Talking Sense: An Interview with Matthew Whittle, Producer of 'A Little Nonsense'

Juncture Theatre's, A Little Nonsense, is currently running at The Bike Shed Theatre in Exeter and according to the Press Release it's “A bare-knuckle look at the sharp edge of funny" and 'an original black comedy that explores the clown inside every man and the mirth that is hidden in melancholy.”

It's about a man who is bitterly frustrated by a clown’s freedom to play and inability to take life seriously, so he takes it upon himself to teach this clown a lesson and beat some sense into him. Through mime, slapstick, poetry and music, A Little Nonsense follows the farcical, haunting and abstract relationship of this unloving and tortured double-act and celebrates the importance of having light and shade within our lives.

Adam Blake and Harry Humberstone in A Little Nonsense © 2013 Ivor Houlker Photography

Described by Broadway Baby as “Genuinely faultless” and Latest 7 as, “a real gem of a show”, it's picked up a 5 star review from Latest 7 and 4 star reviews from Fringe Guru, The Post, The Public Reviews and Broadway Baby, since it's debut in 2012. In 2013, it also won the IdeasTap Innovators Brighton Fringe award and was nominated for the Most Ground Breaking Act at the Brighton Fringe.

All of this makes it an interesting prospect so, I thought I'd ask their Producer, Matthew Whittle, a few questions about about the show, being a Producer and his work with the company.

Tell us a bit about yourself...

MW: My name is Matthew Whittle and I am working as producer with Juncture Theatre on their latest production, A Little Nonsense, as it takes part in a two week residency at The Bike Shed Theatre in Exeter.

Do you work exclusively with Juncture?

MW: I regularly work with numerous companies, artists and organisations in Bristol as a producer, director and performer. In the past year I’ve worked with FellSwoop Theatre, Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bristol Old Vic, Watershed, MAYK, Theatre Bristol, Theatre Uncut, Verity Standen, Puppet Place, The Smoking Puppet Cabaret, Closer Each Day and The Wardrobe Theatre.

How did you get involved with the company?

MW: I know the company’s team really well from working together on various other projects over the years but when Juncture first staged A Little Nonsense at The Wardrobe Theatre in November 2012, I was really knocked out by it and I remember thinking how it was the best show we’d had at the venue all year. About 6 months ago Juncture parted company with their regular producer and they got in contact with me. Producing isn’t the part of my work I enjoy most and so I am very careful about which projects I take on but I am totally in love with A Little Nonsense and all the team at Juncture and so this one was an easy decision. I really believe in the production and therefore wanted to help it do well and for as many people as possible to see it.

Matthew Whittle

How long have you been Producing shows?
 
MW: I’ve been helping put on shows since I was in primary school and to this day I’m still exploring and experimenting with theatre’s different roles, trying to find the best way for me to work. There’s no single date I can put my finger on as the time I started producing shows but a significant shift in the way I work and the number of shows I am involved with came in 2011 when I was invited to become one of the co-artistic directors at The Wardrobe Theatre. Before then I’d also worked a lot as a theatre reviewer and on the marketing of lots of different productions but I eventually realised I had a huge appetite for creating theatre.

What's the best part of Producing a show?
 
MW: As a producer you work very closely with the director throughout a project. It’s really satisfying seeing a production come together in front of your eyes and to see your hard work pay off. The first showing of a new production is always a nerve-wracking night but it’s also exhilarating to see an audience take pleasure from something you’ve worked so hard on.

What's the hardest part of Producing a show?
 
MW: If you’re the sole producer on a show you are often working alone too so self-motivation can be difficult – this is why I am so careful about choosing the projects I produce. Also, as you are responsible for the vast majority of the organising and general admin of a show it can sometimes feel like a bit of a thankless task but always remember that the support you are giving your artists is invaluable.

What advice would you give to someone Producing a show for the first time?

MW: Don’t put yourself under too much pressure by feeling like you need to know how to do everything. Each time you produce a show you will learn something new – I’m still learning every day! – so just don’t be afraid to share problems and ask for advice. More broadly, the best advice I can give someone trying to become a producer is to understand that the most fundamentally important part of being a good producer is having a good relationship between yourself and the artist/company. Building a relationship takes time and sacrifice but once you have learnt to trust each other and communicate well, you can flourish together for years.

Adam Blake in A Little Nonsense © 2013 Ivor Houlker Photography

The weather outside is frightful, and the central heating is so delightful, so why should people watch A Little Nonsense?
 
