I have to say that I walked into this piece, a one-woman, one-dog show from Brighton-based artist Victoria Melody, with some trepidation. The intimate venue, slightly interactive format and prospect of one performer (plus hound) all conspired to fill me with a sense of dread; greeted at the door by the affable Melody and her co-star, the eponymous basset hound Major Tom, I waited for her to suddenly switch into a heightened performance mode, or maybe just make her dog perform tricks for an hour. As it turned out, Major Tom was subtle, hugely engaging, and one of the most enjoyably stimulating experiences I’ve had in the theatre for a while: a face-hurts-from-smiling show.

In Melody’s work, she immerses herself in the subcultures and niche activities of England, participating in various events and recording her experiences to turn them into live performance – for previous shows she’s been a pigeon racer and a northern soul dancer. For Major Tom, Melody entered her dog (a lovely wrinkly thing she reckons “looks like an old Tory”) into a series of amateur dog competitions before eventually landing the big one, Crufts. In solidarity with her canine friend, she then put herself under the harsh scrutiny of the judges by entering the Mrs England beauty pageant.

Melody recounts these experiences with the aid of video recordings, a few costume changes and some demonstration with the hilariously unwilling Major, who spent most of the show curled up on his bed or sniffing around a lady’s handbag in the front row. The multimedia elements and minimal theatrical effects are completely cohesive, and the narrative structure of the work gives it purpose throughout (presumably thanks in part to her dramaturg, Paul Hodson). Acutely observed and delivered with warmth, it’s a story about the pursuit of perfection and victory, and how what seems trivial to the outsider can become an obsession to the enthusiast.

What works about Major Tom is that it’s perfectly balanced – whilst many of the lines had the audience laughing out loud, it’s by no means played purely as a stand-up routine or variety act. Equally, the politically-loaded or ethically questionable aspects of the institutions she describes are implied without being hammered home too heavily. Simply presenting the pairing of these two competitions – one of which judges the breeding, training and grooming of its entrants against strict criteria, and the other being a dog show – is enough of a statement, and Melody lets her audience think for themselves.

Melody and Major are currently travelling the UK together before settling for a month at Edinburgh’s Summer Hall this August, a venue which produced some of the most exciting and talked-about works of last year’s fringe, including Big Mouth and La Merda (The S**t). Whilst she may have a challenge drawing in audiences for a regional tour, this unique show is surely set to build momentum and become a festival favourite.

Major Tom is touring until Wednesday 26 June. For more information, see Victoria Melody’s website.

In this new blog series, David Byrne, Artistic Director of the New Diorama Theatre, will explore the process of writing and staging a musical, looking at the place of musical theatre in Britain today…

This April, here at New Diorama Theatre, we will stage our first musical. The Universal Machine will be a new musical about the life and death of Alan Turing. And I really didn’t want it to be a musical. I fought against it for quite some time but it was the only way to go and, as soon as I gave in, it felt right. The most recurring question or reaction I’ve had to the piece is why have we turned such a potentially tragic story into a piece of musical theatre?

There is a prevailing assumption that all musicals are staged with lines of kicking girls, jazz hands and camp choreography. Personally, I’ve never seen a musical like this. I’m not sure they really exist outside pastiches in The Simpsons. Most musicals, especially popular ones of the past 20 years, are centered around obscure subjects and issues that you wouldn’t initially dream of setting to music – just look at the Lloyd-Webber back catalogue: the life story of the wife of an Argentinean dictator, obscure parts of the Old Testament and, soon we’re told, the Profumo affair.

The truth is we’ve made Alan’s story into a musical for one main reason: the content fitted the form. I wanted to show the world of a man who can make the most incredible, genius intellectual jumps but had problems connecting to those around him. Showing the people in Alan’s life moving with erudite ease, able to express themselves and their emotions with effortless clarity seems to fit the idea of a completely choreographed piece. Here, through a musical language, characters can communicate freely and try to connect through music, which is always hardwired into us emotionally.

That is the basis on which we’re going forward.

