Will Mortimer

Finalement

On the 19th May 2016, Full Frontal Theatre Company debuted our first production ‘The Magpie & The Yorkshireman’. The response we got was incredible, with some truly amazing feedback. I can honestly say that I have never been so proud of a performance I’ve been involved with. Of course, as with any performance there are definitely aspects that could be improved. Personally, I know that I definitely skipped a few lines in Scene V, and that affected the flow of the dialogue. The performance was the closest we had ever stuck to the script, and whilst it went really well, I would like to add more playfulness and spontaneity to future productions. This was such a vital part of the rehearsal process, and for that to have translated to a live performance would have been incredibly satisfying. That being said, every member of the company gave it their all and I could not be more proud.

(Phil Crowe, 2016)

Forming Full Frontal

We decided on the name Full Frontal Theatre Company for a multitude of reasons. We want to be brave with our comedy and performances in general, baring all for the audience to see. We state in our mission statement that ‘We want to peel away the skin of seriousness to reveal the core of comedy theatre’, a ‘nude’ approach to comedy. Also, the connotations of the words Full Frontal suggest a level of crassness that very much sums up our theatre company.

We began our creative process by brainstorming the types of theatre, film, and television that we enjoyed most. Comedy, in its many forms, featured prominently in our discussions, and we decided very quickly that whatever it was we ended up performing, we would attempt to make it comical. We were initially torn between staging an existing script, and writing our own. Lee Meachen, Danny Smith and I met up to discuss ideas and influences, and collectively our biggest three were the filmography of Quentin Tarantino, traditional British sitcoms like ‘Only Fools and Horses’ and ‘Blackadder’, and modern American TV comedies such as ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’, and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. We decided that, whatever we did, we would draw on these three to attempt to create a fairly unique show.

It was around this time that a mutual friend of ours showed us an old newspaper article about the IRA’s failed assassination attempt on Margaret Thatcher in 1984. Whilst the situation was tragic, involving loss of life, there were parts of the story that we thought had elements of comedy in, and it was from those elements that our show was born. The first thing we did was create the character of Brian Marsden, the titular Yorkshireman, the head of the YRA (The Yorkshire Rebel Alliance), whose motivation for attempting to kill Thatcher was the closing of the mines in 1985. We collectively wrote the first draft of the prologue, and pitched it to the rest of the group the next day.

‘30th of July 1966. The day England won t’ world cup.

16th of August 1977. The day Elvis Presley were found dead.

The 3rd of March 1985. The day ‘Dead or Alive’ hit number one wi’‘You Spin Me Round’. The day Mr. Chadha Patel opened his corner shop. The day little Jenny from down’t road learnt how to ride her bike. [Pause] The day ‘t unions failed. The day ‘t strike ended. The day my faith in my country died.

I woke up. Same routine – I thought. Same shower. Same kiss on ‘t cheek, Same old-school sweetheart. I walked down stairs, same breakfast, again. Same cup. Same cuppa. Nowt wrong wi’ a good cuppa tea. No sugars. Not milky. There was an air in ‘t house. An air of anxiety, of fear, of sadness. I gave our lass one last kiss   before I left t’ house. Shut t’ door behind me. I walked down ‘t   street and met Dennis Bright, we always had a good laugh.  [Pause] Not today. We didn’t speak. We walked. Slowly. In silence. Ready for a storm that were bound to come. We got there. To ‘t pit. Mines were darker than they’d ever been before.

I watched as me countrymen, me friends, my brothers, gave up our way of life. I watched as we were forced out un mines by ‘t rule un iron fist. I watched as ‘t North was crushed. The day that ‘t south sat by and watched while ‘t north suffered. [Pause] A police force. A barrier. A stab in my heart.

And that is why I’m gonna kill Margaret Thatcher.’

The Process

Moving forward, we created a group of characters and a comprehensive timeline of the events of the play. We then divided this into rough scenes, and allocated each scene to a different member of the company to write. After these rough scene drafts were complete, it became evident that we needed someone to take charge of the writing process, in order to make the text more cohesive, and to give it a singular narrative voice. We decided that I should take on the role of Dramaturge, as one of the three creators of the idea without a prominent secondary role (Danny is part of our Marketing Team and Lee is our Assistant Stage Manager). I’d always been interested in writing, with writers such as Quentin Tarantino, David Mamet and Terence Winter being personal inspirations to me, and I found the Dramaturgy to be one of the most rewarding parts of the entire experience.

