What do you get when you combine drunk dialling, beer goggles and some killer dance moves, with all the usual embarrassments and indiscretions of a house party? New musical Part A of course, storming its way into the Roundhouse this weekend as part of the Accidental Festival. Co-writers Freya Smith and Jack Williams tell AYT’s Laura Turner about being inspired by a night of sobriety at a drunken party, and how they armed themselves with just a guitar on their quest to address the need they saw for new voices in musical theatre.

Tell us a bit about Part A.

Smith: Part A is a musical which documents funny and awkward situations unfolding at a house party. Each song focuses on a single moment, whether it be a doe-eyed drunk dialler leaving an embarrassing voicemail on her ex’s phone, or a trio of chauvinists celebrating the power of beer goggles (and lamenting it the next morning). The show features a cast of six, who are accompanied by a band of four, on piano, guitar, bass and cajon. It was written by me and Jack, not long after we completed our degrees in 2011.

This particular performance is taking place as part of the Accidental Festival, which is organised by students at Central School of Speech and Drama, and aims to give emerging artists a platform to perform.

What’s your background in the industry?

Williams: We’re currently spending our time in the background of the industry.

Smith: We’re just two kids with a guitar, a pocketful of dreams and a worn out copy of Abba’s Greatest Hits, hoping to give Andrew Lloyd Webber a bloody good run for his money. But, to answer the question properly: before composing, we performed, mainly at university. I was involved in musicals and a cappella, and Jack was part of an improvised musical comedy troupe. After performing at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe I decided that I wanted to create something for the 2012 festival, and I knew just the chap to do it with. Sadly, Sondheim was busy, so I asked Jack. Since receiving positive feedback from that initial run, we’ve been trying to publicise and perform the show as much as possible, while simultaneously working on new material.

And the show itself is a song cycle?

Smith: A song cycle is comprised of a collection of songs, generally without any dialogue in between. The songs are connected by a story, or theme – in our case it’s the setting of a house party. Rather than having a linear narrative, we wanted to provide a snapshot view of a single night, and the isolated moments which occur within it.

So does one of you write the lyrics and the other the music?

Smith: Unlike most writing partnerships (in which there’s a composer and separate lyricist) Jack and I dabble with both music and lyrics. This is due in part to neither of us wanting to be the Tim Rice of the pair (sorry Tim), but also – and mainly – because we both have musical and lyrical ideas that we want to explore further. We often write the draft of a song individually before presenting it to the other person, who then jams along and acts as editor and critic.

Williams: The role of ‘critic’ is one that Freya was born to play.

Musicals and movement often go hand in hand…

Williams: Certain songs are quite stylised – ‘Beer Goggles’ has some rat-pack clicking/toe tapping and ‘Dancing’ includes some funky moves that wouldn’t be out of place in Saturday Night Fever.

Smith: While the piece doesn’t feature a huge amount of choreography, movement definitely plays a significant part in defining a character and his/her predicament. There’s a bit of slumping, a lot of staggering, and – never fear – we even include the most beloved of all musical theatre staples: jazz hands.

What’s the rehearsal process been like?

Williams: With some of the songs we had a very firm idea of what we wanted them to be like, and as a result they remained largely unchanged in the transition from script to stage. However, with others, there was a lot more room for experimentation. We were still writing parts of the show during the rehearsal period, so the original cast had a fair bit of input, especially when it came to choreography. For instance, while rehearsing one of the songs, which centres on a party goer busting some drunken moves on the dance floor, we more or less improvised a body percussion breakdown, complete with beat boxing, chest thumping, floor stomping and a slap bass solo. Needless to say, it’s in the show.

Did you deliberately decide to tackle themes that young audiences can relate to and why?

Smith: I would say it was less of a conscious decision than a natural consequence of two (fairly) young people sitting in a room and jamming. We exploited situations and topics that were familiar to us. While writing the show, we were really just concentrating on amusing – and outwitting – each other. Fortunately for us, that translated to a wider audience.

What’s the message of the show?

Williams: The message of the show is to be yourself. And if you can’t be yourself, drink enough alcohol to become someone else!

Smith: There is a line near the end of the show where a character reflects on the party, and ponders: “Why do we do this to ourselves? We look like fools and feel like hell, It’s nothing but a song and dance, Let’s give sobriety a chance!” I could say that this was the overriding message of the show, but that would probably be a lie (especially as chorus members respond with an appalled “What?! – No!”)

I guess what the show promotes more than anything, is the inevitability with which awkward and undesirable situations occur, but the importance of being able to laugh at those moments (which, admittedly, may take some time).

Why should readers of AYT come and see the show?

Williams: Because it’s funny, feisty and (perhaps most importantly of all during these harsh economic times) just four pounds! That works out at less than thirty seven pence per song and just over two pence per chortle, four pence per guffaw or seven pence per belly laugh.

