The Handlebards’ all-female troupe. Photograph: The Handlebards
How different Shakespeare’s plays would have been had bicycles existed in his day.
Richard III might have declared: “A bike! A bike! My kingdom for a bike!” and that famous stage direction in The Winter’s Tale “exit, pursued by a bear” may not have resulted in the death of poor Antigonus.
This month an all-bicycling theatre company giving new meaning to the phrase ‘play cycle’ by pedaling more than 1,000 miles across the country to perform Shakespeare.
The Handlebards are two acting troupes (one male, one female) with four members each. They load up their bicycles with set, props and costumes and perform Shakespeare on the hoof in a manner they describe as “energetic, charmingly chaotic and environmentally sustainable”.
On a national tour of more than 50 venues, the group’s all-female crew will be stopping off at the Geffrye Museum for “knee-slapping, inventive, off-the-wall,” performances of two Shakespeare classics: Romeo and Juliet, his tale of star-crossed lovers, and early comedy The Taming of the Shrew.
The cycling actors embarked on their first tour in 2013 and have performed in schools across the country as well as performing in India, Singapore, Malaysia and Myanmar.
In 2014 the group won the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award for saving 50.2 tonnes of CO2 by travelling by bike.
Romeo and Juliet (9 September) The Taming of the Shrew (10 September) The Geffrye Museum 136 Kingsland Road E2 8EA geffrye-museum.org.uk
The cast of Noughts and Crosses in rehearsal. Photograph: Purple Moon Drama
In 2013 the author Malorie Blackman became the UK’s first black Children’s Laureate.
A prolific reader in childhood, she said that for all the books she consumed she rarely came across a black child reflected in the pages.
This month, East London youth theatre group Purple Moon Drama is staging an adaptation of Blackman’s biggest selling title, equally eager to redress the issue of black representation.
Artistic director Cheryl Walker said she hadn’t realised how popular Noughts and Crosses was until she began working on the project.
“The response we’ve had from it has been really overwhelming. I wasn’t aware what a classic childhood text it is,” she says.
Noughts and Crosses is the first book in a bestselling series which has seen Blackman become a National Curriculum recommended author, and she was even name-checked in a Tinie Tempah number one record.
What drew Walker to the text were the young, black characters in leading roles.
Coupled with contemporary themes of terrorism, oppression, and social exclusion, Walker said she felt she could make the story important for her young cast.
“It’s not art unless you’ve got something to say”, she says, asserting that her 16 young performers are more than just actors – they want to have an impact on the communities they live in.
As an actor, Walker found credible black roles hard to find. So she set up Purple Moon two years ago with the intention of handing the reins back to performers so that they might better represent their own society.
Purple Moon offers drama programmes for young people 14-25 years old irrespective of socio-economic status.
Although Walker admits that the acting profession is unfairly dominated by those lucky enough to have been afforded the education, she says this need not be a barrier.
“It’s about empowerment” she says, “giving young people confidence, and proposing the idea that there are many options available to them – as actors or otherwise.”
Because the production is being crowd-funded online, Walker feels an even stronger imperative to represent those who are supporting the endeavour.
The company rehearses at a community centre in Shadwell, sitting cheek by jowl with a housing association.
“Crowdfunding is democracy at its best,” Walker says, “appealing to the community for support we have a duty to represent them”.
Noughts and Crosses 30 April – 1 May Brady Arts Centre, 192–196 Hanbury Street, E1 5HU
Generation sex – The Wardrobe Company on stage. Photograph: Jack Offord
Sex began in 1963, said Philip Larkin. But in a play at Shoreditch Town Hall it’s the seventies providing fertile ground for sexual awakening.
In 1972: The Future of Sex by The Wardrobe Ensemble three couples embark on having sex for the first time during one evening.
This is the year when Ziggy Stardust first appeared on Top of the Pops, when Lady Chatterley’s Lover was finally published unabridged, and when the notorious pornographic film Deepthroat was released.
“Our research led us to that moment because it seemed quite significant time in British public consciousness in terms of the changing of attitudes about gender and sexuality,” says the play’s director Tom Brennan.
“We were looking to make a show about sex and sexual anxiety and our discussions led us to that moment in time between the AIDS epidemic and the sexual revolution.”
In this era of glam rock and space-hoppers, Christine is steeling herself for the loss of her virginity with the nerdy lead singer of a local band, whilst other storylines involve a student who is inspired by her university professor in more ways than one, and Brian in his bedroom, exploring his sexual identity by himself.
“The storylines are kind of woven together – we’ve structured it so we have a lot of narration in the show which allows us to jump between the storylines and kind of explore them simultaneously in some cases,” Brennan explains.
The show features original music from Bristol-based songwriter Tom Crosley-Thorne, a school friend of Brennan.
“I was in a band with him and when I was first talking to him about doing this show, the next day he sent me these amazing tracks, which are perfect homages to Bowie and The Who and Chaka Khan.”
After a preview last year at Shoreditch Town Hall, Brennan and fellow members of The Wardrobe Ensemble took the play up to Edinburgh where it earned rave reviews.
