Interviewer: Can you tell me please, your approach to directing and particularly with this play, how you approached it?

Janet: Well in the past few years I' ve been working at Kali Theatre Company, so it' s a new writing company so the way I approach it is always obviously via the text, but very much in exploring the text and in most cases the plays that we do are first time writers.So the first week or ten days of rehearsal is usually always about sorting out the story, about sorting out characters' intentions, and there' s an awful lot of re-writing usually as well that goes on.So the way I approach directing a new piece is very different to directing a piece that' s been tried and tested, if you like. So, a great deal of time is spent sorting out the script and actioning the script. I like to do very detailed work with the actors on their intentions, objectives, their actions, that' s the way that I approach new writing. So, lots of head-in-script work!

Interviewer: Is there one particular scene in the play that you found particularly challenging?

Janet: The end of act 1, which I' ve come to call ' The Wasteland scene' originally was set, in the text is set on a street corner in Birmingham, and just wasn' t working for me having this kind of scene in the middle of a high-street in Birmingham it just wasn' t working for me and also the state that Tariq was in, and so we had a morning of experimentation where we chucked things around and did lots of improv and the result of that is the scene that we have, that I call ' The Wasteland scene' , which I' m really proud of. I think it' s a really wonderful dramatic touch to a piece of very realistic writing.

Interviewer: I noticed from the play text that you did your degree in textile design in Glasgow, where in Glasgow was that?

Matthew: At Glasgow School of Art.

Interviewer: And with this textile design degree did you specifically do it to go into the theatre or did you have plans to do interior design or another profession?

Matthew: I originally worked as a textile designer for quite a few years before I went into theatre.

Interviewer: And what made you enter the theatre after that?

Matthew: After working in the industry part of it for a while, I realised I wanted to do something more artistic, so parts of the theatre seem to embody lots of things I was interested in.

Interviewer: And did you start working with theatres doing that in Glasgow or did you...?

Matthew: I did a small education tour in Glasgow and then I started to teach myself how to make models, and how to design, and then after that I got a bursary from the Arts Council, so went to work in a theatre for a year.

Interviewer: And do you find working with both set design, making models and costume to be compatible to work well together, or that it needs to be done to be a total work of art as costume and set design or...?

Matthew: I find doing set and costume really important because quite often I' m working with colours to try and create a palate so being in control of both of them means I can control what' s seen.

Interviewer: One less person in the mix.

Matthew: Exactly.

Interviewer: And have you always worked like that on all the shows...?

Matthew: Yeah, yeah I' ve always done both.

Interviewer: Lucky for you!

Matthew:Yeah!

Sakuntala Ramanee

Interview: When you read the script for Deadeye, {Sakuntala: Yes}, what were your first impressions of the character of Zainab and were you excited about playing her and have you played similar roles as an actress before?

Sakuntala: Ok, a few questions there! Ok. When I first heard about the role, before I read it, I thought ' Ah right, another Asian mum' , to be honest with you, is what I thought. And, one naturally thinks, ok there are certain limitations with playing that role. When I read it, actually the first time I read it was just before I auditioned for it, before I saw Janet and auditioned for it, I felt rather differently. I started to see a character that was rather interesting. I saw a character who said certain things, but a lot about her was not said, so it was sub-textual. And that interested me a great deal. And I saw somebody who suppressed a lot of feelings and a lot of thoughts and a lot of anger actually, and frustration at the world. And, you know, has one outburst where these things come to the surface and then again suppresses them. So what started to happen was that I saw somebody who was very... there was a lot more to her than playing the archetypal Asian mum. I saw somebody who was old before her time, so not literally old, but sort of carried the weight of lots of people' s problems on her back, and actually when I came to rehearsal and going through the whole process, a lot of those initial gut feelings remained and obviously a lot more came to it when I worked on it. But certain of those initial characteristics were still there.

Beth Vyse

Interviewer: I see you went to Rose Bruford Acting School, I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about that? When would that have been... couple of years ago?

