High Ceilings

I wish there was a word

For that feeling you get

When your head is caving in

And your mind is narrowed

For when you peel away from the bed

And hide outside in shade in sticky heat

For when you step timidly into a library,

And climb into the lift to the gallery on the top floor

For when you rise up the building and your thoughts drum

And you step into the hall lined with frames and canvas

For when the air con feels fresh against your tacky skin

And when you’re alone and calm in the hollowness

And then you tilt your head upwards

And you see the high ceilings

And in that space

Your caved head opens, and your narrow mind expands

And the height between your shoes and the skylights dissolves the numbness

As you look up and let yourself feel grounded

And you’re aware of all that’s above you

And all you can’t see

And the great smallness of yourself

I wish there was a word for a high ceiling in an empty room and its peace.

When you don’t know how to get there… Creative Access Theatre Masterclass @ The National Theatre

• 5/7/22
• Lyttleton upstairs
• Lisa Jonas (finance), Juliet Gilkes Romero (writer-in-residece) Ola Animashawun (dramaturg, associate and diversity strategy) and Sara Bakhaty (deputy director of marketing and sales)

Wanting to work in the theatre sector means working with rejection, whether you’re wanting to act, write, direct, market, programme or sell ice-cream at intervals. All places are desirable as people are fighting to protect the arts in the current socio-economic crisis. This rejection is hard to take when you want to learn in the industry more than anything, and your previous academic qualifications make you feel ready to take on the roles you apply for. But you're not ready; you need to have experience for entry-level positions that give you more experience for entry-level positions. It's a tricky paradox to navigate. The free work, volunteering and interning needed is a huge privilege that so many cannot access. Most of the time, it feels like nothing is enough.

Attending this panel at the National was a great opportunity, but having just faced rejection in a marketing job at a local theatre I know well, I felt intimidated. It hasn’t been easy, but coming out of uni with an aspiration for the arts on stage has meant funnelling incessant rejection and rife intimidation into a drive to fulfil these aspirations. I’m currently volunteering and shadowing in the marketing department I was rejected by, and it has made me ferociously determined to prove myself: my capability and my love for the sector. I left ‘free'; work, got on the train to Kings Cross, ready to be inspired from those in the jobs people like myself dream about.

I think for all theatre lovers, the National is a brutalist site of sanctuary on the bustling, skateboarding Southbank. Entering the cool, beige atrium will always stir a pang of awe- it’s where you want to be- even if it isn’t. I am immensely passionate about the power of regional theatre in the north, but it’s refreshing to dip your toe in the spring banks of the capital.

The panel honed in the importance of finding your narrative in the industry- curating your discipline. Working in regional, northern theatre means I know the impact of understanding the nuances of your community: they are your audience so you need to be able to assess the impact you’re having. It was reassuring to hear this from top dramaturgs and marketing seniors, not just my own mantras.

I was the one of the very few northern accents sounding out around the room which unfortunately, in ‘London situations’, triggers a feeling of inferiority. I sat at the back, armed with notebook and pen, awaiting the speakers’ arrival on stage. I’m not sure if I’m right on this, but Londoners my age, in this industry, are born with an air of confidence and a feeling of deserving to be wherever the best is, as they're used to being around it. I find this hard to relate to. Their arms shot up in the air without hesitation; they stood up and asked obvious questions as if they were philosophical watersheds: ‘How do you get an entry level position?’ ‘Apply.’  I sat quiet, thinking up a marketing question that would benefit the team in Doncaster, but I wasn’t picked after plucking up courage. I'm learning my lesson- act like Londoner, think northern.

The evening was inspiring and it was a timely blessing to be reminded that even the writer of At the Gates of Gaza (Juliet) has been rejected for positions: many positions. The advice from the coveted professionals was not watered down. They instructed us, the future of The National, apparently, to get tight with our finances as things were only set to get harder; we were told the importance of having second jobs that cradle your creativity. Rejection, inferiority, part-time work and lack of money seem the criteria for this career, so I’m already kind of qualified in some ways. 

