Changed For Good

 When covid hit and we were faced with the bizarre reality of being confined to our homes none of us could have guessed quite how long those "strange times" would last. When the theatres went dark in March 2020 it's hard to recall now that there was a belief that they'd be closed for a couple weeks, whereas of course in reality those weeks quickly turned to months. I remember the excitement of taking my children to watch a drive-in Dinosaur show after months of nothing. As my children looked on in amazement and wonderment I distinctly remember sitting in the driving seat shedding a 'happy tear' just to watch a company of actors being able to work again.

Even though this is very much our recent history it already feels like a lifetime ago that I was in my kitchen doing the homeschooling with my eldest prior to rushing online to check in with the college. I remember telling one of my students who was struggling with the lockdown that once it was all over, it would be like returning home from touring - it would be like we'd never been away. Normal life would just trundle on as it always does we'd just be a bit more knowledgeable about ourselves, as anything away from the ordinary is bound to influence our future self.

As I've said before I'm writing a book about The MTA at the moment, and it's fascinating sketching out the pandemic chapter - how quickly we all adapted and changed in a bid to ensure that no time was lost.

Of course, the reality is that covid is still very present, whether it's a random positive test, a reminder to wear your mask in certain settings, or for so many people the debilitating legacy of long covid symptoms lingering on like a bad memory unable to be 'filed' away as finished. Recently I was chatting to someone that was telling me quite how many friends they've lost recently, friends that prior to covid were young and healthy. For many the explosion of sudden deaths fits nicely into the anti-vax rhetoric, it feeds the paranoia that the pandemic left the world with. Of course in reality (and according to multiple peer-reviewed papers now), the reasons for the excess deaths are somewhat complex. A mixture of a global population that was exposed to a deadly virus (it was never a bad cold), leaving more people than we realise with ticking time bombs as the virus goes for one more mutation, plus a global population that stopped routine appointments, meaning that early warning symptoms have been missed.

2 years on our industry is struggling to find its way forward as I wrote about a few months back. Pre-covid the thought of a show being cancelled was just unthinkable. The adage "the show must go on" was our lived reality, post covid though there are no such guarantees. Even at the college level of producing shows it was terrifying how quickly things could change.  All of The MTA's shows since March 2020 were hit in one way or another by a covid outbreak and each time it gave me sleepless nights trying to work out the logistics. . . and that's without the pressure of needing to break even, so hats off to all producers muddling through this strange time.

As the UK lurks from one crisis to another though there's one thing that's struck me recently - how so many people and indeed so many organisations didn't actually "evolve" during the past 2 years, and how right up to the government there appears to have been a naive belief that we would all simply recalibrate back to a pre-pandemic time.  I'm bemused how so many people have missed the evolution and therefore have failed to plan for it.

Take our industry - the constant cancelling of shows has a profound knock-on effect on our audiences. Even as somebody in the industry I hesitate now to book a ticket too far in advance, I'd rather wait and take my chance on the day that I want to go, yet in making this choice I'm also mindful that there are producers needing to see an advance ticket sale. I'm assuming that time and time alone will restore a much needed equilibrium to this, but I also wonder whether from hereonin the show won't go on? 

Whilst our perceived reality pre-2020 was that things were somewhat fixed eg you'd book a holiday and assume that your flight would happen, we now find ourselves in a world full of uncertainty, and I'm curious how that permeates throughout society. 

Speaking recently to some business owners I was struck by their optimism that things would "soon get back to normal" but they seemed to have missed the point entirely that normal in 2022 has a different complexion from normal 2019. It should be noted that not all the changes are bad, take zoom life for example, the fact that the pandemic normalised video conference calls as opposed to traipsing here, there and everywhere for meetings that often took a fifth of the time to travel to places is revolutionary for personal time management. As a parent of young children the normalisation of hybrid working is a game changer, but I can also recognise that this change has the potential to change the city landscape for good.

We lived online for over a year - that is bound to change us all. I've definitely noticed that my concentration span is much shorter these days. I sense myself metaphorically scrolling through information said in person to me with a sense of undue urgency. With online life comes the pros and cons of social media, the artificial divide that's created when we all unwittingly believe a truth just because somebody wrote it down and posted it.

What will it mean for the training industry this fast-scroll life that now exists as a shop window to dance and drama training. Well I think that we've already seen a shift. It's no coincidence that some of the newer colleges that hit the ground running with their brilliant social media campaigns of commercial videos have done considerably better than the "old guard" colleges over recent years. The rapid growth of quite a few of them has been fascinating to watch. As with all these things only time will tell if they're actually any good. It'll be interesting to see their stats over the next few years to find out the quality of that growth. Alternatively of course there's my other theory that elite training is on its way out, and bulk "life training" is on its way in. When training hundreds at a time there will always be enough clickbait to mute the fact that the majority of students don't do that well. 

As for waiting for things to settle down and go back to "normal" though. . .we all have to accept that "normal" has always been a moveable point.

Who are we lying to? The covid fightback continues

 Our industry's ecosystem is broken - from the ground up it's all gone pear-shaped. There was so much hope (ironically) back in 2020 when everything closed that when we returned, we would fix everything that was wrong. Of course, that was extremely naive and ambitiously optimistic, but it did feel like our best chance to reassemble and re-evaluate how our industry had limped through the last few years prior to the pandemic.

Fast forward two years and so little has changed. There are more angry voices calling out inequality in the industry, but no finance to address how we open up our industry to all. So for sure, there are more opportunities, but very often we don't have the talent coming through to give the opportunities too. We don't have the talent because the funding around training is worse than ever, and the outreach programmes aren't effective enough to create a real change in the landscape.