MW: When I first saw A Little Nonsense I was totally bowled over by it. It’s just the sort of theatre I love; smart, inquisitive, dark, brooding, powerful and hilarious. It’s also open to interpretation so different audience members can have very different experiences. The writing by Oliver Hoare is wonderful with beautiful turns of poetry and humour. Anna Girvan is a terrific director and the cast of Harry Humberstone and Adam Blake are really, really fantastic. They have been working together for years and you can really see the strength of their relationship and understanding in their performances. Also, more and more I am finding clown one of the most exciting performance styles to work in. The way in which a clown on a theatre stage can form a relationship with and react to an audience is unique and something that it used to wonderful effect in A Little Nonsense.

Juncture are devising a new piece called ‘Stuff’ during the day as part of its residency at The Bike Shed, what are Juncture hoping to achieve in the time and space available?
 
MW: Stuff is a new show we are developing based on the book It Chooses You by Miranda July which explores people's idiosyncrasies and how people develop relationships with the objects they surround themselves with. This is the very first time we will be working on this new show and so during the residency we hope to explore the book, the ideas within it and see how we might stage some elements of it. During the process we hope to collaborate with Exeter's theatre-making community with open rehearsals, workshops and work-in-progress showings which is exciting too.

When are we likely to see the finished product?
 
MW: Hard to say but maybe by the end of the year or early in 2015.

And finally, we know what's next for Juncture, but what's next for you?
 
MW: After this Bike Shed residency, our attention turns to Edinburgh Fringe as we plan to take A Little Nonsense up there for 2014. Personally, I’ll be performing at Edinburgh 2014 too in Verity Standen’s HUG.

A Little Nonsense runs at The Bikeshed Theatre in Exeter until Friday 14th February 2014. It starts at 7.30pm and tickets are £12 (£8 Concessions), but you can watch it on Tuesday for just £5. For more information visit www.bikeshedtheatre.co.uk or call the Box Office on 01392 434169

Links

Juncture Theatre Website
Jucture on Facebook (you'll find a lot more production photos on this page)
Juncture on Twitter @JunctureTheatre
Matthew Whittle's Blog
Matthew Whittle on Twitter @Matthew_Whittle
The Wardrobe Theatre Website
The Wardrobe on Twitter @WardrobeTheatre

To be, or not to be, that is the question... But what if you could be both?

As an actor, when people ask you ‘what is your dream role?’, you know they’re expecting you to name a well-known classical character, probably Shakespearean, to be performed with a famous theatre company or theatre. But, whilst I have one of those on my list of dream roles, what I would truly love is a lead role (or co-lead!) in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy film or TV series (I can only partly blame Joss Whedon, Ridley Scott and James Cameron for this, because really it’s the fault of Jim Henson and Doctor Who!).

Browse through my bookshelves and among the science titles you will find books by Brian Greene, Michio Kaku (if you can find his BBC series about Time from a few years ago, I recommend watching it), Roger Penrose and Marcus Chown (no relation, but he’s a Chown so I definitely recommend looking up his books and iPad app!). They all reveal my interest in quantum physics and the universe.

To many people this interest may seem completely unrelated to the world of Acting, but a long time ago, I realised this scientific exploration explained part of my desire to Act and to create (that's a whole other blog post right there! But read on and you'll see I'm not the only one to recognise a connection). So, when I spotted playwright, Gill Kirk, was trying to raise money to develop her script inspired by quantum mechanics, I decided to find out why she had chosen the subject to write about and ask her more about the script she is trying to develop...

Playwright Gill Kirk  ©Gill Kirk

Why quantum mechanics?

GK: I wanted to write something new, had a lot going round my head and was almost completely silenced by the range choices niggling away at me. So I took a leaf from impro techniques - specifically Keith Johnstone - and tried some “free writing” - just letting whatever came out get onto the page: no self-censoring, no going back, no corrections. Just pages and pages of unhampered scribbling.

There were several weird ideas in there that were surprisingly appealing. One of the strongest was the idea of a physicist struggling in a world dominated by arts (much as our culture is). But it’s ironic, because of course, much of culture, art and performance - is all about trying to understand our place in this world. But that’s what physics is all about.

The phrases “quantum physics” or “quantum mechanics” meant nothing to me except something exotic. I didn’t even know they were the same thing. I didn’t know how much conflict there has been in this field of study; or that it’s only 100 years old; or that Einstein had real problems with much of it. I didn’t know that there still is no single, agreed answer.

After many library trips, I fell into the highly addictive world of TED Talks and just couldn’t stop. I started to twig that much of this appears in Doctor Who and New Age books. And that this thing was now a play which was “sort of” about quantum mechanics.

What's the play about?

GK: It’s deliberately NOT a play “about” science. It’s about the questions that we all face, time and time again, no matter how old, or where, or when we are.

