“Why should I read this?” you ask yourself. Well, assuming you’re still in some sort of lockdown, you’re done with Netflix and don’t want to begin another jigsaw, this may just fill ten minutes of your time before you remember you haven’t caught up with last week’s Masked Singer.
LET’S BEGIN AT THE VERY BEGINNING
I joined Salisbury Playhouse a week before Christmas 2007. The pantomime Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood had just opened, a new website was due to launch in two weeks’ time (eek!) and a season brochure had to be signed off almost immediately (double eek!). I hastily arranged a couple of poster photoshoots (my arm holding a policeman’s truncheon proudly appearing in one for What the Butler Saw) and settled into learning about the theatre and my new job as Head of Marketing.
I’d just moved from London, so my daily commute had reduced overnight from nearly an hour on the Jubilee Line to just five minutes in Salisbury. In fact, in the winter I could see the Playhouse fly tower from my window (between the railway track and the cathedral spire in the distance).
I learnt very quickly what a friendly, well-supported venue it was; respected in the theatre industry and cherished by the local community. Skilled, dedicated people worked in all departments and there was a real sense of occasion and pride when a new production opened.
I think the fierce loyalty came from the fact that the theatre had been built almost entirely from public donations, raised in a very short time, so everyone felt they had a say in its running and a stake in its future. And boy, did they still sometimes want to have their say.
The foundation stone had been laid by Sir Peter Hall (then Director of the National Theatre) and the theatre was opened in 1976 by actor Sir Alec Guinness, taking a break from shooting a new feature film. That film, released the following year, was the original Star Wars.
ANOTHER OPENING, ANOTHER SHOW
Productions during my first season included Peter Whelan’s The Herbal Bed – (about a scandal involving Shakespeare’s eldest daughter), a little-known JB Priestley thriller People at Sea (set on an art-deco liner in the Caribbean with a magnificent set representing the listing ship) and the ever-talented Stage 65 Youth Theatre in Lionel Bart’s musical Oliver! It took me several weeks before I plucked up the courage to ask someone why the youth theatre was called Stage 65 (Answer: it was formed in 1965).
Incidentally, Oliver! has a special place in my heart. Although I’ve grown up fascinated by theatre, I never wanted to be an actor. However, one of my rare stage appearances was in an amateur production of the Lionel Bart musical, sharing the stage with a fellow 14-year old called Catherine Zeta-Jones. Now what happened to her?
Back to the Playhouse. One of my all-time favourite productions was also staged during that first year – Patrick Marber’s After Miss Julie. I’ll be honest, audiences stayed away in their droves, but it was 90 minutes of brilliant drama (without an interval – shock, horror! What about ice-cream sales?). And again, it had a stunning set that could have been straight out of Downton Abbey (this was pre-Downton days). The three-hander cast included Chris Harper, who had appeared in Victoria Wood’s BAFTA award-winning Housewife, 49 and went on to play sinister Nathan Curtis in Coronation Street.
Dear reader, I don’t want this to become a list of shows I’ve enjoyed as that could be deeply dull, but please indulge me for a moment, before you click away or swipe left.
The main house of the Playhouse is a clever piece of design. It seats around 500 people. That’s not huge in theatre terms, but it is designed in such a way that productions can feel large and epic or small and intimate. It’s all down to the skill of the directors and designers to create the appropriate atmosphere.
‘Big’ shows such as Little Shop of Horrors. Guys and Dolls and, of course, the annual pantomimes (more on those later) can work just as well as more intimate plays such as Private Lives, Betrayal and the previously mentioned After Miss Julie.
DON’T CALL IT NEW WRITING!
Gareth Machin joined the Playhouse as Artistic Director in 2012 and it was his ambition to put new writing centre stage (literally). Except, we marketeers knew that the phrase ‘new writing’ is a complete turn-off to most audiences. So we launched Original Drama – ironically perhaps not the most original title, but it did what it said on the tin. We wanted audiences to get excited about new plays that told new stories. We wanted packed audiences, not three men and a dog.
We couldn’t have hoped for a better launch production. Chris Chibnall (who had just kept everyone glued to their TV screens with Broadchurch) came up with a fantastic black comedy about a Dorset family wedding. Worst Wedding Ever (we went through several title options before going with this one; I think I may have even suggested it), became a firm favourite of Salisbury audiences and was revived a couple of years later. Night after night I loved watching the audiences’ reactions to the play as the plot unfolded. In some ways, it was even funnier when you knew what was coming.
I should say that it wasn’t an ‘easy sell’. Just weeks before opening, sales weren’t good and we were all wondering if it was the right play for our audiences. However, once the ‘wedding band’ struck up in the foyer at that first preview and within ten minutes of curtain up, we knew we had a success on our hands.
MAGNA CARTA
While I loved working on Worst Wedding Ever, perhaps my favourite Original Drama produced during this time was The Magna Carta Plays – because it summed up our ambitions as a regional theatre reflecting its community.
2015 was the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta. Salisbury Cathedral is home to the best-preserved copy of this ancient document. Four world-renowned playwrights – Timberlake Wertenbaker, Howard Brenton, Sally Woodcock and Anders Lustgarten – were commissioned to each write a short play inspired by the themes of Magna Carta.
We ended up with a varied quartet of plays; one contemporary, one historical, one a modern-day crime mystery and one set in a dystopian future! But as an evening, what they did was get people talking, sharing thoughts, arguing and engaging with a night at the theatre.
The Magna Carta Plays was a marketing challenge. Not least, because we were promoting a set of plays (not just one) that were yet to be written. How do you begin to write copy about or create imagery for that? But we did, and it’s a production of which I remain very proud.
