Laurel’s 2024 Season Launch

With Live’s year ahead now covered, it’s now time for the other press launch I was invited to. Laurel’s (a subtle rebranding that is now named after one particular Mr. Laurel rather than two) has had an excellent 2022 and 2023, with a transfer of their megahit Gerry and Sewell to Live Theatre last November, and now an upcoming project in partnership with the National Theatre. That particular project is a long-term thing, and is not part of the upcoming season. Instead, there’s a heavy crossover with the Richard Jenkinson commission.

First, a catch-up on the Richard Jenkinson Commission. I was planning to cover this separately from the season launch – Live Theatre might have had its playwriting competition and season launch at the same event, but so far, the two things are running independently of each other. By contrast, in spite of the two things being announced separately, the Richard Jenkinson Commission has become virtually inseparable from Laurel’s artistic programme. And one thing that has influenced this is how this worked.

In theory, both contests worked by the same principle: you could submit a script, but you didn’t have to. In Live’s case, the “detailed treatment” was viewed as an alternative to spending a lot of time writing a script now – it’s not clear how many people took up this offer in how they fared, but the finalist I know of did scripts. The Richard Jenkinson Commission, however, was a lot more geared towards to submitted an “idea”. It was mentioned that a straight script submission was fine, but I am told the ideas generally did a lot better than the scripts.

What the two did have in common, however, was that they both did a much better job of providing opportunities to those who need it than the big national competitions, with most or all of the shortlisted entrants not needing the extensive list of credits that almost all Bruntwood and Verity Bargate finalists how. One small but important clarification: unlike the North East Playwriting award, the Richard Jenkinson Commission wasn’t actually restricted to the north east. Laurel’s is best known to the north east and it was predominantly publicised in the north-east, and most of the names I recognise are north-east names. One notable exception, though, is Dave Bibby of Baby Dinosaur fame. One upcoming dilemma if this is done again – and mood is it will – one would expect work to get round of how good an opportunity it is to get work on stage, which is turn could be more uptake from outside the north-east. There means more good ideas to choose from – but also heavier competition against aspiring north-east artists. Should you stick with open to all, or restrict it to the north-east? That will be an interesting choice.

Anyway, what was originally intended to provide one entry to the 2024 programme has gone on to dominate the season. A second commission was offered during the ceremony, and now we have three. The ideas that have made it to production are: Subterranea, a post-dystopian society where the underlings were forced to shelter in the Metro after a nuclear attack, were never allowed to leave, and now have their own society; Doomgate, a three-writer collaboration of horror stories set on a single street; and most cryptic of all is the commission winner Seagulls & Sad Sad Stories which features three down-on-luck sixteen-year-olds putting their trust in the fortune-telling of an Zoltar in South Shields.

One thing that is notable is that in the two years Laurel’s has been running, it’s grown from a two-man operation to a bigger team – and now, a board of trustees with the power to overrule the artistic director. Anyway, we have Steve Robertson and John Hickman, arguably the numbers 2 and 3 at Laurel’s, doing their own play Stake Out at Halloween. Should the people who work in theatres get preferential treatment in their own work being programmed? My view is a strong yes. Running a venue is hard work, most of which goes into enabling other people to put on their shows, and if you get modest pay for your efforts your are very lucky. I firmly believe that giving your hardest workers their turn on the stage is the least you can do in return – and people who watch other productions take the the stage day in day out tend to know what they’re doing. So I’m looking forward to this comedy-horror set in the worst dives of Newcastle nightlife.

And one final thing that grabs my attention in the Christmas Production of Winnie the Pooh. Except this is the treatment all famous literary works get once they’re out of copyright. John Dole plays a take-no-crap the lovable bear vowing vengeance of the bastard property developers who’ve ruined the Hundred Acre Wood. Not clear if this is for children, and definitely not for literary purists. But if you like rewrite everything out of copyright to have ninjas (come on, who doesn’t want to see Peter Rabbit and the Ninjas), this is for you. (Oh, and … pssst, technically Winnie the Pooh doesn’t go out of copyright in the UK until 2027. You might want to call it a parody to be on the safe side.)

