West Sussex-based theatre company This Is My Theatre are once again on the road with two productions this summer, this year Robin Hood and Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
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00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers.
00:05 Fantastic, as always, to be speaking to Ethan Taylor from This Is My Theatre Company.
00:09 And given this summer, you are touring and you're touring with a couple of cracking sounding shows this year.
00:15 You've got Robin Hood and Much Ado About Nothing, both of which are coming to Crawley
00:21 at the end of August and beginning of September. How did you choose these two plays?
00:26 What did you do it for when you put them together?
00:29 I've always wanted to come to Robin Hood. I've always had a very soft spot for the folk tale.
00:35 And I think it's England's favourite folk tale and it gives us ample opportunities to put in lots of sword fights
00:40 and some fantastic music composed and produced by our resident company,
00:45 musical director Simon Stallard. And so I'm very excited.
00:50 Why is it a personal favourite of yours? What is it about that story that you like?
00:55 I grew up with the Disney film with the foxes adaptation.
00:59 Oh, wasn't that fantastic? Yes.
01:02 I vividly remember my mum knitting me a little green hat with a red feather
01:07 and making a couple for some of my stuffed toys.
01:09 You haven't still got that then?
01:11 No, sadly, I tried to dig it out of storage. But yeah, sadly, I wasn't allowed to wear it in the show.
01:18 The Robin Hood I think really lends itself obviously lots of lots of opportunities for sword fights,
01:22 which never go wrong. I love those. And Much Ado About Nothing, one of our favourite Shakespeare's,
01:28 ample opportunity for a good bit of comedy. And I think it really compliments Robin Hood as well.
01:32 And doing it for the first time this one.
01:34 Exactly. Yep. First time this one. A nice one that lends itself to summer,
01:39 hopefully lots of nice weather coming around the corner.
01:42 And this is a real tradition, isn't it? Post pandemic and pre pandemic,
01:46 to be touring plays in the summer around here. The company's doing really well, isn't it?
01:50 It's in a good place.
01:52 It's going very well. Yeah, yeah. Every summer we've sort of been getting out from sort of early,
01:56 early to mid April, straight through to mid September with usually four shows.
02:01 So earlier on in the year, we were out with Windermere Willows and Wuthering Heights.
02:04 That all went very, very well. That's our spring one.
02:06 And now this summer one is Robin Hood and Much Ado.
02:09 That sounds fantastic. And oddly, Covid solidified the company, didn't it?
02:13 Yeah, Covid was obviously a hard time for many people. It was both a blessing and a curse for us.
02:19 We were sort of at the right scale that we were nimble enough to get out in between the pandemic safely
02:26 and talk to some of these fantastic venues who have kept us on since. So we were very fortunate.
02:31 Fantastic. So touring until middle of September and then you'll be out again at Christmas.
02:36 Yes, with A Christmas Carol, touring November, December across the country.
02:40 Fantastic. Well, let's speak again then. Really good to speak to you.
02:43 Good luck with that tour. Thank you.
02:45 Thanks for having me on.