Potter to pedlar: Harry Melling writes and stars in Peddling at the Arcola. Photograph: Nobby Clark
Harry Potter star Harry Melling is hoping to create some magic of his own when his one man show Peddling comes to the Arcola Theatre this month.
The 25-year-old actor, best known for playing Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films, wrote and stars in this solo show about a pedlar boy trying to make sense of his life “via the doorsteps of privileged London and the cracks that swallow thousands of young Londoners every year”.
The play, which is Melling’s writing debut, premiered at the HighTide festival last April, and has since been shown in New York.
The play is inspired by an episode in Melling’s childhood, when a young boy knocked on the door of his family home in North London, trying to sell them household goods.
“My dad opened the door, and sometimes we’d buy something but on this occasion we didn’t, and the boy very politely turned away. We closed the door and suddenly we heard this howling and this swearing and things being thrown against the house.
“Ever since then I’ve always been fascinated about where these people are from, what their lives are like, and that was where the idea spiralled from.”
The play follows a character named only Boy, who has been through the care system and now finds himself trudging down Bishop’s Avenue trying to sell sundry items such as marigold gloves, dish cloths or toilet paper.
The play touches on family, identity and homelessness, though Melling stresses it is not overtly political. It is, however, very much a London play, set on Hampstead Heath and with the action taking in various North London locations.
Early indications suggest the play has a Philip Ridley-esque feel, the main character is not named, there’s little background information for the audience to grasp, and there’s an otherworldy sense while being set in the present day.
Most interesting, particularly for a debut play, is Peddling’s language, with Melling writing it in an incantatory, performance poetry style.
“There came a point half way through where I realised it should rhyme, not a regular rhyme but an irregular, spoken word-y rhyme. I guess it came from the fact I want it to be theatrical and magical, in terms of this boy wants a bit of magic to take him out from his not so fun reality.
“I also wanted this boy to be absolutely brilliant. I thought what an amazing thing to show this boy with all this potential, all this gift for language, but who lives such a shit life.”
Peddling is at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL until 28 March arcolatheatre.com
Frieda Thiel and Savannah Gordon-Liburd in Roy Williams’ Antigone. Photograph: Robert Day
In Roy Williams’ modern day Thebes, women are only ever referred to in the basest of terms. They are bitches, skets, yats and skanks. Antigone, powerfully played by Hackney actress Savannah Gordon-Liburd, is herself frequently described as ‘the inbred’, thanks to her Oedipal parentage.
She works in a grubby nightclub owned by her sharp-suited uncle, the self-styled king of the underworld Creo, played ferociously by former Eastenders actor Mark Monero.
Although we never discover exactly what her position of employment entails, it is understood that both ‘Tig’ and her sister Esme (Frieda Thiel), a cleaner at the venue, should be grateful for the work.
This is the landscape of the play. A culture deeply opposed to women that is ripe for an overhaul. In the original Greek text, what follows is a challenge to that dominance by the most unlikely of heroes. A person who, with incredible determination and courage pierces the very heart of the prevailing system of power, prejudice and inequality.
But what Williams’ adaptation gives us is merely the continuation of that system. Facing constant derision on the grounds of her gender, and with her protestations falling on deaf ears, Antigone has no agency with which to challenge her uncle’s will.
Making Creo such an out-and-out bad guy (he wouldn’t be out of place in a James Bond movie) proves a disservice to the complex characterisation of Sophocles’ play. Once Creo condemns Tig and sentences her to death, he proceeds to sadistically keep her alive, apparently for days, whilst he endlessly insults her and repeatedly reiterates her fate.
Though the idiomatic script is raw and pacey, it is a shame that this seminal dramatic work needs translating into street slang to make it relevant to a contemporary audience.
Likewise, that it was thought that the best way to appeal to the East London public was through the prism of violence and gang culture, is problematic in the least.
Antigone, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, E15 1BN until 14 March. stratfordeast.com
Oliver Coppersmith and Jonah Russell as Eitan and Avi in The Mikvah Project. Photograph: Mark Douet
The stage is a swimming pool, or more precisely, a mikvah, a type of bath used in Judaism for ritual immersion. The leads are Eitan (Oliver Coppersmith) and Avi (Jonah Russell), two young Jewish men discovering what it means to find and hold on to love. This brave and sexually-charged play from writer Josh Azouz and director Jay Miller, now at The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick, is quite the spectacle.
