Drama

This is a list of the various plays I have been involved in. Most of these I was producing, but some I had just a passing involvement in. Selecting any of them will tell you a bit about the production and my involvement.

With the quality ratings I have tried to be as objective as possible and spread the marks over the whole range rather than give them all 9/10 because I was involved in all of them!

Unfortunately, I haven't had time yet to write up all my reviews - as you can see there are a fair number to do. Please bear with me and I hope to finish them all in time.

Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer

Job: Producer
Date: February 1990

This was an independent play (ie not funded by the school) which I did with a group of friends. Money was raised by selling advertising space in the free programme. Directed by Robert Palmer. Cast included Ollie Dimsdale.

Rating: 6/10

A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt

Job: Producer, Set Construction
Date: November 1990

This was a house play at school, funded partly through house funds and partly through advertising and sponsorship. Directed by a master who has since become the headmaster of Charterhouse School. Well acted throughout and the set was excellent - designed by Pauline Hanson, a semi-professional set designer.

Rating: 7/10

Equus by Peter Shaffer

Job: Programme Designer
Date: May 1991

As I was doing my A-levels 10 days after this production I did not want to be heavily involved. This was a school play and as such was directed by the head of drama, employed a professional choreographer and was funded by the school. The front cover of the programme was drawn by Will Adams-Dale who was also playing one of the main parts (Alan). Robert Palmer was playing Dr Dysart. The drawing was finished on the day the programme went to print, so I had to organise a camera, a slide film, a photographer, the drawing, delivery to developers, same day developing and delivery to printers - meanwhile I had to be in class and then at a sailing match!

The play itself was superb and got standing ovations every night (a very rare event at school). I would have been very impressed if I had seen the same production on a London stage. Also in the cast was Rob Henderson, Paul Curran and Emma Handy (now at Central Drama School).

Rating: 9/10

Double Edge Drama - Edinburgh Festival 1991

Job: Producer, Set Construction
Date: August 1991

Double Edge Drama has its own website, which I am operating. That site contains published reviews and more details on the history of the company. The information below contains solely my own experiences in the company.

This was the first time for many years that a drama group from school had taken anything to the Edinburgh Festival - we were to start a worthy tradition.

We had actually put The Zoo Story on at school in February along with Mountain Language by Harold Pinter. It was after this that Joe Spence (a history teacher and drama enthusiast) suggested to Charlie Wood (the director) that we take it to Edinburgh. Stephen Brown had just written a play and so we decided to form a group to take these two plays up. I was producing, Charlie was directing The Zoo Story, Rob Palmer was directing Geometry and Stephen was coming as writer and publicist. Joe joined as our liasion with the school so that we could use the school drama facilities (costumes, lights, props, rehearsal space etc).

The venue we ended up at (having searched quite late) was the Calton Centre - an ok venue, but miles out, so there weren't too many general public in the audience - mostly family and friends! However we made a profit and set us up for a more ambitious year at the Edinburgh Festival 1992.

The Zoo Story by Edward Albee

The cast was Will Adams-Dale and Rob Henderson - both very good actors. Directed by Charlie Wood.

Rating: 7/10

Geometry by Stephen Brown

The play involves a black magic ritual which required certain "unusual" props - a bird's foot and a bull's eye. Stephen and I hacked the former off a dead bird we had spotted by the side of the road and the latter we obtained from an abattoir in Edinburgh. We had one for each performance. On the way out, Stephen dropped the bag, leaving six eyeballs on the pavement staring up at us. He had to peel them off the paving stones and put them back in the bag!

The cast included Oliver Milburn, Rory Stewart and Ollie Dimsdale. After this Oz Milburn got an acting job on the soap opera Families, which he was to stay in until it was axed two years later. Since then he has acted on stage, including two productions at the National Theatre, and has played major parts on TV in Love Bites, The Choir and Backup (including quite a raunchy sex scene with full nudity from both him and the much older actress) as well as the "voodoo doll" Nissan Micra advert. He has also been in Anna Campion's yet to be released film, Loaded.

Rory lives in a lovely but ramshackle and decrepit house about one hour away from Edinburgh and so Geometry was rehearsed there, while Stephen and I drove to Edinburgh every day to publicise the show.

Rating 6/10

Double Edge Drama - Edinburgh Festival 1992

Job: Producer, Set Construction
Date: August 1992

This was probably our strongest year - our enthusiasm was at it's height - we were also lucky enough to get a significant amount of sponsorship - including £1000 from the Foundation of Art and Sport. This meant we could afford to book three week long slots at the Across the Mersey Theatre in weeks one and two of the Festival.

Bent by Martin Sherman

After an early review which was very flattering and heavy selling to the gay population of Edinburgh this production sold out for most of its performances which made us an absolute fortune and was the major part of the £2500 profit for the year. The production attracted a lot of attention because of the fact that a well-known boy's school was putting on a production of THE gay play. There were mentions in The Independent's diary and also the Londoner's Diary in The Evening Standard, as well as several good reviews.

