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    Interview: Just who was Aphra Behn?

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    Claire Louise Amias tells us about Aphra Behn

    In early 2023 Claire Louise Amias will be touring her show about Aphra Behn, the UK’s first professional female writer. We caught up with Claire to learn a little more about this fascinating historical figure and to talk about how her story will be brought to life in The Masks of Aphra Behn.

    So, let’s start with the obvious question, who was Aphra Behn?

    Aphra Behn was arguably the first professional female writer in English. She wrote plays, poetry and prose. Her most well-known works today are her play The Rover and novella Oroonoko. She was born in 1640 and grew up in Canterbury, the daughter of a barber and a wet nurse, but ended up one of the most prolific writers of the Restoration era. Before becoming a writer, she worked as a spy for King Charles II in the Second Dutch War. A lot of her life story is unknown as she wasn’t aristocratic. However, she was part of the same libertine literary set that included the Earl of Rochester.

    She’s mentioned in Virginia Woolf’s book A Room of One’s Own: “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn … for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”

    What first brought Aphra Behn to your attention then?

    Photo by: Claire Newman-Williams

    I first came across her when I read The Rover in my twenties. I loved the play and directed some scenes from it with my acting students. It wasn’t until I did an MA at RADA that she came up again. We were doing a workshop on Restoration Theatre and my tutor, Andrew Visnevski, threw down the gauntlet by saying he’d never seen a one-woman show about Aphra Behn and that one of us should create one. I wanted to create it for my final piece on the MA, but after reading all of her plays, and a lot of her poetry and prose and three biographies, I got rather bogged down with too much information! However, I was drawn to the character of this vibrant libertine woman who achieved so much in the arts at a time when, because of her sex and class, it was nearly impossible to do so. What emerged was this enigmatic and engaging personality who, to survive, adapted to whatever situation she was in. To carry on exploring her work, I directed scenes from her plays and a rehearsed reading of The Lucky Chance at RADA.

    Five years later, in 2016, the opportunity to take part in the Women and War Festival at London’s So & So Arts Club came up. I realised the way to create the one-woman show was to pick one particular part of Behn’s life to focus on – and it so happened that her time as a spy in the Dutch wars was the best documented. As soon as I had the concept I wrote the show quite quickly. It was accepted for a four-week run at the Women and War Festival, then at the RADA Festival, and it went on a national tour, getting lots of four-star reviews. Pradeep Jey directed it – he’s co-artistic director of our theatre company, A Monkey with Cymbals, which we set up in 2009. We have a good working relationship, and a close enough friendship that we’re able to really challenge each other and our artistic choices.

    You’ve performed The Masks of Aphra Behn since 2016, there was a live-stream during lockdown and now you are playing a mini tour in 2023. What is it that keeps bringing you back to her story?

    I’ve decided to bring back my one woman show about her now because there’s currently a campaign to get a statue built to commemorate Behn, run by the The A is for Aphra Campaign and the Canterbury Commemoration Society. So the subject is very topical.

    Photo by: Greg Veit
    You must have done extensive research of Aphra Behn’s poetry, letters and plays?
    Yes, as I mentioned, it took a few years of research to write The Masks of Aphra Behn. My final project at RADA ended up being a dramaturgical anthology of scenes from Behn’s plays, plus bits from her poems and letters, which included autobiographical references to her life. I’m not sure if it was in itself a great piece of theatre, but it certainly gave me a foundation for writing The Masks of Aphra Behn. This helped give me a sense of her voice, so that her letters and introductions to her plays, and even a section from the opening of Oroonoko (which was thought by early biographers to be based on her own history), seamlessly flow into the lines I’ve written.
    It gives the show a sense of authenticity by containing some of Behn’s own words

    Tell us a little more about the A is for Aphra campaign.

    The A is for Aphra Campaign has a similar goal to my own. Aphra Behn achieved an extraordinary body of work and remains an important historical figure, yet she’s not a well-known name.

    The campaign organisers aim to have her celebrated publicly, and they’ve joined forces with the Canterbury Commemoration Society to get a bronze statue of this incredible woman erected in her hometown of Canterbury.

    When I saw that this campaign had launched on social media, I felt I had to get in touch. They’ve kindly promoted my show in their newsletters, and after each performance I suggest people donate to the A is for Aphra Campaign to raise funds for the statue.

    What would you like audiences to take away from your show?

    I’d like people to come away from the show knowing a bit about this amazing woman, and to be intrigued enough to read or watch more of her plays, and to be inspired by her tenacity and talent. And to listen to her sometimes very modern thoughts on sexual politics and her satirical take on the position of women in society.

    I’ve also attempted to write my show in the style of how I imagine Behn might have written her own life story, full of adventure, humour and pathos, so I hope the audience are entertained!

    What are your plans after the tour? We know you have been developing Woman Behind Glass – might we see that in 2023?