Eitan is 17, navigating his way through hormone-ridden teenage years, and arriving at the conclusion that he’s fallen in love with Avi, a 35-year-old married man who’s trying for a baby. They meet at the mikvah to be spiritually cleansed, but it soon becomes clear they’re only there for each other.
Lighting makes effective use of the space in the theatre, the rippling water casting an eerie reflection on the corrugated iron ceiling. There’s a bravery in the staging and the physicality that transcends the small space, and brings the audience right into the mix.
Clever interplay between the two vastly different personalities makes for a highly enjoyable exchange of dialogue and the heavy weight of things unspoken. As Avi says, love is “all types of silence”. Wonderful casting really elevates this production from fringe theatre to a piece that could happily sit in the National Theatre.
Utterly immersive from the outset, the play dissects stereotypes and clichés – both of men and of Jewish culture. It meanders along a relationship between age, experience, longing, desire, admiration and duty, blending startling music with clever dialogue. It’s surprisingly frank and funny, focusing on young male anxieties. Eitan is eager and carefree, Avi has an obligation to his wife – there are very human exchanges of power and control as the two men try to find a place in which they’re happy.
Exploring the boundaries of desire, fantasy and sexuality, and informed by today’s Jewish culture at every turn, The Mikvah Project is a must-see production in the heart of Hackney Wick. Erotic, emotional, extraordinary.
The Mikvah Project is at The Yard Theatre, Unit 2a Queen’s Yard, E9 5EN until 21 March theyardtheatre.co.uk
Gamba Cole and Savannah Gordon Liburd in Antigone. Photograph: Robert Day
After making her film debut in Sally El Hosaini’s My Brother the Devil, Hackney’s Savannah Gordon-Liburd is forging ahead in her acting career. This month she will be prowling the stage as the complex titular character in Roy Williams’ daring contemporary production of Sophocles’ Antigone, in the last leg of its UK tour at Theatre Royal Stratford East.
Writer Roy Williams has described this production as “a play for today’s streets”. Do you think that it is relevant to audiences?
It’s very relevant to London – topics that are played out in the production are really relatable to young people especially. It’s a modern reworking of an ancient story, in a way that’s easy to understand.
How does Williams’ vision play into Marcus Romer’s direction of your character?
Roy has given Antigone a new lease of life. Although she has the same essence as the original, it’s a completely new piece. Marcus encourages input from actors, and lets us make the words our own. It really is a breath of fresh air. The way Roy writes is very natural, which allows me to play Tig freely.
Antigone is an incredibly headstrong character. Does that resonate with you?
I grew up very differently from Tig, although Roy saw qualities in me that are in her too. I’m confident and not a follower, so I’ve put myself in her shoes. You could say I’ve taken my personality and put it into her.
Antigone so far has had some stellar reviews – does that put you under pressure as an actor?
People have loved it! They’ve said they’ve never seen anything like it, which is great feedback. I’m really excited to be on stage in London, but it’s nerve-wracking doing it at home in front of friends and family. After performing the same piece for so long, you just want it to be new and fresh and amazing for every new audience.
Do you think this production will bring in new audiences?
This is a big thing for us: a lot of young people don’t think theatre is for them, particularly when it’s something like Antigone, a Greek play that’s so ancient. But schools have come in and said it’s the best thing, which is great. There’s a lot of comedy in it, as well as darkness, and it’s so relatable. It’s not a typical production, so hopefully it will open up a realm of exciting theatre for young people especially.
Where do you think this role will take you next?
I’ve got no idea what’s next! I’m hoping that I can go on to bigger things, as I want to make my career out of this. Antigone is my fourth tour since 2011, it’s what I know. I love TV too and want to do film, so I hope that it’s up from here – fingers crossed!
Antigone is at Theatre Royal Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, E15 1BN from 19 February – 14 March stratfordeast.com
First things first, Happy Ending isn’t, strictly speaking, a musical. Yes, the characters express themselves through song, but arguably not consistently enough to warrant that definition. With the first half containing only two numbers, in this case what the term ‘musical’ refers to is the tone – light, funny and easy going.
