Miracle Theatre is touring Cornwall around the country.
Associate director Kyla Goodey on the company's ethos, its pop-up venue, and new show Everyman, which arrives at Brighton Fringe next week.
Hello, and welcome to a promotional issue of The Crush Bar, a weekly - or sometimes twice-weekly - newsletter about theatre written by me, Fergus Morgan.
Each issue features an interview with an exciting, emerging theatremaker - or several - and gives them a chance to be explicit about where they want to go and what help they need to get there. Maybe you, reader, can give it to them, or put them in touch with someone who can.
You can read more about why I’m doing this here, and you can sign-up to get it delivered straight to your inbox using the button below…
If you are interested in promotional opportunities with The Crush Bar like this one, there are a range of options available, from short shout-outs, to longer mentions, to entire issues. Details, stats and prices can be found by clicking on the button below…
To make work in the Cornish performing arts industry, it is not enough to just act, or just direct, or just design. In the theatre world that exists beyond the river Tamar, you have to do a little bit of everything.
“I write, I direct, I produce, I put sets together, I do all sorts of stuff,” says theatremaker Kyla Goodey, who is currently staging Carol Ann Duffy’s adaptation of Everyman for Cornwall-based Miracle Theatre. “It’s partly because we don’t have midscale venues here. We have village halls and we have the outdoors and that’s about it, so we all have to be very hands on to put a show on.”
That energetic, enterprising attitude imbues theatre coming out of Cornwall. Think of Mike Shepherd’s much-beloved Kneehigh and its iconic, anarchic style. Think of Wildworks and its explosive outdoor events. And think of Miracle Theatre, the company founded by Bill Scott that has been touring inventive and imaginative shows around the South-West for over forty years.
Scott set up Miracle Theatre – then The Cornish Miracle Theatre Company – with several friends in 1979 to stage a production of the Cornish Ordinalia, a medieval mystery play, at the ancient amphitheatre Perran Round. Half a century of shows later and it is still going strong, one of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations, with Scott still at the helm.
“Bill started the company with his partner and his friends to make work in Cornwall for Cornish audiences with Cornish performers, and that’s exactly what they still do to this day,” Goodey explains. “In the summer, they put shows on all over the place outdoors, from lawns to castles to quarries. In the winter, they take shows around theatres and village halls. They’ve got a real commitment to Cornwall and a real following down here.”
“Bill started the company with his partner and his friends to make work in Cornwall for Cornish audiences with Cornish performers, and that’s exactly what they still do to this day…”
Goodey was born and bred in Cornwall, and fell in love with theatre through seeing the work of Miracle Theatre – and others – as a child. She moved to London to train at the long-gone Desmond Jones School of Mime, then returned to her roots to work with the people whose shows she grew up watching. She has her own company – Trifle Gathering Productions – and has collaborated with Kneehigh, Wildworks, and more.
This month, before Miracle Theatre tour an al-fresco production of King Lear around Cornwall, the company is taking Goodey’s 2021 production of Everyman on a rare trip beyond the Tamar. The show – an adaptation of the fifteenth-century morality play The Somonyng of Everyman by Carol Ann Duffy that was first seen at the National Theatre in 2015 – has already visited Bristol, and on May 24 it will arrive at the Brighton Fringe for nine performances.
“Carol Ann Duffy brought it up to date for 2015 when it played at the National Theatre,” says Goodey. “I think our production brings it up to date for 2022. It’s very design-led. It’s very immersive and entertaining. It’s the same story, though. A group of friends are having a big fat weekender at a festival. Death pays our Everyman a call and takes him on a chaotic pilgrimage to justify his wrongdoings to God.
“That 2015 version put a heavy emphasis on the environment, and how people were ignoring it,” continues Goodey. “Our show goes even further. It is a lot of fun, but it really smashes the climate crisis in the audience’s faces at the same time. We wanted it to do that because there just isn’t time to debate anything anymore. There has to be change right now.”
Goodey’s show first ran last summer, when Miracle Theatre built a temporary Covid-secure tent in which to stage it – an in-the-round construction of scaffolding and canvas that seats audiences in separate booths surrounding a central stage, which the company christened The Fleapit. The venue is back at the Brighton Fringe, where it will host not only Everyman, but three other Cornish shows.
There is Charlotte Bister and Daniel Richards’ ‘Owdyado Theatre and its triple-bill of dark comedies Twisted Tales. There is Katie Etheridge and Simon Persighetti – AKA Small Acts – with Future Pub, an innovative exploration of that great British institution, the boozer. And there is Hedluv and Passman, two comedy musicians who have been compared to Flight Of The Conchords, with their show Cornish Rappers.
“You can spend all day with us,” laughs Goodey. “You can see a lovely performance piece about pubs. You can see some dark and twisted drama. You can have an immersive, exciting experience with Everyman. And you can have your socks knocked off by a friggin’ good gig at the end. What more could you want?”
What do you want to do?
I am old enough and ugly enough to know when a show has legs, and this show has legs. We’ve created something special and I really want to take it to other cities, other towns and other audiences. We could stage it in another space or we could bring The Fleapit with us, but I just want as many people as possible to see it.
What support do you need to get there?
I think we need a partner now, someone who can inject some money and help take Everyman on a longer, bigger tour. Being down in Cornwall, our networks are limited, but we know there is so much more we can do with this show with the right support.
How can people find out more about you?
People can visit Miracle Theatre’s website or follow them on social media. Or, best of all, they can come along to The Fleapit at Brighton Fringe and spend a day watching some Cornish theatre.
Anything you can do to support The Crush Bar is hugely appreciated. There are three helpful things in particular: you can subscribe using the button above, you can share it, either on social media or by forwarding it to anyone who might be interested, and you can donate to my Ko-Fi account using the button below.
If you want to get in touch with me to ask about anything, or to suggest someone who deserves a shout-out in this newsletter, you can reach me on Twitter - I’m @FergusMorgan - or by simply replying to this email. That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.
Fergus Morgan