Why did you choose to get involved with theatre?

I always wanted to do theatre. (I also wanted to be a florist and a vet too!) My family have got a history of theatre.  But I never wanted to act.  They were all performers but I always wanted to produce. I was a very practical person and always enjoyed the practical side which is why I did the technical course at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

 

No.  Stage management and production management and then administration.

Well, I suppose for two people who have worked in theatre all their lives, James (Sargant) has been associated with theatre from university onwards, to have the opportunity to have your own theatre and to be able to programme it, and to be able to choose the creative people that you work with, and to provide theatre for the community in a lovely spot like this was an opportunity too good to miss really.

Yes, I think so.  I think it has to. People talk about ley lines and all the spiritual energies that exist and I think that in a place like this you can almost touch it.  You’re that close to nature that you can feel its force and therefore I’m certain that the energy that’s expounded by that water running through the building, and through however many buildings there were here in the past, has to hang around and have its effect. 

How do you battle with this continual concern that you have that people are enchanted by the surroundings but don't understand that this is a professional theatre?

It’s been a battle ever since we arrived to the extent that people used to say to us “why don’t you sell the fact that it’s a beautiful place?" I’m more interested in the student in tatty jeans sitting next to the leader of a corporate conglomerate, and bringing people together and forgetting all those class differences. What brings people together is theatre.  In the end we’re all faced with the ultimate which is death and that whole life journey. 

Through theatre you can provide people with opportunities of exploring different aspects of their life.  That sounds very pretentious but that’s what it’s all about. The work is always the most important thing. You know, people still phone the box office and say “What’s the dress code?” and you want to scream at them and say “That’s irrelevant.  Just come”. 

I’m not so anxious now about showing it off as a beautiful place because the work has been recognised and because of that one’s in a better position.  This is a highly technical, highly sophisticated building.  It may look like a chocolate box, but actually come inside and you’ve got state of the art lanterns and sound equipment and all of that. 

It’s important to get it across because a number of people ask, “Is it professional?”, “Where do the groups come from?”  People don’t understand what professional theatre is all about.  They think professional theatre is really only about the big musicals or the RSC or The National.  They don’t understand that there is an in between.

Yes, absolutely. You get kids interested at a very young age which is very important, and get them to engage in theatre and to do their own thing but also to see their peers and what they can strive for and achieve.

The ‘new voices’ are important as well.  It’s important to give them the opportunity.  Lots of people say, “I just like to go to the theatre to be entertained.  I don’t want to have to think”, which is like a red rag to a bull because there isn’t time not to think.  Our lives are too short.  You’ve got to think all the time.  It’s a dreadful copout to say “I only want to be entertained.”  You can be entertained and stretched at the same time. You don’t have to leave your grey matter in the cloakroom you can actually keep it with you. 

Theatre frightens people and I understand why theatre frightens people because if you go to something new and you’ve got to express what you feel without having anybody else’s opinion that you can build it on, it’s frightening. If you haven’t seen the local review, therefore it’s going to be your opinion, are you going to be different from the local review? And if you are, people think, “Oh, God, maybe I’m wrong”.  Why should you be?  It’s trying to encourage people not to have that fear and not to have that physical fear of walking into the theatre. Theatres generally are difficult from that point of view.

I’m certain that if this theatre was in the middle of an urban development we wouldn’t have the struggle that we’ve had with funding at all. But there are people who have these preconceptions that Berkshire is wealthy.  It might have wealthy areas but what’s wealth, as well?  A lot of those people who have a lot of money actually need theatre in order to get beyond the fact that money is all important and find the other side of themselves. I believe that they can do that through theatre and be moved and shocked by theatre, and that’s important.

I don’t have a starting point.  It just happens all the time.  It’s a rolling process of just talking with people and having a rough idea of the sort of thing that you want to be doing and when you want to be doing it.  Your main things, like John (Doyle) and Ed (Hall), obviously, and where they might fit in and therefore anything else that might fit in around them.  Because we’ve got two key pieces of work they have to be your starting point for the continuing programming.  Also, they’re the parts of the programme that I really enjoy so that urges you to make sure that they’re in the right place and then you weave everything else around it.  It is ongoing. 

Now I’m thinking that I must settle Christmas next year even though the bits before haven’t really fallen into shape yet.  But they will because one’s talking with two or three directors and they might suggest something which might just slot into it at that particular point.  It’s talking and being aware all the time, I think.

I suppose it’s a consolidation of the work that we do rather than trying to do more.  I think we do enough for the size of organisation that we can sensibly be, but I would like to know that you can plan ahead with all aspects of the work, particularly the outreach touring.  And I suppose if one had, just maybe a couple more staff one could expand the outreach side even more. 

 

It’s all down to personalities.  If you get the right personalities together – and that’s key to it – it’s actually enabling the right personalities to blossom. So I think it’s all going in the right direction.  There’s nothing major that I would want to introduce at the moment.  It would be slightly easier if we had one or two more people and a bit more money, inevitably.

Yes. I think that’s fair enough. Yet one might be integral, but the whole organisation is to do with team work and you need a team of people to do it, and therefore I am just one of that team. And if it’s built up in the right way and you have strong departments, elements can go and be replaced and carry on.

When people you talk to say their main worry is the fact that I’m going and you think, well, why?  It’s very flattering, yes, but there are very good people that one’s striven to put in place.  We have very good people leading our outreach department and that very creative side.  Those people are key and important and it’s insulting to them to suggest or to infer that it’s not going to carry on. 

We need young people coming in and taking over with new ideas relating to the modern world and what’s to come.  You’ve got to allow that to happen and however young at heart one might be, there’s nothing quite replaces actually being young. We need somebody with that kind of energy and commitment and that will happen.

It will be absolutely thrilling to see someone taking (the theatre) over and moving it on. You just have to convince everybody else and I’m sure we will.  When it comes down to choosing the person, I think people will be surprised by the calibre of applicant that we’ll have.

 

I think an awful lot of people, whatever they might say, still think of this place as a little theatre in the country and they don’t realise that it has got a position within the whole regional theatre set up and is respected and therefore, yes, we’re going to get some good people.  We may have actually head hunted ourselves and talked to and chosen the person we want to have, but even so, we might well be surprised by someone who turns up out of the blue, who you never dreamt would want to take it on. 

 

It is very strange, but at the same time because theatre is like that… and I always say to people, never ever say goodbye to people because you’ll meet them again even if it’s thirty years later. 

 

Jill Fraser talking to
Jan Ferrer, Marketing Manager
November 2004

Images of Jill Fraser and the auditorium used by kind permission of photography student, Hayley Williams.