Our approaches to the comedic nature of the piece changed enormous amounts throughout the process. One day it was a black comedy. Then an absurdist comedy. Then a traditional sitcom. This wasn’t due to any sort of tension or creative differences, we all just enjoy such a variety of comedy that narrowing it down was tricky. We decided to use Farce as our framework (very loose framework), with elements of other genres throughout in order to create a piece that reflected our sense of humour.

As the Dramaturge, my biggest concern with the piece was plot and narrative. As well as creating a comedic piece, our main aim was to tell a compelling story, with each character having an arc throughout the play, and each relationship being relevant and aiding the plot. This meant that, whilst the overarching plot of Brian’s assassination attempt remained constant throughout the process, the other characters subplots changed drastically. Initially, the plot concerned an all female team of assassins also trying to murder Thatcher, but quickly they evolved into having romantic relationships with the established male characters, in order to make the piece more akin to that of a traditional British sitcom. However, we were very concerned with not making the Women side characters that served to only further the Men’s plot, so we spent a lot of time fleshing out the characters of Jean, Annie and Phyllis, giving them each their own story arc. In the end it was the character of Jean that was the most crucial to the plot, with her miscarriage being Brian’s main motive for attempting to kill Thatcher.

As mentioned previously, the piece changed dramatically, and one of our biggest challenges was Tina. Tina was Jones’ wife, and the only actual assassin in the play. Basically, she was a remnant of our very first idea for the story, a remnant that I (quite selfishly) did not want to give up. I spent hours and hours ripping my hair out trying to fit her into our ever developing story, until it was suggested to me that we simply cut her out. This was a huge lesson for me, that being precious about something does not always pay off, and just because I’d put in a lot of work, does not mean that an idea should come to fruition. In fact, but emitting Tina, we had far more time to develop the character of Phyllis, making her one of the funniest characters in the final production.

Acting

When approaching the character of Jones, I started by making a HUGE mistake. Good start. I thought that as I had created the character, and overseen the writing of the play as a whole, that I already understood the character, and that I didn’t need to do any table work. How wrong I was. After the first week of rehearsals it was very clear to me that I had a lot of work to do. I started with John Abbott’s list of questions. Here is a sample.

What is your full name? Jack James Jones.

Do you have a nickname? Yeah I do, people call me Jones. Jonesy. Jonesy boy. Whatever.

How did you get your nickname?    There’s so many Jack Joneses in our family, we’re all called different names. Uncle Jim, Uncle John, Uncle J. Jones just stuck I guess. No idea how the little prince managed to keep his actual name, but whatever.

How old are you? 24.

How does your age affect your feelings about yourself? Feelings about myself? I ain’t no bloody poof. Bet Jack answered this question better though. Bloody whoopsie.

Who are your closest relatives? Me’ old dear’s still going. Dad died when I was a kid. There’s my sister Jill, and my nephew Jack.

How do they affect or influence you? What do you mean? Well my Mum raised me right if that’s what you mean. Jack just gets on my tits most of the time.

What kind of education did you have? Didn’t really go school much. Didn’t see the point. Always been good with my hands so I used to bunk off to go to work. Started smoking when I was 10 so I had to buy fags and sweets somehow didn’t I?  (Abbott, 2012)

(Phil Crowe, 2016)

This really helped me gain an initial insight into Jones. I then began to use Mel Churcher’s ‘Stepping into Role’ technique. I would imagine Jones standing in front of me, down to the most minute detail. What brand of cigarettes were in his pocket? Did he wear a watch? How long does he spend on his hair? I would build up this mental image until it was so strong I could hear him speak back to me. It was my way of immersing myself in the character, and to quote Churcher I could ‘‘see the world from their point of view – as “I”. The needs of the role are your needs. The actions you take will be your actions’ (Churcher, 2011, 19).

Then, throughout the rehearsal process, I employed Stanislavski’s techniques of Units, Actions and Objectives. This was an incredibly effective way of putting all of my character work into the context of the play. This was possibly the most helpful aspect of the ‘table work’, as very quickly I had a grasp of Jones’ motivations; the reason he does what he does, and speaks to people the way he does.