    I’m getting close to a draft of Woman Behind Glass that I’m happy with. It’s a ghost story that also touches on the subject of dementia. I’m a fan of MR James and the ghost stories of E Nesbit, and the play deals with a supernatural presence that’s possibly an emanation of past and present human trauma. Again, it’s an idea I’ve been playing with for a while. I always need a gestation period where the ideas formulate. Pradeep and I previously received an ACE grant for an R&D project about memory and photography, and this is certainly a development of that idea. We hope to apply for further funding this year. So, watch this space!

    Thanks to Claire for chatting with us and look for our review of The Masks of Aphra Behn soon. You can visit Claire’s website here and find her on Twitter here.

    The Masks of Aphra Behn plays at:

    White Bear Theatre January 11-13. Tickets and more information can be found here.

    The Space February 17 & 18. Tickets and more information can be found here.

    The Brooke Theatre February 22. Tickets and more information can be found here. More

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      Interview: Fury By Name, Not By Nature

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      Fury Entertainment’s Rachel Harley and Gabrielle Silvestre on new play, Des Fleurs

      The Space 25 – 29 October.

      We’ve said it plenty of times before, but it’s worth repeating. We absolutely love The Space. It is what fringe theatre should all be about, taking risks, offering support to new and emerging artists and putting on shows that can at times be wonderfully different and exciting. So it’s easy to see why Fury Entertainment were invited along with their show Des Fleurs.

      Fury Entertainment is made up of Rachel Harley and Gabrielle Silvestre, and cite their roots as feminism, queer culture, devising and fringe theatre. It sounds a perfect fit for The Space. And more than enough to make us what to find out more.

      Let’s dive straight to Des Fleurs, what can you tell us about it then?

      Des Fleurs is a new play about choice, queerness and identity. It follows Judith, an old woman facing early onset Alzheimer’s and the death of her husband John. As she argues with her children about whether or not she should move to a care home, memories from where she was a young wife and mother replay in front of her eyes. Those two time lines collide with each other and create a fuller picture of Judith, revealing what Judith was like as a young woman, the history of her relationship to her husband and to her long lost friend Georgia, and the roots of her attachment to her house.

      The play looks at the effects of early-onset Alzheimer’s, what made you want to tell a story about this subject?

      Well, long story short but I (Gabrielle) trained as a doctor before going into theatre, and when I was at Uni I studied Medical Ethics for quite a while, which remains a life-long interest for me.

      One of the four pillars of medical ethics is the respect of a person’s choice over their body, their life and their treatment; and choice is one of the big themes I wanted to explore with the play. However, when a person develops a pathology such as Alzheimer’s, sometimes their ability to make informed decision is called into question. Thing is, there will be a grey area when a person can still make informed decisions but their carers will also start making decision for them. I don’t remember seeing a play about this particular period of time so I was keen to write about it and explore the implications of it.

      And it became quite clear very early on that Alzheimer’s or dementia is an issue that affects, directly or indirectly, so many people, yet you don’t see it that often represented on stage. That was quite a big motivation as well.

      Did you have to do lots of research into the subject to ensure you portrayed it accurately?

      I referred back to my old lectures to make sure to get the medical aspect of it as close to reality as possible. We also made the choice to place ourselves relatively early in the Alzheimer’s, when symptoms are not too severe yet, so we could focus on Judith as a person and her relationship with her family. It was also a case of discussing with people around us who had been in a similar situation and getting their feedback on the successive drafts of the play.

      The play also looks at identity and queerness, how do these tie in with the central Alzheimer’s theme then?

      Actually, the queer theme came first! I identify as a queer woman, and when I started to write Des Fleurs it started with the story of a queer woman like myself. Then the story became one of a queer woman looking back on her life and this is where this Alzheimer’s theme came in.

      The queer theme is very close to my heart, and this feeds in the theme of identity a lot as well, as Judith’s queerness is a big part of who she is. And once again having as a main character a queer woman in her sixties gives me the opportunity to experiment with things I don’t often see on stage, like someone coming out to their grown-up children. I’m really passionate about queer theatre and I think one of the most important thing about it is that it’s a way for the queer community to share and pass down our stories. It seemed very appropriate to have a character literally reliving her life and passing this history to her family.

      We see you’ve got a cast of seven for this play, which is quite a number for fringe shows, how easy is it to create a show with such numbers and stick to your principle of “equal pay for equal work” – something that really should surely be the aim for all theatre companies though?

      It is quite a big cast yeah! For obvious reasons it takes more organisational efforts the bigger your cast is. Des Fleurs is built around two colliding time lines, so although they overlap not all characters interact with one another, which in turns means that we can rehearse both timelines separately. It’s a balancing act really. It’s about being able to rehearse things individually whilst also allowing the two halves of our cast to feed from what the other is doing.