Amongst spiel of MAs and winding career trajectories, the best advice I took from the panel was simply to not beat myself up if I’m not doing what I want all the time. It’s about keeping faith and belief in what you want to do when no one else wants you to do it. And to be responsible; if told you don’t have relevant experience, ask who has the experience that you need. If that person doesn’t exist, be them and make them.

I know I’m taking knocks at the moment, and every person graduating in such uncertain times is too. It’s hard to stay focused, as the rejection is distracting, but events like this are helpful stabilizers and make you feel on track to being confident, and feeling like you deserve your place somewhere in the sector. I’m already grateful for where I am; I work with wonderful people in a wonderful box office and this inspires me more than empty networking can. We were told to look for love in what you do, and who you do it with- I think that, in times as bleak as these, that is what drives your fight.

Running with Rock, Paper, Scissors

•  Anthony Lau, Rob Hastie, Elin Schofield
• Chris Bush
• Sheffield Theatres
• 16/06/22 - 2/02/22

I started working in the Sheffield Theatres box office right on the cusp of their 5oth birthday celebrations. With this came the exciting, and slightly confusing, announcement of Rock, Paper, Scissors to celebrate. 

All were told this was a theatrical event: 'three plays, three theatres, one cast'. We rambled our way through phone calls with customers, trying to explain the concept without fully understanding it ourselves. We knew the directors (Schofield: Scissors, Lau: Rock and Hastie: Paper) and the writer, our beloved Chris Bush. Rock, Paper, Scissors existed in the box office as a bundled cloud of energy and mystery- which made it an exciting risk to sell. The cast announcements trickled through in the last months, and word of the story began to permeate into our box office brains. Rehearsals began, posters were plastered up and the looming cloud in our office became a very real thing, happening soon. A-week-before-curtain briefing from stage management crystalised the story for us. A little…

Paying homage to the socio-economic fabric of Sheffield, Bush’s simultaneous triple bill set out to defy theatrical boundary, time boundaries, and tell the story of how people exist in the city today- all the bleak and romantic elements of a city ever reinventing itself after industrial hysteresis. In her delicate, yet honest, writing, she tackles robust themes and notes how past and future crumble, and enhance, the people of the present. The Spenser scissor factory is facing trouble as its owner Eddie has died without handing over a clear will. The fate of the factory, office premises and actual apprentices are uncertain and all pose heartbreak if not dealt with. Each play tackles a different element, a different voice of reason, as the multi-faceted future of Sheffield venues in real time rings true.

The logistics stood as follows: The Crucible theatre and The Studio theatre already stand under one roof, so our base building became the realm’s factory; The Studio as the workshop and The Crucible as the warehouse. The Lyceum existed as the factory offices, ‘across the yard’. Customers booked to see the plays individually, stayed completely seated as normal, as the characters travel from factory to workshop to offices as the stories instruct. The actors made the journeys of their characters, in real time. On one day, all involved Spenser Scissors parties seem to discover the fate of their assets and livelihoods, and we see the trilogy unfold. Does it make sense now? Three plays, three theatres, one cast? I hope so.

The Crucible staged Rock and told the story of Eddie’s sister Susie’s vision to transform her family’s factory into a music venue- Factory Records meets the Warehouse Project. The Crucible stage is the factory warehouse, so an assortment of characters congregate as they get lost on their travels. It’s fun and the most care-free and experimental venture. Paper is the most touching; laced with devastatingly sentimental truths of love and loss, Faye, Eddie’s daughter, and her ‘wife’ Mel set out to trail through masses of paperwork in the offices (Lyceum) to gain financial rights to the property and build housing. It’s the type of gentrification that draws upon Park Hill and pays notes to Bush’s stellar Standing at the Sky’s Edge. Scissors in the studio, the dark horse of the trilogy, is about Eddie’s apprentices- under paid with buckets of potential that sits wasted on making artisan scissors without direction,or profit. They’re confused as who is walking around, sifting though, their workplace and they suspect industrial espionage and go exploring.

Each play began and ended at the same time, doing multiple shows throughout the day. It was an absolute theatrical blockbuster and, as the biggest theatre outside of London, we were the place to do it first.

