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Jan 09
0

Panto Audience Raises Over £1,700! 

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The dust has settled on our 2016 pantomime Dick Whittington and it was a terrific end to the year; 26 public performances, over 2000 audience members, a 200 ticket giveaway – we couldn’t be happier.

Or could we?

For the very first time we ran a collection at the show, raising money for two charitable organisations close to our heart: The Warren and Hull Help for Refugees. Both provide vital services to our home city and its patrons, so we wanted to help in whatever way we could. Show after show, our panto characters shook buckets at the door, teasing out the last few pennies our generous audience had to spare.

And we raised a fantastic £1,757.58!

It was a huge effort, and we can’t thank those who donated enough. You will be making a tremendous difference to the two charities involved, and it truly has blown us away. What a start to 2017!

Thanks again, and here’s to Hull, in 2017 – UK City of Culture!

Dec 05
0

Panto Ticket Giveaway!

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Following our successful panto crowdfunding campaign, we are giving away 200 free tickets to charitable organisations in Hull, large or small. We’re spreading a little Christmas cheer, and saying thank you for all your hard work throughout the city.

Each group can request up to 10 tickets, for any 3pm or 7pm show between the 17th and 29th December.

Do you volunteer or work for a group that you think deserves some Christmas love? Get in touch! Drop an email to mungo@middlechildtheatre.co.uk with your organisation name, contact details and a short explanation as to why you’d like the tickets, and we’ll see what we can do!

Tickets have already been allocated to The Warren, Blokes United and Hull Help for Refugees, among others.  The rest will be given on a first-come-first-serve basis, so do get in touch.

Love, Middle Child HQ

Nov 06
1

Why Panto is Important

By | Uncategorised

​It’s a matter of weeks before we start rehearsals for our 2016 pantomime, and Middle Child HQ is buzzing. This will be our fifth consecutive year performing at Fruit over the Christmas holiday and we cannot wait to get started!

Pantomime is often a person’s first introduction to the world of theatre and so we place huge importance on the production of these shows. Theatre arouses curiosity, sparks the imagination and helps us understand the world around us; our Artistic Director Paul Smith even wrote his university dissertation on pantomime, so he understands better than most the importance it serves as the gateway to the theatrical world.

​​2016 marks the beginning of a new cycle for our pantomime: we say goodbye to playwright Dave Windass, who has done a wonderful job writing the shows for the last four years (thanks Dave!), and welcome our friend Tom Wells to the panto party. His version of Dick Whittington will be kicking us off this year, and we know our loyal audiences are going to love it.This year, we’re doing more than ever before to help those around us; we’ve set up a crowdfunding campaign, and if successful we will be giving away 200 free tickets to community groups and families who could not afford to come otherwise. We’ve worked on similar initiatives previously, giving free tickets to the Salvation Army and Goodwin Development Trust’s Health & Wellbeing Centre. This year, we hope to do much more. Donate if you can by clicking here.

During the shows themselves we’ll also be running a collection, the proceeds of which will be split between The Warren & Hull Help for Refugees. The Warren is an independent charity in Hull, providing vital support services to marginalised and vulnerable young people in Hull. Hull Help For Refugees is a grassroots collective who wish to aid refugees in the current humanitarian crisis and provide support for other destitute people. Both groups are truly inspirational, turning people’s lives around both in and outside of Hull. We are delighted to help in whatever small way we can.As usual, we’ll be performing both our family-friendly pantomime and an adult version. The show kicks off the on the 17th December and runs until the 29th. Tickets are on sale now, and with many shows selling out in 2015 we reckon you should probably get your tickets soon! You can buy them in advance here.

With love, as always,
Middle Child Theatre

Jul 29
0

Ten Storey Love Song: What it’s not

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There’s five days to go until Ten Storey Love Song opens at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and as all theatre makers will attest – it’s squeaky bum time; will we be able to cram our 8-strong team into the tiny flat we’ve booked? Will our tech time dissolve into inevitable chaos? Most worryingly, will anyone actually turn up to watch the damn thing? In the midst of press releases, facebook ads, flyer printing and industry invites, I find myself trying to convince the world over and over of what we are, what Ten Storey is and why we do what we do.
 
