Written by Smoke & Oakum’s artistic director Oli Forsyth, Kings transfers to The New Diorama Theatre after a highly successful run at The VAULT Festival earlier this year. Oli is a writer, actor, producer and poet, and we spoke to him to find out more about the play.
Your play Kings is heading to the New Diorama Theatre, what can you tell us about it?
‘Kings’ is an award-winning play by about Bess, Hannah and Ebi, a group of homeless people living under railway arches in London. They’re the hidden homeless, the people you might walk past, and when we join them they’re just about managing to.
Until, that is, a charismatic young woman, Caz, stumbles into the camp and starts to work her way into it. Caz is not content to sit quietly and wait for help to be offered, she’s more interested in taking what she needs. The combination of her new outlook and magnetic charm soon sees the group abandoning their old outlook on life and embracing Caz’s more forceful and sinister approach.
It’s just had a successful run at VAULT Festival, what did you learn from that and have you made any changes?
When we arrived at VAULT Festival we came having had very limited rehearsal time and with very low expectations, we were simply trying out the idea to see if there was any potential.
5 performances later we were collecting the ‘Show of the Week’ award, were named as Exeunt Magazine’s ‘Pick of the Fringe’ and were signing up for a three week run at the incredible New Diorama Theatre.
Since then the play has grown significantly, been published by Methuen Drama and partnered with the brilliant homeless charity Centrepoint. We’ve also brought in some amazing designers and creatives who have turned the show from a festival piece into something really special. Perhaps the best bit of feedback we got at VAULT Festival came from Sir David Bell, former director of Crisis, who described the play as “as close to the real thing as I’ve seen in all my time with Crisis”. To have that from someone with so much experience of the problem told us we were onto something so we’ve just been focused on keeping the play as realistic and engaging as possible.
What makes this play different to others about the same subject?
I think the main strength of ‘Kings’ is the quality of the story. Often when plays set out to tackle a certain issue they can end up forgetting that the purpose of a show is to engage and entertain an audience. I was very keen that ‘Kings’ wouldn’t be a play where the crowd left with perhaps a better understanding of the homeless crisis, but also with the feeling of being lectured to.
As a result the script is formed around four engaging, flawed and fully formed characters and is densely packed with witty, quick-fire dialogue that drives the action forward.
We also have magic tricks, which isn’t something you see on a stage everyday…
Kings is performed in partnership with Centrepoint, how did that come about?
To be honest it came out of a fundraising exercise which involved me writing to Lisa Maxwell asking for a donation to the show. I knew Lisa was a Centrepoint ambassador and thought she might chuck us £20 or the like, but not really expecting all that much. So imagine my surprise when I got a phone call from her in the middle of the day to ask if I’d like to meet with the Centrepoint team to talk about how we could work together to raise awareness.
Since then we’ve partnered with Centrepoint, will be collecting for them after every performance and have organized a post-show talk on the 12th which will be chaired by Lisa and invite the audience to hear Centrepoint staff members talking about the current homeless crisis.
You set up Smoke & Oakum Theatre Company and are its Artistic Director, what inspired you to do that?
I was a couple of months out of drama school when an amazing writer called Ed Harris asked if I wouldn’t mind producing his show ‘The Cow Play’. Thinking it couldn’t be all that hard I said yes and so took on a massive project that saw us go to Brighton, London and Edinburgh and was one of the most exhausting things I’ve done. At the end of it we had a published play that had performed well past our expectations and given me an appetite for producing theatre. Around that time, I started stepping in writing plays and those two strands came together to create Smoke & Oakum Theatre. Since then we’ve produced 6 shows, seen 4 of them published, played to thousands of people all over the UK and are set to launch our first national tour with New Diorama Theatre and Red Ladder in Spring 2018. It’s been a laugh.
You’re a writer, producer, actor and poet – which is your favourite and why?
I suppose with the poetry you get an immediacy that you can’t have with theatre shows. There’s something really nice about having an idea, writing it down and being able to stick it in front of an audience as soon as it’s done. That said, the excitement that comes from writing for specific characters and as part of a bigger story is pretty magic.
To split the difference, I’d say my favourite part of any process is the rehearsals, which is where we are now with ‘Kings’. The script is written, the venue booked and so all that’s left to do is hand it over to a group of talented and exciting creatives who will turn it into something bigger and more amazing than you ever imagine it could be when you first thought it up.
Kings is at The New Diorama Theatre 3rd – 21st October 2017. Tickets available here.
