Hello and welcome to Pivot Points. This is the podcast about the pivotal moments that have shaped our academic, professional and personal lives.
I'm Sam Cooke, your head of communications at Wilson College. And I'm all about creating ways for you to share your stories like this podcast.
Our guest today is playwright and theatre director Tom Brennan,
who joined Wilson as our latest Jeffrey Guardian Creative Arts Fellow at the start of Michaelmas 2021.
The Fellowship is named after a former Wolfson college bursar, and it celebrates visual arts, music, performing arts and creative writing.
So as such, Tom has been holding writing workshops, performing play readings,
and just generally talking us through the highs and lows, what it's like to run your own production company.
And there'll be much more of this to come as he continues his fellowship through to 2024.
I had a great chat with him a couple of months back about his take on theatre and generally what it's been like to burst into the Oxford bubble.
As it started. It started. Oh, my gosh. Are you nervous about everyone's voices are going to change?
Yeah. That's a really weird stuff. Yeah. Have you been on a podcast before?
Yes, yes. I've been on a couple of the podcasts.
One particular one I've had shows on. It's people like to sort of interview you about the show.
Yeah. Yeah. True. Do you find that that is now becoming a more common like post show interview format?
I think it was. And I think. I wonder if podcast Fashionability fashionable, fashionable.
This kind of thing I like.
I definitely make up words when I'm under pressure.
Perhaps it's a pressure free podcast. So yeah.
That is tough out. Yeah.
I don't know. I've been thinking about. Oh, you know, I'd like to make a podcast, I'll do it.
But there is something slightly terrifying about making your words sort of recorded and solid,
because I change my mind all the time about, you know, fundamental beliefs.
I just think I wouldn't want, you know, something I sort of said slightly facetiously in Know podcast to come and bite me on the neck.
Although that sounds slightly problematic for somebody who essentially uses his words.
I know. I know. But I think how does that play out? I don't know if art should be, like, morally good.
You know, I the my favourite things have always been things that have had attention in
them of where characters have said things that have been challenging something.
A friend of mine recently said this thing. I want my my sense of good to be mocked by and interrogate.
Sense of truth. Oh, I like that. She's quiet again.
I want my sense of goods to be marked by an interrogated sense of truth.
Mm hmm. That's good. That's good. It's quite it's quite a nice phrase, because I think it does tap into something which is like.
And I think it relates to how I feel about theatre at the moment,
which to me a lot of what I'm seeing in my industry is like a kind of self-congratulatory theatre which feels very smug,
complete with itself, which everyone in the theatre can all agree with.
The thing that's happening, like everybody is on the same side of the argument.
Yeah, exactly. And we can all go and feel better about ourselves, and it's not cool to pose the other side.
Yeah, right. I'm actually, you know,
it's just an extension of the kind of cultural bubbles that we find ourselves in as opposed to finding the division points between us or.
Poking fun at the audience or poking, you know,
trying to find these little things like I call his name right now off top of my head, but said, you know, theatre isn't the.
Isn't the pearl in the oyster. It's the salt. It's the it's sorry.
It's the piece of sand. It's like the grips. It's like there should be something that.
That's always my favourite stuff as that feels like a wakes me up in a slightly refreshes my senses,
makes me think about something differently as opposed to confirming something I always knew was true.
Yes. Yeah. And I. I'm seeing a lot of confirmation in the theatre.
Yeah, I can imagine. Well, that kind of brings me on to one of my first question.
So as any good interviewer, I did lots of research and read about you.
And there's an old school which you wrote actually, in which you're hilariously quoted saying that as a teenager you were,
quite frankly, a brilliant act and you thought you knew it.
So obviously, from what I've read and my own conversations with you,
I think you do have quite a knack for finding kind of humorous and absurd things in quite serious subjects.
So I suppose I'm kind of interested in how important you think humour is in telling the truth of the story.
I think that's, I suppose, related to my sensibility or my taste that I often find humour can break down people's defences.
So if you want to talk about something difficult. It's human feels to me like a really good way of doing that.
That through laughter, just like through tears or whatever, we can kind of open people up a little bit more.
And so that's definitely always been my way in personally and artistically.
