Stories from the Blackfriars Mile
welcome to another day ‘I call this place home, and in three years I have seen so much new beauty, so much new life. How can that be all wrong? Doesn’t a community need to evolve and grow in order to thrive?’
Halfway between Waterloo and London Bridge, Blackfriars sprawls across the river and grafts its way southwards, a mish mash of heritage buildings, pokey streets and gleaming towers. It is an area of contrasts: office workers who mill in at 9am and disappear back into the tunnels of Southwark Station at 5pm, the army of builders who lift redevelopment plans off the page and onto the streets, the wide-eyed students and the hardworking small business owners; the people that have lived within spitting distance of the Thames for their whole lives and whose personal histories soak into the very brickwork of the neighbourhood.
How do you create a piece of theatre that reflects the innate nature of a community? When A Friend of a Friend first set out to develop Another Day, it was clear that no production could be truthful without the stories and insights that only its residents could provide. In a time when we rarely bother to learn the names of our neighbours (let alone learn their life’s story), Blackfriars is an area that is fiercely proud of its community. Blackfriars is a community where people have lived and died in their same homes. Where people commute five minutes to their workplace‌ and three to their watering hole. You can see David at the office at Christ Church or running the pub quiz down the road. You will hear Nolia singing jazz on a Sunday evening then meet her the next day at her art gallery.
In this community, what you see is what you get: people. Truthful, wonderful people who are proud of the footprint they and their community may make in the future landscape of London. A Friend of a Friend Productions was founded to create opportunities for emerging artists to bring their work to life, and create long-lasting relationships that promote professional development. True to their name, they are formed of a community of friends who are passionate about creating theatre with heart. Every friendship is based on trust and loyalty, and A Friend of a Friend is proud to be company that nurtures artists at the very beginning of their careers in the hope to develop a greater sense of professional camaraderie in a sometimes heartless industry.
cast Terri-Ann Brumby Sian Theatre includes; Blood Wedding Aria Entertainment; Bernarda Alba- Stonecrabs/Tara Arts. The Asphalt Kiss-Stonecrabs/New Diorama. The Class Club-Duckie/Barbican. Playing Up North-The Library Theatre. Paines Plough Regions Project-Manchester Royal Exchange. 58- Soho Theatre (and National Tour) Quabuka –Soho Theatre and Oval House. After Doroteia –Stonecrabs/Oval House. TV and Film includes; My Mad Fat Diary- E4, Dr Who- BBC. Pleasure Island (GB feature release 2014) Broke-Ice and Fire Media. The Greek Man from Pakistan- BBC. Washdays- Another Film Company. Biological Clock- Partizan Films. Seven Sword of Wayland- First Vision.
Alex Harvey The Artist Theatre includes: Mr. Martin (The Bald Primadona, New Dog Old Trix, Jack (Jack or Obedience, New Dog Old Trix), Francis Flute (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Skewbald Theatre, Hayley Byfield/Tory Saunders), Adam (DNA, The Courtyard Theatre, Charlotte Ive/Rupert Holloway), The Soldier (A Soldier’s Tale, Royal Bath Festival, Richard Williams). Film include: Hanwell (The Last Kill, FBK, Tony Oldham), Thomas (Robyn, Inspire Media Ltd, Stephanie Dainty), Lead (Here is the Place Sophie Littman, Kin 2000), Hass/Hoffman/Oskar/Morgan (The Tendency, Max Carrington), White Kid 1 (Leave to Remain (Bruce Goodison), Chris (Late September, Local Image Pictures, Mark Wilkinson).
Shivani Kapur Tour Guide Theatre includes: Nina (The Good Doctor, The Poor School, Clive Perrott), Governess (The Good Doctor, The Poor School, Clive Perrott), Viv (Tom and Viv, The Poor School, Trudi Rees), Ophelia (Hamlet, The Poor School, Trudi Rees), The Beggar Woman (Sweeney Todd, The Poor School, Grantley Buck), The Lady (Augustus Does His Bit, The Poor School, Trudi Rees), Cleopatra (Ceaser and Cleopatra, The Poor School, Trudi Rees), Katherine (A View From the Bridge, The Poor School, Paul Caister), Hilde (The Master Builder, The Poor School, Trudi Rees), Nina (The Seagull, The Poor School, Paul Caister), Helena (Look Back in Anger, The Poor School, Will Hammond).
