New Young Vic short film launched today – Bed Trick, inspired by The Changeling

Sinead Matthews in Bed Trick, directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins

Joe Hill-Gibbins, director of our sold-out hit productions of The Changeling, has written and directed a new short film inspired by the play.  Watch it now and read more from Joe in The Guardian about his experience.

Check out our other short films, coproduced with The Guardian, here.

Plus see behind the scenes photos on Facebook!

Bed Trick is sponsored by Bloomberg.
Bloomberg supports digital innovation at the Young Vic.

Share your story with #Culture365

At the Young Vic, we think theatre can transform our everyday world into something sublime.  It makes us think, laugh, cry, and fall in love.  Essentially, we think theatre can change your life. But we want to hear what you think.  How has theatre made an impact on your world?  We’re looking for 365 stories of how theatre has made a difference in people’s lives – so share your story in the comments section below, send it to us (with a photo if you like) to culture365@youngvic.org or tweet using the hashtag #Culture365.  We’ll gather together your stories to tell the big story of how culture changes people’s lives across the UK every single day.

My life as a director – Roy Weise

My life as a director began at the age of 15 when I took charge of my group’s GCSE practical exam. We had all chosen drama for fun (myself included) and our exam piece was in an embarrassing state as we spent our rehearsal time clowning about (not in a good way) and enjoying the freedom to do whatever the hell we wanted.
It was 2 days before the exam and our teacher held us back after class (as usual – to be shouted at, given a detention or some other punishment – nothing new). But after this particular talk I was vexed. She had basically informed us that we were all going to fail and that we weren’t going to get anywhere in life with our “attitudes” and “behaviour”. I was furious. And sadly, I can’t say this was the first time I’d heard such prophesies from my teacher.

That very night I went straight home, came up with a proper narrative, scripted it, compiled a soundtrack, choreographed the blocking, borrowed costume from wardrobes around my house and drew pictures of all the lighting states and specials. I was ready to prove her and all the others wrong. And we did. We all achieved grades B and above (thank God for external examiners). But in all honesty I didn’t care about getting a B grade or about school in general because I had plans to pursue a career as a singer-stroke-rapper-stroke-celebrity chef (Don’t ask!).

4 years later (and much to my surprise) I am starting the BA Hons Directing course at Rose Bruford College. A further 3 years on and I am graduating and starting a work placement at the Young Vic which Annie Castledine had helped me to organise. Another 2 years and 4 projects on I’m the Boris Karloff Trainee Assistant Director on Public Enemy.

This is the largest production that I have been a part of and one of the biggest learning opportunities I’ve ever had in my professional life. The revelations are happening every day; with pennies dropping by the hour. My confidence is building and the need to trial the latest model of ‘Roy The Director’ is becoming more and more intense. I’m greatly anticipating the lessons of the tech next week and witnessing the growth of the production in previews. I’ve also been invited to assist on workshops with Laura Farnworth as part of her Jerwood award, giving further insight into other ways that the Young Vic engage with the wider community through theatre. It’s increasingly difficult in this time to get into the rehearsal room of great directors without a certain level of experience or a strong recommendation. Not everybody can take the risks that were being taken before when hiring assistants but Young Vic has given me a great credit which gives my CV a boost but more importantly the opportunity to learn from a great master.

This process has really helped me to recognise my growth as a director and as a person. I hope that in a few years I can blog about directing a production of this scale on the Young Vic’s main stage. Perhaps my old drama teacher will come along and be pleasantly surprised.

Roy Weise is Boris Karloff Trainee Assistant Director on Public Enemy, now playing at the Young Vic.  Learn more and book tickets at youngvic.org.

11 Questions with the cast of Public Enemy – David Sibley

What is your favourite play (seen, read, or worked on)?
Uncle Vanya

What is your favourite midnight snack?
I’m asleep long before then.

What is your favourite word?
Sunshine

What are you most passionate about?
My grandchildren.

If days were 28 hours long, what would you do for the extra 4 hours?
Hope for sunshine and sit in it, playing music and reading.

If you could be in a room full of any one thing, what would it be?
Good red wine.

Favourite city – why?
New York. It’s like being in a Batman film and a Woody Allen film at the same time.

What is your favourite song?
A Soft Place to Fall, Allison Moorer.

If you could have been born in any era, which would it be and why?
I feel fine about the era I was born into!

If you could have any supernatural power, which would you choose?
The power to put this government into the shoes of the people it’s hurting. (I think that answers the ‘why’ as well.)