It's like a friend of mine talked about my shows a few years ago and said, Oh, it's a bit like, Oh, he'd seen a few of them.
And he was like, Oh, you're doing that thing where you go like, ha ha ha ha.
You know, it's just really well, you know, a very, actually astute way of talking about a lot of the shows.
I feel very proud of the ones in which we operate in that dynamic, though.
What's the there are. There are. I really like complicated laughs ones in which you feel.
I'm unsure about whether it's with you, but it's very revealing.
Um, and also, I think, again, this sort of relates to how people place theatre.
Is this sort of on this pedestal of like the most sort of spiritual literary art form in some ways.
And there's this grand British tradition and.
But some of my favourite shows have been ones in scrappy little fringe venues in which they're really playing between the audience and the actors.
And I don't know why we have to sort of place it so high and holy that the comedy always, always feels like low on the pecking order of work.
And maybe that's true for any art form. You know, the most sort of critically acclaimed pop music is always very serious, pop.
It's like, actually, you know, what does funny pop music look like that great craft in that to you?
Yeah. Yeah, for example. Okay. Well, I want to come back to the idea of kind of fringe theatre and comedy in a minute,
but let's just take a huge step back, all the way back to when you were making films on family holidays.
So I assume you weren't necessarily thinking about the role of humour in truth, when you were making those?
Not really, no. But I mean, a specific example was so my dad, I don't know why he did this exactly, but he was always one for he was at that point,
I suppose in the nineties where to buy a camcorder was quite a big deal, you know, it was quite expensive.
It was like a big thing. And you know, this gadget that he would buy and then he would want to use it all the time.
And he was kind of getting to grips with editing software in a very basic, hermetic way with his own computer and.
And actually and so what I guess was his hobby that he would invite us into or make us do things because he also
would do things like he would record interviews with us at different ages and things like that as a sort of record.
But we started kind of these family films, which began as documentaries in a way slowly grew in scale.
So we did. The first big one was a version of Robin Hood.
We did want a camping trip with us and another family where I got to play Robin Hood.
And as you could imagine, really excited. Really excited.
And then these films like Grew and Grew so that we did two Bond films and on and off we
aired version of Lawrence of Arabia that we called Lawn of Australia when I was great,
and they're incredibly embarrassing to watch now. But he would sort of do all the.
He built all the infrastructure around it.
So he would do like title sequences and he would make a VHS box for it to live in and things like that that would have,
you know, Photoshop versions of us,
like looking like we were on a poster and and actually all of the kind of paraphernalia that went along with the film was really exciting and,
and just that, that we could go on a walk and talk about the story and how it would work.
And we did that. And I think the last one we made was when I was maybe 12 or 13.
But actually it was an amazing lesson in kind of just.
Making something from beginning to end that you could.
Think of a story and actually make it happen, even if it looks sort of terrible.
Yes. Was scrapple put together? So that actually was very inspiring.
And we'd rope in all our friends to play the different parts and things and.
They're sort of really a really weird record of me growing up with my sisters and all our friends and stuff.
But I think it led to a sort of a sense of, oh, screw it, sort of.
We can do we can do that, you know.
And I think that that sensibility sort of followed me through is that you can think of something and make it happen,
which is a big principle of of of my company, in a way.
It's like a lot of our education work is built around that simple idea, which is you have a career, everyone has a career voice.
And it's really just about giving yourself permission to let it out alone.
That's a lot of people's biggest stumbling block is that they see brilliant things.
Ira Glass said The thing about everyone's taste is amazing, but when you're starting out, your craft isn't very good.
So. It's really heartbreaking because he made lots of bad things that never match your brilliant taste.
And so you have to just kind of keep throwing yourself out there and making things
until you've developed the craft to make the thing that matches your taste.
Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it. Was there ever a point at which you thought you might do something else that wasn't there?
Well, definitely. I mean, film and things. I guess there was always a sense for me about storytelling and like,
I was really obsessed with films much more than I was theatre when I was growing up.
But really, I just found myself in a, in a place that was so exciting in relation to theatre, which was the Bristol Bay Young Company.
And that's that was a real change moment, really.
