UK theatre has a rich heritage of work outside theatrical spaces, from schools to site-specific and from universities to prisons. But theatre and film company Second Shot Productions is doing something a little bit different. Based within the walls of HMP & YOI Doncaster, the company works with serving prisoners, ex-offenders and others. With projects ranging from film-making and graphic design through to drama and arts projects, offered in both custodial and non-custodial settings, Second Shot arrives at Soho Theatre next week with its unique show, Glory Dazed.

Who are Second Shot Productions?

We’re a company and trade for profit, but as a social enterprise all of that profit is invested back into our projects. We’re committed to providing education, training and employment to serving prisoners and ex-offenders, and using the arts to facilitate positive change. To that end we currently employ 15 serving prisoners at HMP & YOI Doncaster who work for the company full time. They are trained to deliver our services whilst working towards a BTEC in Creative Media Production.

The ideas and stories we explore in our theatre productions tend to be those that have some kind of relevance to prisoners and ex-offenders. We have worked with our team at HMP Doncaster to look at theatre as a way of exploring restorative justice and drugs awareness, for example, and then performing these pieces on the wings of the prison so as to make them available to as much of the prison population as possible. We also produce regular children’s plays in collaboration with students studying Applied Theatre at Central School of Speech and Drama which allows the prisoner participants’ families the chance to come and see a different side to their loved one as they perform on stage.

How does being based within the walls of a prison affect who you are as a company?

It allows us to work towards reducing reoffending by offering training and education in theatre, film, design and music that may otherwise be unavailable to those serving custodial sentences. Working at Second Shot is seen as a privilege by those who work for us and in them we instil a sense of pride in doing something constructive with their time in prison.

Working in a professional job for the first time can be daunting when you’re not in prison, but it is an opportunity to learn how to hold down a job upon release, whether that be in the arts or not the fundamentals remain the same.

It’s also important for us to allow our team to explore talents they may have or just be developing if this is their first chance of working in theatre and film; some are very natural theatre practitioners whilst others have a great eye for film or turn of phrase for journalism. In developing skills in these areas, the team comes together on corporate projects as well as those designed for the BTEC.

Where did the idea for Glory Dazed come from?

I’d been working at HMP Doncaster for a few months when the Governor, who was also new to the prison, asked if I’d noticed that many of the prisoners seemed to have had experiences in the Armed Forces before they came to prison. I hadn’t noticed it until that point, but it struck me as true and I started to do a bit of research. I discovered that some organisations working in criminal justice think that as many as one in ten of the UK prison population are ex-servicemen, although the Government puts the figure a lot lower than this.

Could you tell us a bit about the show itself?

Glory Dazed tells the story of Ray, a returning soldier who turns up, after hours, at his mate’s pub in Doncaster, looking for his estranged wife. It takes place in real time over an hour as Ray tries to win Carla back, only to discover that she is seeing his mate Simon. The story unfolds to reveal the truths of Ray and Carla’s relationship but also the reasons why she stayed with him for so long.

The play is also Second Shot’s first full-scale professional theatre production. We rehearsed it at HMP Doncaster so that prisoners and ex-offenders could take part in the project as stage managers, set builders, graphic and web designers, photographers, film-makers and musicians.

How did it develop during theses early stages at Doncaster?

We began with a number of discussion groups involving ex-servicemen serving prison sentences at HMP & YOI Doncaster. The men discussed their experiences of both being in the armed forces and their return to civilian life. To varying degrees they revealed difficulties with alcohol, aggression and multiculturalism, and a deterioration in their relationship with their families.

Following these discussions I took away all the information and developed a story and the opening section of the play. This was taken back to the ex-servicemen, this time through a number of drama workshops run by the play’s director, in which they were asked to improvise alongside professional actors, to further develop the characters and the story. This helped to provide further ideas and insights from which a first complete draft of the play was written.

What was the relationship like between the writer and the ex-servicemen involved in creating the show?

It was a great experience working with the ex-servicemen. In follow-up sessions, they all said that they found the process really interesting and valuable, to be able to share their experiences in this way. By the end of the development process I’d like to think there was a mutual respect between the ex-servicemen, the actors and me. They were very frank about what they were willing to discuss, but I was adamant from the outset that Ray wouldn’t be based on a particular person and that none of the stories in the play would be real. I was more interested in trying to find an emotional truth than in depicting something that had actually happened to a particular individual. Some of the stories that the ex-servicemen told were harrowing and very moving, but it would have felt exploitative to put these experiences into a play.

