1979: it’s a time of change, and disabled people in Britain are feeling increasingly excluded and threatened by the talk of cuts to benefits and public services that’s coming from the new Conservative Government.
2010: it’s a time of change, and disabled people in Britain are feeling increasingly excluded and threatened by the talk of cuts to benefits and public services that’s coming from the new Conservative-led Coalition Government….
Oh dear. Ever get the sense that we’ve been here before?
FAMILIAR NOISES
Disability-led theatre company Graeae’s latest production is a musical featuring the songs of the late, great Ian Dury. Reasons To Be Cheerful is set in 1979, at the height of Dury’s fame with ‘The Blockheads’, but it’s being performed now — and both cast and crew are all too aware of the connections.
For Graeae’s Artistic Director, Jenny Sealey, the personal relevances of the production are about marking Graeae’s 30th anniversary and the decade since Ian Dury’s death, but she’s the first to point out how it’s ‘horribly relevant‘ the show now is, given that a Conservative Prime Minister once again lives in Downing Street. “You just sit and read the script, and the lyrics, and think — ‘Oh God, what’s changed? Nothing.‘ So it’s really relevant,” she tells Able magazine during a break for lunch during the first week of proper rehearsals.
Playwright Paul Sirett, who also performs as part of the on-stage band, agrees. “We’re in the throws of all the cuts again, and who knows quite where we’re going,” he says. “Obviously, these are different times; it’s a Coalition Government, but the noises that I hear coming from the Tories are very similar to the noises we were listening to back then.”
RIGHT SHOW, RIGHT TIME
Not that the show was necessarily intended to be political with even a small ‘p’. Jenny says: “Ian Dury was a patron [of Graeae] and when he died it was, like, ‘Oh damn! We never did anything with him when he was alive.’ When I took over the company, my partner was then working at Theatre Royal Stratford East as the Education Director. He said I should really talk to the director of the theatre, Kerry Michael, about doing a show about Ian Dury. So then I started talking to Kerry, and then we sort of talked to the writer, Paul Sirett.”
According to Jenny the show proved remarkably easy to cast, yet it’s nevertheless taken some time to get ‘from page to stage’. “It’s been at least five years since we first started talking about doing the show,” says Paul, “and then for one reason or another — availabilities, and all the kind of stuff that happens — it’s only now that it’s finally come to fruition. I’m sure some people will say: ‘Oh, it’s another Ian Dury’ — after the film, after the West End musical ‘Hit Me’ — but we started working on this years ago, and it just so happens that we’re doing it now.”
While putting together a show using Ian Dury’s songs wasn’t Paul’s idea, as a full-on Dury fan he was keen to be involved. “I always thought Dury’s songs were very theatrical,” he explains. “There’s a lot of music hall and showbiz in there already. A lot of them are character-based songs; they’re begging for that treatment, really. So the only question was then: do we write the ‘biog’ or a story with the songs. We’ve ended up doing something that’s neither of those, it’s a bit of everything. I wanted it to be full of raw and anarchic energetic in just the way I felt Ian Dury and his music came to us.”
BLOW-OUT
Able magazine visited Graeae at the end of the first full week of rehearsals, and was privileged to sit in on the first run-through of the entire show. Even in this ‘rough’ state, with cast members holding scrawed-on scripts, it’s clearly a show with a genuine story to tell about ordinary people, families and friendship — powered by Dury’s music. And the multi-ability cast have a phenomenal energy and commitment to the piece; they’re not afraid to fling their bodies around or take risks — and ‘be punk’.
Yet with up to 15 musicians and performers on stage, plus the prominence that comes from a three week run at Theatre Royal Stratford East (following an earlier run at the New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich), Reasons To Be Cheerful is also the biggest show that Graeae’s ever done. “It’s very terrifying but, knowing that Graeae’s Art Council funding will be cut by 10% next year, the timing could not be better,” says Jenny. “This is our last big blow-out before we may have to reduce the size of the company in line with what’s happening, before we can start to build it up again.”
One thing’s clear from our time in the rehearsal room — the cast have already gelled together and are enjoying themselves. “There’s a great, playful, committed spirit in this room, and you don’t always get that — there’s a bit of the punk anarchy in the room,” says actor Karen Spicer. “You can’t be in a room with this fantastic band and fantastic performers — who I’m very privileged to be working with — giving it all with Ian Dury songs, and not feel bloody good.”
DOING DURY JUSTICE
The man performing many of the songs is John Kelly who, while not a professional actor, has some 30 years gigging experience behind him. “Yeah, this is probably the only bit of musical theatre that I’d be able to play in and feel comfortable,” he admits. Nevertheless, he’s been fascinated by the rehearsal process. “This week I’ve really started to understand the interaction between the characters and the narrative and the songs.”
Does Jenny Sealey think that Dury would approve of what they’ve created? “I think we’re being faithful to his songs,” she says. “The time is ready for punk again, because with the new Government we’re going to have to start a whole new fight. The world for disabled people is looking like it’s going to get a hell of a lot worse, so maybe the punk ethos is ready for a whole new arrival. And that’s the other important element of doing the play.”
So, what are her hopes for Reasons To Be Cheerful? “What would be brilliant is if we attract a whole new audience for Graeae’s work, and for audiences — and the theatres that have booked us — to recognise that disability is part of the fabric of humanity, and not a thing to be fearful of,” she says. “I hope it smashes through a whole host of attitudes and barriers — that’s what I want.”
How very Ian Dury!
More: www.graeae.org
First published by Able (November/December 2010)
