When I got an invitation to a Scratch Night in Harrogate I thought, great, it is years since I went to a club with a cool DJ using a couple of decks to create a unique sound – it still is! Apparently, a scratch night in a theatrical context, is an event where writers and performers showcase their work in progress to a panel of experts who then give their advice as to how to improve the pieces. A sort of cross between Dragons’ Den and Britain’s Got Talent.
The panel comprised, from left to right:
Fiona Georgiou Hunt, a writer and creative consultant who has been involved in stage musicals including Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon, Crazy For You and Les Misérables. She has worked in Australia with Sydney Opera House amongst others and in the UK with HOME, Manchester and The Mercer Gallery. She is currently with Screen Yorkshire on their script editing programme.
Daniel Ingram-Brown, an award-winning writer from Yorkshire, whose books include Bea’s Witch, The Firebird Chronicles, Rise of the Shadow Stealers, The Nemesis Charm and Through the Uncrossable Boundary. His theatrical work is as a theatre-maker and drama practitioner specialising in small-scale touring productions.
Porl Cooper, currently Associate Producer at Harrogate Theatre, Producer and Programmer at The Dukes, Lancaster and Programmer for Enable US at the University of Sheffield. His past posts have been with Birmingham European festival; Cast, Doncaster; Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield and The Lowry, Salford Quays. He is this year’s recipient of Writer’s Guild of Great Britain Olwen Wymark Award.
Rachael Halliwell will be a familiar name to my regular readers as a Producer, Playwright and Mentor. My most recent reviews of her work are; The Light House at Leeds Playhouse and the fundraiser, Taking Up Space, at Harrogate Theatre aimed at financing a platform in the performing arts for women over the age of 40. She is currently an Associate Artist at Harrogate Theatre, Elysium Theatre and a Support Artist of Sheffield Theatres. Of the many plays she has produced, directed, written or acted in – sometimes all four at once – I must admit that my favourite is the two-hander in which she, and Leeds actor Cathy Breeze, embarked on a road trip to Scarborough. A kind of Tyke Thelma and Louise, but both travellers returned safely home. Well, it’s Yorkshire, we don’t waste money by driving cars off Flamborough Head!
After highlighting only a small proportion of the experience of the panel, I feel somewhat less than qualified to pass my own judgment on the four pieces presented, but, being totally clueless has never stopped anyone from expressing an opinion, especially me, and the audience were also given a feedback sheet on which to record their thoughts and suggestions so I am not alone.
Throughout the evening we were treated to music from Tony Kirkland, whose songs for the evening were chosen for being biographical and written from the heart.
The evening’s entertainment was introduced by Ellen Carnazza, who is one half of Flights of Fantasy with James Reilly being the other. She is an actor-musician and theatre-maker as well as having worked in communications for Northern Ballet, Assembly Festival and Leeds Heritage Theatres. She has written and produced plays and featured in several films, television commercials, animation voiceovers and radio.
James, after graduating from the University of Lincoln, formed a company called White Noise Theatre which specialises in site-specific, supernatural performances throughout Lincolnshire. He has recently received an Arts Council DYCP grant to develop his practice in clowning. The theatre’s loss is politic’s gain!
The first work to be put under scrutiny was Agnes by Colin Beverage. It was performed by Lucy Mizen, who has been seen in television roles such as The Confession on Amazon Prime, The Full Monty, Disney+ as well as Coronation Street and Emmerdale, ITV, as if you needed telling.
The monologue was set in the streets of Edwardian England and delivered by a Suffragette in hiding from the authorities after taking part in civil disobedience which, in the days before Superglueing yourself to a road or a wall, meant breaking windows. It combined the history of the movement with the tactics of the police and government in dealing with the miscreants, who were initially manhandled – with the odd bit of groping as a bonus – and then treated with more respect as a general election loomed. Their status was also changed from that of political activist to common criminal, thus allowing them to be incarcerated immediately on arrest.
As is the practice on scratch nights, the piece was delivered from a script, although, being a professional, Ms Mizen seemed to have done her homework and a lot of it appeared to be from memory. I found it enlightening and well structured with the right balance of humour. The panel were also full of praise, but brought up a couple of points which had not occurred to me, thus doubling as a training session for this would-be reviewer for his future work.
