The Platforming Artists podcast series is supported by Tooch as part of humanity's cultural programme.
Hello and welcome to the first episode of this Comedian Artist's podcast.
Obviously, today we have Fran here with us. Fran is my partner in crime on Madea.
And comedian. Hello, Fran. How are you? I can't get services to be on, I'm sure.
Just to tell the audience a bit more about you. So obviously, Fran and I met outside music at Oxford.
Graduated in 2019. And since then, I've had a pretty colourful career.
She left and immediately joined the music team at the national data on Three Sisters and then
jumped straight into working with the media on company twenty nineteen to twenty twenty.
And since then and during that period,
really worked with Taliban incredible diversity as a company utopia and is now currently on the National Theatre Youth Fret Company.
And she is cast as Othello in Othello in their new version of Othello.
That's a lot of Othello and a sentence that directed by Miranda Croma so far.
And that's quite the I'm quite the career you've stacked up there.
I'm very grateful, especially now with, you know, that's going on with coronavirus.
I am very grateful to have still had many opportunities to be creative at this time, sir.
Yeah. But that's absolutely we we will take ourselves a little bit back to what it was
that we meant and perhaps the most sort of extraordinary way and maybe obvious way,
which is backstage on a show and up in the top two dressing rooms in the Otsu Playhouse on a,
let's just say, unique production of Little Shop of Horrors where you were.
It was great fun. We had a great time.
I put on bright red lipstick when you you're in a green glittery dress.
But, yeah, that's when we met. Now, two thousand and seventeen.
So a pretty long time ago. It is last year.
We were very young. You know, we were both we both just turned 19.
But out of that, I mean, you certainly were. I didn't know drama, but you did a [INAUDIBLE] of a lot of drama, obviously, president about.
And then you founded the Aussie team Drama Society. So we'd love to hear sort of a bit about that process.
And just generally, you mean what was it like studying, also studying music? Yeah.
So Oxford was. An interesting experience, to say the least.
I was the only black person in my year in my college and also on my course, it was quite,
quite isolating and I felt quite conflicted about a lot of things because I was very aware of the privilege that I had and still have by being in
that space and having access to the teaching facilities and the kind of status that you you get just because you've been to Oxford or Cambridge,
which is incredibly problematic. This part of the reason why this country is in this state that is in at the moment.
I'm looking at you, Peepee Oxbridge grad. Well, let's not get into that right now.
Blotz. Yeah, I wanted to I chose to study music because my kind of entrance into the creative
arts world was through National Youth Theatre when I joined when I was 15.
And I ended up working with a guy called Tristam POCs.
He was the musical director for all of the NYT shows that I was working on.
And he introduced me to musical directing and composing for theatre.
And I thought, yeah, I could see myself doing this.
Let me do a course that will give me the skills to be able to to make, you know, a viable career out of this long time.
So I went to study music at Oxford, which I thought would be much more of a practical course than I actually was.
But in the end, I found looking into the history, psychology, philosophy behind music, I found that really interesting.
And it really helps me to gain a deeper understanding and lots of this art form in its different iterations.
So I'm grateful for that experience.
But yes, theatre music, I've always known something that I felt really drawn to as a way to just be myself and express myself,
as I was keen to get involved in both theatre and music scenes or also at uni.
However, I found the theatre scene in particular incredibly white and incredibly closed off to the type of theatre that I liked.
And I wanted to make. I didn't want to just put on a view from the bridge for the two hundredth time just because I started to have school.
You know, I wanted to make theatre that was challenging and authentic.
And I wanted to talk about stories that I could relate to as a young black woman.
And I was just frustrated by the staleness really of the whole scene.
Subtext for people who don't know so much beyond the drama scene. We have about four majors.
It's an incredible it's beyond privilege. We have funding on shows.
There is a show or two on every week. There are four theatre spaces that you can use there.
And there's a lot of work that comes out constantly. But also, to put it in perspective, it does tend to come from a very sort of privileged.
They tend to be that sort of classical plays or they are, you know, big spends on things that are very much overdone.
And they do tend to I was the only kind of produce value.
