Extraordinary and wonderful to go to Richmond and see something at The Orange Tree. Sam and Auriol were running it when I left drama school. I went so often to see friends. They had a strong audience. It always felt like a small theatre and when I was in my twenties I was trying to only think big. I loved it for my friends and discounted it for me.
Pomona blew the doors off and shifted the audience a little bit. But in the end, you have to put bums on seats, even if they’re aren’t many seats. This is Richmond. This is a London fringe theatre that was trying for decades to preserve muscular texts that are just not being performed these days. You can do new things and make them wonderful, but you have to be careful not to alienate the groundswell of people who pay and know what to expect from a venue. You need a lot of Arms and the Man type shows to bank a Pomona. And you can’t follow it with more Pomonas, you have to bring back familiar stuff to the people who pay, even if you don’t like them.
Henslowe knew this, it is why “The Theatre” was built back in Shoreditch forever ago. You can experiment if they’ve already paid. If you’re on a cart in the town centre and they don’t like it, you starve, so you’re gonna be doing Noah’s Floode until you die. Make ’em pay in advance. No bucket shaking. It’s the model that stuck.
Too much “new” almost buried a theatre that had a die hard audience. It has realised that now and shifted patterns.
I bought my ticket back in December for this show. Every seat in the house was full by now. And it is a Strindberg play: The Dance of Death. Not the easiest sell for a fringe theatre that isn’t known for such things. Like this one.
Our friend Will is in it, from Othello. I realised this is my only window around AFTLS to see him, and he’s working with Lisa who was on my first job. I managed to book it on the right night – AFTLS shows yesterday and tomorrow but coincidentally not tonight. It landed properly, even if I couldn’t have predicted it.
Claire was my plus one. I haven’t been there for ages and haven’t seen her for too long. Sure the audience is fuddyduddy but actually these people pay our bills. And the show was superb. Will is just brilliant. So detailed and clever and unusual. It was only three actors and the other two were brilliant as well if course. I was there for Will but know their stuff.
It is a coup to be directed on the fringe by the likes of Richard Eyre, and everyone rose to it. I like Tom Littler who runs the venue. He’s clever and he’s doing good things with this community venue in Richmond. I’m closer to the theatre by road than by tube – I reckon it I were to work there I’d use a bike. But it is tiny. Chances are small, but not so small I’m not gonna push my energy that way a little bit. It feels like a really special place to work.
AlBarclay 