Any Maverick ideas?

A mad moment in the pub?

I'm looking for hard evidence to support my assumption that Maverick's productions in pubs and community spaces will attract new audiences to theatre.

This assumption is actually borne out by our work at the Billesley Pub in Birmingham during the 1990's and at Birmingham Library Theatre during the early 2000's. We have evidence to show that Maverick attracted non-theatre goers through our programme of contemporary classics, ticket-pricing and a robust marketing strategy aimed squarely at the council estates surrounding our venue. Basic market research in the form of printed questionnaires left on seats in the pub showed our audience to be generally non-theatre goers who were younger, more female and less well-off when compared to national statistics for regular theatre attenders.

I want to return to that model and roll the concept out nationally. A touring circuit that will address my belief that there are substantial proportions of the population who do not feel theatre is for them. My experience, both personal and professional, is that if the proposition is right, a new, more inclusive audience can be developed. The benefits are huge, not just for the new attenders, but to whole communities, other theatres, professional practitioners and society in general.

Unlike the work of the legendary Joan Litttlewood with her Theatre Workshop at Stratford East, this will be a touring project. It is very ambitious.

And it is obviously going to cost money and will be an almighty struggle, so I need to build the best possible case to present to funding bodies and commercial organisations whose help will be crucial to realise the project.

So, have you any comments, ideas, references or research that might help me? Perhaps you were one of our new theatre attenders? Or are there reasons why you perhaps have a problem with going to the theatre? How important is 'the event'?

Any contributions, good, bad, long, short or indifferent will be very welcome and annonymous. Did you perhaps attend any Maverick shows in Birmingham or on tour?

I hope to make a case for the Arts Council to award a small grant to allow the research to move forward and I shall contact you for permission if I would like to  use your comments. Please email me at mavericktheatre.co.uk or comment below.

Thanks very much for your help.  Here we go again... maybe!

And if you are looking for information about the new HOLLYOAKS actress auditions, I'll put details here tomorrow. Ta.

A Brilliant Response, Michael Palin.

I've had a great response this week to the e-mail I sent out announcing this Blog.

Our e-mail list is really small, but not only did I have over half a dozen messages of good will, but also an e-mail from a brilliant Los Angeles based producer, Gerry, about possible work in South Africa. Then the Waterside Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon phoned and said they'd heard about us and would we like to go back there this autumn, bless 'em. Then another e-mail about a potential for eight months work at the fabulous Shakespeare's Globe. And Penny (Tour Booker extraordinaire) phones and says that just a quick conversation with a London venue was enough to interest them in at least a couple of nights of Henry V - Lion of England. How fab is all that!

I'm so elated I spend some time with my new friend Michael Palin. Or at least his diaries, which I am currently reading and using as a cleverly written self-help aid on how to be a self-employed artist working from home. Without, of course, Mikey's success. Or talent. Or family. Or Oxbridge education. Or money.

Then the thought of money brings me rather crashing to earth. I've finished my first attempt at a business plan and circulated it to (read Foisted Upon) a few trustworthy business friends for comment. But I realise that I've used up nearly all my working capital. I'm living on the money earmarked for a new kitchen back when times were fiscally easier. Better do something about that, or the mortgage will suffer and this suddenly popular Peddler of Bill Shaky will be receiving all these marvellous offers in a tent on Billesley Common!

I casually and perhaps rather heartlessly throw Michael Palin to one side, poor love.

In the Beginning...

... there was ME. This is my pic. Looking old and, yes, with a glass of red wine. And some 30 years after I came along, there was an idea for a theatre company. T'was 1992 and I'd been doing all sorts. Me and a mate Rob Vomit - the only actor I knew - did a one man version of Henry V wot I wrote. Called Henry V - Lion of England, we performed at the mac in Brum for 1 night. Another mate, Robb Williams, wrote an atmospheric soundtrack. Cost me fifty quid to hire the venue and I asked me family and mates along. Also present were Jasper Carrott's then managers and they took us to the Edinburgh Fringe which inspired me to start a company in Birmingham that would be true to the spirit of the fringe and be truly accessible. So we started Maverick at the Billesley Pub in South Birmingham on the edge of a council estate where, coincidentally, I was born. It was hard, artistically and financially and our last production was in 2003. Now, in 2007, we're kicking off again. Why? Mmm. Good question. NEXT TIME. Why I hate Michael Palin.