Stop Press: The Jack Studio Theatre Is Brilliant

If George Orwell had taken a cue from his essay about what the perfect pub would be like and one day sat down to do the same for the perfect theatre, the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre would be pretty close I reckon.

I’ve spoken before about the Jack before but, to paraphrase, I just wanted to put down in words how wonderful life is ’cause they’re in the world. I came to know them because they put on a play of mine last year as part of their new writing festival, but I had long been looking for a local theatre in SE London to connect with and the Jack has been that for me.  Kate, the Artistic Director, continues to support me and I’m extremely grateful for that help and her wise counsel.

On top of this:

1) They do great work for their area and draw in a massive local audience. Like theatre uniquely can and should.

2) They present plays that rival the quality of bigger, regularly publicly funded venues. Seriously, pretty much everything I have gone to see there has been top notch – personally, it has a better hit rate that Upstairs at the Court.

3) They’re bloody nice (and very funny) people.

They do all this operating on very, very slim margins so – and please forgive if this sounds a little mighty – if you’ve ever found any of my scripts entertaining or useful or just like to reward good people doing good work, then please do take a few seconds to sling a quid or two towards the Jack by clicking here. It’s places like them that keep people like me going and every penny goes to the upkeep to a model theatre that does SE London proud. Better yet, get down and see a show. Let me know what – I’ll come with.

Cheers. I’ll be quiet now.

Aftermath

It’s the last performance of Bump today and I’m, well, quite sad actually. Not because I won’t have a play running (though that is always nice) but because I’ve become attached to the production. It really is an actors’/director’s play and Tanith, Gopal and Tim came through for me in a big, big way. At the Q+A on Thursday I thanked the Brockley Jack for having me as part of the festival, stating it to have been one of the best things that have happened to me. It’s true, but it so nearly wasn’t to be. Basically, Tanith picked and fought for Bump right from the start and I’m delighted that her faith has paid off with a play that’s getting great feedback.

Bump has surprised me in a couple of ways. There are some moments in the play I didn’t think about much when I wrote them that I now love. Similarly, variations and line intentions that the actors brought to the piece I have now “baked” into the script. Once it gets to a certain point, good actors are much better are feeling the moments than you are.

Though I don’t believe I’ll write another play quite like Bump, I’m relieved that people I love finally got to see some of my work. The most common response I’ve had is also my favourite: “I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much.”

I know I’m not going to be the next Pinter/Beckett. With my theatre stuff, I really just want to try give people something to enjoy – giving them that for one hour when the other twenty three might be horrid makes it worthwhile to my mind. And you never know how many hours they’ll spend thinking about what they saw.