And that’s fine – we want people to understand the show, and to have a reason to come (Pleasance Dome, 5.20pm, 3rd – 29th August by the way. Sorry, had to). But all too often, I have ended up in auditoriums thinking, this is not what I signed up for. It’s not what was sold. By appealing to the highest common denominator, we’re inevitably going to piss some people off along the way. So I’m going to give myself a few lines of copy off from the blatant sell, and tell it to you straight:
 
This is not what Ten Storey Love Song is:
 
It’s not quiet. In fact it’s quite loud. You can be loud too, please do, but don’t expect a tranquil hour and-a-bit of entertainment.
  
It’s not tidy. If something happens we’re not expecting, we’ll probably mention it.
 
It’s not polite, i.e. you’re going to hear quite a lot of swearing. Especially the C word. Sorry.
 
It doesn’t tie up in a nice little bow in the end. It’s pretty sad to be honest. No rainbows and butterflies here.
 
It’s not educational. We’re not trying to teach you anything, to impart our ‘wisdom’. It’s to be enjoyed/experienced/shouted at, and talked about over a pint afterwards – if you fancy.
 
It’s not sanitised: the play is an exploration of real people and of how real people speak and act. At times you might not like what they say or do, but everything that happens in the show comes from a place of truth.
 
It’s not something everyone’s going to enjoy. One review called it “anti-intellectual”.  Another said “fucking brilliant from start to finish”. A third concluded “Ten Storey Love Song won’t be to everyone’s taste, but neither was The Sound Of Music. Love it or hate it, you won’t forget it in a hurry.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.
 
Whilst I’m at it…
 
This is not who Middle Child are:
 
We’re not schmoozers. It’s not that we don’t try, we’re just pretty rubbish at it. If you want to have a chat, we’d love to – we’ll be in the corner.
 
We’re not very good at selling stuff (FYI you can buy the playscript, we’ll just probably forgot to try).
 
We don’t live and breathe theatre. We like other stuff too. If you fancy a chat about Pep vs Jose, Corbyn vs Smith, we’re there.
 
We’re not the finished article – obviously. We’re still figuring this whole thing out. But then, the moment we stop learning, that’s when I’m packing up anyway.
 
So I reckon, if you’ve got through the above and haven’t been put off, you might actually quite enjoy this mad little thing we’ve made. Come along. We’ll be there all Fringe, and we’ll be giving it our all. Give it a go, and at least now you know what not to expect.
 
Mungo
​MC Producer
Jul 04
0

DO WE SANITISE THEATRE IN AN UNSANITISED WORLD?

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by Paul Smith    (Picture : Matthew May as Alan Blunt The Cunt in Ten Storey Love Song, credit : Jerome Whittingham)
BREXIT STAGE RIGHT


It has been just over a week now since the results of the EU referendum that shook the foundations of this country – the exact effects of which are still unknown. Britain has been a strange place since then – the only comforting certainty being that we are still terrible at football. Of course as a liberal, Remain voter I found the result to be devastating, terrifying and mainly bloody sad but it has to be said that there has also been a disturbing and reductive trend to classify all Leave voters as a bunch of uneducated racists. The truth, of course, is much more complex than that. Britain is divided. It is divided by class, by place, by opportunity and actually, by pretty much anything you can think of. I’d argue that those morons on Twitter who abuse cities like Middlesborough and Hull for how they voted are as unhelpful as anyone. This catchy-headline, blame-passing, nuance-lacking view of the world that needs a remedy. The question shouldn’t be ‘what idiots did this?’ but ‘why did people feel the need to do this?’. Let’s not pretend we have suddenly moved from a tolerant and open utopia to a far-right dystopia because of one referendum. This has been building for a long time and there is nuance here (though admittedly the challenge is finding it).

I was reading Matt’s blog written shortly after the result was announced. In it he calls for us to ‘push ourselves to tell (..) stories to the people that need to hear them’, a statement I wholeheartedly agree with, of course. Though it also got me thinking about the type of stories that will soon be filling theatre across the country. The worst version of the theatrical response is one which cries of fascism, hate and ignorance at every turn. The people who voted to ‘Remain’ moaning about those who voted ‘Leave’ to a bunch of like-minded sympathisers. That’s what Twitter is for, not the theatre. Surely the responsibility of theatre right now is not to state the obvious, not to be reductive or to simplify but in fact to explore the nuance and the humanity of where we find ourselves. To tell stories that examine the part of Britain we do not understand or worse, do not hear about. This brings me to think about our production of Ten Storey Love Song, a production which changed overnight last Thursday.