We spoke about how 'the show must go on' probably wasn't the best practice that we all thought that it was, then the theatres creaked back open and (some) producers desperate to keep the industry alive exploited the motto more than ever. As swings and understudies got lauded, dance captains and associates were buckling under the pressure of yet another cut show and more rehearsals than we'd ever had before (straight off the back of no work for 2 years). The landscape had changed and the unthinkable was now a regular occurrence - shows would cancel a performance, often leaving audiences out of pocket and slightly scared to rebook. . . yet.

The landscape is still so sparse to what we were used to pre-pandemic, and in spite of so many people leaving the industry during the dark times, colleges with their ever-growing populations kept churning out thousands of graduates eager to work and determined to stay the distance, whilst industry stalwarts that usually managed to stay afloat were suddenly left on the sidelines with them waiting for things to really take off again.

Throw in the real impact of Brexit and the lack of opportunities for performers to now work abroad - the cruise ship industry is still buckling under covid, and for the few jobs that there are available, an EU passport is now as valuable as a good turn out or a top-class voice reel.

In the UK we've finally named that the touring model is deeply flawed from digs to pay - but what's the answer? People are tired of things being hard.

2 years of hardship and people's resilience is low. Those 2 years stole more than our work, for many the pandemic stole their identity. As a vocational industry so many of us identify as our jobs - this is a personal choice not endorsed by the industry, but a reality of a lifetime of dreams getting fulfilled.  So many of us made the career choice at a stupidly young age that it somehow became a constant in our lives - until that fateful day in 2020 when our industry closed down.

The successful amongst us saw their life savings dwindling away to nothing. In technical theatre literally hundreds of 'us' realised that their skills were transferable, and more than that, were transferable in industries that naturally treated their staff better. Shorter working hours, larger paycheques, financial security. The talent drain amongst our technical theatre community is staggering.

We returned saying that we would look after each more carefully, but that hasn't happened, in fact, quite the opposite, we've returned more self-centred than ever, after all . . . all of 'this' could simply be snatched from us again. We have to look out for No 1 now.

As the person that started #time4change, the very first campaign for a better understanding of mental health and mental illness in the industry way back in 2016 the regression is clear. I mean the narrative and social media click baits are more on-message than ever. If you only studied theatre twitter you'd think that we'd had a revolution of understanding - but of course, the reality is different. People STILL can't differentiate between mental health and mental illness, now illness gets celebrated as opposed to people being encouraged to go and seek out help. A couple of schemes and an increase in mental health first aiders was not the revolution that I'd hoped for 6 years ago.

Take mental illness out of the picture and just focus on mental health and we've come back worse than when we left it. Now your resilience is tested because you should be grateful to be in a job - the cruise industry is currently a great example of this dangerous narrative. People on shows are working longer hours than ever (the joy of the covid cut show), for less money than ever. Less money adds to the everyday stress which was already hugely present for most freelancers during their non-funded pandemic. Companies are struggling so those invoices are being paid later than ever. The stress on the individual is huge (it should be noted on both sides of the table - as producing stuff during this time is a heart attack waiting to take hold).

All of the above will eventually sort itself out, but it would be a damn sight more healthy if the struggle was named more openly if people were supported during their wobbles and if companies focused on individuals as much as their accounting software.

There's still time for the revolution that our industry desperately needs, but first, we all have to breathe, take stock and heal. We have to learn to be kind to each other as we all take the next steps in the resuscitation of an industry that really could be world-class again.

The Working Class privilege

 It's struck me over the past few days about how we view 'other work' in order to survive. Somebody private messaged me off a tweet that I'd put out about the reality of working-class life, to say that they were currently working in a supermarket but they'd be too embarrassed to put that out on social media as they are considered a success in our industry. They weren't ashamed to be working, they just couldn't deal with people's reaction to the fact that they were working.

We know that our industry is dominated by the middle classes. We also sort of understand why - classes are a luxury and whilst they enhance a child's life, they are not as essential as food and water. Therefore in many families, they don't get privileged.

I remember a family member of mine telling their parent in front of me that they wanted to work on stage, and they were shot down in the flames of Welsh reality. "Our sort of people don't live that sort of life, get real, and get a proper job. Stop living with your head in the clouds". That desire was crushed and dismissed as quickly as the sentence was over. The family member went on to have a secure career - who's to say if they're actually happy or not, or whether they secretly still wish that they'd given their dream a chance. In our family, it just wasn't an option. I was the lucky one - my mum believed that we only had one life so we should go for broke from the off. 

For months now I've read how people have been struggling, how people have been petitioning to get more help from the government as, after all, they SHOULD be supporting the arts and our freelancers. Today the hospitality businesses are shouting the same. Where is the help? Indeed at the moment where are ANY jobs to be found. With even the reliable bar work suddenly disappearing under our COVID noses.

Here's the difference though - some people have never expected this to be easy. They've always been grafting away at various jobs in order to make ends meet. They've done that because they've been brought up to understand that that is how you survive in this world. They've understood that nothing in life is free. You put your head down and get on with it. Eventually, things might change, but for now, to survive you have to live in the moment. 

I'm proudly from a working-class background. The bank of mum and dad saved hard and made massive sacrifices to allow me to follow my 'dreams'.  Our holidays were spent for the most part growing up in some random caravan about 30 minutes from where we lived so that my dad could come down after work to join us. As life got a bit easier we upgraded to Butlins where my dad couldn't join us but there was more for the children to do (for free).  Other than those holidays I can't remember a time where as children we went to restaurants. It was only when my father was made redundant did my parents suddenly have a bit more cash to go out and about. Sadly also by this time, my mum was gradually getting ill, so those well-earned outings didn't last that long. I think that they managed about 3 foreign holidays in their lifetime. A tragedy when I think how much enjoyment they both had from them.