NOT ANOTHER WEDDING PLAY
Another production which had its roots firmly in Wiltshire was Barney Norris’s retelling of Blood Wedding. Most people know of it, if at all, as Lorca’s Spanish tragedy and certainly not any easy night at the theatre. Barney’s skill was (and is) to make it relevant to an area he knows well. He re-set the story in a modern-day Wiltshire village, overlooking Salisbury Plain and focused it around a community centre. With familiar characters, contemporary dialogue and that original story at its heart, it was one of the most powerful, gritty plays I’ve seen at the Playhouse.
Like The Magna Carta Plays, it got audiences talking. At the beginning of 2020 it was to be the final ‘home-produced’ production before the world changed.
DOWN THE CORRIDOR, IGNORE THE TOILET AND THE DOOR TO THE OFFICES
The Salberg is the Playhouse’s ‘studio’ theatre. A 150-seat black box, squeezed in between the offices and the main theatre, that can feel intimate, friendly, challenging or exciting. It’s where I’ve seen some of the most rewarding theatre.
Death and The Maiden, by Ariel Dorfman, is a dark, uneasy play which lent itself perfectly to The Salberg. Playing one of the roles was actress Ruth Gemmell, who has now become familiar as Lady Bridgerton in Netflix’s bonk-fest Bridgerton.
Another Salberg production I loved working on was Up Down Boy, from Bristol-based Myrtle Theatre. It was inspired by the extraordinary life of a boy with Down’s Syndrome, as seen from his mother’s humorous perspective.
The production featured a gifted and charismatic young actor, Nathan Bessell, playing the central character of Matty and drawing on his own experiences. The play went on to be presented at the National Theatre’s Shed and there was even a sequel, Up Down Man.
The Salberg threw up all sorts of surprises during my years there – from Rosemary Ashe (original cast member of The Phantom of the Opera) performing her Ethel Merman tribute, Call Me Merman, to an unknown little show from the Edinburgh Fringe… called Fleabag.
HE'S BEHIND YOU!
Oh how I love pantomime. Oh yes I do! I’ve no time for people who dismiss it or look down their noses at it. It’s one of the few live experiences that the whole family can enjoy together, it’s a hugely skilled artform to get right and is big business.
I think the finest pantomime I saw was while working at the Theatre Royal Plymouth. It was a beautifully designed production of Mother Goose starring Roy Hudd and Jack Tripp – and Jason Donovan’s dad!
Anyway, back to Wiltshire. Salisbury Playhouse’s pantos have, for years, had a strong following. They aren’t full of stars, or huge casts. But they have always had a warmth and a focus on storytelling that makes them hugely loved. Within less than an hour’s drive from Salisbury there can be more than ten Christmas pantomimes, so we cherished, developed and protected our audiences.
Having said that, there was always a feeling that the pantos could work even harder for the ‘business’. So, about six years ago, we began work to reposition them, to broaden the attraction, make them more distinct and, let’s be honest, increase the income.
With artistic changes, more familiar music introduced and a new approach to marketing, we grew audiences by more than 30% over just three years, with income increasing by a similar level. I was proud to play a part in Salisbury’s first half a million pound panto (achieved while still keeping ticket prices accessible).
I still get a thrill remembering how audiences reacted to seeing the swan-shaped barge appear and glide downstage in a sea of dry ice in Cinderella (no coach and horses in Salisbury!), or Aladdin’s magic carpet magically hover above the audience as Katy Perry’s Like a Firework blasted out.
Locally-produced pantomimes have become rare, so it was a proud moment when the Playhouse won Best Panto at the Great British Panto Awards a few years ago.
WE'RE HERE BECAUSE WE'RE HERE
One of my proudest times was being involved in a project that took place away from the Playhouse. On 1 July 2016 thousands of volunteers took part in a modern memorial to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.
Conceived by artist Jeremy Deller and the National Theatre, Salisbury Playhouse joined a number of theatres across the UK in this moving event. It was planned in complete secrecy so that the men would just appear, silently, in locations across the country. (Even planning meetings at the National Theatre had a code name!). On the day I remember getting up early and walking to Salisbury Station and being confronted by the moving sight of these young 'soldiers', stood silently and then marching away across town. We're Here Because We're Here was an unforgettable day.
In 2017 plans began to merge Salisbury Playhouse with Salisbury Arts Centre and Salisbury International Arts Festival to create a new organisation, eventually to be called Wiltshire Creative. It was a challenging, but ultimately rewarding period from a marketing and PR perspective and one I'll return to in a future blog.
IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS?
There was always a sprinkling of famous visitors popping up at the Playhouse - from Benedict Cumberbatch dropping off flowers for his then girlfriend in a production and Cameron Mackintosh checking out a Saturday matinee of Betty Blue Eyes, to Ann Widdecombe unloading carrier bags of books from the boot of her car and Craig Revel Horwood watching the new musical Moonfleet.
Or you’d pop up to the Green Room to make a coffee and find yourself engaging in conversation with Mary Portas, Gareth Gates or Mrs McClusky from Grange Hill (Google her if you're too young). Oh, and my favourite, the actress who had a personal security guard to take her home each night but always insisted on leaving via the foyer wearing dark glasses… but that story’s for another time.
GOODBYE WALL
The final production I saw at Salisbury Playhouse was Claire Sweeney giving a brilliant performance in Willy Russell’s bittersweet Shirley Valentine. It was March 2020. After that, productions began being cancelled and the rest, as they say, is history.
Shirley Valentine spent a lot of time talking to the kitchen wall. “Hello wall!” she’d say. I wonder how many of us have done that during this last year?
Tim has been Head of Marketing at Salisbury Playhouse (2007-2017) and Director of Communications & Sales for Wiltshire Creative (2017-2020).
www.timcroall.com
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