Has the production evolved much over the past year from visiting the Edinburgh and Adelaide festivals?

Yes, the show has changed since its first festival run and that’s for a number of reasons. Due to availability, we had to recast the role of Leanne and that meant that there would inevitably be some changes as to how the actors worked together as a different group. The original cast members had the opportunity to re-examine their roles between the two tours as well and this meant that when rehearsals for Adelaide started, they had each gone on a journey with their characters since playing them in Edinburgh. That showed through in Adelaide as they became increasingly comfortable in each role. I also think that having to consider how aspects of the play would go down with an Australian audience made everyone focus more closely on how each character could engage with the audience and this brought an added edge to the performances as well. The overall result is very positive, because now the play has an intensity to it that has only developed over time. The sense of urgency and desperation of the situation makes it feel very claustrophobic and I’m hoping that this will be further heightened at Soho Theatre.

What kind of issues are you trying to tackle with the production?

When we began the discussions, we started by considering the question: why do so many ex-servicemen end up in prison? The ex-servicemen provided varied and interesting answers that were in part what I was expecting and knew to be true, about lack of support and reacclimatisation to civilian life, but they also raised things I hadn’t considered, like certain personality types being drawn to the army, and how these might be the same personality types who could find themselves in trouble with the law. I don’t know whether this is true or not, but it seemed like an interesting thing to explore.

The ex-servicemen were all different ages and had served in a number of different places as a result, but it seemed that age didn’t dictate whether you were more or less likely to have difficulties when leaving the forces. Some struggled because they went from a very regimented life to a much freer one. Many had seen really horrific things and had either received very minimal or no counselling to deal with those things. Some of the men were from backgrounds where they felt they had very little opportunity and that going into the Army had merely postponed the almost inevitable downfall of becoming involved in crime and being imprisoned. Some had been discharged from the Army because their mental stability had been in question, though this wasn’t followed up in their civilian life. Some, particularly those involved in special operations, talked about being trained as killers, but not ‘detrained’ when those skills were no longer required. Some of the men mentioned a big drinking culture in the army and that for many years, periods of leave had been characterised by getting very drunk and getting into fights. While the army was in some way tolerant of this, the men found themselves in trouble with the police when they behaved in the same way on civvy street without the army’s protection.

Finally, what can audiences expect from the production?

Sometimes people ask where the humour comes from in such a bleak theme, but I think even the bleakest stories have humour in them, for the simple reason that human beings are funny and our sense of humour is almost at its sharpest at moments of adversity. One of the things that really stood out about meeting the ex-servicemen was that they were quite witty and funny and enjoyed a very entertaining banter with each other. This is also true of prisoners generally in my experience; there’s a certain gallows humour that is generated when human beings share difficult experiences together.

Hopefully they will see it as funny and entertaining but also because the characters are believable, audiences will engage with them and the themes raised in the play. I think characters that behave badly but are still likeable are very attractive to audiences, because we’re all flawed but we all have redeeming features.

Glory Dazed plays at Soho Theatre Upstairs from 23 April to 11 May. For tickets and more information, visit http://www.sohotheatre.com/whats-on/glory-dazed/.

Image credit: Alex Brenner

Laura Turner

Laura is a writer from the East Midlands. After studying English at the University of York, she trained as a writer with Hull Truck Theatre, BBC New Talent and the Royal Court Theatre. She has worked extensively with touring theatre company Chapterhouse, where she is currently Writer in Residence, as well as other regionally-based companies. Laura wrote an episode of BBC EastEnders: E20 that was screened in 2011 and her adaptation of Jane Eyre recently toured UK theatres with Hull Truck Theatre Company.

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Now in its second year, Theatre Uncut has gone truly global. An initiative established in 2010 to respond to the cuts being imposed on the UK by the coalition government, in 2011 it took responsible, proactive theatre-making to exciting new heights. This year, the preview shows that were supposed to simply raise awareness secured them three awards at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and in the recent “week of international action”, there were over 180 performances of the 2012 Theatre Uncut plays in the UK and across the globe, in countries including Romania, Chile and South Africa.

For co-artistic director Emma Callander, discussing politics through the medium of theatre was a natural progression. Theatre Uncut itself began as a conversation between co-artistic director Hannah Price and playwright Mark Ravenhill in October 2010. Price contacted her favourite playwrights to ask if they would assist her in the project designed as a week of action to explore current politics. Each playwright wrote a ten minute play which could be downloaded online and performed rights free by anyone who wanted to during one week. The format followed suit this year, with performances taking place across the globe from 13 to 18November.