However, this upbringing has definitely contributed to my work ethic. You get nothing for nothing in this life. I've never signed on (when that was a thing) because I always had another skill to fall back on, which excluded me from getting a handout. I've cleaned houses, worked a bar, done so many desk jobs I've lost count, and my worse by far - cucumber packing. In other words, I was taught to do whatever I needed to do to survive. I knew that I had rent to pay and I knew that I wanted to eat - so those were my priority. 

Now for the past 20 years or so, I've been really lucky, I haven't had to do those jobs, but psychologically I'm always ready to go back to any of them (well . . . except the cucumber packing, I hated that the most). Even now that I'm a grown-up with children, I don't manage to save. Don't get me wrong we now (usually) manage a holiday once a year, but it literally takes us all year to pay for it. 

My children are no doubt bored of me going on about not expecting to have everything in life. I worry that my grown-up middle-class world will ill prepare them for the realities of life. So I probably go on about it a bit too much.

We all think that we're hard done by. I guess even more now with social media showing us everybody's edited snapshot of life. I'm forever baffled by how many people eat out so regularly or manage to get in at least one holiday a year whilst also proclaiming that they're skint. How the person one day online is proclaiming poverty then the next day they're pictured with their Starbucks? Then I remember the student that once asked for financial support at a college where I was working, only to find out years later that their parents had a couple of properties. They considered themselves skint because they were shelling out for both properties. They didn't think for one moment to sell off an asset in order to support the student. That's probably why that family will always have money and my family won't. I understand that my home is a luxury - let alone if I were in the position to have more than one property.  Or what about the friend that told me that they were so skint they were going to go on holiday to feel better? They weren't lying to me when they proclaimed themselves as skint, they thought that they were. They didn't understand that skint meant no holiday.

Right now the people breathing sighs of relief overseas. They've earned that break and that cocktail because they've been living through the pandemic. They're not being ironic, they believe it. Who am I to begrudge them a break? Then again that's not the point of this blog - it's to remind you that there are socio-economic groups far below you who also need a break, but they don't have the luxury of a holiday (or even an M&S cocktail).  How many times do we hear 'oh but I didn't pay for the holiday, it was gifted to me' so it hasn't cost me a penny? Of course, people say that to alleviate their own well-meaning guilt, but again the reality for the other classes is that they can't afford the break from work. Even if they were offered an all-expenses holiday they couldn't afford to lose the week's wages to go.

As I look around the timelines and see people struggling I also see the survivors. The people that will work through the pandemic, doing whatever/whenever to stay afloat. Their priority is to keep the roof over their head and food on the table. I also see the faux survivors - drowning their woes with a Prosecco or two whilst Instagramming their designer plates. They will be OK regardless as their safety net is strong. There are people though with no safety net. They are the ones that we need to try and help.

Our industry needs a reality check. We've been shouting at audiences for not behaving the way that we want them to behave, yet now we haven't got that audience at all, we're clinging onto their bootlegs in the hope of recapturing a moment of glory. We had started to think that the audience should be grateful to us for performing for them, whereas all the time we needed them a lot more. 

Every year at the college I bang on about the audience member who's chosen to spend their hard-earned cash on coming to see our show. They had chosen us as their luxury item, therefore we owed it to them to give them everything we had (not mark it cos we were coming up to the end of the run and were slowly getting pissed off with the management). I give that chat as I'm from that family. That is my heritage.

Here's the rub though - I'm from a privileged working-class family. A family that could save. From parents who were able to work in order to get us the things that we needed. There's a whole other level out there of families living hand to mouth, relying on food banks to get by.  How do we hear their voices in our industry, how do we support them? 

We need to hear more reality stories and less edited lifestyle posts. Keeping it real online would eventually allow more people to live the dream offline. 

So the pandemic continues . . . 

The 7 Stages of Grief - Covid style

Over the past few days, my timeline appears to be flooded with people in our industry genuinely struggling and feeling afraid for their future. The human cost of COVID is heartbreaking, the emotional cost of the pandemic though would have changed the lives of millions forever.

In many ways COVID was the great equaliser, regardless of our careers to date in the industry this microscopic germ floored us all from producers to runners, from the established stars to the new graduates, suddenly the playing field was level. However, that in itself has transpired to be unsettling.

1) SHOCK AND DISBELIEF

For the first few weeks, we were all in shock and huddled indoors reeling at the fact that our lives had turned into a SciFi movie, suddenly we were all extras in Russell T Davies' Years and Years, a programme that we'd all admired for its exceptional writing and exquisite performances by top-rate performers, yet suddenly like all of the people involved in that show, we too were all suddenly at ground zero.

I don't think that anybody in their wildest dreams could have envisaged a time when every theatre in the world would go dark?  It's no wonder we survived the first month. We were too numb to do anything else

2) DENIAL

Then came the posts where people declared cheerfully that this was almost a good thing as it would allow all of us to stop being defined by our careers after all this was an industry that had been bleeding us dry for years anyway, so we'd been given the opportunity to reboot 'life'.  A few people put out content, but the majority either stayed silent or felt the need to explain to everybody why they weren't able to put out content. Of course, in reality, we were all attempting to deal with the reality in whatever way we could. It was actually called survival, not creation.  Shows started to stream and we all bathed in the reflected glory of our friends in these shows. There were beginning to be some pluses to this mess after all. Free theatre to the masses - it was the socialist dream realised, and as we all know, most of our industry love the idea of a free theatre (even if we've failed to make it a viable concern as we've also all wanted a fair salary for the work that we do too). 

