Interview with Neil Grutchfield

After my interview with Ed Jones, I was recommended to get into contact with Neil Grutchfield who works for the Synergy Theatre Project. Synergy is a theatre company that sets out to accommodate theatre for prisoners and ex-prisoners. Making theatre more accessible for them. They provide variety of courses and opportunity such as their ‘intro to play writing course’. To date, they have created 26 productions including 10 touring productions and many other opportunities, all including over 1000 prisoners and sex prisoners. I wanted to contact the company to ask general questions in an attempt to get advice in regard to c creating work for disadvantaged youths and a group of the general public that is unlikely to be shown in common theatre.

With conflicting schedules, Neil decided to meet me over email to ask some of my questions that will be used as a source of reference and research within one of my Academic learning, which will focus upon the research taken into account when creating my piece ‘Being in the 10%’.

Neil is the new writing manager for Synergy and has been working for theatre companies for the last 19 years.

Hi Neil, I hope you’re well during these uncertain times.

I wondered if you would be interested in undergoing an interview with me in regards to working class people in the performance industry. I am creating a short film for my masters dissertation called “Being in the 10%” which focuses on three stories centred around working class artists and how the boundaries of them being work class have affected them and career. Along with this, I have a dissertation to write and I was interviewing working class creators and creators with experience working on working class projects and performances. Because of your experience with Theatre in prisons, I thought this would be useful in terms of exposure to people who are the lower class and why exposure is important. It be great to get your input in this situation and I would love to learn more about Synergy.

Hi Brooke

Thanks for getting in touch.

I’m happy to answer your questions by email. Here’s a few thoughts to locate Synergy and me as an individual within the conversation you are having.

How did Synergy start?

Synergy was set up by Artistic Director Esther Baker in 2000 after she had had success teaching A level drama in prison and creating prison productions of classic plays. Over time the company’s ambition has grown to include commissioning and staging new plays that explore the criminal justice area and plays that are written by prisoners and prisoners. You can read more about our values and beliefs and how they inform our work here.

What does Synergy set out to do?

Demographically, pretty much every economically disadvantaged group is over represented as a percentage of the prison population. For statistics have a look at the Prison Reform Trust's up to date figures in their Prison Factfile.

Would you identify yourself as a working-class artist?

In the interests of full disclosure, I guess I would identify as middle class – my mother was a school secretary, my father an insurance salesman, I went to a comprehensive school in Suffolk. At one stage I was in receipt of free school meals and I was lucky enough to receive a full student grant when I studied Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. I was never socially connected and found my way into theatre by selling tickets, first in a call centre and then at the Royal Court Theatre. I never took an unpaid internship or went on a gap year but I did benefit from financial support from my family, so I always had the safety net of a home to return to and financial security in an emergency.

Have you contacted the Working Class Artists Group on twitter?

Where do think current working class theatre stands as of right now?

One observation I’d make about the challenge faced by working class artists and employees is that the Arts Council Strategy for the next 10 years doesn’t mention class once, only socio-economic disadvantage. As long as class remains an unspoken, invisible part of the national conversation about the purpose of the arts and the allocation of funds there can only be piecemeal efforts to promote the place and voice of working-class artists in our national culture.

Do you believe there is a lack of working-class theatre within the industry?

In my opinion, if working class status is invisible then it is de-legitimised and gives encouragement to the unconscious belief in a very narrow demographic of key decision makers in top jobs that that are all there entirely on merit and have no need to question how they are perpetuating class inequality.