The smaller reason was I’ve been dying to programme some musical theatre at New Diorama. One of the recurring themes I’ve noticed in my professional career has been the complaint that there aren’t enough new musicals. Barely six months goes by without somebody writing an article or starting a debate to ask why in the UK there are so few new pieces of musical theatre attempted while our cousins State-side, seem to churn them out to a more consistent high standard quite regularly.

I’ve always been a huge fan of musicals. Early in my career this was scoffed at by my superiors but, landing a venue of my own to run and programme, I was determined to make musical theatre part of the mosaic of work we present. Also, Jemima, our General Manager had championed new musical theatre while she worked at Arts Council England and fought for companies such as Perfect Pitch to get public funding for the first time. We felt like the right team to do it.

I started off at the big festivals (mainly Edinburgh) trying to find really strong new British musicals. I then moved to looking across the London Fringe, attending showcases and new productions. What I found was a surprising lack of variety and innovation, especially when compared to developments in other dramatic forms, with nowhere near the same number to choose from. I’ve been wondering why that might be the case.

My theory is that all the best writing programmes in the UK that playwrights gravitate towards encourage “straight” theatre – after all, few new musicals are staged at The Bush, the Royal Court, Hampstead etc. I think there’s also an historical issue: for some reason writing musicals is barely a respectable career in the UK. In America, the musical is a respected art-form but here it’s seen as an embarrassing cousin to ‘serious theatre’. At university I wrote my first musical and it was a great success – we won several prizes and a good time was had by all. After it all died down one of my lecturers took me to one side: “Stop with this musical theatre business”, he advised. “Why not try working on some European translations next, maybe move to Paris, live in a squat and date a whore. That’s the respectable way to do it.” He added, with a glint in his eye, “after all, it worked for me”.

Photos: The cast of The Universal Machine in rehearsals. By Richard Lakos for A Younger Theatre.

The foyer of the Bush Theatre is filled to the rafters with the press and eager members of the theatregoing public. Wine is flowing and the conversation is full of anticipation for the unique debut of what I’m going to call “Gameshow theatre.” Think Deal or No Deal, but 100 times more entertaining.

The soiree in the foyer was brazenly interrupted by Casino (Brian Ferguson) and Queenie (Lucy Ellinson) with the promise of fortune exuding from their flashing suits and gleaming teeth. They are ex-hedge fund managers who have quit the city after the economic catastrophe in 2008, turning instead to performance. They applied for the Arches new directors’ award and won £6,000, which has evolved into a £10,000 prize fund put on stage for us, the audience, to play with. Little do we know that this premise is far more simplistic than the tumultuous journey on wich we are about to be taken. We are split into two teams under the leadership of either Casino or Queenie, and pitted against the other team in our quest to ‘win’. The game was on and so was the show, in spectacular fashion.

Audience inhibitions are left at the bar in this piece. Claire Duffy’s creation effectively depicts the testosterone-filled world of high risk, high reward. The £10,000 is the epicentre of Rhys Jarman’s fantastically garish set and becomes the battleground between contestants vying to get as many pound coins into their respective team’s depository. There is no caution to throw to the wind; actions and decisions are reckless and exciting, an act of ego. Audience volunteers are quick to join the action, evidently becoming infected by the all-or-nothing mindset where losing is not an option.
However, what Duffy shows is that losing is not only an option, it is a reality. There are many losers of this world we live in, not least the younger generation who now carry the burden of world debt on a catastrophic scale. Personally, this was a poignant realisation and one which the piece brilliantly brings to attention. The behaviour of those such as Casino and Queenie, backed by banks and governments, are the cause of the £120 trillion world debt. They are however, victims of their own story, which runs alongside the fast-paced gameshow and competition between both teams.

After meeting in a casino, the pair predict the US sub-prime mortgage crisis and the effect this might have, and decide to make it work to their advantage. We soon realise that whoever is the loser in the game show also loses out in Queenie and Casino’s story. These scenes are somewhat self-contained and are of a radically different tone to earlier parts of the performance. They achieve a sense of reality which cannot be ignored; they intersperse the madness of the Gameshow with disconcerting reality. The tragic end of the play is recognisably the inevitable result of these deliberately placed scenes of their past.

