Inherently political

LUNG is the wave we all need to catch. This campaign-led verbatim theatre company gives voice to the unheard, the overlooked, the hidden. We spoke to the co-artistic directors - Helen Monks and Matt Woodhead - about telling these all-important stories and the lure of addiction…

Who are you?

M: LUNG is a theatre company that started seven years ago, when we were students at the university of Sheffield.  It was a response to cuts in the arts and secondary school provision of arts.  We would deliver workshops for people in secondary schools who weren’t having theatre companies coming in anymore.  Every so often, we’d rent out the local community theatre and then we’d invite the young people to come to see. We did a musical once.  And a dodgy production of Lord of the Flies (we used a real pig’s head and it ended up with us in the car park having to wrestle the pig’s head off a dog!)  That kind of sums up that process!

H: I think that sums up every process!

M: The young people were saying that the workshops were far more interesting than The Lord of the Flies and the other things we were putting on stage. We then did our first show, The 56, about a fire that broke out at a football stadium in Bradford.  It was a story that could be passed on to a younger generation. We started by interviewing some people for that and forging some strong links, bonds and connections with some of the football fans who were there on the day and saw the impact that the work was having.  that was the birth of us starting to want to do more grassroots, verbatim theatre.

H: I feel like, then, we did a lot of studying about what verbatim theatre actually was.  So, the form happened first and then working out what it was happened second.  Since then, we’ve always made people-led verbatim documentary shows.

Then we did a play called E15 which was working with a group of young mums in Stratford, Newham, who had been evicted from a mother-and-baby hostel and they weren’t offered alternative housing in London. We spent two years joining their campaign and following them around, going to housing occupations and protests and recording interviews as we did.  It was a real collaboration between us and them.

When Matt started the company, I thought verbatim was really boring!  And then I got involved and I realized you can make it alive and active and intense.  Sometimes it can feel a bit reflective.  But with E15, it was about being there, as things were happening, talking to people in ‘live’ time and then replicating that on stage.

M: We’ve done lots of other stuff since then, but to me, it always comes down to the privilege that we have to be storytellers and the privilege we have to be able to work with people to tell a story.  And I think, wherever possible, it’s about amplifying voices that need to be heard.  It always varies from project to project. We did a project called Who Cares, that was with young carers in Salford. They were really involved with the casting, looking at the design elements, the parents were interviewed for the show, sometimes, they interviewed their parents.  It’s about unpicking the artistic process as a whole and being comfortable to lead it, but, sometimes, I think the most interesting and exciting work happens when power is devolved and distributed a little bit and then comes back together.

If theatre is storytelling, how did it become important to you to tell these stories this way?

H: I think that people just always say it better than you’d write it.  The actual process of creating something with people is so amazing, because they can really have ownership over what they’ve written.  It’s also a bit scary, because the way that we work is that we always allow to people to change and to withdraw things, right up until the very last moment. You want people to feel like they’ve got complete control and ownership over what they’re saying. It makes the best and most interesting work, to give people free agency over their own voice, within the show.

The actual process of making it and also all of the stuff that happens around it is also kind of part of the point.  The show and the audience coming to see the show is just one element.  Going on that process with people, of exploring and talking about – either things that have happened to them, or things they feel really passionate about – that’s why all of our projects take a really long time.  I think the average is about three years.

The company, and we, are just inherently political. What I love about theatre spaces is that they’re one of the only unregulated spaces left where you can say things and you can have real freedom of speech.  Therefore, like Matt said, there’s such a privilege that comes with somebody who works in the industry of theatre and the power of that space and who you allow that space to be given to or share that space with.  It’s a political act, even if you don’t realize that is.  We’ve always tried to make sure that that space is taken up by voices that are kept out of more regulated spaces, like the press or mainstream media.

M:  Theatre’s secret weapon is – people in power don’t value it…!

H: That’s our secret weapon as well!  People don’t realize what we’re doing!

How, as individuals, did you get here?