      Funding has proven very difficult for everyone lately and unfortunately we didn’t get funding for this play this time around. So we’re doing everything on the basis of a profit share. It’s going to seem a bit cliché, but you’ve got to be the change you want to be in the industry. So it was a question of being absolutely transparent and straightforward with our cast, to let them know exactly what was happening and to always keep the conversation open. Everyone will be paid equally for this project, and it’s always been the case from the very start.

      To be honest we’ve also hit the lottery with our cast. The guys are really extraordinary. They’re all incredible actors and very dedicated making the play the best it can be. And very supportive as well! They’ve been a dream to work with really.

      How did you get involved with The Space then to bring this play to their stage?

      We first started to work on the production side of this play about a year ago maybe? We did an R&D on the memory scenes, then a few months later we did a development tableread of the entire play curated by FlairboxUK. Then we applied to be part of the Autumn season at the Space theatre and we got accepted! It’s really great to have the opportunity to work with them. As you’ve said, they’re a champion of new writing and they’re incredibly supportive of young companies. Plus you get to meet and link up with all the other companies of the season. It’s really a great environment to make theatre.

      Is this Fury Entertainment’s first play then?

      It is yeah! Though it’s been a long time in the making. It feels really great to finally get to share it with an audience.

      You’re putting on some workshops entitled “I can’t think straight”, what are they all about then?

      They are queer theatre workshops, free and accessible to all, and created so that queer theatre makers and allies can experiment specifically with queer characters and narratives.

      The idea came from my own experience of being in drama school. Because I identified as queer yet always got cast in straight part. I think I got to play a Lesbian for like five minutes in two years, and that’s not exaggerating, it was a five minute scene. And I had a problem connecting with my characters sometimes and just thought it was about me. Then when I started to work professionally and got to work with queer characters for the first time I noticed a massive difference because they instantly made so much sense to me. It was a Eureka moment. And that’s probably what happens all the time to straight actors playing straight characters, but for us the opportunity to play someone like us isn’t necessarily something that comes very often. So we really wanted to create a space where we could do that and play queer people.

      We’ve got three workshops lined up with the Space, on the 26, 27 and 28 October. All three of them are free and open to all. On the 27 October we’re doing a workshop on making queer theatre and putting on a queer play, coming from our experience with this show. We also want this one to be an opportunity for queer theatre makers to be able to network. On the 26 and 28 we’ll be doing queer play studies: the first one on ‘The Normal Heart’ by Larry Kramer and the second on ‘Neaptide’ by Sarah Daniels. They’re both incredible plays and they both have very strong links to queer history, so they should be very cool to play with.

      And what would you say is going to be Fury’s focus in the future then, is it just theatre you’re going to focus on, or have you got eyes on other mediums as well?

      We both trained in theatre and that’s where our first love is, but we definitely want to play with other mediums as well, and that’s always been one of our goals for Fury. Not to say too much, but we already have a short film project in the pipeline.

      As you’ve said, this play was written by one of you, is Fury’s focus going to be on your own writing, or do you envisage making works by other writers as well?

      Probably both to be honest! For our first project it definitely made sense for us to work on a play that one of us had written, and we’re both writers and we’ve got no intention to stop writing. So we’ll very likely keep making our own work over the years. But supporting emerging artists is something we’re also committed to as a company, whether they are actors, theatre makers, directors or writers. Hopefully we’ll be able to work with someone else’s words before long.

      The show plays between 25 to 29 October, are you already looking at where it goes after this run then? What are you ambitions for the play?

      Definitely! We’d love to transfer the play to another venue for a longer run, and maybe tour it later down the line. This is not the last you’re going to hear from Des Fleurs, or from Fury Entertainment for that matter!

      Our thanks to Rachel and Gabrielle of Fury Entertainment for finding time out of rehearsals to chat with us.

      Des Fleurs plays at The Space between 25 and 29 October at 7.30, plus a 2.30 matinee on the Saturday. The show will also be livestreamed on 27 October, and then be available on-demand for two weeks. Further information and bookings can be found here. More

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      in Theater

      Interview: From France. With Love

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      Charis Ainslie and Sibylla Archdale Kalid on This Last Piece of Sky

      This Last Piece of Sky is set across two cities, following two young people. The first is Louis, who finds himself in hospital as his family cannot cope with his behaviour, and it’s here he dreams of a girl called Sarah. The second person just so happens to be called Sarah, and she also is causing her family anguish due to her behaviour at school. But what is it that connects the two?

      The play is from French writer Kevin Keiss. But don’t panic, Charis Ainslie has translated it into English for us, and along with director Sibylla Archdale Kalid, is now bringing it to The Space next week. We catch up with both of them in this interview to find out why they think audiences are going to love this play.

      Our knowledge of French theatre is, to be honest, lacking, so we thought we’d ask Charis and Sibylla to give us a little education.

      Bonjour, mesdames… ok, that’s the limit of our French*, but we guess you speak it?