Show week began. The previews first, then press night, and then the week’s run. We spent the 23^rd of June hunched over laptops on our sales desks, waiting for reviews of our theatre’s passion project to be cemented in the press and minds of bookers. The five stars from The Stage broke out, then four stars from The Guardian and co. After the first shows were done, customers were in love with the story and the concept- gaining some personal experience from seeing the plays in whatever order. The story exists differently for each audience member depending on how much time is left between each play, and whose side you listened to first.

The plays were acted beautifully- with outrageous vigour and then sensitive emotional response. Bush masters sentimentality and subtle nostalgia without any sight of cringe or kitsch. Scissors stood out for this- you laugh and then cry with the apprentices, leaving feeling full of love, but sorrow too. Rock is loud, sounding out the Arctic Monkeys and echoing the beloved spirit of Sheffield: the city of its people. Paper is devastatingly hopeful- you watch relationships crumble and then be built back up again by love and sheer determination, mirroring the sheer determination of the massive team behind this theatrical marathon.

Rock, Paper, Scissors was a huge feat that was executed with undeniable triumph; I can’t help but feel lucky to have watched it blossom from a void of customer confusion to the true human experience it has become. The stories relished in grounded personal stories, and citywide themes. The vigorous momentum of the short run soared, and the next week became one of the most joyful and exciting to watch unfold. People that had booked for one, rushed to book all three. People that saw all three wrote to us or spouted loving feedback over the counter- wanting to discuss every aspect at great length. After lockdowns, we felt as alive as a theatre should.  

The box office was a frenzy and it felt like a celebration of all our teams are capable of. Actors dashed in and out of the foyer, some calm and cracking jokes, others in method. Relationships grew around the cast and all staff- between cleaning staff fixing hair dos and front of house assistants waiting with umbrellas to dry travelling actors when the heavens unleashed. This unison is what the place is all about and after a rest, I’m sure our next big birthday will only be better. I can’t imagine anything else.

As You Like It (Cast, Doncaster)

• Laurie Sansom, Northern Broadsides 22/06/22

It was a delightful way to spend a weekday afternoon, to get out of the smug British sun and cool in a local theatre- watching a wonderfully northern production of one of the country’s most well-known plays.

The first thing to credit this dreamlike production for is the set, costumes and overall aesthetic feel of the piece. The height of the stage is lined with clothes hangers that're laced with the sort of floral garments you see on a charity shop rack or some vintage stylist’s frame. The 'Arden Forest' is made up of deep mahogany hat racks posing as trees, and a clothes rail entrenched in spangles of costume is at the back of the stage. 

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s comedies of disguise; characters transform and develop with a different cloak on their back and the cast, direction and designers clearly celebrated this aspect. They have let their production carry influence from the costumes the play has potential for. 

The piece is like a patchwork of the clothing around the stage, worn by the characters and is deepened further by the textured writing of Shakespeare. As You Like It is definitely woven into the fabric of most people’s literary consciousness and the play’s design makes (literally) elevated reference to this. 

The production has dissolved any remaining gendered boundaries left by Shakespeare and so emerges this charmingly fluid creation, that doesn’t scrimp on the saucy or the self-aware. These themes are reiterated by the dressing of the actors and the stage- clothing is a tool of expression here as much as it is tool of disguise.

Joe Morrow’s Touchstone ignites the hysterics of the production- with their brilliant and embarrassingly self-referential ‘breaking of the fourth wall’ (much to the delight of the teachers of the GCSE school group lining the front rows). They consistently leak out of the Shakespearean manner and linguistic coding; they make lewd quips and complaints to the audience on the state of the production so far- joking about the set, the script and more. Imagine all the camp and timing of a pantomime dame, but executed with all the style and sensitivity of the best Shakespeare productions.

It’s a delight to watch the slightly more serious characters interact with the comedic tour-de-force of Touchstone. Fluidity is much an artistic theme that this production triumphs in many elements- costume, design and thus gender, as mentioned before, but also the handling of what is Northern Broadsides and what is Shakespearean. There is no abrupt breaking out of Shakespeare and into contemporary dialogue- the two are in synergy and both lend to each other’s effectiveness. 