Rachel Keys Rebecca Theatre includes: Storyteller in Tales & Ales: Tinkers, Dunderheards, Scoundrels and Pricks (Old Trunk Theatre Company) Ensemble in A Play in a Day (Pop-Up Theatre Company, Chris Lawson), Storyteller in A Winter’s Tales and Ales (Old Trunk Theatre Company), Various in A Night of New Writing (Ginger Snaps, Sarah Mayhew). Film includes: Jen in It Happens (Byoc Films, Louise Morton Murray), Amanda in Three Lions (Lamplight Productions, Julian Mane), Young Abigail in Charlene (Rough Edges Productions, Sharon Odams), Jenny in Book of Souls (Bigger Boats Production, Tony Weinstock), Soldier’s Wife in Soldier and I (Royal Holloway University, Daniel Pemberton). Training: East 15 Acting School
Claire Lane Veronika Theatre includes: Goneril (Edmund the Bastard, Theatro Technis), Aerobics Instructor (You Me Bum Bum Train, Kate Bond/Morgan Lloyd), Madam (The Maids, Tower Theatre Company, Ruth Sullivan), Mrs. Grainger (Peace in Our Time, Raise Them Up, Nick Pearce). Film includes: Donna (Incognito, University of West London, Daniel Knight), Chancellor Rebecca Clay (The War Room, Met Film School Ealing Studios, John Bowe), Beth (Witness, Fintan Kearney), Jayne Williams (I Prefer White, University of Portsmouth, Daniel Aplin), Celia Henderson (Witness Evolution, University of Portsmouth, Toyah Dann), Karen (Untitled, Pimlico House Productions, Tarquin Ramsey), Sheila (C.A, MK Productions, Maria Kogkou).
Denise Mack Meg Theatre includes: Ensemble in Castor and Pollux (ENO/London Coliseum, Barrie Kosky), Bluebeard’s Wife in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (ENO/The Coliseum, Daniel Kramer), Mistress Quickley in Henry IV Part 1 (Southgate Theatre, Paul Gladwin), Various Roles in The Vagina Monologues (Artesian Well, Abigail Anderson), Helen in Elegies For Angels Punks And Raging Queens (Globe Centre, Various Directors). Film includes: Emily in Children Of Men (Quietus Productions, Alfonso Cuaron). Television includes: Rose in Rock and Chips (BBC TV, Dewi Humphreys), Tube Managers Wife in Pissed On The Job (Betty TV/Channel 4, Paul Richards).
Ian Mairs Phil Theatre includes: Flowers of the Field, Blue, Punchline, It’s All True, Romeo & Juliet, Antigone, Lines, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Twelfth Night, Mummies & Daddies, Les Chaises, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Theatre Grand Slam, Doctor Faustus, The Death of Margaret Thatcher, Spring Awakening, A Slice of Saturday Night, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Noises Off. Film includes: Outlaws, Comfort Zone, The Lone Cosmonaut, Hostel, Voodoo, Dumar, More Than Neptune, The Relay Project, Date With Death, Make My Day, A Drop of the Pure, A Simple Twist, My Friend’s Mum, Two Voices and One Fool, The Passage.
Andy Umerah David Theatre includes: Julian (Tell Hell I Ain’t Coming Back, Catford Broadway Theatre, Marcia P Samuels), Cotton (Paradise Street, Break ‘em Films. Caroline Bryant). Rick Smith (Neighbours with Long Teeth, DLKW Lowe Ltd, Morag Brownlie), Dilly/Gloop/Wok (The Dark Lord and the White Witch, White Horse Theatre, Morag Brownlie), Jimmy Doramus (Future Perfect, Whitehorse Theatre, Morag Brownlie), Crispin (A Chorus of Disapproval, Impact Universal, Bruce Strachan), Lubet (Portrait of a Woman, The Brunton Theatre, Wendy Segar), Florizel/Lord 2 (A Winter’s Tale, JCB Academy, Bruce Strachan), Coalhouse (Ragtime, Brunton Theatre, Andrew Dyer).
Jenny Wills Rose Theatre includes: Lady Victoria/Olive Custance (The Corruption of Dorian Gray,The Lion and Unicorn Theatre, Simon James Collier), Elizabeth (Tortoise/Seize the Stage, All the Rage Theatre, Katherina Reinthaller), Mary Shelley/Maggie/Nurse (Frankenstein, The Lion and Unicorn Theatre, Simon James Collier), Dinner Guest (Un Picking the Seams of Reality, The Arch Gallery, Lorie Trainor Buckingham). Film includes: Professor Cheney (Misunderstanding, One Foot in the Door, Ruggero Dalla Santa), Jenny (Day Dreamers, Royal College of Art, Promila Roychoudhury), Receptionist (Take Me Home, RedCape Productions, Sean Brady), Brenda (SMACK, The London Film School, Tara Tchablakian), Margret (The Lollipop Killer, LoneOak Productions, Peter Butler).
