Reading Rep

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A Reading theatre company is asking the town to make a simple click to help its chances of collecting up to £100,000 to boost funds for a new theatre and arts centre.

Reading Rep is fundraising and nearing its target of £400,000 for the converted building in King’s Road on the Reading College campus, a simple click on social media could boost its funds by £100,000.

Reading Rep is asking people to log on to the Persimmon Homes website, which hosts a £1 million competition to give away cash for under 18s to health, sports, education and arts organisations, and vote for the theatre company by 27th September. Cash awards of £100,000, £50,000 or £20,000 will be made to those winning the most online votes.

Reading Rep artistic director Paul Stacey said: “We are up against lots of different organisations, but we’d urge people to vote for us as Reading Rep exists to provide access to the arts for all, including some of Reading’s most disadvantaged children.

“We currently perform in a small 50-seater space and the new theatre/arts and community centre will take us up to around 160 seats.”

Nick Thompson, executive producer, said: “We are very excited for our plans – the building to be converted is a 1920s’ former Salvation Army Hall which has massive potential. The benefits to theatre-goers will be immense – and crucially the space will include a permanent education and learning centre allowing disadvantaged children to access our work.”

A spokesperson for Persimmon Homes Thames Valley said: “Persimmon Homes is delighted to be joining forces with Team GB – the British Olympic Association – to give away over £1 million to help children in England, Wales and Scotland. 
 
“As an official partner of Team GB, we are extremely proud to be supporting the organisation in the run up to, and beyond, the next Olympic Games in Tokyo. 
 
“Building Futures, supported by Team GB, comes on the back of our hugely successful Healthy Communities competition, which in 2018 gave away more than £600,000 to support youth sport.”

The website is Persimmon Homes and people can vote once each day.

Mr Stacey added: “It takes such a short time to vote but the difference our new centre would make to the arts scene in Reading is vast. We’d like to thank everyone who has voted so far. Why not make a note in your diary to vote for us every morning and evening until the closing date?”

The voting closes at midnight on 27th September.

Reading Rep hopes to begin the conversion of the building soon with the aim of opening in spring 2020.

Get involved

Vote for Reading Rep here

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Brian Blessed

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Peter Anderson chats to Brian Blessed, director of Towards Zero at the Mill At Sonning about meeting Agatha Christie and more…

‘A murder is the culmination of a lot of different circumstances all converging at a given time, at a given point. It’s Zero Hour.” So says Superintendent Battle in Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero.

The play begins with the shipping forecast, but the weather does not suddenly happen – it is the result of many influences and other events, in the same way murder does not just happen. Towards Zero is the current play at the Mill at Sonning, and the team are pleased that Brian Blessed, is once again directing one of Christie’s plays.

The “Queen of Crime” wrote it in 1944, when Agatha was married to Max Mallowan and living at Winterbrook, near Cholsey. But it was just over a decade later when a young Brian Blessed met Agatha Christie.

He was just starting his first job at Nottingham Playhouse where they ran a fortnightly repertory company under the artistic director Val May (who was later the artistic director of the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre at Guildford) for the princely sum of £4-19-6 per week.

Agatha Christie was putting on Spiders Web at the Theatre Royal and came to the Playhouse for a look around. In those days the Stage Door opened on to the street.

Agatha and Brian often met up during the following three weeks. She helped him source some props he needed and told him some of her wishes about how her plays should be staged. Some of these, all these years later, Brian has remembered and used at The Mill, including the suit of armour that came to life. Towards Zero was Agatha’s favourite play, he recalls, and that of her good friend Robert Graves, the author of I Claudius.

Sometimes, either before or after their meetings, she was not going back to the theatre but to the police station to see if there had been any interesting murders! She described her meetings with him as relaxing which, for a lady who said that sometimes her head felt like a house where a light was on in at least one room 24 hours a day, must have been a blessing. Sadly, for Brian, her one gift to him apart from the advice a small radio covered in red velvet was taken from his bedsit.

As to what the audience can expect at the Mill, period music and the perpetual ticking of many different clocks as we head to the zero hour. Agatha was not Bran’s only source of advice, for Superintendent Battle, he went back to one of his early television roles – PC “Fancy” Smith on Z Cars.

