IMAGE CREDIT: Radkapix
There was a treat in store for regular customers and guests at the Royal Oak and Castle Inn Public House in Pevensey on Friday (3 March), in the evening, as the public house was joined by William Shakespeare.—Bay Life, 4 March 2017
The gig, ‘An Audience with the Bard’ was performed by national award winning actor Nicholas Collett, who in 2016 won the Best Performance by an Actor at the British Arrows Craft Awards for the commercial “Spare the Act – Laptop” made for AMVBBDO with Jeff Goldblum.
As Nicolas Collett commented at the time. “an acting masterclass and he got to kiss Jeffrey GoldbIum”.
Shakespeare in a pub sounds like something that should work, given the legacy of Elizabethan stagecraft and the fact that players would move from town to town with warrants, hawking their shows.
The fact that half the audience at the Globe was legless, with perhaps a bit more in common with a modern day football match, than high art, with banter to and from the crowd to the actors, is the clue that ‘Shakespeare in the Pub’ in 2017 should work.
Here of course though, the stage is being set by Shakespeare himself, in the form of a table in the corner of the pub.
Nicholas Collett did not disappoint, recalling his life utilising the suggestion that he did not write the plays as the conceit to tell the story of the man we have come to know through his plays.
The hour performance was stunning. Breaking the fourth wall, Shakespeare, in a broad Warwickshire accent, by talking to his wife, who he plucked at random from the audience in the first lines, set the tone for proceedings, inclusive, intimate and conversational.
He took the pub by storm beginning with his youth and start on the road to London letting us see glimpses into the world of acting and actors in the late sixteenth century.
Telling each section of his life story with excerpts of plays and poems woven into the script, the whole ensemble piece was magical. Written and performed by Nicholas Collett, with additional material by William Shakespeare, the playbill says. We would add ‘engaging and five stars’ to the play bill.
As a way of engaging with the audience to tell the story this was something special. As each section was performed the highs and lows of what little we know about the life of William Shakespeare came to life
At one point there was a pure piece of magic as Nicholas Collett as Shakespeare, sat on the table wedged in the corner of the pub ‘in conversation’ in Elizabethan England, sharing a drink with Kit Marlowe. We know the meeting took place, but here the commonplace sense of the ‘upstart’ new to London, stagestruck by meeting Marlowe and the possible jealousy from Marlowe, was explored as a simple piece of stagecraft at the very best. The way it was done in just a few lines was as if a young playwright from the sticks was meeting an idol like Stephen Fry for the first time over a pint.
This was not just a magical performance, all the elements of the short show, directed by Gavin Roberston, were superb. Written as a kind of stream of consciousness, punctuated, sliced and diced like tasty morsels thrown to the crowd, the tight fast paced timing and scripting was just perfect for a pub.
The effect over the one hour show was extraordinary.
Up and down we went, from Stratford round the country, into the writing of the plays, back to Stratford with his long suffering wife to buy his house having won fame and fortune like a top rated celebrity returning to a gated community, to a pause and the story of the sad death of his son aged 11 and the lack of Catholic ceremony at the end of his short life.
The sources for his plays like Holinshed’s Chronicles, the details about his father and his hidden message to save his Catholic soul, everything was well researched and woven seamlessly into the script and performance.
With the only prop on show being the conceit that he was answering to the question of his own authorship, ‘An Audience with the Bard’ is shaped perfectly for the time, space and ambience of a public house as if someone takes to the stage on a Friday night to defend their work in front of an assembled small crowd. This is the way that someone might indeed hold forth in defence of their celebrated work in a crowded public house on a Friday night.
The short scene in which he moves to explain the jump in stagecraft to the later plays like Hamlet and the crowning glory of King Lear, ‘the big ones that suddenly start asking questions’, as Shakespeare tells us towards the end of the performance, is explained in the same breath as the fact that he took a sixth share in the Globe Theatre, honing his craft and money.
Makes sense, given what we know of his life and New Place in Stratford and the large estate that he bequeathed in his will. He was a kind of Pete Waterman as well as an acclaimed playwright, in the account that we saw, a money making producer with a run of No.1 hits who invested shrewdly, and that is probably about right.
We reached the final stage in the life of Shakespeare. aged just 52, taking directly to the audience and saying ‘tarrah’ back in a thick Warwickshire accent, just as he began the performance. The 80+ strong audience clapped and cheered.
In a short reprise, Nicholas Collett came back to the stage to talk a little about The Inn Crowd and Pub in the Hub organisers, responsible for promoting the show.
The show was written in Seaside, Florida, as part of the Escape To Create residency programme in January 2016. UK Premiered at the Jersey Opera House in March 2016, with an International Premiere at the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre in July 2016.
Nicholas Collett has toured the show throughout the UK. The show is part of the Arts Council of England’s Inn Crowd scheme, and has also been performed in pubs in Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent and Sussex.
The show has now been performed as well, here at the Royal Oak and Castle Inn, Pevensey.
Somehow with the 2,000 year history set outside the pub in the shape of Pevensey Castle, along with Holinshed’s Chronicles, we see a natural background and frame for the story of Shakespeare and his plays.
As people left of course, still talking about the show, they left to walk the boards of Pevensey High Street.
The Elizabethan set designers were not needed to sprinkle catwalk magic on the evening for the ad hoc theatre goers as they went their Merry Andrew way, because, as the Mint House opposite will testify, the Elizabethan set designers have never left the Pevensey High Street.
Talk about perfect settings for the show., If event scheduling be the music of love, play on The Royal Oak and Castle Inn, Pevensey.
Congratulations to Debby Fitton, the very able landlady at the best community pubilc house for miles around for having the bottle to pick the show and put the show on.
To the promoters, The Inn Crowd, top marks.
To Nicholas Collett, the full bow. Anyone who witnessed what we saw will know that we experienced a piece of pure theatre magic.
‘An audience with the Bard’, written and performed by Nicholas Collett was a masterclass.
It is to be hoped that dramatic nights will be repeated, because the pub and locality is the perfect setting.
Perhaps if we were to establish our own TFI Friday we might find ourselves in good company.
George Gissing was here, hero to George Orwell. He set one of his early novels in the High Street in Pevensey. Kipling was here, he wrote parts of the prologue to The Pevensey Pageant seen by 20,000 people, in the grounds of Pevensey Castle in 1908, Of course in the Narnia Chronicles the family name emerges for dramatic effect in Book 2 of the series, Pevensie, the High Norman spelling of Pevensey.
Given the circumstances, more and more when you think about it, Shakespeare on the bill on a Friday night here fits.
I did not get to shake the hand of Nicholas Collett at the end of the show.I simply sat at a table and thought, blimey I really have witnessed a masterful performance. I hope he will return, as he explained, showman that he is, there is a Part 2 and Part 3 as well.
Simon Montgomery
Review, An Audience with the Bard
Royal Oak and Castle Inn, Pevensey
