Back in 2011 at around about the time when Susie was sat on a rock somewhere in the Galapagos islands facing-off a Komodo Dragon - I was sat in a lonely Lebanese café in North London when I whipped out my phone and messaged her on Facebook: 'I have a plan for world domination - it involves you, it involves me, and it involves theatre'. In a split second I had made an impulsive decision that can be summarised very nicely by something I read online earlier today: Complaining is pointless. Either act or forget. I had decided. I was going to produce my own show.
As soon as I'd made this decision, I immediately regretted it. The prospect of producing my own work scared the life out of me. What if it was crap? What if people hated it? What if I can't act anymore? What if my writing is mediocre at best? What if we make a loss? What if we forget our lines? What if no one shows up? What if I get run over by a bus the day before our opening night and then there'd be no show at all? For years I'd let these fears hold me back - but then I found myself thinking about the alternative. Did I want to be the woman who, ten years down the line looks back and says 'I wish I'd have done that'. No one wants to be that person. Certainly not me. Better to have tried and failed than to not have tried at all. Someone said that. I think it was Tennyson? I've probably misquoted him. You get my point.
So, once Susie had stopped swanning around the globe with strange, wild animals (I'm talking about James, her boyfriend, who grew a mammoth yeti-like beard over 9 months), I sat her down over coffee and unveiled my grand plan for theatrical world domination.
"We're going to do a show". There was a pause while she sipped her drink.
"Awesome".
Yes, on reflection, this moment wasn't quite as dramatic as perhaps I'd imagined. BUT, the point is - we were going to ACT. And so, Rocks & Hard Places began to take shape.
We sat down and brainstormed what we thought was a good formula to please the average fringe-going audience. We weren't setting out to break boundaries with some great political statement. We weren't setting out to create a piece of theatre full of controversy that would divide our audience and force them to question and debate its content. No, quite simply, we wanted to entertain. To tell a good story (or 5 as it transpires). To make an audience laugh and cry and smile and clap. And if we could do all of that, and do it well, with integrity and punch - then we would be happy. It wasn't quite going to be world domination, but it was a good place to start.
So what would be our magic formula? Well, we would keep it short and we would keep it sweet. And like any good recipe, we felt the key was about balance. A sprinkle of comedy, a dash of drama, a pinch of tragedy and a squeeze of song and music to bring our dish to life. A tapas of theatre! We would offer our audience a selection of bite-size pieces of all of these things so that they could leave feeling they'd got value for money.
We needed good ingredients. We already had our meat - that's me and Sue. She's leaner - but with me you get crackling. So, something for everyone :)
Our veg would be my writing - which I have grown in my allotment (insert whitty pun) for nearly ten years without pesticides. Organic writing.
Then we called on Colin Sell, ex Head of Music at East15, for our musical sauce. We needed help picking songs that would reflect the themes of the writing. You can't serve a Riesling with beef, for instance. It was important we picked the right songs for the right moments. Colin came up trumps and picked a selection of songs that we think fit the bill perfectly.
Now we needed a chef. Too many analogies? Probably. But I've committed now so I'm going to see this through.
Amanda Hill would be our Director. Our Gordon Ramsey. Tough when we needed it. Swear and curse at us if we were crap. Push us hard in the rehearsal room. Make us use ingredients we hadn't necessarily thought of ourselves.. But we know we'll get the best dish possible at the end of it with her on board. Both Susie and I have worked with Amanda in the past. She directed us back at East15 in a gritty production of 'Men Should Weep' by Ena Lamont Stuart. To this day, it remains one of our favourite theatrical experiences.
We recruited talented pianist, Alex James Ellison (fresh out of Mountview's Musical Theatre course) - to play our music on the night. He's the bread and butter to soak up the sauce. Our lighting and sound operator is East15 Technical course graduate Paul Williams - our salt and pepper without whom, everything would be bland.
We booked a week at the Jack. Signed ourselves up and committed.
We then began sweating quite a lot.
About 300 'pep talk' calls between me and Sue followed. They went like this:
Pick up phone. Dial. One of us answers.
A: Hello?
B: I'm getting The Fear.
A: F**k off. We'll be fine.
Hang up. Go drink wine.
We got publicity photos taken by the supremely skilled Nic Dawkes. We borrowed the beautiful couture dresses for that shoot from friend and designer Chris Clyne.
We put together our marketing. We were just about to go to print when….
We realised we needed a company name.
We scratched our heads.
Then we thought back to that moment at drama school when we were all on the cusp of being booted out the theatre doors into the big, wide world. Our acting tutors gave both Susie and I the same cryptic message upon leaving: "It will happen, but not until your 30s". Neither of us had a clue what this meant. 9 years later we're still trying to figure it out. But we decided to make these words our mantra.
And thus, Breaking 30 was born…
At the moment it's just a name. Breaking 30 is me and Sue pedalling away hard at our dreams. You remember that scene in The Labyrinth when that great, rotating, metal machine drills its way through the tunnel towards Sarah and there's no escape? Then remember the bit when she dives for cover and it passes her by - and behind the wheel are those two cheeky little trolls happily bobbing up and down turning the cogs. That's us. That's Breaking 30. Two happy trolls labouring away at getting a machine through a tunnel.
Except camper.
And sexier.
And without David Bowie as the boss. (Well, you can't have everything).
Want to come and make up your own mind on what exactly we are? Then book here.
