Stars Magazine interviews Miles Gregory in Dubai, January 2002
Playtime
In the relatively short time it has been going, the British Touring Shakespeare group has earned a reputation as the UK's premier touring Shakespeare company. Since its inception in 1999 it's stars have performed to more than 20,000 people, putting on nine shows and winning critical acclaim for its innovative productions which breathe new life into Shakespeare's works.
The BTS's work is recognisable by its simplistic excellence and insight into the period. Perhaps, therefore, it is not surprising to find that the man behind the company is something of an expert on Shakespeare himself.
Miles Gregory is the founder and Senior Art Director of the company he created soon after graduating with an Master of Fine Art from Exeter University. But it was a few years earlier that his talent for all things Shakespearean first came to the fore. He had first seen Shakespeare performed in an outdoor event at the age of 13 and went on to play Romeo in a school play. He says: "Drama was always good fun at school, and a good way to get out of lessons and so on. But it wasn't until later that I thought I could really do something with it."
That was when, at the age of 17, Gregory passed his A-Levels with the fifth best result in the country, and a 100 per cent score in Shakespeare. He then went on to pursue his obvious talent with further study, while taking acting roles in University productions throughout and, rather than be a bit part player in somebody else's company, took the not insignificant leap of starting his own.
BTS shot to fame during their second Summer season, performing full scale productions of Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream for over forty nights to packed houses throughout England, culminating with a full page review in UK stage authority Theatre Review, describing the group as "a new Shakespearean force to be reckoned with".
The key to this success has been the spin put on Shakespeare by a team who have an obvious passion and, crucially, understanding of their subject. Gregory says: "We don't have the social pressures of the Royal Shakespeare Company. They are state funded are obliged to put on 'weighty' plays. We have a more modern style. We stay true to the text but try to make our plays accessible to the young as well as the old.
"I think the main difference is that we really use the theatre as a three dimensional medium which is something film cannot achieve. We prefer to work on the floor, as opposed to a stage which is something they did in Elizabethan days. That's where pantomime style comes from and it means that we can interact amongst the audience."
The result is an occasionally provocative showpiece, which is portrayed with admirable simplicity. And the 3D formula certainly seems to get the audience cheering and booing: a far cry from your stereotypical stage play.
In June last year, BTS became the first UK company in recent years to take three full-scale repertory Shakespeares on the road. Some 12 Actors, complete with 58 costumes and 48 characters toured the UK and abroad for ten weeks with As You Like It, Love's Labour's Lost and Twelfth Night, playing to packed houses from Germany to Scotland.
And now, in another first, BTS has become the first specialist Shakespeare group to perform in Dubai. The company brought both Twelfth Night and Hamlet performing each play twice over four consecutive nights on the lawn at the Ritz-Carlton.
One of the highlights for Gregory was the venue: "So far everyone I have met has been very friendly over here. The weather's great and the venues are superb it is obviously a very wealthy country. There are obvious problems with playing outdoors, such as lighting. It is constantly changing and you can never have complete darkness. And if a plane passes overhead you can't pretend it's not there. But we get around these things, there's nothing you can do to control these.
"But I think the plays travel well. People are passionate about Shakespeare all over the world. No matter where you are, people fall in love, people kill each other and everyone can see something of their life in a Shakespeare play."
Another problem with performing different plays on consecutive nights could be getting into character, and not muddling your lines. But not for this troupe! "All the actors are in both plays and spend more time concentrating on the emotional aspect of the play rather than the environment. The beauty of working with these guys is that we could pull off five plays right here, right now. We have done three plays back to back in two weeks before, and once put on Love's Labours Lost at just three days notice."
Gregory says interest in the company's touring capability is increasing with enquiries from as far afield as Auckland, Karachi and Princeton USA.
They are picking and choosing venues and are looking to perform some 12 plays next year. "We have a very exciting year ahead of us," he says, "thousands of people travel from all over the world to the UK to see and hear Shakespeare performed, but for the many who are unable to travel, British Touring Shakespeare can bring Shakespeare to you."
So what about the future for the man of the stage-moment? He has already performed at the Shakespeare Globe theatre, a venue he describes enthusiastically as "by far and away the best in the world".
The natural progression, it seems, is to move over to the Royal Shakespeare Company. Gregory says: "I started BTS to get some directing experience under my belt but my long-term aim is to join the RSC, and bring the world's greatest ever plays to more people than ever before."
Graham Stacey
