Meet New Perspectives, the Notts Touring Company Making Theatre Accessible for All

Theatre hasn’t always been high brow. We haven’t always shushed the crowds and lectured on etiquette. In fact, the first theatre productions were religious tales written in ordinary language (over Latin) and the audiences of Shakespeare were known for their jostling, laughing, and eating during the performance. The wealthy and the everyman sat together in the crowd. Yet, as time has moved on, theatre has become increasingly tied to class and (putting aside the Christmas panto) many working-class folk feel excluded from the space. 

That’s why New Perspectives was born. Set up almost fifty years ago to tell the story of David Oluwale, a homeless Nigerian man killed in British police custody, they’re a theatre company dedicated to telling the stories of the ignored and unheard. And, with a rich background as a ‘touring theatre company’, they also put equal emphasis on bringing the stage to non-traditional spaces. As Angharad Jones, Artistic Director at New Perspectives, says, “We make exceptional work that travels to where people live, so we could be playing in a traditional theatre one night and a village hall the next. It’s a way to ensure that geographic or economic barriers don’t stop people seeing our plays.” 

Not always simple, Angharad jokes that the biggest hardship is getting everything in the van as they move from place to place. But, additionally, adapting to non-theatre spaces is a technical challenge and she has to ‘tech’ two versions of the show for bigger and smaller spaces, accounting for the lack of lighting and sound equipment in local venues. Yet “there is a real joy to it. And while there might be some stigma to performing in a village hall, we ensure that the quality is there, because that’s what we stand for.” 

Further commenting on their values, Executive Director Sally Anne Tye notes that there are three cores that run through the company: “Championing new writing, hearing underrepresented voices, and telling unheard stories.” Hence, a large part of New Perspectives is working with emerging writers through their project Open Pitch - described by Participation Director Jayne Williams as “a chance for anybody in the East Midlands to pitch up with a cracking story they might have. It’s a project in which we support two people a year to tell their story by page, stage or screen - because great stories don’t just come from within the industry, they also come from the community we serve.” 

Encouraging those who don’t see themselves as artists to enter into the programme, Sally explains that there is a real beauty to the process because “theatre is all around us, so what people might think of as ordinary is actually quite remarkable” - a recent example being the show The Road to Zandra. A collaboration between Jayne and local community member Mark Preston, it tells the real life story of a Nottingham road repairer who transforms himself through drag to become Zandra at night. “Likewise, there was a great family story from someone in Grimsby,” Jayne says. “Her nan wrote to the Coronation Street actress who played Elsie Tanner and they enjoyed a twenty-year-long pen friendship. So, we supported the writer, Caroline [Beeson Spence], to mine this story and tell it, which resulted in the production Elsie Tanner Knew My Nanna.” 

When I ask the group what first drew them to New Perspectives, it’s this desire to support people that shines through. “It’s interesting because I first met New Perspectives sixteen years ago, when I was setting up my own company and I spoke to the artistic director for advice,” Angharad says, “so to be back here is really full circle. I think that people who have generosity of spirit when you come into the industry really affect change, as it did for me.” Likewise, Jayne comments that her first experience with New Perspectives was by having cups of tea with them in the nineties and “valuing, in a similar way to Angharad, what they gave to me, and the kindness.” Because of this, both women wanted to come back and enact the same change - both through their projects, like Open Pitch, and the stories that they tell through the productions. 

“If we’re considering ‘why theatre?’ and why we’re telling these stories, it’s because we’re creating an empathy factory where we invite audiences to feel,” Angharad comments when asked about how they choose their stories. “So, I do feel that we have a duty to represent stories that aren’t told often, because I don’t think that there’s enough of that on our UK stages, and theatre can work as a call to action.” Like with their upcoming production of We Need New Names, which will be showing at the Nottingham Playhouse this June, it is vital to the company to explore stories for and from the ignored or sidelined.

So, as they reach their half-century anniversary, New Perspectives hope to continue the legacy that they’ve already created. As Sally finishes off the interview by saying, “I think we’ve consistently made high-quality theatre accessible to audiences where they live. I think for first-time artists and for audience members alike, we’ve tried to remove barriers to the theatre. That’s what we want to continue.”

We Need New Names is showing at Nottingham Playhouse on Friday 9 and Saturday 10 June