A CASE STUDY – TEN STOREY LOVE SONG
Ten Storey Love Song was originally a novel written by Richard Milward in 2009. It is described as a ‘love song to a loveless Teeside’ and it follows the lives of a group of characters living in Peach House, the ten-storey tower block that forms the title. These characters are nuanced, flawed and, above all else, searching for love in a world that generally doesn’t love them back.  Most importantly, they really exist in Britain. This is not fiction, poverty porn, nor is it commodification of the working classes.
In a headline these characters would be ‘chavs’, ‘the white working class’ or ‘feral scum’. Often they are a statistic, a punchline or a caricature. Sometimes their existence is denied all together. Rarely are they treated as three-dimensional human beings. I’m going to talk about a review Andrew Haydon wrote about Ten Storey Love Song after its original production.

Go read it now.

Welcome back.

​Don’t worry, this isn’t going to become a blog where I justify our show or attack a reviewer. I just want to use this critique as a case study through which I can ask some questions about the nature of theatre. I think Andrew Haydon is an outstanding reviewer (just a matter of time before he uses that tagline, I’m sure); I feel safe in the knowledge that his responses to work will be thoughtful, careful and deliciously provocative. I respect his views on theatre and relish his ability to dig deeper than any other theatre writer I have read. This review is no exception. It’s so carefully considered. Still, when Andrew described Ten Storey Love Song as ‘nazi art’ I was naturally devastated. I’d never been called a Nazi before. I nearly wrote a response to the piece to try and articulate my feelings on it but no AD wants to write a blog entitled ‘Why We’re Not Nazi’s’. In actuality, once I forced my brain to focus on the nuance rather than that awful word I saw what Andrew meant. He is very careful to quantify his statement –

“I do want it to be understood specifically in terms of the anti-intellectualism and anti-Cosmopolitanism, rather than a flailing accusation of racism or anti-Semitism which clearly isn’t there at all”

….and…

“So, yes, I found the underlying tow of the narrative staggeringly reactionary and borderline right-wing. But DEFINITELY NOT RACIST. Middle Child Theatre Company ARE NOT NAZIS. Ok? I’m not saying that. I put this thinking out here if only to at least make the company check with itself that it hasn’t accidentally made something that says a lot *extra* to what they wanted”. 

I didn’t quite know what to do with this or how to think about it. I knew I had no real interest in a ‘here’s where we disagree’ type response. I wanted to use this brilliantly provocative and challenging piece of writing to better understand our work and the wider theatrical context we find ourselves in. One thing I was eventually sure of was that we hadn’t accidentally made something that said more than we wanted (aside from the fact that I’m a ‘southern, middle-class ponce’ who made a piece of work that a ‘southern, middle-class ponce’ couldn’t ‘really warm to’ – I felt weird about that, I love the south). We wanted, and always want, to make a piece of work which was challenging to watch and which made us think about, and better understand, the Britain we live in today. To do that I feel we have to show a truthful snapshot of Modern Britain. I decided bite my lip for now.

…AND THEN THINGS CHANGED

Since Brexit, I have thought about our show and about Andrew’s words a lot. The play tells the story of various characters who are making their way in modern Britain, with all of the complexities that brings. The truth, unfortunately, is that some people in Britain hold racist views, some mistrust intellectualism, some have disturbing sex and some use strong language. Some buy into media narratives and others feel hopeless and isolated. Often people are hugely contradictory and massively frustrating. Ten Storey Love Song is, at points, as Andrew says: “anti-intellectual, problematically homophobic, hetero-normative, anti-pornography, anti-Queer, blokey and straight”. Andrew is right. The characters in the play are, at times, all of those things. Unfortunately, I believe that modern Britain is often many of these things too.For me, our show and Andrew’s response to it raised lots of interesting questions about the nature of art: 

  • Do we / should we / can we sanitise real life so that it seems more palatable on stage? 
  • Is theatre about redemption of its characters?
  • Do we attribute the views of the characters to that of the company that made the work? 
  • Can theatre explore humanity without offering a conclusion that we like?
    ​

I’m genuinely still wrestling with each of these questions myself and would love to hear people’s thoughts on these (comments section below). I know that in my heart I believe good theatre must ultimately be about the pursuit of truth, something that Luke talks about brilliantly here. Post-Brexit these questions feel more prescient than ever. Of course, the above problems are not purely related to Leave voters, nor are Remain voters perfect specimens. I am also 100% not interested in sticking up for people who spread hate and fear and are truly bigoted. However my overwhelming feeling is there is a Britain out there that I see day-to-day but which I rarely see authentically represented on stage, a Britain which I am not always convinced the theatre world understands, or is interested in trying to understand. The original iteration of Ten Storey Love Song never dreamt of an ambition as grand as making sense of Brexit Britain but it now feels like it is our responsibility to start making sense of our divided country, and not by judging or by sanitising. We’ve since made changes to our show, and are excited to hear responses in Edinburgh. However it is received, this is well and truly and play for now and which irreversibly changed on that night in June. It may be that our play is all kinds of offensive and politically misplaced – who knows anymore – but I promise we won’t make you sit through an hour of ‘Leave voters need to be educated’.