3) GUILT

However as the weeks turned to months and things slowly restarted our industry, the industry that we all believed was so vital to the health of our nation suddenly didn't matter.  Our fans appetite was being sufficiently sated by the online streaming going on, yet as Joe Public sat and enjoyed the performances, the performers and technicians were just stuck at home, not earning and not even hearing the applause that was no doubt going on in various places around the country. That same applause that actually seems to lift us up regardless of our mood, the sound that generally speaking makes us feel worthy. Self-validation is vital but the sound of applause is something different isn't it? The joy of watching our friends had somehow turned hollow and we were simply being reminded of what we had lost. We don't talk about this much but let's face it, the sound of strangers appreciating our work is the greatest drug of all. A drug that lifts us up when we feel like life is hard, that gives us an adrenaline rush so massive that many performers feel the need to artificially recreate its effects long after the curtain has come down. Well, times were certainly hard, and our 'drug of choice' just wasn't available anywhere, more than that it was now against the guidance of the government to partake in it.

4) ANGER AND BARGAINING 

As 1 month turned into 3 months and there was still no real sign of recovery for our sector, and with so many people financially struggling having fallen down the massive cracks that the treasury had created in its DIY fix of the economic crises that was the secondary disease that the country was attempting to fight, you could see people on social media losing themselves more and more.

An appallingly unjust death in the States provided the release that everybody needed.  Finally, there was a worthwhile cause to utilise all the anger and feelings of injustice that we had all been feeling. Of course, we couldn't get that angry for our own issues, as part of the problem with a global pandemic is everybody understands on one level that we actually don't know where to place the blame that we're so desperate to park up. Where do you locate the anger? We were finally able to truly bargain an explanation out of this mess. We might have felt like we were lost, but some much needed social change could grow from this anger.  This was our chance to turn the nightmare into something positive. It was like releasing the steam from a pressure cooker for a cause that most people had no doubt believed in over the years (as that is the white privileged position of choosing when to get involved in the fight for equality)

Suddenly years of niggles about everything rather unfairly in many ways diluted the main fight, relegating it some 4 months on to a well-intentioned occasional social media post again as we all got swept away into a tsunami of what felt like validated pain. 

Now that the anger was being released we got angry about literally everything and we made sure that everybody heard us (all with the hashtag #bekind). We were angry at people putting content out, we got angry at people putting positive messages out, we were angry at people saying that they were struggling, we were angry at the other industries starting back, we turned on each other as we couldn't actually scream at patient zero, the person who unwittingly started off this catastrophic chain reaction. We couldn't sit with the anger of a pandemic as that was too huge, so we turned to the minutiae of life and suddenly shouted about all the little (but important) things that have impacted us during our lives. Things that under normal circumstances we would have brushed off by now, but with nothing else to focus on for months it was time to revisit them and shout about it. We couldn't get positive strokes from an audience, but we could get a social media validation for our feelings online.

5) DEPRESSION

We've shouted and screamed albeit it virtually, in a bid to be seen and remind people that we exist as an industry, yet we've wept when we've seen the outside of the theatres converted into outside dining areas for a hospitality trade that had been suffering every bit as hard as us, but who were already permitted to go back to work. Talk about salt in the wounds.

The inevitable loss of jobs has been hard-hitting, literally every day an announcement about a theatre or a company that has had no choice but to make sweeping redundancies in the hope that this will save their business from going under. We've wept for the buildings and our memories in them, and we've wept for the people that are left stranded out in the street, weaponised with an enviable skill set but for an industry that doesn't exist.

We hear a lot about people thinking that they should retrain and move onto something else. I mean the industry has never been easy anyway, you could be waiting years for a job (literally). However, that was manageable (just) when there were clearly jobs happening. You could see the 'dream' happening for others every single day, and for many, that's enough to keep going for. If it could happen for 'them' it could happen for 'you', you've just got to hold tight and survive until it was your turn. Now though it was nobody's turn. We weren't even seeing 'what we could have won'. 

We hit the depression stage with a thud. This is different to clinical depression, it's a feeling of abject loneliness looking into an abyss, even when you're surrounded by your loved ones.  Suddenly this all feels far too big, and we are all left feeling so small and insignificant. The public are getting on with things and we've turned into Mr Cellophane. 

There are very few people in our industry that have not been told by somebody in their lives that what we do is just a hobby. I've been a professional musician for 36 years and my father still wants me to get a proper job. Suddenly the government's response to our sector has felt like every bad taxi ride conversation we've ever had.

6) RECONSTRUCTION AND WORKING THROUGH

Some 4 months later we were permitted to do outside performances. Producers and performers alike were quick to seize on this glimmer of hope. Would people want to come back to the theatre again? Had they missed us? Shows were slowly emerging, filming had restarted, jobs were appearing. Finally, theatres could open again, of course not like before, but open to try and work out how to survive this mid pandemic limbo that we find ourselves in. 

So I guess that's where lots of people are right now, which is why it's particularly tough. In order to work through this period, we're all going to have to adjust what our plans were. A temporary career to financially see us through this period? Possibly retraining in something to build up a skillset in another area. Of course, lots of us have said for years that this would have been a good idea, suddenly though it's the only idea. That's rather scary when you know that you're only really good at the one thing. . . our industry.

We are a vocational industry, our work defines us just like we define our work. That's not to say that the industry is driving us to early graves and abusing us along the way, for so many of us this is our hobby as well as our career. I don't know much about civvy street, maybe bankers feel the same about their job - though I suspect not.

We've always been the outsiders that somehow found our 'tribes'. This alone made us feel safe and contained even without putting a show into the mix. It's hard to feel the benefit of that tribe when everyone is struggling at the same time. You see it online - who's going to pick who up today?

7) ACCEPTANCE 

Well right now this is the aim I guess. We get on with doing whatever we need to do to survive, breathe and just know that in time theatre will return. Fast forward a few years and we might be able to look back on this disaster as a catalyst for real meaningful change in the world, and if we can't then I guess we just have to accept the fact that we tried, and we tried whilst surviving the most bizarre thing imaginable.