Theatre has “forever been a medium of debate and discussion because of its live nature,” observes Callandar. “It’s the most immediate form of being able to explore big issues through having the distance of a narrative, character or metaphor. You can really access these issues in a much deeper way.” Back in March 2011, there were 87 performances of plays written by the likes of Jack Thorne, Clara Brennan, David Grieg and Dennis Kelly. The first year had a national focus as it was in response to the UK cuts and so were mainly performed in the UK “in community centres, schools, theatres and universities, by professional actors and Arab groups all across the board and then some of the performances happened in Chicago, in Berlin and in Dublin, so it became clear that it wasn’t just the UK that was interested in speaking about these issues.”

In response – which is of course precisely what it does best – Theatre Uncut 2012 has gone global. Contacting playwrights in countries experiencing the greatest political upheaval was an active attempt to discover what the situation is from the population’s point of view, not from that of the national or international press. “We wondered whether there was a reason for us to do Theatre Uncut again or whether it was just something of its time, but sadly we realised that it was important for this project to happen because there were a lot of people who needed to discuss and to hopefully take action on some of the injustices going on around them.” Ten-minute plays from Egypt, Greece, Spain, Iceland, Syria, the UK and USA all follow a brief to “respond to the political situation in your own country with the future in mind”.

Callander explains, “We admitted that we were just very confused and that all of the news that we read, really was quite overwhelming… we wanted to know what the political situation was in their own words and then we’ve shared that all over the world.” Theatre Uncut has become a distinctly revolutionary and creative way for people to become part of larger conversations happening not just in our country but around the world, whether they seek to support resistance, take a stand for what they believe in or simply find out more about what’s going on and form their own opinion on it.

Each play has an element of the local and the universal, perfectly encapsulated in Clara Brennan’s play Spine. Written about the closure of British libraries, something particular to the arts in our own country, Callander comments: “we’ve recently had an email from a South African girl, who’s performing in Swaziland and that’s the play that’s touched her the most and she’s been telling us about how it is really helping her to express an issue that she has about libraries in the black communities of South Africa and the complications that still remain in education that are left over from apartheid”. This must be a hugely exciting moment for everyone behind the scenes at Theatre Uncut, when something that seemed so British actually has such huge resonances. “It’s like a big international exchange of ideas through theatre,” agrees Callander.

“Every play is as important and vital as the next. The audience will be in for an amazing treat because of the scale and breadth of what these plays approach and tackle. My dream would be to have all the writers in the same room so they could discuss their ideas.” The intention is that audiences will see a snapshot of the political situation in each country and have a chance to respond directly afterwards with special guests leading the discussions such as comedian Mark Thomas and journalist Owen Jones. “I’m a huge believer that theatre is a really powerful tool for positive social change. In times like these [when faced with opposition] theatre finds its power again.”

Amidst the recent politicisation of our generation – from student protests to creative enterprises like these – we are clearly ready to stand up and make ourselves heard. Callander admits that the August 2011 riots had an over-arching negative effect, but that “cannot cloud the fact that [our politicisation] was one of the most important things that has happened in this country in terms of politics and young people’s engagement with politics since the conservatives were last in power in the late 1980s.” The reason why Theatre Uncut is taking a second bite of the cherry this year is because the energy required for protest can only be sustained for so long. “It falls to people like us in theatre to sustain that level of activism… we keep bringing these issues back to the fore so people carry on thinking and talking about them.”

That’s not to say that Theatre Uncut is just for young people. Anyone can engage or be involved but the important thing for Theatre Uncut is to make sure that after the buzz about protests or riots has died down in the media and the next latest scandal or disaster takes its place in our minds, we don’t forget that our daily lives are still being affected by decisions being made by the people in power and the cuts are going to keep on coming. In our age of austerity with the arts experiencing the brutal lash of funding cuts, Theatre Uncut is turning the tables to question those who have the power to question us. With two successful years under its belt, Theatre Uncut is certainly keeping up its side of the conversation so it falls to us to keep up ours. After all, if we don’t talk, think and play, how can we expect anything to change?

Find out more about Theatre Uncut at www.theatreuncut.com.

Image credit: Zawe Ashton in Theatre Uncut 2011 at Southwark Playhouse. Image by Theatre Uncut.

