Hello and welcome to Cultured. On Sunday, where theatre takes centre stage this week.
David Whetstone has been talking to Peter Flannery and watching rehearsals for Our Friends in the North: The Thatcher Years, ahead of its opening at Newcastle Theatre Royal on October 15.
He’s also been finding out about It’s a Wonderful Us, a moving new production from Lawnmowers Theatre Company which has been years in the making.
Meanwhile, we meet Neave Farry, the young music champion choosing six North East acts for Grainger Market Unplugged as part of the Mercury Prize Fringe.
And our bookshelf recommendation is inspired by tonight’s Durham Book Festival event featuring Christopher Eccleston and poet Jo Clement, as we revisit Tony Harrison’s The School of Eloquence.
Happy Sunday!
Old friends, new chapter
Being a ‘fly on the wall’ in a rehearsal room can be unsettling and that’s certainly the case at Newcastle’s Live Theatre where one of the most eagerly awaited shows of the autumn is taking shape.
A key scene in the latest manifestation of Our Friends in the North involves a confrontation between Geordie, one of the four main characters, and Soho porn king Benny Barratt.
It crackles with menace. “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?” smirks Barratt as his towering henchman scrutinises Geordie’s every move.
Actor Chris Connel can do menace like falling off a log, making Barratt’s affable chit-chat a clear sign of imminent violence… and yet, this being a rehearsal, he’s suddenly off script, joking as Chris rather than Benny.
Geordie, played by Scott Turnbull, is clearly in for it. But when the duffing up comes, it’s played over and over again, director Jack McNamara working with the actors to get it right.
There’s humour in a carefully choreographed mauling and Scott, picking himself up off the floor for the umpteenth time, is alert to it. But in spite of the banter, he’s up for playing the victim one more time.
The attention to detail and the jovial atmosphere in the room, packed with the technical staff and every member of a big cast, bodes well for a show due to open at Newcastle Theatre Royal (this being a co-production) this month.
Hundreds of miles away down south, writer Peter Flannery is finally able to revel in the revival of a story which has been with him for more than 40 years, ever since he was resident writer at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1980.
The Support Act takes the lead
Six North East acts are preparing to play Newcastle’s Grainger Market as part of the Mercury Prize Fringe. But the event is also a big opportunity for the young music champion who has handpicked them.
Neave Farry has spent years seeking out emerging North East musicians, interviewing them, reviewing their gigs, helping them find an audience… while signposting music fans to what might be their next favourite act.
Now the 26-year-old County Durham music champion has been given the chance to choose who gets on stage, having been invited to programme Grainger Market Unplugged as part of this year’s Mercury Prize Fringe.
The event is part of a week-long programme of more than 30 events leading up to the Mercury Prize ceremony at Newcastle’s Utilita Arena on October 22.
Taking place in Newcastle on Saturday, October 17, the day-long gig will feature six acts selected by Neave, whose music platform The Support Act has become a familiar presence on the region’s grassroots music scene.
It’s a new opportunity for someone who already spends much of her spare time at gigs, behind a microphone or interviewing musicians on stage.
“Promoter is a new word that’s being used to describe me, which is taking a bit of getting used to - but I’ll happily take it,” she laughs.
Play born of tears and laughter due for Newcastle premiere
A special play that’s been a long time in the making is to be premiered at Northern Stage this month – and it would be a surprise if didn’t elicit a tear or two.
It began years ago, pre-Covid, and sad circumstances have seen it evolve from the originally intended piece of documentary (or verbatim) theatre into something more magical and free-ranging.
The title, It’s a Wonderful Us, gives a flavour of it, with its shades of film director Frank Capra’s much-loved screen favourite.
It had a brief, exploratory run in the studio at Live Theatre three years ago under its original title, Without Us, when one audience member deemed it “a totally outstanding piece of work and beautiful in its complexity”.
But even then it had been four years in development and things have moved on. Writer and director Steve Gilroy explains that he changed the title as the nature of the piece changed.
“It’s a bit of a corollary to It’s a Wonderful Life, I suppose, asking the question: What’s the value of a life?”
Northern Stage, where the play in its finished form begins its tour, describe the play as a “funny and heartfelt show that traces one man’s journey with learning disabilities”.
Steve takes me back to the beginning, to his suggestion to fellow board members of The Lawnmowers, the Gateshead theatre company run by and for people with learning difficulties, that he initiate a documentary piece.
A slightly different bookshelf recommendation this week, inspired by an event at Durham Book Festival tonight.
Christopher Eccleston and Darlington-born poet Jo Clement are joining the Working Class Library podcast for a live discussion of Tony Harrison’s The School of Eloquence.
Published in 1978, the collection explores class, language and Northern identity, themes which remain as relevant as ever.
The event, hosted by Richard Benson and New Writing North chief executive, Claire Malcolm, marks a year since the acclaimed poet’s death and offers a timely reason to discover, or revisit, the work of one of the North’s most distinctive literary voices.