Now back in Shoreditch for a longer run, the play will be aiming to humorously highlight the challenges and pitfalls of growing up as a member of the class of ’72.
“You had the first gay pride march in London and Lady Chatterley’s Lover was around,” Brennan says. “But then you had Mary Whitehouse and the National Festival of Light trying to ‘restore Christian morals’. So it was quite an interesting time.”
1972: The Future of Sex 12–23 April Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, EC1V 9LT shoreditchtownhall.com
It would be fair to wonder what is to be gained from staging a radio play without any visuals at all. The audience watching Samuel Beckett’s one act 1956 piece, All That Fall at the legendary Wilton’s Music Hall sit blindfolded for the duration of the performance. But without pesky sight to distract from the pithy dialogue, Out of Joint’s production successfully strips the play down to its bare, nihilistic bones with brilliant effect.
The cast wind through the space, allowing for voices to rise unexpectedly out of the darkness, while pre-recorded broken excerpts of Schubert and the screeches of incoming trains make the gloomy soundscape even more ominous.
Set in rural Ireland, the play follows the journey of the elderly Mrs Rooney to meet her blind husband as he arrives on the 12.30 train. Consistently maudlin and self-centred, Mrs Rooney’s outlook towards the world is so morbid that you’re left feeling desperate to escape her company – if only her cynicism wasn’t quite so funny. Laughter echoed around the room as she sighed and complained through the first half of the performance. However self-indulgent Mrs Rooney’s rambling though, her pain is nonetheless real. “Love, that is all I asked… daily love like a Paris horse-butcher’s regular,” she croakily laments.
The simplicity of the plot does not mean that All That Fall is an easy play to grasp. The individual backgrounds of the characters are never fully known, the context of their conversations is never understood, and questions are left unanswered. Beckett’s usual themes of death and decay are everywhere, and the naturalistic script does not make it any less surreal than some of his other works.
Despite the occasionally shaky Irish accent, the greatest strength of the production lies in the cast’s ability to deliver the script with warmth and conviction, allowing for the play’s heavier aspects to seep through without sounding forced. In the 60 minutes during which nothing very much happens, we’re left with a lot to ponder. It seems that sometimes being kept in the dark can be a good thing after all.
All That Fall
Until 9 April
Wilton’s Music Hall
1 Graces Alley, E1 8JB wiltons.org.uk
The Sheer Height company on-stage. Photograph: Thomas Scurr.
In a draughty pub somewhere south of the river I discuss gender inequality in theatre over a cup of tea with actors Jenny Wilford and Charlotte Couture.
The pair are the founders of Sheer Height, a feminist theatre company which this month is holding a one-day festival, Women Redressed, at the Arcola.
Showcasing new writing from UK playwrights, as well as excerpts from established plays, the festival aims presents theatre that plants female characters firmly centre stage, and which probes perceptions and expectations of gender.
Despite our shivering, the conversation was heated. A few years out of drama school, the actors are disillusioned with the roles they are consistently offered.
“It’s a saturated market, so it’s hard to get in the room to audition, for starters,” says Wilford. “But what always frustrates us are the parts we see coming up time and time again; we’re still seeing recurrent casting calls for the romantic interest, the mother, the sister – always family or romance or sex, in relation to a male lead.”
“In the 19th century, Henrik Ibsen wrote really strong, interesting female protagonists,” Couture offers. “And then at some point it kind of fell apart…” adds Wilford, wryly.
Couture and Wilford are brimming with facts about gender inequality in theatre. “Did you know 2008 was the first time the National Theatre staged a female playwright’s original work on the Olivier Stage? Or that The Mousetrap, by Agatha Christie – the longest running West End show – is frequently the only play written by a woman staged in the West End?”
Dissatisfied with the state of their industry, Couture and Wilford took matters into their own hands. In 2014 they set up Sheer Height, naming it after Shere Hite, a feminist known for her pioneering work on female sexuality.
Since forming, the company has staged a sell-out performance of Clare McIntyre’s Low Level Panic and November last year saw the inaugural Women Redressed festival at the Arcola. It was a sell out success, leading Couture and Wilford to bring it back for another outing this month.
The actors believe that, as women in drama, their work is inevitably politicised – though they believe it shouldn’t have to be. “It’s a difficult balance,” says Wilford. “Female playwrights and actors just want to work without labels or having to be political… but also – we want to make some progress here!”
“We have clear guidelines for script submissions,” says Wilford. “The idea is to have female characters at the core of the plot, which itself should explore gender issues and challenge perceptions.”
“We really think about what we’re presenting in terms of having a diverse programme,” says Couture. “Last time we had plays about abortion, domestic violence, sex work, the office environment, same-sex relationships… but we also put on plays about female friendship – and, you know, about women just having a good time! I think that in itself is really empowering.”
In light of cuts to the arts, Wilford and Couture believe now is a particularly troubling time for women in theatre. “Lack of funding means theatres are very reluctant to take risks. So, often, they’re going with safe options – which usually means commercial productions, established plays and the same revivals over and over again,” says Wilford.
