Festival Theatre
.3
J x ~ fit 0 ‘I.
SHOCKtctics
With 365, a series of fragmented narratives about children leaving care, Vicky Featherstone's National Theatre of Scotland cements its commitment to telling stories of the people. Kirstin Innes meets the cast, writer and director
unchtime. and rehearsals for 365. the
National Theatre of Scotland‘s flagship
production at this year‘s lidinburgh International Festival. look like free time‘ at a youth club. Some of the boys have organised a football game in the hallway and are jeering and daring each other on across an invisible line. Clusters of spindle-legged girls watch them from the stairs. giggling.
The official line is that the actors playing the teenagers leaving residential care homes. whose interlinked lives make up the meat of 365 are ‘mostly aged between 16 and 24‘. but well over half of them have already graduated. I sit down with Helen Mallon. best known for her work in NTS flagship show The Wolves in the Walls. fiercely intelligent newcomer Simone James. brought up from London for this production. and Ashley Smith. whose expressionless. lovely features are currently slapped all over the publicity f‘or the show. Possibly because I‘ve half-convinced myself they‘re all teenagers. l‘m initially surprised at their articulacy and the depth of their knowledge. But then. they‘ve been hired for it.
94 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 21 Aug; 4 Oct 7008
David llarrower. writing the play. turned up to first rehearsals with. as he will tell me later. ‘a world of research at my back and only a few pages of script.‘ because director Vicky Featherstone purposely cast intelligent actors. who were also expected to do their own research and have been instrumental in creating their own characters and stories. The word actors. director and writer alike use most often to describe what they uncovered is ’shocking‘.
‘A lot of‘ the background comes from direct sources.‘ says Mallon. ‘We had this one talk from a social worker who worked with care leavers. Some of the things she told us! It really shocks you and it was difficult. at first. to believe that these things happen in our country. (‘oping with the realisation that these are real people‘s stories that you‘re dealing with: there‘s a real weight to it.‘
The ‘real people‘s stories‘ that have inspired 365 are those of young people who‘ve spent their lives being passed between residential care homes. and who discover. on turning lo. that the care system can no longer make provision for them. "l‘hese are stories that happen in Britain