Rachel Samson Stage Manager Rachel is thrilled to be working with A Friend of a Friend Productions on Another Day. Theatre includes: the award winning Finborough Theatre Carthage and Thèrese Raquin (Theatre Bench).
playwrights Rose’s Turn James Robert-Moore James Robert Moore trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. His current writing credits for A Friend of a Friend Theatre include What Would Andrew Lincoln Do? Sex and Pyjamas. His other Writing Credits include The Callback. James is currently workshopping his first full length play It’s Been Nice Knowing You. Unspoken Aysha Scott Aysha has recently completed a Creative Writing Degree with a 2.1 where she was awarded Course Directors prize in Creative Writing. Aysha is currently in the process of producing a short film Residential that she co-wrote. She has completed her first feature film Absent that she intends on producing in the near future and is in the process of writing her second feature film
Hair Journey. Her work is characterised by message-based dramas depicting the inner conflicts of urban society. Beautiful, beating John Hamilton May John is a graduate of the Soho and Tricycle young writer’s schemes. His first play, The Room, won the Barclay Writing Award in 2007. Since then his work has been seen in venues including the Roundhouse, Ovalhouse, the Tricycle, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Contact Manchester, Northern Stage, the Tron and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2013, his play Love in the Past Participle completed a sold-out run at the Festival and undertook a small tour. He is currently under commission with BBC Radio 3, as well as working on a new fulllength play, Honey for Another.
Ribbons Lucy Beacon Lucy’s plays have been performed at the Brockley Jack, Lost Theatre and Rix Mix arts centre in Shoreditch. Her full-length play Demolition was part of the Angelic Tales festival at Theatre Royal Stratford, and her short play Rostov was performed at the Theatre Breaks new writing festival. Trap Doors, a short play exploring attitudes towards mental health was included in Boom! at the Bush theatre. Lucy is making a short film exploring gender stereotypes in dance. The Artist’s Dog Ben Norton Davies Ben’s plays have been performed across the country including A Misunderstanding for A Friend of a Friend Productions Scripted at Southwark Playhouse (Soho Theatre Westminster prize shortlist), His Last Supper
‘You don’t build a community, you are a community. It’s blood and soul, not bricks and mortar’
at the George Tavern as part of Invertigo’s Seven, and A Marked Man at HighTide Festival 2013. He is currently writing his first feature length screenplay for Symbiosis films. Loose Ends Claire Squire Claire Squire was born and raised in Okehampton, Devon. She studies Creative Writing at London South Bank University and is currently midway through her third year. This is her second production with A Friend of a Friend Productions, her first play Andy Warhol and The Twinkly Clit was performed at The Chelsea Theatre in November 2013. She staged managed the London South Bank University performance of Equus and then went on to manage Only Child Syndrome at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She is currently undertaking the new challenge of writing an original drama for screen.
in conversation Another Day is a play rooted in its setting – playwrights have been commissioned specifically to write about Blackfriars, and the site-specific production will be performed in the area next month. The play shines a light on one London community and the eccentricities that make it unique.
Theatre journalist Veronica Aloess (The Stage, A Younger Theatre) interviewed Susanna Narvaez and Patrick Maubert about Another Day.
A Friend Of A Friend took this project as an opportunity to commission new plays from six writers, which Resident Director Patrick Maubert threaded into an overarching storyline. He explains it was a struggle because “there’s been a lot of editorial dramaturgical work which I think some of the writers were perhaps a little wary of and I think they were afraid that they’d lose their voice. Every writer has a different voice but in order for it all to fit together as a piece the trick is to get everyone speaking within the same timbre.” Artistic
Director Susanna Narvaez adds, “we’ve got ten characters and they all weave together, so someone we meet right at the beginning of the production comes back at the end because there is that sense of knowing each other, they’ve all lived here forever.” Indeed the last play had to have all the characters involved so it couldn’t be written until all the other pieces were complete. Another Day is the last of four projects that has received funding and support through Southwark Council which is redeveloping the area. Maubert is from a rural town in Canada so, for him, the sense of community he’s found in Blackfriars feels like home, “our society at the moment is obsessed with connecting on the internet and social media, but we’re not connecting at all”. Narvaez goes on to explain how they met with residents of the community face to face:
“when we started we had a campaign trying to get people to tell us their recollections of Blackfriars called What’s Your Story? Getting someone to tell you about something fascinating that they think is just ordinary; they don’t come to you with that sort of thing.” For Maubert, “it’s very important that this show is a real representation of everyday people and everyday lives.” Narvaez describes the process as “stripping back the drama and leaving just the bare bones of simple, beautiful life. We’re making the mundane beautiful.”
and the community alive despite the ever growing city around them. For example, a lot of the laundrettes are gone and so many buildings weren’t built with washing machines so a social hub has been removed, yet they still find a way to make their mark and be heard.”