It's important to go through a process to survive this period as best that we can. We were right to be numb, sad, angry, bitter, remorseful, optimistic . . . just 'being' right now is enough. Suddenly we are all survivors

The Mental Health Epidemic within the Pandemic

Last night the unthinkable happened. Theatre in the UK closed its doors. Frustratingly for theatres and producers this came about via a carefully worded recommendation to our audiences as opposed to a directive to them, thereby potentially preventing companies from having a valid insurance claim. Making companies and individuals even more vulnerable than they were already feeling.

I can't be the only one that never thought that we'd see such a day in the UK (or indeed around the world), but here it is and an entire industry is left reeling as each individual tries to work out 'what now?'

Of course we all knew that it was coming. Broadway closed last week so it's been a waiting game since then. The big difference of course is that our American colleagues earn substantially more money than the jobbing actor/techie in the UK. There is more chance that they've saved up for the inevitable rainy day scenario. That said some people just don't have it in them to save regardless of income, so this isn't guaranteed, however the potential to save is there. I don't think that the majority of the UK industry (on and off stage) have this dilemma. We all live in a somewhat hand to mouth environment, and have long since consoled ourselves with the fact that our souls are full even if our bank accounts aren't. The majority of our industry need the next wage packet, which is why you see people closing in a successful show on the Saturday, going to work in their 'crap job' or 'muggle job' by the Monday. In a way it's kept us all grounded for years, it's hard to get 'up yourself' when you know that you'll be back in civvy street within a few weeks.

So suddenly an entire industry faces a very uncertain future. We all go online to tell the world how frightened we are, and we feel the need to let everybody know what our struggle is. Some of us will be resolute, telling our friends that we'll get through this, as after all, a life without hope is no life at all. However now that people have been prevented from going out, the online chatter is at breaking point. Suddenly we're all experts in what the government 'should' have done, we've all understood the logistical variations of this mystery 'virus', we've all researched what every other country has done, and we've all worked out what the solution 'should' have been. More than that, we feel the need to tell everybody about our own discoveries.  Of course the fact of the matter is that none of us have a clue. We're all scared (for ourselves, our loved ones, our industry, even humanity), and are all simply 'acting out' that fear in the only space that's left for us to roam - social media.

We see a 'cure' or a 'prevention' tweet and it becomes our civil duty to share it amongst our friends and followers, as we all attempt to save the world. Of course that's all we've shared is 'fake news', or rather 'fake hope', as hope is the only thing that we have.

I've long blogged about the mental health crises in our industry, and I've always maintained that the industry hasn't created these illnesses, but rather our industry attracts people who are more susceptible to mental illness, as it provides all of us with an altered reality. We can all pretend to live in a different world for a while. A show (ironically given the pressures around doing one), is almost a mental health break. So what now for an entire industry that revels in living in the 'other' now that it's suddenly been catapulted into the here and now, and what's more, the here and now is even more unstable than our industry. To add to the issue nobody amongst us has immunity. For sure there are the wealthy amongst us that can ride this out, but they are few and far between. From graduates to jobbing performers/techies everybody has had the rug pulled from out of them.

People with anxiety who are already trying to make sense of the world have suddenly lost their anchor, people with depression that can see no good in the world can get that view confirmed within seconds on social media, people with OCD desperately trying to control their environment as it is suddenly find themselves in a world that can't control itself. And so the list goes on. The one thing that we can be sure about is that every mental illness will be made worse by this pandemic.  People can no longer run to the theatre to escape their own 'minds'.

So I guess that this is the perfect opportunity to hit these conditions head on. How many people that deliberately keep themselves busy in order not to think have suddenly found themselves in self isolation? As an aside isn't it weird how something like 'self isolation' which sounds like something straight out of a B movie has suddenly become part of our every day language? Anyway I digress.

There are lots of therapies available online - why not check out what's on offer? https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/iapt/ Whilst the NHS is struggling right now there is still free help out there. See the enforced downtime as an opportunity to 'reset' and 'reboot'. How many of you have kept putting it off because you've allegedly been too busy? Well you ain't busy now - get proactive about your mental health.

Limit your online surfing - it'll either make you more worried, more angry, or bizarrely make you feel more isolated. Even in self isolation it's possible to live more in the 'real world'. FaceTime and Skype your friends. I went to pop a post up on one of The MTA groups the other day, and instead opted for a livestream as I was aware that a number of my graduates were either stuck in far away places or stuck in self isolation in the UK. So potentially even 'seeing' and 'hearing' my post was more reassuring than some written thing.  I mean I clearly could have made it worse for some of them, but they had the option to turn me off (and I'm confident that at various times over the years they've yearned to do that - so it was a win/win)

Somehow this will pass, and somehow we will all get through it.
Our industry has an amazing sense of community, and right now we need that community more than ever. As you're checking on your friends to see if they have a cough and a fever, maybe check on how their mental health is doing too? I've long believed that mental illness is at epidemic levels within our industry, and I suspect that the physical pandemic will make those levels raise even higher. Now is a time for actioning help, not living in denial it's a great #time4change

24/7 Equity mental health and well-being helpline: 0800 917 6470

Thicko's Done OK

I'm watching my twitter feed slowly fill with congratulations to all the 6th formers celebrating their well deserved A Level results this morning.  Very few are just 'lucky',  most have worked hard and indeed made some lifestyle sacrifices to achieve the results that the envelope presented them with today.

Then you go onto other forums and read the devastation of those people that equally might have put in the work, but for one reason or another, just didn't get the grades that they need. Parents talking about consoling their children, as they're seemingly left, at 18, branded a disaster.

Next week it'll be the same scenario but two years earlier. Exam results effectively dictating how people feel about themselves and their ability.

What a load of B******ks!!

