Clickbait Dramaturgy: Milly Thomas and Holy Race Roughton @ Theatre503

Clickbait by Milly Thomas
Theatre503, 
The Latchmere, 
503 Battersea Park Road, London SW11 3BW

Tuesday 19th January – Saturday 13th February 2016

Clickbait is a darkly comic new play about society’s attitude to porn and the women who make it for themselves. 

From the exciting all female writer/director team behind A First World Problem (Milly Thomas and Holly Race Roughan) comes this blistering study of how pornography is
changing women's relationship to sex in the 21st Century.

What was the inspiration for Clickbait? 

Milly - I first got the idea after reading a news story a while back about a young girl who had gone on holiday to Magaluf and performed a sex act in a club in exchange for a holiday. I remember being particularly shocked at the bile that ensued and for some reason the story wouldn’t let me go. 

It made me look at myself and my sisters and friends and wonder about us all. About what we’d do. I had a conversation with Holly that turned into a first draft which then grew and turned into a story about sisters, the porn industry, the world of business, the internet and sexual politics. 

How did you go about gathering the team for it? 

Holly - Milly and I worked on her debut play A First World Problem last year at 503. This production was a turning point for me as a young director as it was the beginning of a real sense of who I was as an artist and having an exhilarating clarity on my aesthetic taste. 

I had a great team of peers working on this show, including the actor / movement director Katie Payne, JMK Award designer Frankie Bradshaw and the brilliant recently graduated producer Jessica Campbell. After Milly sent me the first draft of Clickbait earlier this year I was determined to reassemble this inspired female team. Milly’s writing to me is pulsing, youthful and often outrageous, and it demands bold decisions from its Creatives. I can’t wait to see what we all make together. It’s a generation Y play with a generation Y team!

What made you decide on Theatre 503? 

Holly - Theatre503 has supported Milly and I as a pairing for the last two years. It has become a safe space for us to make bold choices, and to develop as artists. Having been Assistant Director / Associate Director at the NT, RSC, and Royal Court in the past two years, there is a feeling of coming home to be back on the fringe, but in such a well-supported environment. The artistic team at this venue have such integrity and a rigorous attitude to new writing. Theatre503 has had a great year, and we are excited to be kicking off 2016 for them.


Was your process typical in of the way you develop a play? 

Milly - I would say this has been particularly unusual process in that while it is subject matter I’m chomping at the bit to talk about, this structure is somewhat of a departure for me, but feels right for this. Holly is an excellent dramaturg and I always leave sessions feeling fired and wanting to shake it all up. It’s been exciting to watch it grow into something that Holly and I proud of that we can’t wait to share.  

What do you hope the audience will experience? 

Milly - I honestly don’t know – but I hope whatever they do experience gets them talking about how they feel. Auditioning for Clickbait was fascinating as we had so many people come in with such extreme reactions to the script which was really exciting. Some people said they felt empowered, others said they felt horrified, so I’m really looking forward to seeing people’s reactions and hearing the discussions. 

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?

Milly - I feel very lucky to be a playwright right now. There is a current wave of voices that make me so excited about British theatre. It feels pressing and immediate and it gets people talking. Writing is my way of documenting the world as I see it and my way of having discussions with people and making some noise. The creatives on our team, Holly, Jessica Campbell, Jack Sain, Katie Payne and Frankie Bradshaw are all young people with vision and guts. I’m thrilled to be working with them all again and getting messy. 

Are there any other questions that might help me to understand the meaning of dramaturgy in your work? 

Holly - Dramaturgy to me is a shape-shifting role - it comes in so many different forms and is completely different for each writer I work with. Sometimes it is just about reading the near finished draft and asking the right questions, and at other times it has taken me and the playwright days of knocking the play around with actors in a room.

Milly and I have a very personal and practical dramaturgical relationship, we tend to roll our sleeves up very early on in a process and discuss what Milly wants the play to be, and we go through many drafts. Scenes get cut and then added back, the play goes through different structures, we discuss the characters, their relationships, then we cut characters, add new characters, and we have been known to change whole sub plots. It is extremely collaborative and intensive process, but thrilling. It is underpinned by a long friendship that allows a shorthand and trust between us. 