M:   I kind of want to say “by accident”.  I don’t come from an artistic family.  I’m a bit of an attention seeker.  The 56 project that we did, we did it when we were students.  It was amazing to have the faith of some of the people that we worked with.  The project started to become something that was bigger than us.  We’d graduated and then we went off to the Edinburgh Festival and it evolved into a tour and then it evolved into another tour.  and then it evolved into another project.  I always have the the age of 30 as when “I’m done”.  But, the legacy of the projects can become quite addictive.  The relationships you have with everyone are so different, but you suddenly become quite invested in the people that you work with.

H: I come from a theatrical family.  My mum is a director and my dad is a children’s playwright.  When I was growing up, they ran a little theatre company called Hoopla that put on children’s shows, so I was always around it.  I met Matt at university, and like he says, got addicted to the thrill of verbatim!

The tradition of verbatim is long and old and the plays of their time.  I wonder what will happen to our stuff because we’re writing incredibly responsively to what’s happening right now.  It’s very present-tense.  You have to keep making the next one.

Do you think your plays wouldn’t last forever?

H: My dream is that the things that we’re writing about at the moment and the current political climate is temporary and that the issues that people face now, in 2020, they (fingers crossed) will not face in twenty or forty years’ time.  Hopefully things will have gotten better. There are so many current references because it’s their current lived experience.  They (plays) might date, but we’re not making them to be something that people look back on.  It says something about right now.

M:  Hopefully that can be a record of how we lived in 2020 - that could be a powerful thing for someone to pick up.

Would you be able to work with/direct anything that doesn’t have this immediacy and political nature?

M: I’ve been for a couple of those gigs in the past, but I never get them.  I remember one interview where after discussing all kind of things, I was told “so – basically, you’re a social worker”.  I think maybe they had a point.  Maybe my heart wouldn’t be in a Chekov.

H: I have a slightly different hat on because I’m an actor as well as a writer and being involved in the theatre company.  I do comedy outside of the company, which I really enjoy.  I’ve always done that and that’s pre-dated meeting Matt Woodhead and never leaving!  What’s interesting is that it’s impossible to separate the two.  When I go to do anything I always bring this big “what are we saying?”  That doesn’t mean that you take away from the comedy, it means that you try to make the comedy more complex in anything that you’re doing.  Sometimes that really winds people up because people just want to clown around and be funny. I think it’s made me better in that field. I really like the other hat that I wear but the two definitely feed into each other.

If you couldn’t do this, what would you do?

H:  We have this conversation two or three times a week!  The thing is, for me, this is such a privilege.  I can’t think of a job where you’re not, in some way, complicit in all of these systems in the world and all that they bring.

M: What I like about the company is that we have three strands.  Good art transforms lives.  Engagement, work, empowering people to make their own stuff as well – is good.  And also, campaigning.  If there’s another job that is the Venn diagram between the three of them…If it wasn’t theatre, it would probably be something that is still quite small scale and can achieve those things. I used to work in a burger van – maybe they’ll have me back!

What would you do if this all went away?  At the beginning of the first lockdown, that was the panic – “Theatre is going to die.  If the buildings can’t survive, then theatre will die.”

H: That’s bollocks.  I think the thing that is really crap at the moment is that there are more working class artists – or young artists – who haven’t got the money in their bank account to afford to be freelance at the moment.  I just worry that we are losing lots of brilliant voices from the industry and only people who can afford to are able to stay. It’s not right about buildings because art finds a way.  We need it.  We need the expression.  We’ve all evolved and adjusted and it’s been amazing to see that things have not stopped, they’ve carried on.

M: You said this the other day – all of these articles flying around asking ‘when we return, if we return, how will we return?’ Is that the right question? “How can we return to normality?” I think the question should be – “how can theatre spaces be adapting and changing? What are the roles of arts venues?” During the pandemic, have arts venues made a case for themselves? Will theatre go back to how it was before?  Probably not.  Is there a hopeful conversation to be had about – is it time that arts venues re-calibrated their ideology and policies?  Maybe.

What has the “magic” of the pandemic – this forced hiatus – brought to you?