Obviously, one of the only until media, one of the only women in 1870 is certainly a great scene and an incredible privilege,
but really stagnated and really needed to shake up, which you offered in the form of starting this incredible BMB drama society.
Yeah, it really just grew out of this feeling of just feeling frustrated that I wasn't able to be part of the kind of work that I wanted to make.
And so in my second year, as you mentioned.
Yes, not at a drama society exclusively for ethnic minority students.
And we it was me and two other means.
We started out just as a way to just meet weekly in neon and chat about how we could make the genre seem more diverse and more inclusive.
And it just grew from that. We started a Facebook page and students were joining and chatting and we found
actually so many students in Oxford were interested in drama because they
weren't white and because they didn't go to Westminster and they didn't have the confidence that you kind of needed in that space to get involved.
Their voices were not being heard. And so we decided to facilitate that.
And we built this community of over a hundred students online and hosted like casual meet and greets and just create the
space for students of colour to come and shop and be creative without any kind of pressure to put on anything to too big or.
Two, to conform in any way to just create a space, it just be it just create.
And just to come outside of studying to collaborate.
And as a society grew over time, over those first few months,
we then decided to kind of like cement our status as a society in Oxford and put on a full-blown show.
And when I came in. Could you shift? Yeah.
Yes. That is something that we would discuss in detail. I'm sure in another podcast said today is not focussed on media.
It's focussed on you. And so you did all of this. You were president ads that you put on incredible shows.
Random is perhaps the best, obviously boring day or the best student production.
I saw elsewhere. It was an incredible piece. And then you left Oxford and pretty quickly.
I mean, remarkably quickly, you end up with three sisters, National Theatre backstage on the composing team.
You went from sort of zero to 100. And that was within, I think, two months of graduating.
Well, within that space. What was that? I was working at the National Theatre on Three Sisters, who was a little bit about that.
It's honestly incredible. I still cannot believe that I have that experience.
Arms. Even the way it came about, it was just me.
Using the connexions that already built up through during nationally is earned through doing music and theatre outside of uni.
I'm just having conversations with people.
I think the main thing about the industry is that it's it is about at the end of the day, it's about people with with telling stories about people.
And so you have to be invested in the people who you're either inspired by or
collaborating with or the people who who have influenced you in the order you're making.
And it just as a result of me loving the work of the national interest.
Making it known that I was a young creative out there. I was.
In a roundabout way, put in touch with Yavin music producer at the National,
Terry Alder's, and he said, come on board during three sisters within an hour.
Elam's who I adore, Berkshire Chronicles. It's incredible.
And I was assisting Michael Henry, who was the musical director on the show.
And for me,
who was the composer on the show to work on this incredible adaptation of of Chekhov set in 1960s Nigeria at the height of the Biafran war.
Lots of Afrobeat highlife music.
It was such a joy to work on a piece that just celebrated blackness in its authenticity.
It wasn't tokenistic. It was in textbooks.
It didn't hide away from the full experience of what it means to be in the context of the show, what it meant to be a black president and Nigerian.
During a civil war in Nigeria in the sixth season, and it's important to note also that this history.
Is not so far removed from us here right now. The 60s was not long ago.
And so but we don't learn about this history.
History that was very much produced by the British occupation and the arbitrary decision to to control Niger in the way that they did.
I mean, it's certainly not the rules from British colonialism. And yet, you're right, we don't learn a thing about it.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And being. So my my mum's family in Nigeria.
Been off on a journey as well.
And speaking to my grandma who'd lived through this war as well, who managed to come and see the show and seeing how putting on work in such a I mean,
the National Theatre, it's like this is like the beacon of theatre in the UK.
And for that space to have hosted that story, it was huge.
It was a really, really big moment for for the black community, but also for theatre as a whole.
And seeing the audiences come in and reacting to the show was something really, really magical.
And just knowing that I was a really small part of that. And to have had that as like my first kind of professional experience coming out here, me,
is that it really it really has kind of set the foundations for the kind of work
that I want to be involved with and I want to make moving forward on that.
I mean I mean, you've gone from sort of the National Theatre.