Get tickets

Towards Zero runs until Saturday, 28th September; visit their website for tickets

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Windsor Fringe 2019

Round & About

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Theatre, comedy, music, dance, family shows, a pop up record stall and music around a fire pit are among some of the many amazing attractions at this year’s Windsor Fringe. 

There are more than 130 performers and artists, showcasing local and national talent at the event from 20th September to 6th October, the second oldest fringe in the UK after Edinburgh. 

The launch party kicks off the festival with music from DJ Steve Nash and guests playing everything from reggae and jazz to funk and disco with drinks and food from street vendors to make it a great way to start. 

Among the many musical highlights of the festival are jazz singers Claire Martin and Ian Shaw with A Century of Song (21st); traditional music from Spain with The Maiden & The Thief (25th); The Magic of Motown (27th) and An Afternoon of Music & Colour brings R&B and funk on the 29th. 

There’s theatre in the form of The Red Balloon (21st) and a trip through Shakespeare in The battle of Love and Power (29th) before you go on Journey’s End on 1st and 2nd October. 

Join a Victorian Windsor walking tour, discover Queen Anne’s Windsor and enjoy some of the work put on display by more than 30 artists at open house events around the town.  

The family is well catered for entertainment to suit all ages from dance to an arts festival day and join The Last Puppet with an adventure aboard ship. 

The festival also features the 16th international Kenneth Branagh Award for new drama writing. The three finalists’ plays will be performed nightly on 3rd, 4th, and 5th October before a panel of judges chooses the overall winner – why not watch one a night at The Old Court and decide for yourself? 

Windsor Fringe

To find out more about all the events at Windsor Fringe and to book tickets

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Mum on stage

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Peter Anderson chats with Jodie Nolan, the local mum who is starring in the hyper-successful musical Mamma Mia in the West End this summer

A sunny, funny tale of a mother, daughter and three possible dads set on an idyllic Greek island, has been celebrating the music of Abba and entertaining audiences the world over since 1999. Now a mum who took time out of her West End career has joined the ensemble cast once more. For about a decade Jodie Nolan has been enjoying married life in Chipping Norton, teaching dance and musical theatre, after herself starting to learn ballet at the age of two and a half at a dance school in Byfleet.

Who are her inspirations? “Both my parents, but especially my mother. I was brought up with the philosophy if you really want something go for it, and they were very supportive. Growing up, it was Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz and ballet wise Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Knight.”

How did you get your first break in the West End? “I did not go straight into a musicals after leaving the Laine Academy in Guildford, I spent time working as part of the entertainment team on one of the Royal Caribbean Cruise ships, very quickly I had to get my head around all types of shows, and I was away from home. Then, I performed in a couple of tours of Chicago, and then the international tour of Mamma Mia. When I saw that there were vacancies in the West End show and so I gave it a shot and managed to get into the cast in 2008.

Was it hard ten years ago to decide to have a break from the West End? “At the time no, it had been a challenging time for me, I had got married to a lovely husband, but I lost my mother and decided it was time to take a step back for a while. Alongside having children – we now have two lovely daughters and live in idyllic Chipping Norton. I also trained as a teacher in ballet and musical theatre and opened the Nolan Academy. I just felt the time was right now for another shot at the West End and was pleased to get back into Mamma Mia – and supervise the teachers who are covering me in the academy.

Jodie is back on stage in Mamma Mia, but are there any other musicals on her wish list? “What a question! As I walk along The Strand to get to the theatre you see so many musicals that are on. But who wouldn’t want to appear in Les Miserables?”

Want to go?

See Jodie in Mamma Mia in the Novello Theatre in London’s West End – buy your tickets

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Innings & outing! Drama in Alton

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Outside Edge is this month’s highlight from Alton Operatic Society. But how much does art imitate real life? Peter Anderson goes in to bat and find out…

Cricket, comedy and chaos are promised this month as Alton Operatic and Dramatic Society presents Outside Edge by Richard Harris. The plot? Roger is having trouble getting a team together for the afternoon’s fixture against the British Railways Maintenance Division Yeading East but this proves to be the least of anyone’s worries. It would appear bowling maidens on the pitch is not the problem, but rather his players’ relationships with their individual maidens outside of the game!