Carrie Evans, a revered theatre actor has cancer. On her first day of chemotherapy she is introduced to three fellow female patients, each with their own quirky ways of dealing with the unmentionable disease. For all her grace and elegance however, Carrie seems to be the one suffering the most, not willing or able to accept her fate like the others. The fate she denies is not death, but the gradual degradation that years of treatment will undoubtedly bring about.
Clean, white, and impersonal, the set looks excellent in the space, and the supporting cast fizz with all the necessary vigour. The dialogue is clear and fast-paced throughout, skimming merrily across the surface of a rather more complex debate than can be explored in this form, but the show is nevertheless diverting and light-hearted.
The second half gets into the meat of the argument, which is largely defined by a conversation over who should decide whether Carrie sticks with the treatment or not as Carrie appeals to the doctor’s humanity and the doctor refers her to the law and the Hippocratic oath.
Execution and sentimentality take precedence over depth and moral complexity here but Happy Ending succeeds in fulfilling the author’s promises in the programme notes about it being a “musical-comical fantasy about a subject that people don’t talk about”.
Happy Ending is at Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL until 7 March arcolatheatre.com
Playwright Kay Adshead. Photograph: Mama Quilla Theatre Company
“Women are not free anywhere in this world until all women in the world are free.” This is the mission statement of Mama Quilla Theatre Company that presents its new show, The Singing Stones at the Arcola this month.
Inspired by the now deleted blog posts of women protesting in Tahrir Square, and on the frontlines of Tunisia and Kurdistan, this triad of new plays is written and directed by political playwright Kay Adshead.
“Although they were briefly celebrated, these women’s voices have been ignored, denied and forgotten since the revolution” Adshead says.
On a micro level the production is an effort to sustain the voices of women who, despite popular uprising, still suffer persecution and oppression around the world.
A third of the protesters in Tahrir square in 2011 were women, many of whom were subjected to so-called ‘virginity tests’ in the street. Some were raped and killed and almost all were censored.
The challenge for Adshead as the writer behind the piece was how to interpret such harrowing material for a theatre audience.
“How do I make art out of this?” she asks. “How do I even make sense of it? When I had my daughter I never thought I would be seeing women shot in the street for wanting an education.”
Despite the hard-hitting content the writer-director and her multiethnic, all female cast are at pains to insist that this is not agitprop – it is not a sermon, nor an agitation.
“You won’t feel bombarded by horror or propaganda, it’s about the individual stories of these women” says Tina Gray, a member of the ensemble.
Adshead made her name as an actor in television sitcoms such as One Foot in the Grave and alongside Victoria Wood in Dinnerladies. And her latest show undoubtedly benefits from that experience, infused with humour and her own natural vitality.
The plays have come about partly as a result of collaborations with a host of global artists. World music star Najma Akhta has composed the music and will be performing live in performances until 7 February.
Interspersed with the live performance will be films made by the Syrian theatre group Masasit Mati, whose satirical portrayals of Assad and his government intend to dispel the fear so present in Syria today.
Their medium is finger puppets, which unlike the pamphlets or spray cans of traditional dissenters can be smuggled through military checkpoints with ease.
As those who gathered in Tahrir Square were engaging in politics, so Adshead sees the act of witnessing theatre as a political act. The theatre, she says, is both a collective and an individual experience where people meet face-to-face and ask the question: “How do we live in this world together?”
Mama Quilla has a distinguished history of asking difficult and challenging questions and The Singing Stones looks set to be an urgent response to a continuing global lack of equality
The Singing Stones is at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL until 28 February
Looking back at the Arab Spring: the cast of The Singing Stones
The Singing Stones is a jigsaw puzzle of perspectives on what the play’s creators see as potentially “the greatest missed opportunity of the 21st century”. In 2010, the Arab Spring swept through North Africa and the Middle East where despite countries such as Egypt booming financially the voice of the people was entirely absent.
Freedom of expression is a vivid theme in Kay Adshead’s latest piece of political theatre. Graphic images of lips being fused shut by fire and singing voices silenced by brutality recur. The play opens with an argument that making art, or reflecting creatively on war contributes nothing of any value, and it closes with the response – but what else can we do?
The reaction of the woman sat next to me at the theatre seemed to epitomise how many of us have responded to the barbarous acts carried out by the various regimes before, during and indeed after the revolution.
