Editorial: Anna Jordan

Dream List: what plays should we be reading, putting on and going to see?

Reading: Ok, Martin McDonagh, Sarah Kane, Martin Crimp: I like reading these writers plays because I love the rhythm of their language. I think read the classics and read new stuff too.

Putting on: Whatever gets you going.  Don’t be frightened of being brave. (What a wonderfully constructed sentence that was)
Going to see: As above. Go and see what excites you.  I go to Theatre 503 a lot.  At first it was because I can get there from my house in 30 minutes, but now I go because pretty much everything I see there is adventurous.  The usual suspects – The Court, The Soho.  There’s loads of ace stuff in fringe venues – there’s loads of chaff too but you can find gems.  Erm… my plays!  I have to say that really.  There’s one coming up.  Crafty…
 

Describe your first theatrical epiphany

My dad is an actor, and from a young age I would go and watch him at the National or the Old Vic.  My earliest memories of theatre were watching plays I was really too young to understand, in huge theatres, and the large, loud, posh people who knocked into me while I was queuing for my ice cream. (Although I always loved it when dad came on stage).  In the early nineties he was doing Twelfth Night at the Old Vic, with a small part and understudying Eric Porter.  Sara Crowe played Olivia.  It was a particularly beautiful production, and I found I was actually starting to understand Shakespeare for the first time!  I don’t know if I would describe it as an epiphany, but it was a great moment; being able to follow the play and relate to the characters.  I saw that production three times and have loved Twelfth Night ever since.  And Eric Porter put his back out and I got to see my dad play Malvolio.  He was awesome!  (Sorry Eric).

Who would you invite to your fantasy theatrical dinner party?

Ooh crikey.  I’m going to cheat and not be purely theatrical (sorry).  Alan Bennett.  Rob Brydon.  Quentin Tarntino.  John Sullivan.  Sarah Kane.  (Not sure she’d be a barrel of laughs but I would like to hear what she had to say).  If it’s like an all expenses paid posh do with nice food then there are lots of actors who have worked with WAP over the years that I would love to wine and dine.  Such clever and lovely people.  Gush.  

What are your career highlights so far?

Winning the Off Cut Festival at the Old Red Lion last year with my play Closer To God.  And then finding out we had also won the Audience Choice award!  That was an amazing moment.  Then getting smashed until 2am at the Old Red Lion and the two hour journey home on the night bus, grinning and listening to Kylie all the way.  When we won the Best New Writing Award at the Lost Festival for Just For Fun- Totally Random, Jeremy Kingston (Times Critic and judge) said that he would be interested to know how much input the young mostly male cast had made with the urban ‘street’ language of the play.  I marched straight up to him afterwards, thanked him for his kind comments and informed him that every single word of that play had come from my own twisted little mind.  Yeah, that was pretty cool.
 

What's the strangest experience you've had in the theatre?

I nearly fainted in the arms of David Suchet once.  I was graduating from LAMDA in the MacOwen Theatre, with a bad kidney infection and a temperature of 104.  But I was determined to pick up my certificate. (David was presenting them).  I can only imagine how my poor mother felt watching me from the audience, pale and dripping with sweat, looking like I was about to fall off the perch.  David didn’t seem to mind.  He must have just thought I was a sweaty superfan.  I had to go straight home afterwards, and even missed the graduation ball which was on a boat!  This was a real shame as I love the people I went to LAMDA with and I love boats.

Who is your favourite actor of all time?

I don’t really have faves.  I’m a Juliet Stephenson fan.  Julie Walters.  And it’s a bit predictable, but Mark Rylance. 

Who is the greatest influence on your career?

I’m afraid I can’t pick just one.  Alan Bennett, Willy Russell, Jim Cartwright (gosh do you see a Northern theme occurring?), Che Walker, Joe Penhall (phew… back with a couple of Londoners!).  Chekhov. A lot of my influences are TV and film based.  I grew up watching Mike Leigh films, and for me everything up to and including Secrets & Lies is wonderful (after that it all goes a bit Pete Tong).  My favourite film of all time is a cult seventies movie called Harold & Maude about an eighteen year old boy who falls in love with an eighty year old woman.  It’s funny, beautiful, sad and the Cat Stevens soundtrack is a bonus.  I can always see bits of it in my work.  My parents are both great influences and sources of inspiration and support. However I think my greatest influence – in particular the way I write dialogue - is John Sullivan and Only Fools and Horses.  I’m utterly obsessed with it and own every episode on VHS!

Where do you want to be in 5 years time?

Well firstly I would like to say that I would like to be earning some money from what I do.  That would really be a bonus.  Then I wouldn’t have to work four days a week licensing fruit machines.  But I would love Without a Paddle to really grow and ultimately I would love to have a space – with a theatre, studio, bar, restaurant and maybe some gallery space.  I have some crazy ideas which I am sure won’t work – staffing the whole space from theatre people and paying them in kind with rehearsal space / performance space.  I also like the idea of the restaurant / bar / gallery space reflecting what is happening in the theatre.  Far example if we had a Chekhov play in the theatre we serve borscht and vodka in the restaurant and have live Russian folk music in the bar. We could have a samovar!  I’m meandering now.  What I would like is to be able to provide support for people who are doing the same thing as me.  Everything I have done with Without a Paddle is with no funding and with no financial support. I have three large overdrafts and I’m skint all the time. Boo.

What' s the best thing you've ever seen at the theatre?

I saw The Empire recently by DC Moore at the Royal Court’s Theatre Local in Elephant & Castle shopping centre.  It was brilliant: powerful, funny, hopeful, hopeless, shocking, moving… I could go on.  I was buzzing from it for ages afterwards and didn’t even mind that I had to wait over an hour for a bus.  I’m a fan of Enron – I’ve seen it twice and the second time it was the understudy run.  That made it better, because the auditorium was packed with the casts friends, family, other actors, and everyone was really rooting for them and willing them to do well.  It was fantastic.  Now, that bit where they sing the song about stocks and shares and they project all the numbers onto the stage and actors – that was a theatrical epiphany.  Well… what I mean is, it was really really good.  Me and my pal were up in the gods, and we just looked at each other and said ‘This is amazing’.

What are you up to at the moment?

At the moment we are in rehearsal for Bender at the Old Red Lion (13th July – 17th July).  Bender is exciting because it is the first play inspired by stories and anecdotes posted on Facebook.  We have over 200 Bender fans who have posted the weird and wonderful things that have happened to them on their craziest nights out. (Check out www.facebook.com/LETSGETBENT).  It’s proving great fun to rehearse, but it was a total headf*ck to write! (flashbacks) It’s been researched, written, cast, rehearsed all in the last couple of months.  Phew!  I need a break.  And a drink.

Biography: Anna Jordan

Anna trained as an actor at LAMDA. Fed up with being out of work, she started writing her own parts, and has since gone from strength to strength as a playwright and director. In 2006 she formed Without a Paddle Theatre Company.  In 2009 Anna won the Off Cut Festival at the Old Red Lion for her short play Closer To God.  It was selected from over 500 plays entered and 24 shortlisted and also won the Audience Award.  Her prize for this is a week long run of her play Bender at the Old Red Lion in July.  Anna has recently finished Chicken Shop, a play about sex trafficking and adolescence. Marianne was developed on the Royal Court Playwriting Course, and was shortlisted for the Bruntwood Royal Exchange Prize 2008, and had a sell out run at the Wimbledon Studio. Just For Fun – Totally Random won the Best New Writing Award at the 25th Lost One Act Festival, New End Theatre, Hampstead. She has written several short plays, three of which have been performed at Theatre 503.