It was finding myself that night. And at the time it was a rut in a very kind of slightly chaotic but very exciting way by a couple of people.
And they. It was actually a time where the theatre was not open apart from the young company.
So we sort of took the reins on every aspect of the theatre and we've produced these massive shows and it was completely,
it was felt like running away to the circus or something. It was like very intense.
And people would talk, the leaders would talk to you like you were adults.
And for better or for worse, I mean, it was really intense.
I don't think it was particularly healthy, but it was me and quite a few other people sort of found a home that were.
And what age was this? That was maybe 15, 16.
So still in school? Yes. That's kind of being given permission to just completely run your own show.
Kind of, yeah. And they were very well like tightly directed and things like that.
But they it was it was actually just that the it was a real step up from school place that the guy who run it would, you know, he'd,
he'd like shout at you and swear if he did it, you know, there was a sort of intensity to everything that at that age I found to be very exciting.
I look back and think, well, it wasn't very appropriate in lots of different ways, but at the time, the intensity of that experience was felt like.
Really thrilling. Yeah. And then how did that inform you setting up your own production company?
So when I was coming up to my gap year, we were invited.
All of the members of the company were all graduates of the of the young company,
I suppose, in lots of ways, and were invited to do this year's training programme.
And some people had graduates from the university and some people were on their gap year and some people hadn't gone to university at all.
And so we were offered basically two days a week training in exchange for our skills as workshop leaders and assistants.
And the reason we're called the Wardrobe Ensemble is because we were plonked in the old wardrobe at the Bristol Vic,
and it was this really scrappy room with loads of pot holes in the floor and it was really cold, but that's where we started.
And then there were lots of transitions and changes within the theatre which led to then this kind
of weird period of time where we sort of had to make a show for the studio without much leadership.
And so then I, we formed a company called the Wardrobe Ensemble, and then I directed our first show, which was called Riot, which was a.
A comedy about a true story of a riot that happened in an IKEA store in 2005 where they opened this new IKEA store and thousands of people
showed up and there was a huge riot and first people were hospitalised and someone was stabbed and we just thought it was a such a funny,
strange tale. Yeah, it was sort of humour.
Yeah. But that we were, you know, it was like 2011 and.
Actually, there wasn't a lot of conversation around, you know, Black Friday sales and consumerism in that way.
And so it was a satire around. Consumerism and the lengths that people will go for a bargain.
So yeah, but the, the we, we made that show and we were really designing it for the fringe.
So the whole show was lit with IKEA lamps. So the whole show costs about 200 quid.
We bought these lamps and set up extension lights on the floor and so we could take the show in 20 minutes because we could run in,
pluck a six way extension down and we're off, we're ready to go.
And the whole. And this is for Edinburgh Fringe. Yeah, yeah. So let's take a step back and say, how you doing?
No, no, it's fine. Um, so how was Edinburgh Fringe?
Kind of always in your sightline? Was that something that you in those days do?
It was the way that a company could.
It was kind of the only way that a company could show off their work.
It was the Fringe Fringe Festival to go to. Um, if you were kind of unsupported and then produced and it was felt to be this sort of.
You know, you would always hear the following year about the must see show on the fringe.
And now I think it's very different because we've gone five times as a company, and every time we go back up, the rent goes up by a third.
And if we were starting out, there was no way we could take our first show there.
Now,
it's only possible because we're playing to such big houses now and we get funding for the making of our shows and things that it's kind of feasible,
but you just can't. It's not the whole infrastructure is just kind of melting.
So I, I don't know what the future of Edinburgh is, but there are lots more fringe festivals now, like Brighton or Volts or um,
and a lot and some really interesting kind of fringe venues like the Waterfront in Bristol,
which you can go with not the biggest CV in the world, you know.
It was definitely seen as a space where the sort of quality of work could rise to the top.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, so I'm also particularly interested in, in another one of your plays.
I don't know if this is, if this was related to Fringe or not.
The 1972, the future of sex. Did you ever do that?
We did, yeah. Yeah, we we that was the first sort of commission of one of our full company shows.
And it was a real amazing turning point for us because we'd all come out of university and I'd difficult,
I suppose what we would call our difficult second album was our second show,
first three, which was about it was about the Chilean mining crisis of 2015.