When the actors spoke of so-called ‘virginity tests’ performed on the roadside she tutted. It wasn’t long before, head in hands, she let out an exasperated and audible sigh at the story of a young woman’s body being mutilated. She gasped in disgust when more bodies were burned, and by the curtain she was crying silently, desperately to herself.
This journey from quiet disapproval, through vocal objection to helplessness seems to reflect a common feeling about the atrocities occurring in Iraq and Syria today. The Singing Stones’ press night even coincided with a debate in the House of Commons as to whether the British government is doing enough to help.
Although Adshead’s play occasionally feels like grandstanding, and some of its points are trite, it does reflect a familiar feeling of impotence. The piece falls down in places thanks to a lack of structure, but its message is a good one. It is an invitation to listen, to witness, and to speak up.
The Singing Stones is at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL. www.arcolatheatre.com
Jill takes on a cheesecake in Vanity Bites Back. Photograph: Impressive PR
Some subjects are more irresistibly comic than others (whoopee cushions, hairpieces …) though the best comedy is always found in unexpected places. For her one woman show Vanity Bites Back, Helen Duff chose a subject that few talk, let alone make comedy about: anorexia.
Duff, a trained actor, comedian and clown, plays Jill, a genteel 1950s-style Stepford wife who wants nothing more than to host her own television cookery show. Her big moment arrives and the audience joins her for the pilot episode. “It’s going to be the best bloody cookery show you’ve ever seen,” she confides in deadly seriousness.
As well it might be, though not in the way she intends. Instead Jill, an eccentric described as a cross between Alan Partridge and Margaret Thatcher, makes a comically epic mess. As her dream unravels the mask slips; her practically perfect persona gives way and a person suffering with anorexia is revealed.
“Stories keep cropping up that are not really part of the cookery show,” explains Stoke Newington resident Duff. “It’s not about eating so much as little moments of vulnerability and fears, and feelings that you haven’t lived up to expectations. They keep coming out no matter how hard she tries to keep this perfect persona up.”
Vanity Bites Back premiered at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, where it was warmly received, and this month the show returns to London for Vault festival in Waterloo. It’s the 27-year-old’s debut show, and stems from her own experience with anorexia as a teenager.
“One of the reasons that I made the show is that when you have anorexia people don’t ever talk about it. Even family members and friends. They don’t want to say the wrong thing or isolate anybody so people don’t talk about anything. So coming out and saying that I’m suffering with anorexia is a really intimidating thing to do.”
The title of the show was inspired by a conversation Duff had with a friend who didn’t yet know about her anorexia.
“I realised they knew other people who’d suffered and they essentially said to me that everyone says it’s this or that but really I know it’s just attention seeking, she’s always been vain and she just cares about what she looks like.
“I felt so deeply that that was wrong and wanted to be able to correct that view and wanted to be able to explore that view and why I disagreed with it. But I couldn’t because at the time I was so vulnerable.”
Duff started a blog and called it Vanity Bites Back, about the idea of whether anorexia really was attention seeking. If so, says Duff, it is rooted in something other than vanity, which is a sense of pride in what you look like.
“Anorexia is just the opposite, it’s about a complete lack of self-worth as opposed to a sense of everyone look at me.”
The blog was well received, and writing about the illness gave Duff confidence. She was also gaining confidence as a theatre maker following a spell studying clown at the École Philippe Gaulier in Paris. The two things converged and the character of Jill was born.
Learning clown, such an intensely physical art form, might not be the obvious choice for someone who has experienced an illness linked to body image. However, Duff refutes this, saying that anorexia is less about body image than it is a physical manifestation of needing control and feelings of inadequacy. Clowning, she explains, provided a freedom that was the perfect tonic.
“Clown is about accepting yourself and your audience in the space in the moment. It’s about happy accidents and really allowing yourself to be open to what happens. So it’s the opposite of anorexia which very much about controlling, about not allowing yourself to be spontaneous or to divert from the plan.”
Improvisation is a big part of the show, and there’s also plenty of direct contact with the audience. For that reason Duff is keen to build in new jokes and frivolity to keep the show fresh. “I have to be sharp to what’s happening in the room,” she explains.