Yes; Bob is having marriage trouble as he is still doing odd jobs for his ex-wife behind his current wife Ginnie’s back. Dennis is also having marital trouble as his wife seems intent on moving to a new house despite the fact they only moved recently. When he finally puts his foot down she sets fire to his new car. Kevin is trying to fight off his over-affectionate wife Maggie while at the same time nurse his injured spinning finger and Alex’s new girlfriend ends up shutting herself in the toilets having hysterics. Even Roger’s seemingly perfect marriage to Miriam hits the skids when she discovers he was playing away from home – in more ways than one – on a trip to Dorking last year…

So, with a demanding role needing a knowledge of cricket and what it is like to captain the village cricket team, did they have a challenge to cast it? No, it would seem – rather one of Alton’s members seemed somehow destined to play the part. Richard Seeckts plays Roger and he has been playing village cricket in some shape or form since the age of 13 in 1979, curiously the exact same year Outside Edge was first performed. He has continued to play for various teams including the Surrey Cryptics whom he captained for some time and, more recently, Holybourne CC. One move Roger was never able to make was bringing his son in to make up the numbers; Richard’s son Toby has proved himself very able and the two regularly play for Holybourne’s Second XI who have kindly lent the play some equipment.

Richard says: “It goes without saying that Outside Edge combines my love of the stage with that of cricket. The parallels between the stage characters and some players and their wives I have known through the years are, variously, uncanny, and uncomfortable. For all its ‘near the bone-ness’ I might have kept well away when the play was announced but, hopefully, those who have known and played cricket with me will acknowledge some differences between Roger and Richard!”

Outside Edge will be performed at Alton Assembly Rooms on 8th, 9th & 10th November. For further info and to book visit www.aods.org

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Live & Direct

Liz Nicholls

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Historian, broadcaster and TV presenter Dan Snow tells us more about his upcoming History Guy tour…

Q:What will you be talking about in your show? “A large chunk will be about local history, with direct relevance to the place we’re in…”

Q: Do people want to recount their personal histories, too? “Yes, they often want to tell me all about their family or the part their family played in history, such as a soldier in the First World War. A huge number of people tell me stories about their ancestors. They’ll say something like ‘My father was the first black RAF pilot’. Listening to them, you realise how many firsts there are.”

Q: Is your hope that you can captivate audiences with your infectious enthusiasm? “Yes! History is not all about dead kings, old libraries and dust: it’s everything! It’s your parents’ eyes meeting across a crowded room and why we are who we are and why we are speaking English and why it’s acceptable for women and men to mingle together. I hope people walk out of the theatre saying that they had a really good time. I also hope they leave having thought deeply about the past of their town, their country and their world. I just love this country – there is so much character and history here. Wherever you go in Britain, there are so many stories.”

Q: What do you think are the benefits of studying history? “It’s very good for your mental health to go to these places. When I went to Odiham Castle recently it was a beautiful sunlit morning – not a bad way to spend 20 minutes. Being a historian is a lovely job, but we can all do it at any time.”

Q: Tell us about your channel, History Hit TV. “Life is very exciting at the moment. Our podcasts have a million listeners. I love doing the podcast because of its simplicity and speed.”

Q: What you do in your spare time? “We go on holiday and visit historic sites! The kids are more manageable when you’re doing stuff with them. Having them around the house in winter is brutal. Looking around Winchester or Basingstoke is great fun. Walking around the Roman walls of Chester is a really good day out. You’re a better parent if you take your children to these historic places; it makes better citizens. We’re also on the water all the time. I often row with the kids near our house.”

Q: Did you inherit your love of history from your family? “Yes. My dad is fantastic on the heritage side. I inherited that from him. He has relentless energy. Also, my Welsh grandma, Nain, was a huge storyteller. She taught me to give history a human element and to bring it alive. I hope my history is real and vivid because of her.”

Enjoy Dan Snow: An Evening with “The History Guy” at The Swan in High Wycombe on Thursday, 7th July. For tickets, visit www.wycombeswan.co.uk or call 01494 512 000.

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