Is that right? So, you know, 20, 2010 or so.
Anyway, it was a very difficult show to make in lots of ways.
And then when we came to making 9072 the feature of sex, which began as can I Swear on this podcast, this is ugly.
No, I'll try not to. Probably not. Yeah. So the working title was and maybe the History of F-word.
And it was a sort of joke on the fact that, um.
Well, we after making this show that was about the money crisis,
the big thought for us that we should try and make something that was much closer to us that we could really talk about.
And it would also mean that we could be enjoying humour a lot more.
The last show was quite so self-serious in a way. So we start working on that.
And then we had a sort of discovery about using history that when we place things in the past, we could talk about them in a much more easy way.
So there was something about that. It released us and we found this moment in 1972 where.
David Bowie appeared on Top of the Pops for the first time as singing Stardust.
The first Gay Pride march was happening in London.
Lady Chatterley's Lover had just been released to the public for the first time, and it felt like there were all these big cultural shift points.
And so that day became the setting.
The day that everybody is on top of pop for the first time became the setting for our show.
And it was a sort of multi stranded narrative about different couples hooking up on this one night.
And it was the most unbelievably easy show to make, and I have no idea quite why,
other than we all had a shared language of what of the tone and what we wanted it to feel like.
And also no one expected anything from us at that point.
So it was just felt like a free conversation.
We weren't trying to prove ourselves or we were trying to prove ourselves, but we weren't.
It didn't feel like we were hindered in any way.
And after the first two weeks of R&D, we'd had the skeleton for the entire show that it turned out to be.
Really, we just polished it for the rehearsal process.
Yeah, it was a really exciting show to make. You know,
it sounds it and I suppose I'm bringing it up now because I think public conversations around
sex sense and gender disparity have developed so much even in the last couple of years,
100%, you know, with some with movements like Reclaim the Streets.
And definitely, you know, those are not isolated movements or incidents.
But I'm I'm kind of interested in the role that you think theatre plays in capturing a certain moment in time.
But then also to what to what extent is this or a little bit like academia in the sense that you're kind
of building on each other's work in order to develop this whole body of research or body of stories?
Yes. Is there a do you feel there's a similar process? And finally, I do think that ooh, that's such an interesting set of points that.
Uh. I think each one of our shows is,
to a degree autobiographical and that you can't help but kind of express the different anxieties of of of each moment that we find ourselves in.
And maybe I'll talk a bit more about that later in regards to that show.
I mean, I do think. We started it because we thought it would be funny.
And from the initial conversation,
it was clear we we all had a lot to say on the matter and that we felt like because there was a lot of trust there in the company,
we could really talk about that stuff. And one of the things that came out of that was.
A conversation around gender and voice within the company that we ask the question of each other what?
When did we speak in the company? And all the men said, Oh, I speak when I have an idea.
And all the women said, Well, I have my idea. I think about it.
I find the right moment to say, I think five is a good enough idea.
And then I speak. And it was a real moment for us that we continued to have those conversations along lots of different lines.
But about the way that and it's not to beat up men for doing that because it's a sort of my confidence.
For example, it's not like I have to I have to take responsibility for that, for the fact that I might bulldoze a room,
for example, and, and try and shift my behaviour accordingly, but not to sort of like beat myself up for it.
And so we continue to have conversations in the company about.
The the many kind of well lots that can be lots of sort of moments where the.
The balance tips to fall one way.
And so we're trying to always make sure that everyone in the company has a voice and can speak freely,
because sometimes two people might get locked into a very exciting conversation and don't realise that no one else is giving it.
Being given a space to talk and think. Yeah, but in regards to this idea of like the sort of body of work,
I really like that sense that potentially we're just remaking the same show over and over again,
you know, through different lenses or different guises.
The other thought is that we're sort of trying to fix the problems of our previous show.
So whatever we did confidently with one show, we're trying to sort of.
So, for example, just before COVID, we made a show called The Last of the Pelican Daughters,
which was the closest we've ever come to making a sort of full family drama, naturalistic play, which was born of the sense that we want to.
Well, what emerged out of that was a need to make richer characters with more psychological depth.