And there’s plenty more stuff as well. None of these I’m recommending over any others at the moment – I’ve seen hardly anyone in this programme before, so it’s all to play for. One seemingly unintended side-effect of the programme process is that the Laurel’s season is actually quite sparse until July, and then chocka from August. But the experience of pretty much every start-up arts org is that you always spend the first few years making up the rules as you go along.

But compared to even even twelve months ago, Laurel’s has come on leaps and bounds. Expect to be hearing a lot more of Laurels in the second half of this year.

What about the Exchange?

There is one other thing from last year’s launch that I haven’t forgotten, which is what was going on with The Exchange. This venue in North Shields had been built up in North Shields, and then, out of the blue, the news broke that they’d lost the lease of the building, with it going instead to Stonebanks Investments. Given Jamie Eastlake’s own experience with being ejected from premises, Laurel’s very much took the side of the ejected Exchange team now.

North Tyneside Borough Council, however, argued that The Exchange wasn’t closing – it was part of their “Cultural Quarter” scheme for North Shields. This attracted some suspicion, because until now, this so-called “Cultural Quarter” scheme only really entailed doing up some streets. And, let’s face it, if you’re trying to seek the confidence of the local people that’s you’re an arts-savvy organisation, “Stonebanks investment” is about the least cultured name you could have. It also didn’t instil much confidence that all the new management – including the theatre manager – had zero background in arts organisations. And, I have to say, the new catchphrase “Built in 1856, Reborn in 2023” did sound a bit twattish to me, the insinuation being that everything the old management did prior to 2023 didn’t count.

Coupled with sycophantic news coverage which was obviously a rehash of press releases setting off every marketing bullshit alarm known to man, I could help but speculate that they weren’t really interested in running a theatre space: just the cafe and bar which is where their previous experience lay.

But … let’s give credit where it is due: the theatre is running again, with a reasonable meaningful programme. A lot of it does seem to be last-minute. At the time of writing, there’s roughly one booking every 3-4 day, but later in the year it’s more like once a month. And there’s an awful lot more tribute acts than theatre. There again, that situation’s not unique to Exchange 1856 – Sunderland Old Fire Station is also a very theatre-lite theatre. I don’t the programme is as varied as The Exchange was under the old management, but maybe it will take time to rebuild a list of returning acts.

The reason I have been able to check this out is that Blowin’ a Hooley did their short play night at The Exchange – indeed, this was officially a co-production between themselves, Exchange 1856 and The Gala in Durham. It is not clear whether Exchange 1856’s involvement is wholehearted, or simply done out of obligation to North Tyneside Council, but either way, they do seem to be making progress. And it certainly looks like they know how to run a theatre bar. And, let’s be realistic, that’s how theatre’s make a lot of their money these days. Without a lucrative bar, you can expect a lot less theatre.

However, on balance, it still does seem like theatre has taken a step backward against what there would have been had The Exchange remained in charge. The daft thing is that there was no need for it to be this messy. Why oh why was a change of leaseholder left so late that programme acts had to be cancelled? And, more to the point – why didn’t The Exchange and Stonebank Investments just work together. Even in their new-found enthusiasm for performing arts is genuine, Stonebank were never going to be as cut out to run a theatre as their predecessors. Stonebank, however, are well placed to do a better job of the bar. Why not let The Exchange programme and run the theatre, and have Stonebank do the bar, giving both parties a role doing what they do best?

In summary, what’s happened at the Exchange isn’t as bad as we feared – and this pales into insignificance compared to the shenanigans around the Vault Festival. But it was handled badly, and quite needlessly. And it does little to bring back trust in landlords. My position for arts orgs remains unchanged: never trust your landlord. They can turn on you without warning – always be ready for this.

Closing the year: Three Acts, Watch House, Angela

Skip to: Three Acts of Love, The Watch House, Angela

Phew, we’re at the end. What’s that? “Wait a second Chris, you haven’t finished the Edinburgh Fringe roundup yet.” Oh shut up. But apart from that, three plays from three different venues to close the year. Let’s get to it.