David Sibley plays Morten Kiil in Ibsen’s Public Enemy, which begins 4 May at the Young Vic.

Previous Young Vic credits: Sweet Nothings, Uncle Vanya, Cruel and Tender.

Theatre includes: Dallas Sweetman (Paines Plough/Canterbury cathedral); Space Project (RSC/Davidson US); Naked (Almeida); Dirty Wonderland (Frantic Assembly); Edward Bond’s Lear (Sheffield Crucible).

Film includes: Mr Nice, Closed.

Television includes: Broadchurch, Utopia, Mrs Biggs, New Tricks, Wallander.

 

Book tickets for Public Enemy

11 Questions with the cast of Public Enemy – Adam Best

What is your favourite play (seen, read, or worked on)?
Seen – Shining City at the Royal Court. Read – The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh.

What is your favourite midnight snack?
Chicken from Chick ‘n’ Ribs, Tooting

What is your favourite word?
SNACK!

What are you most passionate about?
Friends and family.

If days were 28 hours long, what would you do for the extra 4 hours?
Procrastinate.

Favourite holiday?
Mooched about Cornwall with Sarah and ate nice food.

Favourite city – why?
London. Home. Or Edinburgh because it smells excellent.

What is your favourite song?
Changes frequently. Currently Drops in the River by Fleet Foxes. (Listen here!)

If you could have been born in any era, which would it be and why?
Jurassic. Just to see.

If you could have any supernatural power, which would you choose?
Willpower.  Then I’d go to the gym more often.

Adam Best plays Horster in Ibsen’s Public Enemy, which begins 4 May at the Young Vic.

Theatre credits include: Woman in Black (West End); Our Country’s Good, Journey’s End (Original Theatre Company); The Golden Dragon (ATC); Pieces of Vincent (Arcola); Northern Star (Finborough); By the Bog of Cats (Wyndhams).

Film and television includes: Holby City, Waking the Dead, Silent Witness, The
Bill, The Catherine Tate Show, Blooded, CupCake.

Book tickets for Public Enemy

The ridiculousness of being alive – David Lan on Richard Jones

Richard Jones in rehearsal for The Good Soul of Szechuan with Jane Horrocks and John Marquez

I’ve known the director Richard Jones for more than twenty years.  I didn’t see his very early shows such as Too Clever by Half at the Old Vic which are now legendary, and now much imitated – though I have seen so many pictures of it that it has entered my dreams.  I saw the production of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme that he directed at the National Theatre in the 1980s.  I remember it for many reasons (the grandiosity of the design, the deliberately grotesque performances) but mostly, in retrospect, because it expressed with such clarity Richard’s aversion to what he sees as the worst kind of theatre, described by him in an unforgettable phrase : ‘a classy snooze’.

Richard’s theatre wakes you up – like the most intense moments of your life do.  It’s a kind of crystalline mash-up.  There on stage is the play, fully explored, fully experienced, loved up and delighted.  And yet there’s something else as well – a sort of infectious mania for truth-telling.   Somehow through all the elegant clowning and the intensely disciplined choreography, there’s a voice insisting gently: this really is what it is like to be alive.

His production of The Love for Three Oranges by Prokofiev for the English National Opera at the Coliseum was a masterpiece of supreme courage and confidence by a very young director.  It was wacky, thrilling, funny, overblown, delightful in every way – and you believed that this was exactly as the composer (and as Gozzi, the writer of the play on which it is based) intended.

All of Richard’s work is a celebration of the horror and ridiculousness of being alive.  How can it be that we live in this ludicrous way?  But what fun, at times, and, at times, how bleak and ghastly.   His Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Royal Opera House, like his more recent Tritico on the same stage, was so powerfully imagined, with such obsessive interest in the minute detail of social and psychological exchange, with such extravagantly bold staging ideas that you’re partly (inwardly) shouting ‘Enough! Enough!’ and ‘More! More!’ at the same time.

He has directed a show for me at the Young Vic once every two years: Six Characters Looking for an Author, Hobson’s Choice, Annie Get Your Gun, The Good Soul of Szechuan and Government Inspector.  Each has been the highlight of its season, a magical mystery tour not into a world of fantasy but into a world more comically, tragically and painfully real than real life could ever be.   It has been one of the great pleasures of my professional life to have the opportunity, time after time, to sit down with Richard and ask: ‘Where in the world shall we go next?’

David Lan
Artistic Director
Young Vic

Richard Jones’ production of Ibsen’s Public Enemy opens 4 May at the Young Vic – learn more and book tickets here.

