: she has performed in a lot of family theatre. More recently she has appeared on television in Emmerdale, Doctors and Netflix’s Sex Education, but she’ll buy ice cream for any stranger who recognises her from that.

#Theatre in the Round #Stephen Joseph Theatre #Actor #Scarborough #Liz Jadav #Alan Ayckbourn #theatre #stage

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My SJT: Julie Janes

She had a crush on Gordon MacRae…

Here at the SJT we’ve been working hard over the last couple of years, alongside our friends at the Scarborough Dementia Action Alliance, to make things as welcoming as possible for people living with dementia and their carers.

Julie Janes is a Side by Side volunteer, paired with someone living with Dementia by the Alzheimer’s Society. Here, she talks about what their visits to the SJT mean to them…

Dementia-Friendly Class | © Jacob Allen

A dementia-friendly afternoon event at the SJT is a highlight that we always look forward to. It’s a friendly crowd, as we know from the start that we all have something in common. There’s a chance to chat with other people in the audience both before the show starts and in the interval. Yep, they put a break into films, we use it to keep track of the plot, review the best bits, chat to other members of the audience and have tea, coffee and biscuits (free!). The films are specially selected to trigger happy memories and allow people who want to sing along.

Before the event starts there is always an outline of the plot or performance and special things to watch for are highlighted and, if it’s a musical, we get to practise the key numbers.  It’s all very relaxed, it’s OK if anyone needs to get out of their seat and stroll about, lighting is adjusted so the audience isn’t plunged into darkness and chatting to help keep track of the plot is fine.

A real joy is what the event does for memory. “I remember when I first saw this, I went with my sister, she had a crush on Gordon MacRae.” That one sentence opened a way into other recollections of life with her sister and of going to the pictures. We had a rich conversation on the way home.

A person living with dementia may be dependent on a carer in so many aspects of their life. In the theatre, they are both there on our own terms, simply members of the same audience. It’s liberating for both.

Dementia-Friendly Class | © Jacob Allen

The programme of dementia-friendly films has grown over time to be a monthly affair. There is security in being able to say ‘see you next month’ as we leave. This regularity puts markers in diaries around which other events and activities can fit.

Provision by the SJT for people living with dementia isn’t just about films: there are weekly sessions using movement and singing and they work with producers and performers of theatre productions to adapt stage shows too.

To find out more, please click here.

And you can see a film about our work with the local dementia community here.

(This blog was written before the COVID-19 lockdown, so the activities discussed are currently on hold – however, we hope to have them up and running again as soon as possible!)

[thesjt]

My SJT: Richard Harris

Confessions of a playwright

Stepping Out author Richard Harris recalls an uncomfortable encounter on the train to Scarborough – with a few diversions along the way…

I have a confession to make. I think I have inadvertently made a dent in the reputation of one of my heroes.  

Richard Harris and Alan Ayckbourn at the SJT Season Launch 2019 | © Tony Bartholomew

It began on my train journey from London to Scarborough where I had been invited to attend Paul Robinson’s 2019 production of my play Stepping Out at the Stephen Joseph and also to break bread with Paul and the aforementioned hero – so a double whammy for me.  

I like going places by train. Even on continental holidays. (Remember them?) I tell people that this is because train travel is more ‘natural’. Unlike air travel, I say, you get the sense of actually going somewhere and of getting some feel for the places you’re passing through to get there. And at a reasonable speed. The truth is that I can’t stand flying. This stems from my National Service in the RAF where I was offered the choice of becoming a fireman or a typist. I chose typist because I’m a coward and I suppose that’s why I became a writer. It seemed like the logical progression. I must point out that I wasn’t just a typist: I was a flying typist – that is, I was attached to the Examining Wing of the Central Flying School and flew all over the world typing reports on the standard of flying instruction in the RAF. The Wing was made up of 18 or so ace pilots – all of them not long out of active service in WW2 and who still wore sheepskin-lined leather jackets and took piston-engined planes up early in the morning when the air was clearer and good for the carbs and they could roll and loop to their hearts’ desire. By the time I was demobbed, three of them had died in air crashes and I had typed detailed reports of their and maybe two dozen other fatal crashes. This made me a tidge uneasy and when the first BEA flight I took had one of its engines fail and we came in sideways, I thought that’s it, genug ist genug, which meant that my poor pre-teen children spent most of their summer holidays cooped up in railway carriages being stared at by Italian farmers and their sheep as we made the long and hot journey that Spartacus and co made down the leg of Italy – in their case to get crucified, in our case to get to Corfu.