H: We’ve written a musical. That’s so scary!  My favourite thing about theatre is that it’s based on risk and we’re all complete risk addicts.  All of it is risk, from financial to if people are going to like it - it’s like an assault course.  This has been the biggest risk.  Here we are – theatre is ‘dead’ and we’ve just spent the last seven months writing this new piece of theatre, just hoping and praying that theatres will re-open.   Normally, we would be writing it on trains or in the evenings or around everything else that’s happening.  It’s given the most amount of focus, for me, that I’ve ever had, to write. I’ve never allowed myself to really get into a story, because you always feel like the world is so loud and busy  and there’s something else that you need to be doing or somewhere you need to be going to.  I would never, ever have allowed myself to just sit still for this amount of time.

M: It’s given an opportunity to reflect on what we do and how we can do it better.  It’s afforded us the time to do that as well.  The young carer project started in 2015.  We’ve always been look at what the legacy of that project is.  We’ve been able, during lockdown, to start up the Creative Makers project.  In four different areas, we’ve launched a Young Ambassadors Scheme where the young carers are learning to become artists and develop their skills.  They’re facilitating workshops with other young carers in their area, online.  They’re doing a sharing on Young Carers National Action Day in March.  Online has these young carers connected up.  Hopefully, we have empowered a group of young carers to try out being artists and see if it interest them.

It’s offered space.

H: Because we’re so ‘project to project’, we’ve never really put proper infrastructure in the company before. With this time, we weren’t suddenly moving on to the next project and it’s allowed us to write a business plan and think about what’s really important to us as a company.  As a result, the engagement arm has become much bigger and more robust.  What we do accidentally, now we can formalize and make a real part of the company.

M: It’s been a chance to watch other artists and be inspired by other art forms.  Just cutting out the hour and half to get to work, you’ve bought yourself so much more time.

Is there a separation between LUNG and Matt and Helen? 

H:  The reason that we made the company was in order to be able to do exactly what we wanted to do.  The two are hard to separate.  The values of the company are our values, the methods of the company are our methods of working. 

And if there was no LUNG?

H: The Venn diagram of the campaigning, the engagement and the theatre – if the theatre was to go away….  We would just continue to do either the engagement or the campaigning.  I do think those three things are equal within the company.  We would continue to run the youth groups and we would continue to run the Who Cares campaign and we would continue to facilitate discussions.  Just remove the art and do the art in our spare time!

Is this personal responsibility, artistic responsibility or political responsibility?  Or all three?

H:  I think it’s all three.  It started off as the political responsibility.  The personal was the best way to talk about the political. The personal stuff is always important but there is always a big aim to the project that is a bigger ‘P’ of political stuff.  Equally, I don’t think you could have the big P without talking about the human impact. We both believe that the best way of doing this work is through theatre, through storytelling.  One hundred per cent.  It’s why the answer is definitely all three because there are already people doing the campaigning, there are already people doing the personal work. It is the theatre element that makes it unique and unusual.  And challenging.  Theatre is the thing that allows space for change.

Tell us about the new musical.

H: Since last September, we have been running this youth group in Hornchurch, Havering, with children in the care system.  The offer to them was to come and help us make a musical about the UK care system and what it means to go through it.  It’s been led by them. We discovered about half way through the year, that there was to be an enquiry into the care system – a government review.  The young people spoke about how they didn’t think it would do a very good job because it wouldn’t be listening to the voice of young people; it would be looking theoretically at the system.  This is the ‘alternative’ enquiry that is led by them.  It tells the story of their experience of the care system but it also calls on other witnesses and looks at the different political things that have had an impact on the UK care system and how we’ve ended up where we are today. It’s a musical and it’s been made with this amazing band – Kudu Blue – Clem and Owen have written the music and Allyson has been the MD.  We have a sharing on the 26th which is a celebration of the process that we’ve all been on together.

Who are you?

M: The answer to this is that we’re a product of the Blair education system because we need you to tell us the answer to that question so…

M+H: …we can get an A*.

CAPTION THIS!

Helen Monks & Matt Woodhead photo: Alex Powell