Now you're in the National Youth Theatre Rep scheme. Oh, it sounds like I mean, it's not art.
Yeah, I look forward to seeing it. But this new version of Othello and Rhonda Cromwell is an incredible director.
And you're working as as the Othello in this sort of.
This this, as you tell me in production, it's questioning systemic racism, questioning sexuality,
all these things that are sounding like what's going to make an incredible production.
Obviously, you guys are currently a bit in the air with the new down and and restrictions.
But you know what's going on. Tell us what you can do.
Well, you're allowed to say about this new version of it anyway. You are very much the eponymous star.
Well, I mean, you haven't seen it yet. I have been, but so far, so good.
Obviously, with the lockdown, we're now having to compromise by not being in the room,
the amendments or hosting on ZEW during an oval table lock and script.
But yes, as you said, we're working with Miranda Chromo, fantastic director who's done Death of a Salesman.
And it's just so collaborative in the way that she works.
And I think that especially with a group of young the six of us, 18 to 25 year olds working on this,
it's so refreshing and so inspiring to be working with someone who has such an established who is such an established artist and in her own right,
but is also willing to collaborate and hear our voices and what fact into the script.
And we're working with an incredible dramaturge, Jeff Benson, who is a bridge.
The scripts sang in contemporary person. And yes, Othello is a queer black woman.
And we're having lots of conversations at the moment about the intersections of racism and sexuality and what it means to be queer,
what it means to be black, and what it means to be a woman in contemporary Britain, which, as you said,
sheave is especially poignant to be thinking about now with the Black Lives Matter movement.
George Floyds matter. And in the situation we're in at the moment, all artists are now having to think about how we move forward.
Well, what about the 10 months of Knock-down? No one really wants to hear about a lock down.
But in this period, in this massive global crisis, we realised we continue to be in another massive global crisis,
which is the extent to which systemic racism is still not only present, but absolutely deadly for, you know, swathes of society.
And I think that obviously we are across the pond and things are a bit different here.
And in my opinion, we don't do enough work to focus on our own systemic racism in the UK.
And we often just talk about the states. But I mean, talk to me just about.
I remember talking to me at the time we were working on. We continue to work on media, obviously, in this period.
But how did that feel? I mean, what was some of you spent so long working in DIVESTS?
Because I was always extremely aware of these things and we've had conversations about this for years.
It's not a it's not news to us.
But how did that make you feel to see it come into the public feels like this and what it means now and what you think it means,
what it should mean and what it hopefully does mean to people looking forward now as we move onto the next year?
Yeah. I mean, there's so much to be said on this. We could we could talk on that.
We have four for our base about this.
And I think there's a lot of power in creativity and we shouldn't take this for granted.
I think we all, as people in creative spaces, have a responsibility to use the tools at our disposal to make a meaningful impact on society,
especially with all that's going on that moment with Carbon 19,
we've seen how it's disproportionately affected ethnic minority communities with the Black Lives Matter movement.
It's clear that we still need to be having conversations to really understand where these systems of
oppression originate from and the roles that our own communities within the UK played in sustaining them.
And I think it's actually a privilege to be to be working the arts at this time, because so many people,
so many of our key work is NHS staff have not had this time to reflect and to the chop like we have to think about how to move forward from here.
And so it is a privilege that we tweet. We do have the space to have these conversations.
And it's exciting, I think, to be witnessing a shift, to be witnessing a kind of like reckoning that people are having with themselves,
with their own position in society and in their own flaws as human beings and how we can better ourselves and educate ourselves.
And then you said there, I think is really important to pick up, which is that especially within.
We've seen people who have had this 10 months in, first of all, I think it's worth noting that, you know, your mom's a teacher.
My mom was my both my parents, both managers, they have not had any time off quite consistently since March.
They've been on the front lines in a way that so few of us haven't. And you're so right.
We had been given this privilege of being able, as much as it's been an extremely difficult time for the industry.
We have not been risking our lives to try and keep society running through the virus.
That's extremely important. I didn't Guss noted enough. I think we're right.
So we have to be on the front line. But still, I think it's important.
Secondly, talking about society as a whole is a different thing.