      Charis: Yes, I’ve been visiting France since my early teens and lived there for two years. As a translator, I’m working with it in written form pretty much all the time, and I’m currently working with three French writers so am getting to speak it a lot more.

      So what first attracted you both to this French play?

      Charis: I loved the mysterious feel of it. It’s quite poetic, but it also has a real sense of urgency to it. When I first read it I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen. The characters are brilliant – right from the start I could hear what the characters would sound like in English, and that’s really exciting. I particularly loved the character of Granpy. He initially comes across as a cantankerous old man, always finding fault with his grandchildren. But as soon as the family is threatened, it becomes clear that he’s fiercely loyal and will do anything to defend them.

      Sibylla: The first time I read it I was left with a lot of questions and a lot of images in my head of the key moments in the play; a TV that won’t tune in, a young person’s scribblings on a wall, a family walking to a bus stop. The text is fairly sparse and doesn’t explain itself, so it was a tantalising creative challenge to get under its skin and fill in the gaps.

      How easy is it to translate a play such as this? Do you have to alter much to keep the lyrical flow of the original?

      Charis: The writer, Kevin Keiss, uses language creatively to create the ‘other-wordliness’ of the play and in particular to convey the mental state of the main character, Louis. Louis believes he has discovered the secret of the universe, and his language expresses both his wonder – in flowing, lyrical passages – and his sense of frustration and despair – when his speech becomes clipped and truncated, marked by abrupt hiatuses. The biggest challenge was to recreate that without worrying that it sounded ‘off’ or awkward. Once I gave myself permission to recreate the strangeness of the language, I really enjoyed playing around with the poetry of it and recreating its rhythms.

      The play explores mental fragility in young people, is this a theme that is the same whether it’s France on England?

      Charis: I think it is, yes. Although Louis is depicted as a mathematical genius, there’s a truth beneath that romanticised version of neurodiversity. The isolation. The medical world’s preoccupation with diagnosis. The sense that no-one is actually listening to you and what you have to say – if you could even put it into words. There’s also something hugely relatable in the way Louis’s family responds to him – their concern, and their sense of powerlessness as they try to support him. And after the last two years there’s something universal in the feelings of isolation depicted on stage. But there’s also a sense of solace created by the unlikely friendship of these two young people, without the play ever descending to offer solutions or trite answers.

      Sibylla: I think what’s so compelling about the play is that it’s not clear that it is about mental fragility; is Louis mentally unwell, or is he on to something that the rest of us are too close-minded to entertain? Either way, as Charis says, the resulting experience of isolation is close to the bone at the moment, whichever side of the channel you live on.

      The play is set across two locations, one of which has experienced a military coup, is this based on real events or pure fiction?

      To answer this, it’s helpful to start with Louis’s experience. Louis is discovering – or at least suspects – that the universe does not operate along our accepted notions of space and time. It’s significant that, while nobody believes him, the world of the play confirms his suspicions. We’re invited to believe in a world that could be tomorrow or yesterday, that has echoes of real events but could also be presaging the future. The clues in the play don’t necessarily point to a real place or a given reality but invite us to believe in something we can’t explain. In that sense, we inhabit Louis’s world.

      Have you thought how you plan to portray two separate locations when you are at The Space?

      Sibylla: One of the challenges of staging the play has been depicting two distinct locations whilst also allowing for the increasingly fluid boundaries between them as the story goes on. Technology – a TV, phones – have been a useful way of delineating different time periods, and our design consultant, David Medina Aguila, has carefully designed the costumes to use colour and period details to indicate different times and places. The script itself also helps in this sense, as the tone and energy of the scenes set in the two places are notably distinct from each other.

      Charis: We’re also going to be exploring the connections and porosity between the two worlds through sound, music and lighting. We’re working with a brilliant Sound Designer, Raffaela Pancucci, and a brilliant Lighting Designer, Catja Hamilton, and we’re very excited to see what they come up with! There’s already a strong musical motif in the play: Louis speaks of the genius of Glenn Gould – a Canadian pianist who made a famous recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in the 50s – and there’s a strong parallel between them: Gould was a musical genius, and a very eccentric individual. Music is also an inherent part of Sarah’s family – her grandfather was a classical violinist. One of the most poignant scenes in the play is when the family are forced to destroy their record collection because music has been banned by the regime.

      You’re taking the play to a local school after your run at the Space, what is the reason you wanted to do this?

      Charis: We want to make theatre for young people, and we want to make it accessible to everyone. The Space has strong connections to its local community, and we wanted young people there to be able to enjoy a theatre experience they might not otherwise have – to imagine other worlds and dream a little after what they’ve been through these last couple of years. It fits with our view of what theatre is about more generally. I mean, just this week people are talking about a show that’s charging £400 for a ticket! That’s the polar opposite of what we want to do. So many small theatres are putting on great work – and the Space has an incredible programme: great theatre, great acting and shows that will echo in you long after.

