The story of fifteen years
This is the speech (slightly amended at the end for reasons that will become clear) that I gave at Company Three’s fifteenth birthday party. It was a beautiful thing to look out and talk to so many people who have been part of our work over the last fifteen years, and particularly poignant because I would be standing down as Artistic Director two months later.
It’s hard to tell the story of fifteen years, but I’d like to try.
It’s hard because you never know when a story really starts, but this time it’s going to start in Ghana.
It’s 2007 and I’m in Accra, doing a placement with theatre company there, learning about their work.
It’s October and I’m sitting in a cafe drinking water with Judy Gemmell, a teacher I know from Arts and Media School in Islington, where I live. She’s come to Ghana because two girls from her school have been tricked by some con-men and are now in trouble.
While we’re talking Judy mentions that the borough youth theatre back in Islington needs a director. I say I’d be really interested – can you let me know? She says yes, she will.
…
It's 2008 and I’m in my first workshop with the youth theatre, in a small drama room at Arts and Media School, where Judy works. The drama club is run by the council as an after-school club – they make a musical every year.
The young people look at me suspiciously. I sit on the table and introduce myself. We play splat.
…
A couple of weeks later, I’m in another session. I say
“I think we should have three rules: Be Kind, Be Brave, Be Yourself.”
I don’t really know where they come from, I just say them.
…
In April we go on a residential. It’s chaos. The young people discover the free coffee machine. They all start drinking it to help them stay up. They don’t even like coffee, they’re just hungry for caffeine. At 10pm, Sophie walks up to me, looks me in the eyes and downs a triple espresso. I get ready for a sleepless night.
…
A few months later, we do the play.
It’s called Sweeney Todd.
On the opening night Sammy drinks a carton of fruit juice that he finds in the fridge at the Pleasance Theatre. It’s either really off, or alcoholic. He looks really ill.
He makes it on stage.
People really like the show.
I spend two thousand pounds more than I’m meant to and have to apologise to Len from the Council.
Despite this, Len asks me to stay on as director. The only thing is, there isn’t any budget until April next year. Mainly because I spent 2k more than I was meant to.
We should form a charity, I say.
…
We have our first meeting on the 20 October 2008.
We call ourselves Islington Community Theatre, and regret it for the next eight years.
…
It’s October 2008 and I’m at Highbury Grove School running a workshop to find new members for Islington Community Theatre. There’s a boy sitting in the corner.
“Are you joining in?” I say.
“I’m just here because I’ve got detention”, he says.
“You should join in”, I say, and he does.
…
It’s July 2009 and I’m sitting in the National Theatre, directing the tech of our Connections play, Success. It’s been selected out of hundreds of other plays all around the country to be performed on the Olivier stage. Aaron gets so blinded by the lights that he walks right into a scaffolding pole and nearly knocks himself out.
At the end of the show the cast all run out so happy.
“I fucking love you!” I shout, which is not appropriate.
But it is true.
…
Things move, fast.
We get an office at the Pleasance Theatre.
We get nominated for a Spirit of London Award and all go the ceremony in tuxedos and posh dresses.
We start a group called Work in Progress for 16-18 year olds. There’s someone in it called Angie.
We start the Oracle Project, for kids in Year 6 and 7. There’s someone running it called Ella.
We make a professional play about evolution that tours school science labs.
An intergenerational dance piece about memory.
A play about a group of teenagers who make a pact to all get pregnant at the same time. At least we try to, but it’s a really terrible idea, so we stop.
…
It’s 2010 and I’m sitting in the office and I get a call from someone at Channel 4. They tell me they’re making a documentary about volunteering. I know straight away that it’s Secret Millionaire. I don’t tell anyone in case I’m wrong.
On the last day of filming the ‘volunteer’, who is called Lyn, reveals that she is in fact a secret millionaire. I do my best surprised acting. She gives us 27,000 pounds to hire some staff, so it’s not just me on my own anymore.
Later that year we make a play called Frank & Ferdinand in a disused warehouse off Holloway Road. We turn it into a massive installation and get so excited about it that we forget we need toilets or security or any kind of safety plan.
During rehearsal someone tries to break in and steal all our equipment. All the young people run to defend our space and I run in the opposite direction.
We hire some portaloos and a security guard and I go two grand over budget again.
…
We make a play called Fifteen at the Rosemary Branch Theatre. It’s a play about being fifteen, made by fifteen fifteen year olds, to celebrate the Rosemary Branch Theatre turning fifteen.
Imagine running something for fifteen years, I think – that’s wild.
…
It’s 2011 and I’m sitting in the office and I get a call from someone in France. He says I saw you on Secret Millionaire on Channel 4. Would you like to bring a group of young people to stay in my luxury house in the South of France?
I say…
…
It’s 2012 and we’re sitting by the pool in a luxury house in the south of France. Helawit, who is 13, is reading the book Fifty Shades of Grey. Antione is having the time of his life – dancing, playing, deep-frying duck, dancing with a cauliflower, generally being amazing.
I think – imagine if he hadn’t had a detention on the day I ran that workshop at his school.
…
It’s 2013.
We go on a residential to a house that is absolutely definitely haunted, even though we keep saying “OH NO IT’S FINE DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT IT’S JUST OLD.”
At the residential Emily and I make a scratch version of a play called Brainstorm, inspired by how happy Antione was in France.
We are so worried that it’s awful that we cancel the first performance.