Specifically in the theatre, we have hopefully been seeing changes within our own circle.
We are obviously trying to make changes that are in secular arts and you can do what do you think as someone who is
known sort of within the theatre industry but is quite within the heart of what's going on in London within within.
You've worked with people that tell about incredible change makers who work within my direct scheme,
which is got its most diverse cohorts that I had right now has a lot of clout across the country.
What do you see trying to get there to sense since last summer?
And what do you what do you want to see as we move into 2020?
Well, I think we are witnessing a shift culturally in terms of what theatre film TV is
leaving as a result of these increased discussions around the word diversity.
You have people like Steve McQueen making shows like Slack's, which are really putting into the mainstream these conversations.
Some BBC, I think I've got to get to I get tonight. And I think I think the way forward in terms of theatre, it's got to start with conversation.
It's got to start with conversation. But then it's got to lead to practical, tangible steps.
And that's not just about having more black and brown people on stages or more black and brown people in front of the camera.
It's about uprooting the whole system and having these this change the ethos at the heart of whatever art you're making smallpox again.
It's not just black people in front of the camera. It's top people behind the camera. It's it's about having black and brown and diverse people,
creatives in positions of power on the boards that the theatres running the theatres and the production teams and the right scenes.
It's about making it a movement and not just a moment.
It's been tokenistic for too long and people people are dying.
People are being murdered because of the systems that are in place.
I've got I have conversations with my my little brother about how he's going to be perceived in this world purely because of the colour of his skin.
And that's not cool. That's not cool. So when we have so much power as artists to shape society with power comes a responsibility.
It is so powerful. But it does not.
I don't take that lightly. And I think I found myself thinking about my own role in individually in the movement,
as a musician, as an artist, as a creative or whatever writer I was.
I was thinking lots about sound, especially when the protests were going on.
I was thinking about the role of sound in framing these moments in these movements.
Salkeld mean music, thinking about the era of protest, music of the black canon from Nina Simone to Kendrick Lamar.
There are so many artists at the moment using sound to further the movement. This is a really big source of inspiration for me.
But I was also thinking about sound as sound as noise, like the noises we make as human beings,
the sounds of nature, the sounds that we facilitate to design. And what sounds are we hearing?
What sounds are we not hearing? What sounds are being silenced within these spaces that we create?
So I hope to moving forwards in my work.
We challenge this idea of like the sonic environment that we live in and that shapes society.
I really question that what it is that I am contributing to society through my work,
through my music is something that is going to help to move society forward.
I'm just going to say, thinking about this, then this is already positive. It's incredibly interesting to think about.
I don't know whether I had it framed in that way. And I think that is the great thing about talking to different creators.
They all have such an interesting out in the way that they work, gives them such a unique outlook on how they react to these things.
Obviously, especially artists who kind of this in this time. And it's one of the great privileges of doing Cosby up to 270 people.
But sort of thinking now about the structures around us, the faces and we in the last four months,
five months of speaking to a lot of it is a lot of big it's makers. How much do you think I know this is the sort of question that everyone asks.
No one wants to know the real answer to, which is, you know, is this do you think we've had this in B times?
And I think one of the things that I find so most disturbing about the current position that we're in,
which is that there's this weird being in every generation that we're for. No, it's been forged 70 times before.
We've had these arguments since the 60s and 70s, the 80s, whether it be riot or whether it be the sorry protest songs you read.
This is happened so many times before. And as we look to the states, I mean, black people have been dying for a very long time that,
you know, some would suggest for the whole of their history. So we're in twenty.
Is this a new moment? Is this is this a moment, as you said?
Is it a moment or is it a movement? And what do you think specifically within the lens of theatre?
Are you seeing the things around us changing in a way that you think is actually change?
Or do you think this is just another reactive? They know they need to do this to get the funding they need.
They need to do is to make sure that pub I mean, as a producer, I can tell you the amount of funding things that,
you know, you have to throw in a bit of diversity because, you know, it gets you that extra FICA, that extra Tanguay.
I don't see all of these things are tokenistic.
And that's a whole different conversation about the value of tokenism that we're not going to get into now.