Directed by Charlie Wood. Cast included Robert Palmer, Will Adams-Dale, Ollie Dimsdale. The acting was superb and had most of the audience in tears at the end. The only problem with this production was making a convincing elecrified barbed wire fence which could be transported up to Edinburgh and then moved on and off stage easily.

Rating: 9/10

The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney

We were very fortunate to do this play as it was the amateur premiere of this recent play by Seamus Heaney, who has since won the Nobel Prize for Poetry. He personally gave us the rights to do the play which had previously only been performed by the Field Day Theatre Company in Dublin and London just after it was written in 1989-90. Directed by Joe Spence who is doing a PhD on Irish Literature. Joe is supervised by Roy Foster at Oxford who knows Seamus Heaney.

Th cast included Rory Stewart, who was heavily praised on BBC Radio Scotland and in The Scotsman by one of the principal reviewers on the fringe, Owen Dudley-Edwards. We were slated by the Irish Post (the Irish equivalent of the Daily Mirror) which we weren't too upset about!

The play was preceded by a short adaption of Purgatory by WB Yeats. The cast of this included Emma Handy.

Rating: 7/10

Gatherings by Stephen Brown

The play got a review which is a good start for a new play - and wasn't slated. The play was well written, but was not carried off that well - it was slightly under-rehearsed and suffered from the late appointment of one of the actresses as the director. Cast included Robert Palmer.

Rating: 5/10

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Job: Producer, Programme Designer
Date: November 1992

This was the ADC's Fresher play. However the director and lead actor were third years appointed before the beginning of term due to the short amount of time available. To select the Fresher's there had to be a period of Fresher's Fairs, then application time and selection time, leaving those selected only five weeks to put on a £2000 five day main show in the ADC Theatre.

As it turned out, the team selected was one of the most accomplished and professional I worked with at Cambridge - all the talented first years were focused into one production. As it happened, Stephen and I were two of the three interested in producing - because of our previous experience I was chosen as the producer and Stephen as the publicity manager.

After several hiccups and pleadings to the ADC Committee for more money, the production went ahead with a cast of forty actors, period costumes for all, an expensive set, a purpose made latex nose for Cyrano and a few very expensive classes from a professional sword fight arranger!

The poster is still one of my favourite posters of all productions - simple, but clever, effective and appropriate. The acting was good and the death scene, despite being hammed up did bring tears to the eyes of more than a few in the audience.

[The actor playing Cyrano was Sacha Baron Cohen - now better known as Ali G and Borat]

Rating 7/10

Danger Zone - Footlights Spring Revue 1993

Job: Producer, Set Builder and Painter
Date: February 1993

Having hardly finished my first play at Cambridge I was very flattered to be approached by the President of the Cambridge Footlights, Mark Evans, and asked if I wanted to produce their Spring Revue, so I said yes - the start of a rocky relationship with Footlights.

The show was ok, some very funny sketches and some very unfunny ones.

Rating: 5/10

Some Wood and a Pie - Footlights Summer Tour 1993

Job: Tour Manager, Stage Manager, Technician, Driver, Accountant
Date: June - September 1993

The original Tour Managers were to be Dom Vallely and Linnet Taylor. Dom went on ETG over Christmas and then fell ill. He dropped out in January and Footlights was left looking for a replacement. I was doing the Spring Revue, so they asked me. Tour Manager was a committee post, so I know found myself on the Footlights committee only 3 months after arriving at Cambridge - I couldn't believe my luck (or so I thought).

Because of Dom dropping out, organising the venues was a little behind, so after the Spring Revue was over Linnet and I got down to trying to catch up with organising venues.

We booked a couple of venues we shouldn't have (Exeter and The Mermaid Theatre, London) both of which were major wastes of time and money. However the tour nearly broke even thanks to the sponsorship of Holsten (which was to run out that year). We would have made a profit if Mermaid hadn't gone bust taking our ticket receipts with them! There were some minor disasters on tour - such as a car breaking down the day before some major journey, the crisis drive to Weston Super Mare to hire some blacks because the Exeter venue didn't have any, the huge arguments and general stroppiness that went on between the cast and the two technicians and the fact that we missed the opening sequence of Jurassic Park because the others in the other car couldn't find the cinema in time!

We did however manage to have a few good times - my birthday party in Southampton (delayed a day because of rows on the day) - going to see Jurassic Park, going bowling in Plymouth, Linnet and my day on the beach near Plymouth and the party in the Footlights flat where Linnet and I invited the whole of Double Edge who turned up and drank all the holsten and pissed off everyone else in the flat whose friends hadn't turned up!

Rating: 6/10

Double Edge Drama - Edinburgh Festival 1993

Job: Council Member
Date: August 1993

I wasn't really involved as I was doing the Footlights Tour, but I had been involved throughout the year in selecting the plays, fixing the venue etc. While up in Edinburgh I spent quite a lot of time with them rather than the Footlights lot - especially as some of them were staying in the most gorgeous flat (well it would have been when it was finished) right above the fringe office on the High Street.