Exams are such an archaic way of saying whether somebody is clever or not. What a bizarre way of deciding fate. "Here's 2 hours....prove that you've managed to cram everything that you've been taught for the last 16/18 years, then like some fairground memory test, reproduce it in a language that we can judge (so not your vernacular), within the next 120 mins". Then over the course of a couple of weeks, repeat for various subjects.

What is it proving? That you can memorise facts? Why? Where's the applied section? Where's the useful stuff that we need to learn in life? Why do we still have teenagers leaving school that can't read or write to a high enough standard? Why do we have teenagers leaving school that can't do basic maths (and I'm definitely not talking about all those strange 1a X 2b + ?c equations that we used to do all the time...which 30 years on I've still not found a use for)?

I've somehow always known that I was going to be a musician. I didn't know how that was going to happen - but it was! I understand that I was extremely lucky to have such a clear target in mind moving forward. Some people 5 years on having left HE still don't know what they're going to do with their lives. It's hard when you don't have 'a thing'.

Somehow I was in the 'top stream' at school, but interestingly have always branded myself as 'thick'. So much so in fact that my very much better half, tells me off rather regularly for using such a derogatory term to describe myself.  So why 'thick'? I guess because I never saw the value in 'classes' in school or indeed college, I always just saw the opportunities there.  So I saw school as an amazing resource where I could easily find a space, a band, and a cast - and I put on shows.  Similarly at college, of course I sat through all the various lectures, but most of my time was spent volunteering to be in everybody else's shows.  I learnt, through applying resources I guess.  None of my real learning was structured.

However I also grasped the 'system' quickly. So I knew for example, that to get to 6th form, I had to do OK in my O Levels (Yes, I'm that old...so for younger readers, basically my GCSE's). So I attempted to learn just enough.  Enough to scrape me through.  I mean, I couldn't spend hours learning everything - I had shows to play for, performances to do. And that's what I did...scraped through. The lowest pass grade possible was a C, and I got myself a load of them.

By the time I got to the next level, I had already found the perfect route for me, via what was then called a Polytechnic (or as someone actually told me...'the college for those people not clever enough to get into university'). Middlesex was a rarity. It accepted people on their ability via an audition, and then asked you for the most basic of passes to try and help scram you over the cargo net of exams.  My offer came back - two E's. That was it. I needed just 2 E's to get me to the next step.

I wanted to be a musician, but to be a musician did I really need to know dates? What difference does it make to me or indeed the world of music today, what date Beethoven wrote his last symphony? Surely what matters is that he wrote it, and what it sounded like, what was the harmonic structure of that work, how did the orchestration help...the questions are infinite...however the nature of exams meant, at that time, that I needed to know the dull stuff, as well as the interesting, useful stuff.  What's more....I needed to learn that 'stuff' about a whole load of people.  Sure the teachers tried to work out which questions would come up that year, but it was a gamble, and one that I wasn't prepared to take, so I walked out of the exam casino. I decided that the remit was so large, there was no point in dipping my toe in it.  So instead I....did shows! In my defence the shows were getting better, but they didn't facilitate me doing well in my exams.  I scraped through - I got my two E's, and off I trotted to the lesser university...the polytechnic.

Middlesex had a no exam policy (which was one of the attractions for me), and all their assessments were practical.  I mean, we literally did one exam right at the end of the course, and even that was a seen paper. Happy days.  Suddenly I was doing shows...which counted towards my degree.  I don't believe that there is a course like the old BAPA course anymore - but I was literally doing around 8 to 10 shows a term. I had never worked so hard in my life...but I was loving it.

I left college with a healthy 2:1 BA(Hons), however I still felt 'thick'

I became a professional musician, the crap jobs that I've done to facilitate that profession have ranged from cleaner right through to opening a drama college. This year I've been in the business 27 years (29 years if you count the 2 years prior to college training to be a ballet accompanist and working as an organist about the clubs and churches of Swansea).

Being a musician has literally taken me around the world, and has facilitated me having the most amazing life, providing me with a fairly good geographical knowledge of the UK thanks to touring, and more importantly a lifetime of anecdotes to facilitate small talk in awkward situations. I've managed to meet or work with with nearly every single one of the people that inspired me along the way.

Had I spent my earlier years just having my head stuck in a book, revising for the memory test of O and A Levels, I don't think that I would have made it.

For a 'thicko' I've done OK. I've realised my IQ is really high where it matters - emotional intelligence. Ironically the one area that they don't really cover in school.

Our industry will never be based on results. You will not be the next Broadway star because you got an A*....however your parents are more likely to let you give this industry a shot if you have those A*'s tucked away for a rainy day ;-)

The MTA spends a day getting to know you, working with you, in situ, to find out what you can do. Talent and hard work should be the thing that gets you into this industry not a grade.  Long may our radical approach to education empower the 'thickos' ;-)

Let's start at the very beginning...

Once again there is a flurry of activity around the fact that the 'working man' is getting lost in our industry. Times are changing and not for the better (they cry). Bring back rep (they cry). However isn't the current noise coming from the people that are the elite or at least have become the elite? The ones that have made it in our industry? Isn't it something like 2% of performers actually make a living out of being a performer? I mean great that they're shouting, and using their position to make some noise, but is that all it is? Noise?

What happened to the drama college that was going to be funded by actors, where all the fees were going to be covered by the professionals? That was 'launched' with panache and then fell by the wayside (unless I've missed something?)

Shall we start at the beginning of the cycle as opposed to jumping to the middle. The 'working man' can't even afford to go to the theatre to get inspired to even think of it as a career at the moment. So is this just the elite shouting to the elite anyway?

Since 2010 The MTA has run a scheme whereby any local children can come and watch our panto on a pay what you can arrangement.  When we were at the Drill Hall, you won't be surprised to hear that the two schools that took us up on the deal, could pay a fair rate.  In subsequent years we've been in less affluent areas so the pay what you can rate has gotten considerably lower.  Then in 2014 we did our first panto in what was then going to be our 'new home' down at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham.

