Backstage at the Theatre Royal

Brighton’s Theatre Royal is one of  the oldest continually-working theatrical venues in Britain. There’s been a theatre on this site for more than 200 years, with the original building gradually expanding over the years and taking over adjoining houses and cottages, producing a  ramshackle, labyrinthine structure full of secret spaces.Actors ranging from Marlene Dietrich and Laurence Olivier to Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart have trodden its boards; it is no anonymous space, but rather a receptacle of living history. The theatre can sometimes seem transient, with a new production arriving every week. However as I found out in my tour of the premises, the opposite can be true.  In the recesses of the building, its guts and bones, things remain timeless and unchanging.

Our tour guide is Tom the technical manager, a mine of information about the workings of the theatre. When Nick, the Badger photographer, and I arrive, we encounter a busy scene. It’s a ‘dark week’ at the Theatre Royal, with no performances. A production of La Cage aux Folles that was due to arrive has cancelled, giving an opportunity for the theatre hands to carry out some maintenance repairs.

The first port of call is the door through which we entered the building.  Called a ‘get in’ (apologies if I get the terminology wrong, I took notes on a Dictaphone which proved to be a bit crackly), it is through here that all  of the scenery is transported from outside.  One of the smallest of its kind, even  fully opened, this get-in is a tiny opening through which to manoeuvre  large pieces of wood. According to Tom, it causes many headaches.
All the terminology used backstage comes from sailing, as Tom explains.  One side of the stage is ‘prompt side’ taken from ‘port side’, and ‘stage right’ is taken from star board.

The stage floor is called the deck. Everything above, the scenery poles and ropes is called the rigging.  The operations backstage during a performance require many hands and a high degree of co-ordination.  Leaving the main stage we ascend to the upper levels of the theatre. At this height it’s easy to feel slightly giddy. I regret my choice of footwear and clothing (high-heeled boots and a skirt) as I climb gracelessly up the ladders.

The Theatre Royal is one of the few left in Britain where the scenery is still hoisted by hemp ropes. At the lower flight floor, piles of it are coiled at my feet, and many more are suspended from the ceiling. The ropes are heavy, even the ones unattached to anything. Hoisting scenery from these is hard manual work, and the moving of even one piece of scenery requires up to eight people, some of them precariously attached to safety lines.
A large winch used to hoist the big red house curtain called the ‘rag’ is the last of its kind in the country. The curtain material itself is around 80 years old, and the mechanism even older, 110 years or so. “It’s a bit like a working museum”, Tom comments.

Even graffiti and caricatures scrawled everywhere pay testament to the age of the theatre, with some of it dating years back. I am especially distracted by references to a ‘Mr Nod’, which occur sporadically on walls as we walk through the building.

Up again to the upper flight floor: I’m not brave enough to scramble up to the grid at the roof of the theatre, where a stage hand can sit casually astride a beam some 15 meters up off the ground.  As you ascend the ladder, this is the one point where if you slip and fall, there’s nothing to stop you plummeting to the ground below. Nick has a go climbing awkwardly up to take some photos. Up here the mechanics of the rope and pulleys become apparent.
The knots that secure everything have to be well done otherwise the repercussions can be serious. When repairs have to be made to some of the beams suspended above the stage, abseiling gear is often required. It’s not for those who don’t have a head for heights. To Tom’s knowledge however, no one has yet fallen from here and died.
It’s easy to imagine that there might be ghosts here. The theatre is a dark place, there’s not a single bit of natural daylight.

“When you’re here last thing at night or first thing in the morning, it’s pitch black, you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Due to the age of the building, it talks to you, you can hear the wood creak, if a breeze gets up the bars knock together. It’s strange, but the building lets you know that it’s here”.  It’s lucky for a playing house to have ghosts, and the Theatre Royal has three.  The first one is Mrs Nye Chart, the first female manager of the Theatre Royal (and whose house forms the foyer area at the front of the building), the second a nun, and the third a child who fell down a flight of stairs and broke its neck (lovely).

Delving back into the history of the theatre, Tom tells us that it may have been originally run by fishermen; hence the sailing terminology mentioned earlier. He thinks it likely that some of the large, old beams we can see were taken from boats.   Their worn, pockmarked and weathered appearance  suggests that they may have been salvaged from something else.  The history of this place is impressive. The main frame on this side of the building has remained untouched for most of its life, aside from a lick of paint here and there.

Descending into the bowels of the theatre, you encounter two levels. The first was built to accommodate a trap door on the stage.  At one time, you would have been able to pull back the whole stage floor, or make the floor rise up. The mechanism was designed to accommodate people and even a carriage and two horses.  The trapdoors are gone now, no longer fashionable. (although  apparently they are set to make a comeback: you heard it here first folks).

