It abounds with heart and wit, is propelled with boundless energy from the three inventive actors who devised the piece, is blessed with a surprising and clever narrative which weaves its way through aspects of pretty much every popular nursery rhyme or fairytale and is genuinely laugh-out loud funny, engaging and joyful.
In five snapshots, we see Jen, as masterfully portrayed by Jennifer Clement, slowly come of age through this discovery and Uncle Len, perfectly embodied by Graham O’Mara, as he fumbles to reboot his own life, now that his protective big brother has killed himself amid sex abuse charges and his estate dries up.
Just a few days prior to the opening of Breeders, by Ben Ockrent at the St James Theatre, producer Vicky Graham talks to us about what this project means to her, and why she has chosen producing as her way of contributing to the future of theatre. Why Breeders? “Breeders was first presented to me as a germ of an idea at the end of last year. Ben Ockrent (a writer I’d known since my time at Theatre503) had been asked to donate his sperm to a lesbian friend and her partner who wanted to start a family, and, in deliberating if and how he might help, identified a great premise for a play. I pitched the still embryonic idea to Stage One a month later, and when we were shortlisted, I commissioned the play. Fortunately for us, Breeders was selected at the end of March to open the One … Read more
Actor Chris Urch has written his first full-length play and there is already talk of him perhaps being the British Tennessee Williams. BT: Chris, you trained as an actor, what spurred you on to play writing?CU: Whilst training at the Drama Centre there was this lesson called Character Analysis where I would have to create a character, write a scenario and act it out on my own in front of my peers. It was quite an exposing lesson, you wrote the scene, acted the scene and directed it yourself but I always enjoyed creating these characters and dialogue. This then spurred me on to start secretly writing plays alongside my training. Talk to us about the process of writing your first play, Land of Our Fathers. I’m from a small mining community and wanted to write about that as it’s personal to me. There was a tragic mining disaster in … Read more