We worked really hard to have a strong element of playfulness in our rehearsals, and this is where a lot of the comedy in the piece came from. But in regards to acting, the fast and loose nature of the script, and the spontaneity of certain moments allowed me to explore the character of Jones even further, discovering more whilst in the presence of a director that would tell me when to stop (well done Jess).

Works Cited

Abbott, J. (2012). The acting book. London: Nick Hern Books.

Churcher, M. (2011) A Screen Acting Workshop. London: Nick Hern Books.

Forming Full Frontal-29th January

We decided on the name Full Frontal Theatre Company for a multitude of reasons. We want to be brave with our comedy and performances in general, baring all for the audience to see. We state in our mission statement that ‘We want to peel away the skin of seriousness to reveal the core of comedy theatre’, a ‘nude’ approach to comedy. Also, the connotations of the words Full Frontal suggest a level of crassness that very much sums up our theatre company.

A Starting Point!-6th February

We began our creative process by brainstorming the types of theatre, film, and television that we enjoyed most. Comedy, in its many forms, featured prominently in our discussions, and we decided very quickly that whatever it was we ended up performing, we would attempt to make it comical. We were initially torn between staging an existing script, and writing our own. Lee Meachen, Danny Smith and I met up to discuss ideas and influences, and collectively our biggest three were the filmography of Quentin Tarantino, traditional British sitcoms like ‘Only Fools and Horses’ and ‘Blackadder’, and modern American TV comedies such as ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’, and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. We decided that, whatever we did, we would draw on these three to attempt to create a fairly unique show.

A mutual friend of ours showed us an old newspaper article about the IRA’s failed assassination attempt on Margaret Thatcher in 1984 the other day. What we found really interesting was that although this was such a serious situation, we made jokes about it, inventing funny scenarios where Thatcher was in the next room to the explosion and didn’t notice. We knew we were on to something. The first thing we did was create the character of Brian Marsden, the head of the YRA (The Yorkshire Rebel Alliance), whose motivation for attempting to kill Thatcher was the closing of the mines in 1985. We collectively wrote a potential prologue for a play.

‘30th of July 1966. The day England won t’ world cup.

16th of August 1977. The day Elvis Presley were found dead.

The 3rd of March 1985. The day ‘Dead or Alive’ hit number one wi’‘You Spin Me Round’. The day Mr. Chadha Patel opened his corner shop. The day little Jenny from down’t road learnt how to ride her bike. [Pause] The day ‘t unions failed. The day ‘t strike ended. The day my faith in my country died.

I woke up. Same routine – I thought. Same shower. Same kiss on ‘t cheek, Same old-school sweetheart. I walked down stairs, same breakfast, again. Same cup. Same cuppa. Nowt wrong wi’ a good cuppa tea. No sugars. Not milky. There was an air in ‘t house. An air of anxiety, of fear, of sadness. I gave our lass one last kiss   before I left t’ house. Shut t’ door behind me. I walked down ‘t   street and met Dennis Bright, we always had a good laugh.  [Pause] Not today. We didn’t speak. We walked. Slowly. In silence. Ready for a storm that were bound to come. We got there. To ‘t pit. Mines were darker than they’d ever been before.

I watched as me countrymen, me friends, my brothers, gave up our way of life. I watched as we were forced out un mines by ‘t rule un iron fist. I watched as ‘t North was crushed. The day that ‘t south sat by and watched while ‘t north suffered. [Pause] A police force. A barrier. A stab in my heart.

And that is why I’m gonna kill Margaret Thatcher.’

Getting to Work-20th February

The group loved our idea! Moving forward, we created a group of characters and a comprehensive timeline of the events of the play. We then divided this into rough scenes, and allocated each scene to a different member of the company to write. After these rough scene drafts were complete, it became evident that we needed someone to take charge of the writing process, in order to make the text more cohesive, and to give it a singular narrative voice. We decided that I should take on the role of Dramaturge, as one of the three creators of the idea without a prominent secondary role (Danny is part of our Marketing Team and Lee is our Assistant Stage Manager). I’d always been interested in writing, with writers such as Quentin Tarantino, David Mamet and Terence Winter being personal inspirations to me, and I found the Dramaturgy to be one of the most rewarding parts of the entire experience.

Our approaches to the comedic nature of the piece changed enormous amounts over the last few weeks. One day it was a black comedy. Then an absurdist comedy. Then a traditional sitcom. This wasn’t due to any sort of tension or creative differences, we all just enjoy such a variety of comedy that narrowing it down was tricky. We decided to use Farce as our framework (very loose framework), with elements of other genres throughout in order to create a piece that reflected our sense of humour.