​Andrew’s final paragraph is one that has stuck with me and seems to have added resonance today – “apart from finding it hard to know what to do with the undercurrent that I found myself unable to ignore, it’s not at all a bad show. It’s well done. It’s fun. It just disturbed the fuck out of me. Which is a weird way to spend time in the theatre”

I’ve said similar about how it feels to be living in Britain right now. I’m interested in how our theatre responds to that, warts and all. Should theatre censor itself in order to look towards an ideal society or does it show a true reflection of the world we live in?

The point of Ten Storey Love Song is that without love, without compassion, without each other we are fucked. In a divided and mistrustful Britain I think it is important that we remember this.

Oh look, Farage has just resigned.

Jun 25
0

Remaining Resolute in Brexit Britain

By | Uncategorised
By Matthew May, pictured above.
​
I sit here 24 hours into a post Brexit world. Like many of us I feel pretty depressed, I also find myself in the odd and slightly disconcerting position of agreeing with Jeremy Clarkson who said to his twitter followers:
“Right. We should have 24 hours of despair and moaning, and then we will all have to roll up our sleeves and make this shit shower work.”
​Wise words, especially when you consider they come from a man who confuses racist innuendo with wit, but if just this once we are going to listen to him then our 24hours of despair are up. Why the arts?
Normally at times like this, when there has been a national tragedy, or political upheaval I question what I am doing working in the arts, what are we all doing in the arts? I look around at the bright, sensitive, determined people I work with all the time and I think ‘wouldn’t we be more useful doing something else, being doctors or teachers or god forbid, even politicians. Couldn’t we make the world a much better place that way?’ Today is not one of those days. Today I know why we do it, why we are important, why we are needed now more than ever. This referendum has driven a wedge between the people of this country. We feel more divided now than at any point in my living memory. Old vs Young, Rich vs Poor, Educated vs Uneducated. The campaign deliberately and maliciously set out to make us afraid of the other, afraid of the outside, us vs some terrifying foreign them. People have been lied to, been manipulated, they have also been patronised and ignored. The results of this we saw on Friday morning and we saw them the Thursday before in the brutal murder of Jo Cox.

Against this backdrop it is easy to turn our back on the country, to say ‘you voted for it not me, I’m off to Canada/Australia/Country of choice.’ I get that. It was my first response too, (for your information I was off to Iceland,) but we know that is not the answer.

Providing Humanity
Of course I am angry. I am fucking livid that we have been reduced to this. That our great tolerant country has been laid so low, but anger is their weapon not ours. We must be cleverer and kinder to weather this storm. That is why I know the arts has a duty to play a vital role. I am not asking you all to go out and make massive pieces of art praising the merits of Jean Claude Junker, (though if you are let me know…I do a mean Luxembourg accent,) all I am asking is you redouble your efforts to tell those important human stories that I know you already do. If, as looks increasingly likely we are about to be taken over by the most right wing government of modern times then the UK is going to be severely lacking in humanity and it is our job to provide it. We must stop the dehumanisation that has been so rampant in recent times, we must provide the nuance, the empathy to combat the simple stories that we are being force fed by the media. We must do this for both sides, as well as showing that migrants do not come in ‘swarms’ we must also show that people are not born racist. We must also challenge ourselves, we must push ourselves to tell these stories to the people that need to hear them. It is not enough to sit in our safe little theatres preaching to the converted. We have to go out and force a dialogue between those who need to start talking. I am not saying that is easy. I know full well that getting new people to watch theatre is an uphill battle but too often people use that as an excuse to not even try.
​
I know it all feels shit right now, I cried on a bus yesterday, but we can not give up. Britain is suffering from the most horrific of diseases but we must do all we can to provide our part of the antidote. Britain genuinely needs us now, let’s not abandon her.

