Mince, mash and a mission: Big Ange cooks up big change at Live Theatre
What can a dinner lady do to right the world’s wrongs? David Whetstone finds out about a new play premiering in Newcastle
For football manager ‘Big Ange’ Postecoglou, sacked by Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest in quick succession, there may be a crumb of comfort to be found at Live Theatre where a play called Big Ange is taking shape.
That he, or at least his nickname, inspired it is the good news.
The bad news (or perhaps not) is that it isn’t about him - or even football.
In a break from rehearsal, writer and director Jamie Eastlake, whose last play Gerry and Sewell did have a football backdrop, explained: “I could have sworn there was a dinner lady called Big Ange at my school.”
If there wasn’t, perhaps there should have been. He scribbled it in his notebook as an idea, the dinner lady who wants to change the world.
Jamie’s imagined Big Ange is a Londoner who fled to the North East 20 years ago and now finds herself trying to make a difference over the mince and mash in a Newcastle school.
“This may be the maddest thing that’s ever been on Live Theatre’s stage,” Jamie had confided as he entered the rehearsal room.
It certainly looked that way with kids leaping about, Joann Condon, as Ange, hollering from her script and Gavin Webster (the Tyneside comedian and actor plays Dirk) standing on a stool, waving his arms about.
But when Live Theatre artistic director Jack McNamara asks: “What have you got?” you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth if you’ve any sense, which Jamie Eastlake, Olivier Award winner, certainly doesn’t lack.
He described Big Ange, the rabbit he pulled out of the hat, as “a really fun night out with lots of dance numbers and popular music, lots of great ‘out there’ characters but with a core that’s relevant to today”.
He sees its relevance in reflecting the divisions blighting society. How can anyone hope to bring people together?
“First you’ve got to stop the fighting between far left and the far right,” he suggested.
“We see in the opening moments Starmer coming to office and then there’s the riots that happened round the country.
“That’s basically the setting. The play is about Ange’s journey and what’s happening now.”
Quite how a Newcastle dinner lady is supposed to solve matters when politicians have failed will be revealed on opening night. All I got was a tantalising glimpse of chaos.
Joann Condon, who will be known to TV viewer for Little Britain and Casualty amongst others, was drawn to Big Ange and threw her hat into the ring before taking her new one-woman show, Little Boxes, to Edinburgh.
Evidently she shone at the audition. Jamie didn’t even know she once played a sumo wrestler in a film, otherwise she might have been a shoo in.
“It was back in 1999 and we trained with the man who trained the British sumo team,” recalled the actress.
“Then I spent four weeks in Doncaster with a very strong group of women.”
A Londoner like Ange, born and brought up in the East End, Joann is in Newcastle for the first time in her life – and, because screen work has dominated her career, appearing in her first stage play for 29 years.
“I’ve had such a great time,” she said. “Everyone’s been so friendly and I’ve loved it.
“The only thing I was shocked by is there are so many hills in Newcastle. I just wasn’t expecting that.”
If Joann represents long experience, 17-year-old Ashen Hazel, making his professional stage debut, is the polar opposite.
But he shouldn’t wilt in front of an audience, having been bitten by the acting bug seven years ago when playing Jeremy, son of inventor Caractacus Potts, in an amateur production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Tyne Theatre.
“I absolutely loved it,” he said.
Born in Newcastle, his father’s work took the family to Denmark when Ashen was a young child and they stayed for six years before going to Nottingham and then returning to the North East eight years ago.
He remembered seeing his sister in a ballet show in Denmark and telling his father: “I want to do that.” So he did for a few years, before getting into musical theatre back on Tyneside.
Ashen said he was directed towards the ensemble role of Boy in Big Ange by a leader of the youth company he attends at the Theatre Royal. “I’m so grateful because I wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t for her.”
Now the cast – six named characters plus an ensemble – are perfecting their lines and getting to grips with their characters.
With Ange being a dinner lady, her world is largely the school.
“I think she’s quite innocent in wanting to save everyone but she’s really focused on the young lads and ensuring they know they can have a future and be anything they want to be,” suggested Joann.
“In certain areas, like the part of London I’m from, there’s such a low glass ceiling that people think they can’t be anything.
“She really wants to say you can. I think she’s just full of love. She knows really that she can’t change the whole world but she can change her bit. She can encourage and inspire the boys.”
But can she? Ashen said there’s quite a bit of politics in the play but a key part is the younger generation being misunderstood.
“Big Ange is trying to give advice and support and lead them in a way she thinks they should be led but it goes horribly wrong.
“We’re our own force of nature and end up taking over a museum. It goes absolutely mental. I’m one of the people Ange wants to help because I’m miserable and angry all the time. She wants to try and change that.”
Ashen said he attends a good school, Emmanuel College in Gateshead. Joann said she believes things have changed for the better since she was at school in the 1970s and 1980s.
Her two children, aged 16 and 11, have been with her in Newcastle for half term, “bringing their colds with them” but also enjoying museum visits.
“My daughter’s got autism and I think her school has really taken that on board and are working with her.
“I went to a Catholic girls’ school and no-one really cared what happened to you emotionally back then so I think there’s been a change for the better in that sense.”
In her Little Boxes show, she reflected on the tendency to map out people’s lives for them, putting them into ‘boxes’ which take no account of talent or aspiration.
It’s something you feel Big Ange would know all about.
What, if anything, she can do about all these problems… well, we’ll have to wait until the play opens at Live Theatre on Thursday, November 6, to find out.
Big Ange runs until November 22 and tickets can be bought from www.live.org.uk or by calling the box office on 0191 232 1232.