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Touring

Touring from the National

by Samantha Ellis

Associate producer Pádraig Cusack, who is responsible for making it happen, says that the National's touring programme “is about saying we are not just in London. It's not an add-on; it's something we want to do, we've got to do and we're going to do.”

Over the last three years, the National has reviewed its policy on touring. “We looked,” says Cusack, “at how we tour, what we tour and where we tour to. In the past, we were more opportunistic. If one play was opening, and another therefore had a gap in its performance schedule, we would take the second one and see where we could put it. Now Nick is very keen to look at the work that we have and decide whether to tour it.” The new ethos enables the National to tour shows in more efficiently, to tour the shows that have had the best response from audiences in London, to tour to large- and small-scale theatres, and to think about the tours as “almost a fourth venue.” The terrifying planning chart that rules the working lives of everyone at the National how has four columns – one for each London space and one for tours – so that the staff in London know where touring shows are, whether it be The History Boys playing the vast red-and-gold Matcham theatre in Newcastle, or Translations, a production by the NT education department, playing a town hall in Cornwall.

The first tour Cusack organised under the new approach was The Pillowman. “It had had its life in the Cottesloe, been a huge success, and we thought it was cutting-edge new writing and the best work coming out of the National – the sort of work that should be seen around the country.” Rather than fit a sporadic tour around the show's rep schedule, The Pillowman toured for seven consecutive weeks with the same team, making for an efficient and affordable production for medium scale venues. It was a tour which disproved the cliches about provincial audiences. “People say that audiences in the regions are very conservative,” says Cusack. “That they only want light entertainment. But we haven't found that. Everyone I called said yes to The Pillowman. I made seven phonecalls to seven venues – it was the easiest tour in the world to book.”

Getting the show on the road is the next challenge. Production manager Andy Ward describes his responsibilities as “anything that appears on stage that isn't acting”. Planning his first tour, The History Boys, the first question was what to do about the set. Designed for the Lyttelton, the set was too big for most of the theatres it would be touring to, so, says Ward, “we shrank it”, redesigning it to make it fit. Even then, space was tight at some of the venues. Fiona Bardsley, who is stage managing the tour, explains, “Some theatres have masses of room backstage, others are tiny and cramped and you have to double-handle and triple- and quadruple-handle things so you can move them around.” At one theatre, says Ward, “we had something like 15mm clearance between our set and the back wall. It was all quite heartstopping when it went in.”

No matter how many calls and visits a production team makes to a theatre, touring can be hair-raising. “You don't know the theatres' little quirks, and the key is building in flexibility so you've got the tools and the expertise to change things,” says Ward. There is no substitute for local knowledge, as Cusack says, “The people who know the theatre best are the local people, and of course we know the shows best. So if you team up, you get the best results. The National used to tour lock, stock and barrel. When we tour now we go out with key staff members and then we employ local staff. It's about sharing information and working collaboratively.”

The schedule can be gruelling. Most of the company arrive on Sunday evening, ready to start the fit-up, or get-in (putting the production into the theatre) on Monday morning. The set needs to be constructed, lights rigged and focused, sound levels tested – the list goes on. “It's all about being able to adapt to whichever space you're in,” says Bardsley. “The lights may have to change to fit the space, and the actors have to find their way around the geography of the theatre so they don't get lost going from the dressing room to the stage.” The show runs from Tuesday night to Saturday night (with understudy rehearsals fitted in as and when), and then comes the strike, or get-out, taking down the set, lights and all, ready to move on.

While The History Boys is on the road, company manager Charles Evans is responsible for, as he says, “encouraging everybody in their jobs so that the venue we're playing gets the highest possible standard.” In a company of 30-35 people, depending on where the tour is in its weekly cycle, Evans is “the person that everybody can come and talk to.” I caught up with him, and the tour, at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking, which was packed, even on a weekday matinee; the tour has broken box office records. His biggest challenge on this tour has been the make-up of the cast. “There are very few women – only two actresses – and a lot of young men,” he says. “We've had three 21st birthdays on the tour, and a 23rd. Some of the boys have never been on tour before, so they do need support and a kindly ear – and sometimes a firm word.” When on tour, says Evans, “The only deadline is whatever time the show is going up” but even this changes from week to week. “It depends on the host theatre, so you have to really encourage the company to be very on the ball and not get disorientated.”

Evans has been touring for most of his career and finds it “very satisfying to put the show on for an audience who are excited that the National is in town, watching the different responses.” He is not alone in finding a particular pleasure in touring. “It's close to the theatre of generations ago,” says Cusack, recalling the glory days of travelling fit-up companies. Going back even further in time, it is the way theatre happened before there were theatres, with ramshackle companies turning up at a different village each night to perform their latest comedy or morality play. For Bruce Alexander, who plays the headmaster in The History Boys, the camaraderie of touring is a huge bonus. “In a play that isn't touring, once it's up and running you tend to breeze in, do the show and hardly see the cast at all, because everyone's going off home afterwards. It's very different when you're all in the same boat on tour. You tend to see each other more. It's fun.” The benefits can be felt in the performances too, says Alexander, “especially in a play like this which is about the boys being at school together and having a life together – it's reflected off-stage as well.”

As I write, The History Boys tour is coming to an end but the touring staff are not stopping. The logistics, as Ward explains them, are dizzying; getting the show back into the Lyttelton and then out on the road again, on the international tour, will involve two casts, three sets (the touring one, the original and larger one, and one being specially built in New Zealand to save on air freight), and props and costumes whizzing around the world on boat and plane. And then there's the possibility of another UK tour next year…


© Samantha Ellis, December 2005

Samantha Ellis is a freelance journalist and playwright