Jill can suddenly shift from profound silliness, singing about Hobnobs or covering herself with butter, to moments of genuine pathos. Some audiences apparently laugh all the way through; at a recent performance in Bristol some people were still laughing whilst others were crying by the end.
“Generally I use comedy to puncture moments and to make them almost more moving because that’s a better way of approaching a difficult subject matter. I think people receive information and open their minds more when they feel comfortable and are having a good time, rather than receiving a sort of lecture.”
Duff tells me that one of the most enjoyable processes was using her own fears as someone who has had anorexia to construct the form of the play. I ask if she was ever afraid that the play would be perceived as insensitive.
“I’m always in the character who’s obviously suffered with the illness,” she replies. “I’m never making jokes about not eating. It’s never that explicit or that cheap.”
Duff plans to take Vanity Bites Back to Australia to comedy festivals in Melbourne and Adelaide this year, as well as develop something new for next year’s Edinburgh Free Fringe. Her days of striving for perfection are over, but the best is yet to come.
Sex work and opera may seem unlikely bedfellows, but one thing both have in common is strong public preconceptions.
The desire to challenge stereotypical thinking and stigma has brought the two together in the Sex Workers Opera, which comes to Dalston’s Arcola Theatre this month.
The show lets prostitutes, escorts, webcam performers, strippers and other sex workers tell their stories on stage through performance and music, foregrounding personal experiences good and bad.
“Everyone has an opinion on sex work,” explains Siobhan Knox, co-director of the show and co-founder of Experimental Experience theatre company. ”But when it comes down to it, the only people who really have the right to talk about it are sex workers themselves.”
“Very rarely is sex work represented in art through the words of the people actually doing it,” adds Alex Etchart, also co-director and co-founder.
“We put a call out for stories we could use in the opera, and received them from all over the world. We want to represent the diversity of sex workers on their own terms.”
As such, the less obvious aspects of selling sex are highlighted in the show, such as the close ties some forge with their clients and the personal empowerment – and disempowerment – experienced through the profession.
The term opera is used in the loosest sense, with the show incorporating other musical styles like hip-hop, jazz and spoken word. It was in part inspired by Bertold Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera of 1928, following the tradition of using a supposedly highbrow artform to explore gritty, earthbound themes. Nonetheless, the concept has been embraced by the opera establishment, with the Royal Opera House providing financial backing and guidance.
“Opera is one of the most established music and art forms, while sex work is one of the most marginalised professions,” says Etchart. “People often stop and stare when they see the poster for the show!”
The sensitivity of the opera’s subject matter is brought home by the Experimental Experience’s choice to cast a mix of sex workers and their allies in the production. As no-one reveals who is who, anonymity is ensured.
Contributing to the opera has been an intensely personal experience for many of the performers. The directors insist the intention is not to glorify sex work, rather to present a spectrum of viewpoints, unvarnished and straight from the horse’s mouth.
“Our main message isn’t ‘sex work is really great!’ or ‘sex work is really bad!’” says Siobhan. “It’s just literally: listen to sex workers.
“Whether you think it’s good or bad, objectification or empowerment, come and listen to a sex worker tell you about their life. Then you can open up a new dialogue.”
The Sex Workers Opera is at Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL from 26–29 January 2015
Stab in the dark: Light by Theatre Ad Infinitum. Photograph: Alex Brenner
The curtain’s up on the London International Mime Festival this month, with a season of physical and dance-theatre that aims to leave viewers – like the performers – at a loss for words.
East London audiences can look forward to the premiere of Light at the Barbican, inspired by Edward Snowden’s revelations and the ensuing debate on state surveillance. Fusing anime-style storytelling and a layered soundscape, it depicts an Orwellian future where a totalitarian regime uses implants and cyberspace to infiltrate its citizens’ minds.
At the dance end of the festival’s programming is Olivier Award nominee Aurelien Bory’s new work Plexus, showing at Sadler’s Wells, as well as 32 rue Vandenbranden by Belgian company Peeping Tom, a piece of dance-theatre at the Barbican in which six performers portray a small mountain community in a foreboding world of cold, wind and ice.
Also appearing at the Barbican is American puppeteer Basil Twist, part of the creative team for Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn concerts, whose new work is Dogugaeshi, inspired by the Japanese art of creating illusions through perspective.
