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4 –
Daily Update
– DAY THREE – Wednesday 28 April 2010
Today delegates have a chance to catch a
performance of
Border Crossings
by theatre
company Outside Edge.
Daily Update
hears
from artistic director Phil Fox
‘I’D WORKED AS AN ACTOR
for many years, and found myself
when I was younger with a drug and alcohol problem,’ says Phil Fox,
artistic director of London-based theatre company Outside Edge. ‘I
was involved in acting as a professional and I started thinking “why
not get together a theatre company that’s focused on drug and
alcohol issues and include performers and technicians who’d been
affected in one way or another?”’
Guerrilla
theatre
Formed in 1999, the company tours treatment centres with its
productions, works in prisons and does extensive work with young
people and families with substance misuse issues, all with the aim of
giving a voice to people who’ve been affected by drugs and alcohol.
Today delegates get the chance to see Outside Edge production
Border Crossings
, which looks at the impact drugs and alcohol can
have on families and, unusually, the audience will get the chance to
suggest different outcomes and endings. ‘The play will last about
half an hour and then the audience has an opportunity to question
the characters, find out why they did certain things,’ he explains.
‘Then we start running the play again and try out ideas – how the
characters might have done things differently to avoid negative
outcomes, almost like a rehearsal for change. It’s well worth
coming to see.’
Although he finds the work highly rewarding, running the
company has been far from easy, he says. ‘It was very difficult to get
started – I had no experience of setting up a charity and we needed
charitable status to be eligible for the funding to do the kind of things
I wanted to do. From the start I wanted to develop a proper
professional theatre company – the vision was a place where people
who wanted to change their lives could find a way of using their
creative energy and supporting their recovery, as well as trying to
train them up as actors, technicians and directors and eventually
paying people proper union wages. But while it’s been difficult in
terms of commitment and learning, on the other hand it’s been quite
fantastic, the kind of support we’ve received.’
A decisive early moment was a residency in Wormwood Scrubs
prison, where the company worked with a group of ‘lifers’ over a
period of several weeks. ‘The governor at the time was very pro the
kind of work we were doing and we were given unprecedented
access,’ he explains. ‘We created a piece that was then performed
for the entire prison and the feedback was fantastic. Most of the guys
doing life – I’d say about 85 per cent – had been under the influence
of alcohol or cocaine when they’d murdered someone, so that was
quite an eye-opener. Certainly the lifers are seen as number one in
the prison hierarchy so people will sit and listen to them – they were
dramatising their stories and people were really listening.
‘For me that was a big turning point in terms of using this kind of
work in that way,’ he continues. ‘I’d been a little bit sceptical about
its value before, but after that I could really see the importance, how
it could really have an impact and enable people to change.’
The company is also determined to produce work that’s
accessible to the general public, however, and regularly mounts
productions in theatres and art centres. ‘It’s about challenging
people’s perceptions and bringing the debates in the drug and
alcohol world out to the wider public, because it affects us all.’
The long-term aim is to build up the company into a major player,
and there’s been some high profile help along the way. ‘Jimmy Page
is the patron. He was invited to see a show and he came along,
which was amazing, and he’s been very supportive of the work ever
since. We’ve also got the actor Mark Rylance, who’s just won a
Laurence Olivier award, on board as special artistic advisor. If we
could increase the funding I’d like to get a full-time administrator and
a few more personnel to develop the company. That’s the greatest
difficulty I have, trying to develop it into it a more potent force. I see
us as a band of guerrillas in the drugs war, whereas I’d like us to be
an army.’
Border Crossings is performed at 12.45 today in room 1b.