And then the next show we made was essentially a dance cabaret about the history of capitalism through
food production and was absolutely a rejection of everything we've done in the previous show.
And I think we're always trying to think about that. So we get bored quite easily.
So we're sort of thinking, okay, well, let's abandon everything of that push into something else.
But also, I think you just as a human, you're constantly learning, right?
So obviously the next thing that you write and produce you, you have learnt things that you didn't know when you wrote that previous version.
So in that sense it does feel very similar to academia.
And when I, you know, if I write a piece about something and then I write the next piece,
I know that there are certain arguments in the previous one that are flawed and I have to reshape it.
Yeah, yeah. I'm bringing. You think? Definitely. And what are those moments where you feel like there is a synthesis between your ideas?
You know what? What is it that made 1972 feel like?
The easiest show in the world. I have no idea. So maybe it was it was the right thing to say at that time.
And then conversation and culture develops over the years. And then if you do that again now, it might be a slightly different story.
Definitely would be a different show, you know? And that's exactly right.
I don't think people were talking about it in that with the article. I see that they're talking about it now.
Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah. So all of these experiences and in one way or another have brought you here.
Yes. Wilson in Oxford. How does that feel? It feels really amazing because it feels like a personal validation of what I've been doing that I think
there is a feeling when you're part of a big ensemble devising company that you can kind of get lost.
And then I know that I am the company and I'm also not the company.
And so that when people say positive things about the company's work, that's me and also not me and all those kind of things.
I guess the thing for Wolfson that's given me a great deal of confidence is like Tom Brent is that is this person that's,
you know, that's a real thrill. It's very rare for me to own kind of things like that.
And it's given me a great deal of freedom to think a bit more long term about the projects that I want to do.
So much of the my career has been built around just trying to keep my head above water and and creating projects month on month for a month.
This has given me a much longer period of time to think about, which has been pretty life changing.
I think something that nearly always comes up whenever I ask people about how they feel now that they're
at Oxford is the sense of imposter syndrome that really seems to be universal in this community?
Yeah. Is that something that you identify with or do you feel kind of comfortable enough in what you're doing that you don't feel subject to that?
I do think I feel that. And as someone who when I was a teenager in a state school in Bristol, like.
Felt like and again, it may be relates to this cocky character that was the one who was like I felt like I was, you know, the best actor in school.
And I felt like I was really good at English and things.
But I also didn't have any guide in terms of what I should do to push myself.
And my parents, who I love very much, are very supportive, weren't pushy parents and ones who knew how to sort of.
Well, yeah. Deal with me in some ways. I mean, they've always been very confused about what, freelancing and things like that.
Right. So that's funny. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess I always, I, you know, wanted the Oxbridge thing.
It's like a source of great envy for me because of the image that I have in my brain and also
throughout my career has become a source of great rage in that there's obviously a sort of class issue,
Oxbridge, and it's one that in the theatre industry I was just always so astounded by things just happening.
If you went to experience like Oh suddenly you know everyone and that's very clear
here that the level of talent that is just comes to the Oxbridge is so extraordinary.
So I obviously sort of had a shorthand in relation to a sort of damning Oxbridge.
You know, I'm here, I feel very strange.
So you've been running some creative writing workshops? Yes.
How do you feel those have landed? And also what did you want to achieve with them in the first place?
The creative writing workshops were really about seeing where people were at with just writing.
And I've I paused those for a little while because I had some quite intense.
I was putting up a few shows and things, but I'd like to bring them back.
And it's worth noting as well that these, these writing workshops are open to everyone.
Yeah, but also just people who feel they associate with arts and theatre.
Exactly. And because they were every week I didn't want to.
It's, it was more about just creating space to write.
So what they emerged, what they felt like the most useful thing was about writing prompts for an hour and a half.
And I think if I, when I bring it back with them,
might be a little bit more focussed in terms of things to produce, but that's is a really core principle for me.
It's like about just creating the right circumstances to be able to write.
So they're quite low key. Um. And relaxed.
Mm hmm. And I just sort of deliver promise for people.
Yeah, but it's. It was quite a nice. A nice, um, supportive environment, I think.