I have it on good authority that God wasn’t keen on flying either. He believed that flying was strictly for the birds. Which is why Joseph and Mary made their journey to Bethlehem by donkey and not by El Al or more probably Al Italia. Had He not finally cracked and allowed someone in His Image to invent the aeroplane a lot sooner, we might be celebrating Christmas on December 21st. Mind you, had he not allowed the invention of the donkey, they might well have had to walk and so we would be celebrating on or around 7th January.

So. I’m sitting on the train on the first leg to York opposite two middle-aged ladies doing a crossword puzzle and trying to ignore me but, being a bit over-excited at the day ahead, I initiated conversation by way of having a go at the so-called cup of tea I’d just bought from the buffet trolley. This didn’t get much response so I broadened it to a go at teenagers on bicycles, fly-tipping, the public school system, people who are victims to their iPhones and even managed to get a bit in about when I was in hospital with what they thought was a stroke because my speech was slurred so they got me a speech therapist. That is, I was on a really enjoyable old man’s rant. When I finally paused for breath – which I told them was in short supply because of the pollution drifting over from wherever – one of them nudged the other into asking: “Who are you? And why are you going to Scarborough?”  

The finale of Paul Robinson’s production of Richard Harris’ Stepping Out | © Tony Bartholomew 

I told them, in all mock modesty, that I was a writer and that I was going to see my play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. I didn’t tell them my name because doing so generally leads to my being told I look much bigger in films. Me being a writer with a play on interested them about as much as what size shoes I take and they went back to five down, their faces making it clear that one more word out of me and they’d pull the communication cord. I did what I always do in such circs, which is to feign sleep, nailing it home with a few snores. Through half-closed eyes I saw them whispering as one of them consulted an iPad.  “Here we are” she said. “The Stephen Joseph Theatre.”   “Does it mention any writers?” said the other. “Yes… Alan Ayckbourn.   He’s a Sir”.

“A Sir?” She ‘wakened’ me with a vicious nudge. “Look here,” she said. “Are you Sir Ayckbourn?” And here’s the rub… I don’t know why – perhaps it was my one chance of fame – but I didn’t deny it. I didn’t say no, I didn’t say anything. I just gave what I hoped was a slightly amused smile.  “Call yourself a Knight Of The Realm,” she said. ”Going on like that? You should be ashamed of yourself!” And they got up and moved to another seat.

Changing trains at York, I saw them with two men on the opposite platform. One of them pointed at me and they all shook their fists. That’s what I mean about making a dent, you see. I have this recurring dream in which in some yet-to-be-written unauthorised biography of Sir Alan, the exchange on the train will have grown into a 20-page chapter entitled  ‘The True Nature Of The Man’, as told by two women he had tried to charm and, having failed, abandoned heartlessly.

If it ever happens, I’m sorry Alan. But the production was excellent and the meal was lovely.

Richard Harris is one of the few writers in this country who have combined a successful career in both theatre and television.

Theatrical successes include Outside Edge (Evening Standard Award), The Business of Murder, which ran for seven years at the Duchess and Mayfair Theatres, Stepping Out (Evening Standard Comedy of the Year Award, and Molière Award for the Paris production), The Maintenance Man at the Comedy Theatre and Albert and Virginia at the Arts Theatre. Visiting Hour was performed as a platform production at the National Theatre. Dead Guilty played at the Apollo Theatre and his version of Ibsen’s Ghosts was produced at the Comedy Theatre. Surviving Spike, based on the book Spike, An Intimate Memoir, by Norma Farnes, was produced at the Edinburgh Festival. Going Straight completed a successful national tour, as did The Last Laugh, based on the original Japanese. Liza Liza Liza was originally produced at the Tabard and subsequently completed a national tour. He has co-written three musicals: Stepping Out, Large as Life and West Five Story. His latest play, Dog Ends, was produced at the Tabard Theatre.

Richard has written many plays for TV and has contributed to countless TV series such as The Darling Buds Of May and The Avengers. He co-created the series Shoestring and Man in a Suitcase.  His script Searching For Señor Duende won the New York Television Festival Gold Award for best writer. He wrote the first ten hours of A Touch Of Frost and a comedy-drama series based on his play Outside Edge, for which he won The Writers' Guild Best Comedy Award, The British Comedy Award for Best Series and The Television And Radio Industries Award for Best Comedy. His series The Last Detective was based on the books by Leslie Thomas. His radio play Was It Something I Said? was winner of the Giles Cooper Award.

Screenplays include Strongroom, I Start Counting, The Lady In The Car, Orion's Belt and Stepping Out, adapted from his own stage play and starring Liza Minnelli.