Every day, we make deliberate choices to do - or not do - things. Each choice has results. In one theory of quantum mechanics - the multiple / parallel universe theory - you are only experiencing one possible version of your life, but all the other possible versions are out there: there is a you who didn’t read this blog; a you who hates theatre; a you who knows far more about science than I do (oh, hang on; that’s this world), and so on. In this theory, those parallel worlds can never know each other, but they still, definitely exist. It’s not sci-fi - it’s a robust theory supported by many serious physicists.

So what does that mean for us, for the play?

We see two people who do or don’t meet as children and, in some worlds, the impact that that childhood meeting has on their lives and characters. If they don’t meet as kids, they meet - or at least pass by one another - again and again in various other parallel worlds. Unlike the film Sliding Doors, there is no sense of “Destiny”, where the lead always ends up injured / pregnant at a certain point.  We see these two people’s best and worst selves: when they are good for each other, bad for each other; when they are great individuals and dire ones.  We love them, hate them, worry, ache and laugh with them.

Throughout, we see the set-up for a particular “thought experiment”: if there are parallel quantum universes and if I kill myself with a rifle controlled by a quantum particle (which both fires and doesn’t fire at the same time), then surely I can live forever - right? Because in the worlds where I die, I don’t know about it, but in the worlds where I survive, I live!

This is not a play with answers - it’s a play for wondering (for me, at least): are tiny actions (a smile, a “hello”) perhaps as significant as huge decisions in life? What makes us the people we are today? Do we like the people we are in certain circumstances? Did we take a wrong turn? Can we back-track? If we could, would we?

A poster I created to showcase a typeface I designed during my Graphic Design studies - who knew it would come in handy on the blog?  ©Annette Chown 2012

Where are you in the development process?

GK: I’ve been working with dramaturg David Lane since the summer, and he's has given me a brilliant sounding board and stretching place! We're now at the point where we want to “stand it up” and spend a day in a room with a professional director and actors to “stress-test” the script. I want to see where things work and don’t work, and improve them, before sending this out to theatres. I’m desperate to see this thing have a life (it obsesses me, unlike anything else I’ve written), so it has to be in the best shape to can be before it’s exposed! If this was a commissioned piece, the theatre would provide this, but it isn’t!

Crowdfunding is getting more and more popular, but why did you chose to try it?

GK: My local authority (not unusually) isn’t funding individuals anymore. ACE’s G4A programme ideally requires a level of investment from the artists or other sources. Having secured some interest from the scientific world, I decided to just start trying to raise funds myself and see how we got on.

Having almost completed the crowdfunding (in terms of time, not funding!), I’d really recommend it to others. It is a very thought-provoking process. I don’t just owe my best effort to the script (me) anymore, but as I type there are 45 people who have put their own money into the project and I must not  - cannot - let them down. It’s really exposing, terrifying, sobering - loads more than asking people to come to your show!

Why did you choose Talent Backer?

GK: I wanted to use a UK rather than US site. Talent Backer are talent- rather than business-focused. They’ve given me daily coaching, been really supportive, so - so far - all’s good and I’m really glad of this route.

What can people do to help, and if they fund, does it have to be a lot?

GK: You can just pledge a fiver!  http://www.talentbacker.com/talents/view/gill-kirk

There are escalating rewards for funders (if I hit the full target), and I am very happy to discuss those if you wanted something else.

But alongside the pledges, publicising this to your networks would be a massive help. I’m driving my social and personal networks insane with this (28 days is a long time) and we still have £400 to raise in this last week (not panicking, not panicking). If we don’t hit the target, we don’t get ANY of the funds. Uhuh.

So, please - consider a fiver, become a theatre angel and patron of the arts, get a reward for your kindness AND if you can encourage others to support me, you’re doing a great thing. And who knows where this play will go if it does well…? You could be in at the beginning of something big! But that’s just one of many possible universes!

At the time of posting this, Gill only has 7 days left to reach her target. Here's the link to her Talent Backer page: http://www.talentbacker.com/talents/view/gill-kirk

The Theory of Relativity: the theory of the very big versus Quantum Theory: the theory of the very small © Annette Chown

Now you have a choice: does the ‘you’ in this version of the universe pledge or not pledge money to help Gill develop this script? Remember, if she doesn’t reach her target, she gets NONE of the money already pledged.

To fund or not to fund, THAT is the question...

Links

Gill’s Talent Backer Page
Gill Kirk’s Website
TED Talks - warning, as Gill says, they are addictive!
Keith Johnstone’s ‘Impro’
Richard Feynman
Brian Greene’s Website
Marcus Chown’s Website
Michio Kaku’s Website - warning, the banner on his website, does make him look like Physics’ answer to Derek Acorah
Roger Penrose's 'The Road to Reality'
Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix - I’m just throwing this in as a reading suggestion because it’s a nice, easy introduction to some ideas and theories that make their way into a lot of Science Fiction, not just The Matrix, and it’s littered with suggestions for further reading/watching.