Three Acts of Love:

The conclusion to Live Theatre’s 50th anniversary season is a compilation piece of three writers on a theme. This may seem like a safe bet – it takes the pressure off one script making or breaking an entire production – but this can backfire. Setting briefs for writers can be risky; tie their hands too much, and they end up forcing ideas that don’t work out. The biggest pitfall, however, is how the stories are presented collectively. Do it right and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But get the concept wrong and you will regret it. Results vary, but in all the time I’ve done this blog, Live Theatre’s worst-reviewed play was a compilation one on the theme of Utopia. Don’t underestimate the stakes.

So my first reaction to Three Acts of Love is how much I liked the treatment of the production as a whole. The publicity implied this would be three monologues; however, in each of the stories, the other two actors provided supporting roles for the main character. The other common theme working through the stories was on-stage live music from Me Lost Me. That only works if the style of the musician suits the moods of the stories, but it works here. I don’t know in what order the decisions were made here – how much the co-directors set a brief in advance and how much was reacting to the scripts they were given – but Jack McNamara and Bex Bowser’s vision comes off well.

Winter fringe catchup 2: at The Laurels

Skip to: The Club, 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, Ikaria, You Needs To Say Sorry, Gerry and Sewell

More of a catchup now. I split my fringe plays into two lots, with the last one covering venues other than The Laurels. But I have been spending a lot of time at The Laurels this year, and not just because I had a play on there. I really like The Laurels’ artistic ethos. There is some great stuff going on in theatres over in Newcastle, but in terms of subject matter and style, it is getting a bit sameish. But pretty much everything I’ve seen at The Laurels has been different. And yes, a more inclusive policy means a high risk of a play that turns out to be a complete turkey. But so far, this hasn’t happened.

However, this list is going to be considerably shorter than what I’ve seen for two reasons. I was one of three plays timed around Halloween in what became an unofficial Tyneside Horrorfest. As such, I’m viewing Charles Dexter Ward and The Haunting as part of my team. Also, whilst I’m happen to write reviews of plays at Jamie Eastlake’s theatre, it would not be appropriate to review plays he is artistically involved in. (Producer is OK.) This all comes back to my base rule: if I would not be comfortable writing a bad review of your play, it is not appropriate to write any kind of review. Those rules are relaxed outside of the review section, but we’ll get on to that later.

So this leaves four to catch up on, and we’re going back a bit. But better late than never, here we go.

The Club – a CIU story

With The Laurels located in a former Working Men’s Club, it is quite fitting that one of the main productions of the venue should be set in an actual working men’s club. Rather use the stage, the play quite sensibly uses one of the bar rooms of the venue, with retro touches such as the fines in the swear box – hey, it’s the 1970s, 50p is a lot of money. It’s also, I believe, the largest cast play to date at the Laurels. What might come as a surprise is the the cast has an even male/female split – but only if you’re not up to speed on the history of working men’s clubs. In spite of the name, for most of their history working men’s clubs have been a destination of choice for both men and women. Not always so with membership. This is one of the many clubs where the women could only be associate members. This will go on to be the dominant theme of the play.

We begin with a celebration. Suzie is the first person ever from this town to have been accepted at Cambridge. It’s through this lens that we see how different the two worlds are. For Suzie, there’s a whole new life being opened up for her; for her older sister, the expectation is to just have kids, something she’s quite content with. Being the 1970s, it also passes without comment that the local WMC sex pest is policed by warning the young women not to end up alone with him (instead of, you know, telling him not to be a sex pest). What doesn’t pass without comment, however, is just how much of the menial work falls to the women – but without being full members they don’t get a say in how the club runs.

Spring 2023 fringe theatre: All In Your Head and Room of One’s Own

Skip to: It’s all in your head, A room of one’s own

Now that Brighton Fringe coverage is wrapped up, let’s catch up with the other plays I’ve been seeing in the meantime. On my way back from Brighton, I took a detour to stoke for my first of two New Vic productions. But before then, a couple of fringe-scale plays that have been running outside of Brighton Fringe, and it’s a pleasing verdict for both.

