For a small-scale touring company, Pursued by a Bear (PbAB) does an awful lot. From employing a company writer, to working within schools as part of the government’s Creative Partnerships scheme, to collaborating with the British Antarctic Survey, the company’s work continues to diversify since director Stuart Mullins founded it five years ago. PbAB has recently won a contract to create England’s first urban touring network, East Thames Touring – and now Mullins is applying his vision to support culturally diverse works and practitioners within the inaugural scheme.
‘One of the mandates of the company is to look at the whole nature of cultural diversity within the theatre community,’ Mullins emphasises. ‘I still think the theatre community needs to move on about 100 years – in attitudes towards culturally diverse practitioners, and the whole nature of what theatre practice is.’
The East Thames Touring project is just one aspect illustrating PbAB’s inclusive agenda. The initiative was born out of the extensive rural touring programme currently in place in the UK, but targets the four London boroughs of Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Lewisham.
Considering that rural touring programmes already take arts and cultural activities to isolated regional areas around the UK, one might ask the purpose of an urban alternative – considering the boroughs’ proximity to the cultural hub of central London.
‘There are an awful lot of excluded communities within those boroughs that very rarely venture out for cultural activity,’ Mullins explains. ‘They may well have an arts centre or theatre in the centre [of the borough], but they have very little going on, on the outer fringes… The main priority of the scheme is to reach out to those fringe areas.’
‘Although, geographically, they may only be a 15-minute tube ride from central London, most of what goes on in the centre of London is well beyond their economic means… and obviously quite low on their priorities.’
As with rural touring networks, East Thames Touring will pull together a programme of cultural events, namely live performance, from which community groups within the four boroughs can choose. The company will then subsidise the event, and provide training for organisations to market, promote and host it. Mullins’ job is to find community organisations or groups to stage the events, and source the productions for the touring programme. At this stage, he is consulting various rural touring networks to recommend possible productions for inclusion into the programme.
He has engaged the talents of Natasha Graham – formerly with black arts group, Nitro – to assist with the programme’s development. While Mullins recognises individuals from different cultural backgrounds are becoming more involved in the arts, he is keen to support their movement towards the ‘higher’ rungs of the cultural industry ladder.
‘I believe that in this country, we talk about supporting culturally diverse practitioners – and there are a tremendous number of black performers and musicians – but what there aren’t very many of are producers… [at] the top of the pyramid, making the decisions, commissioning work, promoting work. Natasha struck me as a person who had the potential… to make a very good producer.’
In the meantime, Mullins is waiting on a decision from the Arts Council of England’s National Touring Programme, due to meet this week, on whether PbAB will receive funding towards a production set to tour in April and May, You Don’t Kiss, by emerging black playwright, Tony Andrew Fairclough. Mullins hopes the arts council will be willing to support a play looking at the lives of three gay black men, and an emerging black writer dealing with issues faced by one of the most marginalised sections of the community.
But the play will most likely tour, whether it receives the funding or not. Last year, PbAB embarked on an inaugural national tour, with two works by company writer Craig Baxter – Monogomy and The Animals – despite being refused national touring funding.
Development of Baxter’s third work for PbAB is now underway, with plans for a national tour in November. The White Canary is an unusual, but intriguing, collaboration between PbAB, the British Antarctic Survey and the Junction in Cambridge. Co-produced by Leeds-based theatre company, Interplay – which creates work with people with learning difficulties and sensory deficiencies – the play looks at the experiences of British scientists working in the Antarctic.
The title of the show is a metaphor for the Antarctic’s relationship to the rest of the Earth, and is also derived from a practice used by miners to determine whether the air in a mine shaft was becoming poisoned. Miners would carry a canary with them, and when oxygen levels decreased and carbon dioxide increased, causing the canary to keel over and die, the miners would make a hasty exit.
‘The Antarctic is very much the canary for the rest of the Earth,’ Mullins explains. ‘In other words, if it is happening in the Antarctic – then it’s probably a very good sign that it’s going to happen throughout the rest of the Earth,’ he continues, referring to the effects of the depleting ozone layer, global warming and greenhouse gases, each of which were first discovered on the frozen continent.
Baxter, along with an audio and a visual digital artist, spent a period of time with the British Antarctic Survey in Antarctica, and at the organisation’s base in Cambridge, researching the project, which will culminate in an interactive production engaging the audiences’ sensory perception.
It’s hard work keeping up with the number of projects PbAB is involved in, not to mention titles heavily laden with metaphor and double entendre. And there’s still one left hanging after this interview – why Pursued by a Bear?
‘It happens to be a stage direction… in Act One of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, it says “Exit Leontes, pursued by a bear,” Mullins laughs.
Well, why not? After all, what’s in a name?
For further information about Pursued by a Bear productions and East Thames Touring, visit the company’s website
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