Dramaturgy-16th March

As the Dramaturge, my biggest concern with the piece is plot and narrative. As well as creating a comedic piece, our main aim is to tell a compelling story, with each character having an arc throughout the play, and each relationship being relevant and aiding the plot. This meant that, whilst the overarching plot of Brian’s assassination attempt remained constant throughout the process so far, the other characters subplots have changed drastically. Initially, the plot concerned an all female team of assassins also trying to murder Thatcher, but quickly they evolved into having romantic relationships with the established male characters, in order to make the piece more akin to that of a traditional british sitcom. However, we were very concerned with not making the Women side characters that served to only further the Men’s plot, so we spent a lot of time fleshing out the characters of Jean, Annie and Phyllis, giving them each their own story arc. In the end it was the character of Jean that was the most crucial to the plot, with her miscarriage being Brian’s main motive for attempting to kill Thatcher.

Oh, Poor Tina-15th April

Oh Tina. Tina was Jones’ wife, and the only actual assassin in the play. Basically, she was a remnant of our very first idea for the story, a remnant that I (quite selfishly) did not want to give up. I spent hours and hours ripping my hair out trying to fit her into our ever developing story, until it was suggested to me that we simply cut her out. This was a huge lesson for me, that being precious about something does not always pay off, and just because i’d put in a lot of work, does not mean that an idea should come to fruition.

An Actor Prepares-1st May

I haven’t blogged in awhile. The piece has come on leaps and bounds in the last month and i’m really excited to see how it turns out.

When approaching the character of Jones, I started by making a HUGE mistake. Good start. I thought that as I had created the character, and overseen the writing of the play as a whole, that I already understood the character, and that I didn’t need to do any table work. How wrong I was. After the first week of rehearsals it was very clear to me that I had a lot of work to do. I started with John Abbott’s list of questions. Here is a sample.

What is your full name? Jack James Jones.

Do you have a nickname? Yeah I do, people call me Jones. Jonesy. Jonesy boy. Whatever.

How did you get your nickname?    There’s so many Jack Joneses in our family, we’re all called different names. Uncle Jim, Uncle John, Uncle J. Jones just stuck I guess. No idea how the little prince managed to keep his actual name, but whatever.

How old are you? 24.

How does your age affect your feelings about yourself? Feelings about myself? I ain’t no bloody poof. Bet Jack answered this question better though. Bloody whoopsie.

Who are your closest relatives? Me’ old dear’s still going. Dad died when I was a kid. There’s my sister Jill, and my nephew Jack.

How do they affect or influence you? What do you mean? Well my Mum raised me right if that’s what you mean. Jack just gets on my tits most of the time.

What kind of education did you have? Didn’t really go school much. Didn’t see the point. Always been good with my hands so I used to bunk off to go to work. Started smoking when I was 10 so I had to buy fags and sweets somehow didn’t I?  (Abbott, 2012)

This really helped me gain an initial insight into Jones. I then began to use Mel Churcher’s ‘Stepping into Role’ technique. I would imagine Jones standing in front of me, down to the most minute detail. What brand of cigarettes were in his pocket? Did he wear a watch? How long does he spend on his hair? I would build up this mental image until it was so strong I could hear him speak back to me. It was my way of immersing myself in the character, and to quote Churcher I could ‘‘see the world from their point of view – as “I”. The needs of the role are your needs. The actions you take will be your actions’ (Churcher, 2011, 19).

Then, throughout the rehearsal process, I employed Stanislavski’s techniques of Units, Actions and Objectives. This was an incredibly effective way of putting all of my character work into the context of the play. This was possibly the most helpful aspect of the ‘table work’, as very quickly I had a grasp of Jones’ motivations; the reason he does what he does, and speaks to people the way he does.

We worked really hard to have a strong element of playfulness in our rehearsals, and this is where a lot of the comedy in the piece came from. But in regards to acting, the fast and loose nature of the script, and the spontaneity of certain moments allowed me to explore the character of Jones even further, discovering more whilst in the presence of a director that would tell me when to stop (well done Jess).

Works Cited

Abbott, J. (2012). The acting book. London: Nick Hern Books.

Churcher, M. (2011) A Screen Acting Workshop. London: Nick Hern Books.