Major News

Spreading comedy across Nottingham, Major Labia are well-known for their theatre-based comedy shows and absurdist humour. Now the group, who originally met at The Television Workshop, are creating their first short film. Titled Witches, the project explores the dynamics of female surveillance and sexuality. We catch up with Siobhán Cannon-Brownlie, Gemma Caseley-Kirk and Narisha Lawson to chat about the upcoming release…

Major Labia is such a great group name. What’s the story there?

Siobhán: Major Labia is a group of performers. We came together initially to have discussions about being a woman in the industry and quickly that progressed into performance - comedy specifically. The name came about through wanting to find something that was quite light and funny, but there’s also a pun there on Labia Majora, which seemed fitting because we’re looking at those things we’re not supposed to speak about. It’s crazy the amount of people who have asked us which part the labia is, so it’s somewhat educational too.

You’re in the process of making your first film, titled Witches…

Siobhán: We all met through The Television Workshop, which is where we trained, so we had a background in film and television - and that’s always been an aim for us. We’ve always wanted to explore many different mediums, and now seemed the right time for us to make our first short film, especially since we’re backed by BFI.

The film centres around three ‘overlooked, under-laid women’. Can you tell us more?

Siobhán: Yes! So, that quote is part of our log line, which we’ve used to describe the film in a couple of words. But the story itself came from a place of wanting to explore feminism and how it’s been co-opted by capitalism and sold back to us devoid of its liberation. So, this film explores women who are taught by society to police each other, which is something we look at through the story of witches - told in a very light way.

Gemma: It’s a really interesting topic around women vetting other women, because that’s all within the context of a society led by men. I think we become distracted telling each other what we can and can’t do, and we’re being distracted away from the bigger issues of our rights.

How has this process been different so far to making theatre?

Siobhán: One of the biggest differences is just the amount of people involved! It’s been really exciting to collaborate with so many people.

Gemma: I also think that, creatively, you are just different. This narrative started off as a live sketch and we’d re-written it and tweaked it, through which we realised you have to work differently for a camera lens. Then, of course, the energy is totally different too. With live theatre you have a lot of energy to feed off, but the great thing about film is that you can send it even further. It lives for eternity, which is really different to theatre.

You did a bit of work over lockdown with filmmaker Georgianna Scurfield. How was that?

Narisha: It was brilliant. We love working with local talent. It’s really satisfying and I enjoyed it from start to finish. I feel really proud to be from Nottingham and to champion our creatives. We all met in Nottingham, we all trained in Nottingham and that stands for a lot. I always say that if you cut me I’d bleed Nottingham.

Siobhán: The revolutionary nature of the city really ties into what we’re doing too. Whether that’s the Luddites or Robin Hood, this city has a lot of things that we’re happy to carry forward with our comedy.

As for Witches, you put out a call for women and non-binary people to work on the movie in off-screen roles. Is this important to you?

It’s nice to see a film discussing women and sex. Hopefully we’re moving into an era where female pleasure and experience is central on screen…

Gemma: That’s definitely something we wanted to explore. We really did want to discuss what pleasure means and what it means to embrace pleasure. It seems ridiculous that there’s still so much shame attached to that for women.

Siobhán: I would love it if our film helped people feel more liberated. And though I do think we are getting there in the media in general, I also think that the amount of heterosexual sex scenes where orgasm is from penetration alone must be in the ninetieth percentile. Until we have real depictions of pleasure on screen, then we’re just talking about a liberation we haven’t yet achieved.

Siobhán: Very much so. Major Labia really aims to tell underrepresented stories, so we think it’s also really important to work with women and non-binary people. There are often less of those folks in those roles, so that’s why we want to prioritise them. The opportunities for women and non-binary people are still fewer, so we really wanted to collaborate with those people.

Amazing! Do you have any last comments or thoughts?

Siobhán: One of the reasons we’re really honoured to make this film is because this film was written by four of us, including our friend and collaborator Phoebe Frances Brown, who we sadly lost last year. I think we all feel a real honour and privilege in being able to bring this film to life. It wouldn’t exist without Phoebe’s creativity, dedication and passion. To be making a film written by Phoebe, that’s a very special thing for us - to carry on their legacy in our work.

Writer-director Leanne Davis shares how she channelled the experience of her mother’s early onset of dementia into her debut short film, A Last Resort – an offbeat yet ultimately uplifting tragicomedy set during a British seaside holiday…

How would you describe A Last Resort?

It's funny with shorts, because if you say what it's about, you can kind of give away the film. It deals with some really meaty topics such as death and terminal illness, but at the heart of it is a love story between a mother and a daughter.

I wanted to write this story pretty much since my own mum got ill, which will be about twelve years ago now, and she died in February 2020. I wasn't even a writer at that point, but I just wanted to make something out of everything that I felt. I wanted to write a love story to show that even in the darkness there is light, which is the backbone and the heart of all my work. I want to write stuff that’s hopeful, because life is shit and can be really painful and really dark and really bleak – but without hope, what is there?

My voice as a writer is to always undercut the darkness with some humour and light. When my mum was ill, that's how we got through it

When did you decide that you wanted to turn that story into a film?

I started writing a comedy drama when my mum was ill and that was going to be a TV show. That went to Amazon in America and we had big talks about big things, but they wanted to go in a very different direction – so because it was such a personal piece, we parted ways. I was like, ‘Maybe this will never get made as a TV show, so instead I’ll write it as a short film and then I can have the story that I want to tell encapsulated.’ We were due to shoot in April 2020, but my mum died in the middle of development, and we also had to keep pushing it back because of COVID. We ended up shooting it like a year-and-a-half later when I was eightand-a-half months pregnant with my second child – so it was kind of a now-or-never thing. It was really cathartic to be able to channel all that grief and pain into something that I felt was really positive.

Tragicomedy is something that I think Midlands filmmakers do really well, and this film is a great example of that. Was it difficult to strike a balance between the laughs and the emotional gut punches?

My voice as a writer is to always undercut the darkness with some humour and light. When my mum was ill, that's how we got through it – we just laughed so much once we got over the initial shock that came from the early onset of Alzheimer's. Ultimately, Alzheimer's is always written about either in a really bleak and depressing way or as a bit of a comedy trope, so with this film, I wanted to show it in all its messy glory. There were so many comedic moments throughout the years with my mum and her illness. It’s dark, but it’s how we cope.

What other inspirations did you draw from to create the tone?

On a Friday night, my dad would often go down to the pub with the lads, so my mum and I would stay in and watch sitcoms like Only Fools and Horses and Blackadder. In Blackadder Goes Forth, that final scene where they go over the top… How you can go between light and dark like that always inspired me. All my work is generally characterbased with a very British sensibility. I also went to Pinterest and started pinning pictures of aesthetics I liked, and that’s when I came across the photographer Martin Parr’s seminal work, A Last Resort, which is all of eighties Liverpool – and everything about it screamed my childhood. There are shots at the start of the film which are ultimately recreations of his work, and he had a massive influence on the aesthetics of the piece.

How did you find the experience of being a first-time director, overall?

I love writing, but directing gave me a voice that just takes that into new realms. I think the fact that I was pregnant made me feel so powerful. My body was doing one of the most miraculous things it will ever be able to do: produce life. While my body was being so creative, I was also being creative, so it just felt like every part of my being was. It was brilliant. Of course, there are a few shots in there that still make me go “Aaagghh!” and it kills me, but I'm told that's normal. I'm really proud of what I've achieved.