It’s All In Your Head

It’s not often a play wrongfoots me, but this is one those times. When I first read there, it looked like an inspired idea for a comedy: an unofficial Chicken Run spin-off featuring the villainous Mrs. Tweedy and her relationship with hapless Mr. Tweedy. That, however, is a false front. Even though this is set in the same story as the hilarious Great Escape parody, even though this play integrates extremely well with all the plot details of the comedy film, there is not a lot to laugh along to here. The real theme of this play is a psychologically abusive relationship.

Willard Tweedy now lives alone. Tweedy’s Farm is gone, and he reminisces about the last days of his family business. Some details of the story are new, such as the increasing dominance of Melisha when she married in, and the back-story of RAF mascot Fowler. Some other bits are the story we know in a new light: how Melisha scoffed when he said the chickens were organised – “Oh, but it turned out they were”, he muses. But at 6 o’clock every evening, his wife calls by to check up on him. One piece of unfinished business is the matter of how Mrs. Tweedy survived the exploding chicken pie and collapsing farm building. I’ll refrain from the spoiler, even though it’s not too hard to guess – but one small detail from the final moment of the film is a pivotal moment to Mr. Tweedy’s life now.

What’s worth watching: spring/summer 2023

Skip to: Nell Gwyn, The Red Lion, Sherlock Holmes, Quality Street, It’s all in your head, Ghosts of Metroland, A Room of One’s Own, The bit where I call out a major theatre for fawning over a Holocaust revisionist

Aarrghh. We’re into this season already and there’s a lots of things on my list about to start. Sorry, Brighton Fringe has kept me busy and there’s still north-east theatre going on. Better get to it.

Safe choice:

So the big surprise is that there’s nothing amongst the professional theatres in the north-east that I’m putting down as a safe choice. (There are plenty of touring productions going to the biggest theatres that are safe bets for their target audience who know what to expect, but I’m on the lookout for plays that appeal beyond a standard target audience.) There are, however, a couple of plays from amateur theatres that I’m confident will be done well.

Nell Gwyn

I’m bending the rules to allow this in my list, but the People’s Theatre’s production of Nell Gwyn looks like it’s going to be good. I only know snippets of the play, but what I’ve heard sounds really promising.

First, a catch-up on this bit of theatre history. The mind-17th century wasn’t a great time to be a theatre. Firstly they were all shut down by Oliver Cromwell because the Puritans decided this was a bit too much like fun; they they had to be shut down because of a plague. Before the plague, however, Charles II liked fun and insisted the theatre re-opened, and also insisted women should be allowed on stage. Huzzah, a great advancement for equality. Well, sort of. If you were a woman, the only real way of securing a career in theatre was to get you tits out on stage, or sleep with the theatre owner and/or major donor. In spite of this, Nell Gwyn played that game well and made herself a celebrity, with her and King Charles famously exchange flirting from stage to royal box, making the audience think “are they or aren’t they?” (Spoiler: they are).

Spring 2023 fringe roundup

Skip to: Tiny Fragments, Howerd’s End, Juggling, Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me

Before I get into the thick of festival fringe coverage, here’s a roundup of four local fringe-scale plays I saw, with the consistent pleasing standard.

Tiny Fragments of Beautiful Light

Usual caveat applies for reviews about anything involving neurodiversity: these reviews are the most likely to be skewed by personal perspective. I loved Glitch, but I was upfront about the specific prejudices that resonated with me so much. Most of you who want to know my views on this already do – if not, you are welcome to come this way for some background reading. (And sadly, no, I haven’t seen any progress away from the grand gesture culture in the last two years.)

Alphabetti Theatre programming is dominated by representation of various minorities, but the worst mistake you can make is to assume everybody within a minority thinks the same and has the same experiences. It was great that Alphabetti took on Aware as one of its first projects coming out of lockdown, but that couldn’t cover everything; and the last thing I would have wanted is endless follow-ups that portray autistic people as nothing other than people who need constant care and/or care about casting Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. So I’m glad that the next play on the issue, Tiny Fragments of Beautiful Light, takes on what is, in my opinion, the more important issue to be talking about.