Thanks to the combined efforts of local schools, us and indeed BGAC, in the first year alone we played to over 1000 children.  A lot of whom had NEVER been to the theatre before.  It was the most humbling thing ever to watch their amazement at the 'magic' of a simple mirror ball.  They didn't mind that we didn't have a fancy all singing, all dancing set...they loved just being entertained by the simple magic of theatre.

Last year we extended the scheme and played to over 1500 children.  Again their faces were a joy to watch (in fact I had to work hard to remember that I was supposed to be watching the show, not watching the joy on the children's faces).  After each show we arranged a meet and greet with the cast, and the children were ecstatic. Even the older 'cool kids' visually got excited by 'meeting the stars'.  Let's keep it real here - the stars were just our 2nd years. . . having the time of their lives being idolised by all the kids, and learning themselves the importance that panto has not just for our industry, but also in our society.

The trouble is though, that shows and hiring theatres cost money.  In a 2 week run we don't stand a chance of recouping our losses. However part of our students' fees go towards funding 4 shows a year for them, so in a way each show is subsidised.  In a bid to extend the scheme even further this year we've started to fund raise. Obviously we're looking for commercial sponsors(so if you're a Tottenham based firm and fancy helping out this Christmas, please do get in touch). So we're trying a 'buy a child a seat' crowdfunding scheme https://www.gofundme.com/24vga64

I'm aware that something similar was tried recently for Dougal Irvine's The Busker's Opera down at The Park theatre, although I missed if they managed to raise the money or not. I hope so as it was a great idea.

I'd love to take the credit for the fund raiser, however it was our Health and Welfare Consultant, Angie Peake who thought of it and decided to give it a go.  She did the usual sum of 'if all of my friends on FB sponsored just one seat we'd raise X amount of money' Of course in reality this just doesn't happen for a multitude of reasons I suspect. That said we've already funded 30 places, which is nearly a class coming to see the panto this year, that maybe wouldn't normally afford to even contemplate a theatre visit.

We're aiming to get 2000 children in this year...so the race is on to find the extra money that this will cost us.  We'll do it though...because it's important.

Then what if one child loves what they see and decides to 'give it a go' themselves? What then? Well I hate to say it, but we're back in the realms of the haves and haves not. How do they afford to go to classes? What schemes are there in the local community to fund children slowly building aspirations?

The thing is though, we're not just talking about theatre, which let's face it has always been elite? Why are we pretending that this is new? When I was training it was elite...but the 'working classes' will always find a way to help their children out of their rut. That's just what we do!   If your child wants to study ANYTHING in HE the working classes are priced out of the market. So who's going to build the social housing of the future? Will it be some upper class architect with a social conscience, trying to make amends for their own family's wealth? Shouldn't it be designed by the people who understand the needs of the community, the people that were brought up in that environment?

Of course architects don't generally 'have a public voice', so we don't keep reading in the papers what they're saying about the future of their industry.  So we're back to so called celebrities, using their platform to voice their concerns and rattle a few cages.

My TL is engulfed with people Sharing or RT'ing' these worthy statements - but what do YOU do to change things? It's easy to click and 'share'. It's easy to write a rousing comment to go with the 'share', but what do you actually DO to make a difference?

The reality is, probably nothing. You want the answer to come from the government. It's THEIR fault that we're in this situation, so THEY should do something about it.

The trouble is....they won't.

Whichever government it is...they won't.

If socialism is ever to work as anything more than just some rabble rousing rhetoric, then each of us will have to make different choices. Don't have your Starbucks tomorrow and donate that money to a more worthy cause. Don't have that pint after the show, and donate the money to a worthy cause.  The thing is, we could ALL do our bit but our apathy or introverted thinking means that we won't(and I'm not exempt from this argument. I could make different choices too).

So next time you click 'Share' or RT an amazing speech, hold up a mirror and ask yourself if you could do something different...just once? If you're not sure what to do...then do remember that this appeal will be running for months: https://www.gofundme.com/24vga64

Déjà vu

Do you sometimes feel like you're living in a world of déjà vu? Or like you've been banging the same drum for so long that it's just become a noise that people can blot out...yet you KNOW that it's still relevant?


My friend and esteemed colleague Chris Grady has just written a great blog about the need to create 'celebrities' from Musical Theatre performers.  Here have a read: http://www.chrisgrady.org/blog/whos-in-it-a-challenge-and-maybe-a-solution/. I took the opportunity to remind him of a blog that I'd written way back in Jan 2015 http://www.thereviewshub.com/blog-annemarie-lewis-thomas-new-year-same-problems/ In part covering the same topic that I'd touched on then...and indeed making reference to the fact that I had been speaking about this very subject some 9 years earlier (or was it 8?)!  In fact (as stated in my 2015 blog), the thinking behind The MTA covering acting for camera in a 50/50 split with acting for stage was predominantly for this very reason.  I'm still staggered by the fact that some 2 years on we are still the only Musical Theatre course to genuinely split the focus of our acting course.  In fact next term will see (we hope) the birth of the third MTA short film.  Oh how I wish that I could share the links with you of the first two, as they're genuinely inspired, and indeed, when you think that they were written and shot in just one week, they're truly remarkable too.  Now we can only do this because a) our Head of Acting is Tilly Vosburgh who is in fact a national treasure (except that the nation doesn't quite realise it yet) and b) we have an up and coming award winning director called Alex Warren who has an amazing eye, great vision, and a very generous spirit to edit the film for us.