      Any plans for what is next for you, or this play, after this run?

      Charis: We’d love this play to have another lease of life – not least because it’s the first part of a trilogy! And I also have another play by the same writer for younger children that I need to find a home for. It’s about a boy whose father has died, and his quest to remember his father’s voice – aided and abetted by a huge whale, two beautiful golden birds and a family of guinea pigs. What’s not to love?!

      Sibylla: Working with the cast on this play has only whet my appetite to explore this play further; it’s opened up so many possibilities and strengthened my conviction that this is a furiously timely piece of work, so we hope to bring it back to audiences soon. To continue Charis’ children’s theatre theme, I’m also in development with a BSL-integrated devised piece about a female astronaut for 7-11 year olds, which I am co-directing.

      Photos from rehearsals

      Merci beaucoup pour votre temps to Charis and Sibylla. This Last Piece of Sky plays at The Space between 17 – 21 May. The play will also be livestreamed on 17 May, and available for a further two weeks on-demand following the end of the live run. Further information and bookings can be found here.

      You can follow the play’s Twitter account here to keep up to date with any further announcements.

      * We would also like to apologise to our reviewer Jane Gian for suggesting we cannot speak French. Jane is fluent and will be even be reviewing Dom Juan at The Vaults during one of its French performances this weekend. More

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      in Theater

      Interview: How To Fill A Space Like The Space

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      Author: Everything Theatre

      in Features and Interviews, Podcasts, Runn Radio interview

      4 May 2022

      51 Views

      Adam Hemming on running The Space Arts Centre

      This week‘s guest on our Runn Radio show was Adam Hemming, the Artistic Director of The Space Arts Centre. Adam has worked at the Space for 18 years, so has a strong record of supporting London’s fringe theatre scene. It’s a venue we love reviewing at, due to its range of shows and risk taking that can result in some amazing surprises in their shows.

      Adam hosts two of his own podcasts, which we can highly recommend. They are:

      Space Chats features interviews with shows that are performing at The Space. You can find the series on Spotify here.

      TV DNA is a podcast, as the title suggests, that talks about TV. You can find that on Spotify here. More

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      in Theater

      Interview: Accusations, Witches and Privilege

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      Fury Theatre on new play Abigail

      Fury Theatre’s Abigail is a play that takes a different look at the Salem Witch Trials. Rather than tackle the witch trials themselves, it focuses on Abigail Williams, one of the first to make accusations that lead to arrests. And the story takes place four years later, looking at how being an accuser may have affected Abigail and the effects this would have on her for the rest of her life.

      It certainly seemed to us to be a very different approach and a way to look at themes that still hold true today, so we sat down with the Fury Theatre’s Artistic director and writer Laura Turner, along with co-writer and director Stephen Gillard to tell us more.

      What made you want to create a play against the backdrop of the Salem Witch Trials?

      Stephen: It’s a point in history, infamous for the oppression of women, that resonates across the time periods. So much so that when we talk about “witch hunts,” we’re often referring to this particular period in history. We wanted to tell this story to try and suggest that, when it comes to the treatment of women, in law, relationships and the world at large, we may not have moved on as far as we think.

      And why from the viewpoint of one of the accusers, Abigail Williams? How much is really known about the accusers and how Salem became a focal point for witch trials? 

      Laura: Choosing a point of view for a narrative piece can sometimes be tricky simply because in good stories, all angles present interesting views, challenges and exciting avenues to explore. As you can imagine, that’s very much the case with the historical figures from the witch trials. But through time and other media, certain figures have gained a certain notoriety. Not just Abigail but also Tituba, the Bajan slave who was one of the first to be accused. This play shines a light on Abigail and the experience she as an accuser went through – being parachuted up onto a pedestal where the great and the good were listening to her, just a very young woman, in a way that was unusual for any woman of the time. Then, as soon as her use was done and the trials were over, she was dropped – by those men who had raised her up, and by history, and her society. We wanted to explore this dilemma – to ask what scars that experience leaves a young woman with, and importantly how does that resonate with today. In our society we see women in particular made famous overnight – from reality TV stars to pop stars, politicians, actors and writers – only to be dropped as soon as they stop conforming to whatever unknown, ever-changing idea of “what’s right”. Who is that “right” decided by, and what makes it any more “right” than any other choice a woman – or anybody – might make?

      Abigail was just a child when the trials happened, and there seems to be little known about her afterwards. What inspired the direction of your story? Is there any evidence she ever moved to Boston? 

      Stephen: There’s almost nothing known about Abigail after the events of the Salem Witch trials, apart from a possibly apocryphal tale that she was sighted in Boston working as a prostitute. The history is extremely hazy after Salem and that’s why we wanted to use her as a jumping point to show that women in history are almost always completely forgotten. Even women like Abigail who was famous in her community for the span of the trials is completely forgotten about once the events have played out. What happens to someone like that? Someone who’s worth in society is negligible at best. Even texts, plays and films that have looked at her usually stop at the point the witch trials finish. We thought that was interestingly symbolic of many women’s journeys through the past and indeed the present.