[thesjt]

My SJT: Adrian McLoughlin

Bathing with Russell

Actor Adrian McLoughlin has appeared in many shows at the SJT over the past 28 years, but his first appearance was particularly memorable…

From left, Adrian McLoughlin, Russell Dixon and Claude Close getting ready for their first scene in Tim Firth’s Neville’s Island | 1992 © Scarborough News

Every evening in the summer of 1992 I stepped into a hot bath with Russell Dixon. It wasn’t how I’d envisaged my first season at the Stephen Joseph Theatre but it was a memorable experience nonetheless and it happened backstage, each time we performed Neville’s Island by Tim Firth. And by the way, before you start to wonder where this is headed, we were both fully clothed throughout.

As Tim writes elsewhere on this blog, the play is set on a small island in the Lake District where four inept businessmen have managed to maroon themselves. The set was a section of the island and two of the three vom entrances to the stage were filled with water to represent the lake. My first entrance (as Neville), closely followed by Russell’s entrance (as Gordon), found us crawling up the vom through the water and, quite obviously, soaking wet. The idea was that we’d swum through the lake from an overturned boat and were dragging ourselves onto dry land. It was a great beginning to a play and always got huge laughs and set us off to a cracking start.

The problem though was that we had to appear on stage soaked to the skin as if we had actually been swimming in the lake, and the water in the voms was barely ankle height. Thus it was important we got wet before we even started – which is where the bath came in. Our first attempts to get in it were laughable (yes, we rehearsed it!). The water was cold and unwelcoming and I feared what having to lie in it night after night before the show would do to my skin, my hair (?) and my temperament. But the Stephen Joseph stage management were as efficient then as I’m sure they are now and, before long, an element was fitted into the water to heat it up. And, for those of you who read thrillers, it was taken out again before we stepped in and electrocuted ourselves.

It was heavenly. Fully clothed, Russell and I slowly lowered ourselves into the heated bath every evening before the show and wallowed – there’s no other word for it – in blissfully warm water for ten minutes or so to make sure we were soaked from head to toe.

Adrian McLoughlin 

Over time, little yellow ducks appeared in the water – plastic ones, not real ones – and we named them. I remember ‘Ayckbourn’ and ‘Hebden; (the artistic director and associate director of the theatre in those days) and I’m sure there was also ‘Orton; after Connal Orton, our director, and probably a ‘Firth’ too. It kicked off our evening beautifully. How could one not feel happy after a warm bath with Russell Dixon and several yellow ducks? We bonded, Russell, the ducks and me.

Neville’s Island was a wild success – gales of laughter every night – and was a marvelous play to perform in my first season at the theatre. That year I did two other plays, both directed by the talented and funny Malcolm Hebden (the associate director, not the plastic duck) and, in the ensuing years, returned to the theatre many, many times, mainly to work with the totally wonderful Sir Alan Ayckbourn. It was, and remains, the theatre and town where I spent my happiest and most fulfilling years as an actor and it all began in a warm bath with Russell Dixon and several plastic ducks.

Adrian McLoughlin worked at the Stephen Joseph Theatre many times during the 1990's and 2000's and appeared in the premieres of a number of Alan Ayckbourn's plays, most notably Haunting Julia, Drowning on Dry Land, Private Fears in Public Places and Life and Beth. He also appeared in several of Alan's plays in London and on tour – House and Garden at the National Theatre and Things we do for Love in the West End among them. More recently he's worked quite a lot in film and TV and recent appearances include playing Stalin in Armando Iannucci's film The Death of Stalin and in After Life on Netflix with Ricky Gervais. He now has his own theatre company and two years ago appeared for them in his own play The Golden F**king Years on the London fringe. He's currently living in Epping Forest and writing his second play.

[thesjt]

My SJT: Shannon Rewcroft

The magic is about to start… Scarborough-born actor Shannon Rewcroft, who played Gran in our production of Stig of the Dump, recalls how her love affair with the theatre began.

Shannon Rewcroft backstage at the SJT

I have very vivid memories of my first encounters with the SJT. Well, technically my first ever experiences were as a toddler in a pushchair, most likely munching a Coopland’s sausage roll, visiting my Mum who was working as an SJT waitress. I can’t quite remember that far back but what I do remember is being at primary school and bursting with excitement every year to go and watch the SJT Christmas show. I would skip with delight past the red telephones boxes (my bright red Newby school jumper matching perfectly) to see what new wonders awaited us.