Apr 05
0

“Tinder for Theatre” or, The Value of Values

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By Paul Smith, artistic director

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 
Your thoughts become your words, 
Your words become your actions, 
Your actions become your habits, 
Your habits become your values, 
Your values become your destiny.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

On Saturday we and the other 2016 Assemble Fest companies spent some time with Iain Bloomfield, artistic director of Theatre in the Mill, Bradford. We had a really great chat about the importance of staying true to your values and the need for relationships to begin as an exchange, rather than small companies going ‘cap in hand’ to larger organisations, desperate to be loved and willing to give up any values in order to be programmed.

(NB – It is fucking hard to stop wanting everyone to love you and your work, but when you accept that it is a) impossible, b) boring and c) genuinely a distraction from making great art then I think it becomes a bit easier. Some people will like what you do, some won’t. Simple but actually quite liberating.)

Every now and then I force myself to remember that we can run Middle Child however we like. It is all too easy to forget that running your own company means you can decide on how you do everything – from the big picture stuff to the minutia of the day-to-day. It is too easy also to be fooled into thinking that you must manage your company how other people run their companies, or – worse – how other people tell you to run your own. At Middle Child we want to be better in every way; how we work internally, how we collaborate, how we open our doors to people we have never met. We want to be better at equality, at diversity, at working with new artists. We talk about all of this a lot and are becoming more and more considered with every decision we make. However, we must be better.

A key quote from Iain which stood out to me was “you are what you do, not what you say.” Whilst I’m aware of the irony of writing a blog about this quote it is a mantra which I do not think is observed enough in theatre, certainly in our experiences over the last five years.

 

The Problem With Middle Child

I’ll start with us. As I mentioned above we talk a lot about every decision we make; about what’s ethical, what’s ‘right’ and what’s the best way to do things whilst maintaining the belief that the work is always the most important output. It’s a noble use of time but perhaps not always the most productive if those careful words aren’t translated into bold action. Sometimes it feels easy to convince yourself a four-hour conversation about an issue is enough, whatever conclusion you reach. It isn’t. There is absolutely no excuse for companies like ours to not stick to the values we have. We have failed at this time and time again: in diversity of casting; in representation of women; in making the best decisions for our audiences rather than for our careers and egos. IT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH and no amount of words or careful discussion can change that. To quote Michael Jackson: “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change. Na na na na na na oooh yeah.”

 

Off To A Good Start

Iain’s point on Saturday was that if the values of collaborators and partners are poorly matched from the beginning of a relationship then it is doomed for failure. Subsequently, if a conversation begins with a desperate attempt to sell a product then it is hard to ever recover from that. As such, at the end of this article I will make a number of pledges for the future of our company. These pledges serve to demonstrate our core values to people outside of Middle Child and also serve as the gatekeepers of our own beliefs. They make a simple statement:“This is what we believe and what is important to us, if you don’t agree (no matter how big, rich or important you are) then perhaps we shouldn’t work together. No hard feelings xx.”

I can’t think of anyone who loses out in this scenario, only people who have more time and energy for better relationships. Let’s imagine I’m using this blog to launch my theatre version of Tinder – who of those you’ve collaborated with previously would you swipe right to again? (Metaphor may be mixed – I’ve never used Tinder, but you get my point). How many of those unfulfilling collaborations came down to a fundamental difference in values and beliefs?

 

The Problem With Others

Next, larger organisations. Despite the misleading subheading (damn subeditors) I’m loathe to go into too much detail about my opinion of the flaws of others but again I think it comes down to two (or two and a half) basic questions on why and how larger organisations collaborate :

1) Do you do what you say you do or do you say it to tick boxes?

I wish company development and associate programmes were less regular and more effective. It is too rare to see collaborations between suitable organisations led by a desire that both think the other is brilliant and a genuine belief that they can improve, challenge and stimulate each other.

2) Do we fit into your value system?

If not, why would you ever want to work with us? We’ll only end up annoying and frustrating you as much as you will us. I would always rather a frank conversation about our differences than a bullshit conversation about our similarities. If our differences can lead to an interesting relationship then great, if they are irreconcilable then let’s not even try to reconcile them? (Catchy).

 

Paines Plough

A brief interlude here before we get to our values, but my god Paines Plough are great aren’t they? A quick browse of their website tells you that they are an organisation that genuinely care about the humans in this industry, that have extremely strong values and that have a fucking great programme of work. Companies like PP are where we aspire to be, and not just in terms of the output but in the way they do everything.