Smith: Also, if you’re a young person interested in theatre (which I’ll assume you are, as you’re on this site), then I think the idea of watching a production written by someone of your generation is naturally exciting. Of course, the reality may be different. But I think you should take that gamble.

Part A the Musical plays at the Roundhouse on Sunday 12 May 2013 at 6.40pm as part of the Accidental Festival. Find out more about the show at http://partamusical.wix.com/parta#! or on twitter at https://twitter.com/PartAMusical.

I’m an emotional person, this much I know about myself, but when it comes to theatre I have developed a heart of stone. I’ve spoken previously about how music can make my heart swell, but when it comes down to sitting and watching a theatre show, my tear ducts remain dry and any attempt at moving my hard heart is fruitless. That was the case until I found myself watching The Dark Side of Love at Roundhouse as part of London International Festival of Theatre and the World Shakespeare Festival. Developed by teenagers from London and Brazil and directed by Companhia Bufomeccanica artist Renato Rocha, this promenade piece in the hidden tunnels beneath the Roundhouse looks at Shakespeare’s most tragic and fragile relationships. Drawing on Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet to name a few, The Dark Side of Love is a poignant, visual and emotive piece that brought me to silent tears.

If truth be told I was apprehensive about The Dark Side of Love. There is a certain idea that has built from previous experiences of promenade work in tunnels with young people, but thankfully these were completely blown out of the water by the young participants in this piece. Few people would realise that beneath the expanse of the Roundhouse auditorium there is a network of tunnels that make up the creative spaces and studios for the Roundhouse’s young people’s programmes. Here, The Dark Side of Love acts as the perfect playspace where characters from Shakespeare’s play are manifested and dissolved into the darkness.

We are encouraged at first to wander through the circular tunnel where performers are stationed, most covered in blood and lost in their own world of delivering a combination of song, spoken word or reciting lines that merge both Shakespearian text and contemporary variations. There are a smattering of different languages that interplay between the performers, and at times we find ourselves peering into buckets of water within which projections shimmer. Whilst not entirely original, this sets the atmosphere and tone of the piece well, before we are encouraged to enter a central vault with fabric constricting our movements. Here projections play about us, and a general sense of anticipation is met before, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, the fabric is removed by force and we are faced with the performers staring at us. A very powerful moment.

What is curious about The Dark Side of Love is the way in which it manages to produce poignant visual images whilst navigating the various characters and themes of Shakespeare’s plays. The company distills the essence of Shakespeare into images of teenage love and loss. We forget at times how universal the loss of a love can be, no matter at what age or how much time has elapsed since, and this is certainly what these young performers portray. Whether it’s Ophelia reading the letters of Hamlet, or Romeo drinking the poison over the loss of Juliet, these young figures seem to resonate with the performers. Rocha, with Co-Director Keziah Serreau, directs the piece with a playful spirit, feeding from the performers’ abilities. There is much made of repetitive movements and dance, building images and creating songs which interplay with projected work. A particularly striking image is a mass of balloons held by the ensemble that burst leaving only Romeo’s balloon intact, as he stares towards Juliet.

The company does well to manipulate the space, moving the audience and dividing them throughout the vault. Projections by SDNA creative studio play out across the walls offering a shimmering reflection of the performers, and with Richard Williamson’s lighting design there is an altogether haunting atmosphere. Yet it is the performers’ commitment and emotional response to the work of Shakespeare that rings through The Dark Side of Love. There is a particularly strong spoken word poem that one performer delivers whilst being thrown about and beaten back by another. Her lyrical words were filled with such emotional depth that I couldn’t help but weep.

Whilst there are some niggling issues with fracturing Shakespeare’s words and characters into a theme of love and teenage angst, there is much to be admired within The Dark Side of Love. It’s an emotive 45 minutes that reminds us how fragile our lives and loves are, how they twist, turn and ultimately end. It’s not a perfect production, but it certainly rendered me somewhat broken and emotional afterwards, haunted by fragile images of love and loss.

The Dark Side of Love is playing at the Roundhouse as part of LIFT Festival and the World Shakespeare Festival until 8 July. For more information and tickets, see the Roundhouse website.

Continuing our The Dark Side of Love blog series is cast member Rosy Morris, who talks about accessing emotion in Shakespeare’s work.

When we first started devising The Dark Side of Love at the Roundhouse we were sent into a whirlwind of emotion – for me it was love, a raw one. Having just split up with my boyfriend was at the core of my reasons for wanting to take part in the project. Welcome to the universal world of Shakespeare and his on ongoing relevance in people’s lives.

The beginning of the process was all about opening up, telling our own stories of love and loss. Not all of us had been in love, however everyone has obviously experienced love of some sort whether it be a lover, friend or a family member.

