“Pinchbeck is such an interesting theatre-maker” — The Guardian
“It’s a rich display of aesthetics” — Exeunt Magazine
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“Subtly performed and cleverly creates theatre in absentia” — Total Theatre
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“The Beginning asks us to reassess how we watch a play” — The Stage
Live blog from Sampled 12
The shows have been continuing, and we’re struggling to keep this live blog updated enough when there is so much going on. I’ve just come out of Michael Pinchbeck’s The Beginning which has left me questioning. Lots of questions, about the relationship between performer / audience, about the work of theatre itself. We’ve just interviewed Michael about his work. His tips for starting out in theatre: “See as much as you can, and talk to artists. When you attend a festival, make sure you talk to people”. Michael started his work in amateur dramatics, and he said that this was a great place to begin to develop his skills as a performer. Our conversation (which was filmed, so expect a clip on YouTube), covered lots of ground to do with being an outsider and how you look at work. As he makes work he remembers all the pieces that have come before it, and all the pieces that he has seen. They all influence his work, the weave, and work their fibres into what he is creating now. The Beginning is the start of a piece (kind of given in the name, but it seems like it needs to be mentioned again), it starts at the beginning of a performance, and looks at the rules and invisible contracts that the performer / audience share. Pinchbeck addresses these invisible contracts and pushes them into the main space. It’s really easy to see this now that I’ve spoken to him about it. In the piece itself, it leaves you questioning, laughing with questions and being bemused with questions. Nothing wrong with that, it’s a good healthy feeling. A feeling that we shouldn’t just sit and be an audience, we can be so much more.
Jake Orr
I was born on Mill Road in Cambridge at a hospital that no longer exists. I found this out before presenting The End at Anglia Ruskin University recently. We were performing in the Drama Studio off Mill Road and, when I told my parents, they said ‘That’s where you were born’. In The End, I say: ‘I’m standing where I started. You see I’ve been here before’. Usually, wherever we’re performing is somewhere I’ve performed before, so I say: ‘Last year or maybe the year before that’, and name the years I’ve toured there. I’ve never performed at Anglia Ruskin before, so I said: ‘I was born here’ instead.
Recently, we’ve been performing at theatres before they close because of the current climate. We were the final act on the bill at The Greenroom last year and Leeds Met Studio Theatre this year. And as we performed, I could tell the audience were not only watching our show, but all the shows they had ever seen there, all the ideas that were ever born there. I felt both the honour and the responsibility of standing on a theatre’s stage for the last time. I thought about retiring after The End but I couldn’t keep my promise. I didn’t want to stop making work at a time when some people might not have had the choice.
I got into theatre because of amateur dramatics. Amateur comes from the Latin for ‘to love’ and a lot of people meet and fall in love through amateur dramatics. Often when you read the programme, everyone has the same surname. My parents met in 1970 after an amateur production of The Sound of Music. My dad didn’t have a lot of lines but he wore a lot of make up. The male chorus rewrote the songs backstage to sing at a post-show party but, while they were singing, a man collapsed and died. I made a show about it with my parents, The Post Show Party Show, and we went on tour together. At the beginning of each show, we would tell the audience what the venue was in 1970. At The Junction, my Dad said: ‘In 1970, this theatre didn’t exist’.
The theatre where I first performed doesn’t exist. It’s been knocked down. I was in a college production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream there in 1992. I played Mustard Seed. I didn’t have many lines but I wore a lot of make up. Now, 20 years later, I’m revisiting the same play for The Beginning. In the show, I talk about the birth of my children and reflect on what it means to begin a career, a relationship or a life. I’m working with Nicki Hobday and Ollie Smith for the first time, so it’s the beginning of our relationship too. We’ve practised playing the guitar, we’ve learnt how to mix Pastis and we’ve kissed a lot. We’re looking forward to beginning again at Sampled. A festival that definitely exists.