We also have a peek at the orchestra pit:  musicians are apparently quite notorious for wanting their own way, and dictate the vast majority of show times.  Rather than a director or lead actor, it is the orchestra who can often present a problem.  “The musicians’ union are the mafia of the theatre”, explains Tom. “When you get called in to work, you will come in for a minimum of four hours and you get paid per hour after that. Those in the musicians union get called out for three hours, and if they go even a minute into that, they’ll get paid for another three hours”.

Before we leave, Tom shows me one last thing. There’s one seat in the theatre where you can sit and watch the performance without anyone else in the audience seeing you.  Situated in a little recess to the left of the stage, it was originally the director’s box, and is now called the QE2 box because the Queen sat here with Prince Phillip for the theatre’s bicentennial in 2007.  I’d like to sit here next time when I come  to see something at the Theatre Royal!
However, if you’re not lucky enough to get this seat, and your student pennies  aren’t stretching very far, the Theatre Royal also does £11 stand-by tickets. You can get them from the Box Office one hour before the performance by calling 08448 717650 (bkg fee).  Subject to availability.

Brighton bards

Brighton now boasts an array of Poetry and Spoken Word events on a regular basis. The Badger sent writer Helen Grace to check out the latest offerings

It has to be said that ‘E.G. Poetry’ is the straightest poetry reading I’ve been to for a while, in the sense they were literally reading the words off the page. But, don’t get me wrong, it was no less exciting for this. Although slam poetry in its improvised spontaneity is all the rage in some circles, the night proved that the written word still packs a punch.

The event showcased the work of four poets; Alex Brockhurst, Vidran Ravinthiran, Sonya Smith and Ken Champion from ‘tall-lighthouse’, one of the country’s leading poetry presses. And four strikingly different acts they were, but with one thing in common – a complete lack of pretentiousness. This couldn’t have been further exemplified by one of the highlights of the evening for me, Ken Champion’s poem ‘Anthropomorthingy’, poetry without pretense if ever I heard any. ‘E.G. Poetry’ didn’t pretend to be anything else but as the title suggests, examples of poetry. And it was brilliant.
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“Are you allergic to me?!”

Questions are raised in SUDS’ new production

Last week I was invited to watch a twenty-minute snippet of SUDS’ (Sussex University Drama Society) week seven production of Blackbird, followed by a short interview with the cast and director of the play.

As I watched in the cold rehearsal room in Falmer House, I was already impressed by the level of commitment these students were giving – a good sign of quality. The extract I saw was very intense, but not exhausting (I wish I was able to see the whole thing!).

My first question after the performance, and perhaps the most obvious, was why this play? The director, Stefan Adegbola, informs me that he saw this play performed a few years ago and was instantly impressed. “It was my first experience at the theatre with a ‘taboo’ subject being treated so subtly. It wasn’t ironic, there was no jokes, and no happy ending. A fascinating play.”
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Pappy’s Sketches

Pappy’s are hard to define. They effortlessly blend the surreal and the sublime with visual, musical and physical comedy. There is a striking moment when you first realise that there is no ‘edgy’ humour of that tired brand involving racism, paedophilia or crudeness. There is no swearing and there is no attempt to shock; the most shocking joke of the night was announced as ‘Anne Frank’s boyfriend,’ a perfectly constructed and simple piece in which ‘Karl’ was summoned downstairs, ‘not because they didn’t like him’ but because he just ‘had’ to leave. Queue appearance of ‘Karl’ trudging dejectedly through the attic door complete with One-Man-Band drum kit, cymbals et al.
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Audience Theatrics

Embarrassing stories from the Stalls

During a performance of Breakfast at Tiffanys in November last year an audience member vomited over a balcony, showering six people below with sick and nearly distracting Anna Friel from the song that she was singing.