 

The New Diorama

Again, an interlude but I believe a worthwhile one. The work the New Diorama do to develop companies is UNBELIEVABLE. If you haven’t seen their brilliant document which outlines their approach to working with companies then please check it out. It is beyond inspiring and an example that where there’s a will there are a million ways. Add Incoming Festival into the mix as well as the risk taken on Hull companies such as The Pub Corner Poets (a risk which has paid massive dividends)  and it is clear that the NDT is leagues above the general development tone set by theatres. Amazing. Their exciting recent announcements have made me realise that anything is possible, we just have to be willing to make it happen and find a way to do it.  

 

Our Values

And so to our values, but first a disclaimer: If you agree with the following, that’s brilliant. If you don’t, that’s brilliant too. But please consider them before we think about working together in any way because we will stick to them.

We are going to use the 2017 City of Culture year as a launch point for the following values and pledges.

Values

  • We believe that more must be done to attract Millennials to the theatre as without new audiences the form will die.
  • We believe that new work is the most important work. No classics here.
  • We believe that theatre is often too expensive.
  • We believe that not enough is done to make theatre unmissable.
  • We believe that theatre works best as a social event – with a reason to come early and stay late.
  • We believe that women currently have a shit deal in theatre and something needs to be done about it.
  • We are a Hull company, and that is vital to our work, our stories and our entire ethos.
  • Music is central to our art.
  • We do not believe there are enough working class stories told in theatre.
    ​

Pledges

  • We will never play it safe and will follow John McGrath’s advice of ‘seeking to reinvent theatre (not just what is said on stage) every time (we) make a play.’
  • We will commit to annual gender equality for acting roles by 2017
  • We will always offer at least one Pay What You Can night for each of our main productions  
  • We will commit to male and female writer equality by 2017
  • We will be better at diverse casting with no excuses.
  • We will create better female characters with no excuses.
  • We show a commitment to employing and collaborating with Hull artists where possible – giving priority auditions to Hull performers and only looking further afield if required.
  • We will always offer a select number of free tickets to residents of the Thornton Estate, where we make our work.
  • Our choice of performance venue will always centre around what suits our audience best, not what furthers our careers or egos the most.
  • We will try hard not to be dicks and endeavour to begin every relationship as equals. We are not superior to anyone nor are we in desperate need of anyone’s love and affection. 
  • Our values will define us and we rely on our actions not our words.
Mar 30
1

96% of Theatre is Shit 

By | Uncategorised

Picture

By Marc Graham, pictured above.

​
96% of theatre is shit. Let me define shit.

I didn’t grow up with theatre; I found it at school at 15 accidentally. I switched from IT to drama because my mates said that they wrestle in the drama room before Mr. Evans turns up. I grew up with professional wrestling – arguably the most popular form of theatre in the world, not my point here, though – along with skateboarding, pop-punk, football, basketball, golf, Power Rangers, Oasis, hip-hop, indie (circa 2004), curly hair, Beavers/Cubs/Scouts, guitar, Birmingham and Gloucester. I’m also solidly lower middle-class (we’re a nation obsessed with class, and rightly so) a liberal leftie and terrorist sympathiser. I’ve lived in London and now I live in Hull.

The first piece of theatre I saw was at school and I don’t remember what it was. The first professional thing I saw was Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, in which a family breaks down as it is revealed the dad has been having an affair with a goat. I loved it, I’d never seen anything like it and I thought: “Fuck me, this is what theatre can be.” Fuck Me Theatre, similar to Electric Theatre, as Middle Child defines it.

The power of theatre, there. I left buzzing, heart pumping, adrenaline racing, wanting to talk but not knowing how to describe what I’d just seen. All that shit. I then saw Woman In Black – sneer if you want – and felt it again. 

Jump forward a decade and I’ve not had that feeling often enough. I see a lot of theatre and that makes me genuinely sad. Iphigenia In Splott, Violence and Son, Teh Internet Is Serious Business, Wasted, Bottleneck, The Nether, The Kitchen Sink, and A View From The Bridge are some more recent examples of Fuck Me Theatre (about 4%) I’ve had since school. I do say this honestly as a fan of theatre and a maker of theatre. Every time I see a piece of shit theatre (96%) I mourn the loss of what could have been.