We start a writers’ group called Speakeasy.
We run our first Summer Project.
We run our first Big Weekend.
We commission Inua Ellams and Janice Okoh and Alexandra Wood and Alice Birch to write for us.
…
It’s 2015 and the cast of Brainstorm are bowing to a standing ovation at the National Theatre.
A head teacher tells one of the cast afterwards that watching the play is going to change the way they run their school.
…
It’s 2016.
Kadiesat plans and delivers an entire wedding ceremony at residential.
We do a 24-hour play in which I put so much pressure on myself and am so tired I cry in front of everyone at 8am.
I sit in the pub with Adam, Maa-Yar and Stott and say – maybe we should just call it ‘Company Three’?
…
We make plays about exam pressure, chicken shops, identity, empathy, aunties, smartphones, technology and the future.
We also make mistakes. And some of those mistakes cause real hurt to people and it feels important in any celebration of our work to acknowledge those and not pretend that it’s all been perfect, because it hasn’t.
And to say sorry to those for whom Company Three wasn’t a safe place because of mistakes that we – and I – made.
…
It’s 2018 and we’re outside the Yard Theatre, celebrating the first night of the Act, a beautiful play about sex and relationships.
Someone gets a phone call. Something’s happened to Danielle, they say.
The next day I’m sitting in the Den with about 25 young people. No-one is talking. We sit in silence for what feels like hours. We go for a walk around Highbury Fields. When we get back Bailey says “can we put some music on?”, and we do, and then we start talking.
We go to the funeral and Jack and Cherie speak and I think none of you should have to be here.
Danielle once told me that she wanted to be a stage manager. She would have been a really brilliant one.
***
It’s 2019. We make a new play called The Best Day Ever (a play about the end of the world). Alannah writes the story of the end of the world and sets it to the Best Day Ever by Spongebob Squarepants. It’s genius.
…
It’s 2020 and we’re on residential in Norfolk. Bailey and Mackenzie aren’t there, because they’re in Italy, in Aprica. They come home and go straight into quarantine.
Four weeks later and I’m in my bedroom talking on this new thing called Zoom to Becky, Nuna and Angie, planning a time capsule project.
…
24 weeks later and we come out of lockdown. It’s summer project and everyone is sitting in their own taped out box. Love writes a piece imagining her life in millions of different parallel universes.
Nuna speaks to me outside. She says I need to create a space for just the Black kids to speak unfiltered, she says. She calls it Black Is Safe.
…
It’s 2022. The poem that Love wrote has inspired a play at the Yard Theatre called When This Is Over. It’s about how our lives are made up of millions of chance events; tiny moments that irrevocably affect who we are and what we do.
A chance meeting in a hotel in Ghana.
Playing football with Charlie on Upper Street.
A detention.
A phone call from Channel 4.
Aaron banging his head on that scaffolding pole
Learning the teapot song.
Someone shouting DA DA DA DA DA DA DAAA after show for the first time
Daniel applying to RADA at the very last minute - and getting in.
Bringing my daughter to a stay and play at a community centre in Highbury and thinking – this could be a good home for C3.
Ben designing a Zip Zap rulebook
Meeting Adam at the Lyric
Ian teaching us Bally.
So many moments that make us who we become.
…
It’s September 2023 and I’m at the New Diorama Theatre, watching the second run of a play called #BlackIs…, directed by Nuna. I’ve never seen a group of young people own a show so completely. It’s incredibly moving.
It’s November, and I’m going to pick up the posters and signs for C3’s 15th birthday party. The printer we always go to has moved. He’s not by Platform anymore, which is handy, because neither are we.
He’s now based in a warehouse space in Holloway. I walk in and say – I made a play with a group of young people here once. It was called Frank & Ferdinand and we didn’t have any toilets.
…
The next day it’s the party.
I do a speech. I start by talking about meeting Judy in Ghana.
I talk about a load of moments that have happened in my time at C3, and think about how many others there were that I could have mentioned.
At the end of the speech, I look around and I stop. And I say:
Thank you.
It is impossible for me to express how special it is to see you all here like this.
It has been the most incredible privilege to learn from you all over the last fifteen years.
It has changed me so completely as a person, as a leader and as an artist.
I am fundamentally, intrinsically different because of all the moments I got to spend with you. I mean, this speech could easily have been 24-hours long.
When you set up something like this, you don’t know it at the time, but I think it is partly to heal something in yourself. I had a pretty tricky time as a teenager and it’s only in the last few years that I’ve really understood why it has been so important for me to make a safe space for teenagers.
Because that’s what I needed too. And now maybe I need something else, and that’s one reason why it feels right to leave.
Another reason to leave is that the company is so strong now. The team – Becky, Nuna, Angie, Gabi, Kami, Amber and Gavin – are so brilliant. The board are wonderful. We’re an Arts Council NPO – that’s massive.
Most of all, the young people are incredible.
All it needs now is a new artistic director.
A really inspiring leader who knows Islington really well, who cares deeply about young people and can make brilliant work.
I pause. The C3 members look like they’re going to burst.
I say:
Would you like to meet them?
Because they’re here.
I take my time. Because, you know, theatre.
I announce Nuna. The crowd goes wild.
She steps up and we hug.
She takes my place on the tiny box that I’ve been standing on.
A box made by my brother for a play that I directed in 2010.
A long time ago. But also kind of like yesterday.