How many times since I first spoke out about this in 2007 (or was it 2008...I still don't remember) have I seen 'Musical Theatre' performers cross over into the medium of film, blatantly, and wisely IMHO, raising their profile, so that they can cross back into the world of theatre, suddenly being seen for roles, and demanding a much higher salary  (which also means that they can indulge in the occasional off-West End profit share type show too).  It's the perfect win/win.  The world of TV is gaining some great 'names' and the world of theatre can reclaim them, and surprise a whole new audience.  If Celebrity "X" is putting new bums on seats AND being brilliant what's not to like about the arrangement? Right now John Partridge is shocking Eastenders' audiences up and down the UK by staring in Chicago. I'd love to know what percentage of the Chicago audiences are newcomers to the theatre just to see a popular soap actor 'take on' a musical theatre role.  Of course the fact that he trained at both the Royal Ballet Lower School and then Birds just might have passed them by. Just like the fact that for the 20 years before he was the 'newcomer' in Eastenders, he had predominantly worked in Musical Theatre.  However I love that!  Rewind to 1991 and I vividly remember paying my 2nd visit to Into the Woods down at the Phoenix...but this time I had my mum and dad with me. I'd been out of college for a couple of years, and I'd saved up enough money to take them to the theatre for a change.  In retrospect why I thought that my dad would like Sondheim, when he didn't really 'get' musicals at all is beyond me.  Anyway the show starts and my father sits up, all excited to see 'that woman from Fresh Fields' on stage...all shocked (he explained in the interval) that she could sing alright couldn't she?  Of course 'that woman from Fresh Fields' was the amazing Julia McKenzie, half the reason that I had opted to pay a 2nd visit in the first place (the half being Imelda Staunton, who was playing the Baker's Wife, and I hadn't seen her in anything before, but thought that she was really something quite special and wanted to watch her performance again).

So even as I write this blog, the penny drops that psychodynamically maybe I had made the connection way back then that 'celebrity' could actually be a good thing for Musicals, as opposed to the force for evil that it suddenly became in the noughties? Now before anybody shouts about all the stunt casting...well that's a different thing altogether isn't it?? All of the above is clever casting, and clever career progression.  Having a Big Brother contestant playing Billy Flynn is ludicrous, having them playing a pantomime villain is insulting to all those people who trained to do it properly, yet sadly, good business, and last time I checked, the secret to commercial theatre producing was the first word, not the second two(and yes, yes, yes...in the ideal world commercial, good business and integrity all combines, but the world has never been perfect).  Also look at the social change that took place in the noughties - the television landscape suddenly changed overnight.  Big Brother, American Idol, The X Factor, Masterchef, Location, Location, Location, Wife Swap....the list is never ending.  Hours of broadcast time with TV companies spewing out 'the everyman', who let's face it, were much cheaper to populate our screens with, than the 'every actor'!  Ironically we then attempted to turn them into the latter via pantos and 'an audience with..' theatre tours.  The trouble is, as I stated up in Edinburgh however many years ago it was. . . you either moan about it, or beat them at their own game. In the Noughties, everyone was still in the Thatcher glow of you could have anything if you wanted it.  The daughter of a humble grocery store owner could become Prime Minister. We could all become that illusive thing called 'a celebrity'.  This was a different thing to 'celebrities' of old (who we actually called stars not celebs....because they shone a bit brighter than the rest of us, or at least that's my favorite definition of the word).

I think that theatre lost it's way a bit during this time. We were so busy moaning about this new era, we forgot to keep up.  Shows became 'stars' not performers, and our 'stars' faded into the background.
Fastforward 10 years and we're all writing blogs about it!

Then my 2nd déjà vu is the constant 'noise' at the moment around the fact that we have a Mental Health crises in this country.  I've lost count of how many times in the last week alone friends and colleagues who are aware of my fight around this topic (specifically within the drama school sector), have sent me links to articles stating that the Mental Health provision in this country is in trouble. The service is crumbling under the demand.  Well pardon my French but 'no shit Sherlock'? MIND have long stated that 1 in 4 people will experience some sort of Mental Health crises in their lifetime. As my PA corrected my maths just the other day, meaning that in The MTA, which currently has a roll call of 41 students, I should have 10 students either struggling with a Mental Health issue, or who are ticking time bombs waiting to go off later on in life. Now these time bombs could be an almighty explosion or a tiny whiff of smoke, who's to say...but that's a lot of 'tiny bangs' going off in society at any one time isn't it?  I'm currently collecting stories (both good and bad) from people that have gone through a drama school education with a Mental Health issue, plus from staff at the colleges, just finding out what support is really being offered (as opposed to tick box exercises where an administrator says in theory what's going on).  I'm not exactly letting a cat out of the bag when I say that early findings support the Australian findings on this topic (http://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2015/09/14/demands-of-acting-hurting-performers--mental-health.html), The Californian findings (http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/jul/18/actors-struggle-resolve-emotional-problems) The Icelandic findings (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3115620/Creative-people-prone-suffering-mental-illness-Actors-dancers-musicians-likely-genes-causing-schizophrenia-bipolar-disorder.html) ....I won't go on but you get the picture.  A little bit like my thoughts around 'celebrity' I hate to say 'I told you so' (although as my students know those are my 4 favorite words)...but I've been banging on about this for years.  Way before The MTA in fact.  Well clearly, otherwise I wouldn't have thought of opening a college with Mental Health Wellbeing at the heart of it.  I mean if I could timetable  the subject in I really would (instead my students have to 'study it' in their own time as and when they find it necessary). That said it's great to see all the various # campaigns designed to raise awareness of this important issue.  Do check out  https://www.facebook.com/events/911328365625354/ if you get the chance, contribute if you can find the time or the inclination...and most importantly of all, if I ever randomly come up with 6 numbers between 1 and 49 write them down and play them in the lottery around 10 years later...as seemingly I'm quite good at predicting the future ;-)