Beth: No, I went there from 1998 to 2001, so...

Interviewer: So quite recently then.

Beth: Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: Would you say it was a fairly progressive place to be at the time in acting or fairly traditional?

Beth: Yeah, I had no idea what a drama school was and who went there and things and I applied to five universities on my UCAS form and there was a space at the bottom for... and I thought ok, I' ll try a drama school and I came down here and went to Rose Bruford and went ah ok... and I got in and I thought well I' ll just do it.

Interviewer: Why not, why not...

Beth: So that' s why I ended up at Rose Bruford, I didn' t know anything about RADA and Central, I do now obviously, but I didn' t then, cos I' m from this tiny town, well village, called Timbersbrook, near Congleton in Cheshire, so I came from that town and...

Interviewer: So was it quite a shock coming to London then?

Beth: Yeah, it was. Having to get three trains before the one you' re supposed to get, cos they' re all delayed and things like that but...

Interviewer: So when you were there, at Rose Bruford, did you find, what was the ratio of men to women, were there far more women did you find or...

Beth: Yeah, there were more women.

Interviewer: And in terms of people with ethnic backgrounds?

Beth: There was hardly any, there was, in my year there was about five black people, no Asian people.

Interviewer: So it was quite white dominated?

Beth: Yeah, yeah, it was really.

Interviewer: So, presumably you didn' t cover any non-British theatre, was it basically American and British theatre?

Beth: Yeah it was. I mean we did, I did some Polish theatre while I was there, because one of the tutors was taught at the Grotovsky Centre in Poland and so I went over there to do that but...

Interviewer: That' s near Krakow isn' t it? I' ve been there! I went there this summer actually. It was great, it was amazing stuff!

Beth: I really like it but at Rose Bruford, no, we did English plays.

Interviewer: So Deadeye was probably your first interaction with Asian theatre?

Beth: Yeah, yeah, cos I' d mainly worked at the RSC before I came here, so traditional British, they were the token Asian' s or Black' s in the company because there wasn' t many. But now I was the token white!

Interviewer: Yes, that' s the interesting part of your character I think. If I' m not mistaken, I think Janet Steel went to Rose Bruford as well didn' t she?

Beth: Yeah cos Janet directed me in a play at Rose Bruford before my third year, it was a Scouse play, real working class play, and I played this Scouser called Mary and she did the whole play in a bikini and she was, smoking and all that sort of thing. And Janet remembered me from that play.

Interviewer: So she offered you the part.

Beth: No I went in to audition and all that.

Chetna Pandya

Interviewer: Do you approve of the expression ' colour-blind casting' ?

Chetna: Do you know what, I' ve never actually heard of that phrase ' colour-blind casting' , what do you mean?

Interviewer: I think, maybe it' s a thing only white people use then, because that' s why I asked you. It means casting people of any colour as any colour. So, I could by playing a black person but I wouldn' t be blacked up, but I' d be playing a black person.

Chetna: Do you know what, I think for TV more so, but I think that you can, you cast to reflect life. TV, drama, art, its all a reflection of life essentially I think. It' s all to tell a story, to tell someone' s story. And so I can see why TV wise you' d have to cast accordingly to your mother your father. But then you get things like Shakespearian plays and things like that. I did Romeo and Juliet a couple of years ago. It was my first job out of drama school and the Capulet' s were Asian and the Montague' s were English. And it was really interesting, a really relevant way to look at Romeo and Juliet and there were so many things that I found that were so Eastern within it that I could call on myself, and I hadn' t seen Romeo and Juliet like that before and so, I' m not sure, I think it is relevant in some ways but in other ways you can go wild and go free.

Interviewer: Tell me a bit more about Kali, because you' ve worked with them before.