But. Are we seeing a movement or are we seeing a movement, in your opinion, as you sort of on the ground working through these things?
Know, I've I've I've got to stay positive. And I do feel like that is a shift that's going on at the moment as a result
of the Black Lives Matter process that were happening over summer last year.
I do feel like it feels different. I am having a lot more conversations with my white friends who genuinely want to try to understand.
And I think that is the stop of change.
It's like we can say all there's a problem, but we need to we need to first recognise that the problem is with each and is with us individually.
And recognise that we have power in either perpetuating that problem or trying to solve it.
And I do think that more people this time, because we were all locked at home to vote on lie.
We were all seeing events unfold. There was no there was no destruction.
There was no excuse. I've got I'm walking by hours or whatever.
We were all confronted with this thing. And I do think that it has deeply moved a lot more people than than previous protests have.
And I I think it takes time.
I mean, Sheriff, the amount of conversations we had about whether the work that we were doing in Oxford was going to go anywhere because,
you know, that place is built on years and years and years of systemic racism.
And it operates on that. It. These things for it to become deeper.
It takes time. But I do feel that there's there's something different about about the way that things are moving now.
That's not to say that change is going to come next year, two years from now.
It's going to take. I think I feel really positive about our generation.
I feel that there are a lot of incredible young people at the moment who are within whatever field they're working in, really pushing for change.
And I'm so excited to see where that's going to lead.
Ten, ten years, five, five to ten years from now. So I think it's huge.
We've just got to stay positive. We've got to keep moving and keep pushing because it doesn't come overnight.
But I do feel like this time is different. And I feel like thinking about.
The future of data we're having to think about ways of it's upsetting and changing to make it more accessible.
The cause of this virus. Well, having to think of new ways of of making art that has the same effect as life data.
But it's safe and is accessible to everyone. Thinking about technology expanding in those areas.
So I do think that we are just having our minds are becoming more malleable and we are willing to have more conversations now.
I think that what you point out with the creative arts is that not only could no one avoid it,
but the whole of society has been in this flux of change for so long now.
Everyone has been lost as to what to do. I feel that the movement came at such a time where not only was it unavoidable.
Everyone was questioning all systems, all movements. Everything was changing. No one was working in the same way.
And then suddenly I think that these young creatives, some of whom were like,
we are young creators, we're working with so many incredibly young creators,
you'll hear many more on this podcast is that we've all sort of realised that we don't
have to structure ourselves within the way that we thought we can rehearse online.
We can create virtually. I'm not saying that we want to,
but I'm saying that what we've realised is that I think everyone is realised there are a lot more adaptable than everything.
And then suddenly all of these lazy conversations even we had in Oxford about, oh, we're not against it, but, you know, it's a big change.
We will suddenly doesn't count because what has been a bigger change than the coronavirus to literally every person's life?
I think globally no one has been not a single soul on the on the earth has not been affected somehow by this virus.
And I think that's such an incredible thing. And hopefully that will facilitate more conversations about change.
But also, we are here at Chameleon here with media obviously making that change and sort of finish off as we come to the end.
Because when you say a little bit about, you know, what you think we're doing and why,
what we're doing sort of fits into what exactly you just described this as as the change that we need to make.
Yeah, I think for me, the reason why I loves. What I do in music, in theatre, is because of the collaborative spirit that is at the heart of it.
And I feel we need to come together as creatives, as specifically creatives of colour.
We need to support each other and celebrate ourselves as a community of peoples in order to move forward.
And I think with comedian,
I'm so excited to be facilitating the space where it is a space of cultural celebration and finding strength in what makes us different.
And I think that's at the heart of movie and what we're trying to do.
And I'm excited to be working with these sick artists who you'll get to chat to because it is a real privilege and you're one of them.
And so how great it is to be to be your partner in this, how great it is to do it all together.
And thank you so much for doing our first podcast here. You're a comedian.
This is our inaugural broadcast. And we will be quite a few.
I think with these amazing artists to discuss this topic and to discuss the changes.
But hopefully now that I've interviewed you and hold you to death,
anyone listening and sort of learn a bit more about us and more importantly, learn about you and what you do.