      You want to explore privilege and exploitation within the play, are you suggesting Abigail was an abuser or was she simply caught in a system that allowed abuse to occur freely? 

      Laura: Our Abigail is a complex, flawed character – like all people. She makes difficult choices in difficult situations, and that means that sometimes those choices are mistakes that she regrets later. We don’t shy away from that – Abigail is vicious, proud, judgemental and unkind. But she learns from her experiences, and she realises that she has been deeply affected by the pressure of the society around her – as you say, one where abuse and exploitation was (and still is) endemic. What’s important is the character arc that Abigail goes on, and also her intention. She never knowingly abuses anyone. She voices bigoted ideas at the start of the play because that’s what’s been instilled in her, from a place of fear. We want to explore what fear can push people to do and ask questions through Abigail’s story of what it takes to confront that fear and rise above it.

      You also explore the female bisexual experience; how much is known about this from the 17th Century, was it openly discussed or is it pieced together from fragments nowadays? 

      Laura: Abigail’s sexuality is another important element of the fear narrative we are creating. Abigail’s coming of age in the play is utterly inspired and fuelled by her burgeoning sexuality and the attraction that she feels towards a young woman she meets. This makes her reflect on the past as well, on some of the things she did and said – particularly towards Tituba – that came from a place of fear, of not having accepted herself and the fact that she is attracted to women as well as men. It’s important to note here that the real-life Abigail came from a very Puritanical society where sex wasn’t a subject to be discussed, let alone women’s pleasure. This has an impact on her. In the broader context of the time, there were, as always, mixed attitudes towards just about everything. We see this once Abigail goes to Boston – a much bigger place than Salem – where there are differing mindsets and more acceptance, but also more bitterness. There are certainly records from the 17th century of “women loving women” – both condemnatory and accepting – but Abigail herself is in the dark to her own feelings, let alone other people’s. Abigail in many ways becomes a play about self-acceptance, in its many ways.

      How much do the play’s themes still ring true over 300 years later? 

      Stephen: The themes we’re looking at are, it’s probably fair to say, far older than the 300 years that separates us from this story. They’re also occurring today, just as freshly as if they’d only just begun. The oppression of women around the world. The denial of women’s ability to govern even their own bodies. Massive disparity within the legal system. The mistrust of education or success when it comes to women. The demonisation of sexual agency and fear of sexual identity. Coercive control. Racial disparity and discrimination across all levels of society. These are themes that we look at in the play and we would say you only need to look at the news for five minutes to come across an example of them being as rife today as they were 300 or 3000 years ago.

      You’re playing at The Space, how important are venues such as the Space for new and emerging theatre makers such as Fury Theatre? 

      Laura: The Space is a fantastic venue to work with because they are so supportive of new work and particularly of the company behind the work. For us, this is our first in person production as a company, and we’re also bringing work directly to London from our company base in the East Midlands. There’s lots to think about and for me, this is the first show I’ve produced as well as written, but having the team at The Space there to give advice has been invaluable. I’d absolutely recommend it as a venue to other emerging companies, and the wider network of fringe theatres – and the reviewers, critics and audiences that support them – are such an important part of our industry, especially at the moment as we continue to rebuild after the last two years.

      And have you thought about how you’ll be putting the play on for best use of their wonderful livestream service?  

      Stephen: This will be our first live-stream event. We’re excited and we’re going to be learning our way through the evening. It’s wonderful to be able to reach out to people who can’t attend, to be able to offer a chance for people, particularly in Lincoln, where we’re from, to see the piece live on the stage. Who knows, we may find there’s a film idea in this somewhere.

      Thanks to Laura and Stephen for finding the time to chat with us. Abigail plays at The Space between 3 – 7 May. There will be a livestream performance on 5 May, which will then be available to watch on-demand for a further two weeks. Further information and bookings can be found here. More

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      Interview: Are You Almost Adult Enough for London?

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      Charlotte Anne-Tilley tells us about her play Almost Adult

      Charlotte Anne-Tilley first came to our attention a year ago when her show Twenties was online as part of TheSpaceUK’s short online festival showcasing many of the artists who would normally have been planning to head off to Edinburgh that summer. The show caught our attention for both its inventiveness and for being what felt a very true portrayal of a young girl moving to London where she believed she would soon be heading off to all the celeb parties and bumping into famous names every street she walked down.

      Since then Charlotte and the team have been busy rewritting Twenties into a live full length show, which will be playing at The Space in Canary Wharf from 13 to 15 January 2022, before they hope to then take it to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. So it seemed the perfect time to sit down with Charlotte to find out how the show has changed, not only with its name now being Almost Adult, and how her life has changed since we presented her with an award as part of TheSpaceUK’s festival season.