Every show has the potential for Fuck Me Theatre. And what pisses me off about it is that not every show tries to do it. Because they should. Theatre that doesn’t push for this is what I term “Shit Theatre”. I’d rather theatres, directors and companies push for this and fail than not bother trying. Reasons for this are plentiful: financial risk, bums on seats targets, boards of directors, fear of the critics and the chasing of stars like a primary school points board are just some.

Here’s the main crux of what I’m saying. In our theatres there seems to be a requirement for a certain set level of performance, production values, atmosphere (Telegraph’s term ‘Culture Of Fear’ is there, especially for people who don’t go to theatre) and expectation: for the sake of this blog, let’s call this “Modern British Naturalism”. One that seems to be universally accepted and one that is dull, often boring, predictable, declamatory and lacking risk and innovation. David Hare said the same recently. Aside: in our last show we were heckled by someone in the audience because they hated that we had no fourth wall.

Take a risk.

Young people/companies are a risk. One that most theatres don’t want to make. As a member of a young(ish) company I often feel we are having to “earn our place” and by that I mean two things: 1) we need to grow older, and; 2) we need to conform to this theatrical norm. 

There’s a lack of faith in the youth and their ideas. Young companies shouldn’t conform: the majority of work produced is not for them anyway so why try and emulate it? Middle Child started that way and it was shit, not our work (it may have been, actually) the feeling of doing it. So we changed tact.

Here are some other ways that theatres can take a risk/evolve.

 

Bring the fucking prices down 

The National is the biggest subsidised theatre in Britain so make the tickets affordable, or free. Make them free. I tried to see another show elsewhere recently but was put off by the £26.50 price tag. I went to see Hull vs Arsenal the other week for £26, and people moan at football prices but at least I might see myself on the telly. No wonder young people don’t go: they’re priced out

 

Take theatrical risks

In A View From The Bridge, [spoilers] Ivo Van Hove’s direction had Marco lift the chair in a completely symbolic and non-naturalistic way that didn’t make the play shit or explode. Then there was a blood bath to finish: more of that. Let’s evolve from Modern British Naturalism. 

 

Stop relying on old texts

Can you imagine 400 year old music being played in nightclubs up and down the country? No, because it has no right to. I equate many versions of old texts to a “director’s wank” (term stolen from Tim Stark). “Let’s set Merchant of Venice in Syria to make it relevant to a modern audience.” No, let’s not. Let’s commission some new work to do the same thing, but better. Let the Bard rest, for fuck’s sake.

 

Take inspiration from other things
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Live music, street art, drinking and dancing, social media, selfies, cats in bread, Vines… anything that is popular, theatre has to use. Let’s not get caught in the tired and erroneous notion that theatre is high art and can’t learn from things that aren’t connected to theatre. Let’s play with form, put on theatre as a gig, tell a story through selfies on Instagram and find ways to engage with new audiences. It’s not enough to say “it’s good, audiences should come”, it’s also probably shit. (96% remember)

Make theatre part of the audience’s night, not the only thing 

This is something Middle Child are trying to do, in giving people a reason to come early and stay late, so we’ll keep you posted. Ideas welcome.

 

Hold up a mirror

I feel there’s a danger that theatre presents a sterilised version of the world to its audiences. Theatre has a responsibility to inform and educate but also represent the world realistically, to be a mirror, if you will. Theatre can be anti-intellectual and un-PC; that’s okay, the world is like that.

 

Stop saying people don’t exist

Often working class characters, characters struggling to make ends meet, characters “living for the weekend”, characters who enjoy themselves in Spoons, dancing and eating kebabs, are said to not exist in the real world. I’ve heard people say this after a show – I’ve heard you! They do exist; put the Daily Mail down.

 

Women exist

Commission more female playwrights, have a woman run The National. A play with a female lead or that has two women talking about something other than a man isn’t feminist theatre, it’s theatre.

 

Stop the pigeon holing 

Stop calling cheap-laugh comedies set in the North ‘Northern Comedies’. Tom Wells and Richard Bean (both Hull, incidentally) have produced the funniest comedies I’ve ever seen, but they aren’t given this tag.

 

Have some conviction

Don’t wait for someone else to put faith in something or say it’s good before you recognise it as such. I’ve witnessed this multiple times: stop it.

* * *

I guess this is a call to arms for theatre makers and non-theatre makers to make a bold change out of love.

When we started Middle Child we took this from Mike Bradwell figuratively: “I would still like to think that, lurking in a dark alleyway round the back of every new £15m glass and steel culturally non-elitist Shopping Mall Playhouse and Corporate Entertainment Facility is a gobby and pretentious 20-year-old with a passion for real theatre, a can of petrol and a match.”

