"Some musicals are not really my bag, but Standing At The Sky’s Edge absolutely is."
Theatremaker Lauryn Redding on her hit gig-musical Bloody Elle and the West End transfer of Chris Bush and Richard Hawley's Olivier Award-winning musical. Plus: three shows to see next week.
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a newsletter about theatre written by Fergus Morgan.
This is the fifth issue of 2024 and it is a little bit different. I am experimenting with a new format this week: a long-form Q&A-style interview. It is with Lauryn Redding, the theatremaker behind Bloody Elle: A Gig Musical, who is about to star in the West End transfer of Chris Bush and Richard Hawley’s Sheffield-set musical Standing At The Sky’s Edge. Beneath that are your usual three show recommendations. Hope you like it.
In case you missed it, here is Tuesday’s issue of Shouts And Murmurs, which has a look at the latest development in the ongoing conversation about the problems with public arts funding, a round-up of the reviews of Plaza Suite, and a few more links to stuff worth reading.
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Born and raised in Yorkshire, Lauryn Redding started her career as a teenage singer-songwriter, worked as a jobbing actor-musician throughout her twenties, then decided to write her own show in her early thirties.
Bloody Elle: A Gig Musical premiered at the Manchester Royal Exchange in 2021, then transferred to Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre (twice), to the Soho Theatre, and eventually to the West End. Now, Redding is preparing to appear in the West End transfer Standing At The Sky’s Edge, Chris Bush and Richard Hawley’s time-hopping, Olivier Award-winning musical about Sheffield’s Park Hill Estate that ran to acclaim at the National Theatre last year. She is playing Nikki, a role originated by Maimuna Memon, this newsletter’s sixth interviewee back in March 2021.
Hi Lauryn. How are you finding Standing At The Sky’s Edge?
It’s amazing. I saw the show when it was on at the National Theatre last year and loved it. I grew up down the road from Sheffield and have known about the Park Hill Estate all my life. The show has a queer female storyline, too. I just thought it was great. Some musicals are not really my bag, but Standing At The Sky’s Edge absolutely is. Rehearsals have been great, too. We have a few people coming back to the show and a lot of new people, so there is a really lovely energy in the room.
Knowing that the show is already a hit must result in an odd combination of feelings. It must be a relief but also a pressure. How big a deal is this job for you?
I’ve done a lot of plays with music and actor-musician stuff, but I’ve never really done a big musical. This is the first commercial musical venture I’ve been part of. It feels like a real step up for me. I always wanted to do something like this, but I wanted to do it with a show I could relate to.
When I got the part of Nikki, I felt like I’d won the lottery because it ticks so many boxes for me. I’m playing a queer woman from the north, which is what I am. I started my career as a singer-songwriter, too, and my first ever gig was at The Leadmill in Sheffield. Park Hill is this iconic housing estate with a lot to say for itself, and I have a lot to say for myself. It feels like the perfect match.
What do you think the secret to the show’s magic is?
I do think it is a bit magic. I think it is a combination of all of its components. Richard Hawley’s songs are amazing, as are Tom Deering’s orchestrations. He won an Olivier Award for them, so that tells you everything. Chris Bush’s book is so human and relatable. Even though it is set in this specific housing estate in Sheffield, I think it has a universal appeal.
Do you think it is a stretch to call it a state-of-the-nation musical?
Yeah, I think you could. Although it is set in the 1960s, the 1980s and the late 2010s, it is also very now. It shows you what has happened to Sheffield as a city, from its industrial decline to its gentrification. There are points where it feels like history might be repeating itself.
Can we rewind a bit? Can you tell me about your origin story as a theatremaker?
I grew up outside York. My dad was a musician and I used to go on tour with his band. My mum sang in choirs. We were a musical family. As a stroppy teenager, though, I didn’t want to do any of that. I just played football. I started playing the guitar and writing songs when I was 12. I busked a lot. I gigged a lot. That all took off a bit. I had a record label when I was seventeen.
I didn’t feel like it was exactly what I wanted to do, though. People told me that when I sing, I act, so I thought maybe I should apply to drama school. I ended up doing an actor-musician course at Rose Bruford College. Being an actor-musician makes you quite employable, so I worked a lot after I graduated. I did some amazing jobs and had a great time.
Where did Bloody Elle come from?