      Almost Adult

      [embedded content]

      Hope has just moved out from her childhood home in Macclesfield to the bright lights of London. After getting a job at a (get this) dinosaur themed bar and moving in with a very mature housemate, everything seems to be going brilliantly. But when she learns some questionable things about her manager, things at work spin out of control. Hope slips deeper and deeper out of her depth and questions how ready she was to leave home after all. 

      With witty audience interactions, hilarious physical comedy and touching vulnerability, you can expect a good laugh followed by a single tear rolling down your cheek. 

      The work-in-progress of Almost Adult won Everything Theatre’s Make Do and Mend Award for Ingenuity in Lockdown and was nominated for The Voice’s Editor’s Choice Award. 

      Almost Adult plays at The Space 13 – 15 January. Tickets can be booked here.

      You can find out more about the show and future dates by following Charlotte on Twitter here and Instagram here. More

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      Interview: We get entangled in Eight Legs Eight Arms

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      Author: Everything Theatre

      in Features and Interviews, Podcasts, Runn Radio interview

      29 December 2021

      11 Views

      Writer Jane Morris tells us about Eight Arms Eight Legs

      Eight Arms Eight Legs was one of six plays that formed part of The Fright Before Christmas, a collection of short horror plays at The Space.

      It proved to be quite an abstract piece that explored violence against and by females that left us fascinated to learn more. So it was perfect when the play’s writer, Jane Morris, offered to sit down and chat to us. It was fascinating to learn how the play came about and more about what it all meant.

      You can find out more about Jane Morris and future works by following her via Twitter here. More

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      Interview: Is It Good Cop, Bad Cop? Rising Tides decide

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      Gavin Dent and Neil Sheppeck of Rising Tides on Good Cop Bad Cop 26 Festival

      To co-incide with the COP26 summit, Rising Tides take over The Space for the next 12 days for their Good Cop, Bad Cop 26 Festival. Featuring plays, discussions and music the festival is their response to the climate crisis.

      With so much happening, it seemed a perfect opportunity to catch up with Gavin Dent and Neil Sheppeck from Rising Tides and hear what to expect at the festival, why The Space is the ideal venue and whether they hold out much hope for the outcome of COP26.

      Good Cop, Bad Cop 26

      With the future of our species at risk, this November the COP26 summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

      This summer’s IPCC report is a code red for humanity.  The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable. Extreme weather and climate disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity. That is why this year’s United Nations climate conference in Glasgow is so important. 

      How should artists respond? What does a theatrical response look like? How can we make our voices heard?  What contribution can we make? How can we influence change? 

      LETTERS1 NOVThe largest creative response to the climate and ecological emergency the world has yet seen, Letters to the Earth is the first book to chronicle how humankind is collectively processing planetary crisis.

      20402 NOVConcerned about his young daughter’s future, filmmaker Damon Gameau travels the world in search of new approaches and solutions to climate change. He meets with innovators and changemakers in many fields to draw on their expertise.Also livestreamed

      ACCIDENTAL BIRTH OF AN ANARCHIST3 NOV – 12 NOVAn anarchist – activist or terrorist?A darkly funny play by Luke Ofield. Two novice activists get jobs on a North Sea oil rig with the sole intention of staging a sit in protest. Trapped in a room full of drilling instruments and forced to negotiate, the lines of protest, activism and terrorism are debated, as the threat of military action looms closer.As the world is torn between wildfires and flooding, this play couldn’t be any more timely.Livestreamed on 4th November & 10th November

      EVIDENCE6 NOV – 9 NOVWhat happens when you introduce experts at the forefront of the sustainability debate and today’s most exciting theatre makers? Rising Tides create four exciting partnerships and commission them to create an evening of entertaining and informative theatre.Livestreamed on 8th November

      CLIMATE CHANGE WORKSHOPS6 NOV – 7 NOVEvery child matters today and tomorrow. Rising Tides deliver informative, creative, and of course, fun workshops that explore and engage participants in the subject of Climate Change.Inform. Explore. Solve.

      ISYLA AND P M K S7 NOV“Achingly gorgeous and heartfelt… A beautiful blend of voices and fine songwriting. Be absorbed.” on ISYLAAlso Livestreamed More

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      How Comfy Are Your Seats? The Space

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      We absolutely adore The Space Arts Centre. And not just because one of our reviewers also happens to be heavily involved! It’s a venue that promises a home for exciting new writing, offering a place to try out new works that might not otherwise get the chance to grow. We might not love every play we see there, but we love that they are always willing to take the risk to try something different. It’s what draws us back at every opportunity.

      So who better then to be the second venue in our How Comfy Are Your Seats? series than The Space’s Deputy Director, Matthew Jameson, to share more on why you really should be visiting this wonderful building soon.

      Let’s dive straight in, what’s your role at The Space?