A Dramaturgical C ----: Gary Kitching @ Ovalhouse

Me & Mr C is about the ventriloquist dummy inside your head who sees all you see, knows all you know, hears all you hear and sometimes, if you are very unlucky, tells you what he thinks of it all. Gary Kitching is an improviser, actor and comedian and Me and Mr C is his funny and disturbing rendering of what it is like to have a voice in your head. Mr C sits inside your head and watches.  

What was the inspiration for this performance?

Gary Kitching: I always wanted to do a solo show and expected the best playwright in the world to be inspired by me as a performer and write me one, but they didn't. So I thought I better make my own.

I'd been doing loads of improvisation and comedy and word got to Northern Stage that I had a show and they asked if I would like to perform in their scratch night. I agreed even though I had no idea what I was going to do. I had a month to prepare and did nothing until the week before. Then I quickly realised I had no idea how to write a show. So I decided to improvise it.
 
The basic idea I had was that there would be a man (me) and his dummy (Mr C) and he would be lonely and there would be stand up. I then had a few impro games to play and that was it, so the show developed on stage in front of an audience. 

The show is about depression, I had some therapy and one of the things I had to do was name the negative voice in my head. It's name was Mr C**t. So that's what I have in my mind when I start the show. Mr C represents that negative voice in my head.

How did you go about the collaboration for the show?

After I had developed the show in front of an audience , after maybe 5 or 6 performances I was invited to do the show as part of Greyscale's Theatre Brothel at Northern Stage. Through that I met Selma Dimitrijevic and Lorne Campbell. I knew the show needed direction before it went to Edinburgh so I asked if they would be interested which thankfully they were, but unfortunately the funding I had applied for was turned down so we only had a very limited amount of time to work on it. 

After Edinburgh in 2012 I decided I had gone as far as I could with it and forgot about it and decided to make another show, the problem was I still felt slightly frustrated with it as I felt it hadn't reached its full potential. Fast forward to the end of 2014 and Selma and I had worked on my other show Dead To Me. 

She asked me what I wanted to do and I talked about Me and Mr C; within an hour Selma had put together a touring pack and it was back on. 

Selma had also recently seen a show directed by Alex Swift called Fat Man. I'd worked with Alex on a couple of R&D's and we got on really well, I felt with Selma as producer and Dramaturg and Alex as Director the show could become what I felt it had never achieved.

What made you decide to work with Ovalhouse?

I knew it was a place that supported interesting and experimental work. I also wanted to bring it to London. I'm really grateful to everybody there as they have made me feel really appreciated and welcome. I feel we have a good show at a good venue. Happy days.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?

This process was unique to the type of show I wanted to create. I have no idea if I will create another improvised one man show, it's unlikely. The other show I created started with a conventional process of script writing and a couple of scratch performances. The next show might have a totally different approach. Who knows?

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I hope the audience will realise they are experiencing something

unique to them and that night. I hope they will laugh, a lot. I hope they will be moved. 

I hope they will think about the work afterwards. Or if none of that happens I hope they feel like that haven't wasted their money and that at least they've had a good night out.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?

I suppose the tradition of improvisational theatre is there in this show. As for others I'm not sure. I hope people find my work funny, dark, interesting challenging and entertaining. I'm not sure what tradition of theatre that is. 

I'll go for the tradition of "Good Theatre". I'd like to hope/think it occasionally falls into that tradition.

Are there any other questions that might help me to understand the meaning of dramaturgy for you in your work?

I don't know. I'm not that good at analysing my work so I rely on much cleverer people to do that for me. Essentially Selma and Alex in this case. They both have an understanding of theatre that seems like magic to me.


Gary Kitching is an improviser, actor and comedian and Me and Mr. C is his funny and disturbing rendering of what it is like to have a voice in your head that explains to you with authority, purpose and well referenced arguments, that you are a worthless piece of shit. An experience some of you may be able to sympathise with.

Director: Alex Swift
Lighting Design: Katharine Williams
Writer/Performer: Gary Kitching
Producer & Dramaturg: Selma Dimitrijevic