Money is a performance for Duffy, and the theatre is an ideal place to think about it because we find it hard to see how performative it is in everyday life. We live in a world which is reliant upon money, whether it is gold, cash, credit cards or debt; it is always a representation of something else. It has an intangible value, like trust or belief in something. By putting money on stage and acting out this extreme hedonism, money is made truly visible and volatile.
MONEY The Gameshow is playing at the Bush Theatre until 28 February. For more information and tickets, see http://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/production/money_the_game_show/

With endless Twitter hashtags about cabinet reshuffles, Arts Council funding and the first £9,000-a-year university students entering their academic and artistic lives, you’re probably feeling really inspired, right? Oh sorry, I meant disheartened.

It’s easy to believe that as young producers, collaborators and artists, we have truly lost the battle with the arts industry: that we are at a cultural deficit far greater than we can even imagine to reverse in our lifetimes. However, in my opinion, when asked: “What is the biggest issue facing young people in the arts today?” Quite frankly, it’s the fact that people are talking about it. This “issue”.

Maybe there are no issues. Maybe there is nothing wrong. Maybe we’re forgetting that there will always be issues to overcome and those who recognise them are those that surpass them. I don’t know a single actor, artist or musician who goes on stage or sits in front of a canvas or a drum kit and due to the force of government legislation can’t utter their lines or pick up their brush or drumsticks. Young people are still creating so much art and due to the digitalised age they are broadcasting their creations across the world. Even more so to our credit, in response to our culture, we are developing artistic forms beyond those traditionally recognised.

The sad truth is that the Arts Council have cut £100 million pounds worth of funding, so whilst it’s wonderful that we are doing our best to create, fund and most importantly develop artistic work, so much less is readily availiable for us to utilise. But through this sadness? Well, we’ve been doing OK. Young people understand how to subsidise their projects better than  anyone. They raise money the old fashioned way – cake sales, car washes, shining shoes (OK, maybe not that old fashioned) – combine that with platforms for crowd funding and the vast opportunities on offer by organisations like IdeasTap and TalentHouse, and you have the beginnings of a project.

Don’t forget, these people will become the future investors and  fundraisers of the arts industry. Not all projects get off the ground or find the funding, but that’s how it should be and was, even in times of prosperity. Although art is for everyone, it is statistically impossible for every piece or show or song to be artistically brilliant – but those who deserve eventually get, through sheer determination and patience far greater than I have ever had. It’s all well and good to nod our heads and accept that ideal, but it should never be a case of eventually!

Dear Government: doing OK on our own is not a good enough excuse not to support us. How many young people do you know go through the fiddly, mind-numbing, jargon-ridden process of filling out ACE funding forms to produce a show? I don’t know any, and I know a lot of young people. In fact, no one is readily taught the process of even applying for funding; it’s as though discouraging applications will keep you from feeling guilty about denying many projects funding. The few young projects that manage to squeeze some funding out of the ACE through local authorities suffer now from regional cuts. You are creating fewer and fewer opportunities for young people when all we are doing is our best to create them for ourselves.

The media doesn’t really bother celebrating the successes of self-funded projects because it’s too busy telling us about the latest cut or closure. Particularly to those affecting Youth & Education arts programmes. Too often is it felt by parents, education officials and young people themselves that there is nothing to do, nothing available for young people. It’s just not true. Actually, since the recession there have been so many arts organisations that have gone above and beyond to create and develop opportunities for young people who can’t even afford a bus ticket, let alone a £9,000 a year university course. Big and small institutions, digital spaces and charities – so many opportunities that are there for the taking.

It’s not the responsibility of these arts institutions to tell young people to pull their finger out and demand them to take part – if they don’t make the effort, it’s their loss. However, it is your responsibility to make those opportunities clearly aware and available to every young person from every type of background, and be there with the right answers and tools when a curious young person wants to learn how to play piano, create a show, or run an event. Creating a social capital and network of young artists and producers is key to reviving the “issues” surrounding us.

I am boycotting the recession, I am boycotting the idea of an issue and instead making a different one: when the young artists, musicians and theatre makers of our generation finally grow and become the heart of the British cultural industry, how on earth am I going to decide what show to go to each night? A much more optimistic and aspirational issue facing the young artists of 2012.

Image by Howard Lake