Nadia Newstead

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Fresh from a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, absurd comedy theatre group Last Chance Saloon are preparing for the London Horror Festival, where they’ll be introducing audiences to a rather scary sex symbol: Dracula himself. But the ultimate gothic maestro is about to meet his match in Last Chance Saloon’s show, Dracula: Sex, Sucking and Stardom, as he embarks on a quest to star in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Co-founder Sam Dunham tells me more about the compay’s unique brand of guilty pleasure theatre, keeping the Michael Buble spirit alive and how what they do is about so much more than making people laugh. Though they certainly manage to do that too.

Where did the idea for sexing up Stoker come from?
We love taking classic stories and giving them a modern, comic twist. The Count is a mysterious, ageless, elusive creature. I mean, he’s automatically a sex symbol and who better to play him than young Jack [Faires – co-founder and cast member). I was, yet again, overlooked. Anyway, vampires are having a real moment, thanks to Twilight, Being Human and the very post-watershed True Blood. But we thought, instead of casting Dracula as the classic archetypal villain we could make him a camp Michael Buble wannabe. We want to appeal to Robert Pattison fans but also to those seeking an antidote to vampires that sparkle.

So how would you describe the show?
It’s about the battle between the world’s most famous count (and his desire to take over the world and star in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical) and his arch nemesis, the strangely accented Professor Abraham Van Helsing. We create an hour of slick, deft theatre comedy using liberal interpretations of pop songs and ridiculous characters that’s a mix of Charlie Chaplin meets The League of Gentlemen. Lastly, it’s about having a good time, letting yourself go and laughing.

Do you find that a blend of comedy and horror work together well on stage? Audiences obviously respond well…
Horror and comedy are one of those things that you maybe don’t expect to go well together but just do, like peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Both subvert the audience’s expectations but when blended together can actually be very powerful in taking the audience on a roller coaster of feelings – hopefully one which will leave them laughing after!

How did the company itself come together?
We spent three years at Italia Conti together, and Jack and I founded Last Chance Saloon in 2009 a few years after we graduated. Our first production was A Wet-Wipe, a Dog and a Caravan, which we took to the Udderbelly for the Fringe Festival in 2009 and then transferred to London. As an actor in the industry you quickly realise how much of a small cog in the machine you are and how little control you have over your lives. Forming Last Chance Saloon and writing shows for ourselves was a way of wrestling back the creative control, so we could create our own work and put it on in the way we wanted to.

And what you created was ”Guilty Pleasure Theatre”?
Guilty Pleasure Theatre’s sole purpose is to put a smile on your face. It has its roots in Vaudeville and turn-of-the-century music hall performance and continues through the work of Charlie Chaplin, Morcambe & Wise and more recently can even be seen in The League of Gentlemen. It can be a mix of high-octane physical comedy with audience-pleasing quick-witted knowing humour. We try and continue in that tradition. Last Chance Saloon aren’t here to educate – we want the audience to forget about their woes and their bad day at work, and indulge in a bloody good laugh.

I’m imagining that using pop songs helps with that?
We got tired of the hard-hitting serious theatre we were watching so decided to create a show that was fun and, first and foremost, made us laugh. This turned out to manifest itself as Count Dracula singing Barry Manilow numbers and local Transylvanian Gypsies talking about goats. The fact that a lot of other people found this as amusing as us is fantastic but I don’t think Last Chance Saloon will appeal to everyone.

Your performance style is pretty quirky. Was that intentional when you started?
We didn’t really tend to think about our performance style; we just wrote a script, which we then discarded in the rehearsal room and started to devise some routines both physically and vocally. Once we’d found these routines we drilled them to make them as slick and precise as we could. We are massive fans of physical comedy and believe greatly in the power that even the smallest gesture can say an awful lot about what you’re trying to achieve. So while the routines in our show could be seen as choreographed, they all start from a place of fun, play and messing around!

Your “messing around” certainly went down well at the Fringe…
For one awesome month you suddenly feel like a mini-celebrity, people who came to see your show the night before stop you in the street to congratulate you, you get recognised when you’re having a drink afterward, your picture is in the paper. And no, nobody sleeps for the whole month. And then it all comes crashing down when you arrive back in London again. But it’s an amazing experience – it’s like summer camp for comedians and actors.

Now it’s over and you’ve got good reviews under your belt, is the pressure on?
The pressure is on us to write another great show, but that is something that’s never going to leave. However, we all thrive on it and it’s a pleasure to do. Good reviews are just a lovely bonus and something to show our mums.