Most people have a story like that; ones which involve inappropriate behaviour and moments of acute embarrassment. In the case of the poor soul who threw up everywhere, perhaps they had suddenly fallen ill, or perhaps as with someone else I know, they had drunk too much; after a performance of Bernard Shaw’s St Joan at the National, she tipsily tripped, lost her footing and  subsequently completed a spectacular descent (incorporating two roly polys and a mildly serious blow to the head), down a stair case.  It’s always at the venues which seem synonymous with behaving in a mature and refined manner (at least that’s how it always seems to me when I go to the theatre)  where  you end up making a complete tit of yourself. Perhaps what signals your entrance into the real adult world (university doesn’t count) is when you can start behaving in a moderately normal manner in places such as the theatre.
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West Side Story gets SMuTy

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Gradual Decline

The Gradual Decline of a Previously Tight Family Unit in the Face of Economic Hardship: A Comedy didn’t cross the line of good taste so much as stamp, spit and do a widdle on it. There were gags about Downs Syndrome, limbless children, and an array of other sensitive subjects. That said, it proved to be entertaining; the gags were intelligently done and stayed on the right side of the border between exposing people’s prejudices and indulging in them.
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Gradual Decline

The Badger talks to Sussex comedy group Casual Violence! about black comedy, kitchen-sink dramas and urination

Hannah: Okay so I’m here to talk to you about  the Gradual decline of…

James: The Gradual decline of a previously tight family unit in the face of economic hardship: A comedy.

Hannah:  I’ve read that it’s a spin on a ‘gritty kitchen sink drama’.

Adam: Yes,  really strange irony, my old school is putting on a play  at the same time called ‘Love on the Dole’ with exactly the same story, but it’s serious. Properly going for the heart strings stuff, whereas this is, going for the mole strings.

Hannah:  Can you give a brief synopsis of what happens?

Adam:  It’s based around a family living in Manchester or Newcastle.

James: an unspecified northern place.

Adam:  You’ve got Barry, the big man of the house who loses his job, and the son Mark played by Alex here, whose got no arms or legs and lives in a box.  Probably the most controversial part is  the daughter whose parents are labouring under the misapprehension that she’s got Downs syndrome and are repressing her because of it.  It’s showing each family member’s struggle, but presented in a ridiculous and comic way.

James: With the daughter, it’s looking at  people’s attitudes to that sort of thing (Downs Syndrome).

Adam:  A lot of the comedy that I do is looking at stupidity and ignorance.   The two characters in this play who are disabled or considered disabled are actually  the strongest in the play  and by the end we are invited to  have judgements about the mother and the father.

Hannah: Your comedy  does push limits, it’s quite black but it does have a point.

Alex: It’s not  ‘haha Down’s Syndrome’, it’s portraying attitudes towards it.

Adam:  There isn’t a single joke made at the expense of disabled people.

Hannah: Obviously there’s a fine line, and you should consider how complicit the audience is.

James:  Oh  definitely, it’s all quite dark  and grotesque but we don’t do offensive comedy.

Adam:  But then there’s certain subjects that when people hear, they press the alarm button in their head and go ‘ah, that’s offensive’.

Hannah:  There’s a  delightful quote in an interview that you said about pissing on people’s boundaries.

James: (laughing) no, I said I don’t like to piss on people’s boundaries!

Adam:  That’s a good point.  We don’t like pissing on people, we do like pissing on their boundaries.

James:  I said I don’t like pissing on people’s boundaries!

Alex:  Pissing near people but not actually on them.  Sometimes we splash them.

Hannah:  Nothing actually on your clothes.

James:  When I got interviewed for the first time by the badger about Porn for the Blind  I said I didn’t want to step on people’s boundaries but we’re aware we might be toeing the line, the second for the monologues in October  we said that we won’t completely piss on people’s boundaries and now we’ve said that we’ll piss everywhere and some people might get splashed.

Alex:  Bring an umbrella.

James:  There’s always people  who like to hit the red button though.

Hannah:  A little Daily Mail reader in the corner of the room.

Adam:  It’s the kind of mentality that almost deliberately misses the point.

Adam:  The comedy is dark but it takes a position of ignorance and makes it. look ridiculous.   I actually  once got attacked for mocking stupidity.  I was doing stand-up and some guy got up and  asked me to define stupidity.   What a stupid question.

James:  It kind of proves the point.  You feel vindicated when people have that sort of reaction.  Sometimes when I’ve done sketches  that have been close to the bone, and people pick up on one aspect, you kind of mentally tick them off next to the idiot box.  Comedy is the format where you can play with these sorts of things.

Hannah:  It’s the space on stage where you can articulate certain issues safely.

Alex:  And if you laugh at it, it takes away its power.

Adam:  It’s got to be in a context where that’s obvious though.

Hannah:  I was thinking about Harry Potter, when you get the scary  things in the cupboard.

Adam:  A boggart.

Hannah:  And you’re supposed to laugh at them and they’ll go away.

Alex:  We are the boggart.

James:  Yeah laugh at us and we’ll go away.

Alex:  We’ll hide in your cupboards.