Some stories clearly touched them both, “it was incredible the amount of times we’d leave a meeting in tears, genuinely moved,” says Maubert. For example, Narvaez tells me a story about a woman who lived to 99 and only saw St. Paul’s once in her life.
The play journeys from, “the Mad Hatter on Stamford Street, still in the river’s sight, still quite glossy. Then we’re going to be taking the back routes past the Peabodys, referencing things like the Cross Bones Graveyard on the other side of Union Street where there’s an old pauper’s burial ground where they do monthly vigils. Then Hatfields Estates which is quite well known – apparently there used to be a lot of sanatoriums around here, historically it’s the forgotten area.”
“We keep finding a lot of pockets of people who keep the traditions
Narvaez and Maubert’s last project together was also a site-specific
piece of theatre, which fed into creating this work. “You’re immersed in your own life when you’re walking down the street, this just happens to be someone else’s life. Taking it out of the theatre is how we make those stories relevant.” Narvaez illustrates the difference between site-specific work and proscenium arch theatre. I interviewed Narvaez and Maubert separately, but the strength of their partnership becomes clear when, without realising it, they agree that this is a labour of love for their community. In a nutshell, Maubert describes it as “celebrating the spirit of the community.” I think I would describe Another Day as a play about the community from a company that understands the importance of operating like one.
Veronica Aloess
production team
Susanna Narvaez Producer, Artistic Director Susanna read Law & French Legal Practice at King’s College London. Since then, she has worked backstage on West End shows including Spamalot (Palace), The Lord of the Rings Musical, Oliver!, Shrek the Musical (all Theatre Royal Drury Lane), The Hurly Burly Show (Garrick) and Dirty Dancing (Aldwych). Selected recent technical and stage management credits include: the off-West End nominated production of Ondine (White Bear), Short Cuts Theatre Festival (Sibling Productions, Hen and Chickens), Retold (Goblin Baby, The Space), You Say Tomato! (Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre and Union Chapel). Susanna founded A Friend of a Friend in 2011 and has produced performances at Charing Cross Theatre, Southwark Playhouse and Chelsea Theatre. Patrick Maubert Associate Artistic Director, Resident Director Patrick, a native to New Brunswick Canada, began his career as a performer completing his undergrad training in Musical Theatre Performance at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy of New York City and MA Musical Theatre Creative Practice in Directing at the Arts Educational
Schools. International directing credits include: You Say Tomato! for the London and NYC Gay Men’s Chorus’, We are London for the LGMC, The Wizard of Oz (Secombe Theatre), Heart & Music (Charlotte Street Arts Centre), Oliver! (Polkadot Theatre). Patrick was the Director and Dramaturg for A Friend of a Friend Productions’ The Installation. Jayden Birbeck Resident Composer Jay is currently studying for a BA in Drama and Performance at London South Bank University. Specialising in Music and Multimedia Theatre Jayden has worked on a variety of shows include ITV’s Loose Women, The Chase and This Morning. Previous theatre credits that featured original compositions include adaptations of Equus, Spring Awakening and Macbeth. Suzanne Archer Production Assistant Suzanne has also been a Theatre Technician in the West End for the past eight years working on shows including The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, We Will Rock You, Billy Elliott, Spamalot, Flashdance, The Last Confession, The American Ballet Theatre, Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games with Michael Flatley.
thank you Viktor Palfi for his technical support and advice Jay Birbeck Karlien van den Beukel and the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences at London South Bank University. Janet Morris Louise Hatch and the team at Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre Maxine Walker Stefan Kraus Nolia Devlin Sarah Jarvis and the team together with the community of the Dragon CafĂŠ Carole Wright
Louis Thacker and everyone at The Mad Hatter Hotel Onur Ediz and everyone at EV Rory O’Dwyer and everyone at The Rose & Crown Catherine Dawkins and the team at Christ Church Carolyn Forsyth and the Box Office team at the Unicorn Theatre. Dan Taylor, Paul Cowell, Angelica Burrill, Subira Massell, Rumi Bose and the team at Southwark Council. Craig Lawton craiglawtonphotography.co.uk Marketing by ROO London. Joe Shellard, Rachel Burnham, Veronica Aloess.
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