From the Public Enemy rehearsal room

Time is flying and we are now well past half way in our rehearsals for Public Enemy. Richard is perhaps one of my most inspiring directors and before going into this process one of my key questions was to how Richard generated the distinctive and original worlds of his productions – and also to understand a little more about how his imagination works.

The first two weeks were an opportunity for the actors to be very explorative with their characters and scenes. Richard was very clear that this was the actors’ time to feel free to experiment and follow any instincts. Much of Richard’s work is done with the actors on their feet, and very little is sat around a table. Richard runs scenes from start to finish, rather than stopping and starting, and he will whisper in my ear any notes for the actors which he then gives after they have had a go at running the scene. Working with Richard in this way, it really is incredible witnessing the speed of his ‘director brain’ and his ability to spot and diagnose moments. Richard’s notes will come in quick succession and it’s a job in itself for me to keep up! To be so close up to Richard’s imagination is quite something. His notes span the psychological to the visual, noting blocking, thoughts, nuances, and always placing each moment in a context for the actor. Rather than being concept or style led, Richard mines and mines the characters and text. We learn how these characters relate to eachother and Richard consistently pushes their portrayal to be as real as possible, closer to how humans interact and behave in real life. Richard’s notes shift characterisations away from being ‘stagey’ to something that is alive and unexpected. He has an eye that can uncover the opportunity in even the smallest moment that would otherwise be overlooked.

So what I am learning I think is that to create the original worlds that I see in Richard’s work, far from being concept or style led, as perhaps I first anticipated, Richard focuses on making the characters and their journeys accurate and plausible. He drills into each moment to find a truth. From this foundation a rich, complex world with its own rules begins to grow. But Richard is a director of many parts and this is what makes his work exciting.  He has a tremendous facility to work visually – he has a keen design and spatial instinct and its very clear what he wants in the staging. Moving into the latter stage of rehearsals Richard is now clearing ‘making’ and crafting his production. I also feel that we are now moving into a more expressionistic phase of the process, where Richard’s imagination is starting to be transferred to the stage. We now move on from the experimentation of the first few weeks and the characters that have now been created are gradually sculpted by Richard into something that specific and at times choreographed. I am really excited to see how Richard brings all the components of his process together in the last few weeks, and hopefully then I may be able to reflect further on how Richard creates his extraordinary worlds.

Laura Farnworth is Assistant Director on Public Enemy.

Sneak peek: Public Enemy photo shoot

Public Enemy rehearsals are well under way and we recently did a photo shoot with cast members Nick Fletcher, Darrell D’Silva, Bryan Dick and Beatrice Walker.  Check out some of the great shots, taken by Johan Persson at the Jerwood Space!

This new take on Ibsen’s classic is written by David Harrower, directed by Richard Jones and designed by Miriam Beuther, who was just nominated for an Olivier for last year’s Wild Swans set design.  This dream team also collaborated on our hit production of Government Inspector in 2011.  Public Enemy begins 4 May – book now online or call the Box Office.

#PublicEnemyYV

Beatrice Walker plays Petra

Bryan Dick plays Hovstad

Nick Fletcher plays Dr Stockmann

Darrell D’Silva plays the Mayor

4 stars for My Perfect Mind, “an exquisite piece of tomfoolery” – UPDATED

Photo by Manuel Harlan

UPDATED: After another pair of 4 star reviews, from Time Out and The Independent, we have added a second extension week for My Perfect Mind! Book now for the show Matt Trueman calls “the best show in London by far.”

4 stars across the board for My Perfect Mind!  Check out some of the rave reviews and audience tweets below.

★ ★ ★ ★
“Like watching a masterclass on King Lear under the influence of LSD… the Young Vic is on a roll’’
The Daily Telegraph – read the full review here

★ ★ ★ ★
“Infected by gleeful madness”
The Guardian – read the full review here

★ ★ ★ ★
“Charming, very funny and occasionally bizarre”
Evening Standard – read the full review here

★ ★ ★ ★
“Petherbridge’s gift for dry self-parody and Paul Hunter’s quirky company Told by an Idiot become wilder and funnier”
The Times

liz hoggard ‏@lizhoggard
My Perfect Mind @youngvictheatre, wonderful, anarchic take on playing King Lear. Edward Petherbridge most elegant man on London stage

Mark Shenton ‏@ShentonStage
Just back from opening of MY PERFECT MIND @YoungVicTheatre, a layered, playful & poignant story of Edward Petherbridge’s stroke & recovery.