But I'm also going to be doing a few more things this time, so I'm going to be the dates are a little bit up in the air at the moment,
but I'm going to be talking in a lot more depth about my company's process and the history of the company as a sort of presentation talk thing.
And then also going to be reading a play up and working on, which is a one person play about,
uh, Ireland that's discovered between England and France fictional island.
Mm. I love the point that it's a fictional story.
It's not really a real. Or maybe it is. And then.
And things like that. So I feel like I may bring the creative writing group back and I think I probably will.
But there's also other things. I'll be presenting it. Okay.
Interesting. Um, now, I've been saving your final pivot point to Sylvia, and because I thought I think it might have quite a humorous angle to it.
So your final your final pivot point is when you watched an Australian production of the Wild Duck at the Barbican, which is interesting Ibsen play.
Can I just quickly jump back because I know this seems like ridiculous to sort of say,
but I think it taps into a lot of the conversation we were having, which was about the first show and when we took it to Edinburgh.
So this was the show about the riot and I care, this is kind of the punchline of the story, which is about we can't mess that up.
Well, it is important because of sort of how it ties into these ideas of creativity in a way,
which was that we'd made this funny show, right, with set in an IKEA store with all these lamps.
And we took it to the Edinburgh Fringe 2020, sorry, 2011.
And we did our first show and it was really bad.
It was a real shambles and we felt incredibly nervous and it was only half full, which actually for French times, pretty good.
And and there was a walkout and things like that.
So we went back to our flat and talked about shifting things around.
We wrote a new beginning for the play that would sort of set things up and feel as awkward and we'd change things around.
And then we went to sleep. And overnight a sort of professional miracle happened, which was that the London riots happened.
So obviously not a great moment, but it suddenly transformed our show from one thing into another without us doing anything.
Suddenly our show was like biting political satire, despite the fact we'd really not changed anything.
And I guess it's just that thing with you, you can sort of like talk about things you want to talk about.
They're in the air, but you can't really chase. It's like, guys suddenly our show like,
sold out for the entire fringe and people were forging tickets to come and we set up a whole tour because of that.
And I really think we wouldn't be together as a company if that hadn't happened.
So something completely outside of our control, you can try to make the show as good as you possibly can,
but some things that just come out of nowhere and suddenly you have a craving.
Yeah. And I suppose that just things back to what we were saying about telling the right story at the right time.
Yeah. And sometimes, sometimes you know what, what moment you kind of jump into that.
Sometimes other things just jump into your moment I guess.
Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So just going back to the wild doctrine.
So this is I mean, this is a fairly is thing, really.
I just think sort of quite funny. So in this remake of Real Live Dogs is Waddles Across the Sea.
Yeah, it's a really lovely production by Simon Stone.
And also why, why why did this make such a big pivotal?
Well, I'd tell you, basically, it's kind of embarrassing, but I wanted a moment that was sort of personal, which was that I really liked the show,
but I remember going home on the train and the Wild Duck is a play is kind of very well structured tragedy.
But there's a few moments in it where.
I kept thinking while I was watching it, if if the characters could just get over themselves, everyone would be happy.
If you just allowed yourself to like. Just.
Just get over, like, just stop worrying about this. You'd be.
You could find yourself in a position of happiness. And I.
And I guess I was going home from Bristol, thinking about my best friend Emily,
and how essentially I would just be happy if we were in a relationship.
And I think it was sort of gave me permission to sort of.
With that relationship. Get over myself and just.
And then a few months later, we got together. And now we're. And this is who you wrote the song Production Company?
Yeah, we had the company together. Yeah, but very glad.
But it was just this thing of, like this and tragedy, I suppose.
I don't know what the purpose of tragedy is, but for me, it was about, you know, showing human beings behaving in ways.
And as an audience, from the outside, you can see. Just get over it like it's going to be.
It's okay if you just. And I guess I try to hold on to that sense of that.
If you hold things a bit more lightly, actually, things can. Something's making you happy.
Sometimes you can just do that thing, and that's. That's good. I think that's okay for any really solid piece.
Like I said, it sounds like. So this kinda, like, chased her, but it wasn't quite like that.
Well, thank you. Something that was. That was really great.