The Archive
Recordings from September 2009
Total Number of Recordings from this month: 14
- ASIAN THEATRE SPECIAL The novelist Hanif Kureishi and Jatinder Verma, artistic director of Tara Arts, talk to Suman Bhuchar about taking The Black Album from page to stage at the National Theatre - and about multicultural relations during the 20-year period since the Salman Rushdie affair.
“White writers are terrified of the subject of race... And it's a real failing... The theatre is really reactionary in terms of being able to write about what's happening in the post-war period in terms of race.”
- Recording Date: 01-Sep-2009
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- Urban Scrawl: South Kensington, by Tom Morton Smith. Cast: Mark Conway (Mark); Max Hutchinson (Martin); Matthew Brewer (Driver); Lucy Caplin (Mary). Directed by Elizabeth Newman. Studio manager: Tom Cassidy. Recording manager: Marina Caldarone. Recorded at Rose Bruford College. For full details and disclaimer visit the 'find out more' section.
“I used to want to be a brontosaurus. That sounds nuts, doesn't it? Do you think I'm nuts because I wanted to be a brontosaurus?”
- Recording Date: 04-Sep-2009
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- Urban Scrawl: Southgate, by Will Hammond. Cast: Alex Packer (Man). Original music composed by Tom Cassidy. Arranger/Guitar: Matthew Knowles. Guitar: Tom Wasley. Directed by Mel Hillyard. Studio manager: Tom Cassidy. Recording manager: Marina Caldarone. Recorded at Rose Bruford College. For full details and disclaimer visit the 'find out more' section.
“Our footsteps and moaning bellies the only sound around, as we walk the long blue line, raiding little tuck shops all full of now out-of-date magazines and newspapers, their pages ageing and yellowing by the day.”
- Recording Date: 11-Sep-2009
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- INTERVIEW: MAX STAFFORD-CLARK The artistic director of Out of Joint theatre company talks to Suman Bhuchar about his latest project, Mixed Up North, which explores the difficulties of uniting divided racial communities in the Lancashire mill town of Burnley. Recorded at the Bolton Octagon.
“I think education is a word we're scared of in the theatre. 'Education' is a bad word, and 'entertainment' is a good word.”
- Recording Date: 12-Sep-2009
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- ASIAN VOICES: MUZZ KHAN The actor talks to Suman Bhuchar about his involvement with the Out of Joint project, Mixed Up North, which examines the difficulties of uniting divided racial communities in the Lancashire mill town of Burnley. Recorded at the Bolton Octagon.
“I said, You don't know who I am, this is unsolicited but I have to do this play, I have to be seen for it... please let me talk to you about my home town.”
- Recording Date: 12-Sep-2009
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- INTERNATIONAL THEATRE German academic Alex Mangold talks to Norwegian director Christopher Sivertsen about his Awake project, a devised piece by artists from Australia, Japan, Europe and the UK. A former member of the Teatr Piesn Kozla (Song of the Goat), Sivertsen has recently directed a physical theatre version of Antigone at RADA in London, and his Awake youth project has been developed in Glasgow and Sweden. Recorded at CuLTUREN theatre in Vasteras, Sweden.
“You're probably never as awake as you are when you feel you are going to die - which is a contradiction in itself.”
- Recording Date: 13-Sep-2009
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- INTERVIEW: DECYPHER Steven Luckie wraps up his Black Voices special, recorded at the 2009 Decibel showcase in Manchester, by chatting to the Decypher Collective, spoken-word artists who officially opened the event: Evoke, RT, LCB and the Nutty Professor are currently working at the Birmingham Rep.
“It comes down to having a professional mind - 'I'm here to do what I love and get paid for it' - you're not just going in there to start jumping about the place. You have to be professional with it as well.”
- Recording Date: 16-Sep-2009
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- BLACK VOICES: DECIBEL SPECIAL Steven Luckie visits Manchester and talks to Nike Jonah, the Project Manager of Decibel, the biennial cross-arts showcase that displays the 'best work from artists with diverse practice, including those who may have had limited opportunities to participate in the arts'.
“We're in a recession and we've had over 416 delegates registered to come and showcase. It has taken us eight years to get to this stage.”
- Recording Date: 16-Sep-2009
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- INTERVIEW: BENJI REID As part of Steven Luckie's Black Voices special, recorded at the 2009 Decibel showcase in Manchester, acclaimed cross-arts performer Benji Reid explains how he got into physical theatre and discusses key projects, including his attempt to stage A Clockwork Orange at the National Theatre.
“Whenever you work as an artist, if you're not engaged with the artform, then eventually that artform will kill you, because you're selling your soul.”
- Recording Date: 17-Sep-2009
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- INTERVIEW: OSCAR WATSON Continuing his Black Voices special, recorded at the 2009 Decibel showcase in Manchester, Steven Luckie talks to Oscar Watson about the Sustained Theatre network, aimed at 'keeping issues relating to Black, Asian and minority ethnic theatre artists and practitioners alive and in the national debate'.
“One of the things I'm very keen to do is open the door to venues that want to get involved in what we want to do. A lot of venues understand they need to diversify their audiences.”
- Recording Date: 17-Sep-2009
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- Urban Scrawl: Hyde Park Corner, by Ben Ellis. Cast: Helen Schlesinger (Gloria); Hannah Pierce (Kitty); Jofre Belles and Eva Maria Oria (Spanish People); Jofre Belles (Attendant). Directed by Paul Robinson. Studio manager: Malin Mork. Broadcast assistant: Charlotte Eden. Recording manager: Marina Caldarone. Recorded at Rose Bruford College. For full details and disclaimer visit the 'find out more' section.
“We're on an island, aren't we?' 'Of sorts.' 'We'd have to go back through all that history to get off it - dangerous to do anything else.”
- Recording Date: 18-Sep-2009
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- INTERVIEW: JEANIE O'HARE The Royal Shakespeare Company Dramaturg gives a quick curtain-raiser overview of the new Revolutions season at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon. Dominic Cavendish quizzes, with a competing chorus of swans, ducks and geese in attendance by the waterside too.
“There is a big debate on all sorts of levels about writing big plays, about ensemble aesthetics, about international politics.”
- Recording Date: 20-Sep-2009
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- Urban Scrawl: Hounslow West, by Ray Lui. Cast: Jeremy Tiang (Wang); Jason Wong (Li); David Hewson (Busker). Directed by Anthony Biggs. Studio manager: Elayne Hall. Broadcast assistant: Charlotte Eden. Recording manager: Marina Caldarone. Recorded at Rose Bruford College. For full details and disclaimer visit the 'find out more' section.
“Dear God, what a good luck.' 'What is the smell?' 'It's not me, I didn't fart.' 'I mean that good smell.' 'I think it should be from there.' 'Oh my god that's huge.' 'Yes, European is quite different with Chinese in size.”
- Recording Date: 25-Sep-2009
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- REGIONAL THEATRE: SHEFFIELD Actor manager Daniel Evans, new artistic director of Sheffield Theatres, talks to Heather Neill about his upcoming first season at the venue, which opens with his own production of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, plus plays about Muslims, football and Alice, as well as revivals.
“Ibsen's play gives us the tension between the need for public accountability, and how public money is spent, versus a dark, mercenary, profit-seeking drive.”
- Recording Date: 28-Sep-2009
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