Adlyn Ross and Haley McGee in Made Visible, a play about race and identity at the Yard Theatre. Photograph: Caleb Wissun-Bhide
In much younger, more pretentious days, I remember writing a short play as part of my A-Level coursework that was a conversation on a park bench.
Made Visible, which opens at the Yard this month, is by coincidence exactly that (although I’m sure similarities end there).
Based on a ‘real encounter’ Pearson had in Victoria Park with two women of Indian origin, it is a ‘meta play’ that aims to humorously explore issues of race and identity.
Playwright Deborah Pearson, 33, an East Londoner originally from Toronto, uses the conversation between the three women to take aim at white privilege, asking the white writer to take accountability for being white.
“At first it appears to be naturalistic, a conversation between three women of different ages and backgrounds, but it then starts to question itself and becomes more like a play about the attempt to make that play, or the ethics of making that play and whether or not one should,” she says.
Although one of the characters is a playwright called Deborah, Pearson says it is important to retain a degree of ambiguity over whether the character is actually her or not, or even whether the encounter actually happened.
“It’s clear it’s a composite of me,” she says, “but would it really be possible to really stage something that really happened anyway? There would always be something about the truth of that situation which is flawed by trying to funnel that experience through one person’s perspective.”
A former Royal Court young writer and co-director of experimental theatre outfit Forest Fringe, Pearson describes much of her work as ‘contemporary performance’, solo performances that are usually autobiographical, so writing a play for actors is a departure.
Her ambition is for the play to be part of a wider conversation about lack of diversity and a lack of representation in the theatre industry, an issue that has come to the fore in Hollywood recently with OscarsSoWhite.
“We’re all trying to see this play as an emperor’s new clothes moment of pointing out how come so many writers are white and what does it mean. Just because someone is white and in this dominant position it doesn’t make them objective.”
Pearson realises that making a play with a basis not far removed from academic discourse could be a challenge for audiences expecting an evening’s entertainment, and she has a solution – humour.
“The thing is whenever you want to talk about something that’s a sensitive topic politically, a good way of doing that is by being entertaining and funny,” Pearson says.
“I hope the play’s quite funny but I hope that the joke’s in the right place. There’s a great term about punching up rather than punching down so I really want the jokes if anything to point towards the discomfort these things bring about and then that these are things that need to be addressed.”
Made Visible 15 March–9 April The Yard Theatre, Queens Yard, White Post Lane, E9 5EN theyardtheatre.co.uk
Cleo Sylvestre as Mary Seacole. Photograph: Cleo Sylvestre
Walking into the Rosemary Branch Theatre, I feel instantly welcome. At 5pm the bar is bustling with customers young and old, with artistic director Cleo Sylvestre flashing a fuchsia-lipped smile as she greets each one.
“My friend Cecilia and I have been running the Rosie for 20 years now,” Sylvestre says. “My husband had just died, and Cecil was teaching ballet upstairs. It was really a baptism of fire, neither of us knew what we were doing.”
It seems Sylvestre’s life has been marked by a series of colourful career moves, having worked in music, film and on the West End. She points at a black and white photograph in a corner. It’s her with some “faces you might recognise” – The Rolling Stones, with whom she recorded ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’ in 1969. “I had a great time.
The Stones were releasing music that no one had ever heard before, but I thought that rather than just going to loads of gigs, I wanted to be the gig”.
But despite her musical credentials, theatre is her first love, she says. “I love being able to go to the theatre and forget about the outside world for an hour. I think it’s all about being able to bring something to life.”
To mark the Rosie’s 20th anniversary, Sylvestre’s acclaimed one-woman show, The Marvellous Adventures of Mary Seacole is returning to the stage for a short run this month.
Based on the autobiography of the same name, it recounts Jamaican-born Seacole’s experiences of the Crimean War during which she set up a hospital using abandoned metal and driftwood to aid sick and wounded troops.
Whereas Florence Nightingale’s legacy has long been part of the school curriculum, Seacole’s contribution to British history has been largely overlooked.
Sylvestre admits she knew little about her until the 1980s. “I read her autobiography while my children were still very young and thought she was an amazing woman. Initially I wrote it for children. I wanted them to hear her story and get across that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.”
Sylvestre is also an ambassador for The Mary Seacole Statue Appeal, whose efforts have finally paid off, with a monument set to be unveiled this spring. It will be the first statue of a named black woman in Britain.
Portraying Seacole’s personality as well as her achievements was vital for Sylvestre. “I think she was quite a complex character; she was tough, she was intrepid. I think she had a very warm heart, but she had a lot of steel to have gone through what she did.
I also think – how can I phrase this without putting her down – that while she mixed with people from all walks of life, she didn’t suffer fools gladly. She could hold her own.”
The play promises to be an opportunity to hear the story of one remarkable woman, told by another.
The Marvellous Adventures of Mary Seacole is at Rosemary Branch Theatre, 2 Shepperton Road, N1 3DT from 9-11 March. www.rosemarybranch.co.uk