James:  With one play,  Dead as a Dodo, this guy comes to sit next to me and was asking about the comedy group.  There was a flyer for Dead as a Dodo on the table and I showed it to him and he told me that he was from the island where all the dodos were massacred by English and Portuguese soldiers and so found the title quite offensive.  Apparently he hadn’t heard of the saying ‘dead as a dodo’ and later on I caught him downstairs ripping up posters and flyers.  He said that he didn’t understand, why didn’t we call it ‘dead as a doughnut’?  He compared the slaughter of the dodos to the  Nazis killing the Jews in the Holocaust.  The play was actually about the destructive impulses of mankind and how this resulted in the death of the dodo and as soon as I explained this he apologised.

Hannah: Do you have any comedy influences that you use?.

Adam:  Christopher Morris from Brass Eye.  I think TV comedy is dying.  Brass Eye came out eight years ago and that was the last really solid comedy programme. Now you have to look to the internet.  A lot of web animators don’t have the same constraints as they would in TV, and  that’s where the future of comedy is.

‘The Gradual Decline of a Previously Tight Family Unit in the Face of Economic Hardship’

Marlborough Little Theatre, 29th/30th Jan, 8pm, £5

Dial ‘M’ For Murder

The story of a jealous and avaricious husband attempting to commit the perfect murder was retold in a subtle, moderately suspenseful production of the Hitchcockian classic, Dial ‘M’ for Murder. Although adequately managing to ratchet up the tension at points, the play over all proved to be distinctly underwhelming and formulaic, with little evidence of  innovation or original interpretation.

It was a clever use of set design which conveyed much of the silent, slow sense of menace and forboding that the play did manage to achieve.  The use of a swivelling stage, silently rotating as the action proceeded created a subtle sense of disorientation, whilst the deceptively simple use of a red veil like curtain, which would at times move around much as the stage did, added a sinister unease.

An unwelcomely discordant note was struck with the clumsily staged strangling scene;  accompanied by melodramatic music, slightly amateurish ‘gagging’ sound effects, and a badly choreographed and unconvincing physical struggle between   Sheila Wendice (Aislin McGuckin) and the would-be murderer Captain Lesgate (Daniel Hill), I disliked this departure from the effectively disconcerting stillness of the production; rather than making me jump it  made me laugh a little at how silly it was.

The actors on the whole were competent , with distinguishing turns from Richard Lintern as Tony Wendice and  Des McAleer as Inspector Hubbard. One of the more chilling moments of the play occurred when Wendice, after  mistakenly thinking that he had evaded the detective’s suspicion , stood alone on the stage and hugged himself in delight, emitting the creepiest of giggles.

Despite some striking moments however, this revival of Dial ‘M’ for Murder seemed unoriginal and unexciting, more like an imitation of the cinematic version than anything else.

Psychic Sally

An Audience with Sally Morgan, from start to finish, was not as we had expected. Too accurate at points to be completely dismissed but too inaccurate at others to be entirely believed, it was nevertheless  both compelling and uncomfortable throughout.

Arriving with a combination of scepticism and curiosity, the former was heightened by the slick video montage that greeted the  audience at the beginning of the show.   Featuring celebrities emphatically pronouncing their faith in Morgan as a psychic, and footage of some of Morgan’s more dramatic spiritual encounters added a sense of initial cynicism to the proceedings, suggesting as it did a commercially minded production eager to capitalize upon the fame of     Morgan’s more recognizable clients  and the more sensationalist of her readings.

We were surprised then to find Morgan to be personable, sympathetic and unpretentious.  Indeed, the content and format of the show largely contradicted the way in which it was marketed.  Billed as an ‘ an entertaining…theatrical spectacle’ on the flyer, (which also included  a message of thanks from Princess Diana) what unfolded in the Hawth’s theatre was hardly what one might call entertainment, unless it was of the  voyeuristic and macabre sort.

An Audience with Sally Morgan consisted primarily of Morgan sensing spiritual ‘visitors’, usually deceased relatives of members of the audience, who would relay via  the medium  messages  and greetings to  their loved ones  still living on the ‘earthly plane’.  In this respect  it is hard to see the  harm in a medium. If a few members of the audience go away feeling comforted and  reassured, there can be little wrong in that. Like a sympathetic aunt, Morgan offered solace for audience participants, many of whom were clearly still grieving the loss of a loved one

What complicated the situation was the fact that highly private moments of frequently intense grief were played out as public spectacle.  As mere bystanders one felt more intrusive than anything else. One must also consider the vulnerability of those in the audience, who appeared to have  come with the anticipation of communicating with deceased family members and friends. The reality of the impressionability of those with a deep rooted emotional investment in the show is a disconcerting one.

Hannah Guinness and Olivia Wilson