The second offering was called Lead Me To The Weird Places by Jamhed, a couple of chaps named Joel Dean and Adam Ekin portraying a storyteller – who morphed into The Hermit of Harrogate by donning a purple top hat and green glasses – and the director of his performance.
The panel were obviously being very sympathetic to the acts this evening but in this case I believe that a Simon Cowell or Tony Hatch – one for the oldies there – figure would have benefitted the performers more, so please allow me to fill the void.
Comedy is an odd thing, it either appeals to your sense of humour or leaves you cold. I am afraid that this would have required several layers of thermal underwear just to raise a half-smile. It was of the absurdist school meaning that there was very little wit or sophistication involved, the whole thing being reliant on the incompetence of the reader and its correction by the director. It seemed to want to be in the style of The Play That Goes Wrong but was poorly executed with the reader breaking out into childish laughter after every mistake he made, and there were plenty, all seemingly accidental rather than rehearsed. The thing which really irked me though, was the use of two members of the audience who were brought on stage. The more I reflect on the performance the more I suspect that they were plants. One, a young woman, raced to the front as soon as the request was made, whereas the second, a man on the front row, had to be persuaded. The idea was that, during the reading, the woman performed some mystical movements, at which she was quite good, whilst the man made noises appropriate to the text, such as ‘oooh’ and ‘ahhhh’. The problem was that the reader never paused, so, whilst the siren could continue with her writhing, the man was totally drowned out. The result was humiliation. To my surprise, some members of the audience seemed to find this hilarious, but then people pay a fortune to watch theatrical hypnotists manipulate people into doing things which destroy their dignity, so what do I know, at least, unlike hypnotists, the performers here seemed willing to sacrifice their own along with that of their targets.
Time for a cup of tea and a mind reset.
The second half began with a musical show by Rufus Beckett, called We Go Again, which told the parallel fortunes of Leeds United at the turn of the century with those of Jimmy, a singer who wanted to change the world through his music. Just like the football club, his star waned when the members of his band left to get conventional jobs, just as the players were transferred. After a spell in the wilderness, rather than changing the world, Jimmy became a successful singer covering other artist’s hits, whereas Leeds took a little longer to reclaim their place in the top flight.
The songs, one of which was, naturally, Marching On Together, were well sung and contained a fair amount of humour, as did the prose. My only criticism being that Mr Beckett kept walking in front of the microphone for some of the delivery, which I found made it a bit difficult to hear.
The final piece, Rolling In The Muck by Julie Noble, was concerned with the political situation sometime in the future. It was performed by Ian Jervis, who has played many roles in the West End, including The Phantom of the Opera, Made in Dagenham and Oliver! as well as Our Gate with Harrogate Theatre. Here, he was the Prime Minister who is looking to garner the support of the Northern Independence Party, led by Bonnie – Alex Skarratt, who has taught performing arts for the past 17 years as well as appearing in productions such as Guys and Dolls, Singing In The Rain and Our Country’s Good. The title refers to the public schoolboys’ practice of seeing who could sleep with the poorest girl. It seems that old habits die hard as the PM makes an exceedingly clumsy attempt to make a pass at Bonnie, who, it turns out, is his daughter by a previous conquest, and she has a letter from him to her mother to prove it. There follows a spell of verbal sparring, and copious drinking on his part, until the denouement. The Prime Minister’s assistant is played by the aforementioned Ellen Carnazza.
The writer is an award-winning author and has presented My Name is Julie on Radio 4. She is currently working with Live Theatre Newcastle on a new play.
So, three out of four ain’t bad, and I trust that we all came away from the event having learned something. I must sort out an evening in a club though because, in the words of Kaiju Haiku in the sample on Malcom McLaren’s Buffalo Gals, all that scratchin’ is making me itch.
Feature image provided by Flights of Fancy
Photographs by Stan Graham. I apologise for the poor quality but I chose to sit at the back of the room so had to use a long zoom in artificial light.
Tyke It To The Limit 