However, the theme of loss seemed to be much more provoking. It seemed the older cast members had lost a lover – myself being one of them – but the interesting point here was that when we relate our own stories back to Shakespeare’s, he understood humankind perfectly. He was able to grasp the subtleties of people through language. It was here I realised I related most to Ophelia from Hamlet. She is rejected without knowing why. A common question I think a lot of women have – both young and old – is why men in particular have such a tendency to reject with such ambiguity. Why all the secrets? Why does society repeat itself with the insistence on hiding the reasons behind our dismissive actions? Does one who is rejected not deserve the respect and right to know why they have lost this relationship?

But, moving on from the dark side of love and onto a jolly subject: death. When our Brazilian director Renato Rocha asked us to imagine a freshly dead person, we all had to delve deep into our imaginations. He was quietly shocked by this, explaining that he had experienced people being shot in the streets on a regular basis. I guess this is one way London life protects us from reality; police arrive almost instantly on the scene of a crime and clean it all up. It seems that Brazil’s knowledge of death shares similarities with that of Shakespeare’s time. He wanted us to improvise a scene of death, bringing objects into the space relating to them, asking ourselves what they meant, why we were using them and what their significance was. By doing this we created a montage of thought-provoking images allowing us to think further about the significance of death and what it means to different people.

Further into the devising process, we worked on acting on instinct, which for most of us was an initial struggle especially when doing so in front of an audience – as performers our initial reactions were to ‘act’ our responses to our surroundings. Removing ourselves from this was a great relief once we got the hang of it and allowed us to use it as a tool further on, whether that meant it simply helped us relate to our characters or even just playing around with our speeches.

Overall, the last 10 months have taught us all so much about how to create and devise your own piece of theatre. By interpreting the great Bard’s work one can see that his stories are so universal that even when you do play around with them a lot of the ideas from the original plays are still highly distinguishable. And if you ever find yourself questioning why Shakespeare still lives on today, all you need do is look around, because he’s in everything and everyone.

The Dark Side of Love will be staged at the Roundhouse 26 June – 8 July. Commissioned by the Roundhouse and LIFT, it forms part of the World Shakespeare Festival.

I was in awe as I walked into the Roundhouse in Camden. Having attended shows in Stratford-Upon-Avon previously, I felt immediately as if I was in that beautiful provincial town viewing a play by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was indeed attending RSC’s production of Twelfth Night, but not in Shakespeare’s old neighborhood. Instead, the RSC had fit the versatile Roundhouse with a replica of one of their theatres.

Twelfth Night has been programmed into The RSC’s Shipwreck Trilogy, which also features productions of The Tempest and The Comedy of Errors.  Directed by David Farr this production lives up to the standard of the renowned RSC.

Farr has a true genius for staging and creating amazing stage pictures. As the play opens up on men languidly laying about a dingy hotel lobby a great surprise is had. From the water appears Viola, rescued from the treacherous waters of Illyria. It is in these moments I am reminded of the ingenuity of theatrical artists and the magic of the stage.

The cast featured some of the strongest Shakespearean actors I have witnessed to date. In her debut with the RSC, Emily Taaffe took on the role of Viola disguised as Cesario in order to serve in Duke Orsino’s court. Cesario learns that the Duke has been pining after Olivia, who, in mourning for her brother’s death, dismisses the Duke’s advances. Cesario vows to aid the Duke in his pursuits and this is where the crux of the play’s comedy comes from. Taaffe handles the gender-breaking role with such pithy for an actress so young. Kirsty Bushell, whose controlled acting is top notch, brings the role of Olivia to life. Watching her fall in love with Viola as Cesario is a comedic treat. Bushell explores the highs and lows of romantic anguish as she suffers with unrequited love, making Viola an endearing heroine. Other mentionable performances include Cecilia Noble’s Maria, who had such a commanding presence and handled the manipulating maid with experience and care. But this production truly rested upon the ingenuity and skill of Jonathan Slinger’s Malvolio. Slinger offered up an incredibly subtle puritanical knob. Everyone knows this sort of guy and through Slinger’s genius Malvolio is both as loveable as he is tedious to deal with.

Technically, this was such a stunning experience. Adem Ilhan created musical underscores and interludes throughout the play. Actors Nicholas Day, Felix Hayes, and Kevin McMonagle handled the songs with such care and bravado, creating a beautiful drunken trio whilst McMonagle’s guitar skills added a flare like no other. Jon Bausor’s design was like a Pandora’s box of secrets. Throughout the play bits of set came to life and caught the audience off guard in a fantastical way.

This production brought to life one of Shakespeare’s best-known comedies in an innovative and moving way, handled with great direction and care from the cast and production team at the RSC.

Twelfth Night is playing at the Roundhouse as part of the World Shakespeare Festival until 5 July. For more information and tickets, see the Roundhouse website.