It got to a point where I didn’t want to be stood at the back with a guitar anymore. I wanted to create and perform my own stuff. I wanted to make a show that people who don’t go to the theatre would go to. My brother will rarely go to the theatre, for example, but he would come to all my gigs.
I also wanted to write something from the queer, female experience. That is something I am really passionate about. Growing up, I never saw lesbian storylines that weren’t politicised, or a phase, or seen through the male gaze. I kept moaning about it. Eventually, I thought to myself: ‘Stop moaning about it and write it yourself.’ So I wrote Bloody Elle during Covid and called it a gig musical.
How did you go about writing and staging the show?
I’d written songs my whole life and performed in a lot of shows, so I guess I had a feeling of what I needed to do. Actually, I wrote four of the songs in Bloody Elle when I was eighteen. Thank-you past me. James Frewer, one of the founders of Middle Child, is a good mate of mine, too. He was one of the first people I showed it to. Bryony Shanahan at Manchester Royal Exchange nurtured me a lot and helped me get it to a point where it was ready to go on stage.
What does gig theatre mean to you?
A lot of people try and do gig-theatre, but I don’t think just putting a microphone on stage and having a guitar means you’ve got a piece of gig-theatre. I think it has to feel alive. It has to feel like anything could happen. It has to be accessible, too. That is what I think, anyway.
How much of your own life story did you put into Bloody Elle?
I always say that it is based on my life. I realised that the more vulnerable I was in writing it, the more powerful it became. That is fine, though, because I am twenty years older now.
What was the response to Bloody Elle like?
We got an overwhelming response. People came out as a result of seeing the show. Parents came up to me and said that it helped them understand their child. I was proud of how universal it was, though. I didn’t want to sell it as a lesbian musical. I didn’t want to put a bloody rainbow on the poster. I just wanted people to relate to it for what it was. And they did.
Bloody Elle was a hit at the Manchester Royal Exchange in 2021, at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022, at Soho Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe again in 2023, then in the West End in September. How much of a difference did it make to your career?
Seeing my massive head on that West End poster was mad. Performing at the Soho Theatre was a dream, too. And it is mad what has come from Bloody Elle. Through sitting down and writing this thing that had been gnawing away at me, I’ve been on the BBC Studios Writers’ Academy, I’ve got an agent for my writing, I’m writing two TV things and I’ve got two theatre things in the works, new plays for the Royal Exchange and for HOME. I think Bloody Elle changed the way people saw me.
It has changed me as an actor, too, as I now understand how the whole world of a show works, not just my little slice. It has changed my career and it has changed me as a human.
Standing At The Sky’s Edge is running at the Gillian Lynne Theatre from February 8. For more information and tickets, click here.
Three shows to see next week
Shed: Exploded View - Manchester Royal Exchange, until March 2
This is a new play from Phoebe Eclair-Powell, who had a hit with Harm and its giant bunny at the Bush Theatre in 2021. It is an experimental drama inspired by artist Cornelia Parker’s extraordinary installation Cold Dark Matter, and comprises many short scenes that can be reordered to tell the story of three couples across three decades. Bryony Shanahan, a judge on the 2019 Bruntwood Prize, called it “a beautiful tapestry of ideas meticulously woven together.” This premiere production is directed by the always excellent Atri Banerjee. You can get tickets via the button below.
When You Pass Over My Tomb - Arcola Theatre, until March 2
Director Daniel Goldman has previously translated and Uruguayan playwright Sergio Blanco’s smart and slippery work to acclaim before, with 2016’s Thebes Land and 2020’s The Rage Of Narcissus. Now, the duo reunite with the UK premiere of When You Pass Over My Tomb, a darkly comic story about a writer who decides to donate his dead body to a necrophiliac. Sounds disturbing. You can get tickets via the button below.
Tess - various, until June 5
Boundary-breaking contemporary circus company Ockham’s Razor first staged its acrobatic adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess Of The D’Urbervilles in Autumn last year. Now, the show is embarking on a national tour. It runs at Sadler’s Wells’ Peacock Theatre until tomorrow, Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre as part of Manipulate Festival next week, then travels around the country. You can get tickets via the button below.
That’s all for this issue
That is it for this week. If you want to get in touch about anything raised in this issue - or anything at all, really - just reply to this newsletter or email me at fergusmorgan@hotmail.co.uk. Or you can find me on Twitter/X, where I am @FergusMorgan.
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Fergus