The comedy of the Shakespeare is artful and multi-faceted, whereas the comedy of the modern moments is instant and out-loud. The two blend and mean that Northern Broadsides are able to deliver an accessible Shakespeare- whilst the obvious high skill of the cast bonds the accessibility to deep and meaningful channels of the Bard.

Rosalind and Orlando are perfectly watchable as the hopeless lovers that of course don't know each other yet. Although, EM William's Rosalind would not be half as delightful without Isobel Coward's Celia to keep her grounded in the morals, comedy and turmoil of their mystical and aristocratic world. The two make a great duo- their stamina is applaudable as they never falter in energy or execution. 

It’s been a long time since I have seen Shakespeare stay so true and still become more fun. There's a fully kitted wrestling match, eerily dynamic movement sequences, soothing acoustic folk numbers are performed... and of course there's a four-way joint wedding and May pole celebration to round things off. (Perhaps it is more pantomime than we thought).

This production is ethereal and boisterous, transcendent and self-aware; the delectable and archetypal ambiguities of Shakespearean comedy are executed with charm and to great success. I loved it. 

Hold On Let Go (CAST Doncaster)

• Directed by Annie Rigby, written by Luca Rutherford, Performed by Luca Rutherford and Alex Elliot 16/06/22

A quietly beautiful comment on how we forget

Unfolding Theatre brought a charming show to Cast with Hold on Let Go. It’s a take on how people remember differently, based on how they see the life they’ve lived.

We were greeted on arrival into the second space with citrus squash and the smell of baking bread. I came with my grandma and these two things remind me of her kitchen on a Sunday- which set me up perfectly for the show’s premise.

Luca and Alex flitted through us audience members, starting up conversation about how we used to dance, or how we do dance now. It stirred up laughter, nostalgia and warmth- a perfect and personal beginning.

Alex is 62 and Luca is 31 and they’re in different stages of life, different stages of enthusiasm and different stages of remembering. Luca is an agile young woman kitted in gym wear and climbing up and around their set like it’s a playground frame. Alex is in shirt and chinos, dressed for reflection not moving through.

Luca is preoccupied by the present, and worried existentially about how she must look when life passes her accidentally- she forgets. Alex has realised he won’t remember and inside savours what he can, as Luca draws out stories of his Catalonian mother Margarita from him.

This philosophical chit chat is held down by Alex’s mission to show us how to bake the perfect sourdough. He kneads the dough as Luca kneads his brain, bursting bubbles of forgetfulness and bonding memory and flour.

The table in the centre, the kitchen surface, is moved and flipped around, turned upside down and lifted as Luca climbs it, trying to reach a summit- the point where she remembers. Alex only climbs it halfway up; their desire to reach remembering are of different force.

The best parts of this production are the stories, the home-truths and scraps of heartfelt memory that the performers hold. It ties together the atmosphere the audience exist in, and the homely set. The cupboards on stage are lined with tins- to Alex these tins are his late mother’s precious tinned food that she would save for guests, but never use. They are symbols of the life he lived. To Luca, these tins are what orbit her when she floats in a black hole when she can’t remember something in conversation- they are abstracted. To Alex, they show what he remembers and to Luca they show what she forgets. 

Her moments of existentialism are shown onstage by her climbing into or up the table under a single spotlight and talking into a microphone. Her voice surrounds us and the aesthetic is effective, but the touching moments are lost in the writing’s attempt at philosophical wonder. It is a performance that is at its strongest when grounded.

The play finishes with us all sharing the warm (actually very hot) bread Alex has baked us in his previous show. It is a lovely moment in a lovely play. It is one that reminds us that it is okay to forget detail, but important to remember how we felt, and I will remember feeling a calm happiness when watching this performance at Cast. 

Full English (CAST Doncaster)

•  Natalie Davies, 31/05/22

Seeing plays in Cast’s second space is one of the best ways to spend an evening. This particular evening, Bradford had just been announced as the City of Culture for 2025, so Natalie Davies’ story of growing up in the multi-cultural hotspot seemed very fitting.

