This interview was first published in the Ham & High Newspaper, 12th April, 2002
Bringing the bard back to the people
Miles Gregory is bringing his unique brand of Shakespeare to the Shaw Theatre but what can audiences expect, asks Bridget Galton
MILES Gregory bounds up full of energy, wearing a mod tee-shirt and pinstripe trousers.
The attire, complete with trendy black-rimmed specs and spiky peroxide hair, smacks of a public schoolboy's self conscious attempt at cool.
But the blend (Eton meets The Jam's anti-establishment chant "Eton Rifles" perhaps?) perfectly sums up the 25-year-old's theatrical mix of tradition and subversion.
On one hand he is a scholar of Elizabethan staging, faithful to the spirit of Shakespeare's original productions. On the other he declares himself "bum-numbingly bored" with much of the established theatre's stiflingly reverent treatment of Shakespeare's texts.
There is no doubting Gregory's sincerity and commitment.
Aged just 22, he became the founding (and only) member of British Touring Shakespeare.
Initially more a concept than a reality, it used the experience of Elizabethan theatre audiences as a model: pay a couple of pence in, eat, drink, talk, watch some theatre.
A month-long workshop at the recreated Globe Theatre in London during Gregory's masters degree convinced him his model would work. What followed was a combination of his confidence, energy, instinct and a good website.
"We have a good web presence and people approach us. There is a huge demand for Shakespeare internationally, and not many people filling the demand," he says.
The company, which last year toured Germany and Dubai, now has a string of dates in India, the Middle East and Egypt lined up and the backing of an events firm more used to running world tours for top name DJs and rock bands.
Unlike other young directors, Gregory is both making money and garnering critical acclaim.
"It has been extraordinary. It's not massive budgets or huge sets, it's just good theatre and we try to have fun. People are surprised that it can be fun. My masters was not about literature but about the transition of the text to the stage. We were encouraged to think in very liberal terms and eliminate any reverence for the text to see how far you can liberate it from the hands of traditionalists.
"That's what we are doing here. Simplicity and accessibility is the key."
BTS's first tour played to the hamper-and-wine set with outdoor performances at stately homes.
But Gregory is unapologetic about the leisure heritage tenor of such tours and believes open-air is truer to the Jacobean originals.
He feels theatres should be modelled on those early playhouses.
"It's much better when everyone can see each other and there is nothing better than a boozy audience for Shakespeare. The Elizabethan audiences were pretty much all pissed," he says.
"Shakespeare is immensely simple and immensely complex. If you can train yourself to work with 400-year-old words and find a way through all the baggage around that, it should prepare you to tackle any text."
Gregory has picked Romeo and Juliet for the company's forthcoming run at Euston's Shaw Theatre, but admits the play is too "famous for its own good".
"Once a play becomes that well-known people start overlooking what actually happens. It's a very funny play more a comedy than a tragedy and the challenge is to win back that suspense or play on the fact that everyone knows what's going to happen."
Gregory's production is set at the height of New Romantic pop with Mercutio and Tybalt as Duran Duran-esque youths, with shoulder pads and synthesizers.
"On one hand we have this incredibly sentimental love story, on the other an irreverent piss-take. I hope people will laugh then cry," says Gregory.
He has also picked Henry V, frequently the epitome of shouty rather than stirring establishment Shakespeare productions.
Gregory says he wants to "reclaim it from the nationalist brigade" and has set it in no specific period.
"Henry may not be as sympathetic as you think. He runs an autocratic state after all and we are not putting a gloss on anything," he says.
He also reveals a company rule which bans shouting on stage.
"People don't shout in real life do they? Why does Shakespeare seem to mean shouting, I suppose they think it's dramatic."
His rehearsal process involves playing scenes to extremes of comedy, sentimentality, or farce then weeding out what doesn't work and reining the action back to an acceptable balance.
Actors also play all their lines to the audiece, then work out which do not work.
"It is almost certain that Shakespeare saw his actors talking directly to the audience in a theatre with 3,000 people all drunk, standing, full of prostitutes, thieves and vendors selling peanuts," he says.
He is happy for his productions to go head-to-head with the Royal Shakespeare Company's season at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm.
"They do great stuff and terrible stuff where the actors look as though they are hating it and children see it and hate Shakespeare," he says.
"I believe Shakespeare is written to be fun, whether it's great tragedy or great comedy."
"The problem today is a lot of directors really want to be film directors. They try to create a moving picture on stage but one of the things about theatre is that it's live and you can make eye contact with the audience. If you don't use that you might as well be doing film.
"Theatre is all about imagination. Shakespeare hardly used sets at all. I want to take the essence back to the experience of watching these plays 400 years ago."
Gregory gets excited as he reveals his ultimate ambition to own a pub which has a stage in the middle where audiences can either watch Shakespeare, or not.
"£5 to get in, fish and chips, it would be great," he smiles.
- Romeo and Juliet and Henry V run in rep at the Shaw Theatre from April 20 until June 4.