      It was an ever shifting, no-two-days-the-same kind of job even before the pandemic, and now it’s even more varied. I tend to manage the visiting companies and productions, co-ordinate marketing, deal with site maintenance and handle in-house producing, with a few bits of dramaturgy, programming and directing thrown in. I’m also the livestream camera operator and currently the de facto bar manager (but don’t get me talking about the bar…)

      We’ll be honest, last time we come we got a little lost due to road works, tell us the best way to get there.

      Not a problem, every first visit is a step into the unknown, but it does get easier. You can’t go too far wrong with the 5 minutes walk from Mudchute DLR. And we’ve got 3 buses that stop right outside the venue with a helpful announcement from Canary Wharf, who have just streamlined the bus traffic. If you’re feeling leisurely, you can catch the Thames Clipper to Canary Wharf Pier, which is a lush journey from Central London or the East.

      Right, we know how to find you, but once we get there, what’s on offer before we head in for a show? Is it time to mention that bar?

      Oh go on, get me talking about the bar! We’ve recently taken on management of the in-house bar (now named ‘the Space Bar’) and we are loving being pub landlords. We’ve got a long, sun-trap beer garden for this weather as well as an atmospheric inside seating area just at the back above the theatre, converted from what used to be the church’s vestry. We’ve been listening to our artists and audiences about what they want from a bar, so have been making some changes to our stock which have been very popular. We’re in the process of re-opening the kitchen to bring back a limited menu, hopefully from mid/late June, which we’ll expand as we go.

      And once we head inside, what’s the size and layout for a show?

      Under social distancing, we’ve been operating in either end-on, or reverse end-on for our raised main stage. Currently our max capacity is 40, and we’ve already had some sold out shows since re-opening. We’re lucky that we have no fixed seating, so in non-Covid times, anything goes! In the round, traverse, promenade, you name it, someone has staged it here.

      What type of shows are The Space’s forte?

      We’re all about new writing and/or emerging artists. But ’emerging’ doesn’t just mean artists under 30! We’re all about giving a platform to companies who want to showcase their skills, make socially relevant work or just need a supportive environment to get their show off the ground. For internal productions, we’ve had a cracking run of new writing festivals pre, during and post-lockdowns, which we’re bringing home with the Foreword Festival (playing from Next Tuesday 8th with Laura Horton‘s Labyrinth Diet to open). We’ve got four new scripts which were selected from our script development programme, ScriptSpace, that we’re giving full productions to.

      What can people normally expect to pay for a ticket for a show?

      It’s largely up to the companies that perform with us, but we try to cap our standard price and concessions as £15 & £12. For online viewers, we’ve been conscious of economic accessibility, so our livestream prices operate on 3 bands: £10 standard, £15 supporters rate and £5 low income rate. We want to make sure that everyone who wants to see our shows can, regardless of financial or geographical barriers.

      Any personal highlights from past shows?

      We’ve had a lot of brilliant work during my time here. I always love work that fully embraces the uniqueness of the venue, so Threedumb Theatre‘s revolutionary The Black Cat was a great example of how you can truly embrace streaming and digital theatre fusion. I also have great memories of Two Fest, our last in-house, in-venue production before the pandemic, 13 plays over three bills across two weeks. Absolute madness, but nuanced, varied work throughout.

      Do you have any “they played here first” stories of big names or shows that started with you?

      It’s our 25th anniversary as a venue this September, so we’ve seen a fair few who are now household names (including Les Enfants Terrible) as well as our dear patron Sir Ian [McKellen], who rehearsed and kicked off his 80th birthday one-man show here. We’re more excited about the next steps and developments of recent projects such as Four O’Clock Flowers by Louise Breckon-Richards, which is hitting the film festival circuit having debuted as a play at the last Foreword Festival in 2019. The companies and artists we have at the Space today are tomorrow’s headliners, see them here first!

      What are the plans for the coming months then, what exciting shows have you got lined up for us?

      We’re currently programmed for our Summer/Autumn season until the end of October, which is a far longer season than we’ve ever had before, but we’ve had plenty of pre-Covid projects to reschedule as well as many new and exciting shows approach us. I’m particularly excited for our first partnership with the London Horror Festival in October (who are currently taking applications here). There’s also a lot of top secret things being lined up for the 25th anniversary, but you’ll have to watch this Space.

      So tell us just why we should all come along to see a show at The Space? What’s your unique selling point?

      It’s a gorgeous, grade II listed building with the most reasonably priced, atmospheric bar in London. The theatre itself is intimate enough to be personal and grand enough to be epic. The shows we programme are made by the theatre innovators of the future and you’ll want to see them here first.

      Finally, and obviously the most important question of all, how comfy are the chairs?

      The chairs themselves? More padded than average. But the legroom? Unbeatable!

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      Thanks to Matthew for finding time in his very busy day to chat with us. You can find a list of reviews and articles from the Space below. More