We did the following plays:

Michael Chance Concert

Job: Programme Designer
Date: November 1993

I designed the programme for this professional concert in Cambridge. It was my first paid job as I received two free tickets for the performance!

Cinderella - Footlights Pantomime 1993

Job: Producer
Date: December 1993

As I was now a producer for both the ADC and Footlights, it was not surprising that I was aksed to produce the ADC/Footlights annual panto. This is biggest show of the year in the ADC with a large budget and a two week run. This was probably one of the best productions I saw at Cambridge with a good script, performers, director and echnical directors. The highlight of the show was the scene where the pumpkin trnasforms into a coach. We adapted the flying grid to allow a full size coach to be flown on counterweighted hemps. This had to be dropped in at high speed after a pyrotechnic flash and blackout. Before the lights came back on, fairy lights around the outline of the coach were lit up.

Let Esther Speak by Stephen Brown

Job: Producer
Date: February 1994

This was a reprise of Stephen's play previously performed in Edinburgh. Those Cambridge people who had been involved in the Edinburgh production, including the director and Robbie, played the same roles. Other parts were re-cast with Cambridge students. It was performed at the Playroom.

Into the Woods by Stephen Sondeim

Job: Programme Design
Date: March 1994

This was the musical in the ADC Theatre at the end of the Lent Term.

Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Job: Programme Design
Date: June 1994

This was a May Week production held in the Jesus College Gardens.

Double Edge Drama - Edinburgh Festival 1994

Job: Producer, Technical Manager, Stage Manager, Lighting Designer and everything else!
Date: August 1994

This was my least favourite Edinburgh simply because I was so overworked. Charlie, Robert, Stephen et al were all taking a year off after three solid years before whereas I was back involved having had the previous year away from Double Edge doing the Footlights tour. The get-in was a nightmare and I spent several days solid in the venue from 8am until 2am getting all the techs done and plotting lights for all four shows.

Wrench also required half a car to appear on stage. We acquired this from a scrapyard outside Edinburgh and arranged for them to dump the car outside the venue. However, the car had to be carried up the stairs to our first floor venue. This was a major struggle, but was arguably worth it in the end.

Finally, I did not know many of the company very well and, in an era before mobile phones, found it hard to meet up with other friends in Edinburgh and so missed out on much of the social side.

Woyzeck by Georg Büchner

Wrench by Adrian Osmond

No Way Out (Huis Clos) by Jean Paul Sartre

Guardian of the Tomb by Franz Kafka

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Job: Business Manager
Date: December 1994

This was the annual Cambridge University European Theatre Group (ETG) tour. The tour involved taking a classic English language play (usually Shakespeare) around Europe, mostly to Universities, schools and British Council-arranged venues. There were about 24 in the company of whom about half were actors and half were directors, producers and technical staff. The tour does about 20 performances in about 15 cities in 6 countries in about 23 days from Leuven in Belgium to Budapest in Hungary and back again.

The tour was primarily organised by the Tour Manager, but the Business Manager is particularly responsible for the money, both the tour budget and expenditure and also arranging for currency for all the company members. As we were moving so fast, we acted as a bank for company members, handing out local currency spending money in each country. The Business Manager is also responsible for customs issues, which usually involved trying to explain to a Hungarian border guard who does not speak English what a "six foot truss" is from the customs documents at 4am while we are driving overnight between cities.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum by Stephen Sondheim

Job: Producer
Date: December 1994

This production was about as much fun as I ever had producing plays. The play itself is hilarious, the director and the cast were great to work with. The prodcution was funded by the musical director personally who made a fair amount of money as it was such a success and therefore treated us to a massive party at the end of the run. The party went on so long that I bought a croissant and paper at 8am on the way home from the party and didn't wake up until it was dark again that evening!

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Threshold Theatre Company - Edinburgh Festival 1995

European Theatre Group

Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club

The ADC has been around for as long as anyone can remember and has owned its own theatre (The ADC Theatre) since the 19th century. Unfortunately, when the ADC hit a financial crisis in the 70's (under the management of the then student president, a certain Griff Rhys Jones), control of the theatre was handed over to the University in exchange for rescue from the financial problems. This means that all theatre revenue goes to the University, but the day-to-day management is still undertaken by three permanent staff who are usually graduates on a two year contract immediately after graduation. The ADC Theatre has its own website of listings for each term.

The Club is still run by students and obtains funding from sponsorship, members subscriptions and most importantly, from profitable productions. All productions, with only a few exceptions are budgeted to make a profit, although a profit cannot always be guaranteed. Productions like the annual panto, a joint production with the Cambridge Footlights, however, is a real money-spinner for the club.

Whilst at Cambridge, I was the Producer on the ADC Committee, with the role of costing budgets with the treasurer, supervising production of club-backed productions and being part of the team choosing each terms projects from the myriad of applications received every term from budding directors.