Oral Histories

I did a production of Room on the Broom, which Roman Stefanski came to see. I’d heard of Polka before, it’s one of those institutions which if you’re connected with theatre, you know. But I’d never been before. Charlie and Lola was on, and I had three friends who were in in, so I said let’s go and see it. (Of his daughter) She can’t have been a year, because I remember being still hazy with lack of sleep and not really knowing what’s going on. So she sat on my lap and watched this show, and it was just incredible. I’d never seen it before. She was really into Charlie and Lola at the time, She really got it and seeing her really enjoy that kind of connected with me, There was one beautiful bit in the show where Lola tries to do a magic trick, and the trick goes wrong, she’s all sad, and then she kind of believes in herself – and they drop paper butterflies from the roof, coming down among the audience; and I just burst into tears! I hadn’t slept much, in my defence, but I was just like agog, looking at this thing, I was so moved by it, and I was like, you know what, this place is where I want to be. And from then I stalked Roman [laughs], I wrote emails, I saw a few more shows, and on the back of Room on the Broom Roman asked me to do another Charlie and Lola, not at Polka but as part of the Pleasance Christmas. And then in 2012, John Wood asked me to be in Wind in the Willows, which was my first Polka venture, just the culmination of so many brilliant things. I was Ratty in that production, and I just loved every day. I’m not sure if it’s the perfect show, people have different views, but I just loved it. It was a superb cast, it was well told, beautiful music, I made some great friends, and I really connected with it, I was just – ‘I’m not moving from this place, you can try and move me but every show that’s on here I want to be in! And that came full circle in February last year with The Wind in the Willows again, same script, with Roman directing, it was like a beautiful strange arc. Totally different show, different experience but I loved everything about it. To go from Ratty being quite serious, he’s the sensible one, to engage with that, then to come back to the same script and be told he’s the complete opposite [laughs]. Children – for me they are the perfect audience for any kind of theatre. One reason why I keep coming back to it, and people ask ‘why do you like children’s stuff?’ – it’s because it’s theatre that’s pure, theatre at its best. You have to be so good, you’ve got to be on it, there’s no space. I’ve worked for certain companies who shall remain nameless! And there’s a thing like ‘oh it’s just for kids, that’ll do, throw some glitter at it, it'll be fine’ – and it’s nothing. There’s no heart there. Children I do theatre for – there’s that trust, that magic, they come in and say ‘you’re going to tell me a story. I’m willing to listen to this story.’ And if you do it right, it’ll be the best story they've ever heard, and they’ll come back, they’ll want to come back. You don’t always get it right, of course, but they’ll have that connection. If you get it wrong, you’ve let that child down. I guess in the adult theatre world the closest thing is pantomime. In Panto it’s a family thing, you try and hit the whole room, whether it’s children, it’s grandma, whoever it is, you need that level of engagement – I think there’s a lot of crossover from children’s theatre that people don’t appreciate. Parents come to see a show with their child, it’s not a baby-sitting service, they don’t throw the child in the room and say, you watch that and I’ll pick you up in a minute; you want whoever’s in that room to be in that story, parents with the child – all of them watch this together. Panto’s a very similar thing. Some of my favourite shows at Polka are the shows where the tickets are funded for underprivileged schools; you get schools from areas, generally locally but they've never been to theatre before. They’re a little bit older, and they’re so raucous and so loud – if you’re in a good show, it’s a delight, that level of energy, kids shouting out when your character does something ‘don’t do that!’ They’re so involved – none of it’s aggressive, none of it's bad, they’re so invested in the story and who you are, the character, they don’t want you to get in trouble or do something wrong. Or when you beat the bully they’re over the moon, or when you’re in trouble… They don’t know the rules, they haven’t heard the rules yet, and they’re the best ones, because anything can happen. If you go to see Hamlet at the National, you don’t enjoy yourself, you sit in silence, at the end you clap, and you leave and have a whinge about it in the bar. But in Polka, or in schools, or wherever it is, with a young audience, if they like what you’re doing they will let you know, but similarly if they don’t like it, they will say to you ‘this is rubbish, why are you doing that?’ So you have to be on your game all the time, and hitting all the right notes, if you drop the ball you’re in trouble, because a child or young person, they won’t believe you, they’ll say ‘why are you telling me that?’ It’s such a privilege to be in that position, where with someone who's never been to this place before, never seen this medium before, will trust me to deliver this performance. It’s such a buzz. The thing about Polka is there are so many brilliant people involved, so many brilliant productions – I could go on all day. I’ve been really lucky in terms of who I’ve got to work with, the level of shows I’ve been in, the amount of people who've seen me in things, who’ve said nice things – people whose opinion I trust. One of the things I do enjoy is that a lot of what we do is adapted from existing texts - and the shows’ authors like to get involved; and I’ve met some incredible people just by virtue of my job, I’ve met Philip Pullman, Lauren Child, Piers Torday – I’ve tried to get books signed for the girls [his daughters] and say to them, this is your legacy! The playwrights that we work with, the different teams, are brilliant people and write some great stuff – it’s a privilege. I think adapting is a different skill; people who can take these well-known texts and adapt them into something unique and special, to a different level. Kenneth Grahame had no idea what was going to happen with his book! So what year it is, to do something different and think about how it relates to now, and world events. I think that’s a really good skill. In terms of venues for young audiences – London is pretty well off, but you go out of London and there’s not that level of investment. You’ve got the MacRobert space in Stirling, which I love performing at, you’ve got The Egg in Bath, you’ve got Polka and the Unicorn, but nationally – there are so few venues as a place, as a community hub - there should be Polkas everywhere!