Perform the piece dressed in the likeness of Madame Arcati.
Parallel this with Billy Elliot – how it felt to take a stand against the social norms of ambition held in Rotherham’s working classes.
Use projection to show scenes from Billy Elliot – “Go Billy”
Perform some snippets from Blithe Spirit – Madame Arcati’s eloquence and physicality.
Idea II – Manual Labour.
Perform some manual work on stage throughout the duration of the performance.
– Build/take apart a small engine
– Mine/dig/transport Coal across the space
– Boxing/Rugby – sports related.
– Plumbing & Heating.
Whilst performing, talk about growing up working class with ambitions in theatre – a short biography of life.
Project the femininity of Madame Arcati through snippets of me performing in Blithe Spirit for A-level.
Growing up on the back end of the miner’s strikes and the rule of Thatcher.
Idea III – A history of Billy’s.
Talk about working class Billy’s – Billy Liar, Billy Elliot, Myself and Billy Casper in Kes.
Create an energetic and physically driven performance about the struggle of the working classes
Show how people can find happiness through other mediums. – Dance, deception, Drama and bird-keeping.
I grew up in Rotherham, a town in the centre of England right smack-bang in South Yorkshire. Nobody really knows where Rotherham is, nor what it is really. When I tell people I’m from Rotherham they ask again:
“where’s that?”
and I would reply:
“Next to Sheffield, the Chuckle Brothers, Howard Webb the Referee and David Seaman the goalkeeper all come from there”
and, none the wiser, they say:
“oh right.”
With this reputation Rotherham, growing up in Rotherham never came with any ambitions. Everyone at school either wanted to be a mechanic, a plumber, a joiner or join the army. So imagine their surprise when I said I wanted to create theatre and act on stage – instead of being a mechanic like my father before me.
“Drama’s not even a real subject – and it’s for puffs!”
Now, no one needs to tell me they were wrong. I always knew they were but that didn’t make the pressure of wanting to go in to theatre any easier. Nor did I gain a resoundingly good message from my parents when I told them:
“why would you want to do that? You’d never get anywhere. There’s no money in it.”
This reaction took away some confidence – I didn’t want to upset my family nor chase something that wasn’t going to make me successful, but I had to try.
And so I passed my GCSE – C grade nothing more – It was a terrible grade now that I think about it but I managed to get a place on the Drama A-level course at my Sixth Form. All the while I learned more and more about Drama I pursued something else as a back up: Maths, merely because I had a nack for it. All the while this happened I kept getting the same comments – the same whimsical remarks that eventually led on to the basis for my personal statement – “Drama, is that even a real subject?” – ‘Yes it is dickhead’ is what I should have said in hindsight but I just laughed.
In the end the peripeteia of my life came about during my As Level drama performances. I was cast as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit.
A Streetcar Named Desire
I looked fabulous as a lady.
Theatre was always a huge part of my life – I had always wanted to perform. I performed as a Madame Arcati in front of my parents – I was Billy Elliot taking the stand in the sports hall where he used to box and dance. I performed in front of them like they weren’t even in the room – and it paid off. This stimuli will offer me some inspiration in order to create a piece of Solo performance – the experiences that people have when chasing their dreams from a working-class background.