Ian DG Nicholson ‏@idgnicholson
@toldbyanidiot93 production of #myperfectmind is brilliant. Touching, theatrical and very,very funny, “if it ain’t broke, break it”.

Caroline Goyder ‏@CarolineGoyder
#myperfectmind is a joy and a delight. Loved its humour, its wild swoops across time and space and its wisdom about life and Lear @youngvic

Jesse Briton ‏@youbigjesse
Do anything to see #MyPerfectMind by @toldbyanidiot93 @youngvictheatre utterly, utterly brilliant. Touching, funny, and life-affirming.

My Perfect Mind has been extended until 27 April.  Tickets are available at youngvic.org.

Theatre Club

There are many things I am going to miss about my job while I am on maternity leave. Part of the problem is I don’t just see it as a job. It is a series of projects with wonderful, warm, diverse people that have a direct impact of my life and the way I think. Having a baby seems to be just another one. Except it won’t culminate in an evaluation. I suspect there will be just as much tea and cake, though.

One of the projects I will miss the most is Theatre Club. It’s my other baby. The project I feel the most emotionally connected to and completely inspired by. The idea for Theatre Club came to me last September when I was chatting to one of my Two Boroughs members who had come to see Three Sisters. She only ever applies for one ticket, and comes and leaves alone. She has a great time and she enjoys her time here, but it struck me that I take the opportunity to discuss and argue and rage for granted. I work in a theatre. A lot of my friends are theatre makers. My colleagues go to see the plays I go to see, and there is a whole community around me built around a shared, collective experience. Simply, I always have someone to talk to.

In my work here I am continuously trying to identify, and break down, barriers to participation in the arts. Many are obvious:  lack of money, feeling you are the wrong age, the wrong ethnicity, the wrong gender, simply a lack of invitation. A lack of language – not of basic understanding of English, but theatrical and artistic literacy, is not something we regularly, or readily, address in participation. How do you discuss what you have seen if you do not have the words? Or anyone to use those words with? So I started Theatre Club. The premise is simple. It is run along much the same lines as a book club – you read a book in your own time at your own speed, you don’t close it and start a discussion. So Theatre Club is held after all of my tickets have been used, on a different evening. The invite is to anyone who has come and seen the show on a Two Boroughs free ticket. The event is also free, of course. It needed to feel welcoming – my role is basically host – so I give away wine, juice, and nibbles (at Christmas there were a lot of mince pies…).

And there is a someone to lead the discussions. One of the most important tenets of the group is that no one involved in the artistic process of the show under discussion is allowed in. No one who represents the Young Vic (apart from me) is allowed in. The director is persona non grata. It needs to be a space where people are comfortable giving their opinion without fear of offence or judgment. So I needed an outsider, not just to be a neutral voice, but a guiding one, who would help us to articulate our thoughts and feelings. I approached Maddy Costa for this role on the basis of her work with theatre makers, in particular Chris Goode and his Transform project at West Yorkshire Playhouse. She seemed to have an openness in her writing and engagement that suggested she would be ideal for my group. She was, and she has been the discussion leader ever since, even starting Theatre Club (albeit with audience members who have paid for their tickets) at the Battersea Arts centre recently. My baby is growing up.

What has amazed me the most is the response we have had from Two Boroughs members. This started as an idea I wasn’t sure anyone else would be interested in, and has grown into hundreds of people who want to join in our evenings. Before we even began I had emails and letters: ‘This is something I’ve ALWAYS wanted so – HOORAY.’ After we were up and running I had more: ‘You’re dead right about how much fun the discussion group was.  Everyone has an opinion; theatre buffs or not.  I didn’t have much to say myself but it’s nice to hear other peoples thoughts on a show.’ And during the evenings themselves people asked why we were holding them, what we had to gain. I asked them what they thought about this question. The responses amazed me again: ‘I didn’t have anyone to discuss it with so this is really nice,’ ‘I came to find out what I missed,’ ‘…not to be laughed at, a nice kind environment to have an opinion in,’ ‘I came to see if I am the only person to have these opinions,’ ‘It’s a gift to the people of Lambeth and Southwark to talk about art.’

I don’t see it as a gift to them. It is a gift to us here in the theatre – to see how much and in what way people are engaged and enlivened by an opportunity to be seen and heard. It’s going to be a tricky project to miss but I am leaving it in capable hands. I just can’t wait to be back.

Lily Einhorn, Two Boroughs Project Manager