We should have taken it literally. There’s still time and petrol’s relatively cheap at the moment.

Feb 03
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A Woman, An Actress and A Wannabe Pioneer

By | Uncategorised

 

By Ellen Brammar, Middle Child
Ellen, left, in Apples (2012). 

 

It can sometimes feel quite unfair being a woman in this industry and from the very beginning of my career I felt that there were big differences between female and male actors. In my year at drama school the women significantly outnumbered the men: I should probably have realised then that this is something that will become an infuriating part of being an actress.

I have always felt a little dispensable, there really is nothing special about me and there are plenty of other actresses out there who are just as talented, quirkier, have just the right accent, have a natural ‘rawness’ and unfortunately, are just a little bit sexier than me. I should have been less idealistic as I stepped out of drama school, I should have noticed that the men in my year were already in a better position than me. The course leaders had already put their faith in them by dispensing four of the five DADA scholarships to men, which in my rather biased opinion, in most cases had less to do with talent and circumstance and more to do with gender.

I would possibly feel better if I knew that there was an abundance of fantastic female roles out there, but again in my opinion there isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, there are some wonderful plays that have complex and flawed women at their centres, I just want there to be more of them. Middle Child recently held an open discussion at our last Play in a Pub about the representation of women in theatre, including the amount of women we see on stage, the percentage of female writers and directors and the type of female characters that are portrayed. I was lucky enough to sit on the panel and came away with the overwhelming feeling that I was not alone in my opinions, people seemed pissed off and I felt rejuvenated to maybe make a difference in my own small way.

Since then I have attempted to push myself within my career, I have tried to be more outspoken, I want to challenge what I see as inherently wrong and strive to make a difference to how women feel working in this industry, as well as how we represent women on stage.  The more I read the more excited I get about what is happening, people seem to be questioning common place practices and demanding change. There seems to be an international shift in the way we regard women in theatre, and I have made a conscious decision to jump on the bandwagon.

Here in Hull, I feel a palpable excitement amongst my female peers, it feels like something thrilling is about to begin. A group of creative women that are ready and willing to become pioneers. I want to start seeing more women centre stage, I want to see more flawed female characters, I want us in this Northern city to challenge what is expected from women in theatre. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see female characters as emblematic of everyone, not just women; the ‘everyman’ character becoming the ‘every-person?’ I believe we have the perfect opportunity in 2017, the year of the UK City of Culture, to push the boundaries, to be brave and challenge preconceptions of women on stage. Women can be funny, nasty, complicated, flawed, intelligent, manipulative, political, vulnerable and representative of everyone, just like men.

I am excited for the next few years, personally I feel rejuvenated and I want to use this to really push myself within my career whilst also affecting change within this industry in my own small way. Of course it will always be frustrating being an actor, it’s a competitive career, and one where you constantly feel not quite good enough, but it’s also exciting and wonderful.
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So I want to set us all a challenge for 2017 and beyond; let’s question the work we make, let’s be brave and bold, let’s make work that gives women an equal voice within this city. We can be the pioneers, we are the City of Culture after all, it makes perfect sense that it should begin with us. Let’s not sit back and expect London to start the change, next year eyes will be on us and we can’t waste that opportunity. I know it can sometimes feel overwhelming, and it is easy to see yourself as too small a part of this giant industry to make any impact but that is why we all need to do it together, from the smallest company to the largest. With change on the horizon, perhaps now, in this City of Culture, we can make being a woman in theatre a glorious thing.

Jan 27
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Middle Child Named A Hull Truck Supported Artist

By | Uncategorised

Middle Child is proud to announce the continuation of our relationship with Hull Truck theatre as one of their supported artists for 2016, alongside the likes of other Hull-based performers Silent Uproar, Bellow Theatre, Roaring Girls and Lydia Marchant.

Hull Truck theatre operates a programme of bespoke support to artists and companies whose work they find inspiring, innovative and has the potential to excite audiences.

Middle Child’s director, Paul Smith, pictured above, has also been named as an associate artist of Hull Truck theatre, alongside John Beney, Rupert Creed, Mercury Fur and Weekend Rockstar music director James Frewer, Tom Wells and Lizi Perry.

Our first production as supported artists will be Ten Storey Love Song, at Hull Truck Theatre from 2-12 March.

Further details about the programme and biographies of the supported and associate artists are available on the Hull Truck theatre website.

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