I remember one production, I’m not sure what play or year it was, but there was a young actress in it who wore a white dress (a nightie I think) and she had blonde curly hair like me. I thought that’s it, I want to be just like her! My love affair with theatre had begun. I loved the actors, the music, the costumes… in particular I loved watching the ushers at the SJT getting in position to pull the curtain shut. That’s when you know the magic is about to start.

Shannon Rewcroft and Patrick Young in Stig of the Dump |  © Tony Bartholomew

It wasn’t until I was older I realised how very lucky I was to have these experiences at such a young age. I grew up watching shows, mostly by Sir Alan Ayckbourn, at the SJT.  It doesn’t get much better than that! When I ventured out of Scarborough, first to go University in Newcastle and then on to drama school in London, I was surprised that not everywhere had a theatre in the round but I also got to fully appreciate the SJT. I’ve ended up in many different places working in theatre and as soon as I mention I’m from Scarborough people always ask about the SJT. It nearly always comes up in theatre auditions and a lot of actors I have worked with speak so fondly about their time working at the SJT and staying in Scarborough. I am very proud of that.

So I had fallen in love with theatre at the SJT at a young age and of course I was itching to perform there! Growing up in Scarborough was filled of lots of performing for me, at the YMCA, The Spa Theatre, The Futurist Theatre, entering competitions at the Corner Cafe as well as singing in local hotels and nursing homes. I got to add the SJT to the list twice as a teenager performing in The Miracle in the McCarthy theatre with the YMCA Youth Theatre and playing Killer Queen in Scalby School’s production of We Will Rock You. Playing Killer Queen was particularly fun for me and it was great to have a taste of performing at the SJT.

Skip forward to 2015 and I am a recent drama school graduate. I have had my first professional job down in London in The Accrington Pals and I see in The Scarborough News that the SJT is looking for locals to be in the ensemble for the upcoming visiting production of The Ladykillers. I  jumped at the chance! It was a great opportunity early on in my career to see a professional production in action at the SJT. I got to meet and work with some lovely people and it actually led to more acting work. The following Christmas the director Mark Babych cast me in his production of Treasure Island at another northern institution, the Hull Truck Theatre. A wonderful experience all round.

Shannon Rewcroft in Stig of the Dump |  © Tony Bartholomew

Three years later, after performing up and down the country in various theatres, I am back in Scarborough. I’m walking past those phone boxes and about to do something I had been thinking about since I skipped down Hanover Road to the theatre as a little girl. I’m about to start my first professional contract with the SJT. I’m getting to work with the wonderful Cheryl Govan and a full Scarborough cast on Stig of the Dump and what a job it was! Me and Paddy Young (another professional actor from Scarborough) worked with two young actors from the Rounders Youth Theatre who were utterly brilliant. Together we created a fast paced, totally bonkers show. We even had a slide on to stage thanks to Julia Wray’s beautifully inventive set. It was a whole lot of fun and is certainly a highlight of my career so far. Every single staff member was so friendly and welcoming and to be in that building everyday, full of creativity and familiar warmth, was joyous. Most of all I loved performing in my hometown to a Scarborough audience. I’m really glad my first show at the SJT was one for young people. I hope we created some theatre magic for Scarborough youngsters just like all those Christmas productions did for me as a child.

I still come to the SJT every year to watch the Christmas show, now bringing my young cousins along, and it is still as exciting now as it was then.

I am currently locked down in Tunbridge Wells with my boyfriend Sam who is also from Scarborough. We moved here just a few days before the lockdown happened (moving in a pandemic isn’t something I would recommend!) and I am very much missing my family, friends and Scarborough. I also cannot wait to see the sea. To write this blog and feel connected to home and the theatre industry again has been lovely. It’s also a reminder of the difficult time that the arts is facing right now. I send all my love and support to the SJT and I urge you to do the same because, as they say – The Show Must Go On!

Shannon Rewcroft and Mimi Clay in Stig of the Dump |  © Tony Bartholomew

Shannon is from Scarborough and trained at Drama Studio London (Spotlight Prize Nominee 2014) and Northumbria University, achieving a First Class Honours BA(Hons) degree in Performance. She has performed in various theatre productions, most recently in Romeo and Juliet at the Orange Tree Theatre in London. Other credits include: Wait Until Dark (Original Theatre Company, UK tour), Shadowlands (Birdsong Productions, UK tour), AniMalcolm (Story Pocket Theatre, UK tour), Stig of the Dump (SJT), A Christmas Treasure Island (Hull Truck Theatre), The Accrington Pals (Fairfield Halls).

#Stephen Joseph Theatre #sjt #stig of the dump #shannon rewcroft #patrick young #my sjt