What’s next for Last Chance Saloon?
We’ve had such a good time this year and we’d love to keep building on that. We’re starting to plan our next show (already!) which we may take up to Edinburgh again. In the meantime though we’re transferring Dracula to the Etcetera Theatre as part of the very exciting Horror Festival. After that we’d love to keep performing in London and developing new comedy skits and new work. One of our favourite companies is Spymonkey, they have a huge fanbase and consistently produce phenomenal, funny shows and have been doing that over 10 years and we’d love to be able to build Last Chance Saloon over the years like that.

Dracula: Sex, Sucking and Stardom plays at the Etcetera Theatre from 16 to 18 October at 9.30pm. For tickets and more information visit www.londonhorrorfestival.com or for more about the company, www.lastchancesaloon.org.

Image credit: Idil Sukan – Draw HQ

Laura Turner

Laura is a writer from the East Midlands. After studying English at the University of York, she trained as a writer with Hull Truck Theatre, BBC New Talent and the Royal Court Theatre. She has worked extensively with touring theatre company Chapterhouse, where she is currently Writer in Residence, as well as other regionally-based companies. Laura wrote an episode of BBC EastEnders: E20 that was screened in 2011 and her adaptation of Jane Eyre recently toured UK theatres with Hull Truck Theatre Company.

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Virginia Woolf asserted that to have a room of one’s own was a necessity in order to write; not only a room with a window and four walls, but space to think, imagine and create. As Artistic Director of a theatre company in the very early stages of its creative growth, I am realising how challenging this can be. The search for a space to play, develop and grow seems to play a formative role in the early life of a theatre company. But is this hunt beginning to stunt creative growth?

Trying to find rehearsal space has been a constant problem for Witness Theatre, a worry that we could do without as we attempt to find our own theatrical identity. In rehearsal for The Importance of Being Earnest at Brighton Fringe this year, I was lucky enough to be given some free rehearsal space by the organisation Somewhereto_. Set up as part of the cultural Olympiad to help young people find space to do the things they love, the lifespan of this organisation is limited, but it’s an inspirational model.  Despite being a basic, ugly, council-owned building that always smelt strangely of yeast, the space we were gifted was lovely. It was a glimpse into an ideal world, a brick-walled warren of space where we could clear the floors and cover the walls with research and development material. This was invaluable for a theatre company that works as we do, allowing ideas to bounce around before being pinned down. But the financial ramifications of excessive use of space are huge, and finding somewhere to play isn’t easy.

Theatre companies and individual theatre makers need a home, but only those with proven experience and expertise seem to be able to find them. Most of us have a place we call home, but combining living space and work space can be difficult. If you’ve ever tried to rehearse in someone’s house you’ll know it normally ends disastrously and if you work freelance you’ll know how maddening it can be spending all day chasing an idea around four walls and a sofa. But for the financially struggling, what (other than choosing a more lucrative career path) are the other options?

One way young theatre makers can find space is in a digital capacity – BAC’s new digital scratch programme, for example. The value of digital space is huge, but its availability doesn’t importance of physical space and real people. Currently it seems having such space is a measure of success, afforded only to very large companies or those dubbed as emerging new talent. This is fair enough, credit and rewards for hard work where they’re due. But, similar to Lyn Gardner’s recent argument in the The Guardian for more grassroots funding, I’d argue for more offers of space at a grassroots level. Unlike funding, there is a lot of space out there not being used – what we need are the people taking a leap of faith and letting young companies make the most of it. I know it’s idealistic to ask for all this space to be given for free, but as a member of a young company who have benefited from this, I know how vital it is.

Recently there’s been a rise in shared office space being provided, either for free or very low rates, for those working in a creative capacity. A similar scheme with larger workshop/rehearsal space is certainly something to consider. Understandably, this is more challenging – as space increases, so do overheads. But there must be other companies feeling the same; if so,  maybe we should try doing something about it. Peter Brook said all it takes is an actor and an empty space for theatre to exist. There are certainly enough empty spaces in this country, maybe it’s time we started claiming them as our own. A co-operative of young theatre makers running a shared play space might seem like another idealistic notion, but it may be worth a try.

Find out more about Witness Theatre at www.witness-theatre.co.uk or follow them at @witnesstheatre.

Image of Lothian Road, Edinburgh by Lee Kindness.

Ellen Carr

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