Alli Davies’s story follows Elsa, whose experience is one of many people. She is perfectly capable of living an independent life; and sure, she has a host of eccentricities and specialised interests, but none of this should be a barrier just so long as the rest of society doesn’t made stupid snap judgements over things that don’t matter. Unfortunately, society does. The story follows Elsa’s life from childhood to marriage, and early on in childhood she all too often falls foul of other bully kids getting away with it because the teachers made stupid snaps judgement of character against Elsa. The key message of the play is that so much could have been understood so much earlier if only a diagnosis could have been made earlier. Autism diagnosis is still in infancy, and one particular problem is that for some time it was perceived to affect mostly men, symptoms were designed around that, and it turned into a bit of a self-fulling prophecy. But even without this, so much would have been avoidable without stupid judgements.

The launch of The Laurels’ 2023 season

Skip to The Exchange.

A month ago I was invited to the press launch of Live Theatre’s season. Now it’s the turn of The Laurels in Whitley Bay.

Out of all the venues in the north-east, there can be little doubt that The Laurels was the big winner of 2022. This is thanks in a large part to the success of Gerry and Sewell. Plays that have references to local football teams have a track record of selling well, and Jonathan Tulloch’s book The Season Ticket is an excellent story in its own right, but I don’t think even Jamie and Steve predicted just how successful this was going to be. I’ve spoken very highly of this play before (indeed it won 2022’s Best North-East Fringe Production and Best Individual Performance from me), but at the end of the day, it’s not what I or any other reviewer thinks that counts, but mass appeal to an audience. A sold out run and a hastily-programme encore run is as good as you get.

And, of course, they’ve now secured a run at Live Theatre. Before we get carried away, we should remember that no theatre succeeds in the long-run as a one-hit wonder. The worst mistake the Laurels could make right now would be – fittingly enough – to rest on their laurels. What it does mean in that they’re going into 2023 on a position of strength.

There were quite a lot of things covered in the launch. As usual, I’m not going to do a comprehensive write-up here – I’ll leave it to other publications to do that – and instead concentrate on things that got my attention.

Chris Neville-Smith’s 2022 awards

So that’s the last of the 2022 plays seen, which leaves just one thing to do*, which is my annual “best of” list. This is always the most interesting bit of my coverage; in a normal review, it is always tempting to say “didn’t they all do well”, but when you’re choosing a winner, you can’t do that. There can only be one winner, and this forces me to decide whose achievements deserve the most recognition.

* It is not my last thing to do, I still have one review to write and an Edinburgh Fringe roundup to complete. But let’s forget about that for now.

After two years of limited theatre, where I had to scale down the list of awards to something that could be kept meaningful, we are back to the full list. Join me between Boxing Day and New Year’s Day as I look back on the best of what I saw this year.

Best New Writing:

We start with one of the major categories. This award is on the strength of the script. Some plays are great because of who’s performing it, but to win here it should be possible for a new set of competent actors to pick it up and do something equally good. We’ve got a very competitive shortlist.

In third place, it’s 0.0031% – Plastic and Chicken Bones. It’s debatable whether Malcolm Galea’s script truly counts as a play or just storytelling, but what storytelling it is. It’s a very cleverly-written story about a time traveller who is sent from the future to inhabit the bodies of past inhabitants to erase nuclear attacks out of history – but is the all-powerful supercomputer who sends Dryskoll on these missions really as wise and benevolent as she claims.

In second place, it’s The Land of Lost Content. Henry Madd’s was one of two memory plays I saw at the Edinburgh Fringe, but this one made you really feel it. Centred around his friendship with Judd in a deprived rural town, you know how deep their friendship runs because they have been through so much together, as have their closest friends. And that makes it all the more tragic. Everybody close to him has come off badly one way or the other: one lost to suicide, one turning to drink, and most heartbreaking: his teenage girlfriends who cares for him more than anything in the world trying to cover up that’s she’s with a wife-beater. Do be on the lookout for this – but bring hankies.

