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Regional Focus: Run of the Mill in HalifaxDate: 8 October 2001
The Dean Clough Centre in Halifax may be a 'practical utopia' combining arts and commerce, but it also houses two of the north's most vital theatre companies in Northern Broadsides and IOU. Gareth Thompson investigates the renovated mill site.
The 19th century Dean Clough mills in Halifax finally ceased commercial use in 1982, after nearly 150 years of production. However, the musician and entrepreneur Sir Ernest Hall ploughed his energy and investment into the site, and today it offers a thriving monument to arts, education, design and business. He describes it now as a 'practical utopia'. Meanwhile, its two theatre troupes, Northern Broadsides and IOU, have firmly stamped their own identities onto the venue whilst incorporating the area's artistic and industrial traditions.
Mill Stone to Milestone
It's the personal touch that most separates Dean Clough's personality from its grey London counterparts. Not that the capital can really offer any comparable project of singular ambition, beyond Shakespeare's Globe. Sir Ernest Hall, a sprightly 70, greets you with the twinkle and fervour of a man whose mission may be accomplished, but who still revels every day in the sheer energetic fun of it all.
"When I first looked at the Dean Clough site," he explains, "there were tin cans whistling about and papers blowing everywhere. We set about redeveloping 32 acres, landscaping a car-parking site for 1,550 vehicles and overcoming the defeatist attitude that was setting in locally. Unemployment was about 15% in the area at the time, and traditional industries were closing. You see, the future isn't something you inherit but something you create. My own parents were so poor we couldn't afford defeatism."
Armed with a background in both business and musical composition, Sir Ernest began courting small local businesses and creative artists. Today Dean Clough accommodates art galleries, the Henry Moore Studio and craft spaces alongside the Halifax Building Society headquarters. But in terms of artistic profile, a major coup came when Sir Ernest offered Barrie Rutter's fledgling Northern Broadsides an office space ten years ago.
Back to Basics
"He's a pen and paper man is Barrie," offers Broadside web manager Jude, in response to Whatsonstage's query about Rutter's laptop-less office. No computer then, but a stack of awards, memorabilia and theatre textbooks in rough order. You don't linger long, fearing a sudden Rutter bark from behind at the invasion of his space. But there's a stance in the Broadsides matching of classic texts with distinctive northern dialect that rings with an earthy, grounded approach too.
"There's something in me that's always had this sense of rhythm," offers Rutter in between matinee and evening performances. "Even since nursery rhymes I've felt that sheer rock and roll of language, that heavier pendulum which we have up here with a shorter vowel, the millstone grit consonants in the area, the limestone in the north. Years later I've been able to amplify that. Having always loved Shakespeare, I learnt from Tony Harrison that you can have a dignified poetic voice without it being 'proper'.
Our works have allowed me a sort of rumbustious revenge on that notion of performing the classics with a purely 'trained' approach. But this rhythmic thing - maybe it goes with the beat of a mill machine, maybe it goes with the beat of a clog. I always ask the cast for a piston engine, and not for a stretched out energy which easily dissipates."
Rutter's relentless determination over the past decade has resulted in various awards for the company, and the Creative Briton 2000 prize for himself. However, the troupe still rarely performs in London, but Rutter emphasises that it's nothing personal. "There's no attitude towards London in terms of anti. I'm here and I celebrate where I am. No other group in the country plays as many varied venues of this size as we do - cattle markets, transport sheds, underground viaducts and the like.
We travel lightly, but it's just unfortunate that we need a champion who guarantees us the money to play London. I've been in subsidised theatre all my life. Yes, I could do without some of the fighting I still have to do, but I don't hanker after London. It's not the be all and end all."
Collective Responsibility
Being based in the north has done no harm to the acclaimed IOU Theatre team either. A collection of composers, writers, sculptors, painters and actors, their innovative site-specific works have taken them on many travels. Richard Sobey, the Administrative Producer explains more: "We deal in essentially universal themes, as opposed to issue-based works. We're inspired by everything from myths and storytelling, to articles in the news or clips of film. The landscape around here has made a big impact interestingly, and there's also a lot of light industry still around for providing raw materials.
We were one of the first companies into the Dean Clough complex back in 1986. There's a wide range of artistic work going on here which is great, as there is around the whole region, so we do have a regular pool of artistic connection. All the founder IOU members are still involved with us, albeit around the country, and collaboration has always been at the heart of the company."
Site Reading
Sobey finds that reactions to their work can vary in different contexts. "With site-specific work, an audience invariably knows and effectively owns that site. So seeing somebody use that space to animate it, and create a different environment, is challenging for them and rewarding for us. We're essentially working to create a whole world which has its own believable logic, something that sweeps the audience along with it. Working outdoors, where a crowd can leave if they're not caught by your ideas, is very different to our large-scale, middle-venue tours."
IOU have utilised the Dean Clough site itself for performance, but a major example of their working approach came with the recent Cure project. A large-scale, darkly comic work on the theme of illness and remedy, it began life at the Royal London Hospital. "We ran a series of public workshops involving staff and patients there, did a work in progress piece in the quadrangle, and ended up presenting a version on Fleetwood beach. We also performed it in the Dean Clough's Viaduct Theatre space, with genuine rainwater dripping down onto the hospital beds from the roof. It was so authentic we told Sir Ernest not to get the leaking seen to until after our show."
Dreams & Visions
Sir Ernest hasn't quite got down there with his mop and bucket just yet, but having created an employment site bustling with over 3,000 souls he may just be forgiven. "We always aim for the sympathetic and co-operative approach here," he says. "We provide space for 26 artists and ask for nothing in return. It's not quid pro quo. Society and education have never been more accountable. When you have accountability there's no trust left, it makes it incredibly difficult to perform. Ideas are more powerful than money; we need to bet back to believing in miracles. Dean Clough made my life relevant again, but it was the sheer size and scale of the ambition that made it possible."
Potent words, certainly, and ones that echo in a recent experience of Barrie Rutter's. Awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Scarborough, he found himself telling 2,000 students: "The best thing I can wish for you young folk is to go out and find a job that gives you thrills. What you've given me is a result of finding something within myself that I feel is thrilling to do. I've always chased after theatre, and the experiences it has given me have been enormous.
I didn't even know the Dean Clough Viaduct space existed until Ernest said in the early days, "Did you hear about the fire in the Viaduct?" I said "What fire, what viaduct?" He took me down to this burnt out, damp cellar and I said, "This is it, we can play this! Let me turn it into a living theatre space." And so together they did. And how.