Chetna: Yeah, I' ve only worked with them once before, I did some readings. What happens is, Kali work with a lot of new writing, and so when I first worked with them they were doing something called Kali Shorts, which were a series of about eight plays I think it was, and I was in five of them and they were 20 minute pieces. So the writers had been through developments with people they were working with, with Janet, with the other writers, doing workshops. And this was the first time they would have actors read their plays, and there was an invited audience to come along and watch the performance. And it was a really, amazing experience. That wasn' t too soon after I' d graduated as well, and when you' re in drama school, I didn' t know that there were British Asian Theatre companies and the works that they do, I had no idea. And I' d started researching as I' d gone into my third year and I was like, oh my god, there was this whole new spectrum out there that I never even knew existed. And I' d go see there productions and I got slowly, slowly addicted. It was like there was the voice, and you can see the evolution, you can see the change within the pieces as well. And I think that' s where Deadeye really comes in for me, it shows how relevant, and how things are really changing within the British Asian theatrical community as well. We want to have a different voice; we want to say things that are real. It' s not the commercial outline of things anymore. It' s not about the colours that we wear, it' s not about the songs that we sing, or anything like that. It' s about real people, real people' s lives. It' s about someone out there' s story and I thought that was... I' ve forgotten what the question was originally, kind of went off on my own tangent somewhere. But yeah, Kali, I' ve really enjoyed working with them and actually I' ve just been to see a performance of the piece that I originally performed in, which was a 20 minute piece called Zameen, and it' s now a fully developed hour and a half production, in the studio, and coming from having performed it then when it was, it' s so different as well it' s a different piece but its so valid, it' s so important. And it says it with such clarity and such beauty. It really shows the beautiful Eastern side of where I feel I come from. And it' s that fine balance of the two, and I think when you get it right it can be so magical and amazing and it' s really lovely. So yeah I' ve loved working with them! And I hope to do so again, it' s been a right old ride with Deadeye!

Interviewer: What is the politics behind Asian theatre in Britain particularly?

Jatinder: I think the politics really of Asian theatre stems from a report written in 1976 called ' The Art Britain Ignores' . This is Naseem Khan' s seminal report which established a case for public subsidy to extend to ethnic minorities who were also practising the arts. I think 30 years on, that impulse has not lessened the need to recognise the arts that are happening, if you like, on the fringes of the mainstream. We are using different terms, we are now talking about accessing, making theatre accessible to communities that may not be accessing theatre. The terms differ over the years, but the impulse remains, I think, very clear. From that the politics is two-fold. One side of it is the need to integrate these varieties of voices and imaginations into if you like, the great British mainstream. That' s sort of one side of it. The other side of it is a phrase that a journalist in the late 70' s used, called ' Finding a Voice' . I think that that is an impulse that' s there in every generation exacerbated perhaps in the post-war period when it happens also to be an immigrant generation. Then the need to find your own voice is made more acute because you don' t see the voice around you, as a general voice, general part of the theatre fabric, since we' re talking about the theatre. So I think that those are the two sorts of impulses, political impulses behind it. And it seems to me that that project has not only not lessened, rather that political imperative has not lessened in three decades, but perhaps has become more acute. Ironically that in some ways, by the kinds of policies pursued by the State in terms of positive support for ethnic minorities in the arts. Ironically it seems to me that we are pretty close to having established two tiers of arts in the country. So, kind of cultural separatism is, I think, just about discernable in the country. It' s not formalised. But it seems to me, the best way to illustrate this is that several years ago I asked a theatre reviewer from one of our major dailies why he came to see the work of companies like us. In other words what I asked him was that, does he come because it' s this particular company, it' s a work that he knows, likes the work and so on, or does he come because its an Asian company, it' s a Black company, it' s an ethnic minority company. Now bearing in mind this is a reviewer who had seen by now about 10 different productions of ours, and he was the only one honest enough to admit that actually he comes because it' s black work. My art is immaterial in this. I could be doing trashy work, in terms of aesthetically trashy work. I could be doing aesthetically stunning work, it makes no difference. Only thing that' s important is how is it ethnically, and therefore politically significant. That was a salutary lesson or insight. And I' m not sure if I were to ask the same question of reviewers today, that that impulse would have changed much.