But, in spite of the very strong competition, there could only be one winner, and that is Samuel Bailey with Sorry You’re Not a Winner. With so much of new writing platforming the voices of the angry writers seeking to change the world, I think it’s great the Papatango made a change to identify someone who writes with such compassion, and seeks to find the best in the people, especially those who society writes off the most. To the outside observer, Liam and Fletch are just a pair of chavs. Liam, however, is about to start a life-changing course at Oxford University, whilst Fletch is about to spend a long time in prison. Fletch is clearly someone who never stood a chance in life, but in spite of Liam’s good intentions, his new life is dragging him away from his oldest and closest friendship. There are some many ups and downs in the play, and even Liam is not immune from the expectations of class – and most cleverly of all, the ending that would normally have been written of as a contrived coincidence is done well. I really hope this comes back either revived by Paines Plough or a new company, because compassion at this level seems to be in short supply.

December 2022 roundup

Skip to: 1902, Potatohead, Wishes on the Wind, Antichristmas

We’re approaching the end of the year, and I’ve started thinking about who’s going to get which end-of-year award. I haven’t been thinking about it too much, which is just as well because we’ve had a strong batch in December.

1902

One perk of the arrival of small theatres in the north-east is that it’s finally possible to see Festival Fringe acts that I couldn’t catch at the time – until now, they seemed to tour everywhere except the north-east. And so, I was finally able to catch 1902, one of the most acclaimed plays to make it to the much-diminished 2021 Edinburgh Fringe. The combination of being out in Leith and everywhere selling out very quickly meant I couldn’t make it. But thanks to The Laurels being a suitable place to tour to, I could now catch up. This is set in the upstairs bar rather than the theatre itself, but it suits the story perfectly.

I confess, I went into this expecting something completely different. My confusion arose because another play, Sweet FA, set in women’s football in the early 20th century, also outside of central Edinburgh, was getting high praise, and I’d incorrectly assumed this was the male equivalent. However, this play is set in 2016, with 1902 referring to the last year Hibernian won the Scottish Cup (that’s Scotland’s equivalent of the FA Cup). Now Hibernian is in the final again, and Derek and his mates would do anything to see it.

Introducing The Laurels (feat. Gerry and Sewell)

Skip to review of Gerry and Sewell.

North-east theatre news (and indeed news everywhere) in 2020 and 2021 has been dominated by theatres closing and reopening again, but whilst all this has been going on, something quite significant has been happening in the background. For the first time since the emergence of Alphabetti Theatre last decade, Tyneside has a new theatre. They’ve got going with the odd performance at the start of the year, but now we have their first major in-house production: Gerry and Sewell, a new adaptation of The Season Ticket aka Purely Belter. And with me invited to the press launch, it’s time to check out this latest offering.

The story so far …

First of all, a catch-up. The Laurels is part of Theatre N16. Canny sleuths amongst you might realise that N16 is a London postcode district, and might speculate that the origin of this theatre was round about Stamford Hill, and you’d be right. I even checked out Theatre N16 once myself with the surprisingly good and delightfully surrealistic Three Unrelated Short Plays. That, however, was not in N16 but SW12, because they had to move. As Alphabetti Theatre had also learned the hard way with The Dog and Parrot: landlords are cocks. Small theatres, that depend so heavily on the goodwill of landlords allowing them to use spaces for mutual benefit, are vulnerable to new owners booting them out on a whim. But whilst cockish landlords are a nuisance in the north-east, in London the problem is endemic. Even the most highly respected fringe theatres can get turfed out when the lease runs out and the owner think they can make a little more money with another business instead.

I’ve said this before, but I really do think we need a proper discussion on this. Small theatres like Alphabetti and The Laurels and The Bunker can try different things and give opportunities to new artists that larger theatres who own their buildings simply don’t have the versatility to do. But all this good work is being hampered by endless worries over holding on to premises if you’re lucky, managing moves if you’re not. But what can you do to stop it? If you simply prohibit landlords from taking away a space used by an active theatre company, nobody’s going to agree to let out the spaces to them in the first place. I’m starting to think we need a more radical solution: perhaps a lease retention scheme, where landlords get a bonus payment for continuing to let premises to performances spaces. If we’re not sure where the money should come from, maybe the big theatres can chip in – after all, they benefit from the talent nurtured and risks explored by the small venues. A lot of details to work out, but something needs to be done. And we can start by acknowledging what a big problem this is.