Let’s bring theatre to the people

Forget warbling Gilbert and Sullivan operettas or reciting Shakespeare in period costume, Old Town Theatre Company is boldy going places few amateur groups go… to George Orwell’s 1984.

The curtain opened last night at Swindon Arts Centre, OTTC’s home since its formation 12 years ago.

In the past, the players have staged Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Strippers, Madness of George III, as well as work by new playwrights and stuff they’ve written themselves. They even put on an all female version of 12 Angry Men.

“We do stuff that’s accessible”, says 1984’s director, Ashley Heath. “We do lots of things other companies wouldn’t do.”

They’ve also won the Swindon One Act Play Festival for four consecutive years.

Ashley, 39, who works by day as a BBC local radio news reporter, likens directing a cast of 15 to managing a football team: “You can do all the training in the world but once your players get on the pitch, anything could happen.”

Leading actor, Richard Large, who works as a storeman by day, is almost as scared as rats as his character Winston Smith. So he gives a realistic emotional performance when a cage of real live rodents is strapped onto his face during his torture session in the dreaded Room 101. Tanya Barker, who works at the front desk at the Wyvern Theatre, plays his love interest, Julia. They don’t strip for their love scene but the action does get quite raunchy.

For most of the play, the actors must maintain deadpan faces to convey Orwell’s dystopia – a brutal totalitarian society inspired by Stalin’s Russia, where Big Brother represents Oceania’s oppressive Government. “The actors are robbed of being able to express themselves. If Winston Smith shows facial dissent, he’ll be killed. We’ve got round it by pre-recording voice overs so you know what he’s thinking.”

Ashley is not interested in the political aspect or drawing parallels with CCTV cameras, political spin or doublespeak, and Bush’s War on Terror. He says, “For me, it’s a story about the Human Spirit.”

He added, “For an amateur group, our standards are demanding. People go to the cinema time and time again, even if they see a bad film, but if they have a bad experience on their first visit to the theatre, they’re unlikely to come back. People came all the way from Wales to see our Life of Brian, so we must be on the right track.”

Owen Adams
Western Daily Press

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