The stage was split between the story of Natalie and her grandma Catherine. Natalie had a microphone on a stand, projecting an insightful, punchy tale of growing up with Pakistani, Bangladesh and white British heritage. The other half of the stage belongs to her Cath. The actress is young, but plays her at all stages: teenager courting, new bride, deserted mother and a dementia patient in a care home.

The story starts at the outskirts of Bradford in the 60s as Cath meets and falls for Sahil, a Pakistani boy. They spend their Sunday nights at the markets and the cinemas of the city and she is seduced by the culture, colour and ultimate acceptance of the place. Sahil's character provides some comedic relief with his naivety and devotion. They have children, marry in their flat's living room without family approval and their story of love and desertion unravels. 

Whilst the piece is funny and warm, it speaks of the bitter hatred and judgement faced by Cathy, her husband and the city on a whole. Natalie delivers a moving but devastating monologue of her own experience of the race riots as a pre-teen- choosing the white side as she was crushed by pressure and just wanted to be safe. Images are projected on the screen behind; a full english breakfast decorated with jubilee memorabilia stands poignant as the backdrop for the characters' struggles with poverty, violence and eviction.

The cosy, homely set up is interjected by sharp, witty dialogue and the two elements juxtapose to paint the picture of growing up mixed race and female in working class Yorkshire. We watch grandma Cath to be a powerhouse of love and value; she doesn’t back down in the face of antagonism, betrayal and heartbreak. There are lessons to be learnt from her today as we watch how cultures clash against British classism: how resilience is paramount.

I felt nurtured by the story and moved by the performances. It is a touring production so catch it if you can.

Jarvis Cocker in Conversation: Good Pop, Bad Pop (Crucible Theatre)

•  30/05/22

It was a night of homecoming for Sheffield’s Mr Cocker. Arriving on the Crucible stage, armed with a full bin liner and framed by those big specs, he presented a night of nostalgia, humour and love for the city that made him great.

There to talk about his latest book, Good Pop, Bad Pop, Jarvis was being interviewed to a sold-out crowd who couldn’t be happier to have him home in Sheffield. The book is a sort of inventory- he raided his loft in his East London apartment in lockdown, a raid he hadn’t undertook since he moved in the 80s. He goes through many an item, describing and decoding its significance to him.

The bin bag of props would tell the irreverent and quintessentially working-class birthing of Pulp. From a second-hand exercise book sketching out the Pulp uniform and manifesto, to a matchbox containing the last remnants of original Imperial Leather soap, the seemingly random assortment shows Jarvis’ passion for what Pulp would and did become; he drew a vision at 15 and it, in all its weird glory, came true.

His songs tell of the beautiful comedy in the ordinary and that’s exactly what the night was. He spoke of Sheffield’s resilience in the age of Thatcher, the nightlife that educated him musically, and the firm devotion of the women that raised him. He highlighted the whimsy and shadowed the bleak- his lyrical storytelling, and his Yorkshire drawl juxtaposing like the themes in his art.

The Q&A section at the end of the talk turned into a superfan session, as to be expected from his hometown. People of all sorts were bursting with (sometimes stalker-like) confessions of true fans. Despite Jarvis looking uncomfortable at times (which added hilarity), it was lovely to see such an enthusiastic crowd, all happy to be there in times where we’ve been kept apart.

It was a great night, the crowd was happy and our speaker was happy. His mum was there and he showed photos she wouldn’t have seen. It proved the Crucible’s power as a theatre- the power to harness delicate intimacies and large jokes and themes with great success. I’m proud to be a part of it, however small that part is. 

Straight Line Crazy (National Theatre Live stream @ Savoy cinemas)

• David Hare, Nicholas Hynter, 26/05/22

David Hare has the magical ability to weave a passionate feat of story out of the most specific and dense social cases. Straight Line Crazy takes Caro’s epic biography of NY’s Robert Moses, The Power Broker and turns it into triumphant dramatic storytelling.

Moses is the city’s most celebrated, yet most controversial urban planner, mapping out his ideal state: miles of roads connecting the natural scape of Long Island to Manhattan’s concrete jungle, and then connecting its concrete to its concrete. His intentions are exposed in the paradox between his achievement and infamy; Ralph Fiennes is blistering as the fiercely stubborn, yet driven Moses.

His racist motivations are exposed by the ever victorious middle class protestors, they speak for others, speak over others and are listened to over those Others. Regardless, we finally watch Fiennes’ Moses crumble from a tower to a slum of a man. 

The backbone of the play is female: a spine that is as sensitive as it is strong. Siobhan Cullen stuns as Finnuala Connell; she is the woman he might listen to. She stands in opposition to architectural journalist and Moses critic Jane Jacobs (Helen Schlesinger) who is ignored and triggers his demise. Both women narrate our tale, orbiting the dilemma of Moses: what he built and what was demolished in his path.

The play informs and it evokes. Hare’s writing and Hynter’s direction blend to create a striking dramatic creation; it’s one that exposes where integrity, greed and respect intercept and corrode each other. Moses’ roads were not means of connection, but means of segregation. They spider on the map that carpets the stage floor, but instead look like cracks in breaking concrete. Which they were: they broke up New York's people and its place. 

A privilege to watch and a play born for the Olivier stage.

A Long Adjustment

 She sat up still, indefinitely slipping into the pressure to only exist positively in the minds of others- a place that she scarcely existed at all. I think it’s a pressure she found comfort in though. It’s comforting when the pressure is to work up to pleasing others and not herself, be that in attraction or in kindness. She was past sourcing approval from herself.

Eventually she would rise and scrub herself raw under steam and scalding water: a new skin for a new day. She would anoint the new skin with her oils and creams, letting it be christened in scent and protection.

She has to romanticise morning time like this. Quotes of saints and clever thinkers had always lined her walls and her mind. This is how you get ready when you’ve grown up in your head: you’re annoying.

Whether this was a day at work or a day of self, she’d wear a uniform. Either the colours of whatever theatre or drowning her figure in long skirts previously owned by some woman and a large t shirt previously owned by some man.

Her hair fell too close to the bottom of her spine, she realised, as she fiddled with it incessantly. Still, she wore it the only way she new how, drew wings around her eyes and orange smudged along her cheeks. Getting ready was this ritual- a ritual of performing the same tasks but hoping the outcome would prove her worth differently each day.

Sounds all a pretentious morning, but she doesn’t have all the potential for pretence. Hours are filled on her phone: the app with the videos and the app with the swiping, the website with the letters, the pages with the politics. She sits and lets her brain hum and whir in the buzz of the screen- it’s easier to sit here distracted. It’s fun for now and its ok that it’s fun.

The incense burning was suffocated out the air by the aromas of expectation and defeat. This is her childhood room with her broken childhood bed and her broken childhood wardrobe. The wardrobe that spilled out into the floor, the hall and the garage. She formed attachment to the clothes she bought to hide in. Enough fabric to sail a ship.

She spent weekends running away to see successful friends in different cities, trying to rebuild the confidence she’d let boys snort away. She would get too intoxicated on validation or substance and drift further from herself for another week. Skint of course.

She spent her mornings in this period of adjustment, adjustment from dream to reality and from panic to motion. It was a deciding point- would this be a good day or a bad day. We know it’s not that deep and it will be likely be neither. She thinks about what she knows and what she doesn’t have to decide.

She knew her younger sisters are extensions of herself, growing into better and more beautiful forms of how she was. It was one of the things she knew to be true and one of the things that made her happiest. She’s struggling to listen to music as lyrics remind her of situations she won’t experience. The Moon and Me plays for the hundredth time that week and she basks in the nonsense of the album.

She might not have much going for herself right now, but she’s nurturing and affirming the fact that this is a much-needed time. In other words, she’s repeating pointless words in her head and staring at washing on the line.

Whether she eats or doesn’t eat are just as relevant as each other. She drinks water and it’s stale. She sits at her desk and the water sits on her tongue, as she adjusts to the beginning of the day.