Applause Rural Touring Case Study - Frittenden Village Hall
hello welcome to this video whoever happens to be watching it in the future we are here celebrating Village Halls week, my name is Sam and I work for Applause in their touring department and we're here today with Frittenden Memorial Hall and I think I'll leave the introducing to you guys, would you guys like to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the Memorial Hall and the recent refurb and how you funded that, give us a bit of an overview Hi, yes my name is Rosalind Riley and I'm the chair of the whole committee and this is Mike Fitzgerald and he's the person who's been running Applause as an ongoing series of events in Frittenden for quite a long time now actually and we've both been working towards bringing Applause back well we have brought Applause back since the pandemic and we have yes undergone a huge refurbishment, we removed an old stage that was built in that was a bit limiting and we've opened up the whole space to make it much more flexible and Applause was actually hugely helpful in finishing our ambition to get it to create the the conditions for good performance and and having new performance equipment and I think you were interested in how we funded the project how we funded like the whole refurbishment but actually how Applause was a help we did a lot of application writing we got a lot of exterior funding we were actually quite lucky in some respects, I used to work in theatre myself and so I kind of knew how to write applications which came in very handy, we have a very good Treasurer who helped with all the figures and I think as well we had a very good Community who you know loved what was going on in the hall beforehand and wanted to look to the future and there had been a lot of fundraising over the years with the view of either building a new hall or refurbing and that meant that when I went to funders they could see that we had this fundraising base that all just came from running quizzes and running events and then donations on top of that we had some very generous local donations which I am not, I wasn't too shy to go and solicit you know and so when the refurb was halfway through well more than halfway through we were just starting on the second phase the Platinum Jubilee was occurring and we had the opportunity to apply for Platinum Jubilee Let's Create funds and you could apply for more if you were associated with someone who had Central Arts Council funding and of course Mike immediately said Applause you know I genuinely, we genuinely feel we've been in a partnership with Applause for a long time and you know they've given something to Frittenden which we wouldn't be able to create ourselves and so we got this extra money we've now got a portable stage, flexible stage we've got lights I think you can you can see a little little bit of what we've got and a projector and a screen and you know we've we've actually, we've made this space very much more usable, even though it's not got the traditional stage setup anymore which a lot of village halls do but you know we've released some space that way Great thank you it all sounds really exciting and amazing how much local support you had around I wondered if you'd want to talk to me a little bit about what the benefits of putting on shows in your local community are, why is that important and exciting, I'll answer that one then so really this stems from 2004 when I discovered that there was such a thing called Applause and as I enjoyed the Arts and going to live performance I thought I would give it a try here in Frittenden and so we put on about 40 shows since then and I think the the principal benefit, I mean there are lots of benefits but probably the principal one is that it gives the local community the opportunity to engage with professional actors and musicians and is right on their doorstep and the other benefit is to the scheme provides very high quality entertainment and it's an affordable price and I think there are also productions which people might not otherwise go to they might not choose a particular style or a particular performance but if it's right here in Frittenden and it's at a sensible price then they might and it might open them up to other possibilities in theatre and music and I think it also enables people to share in live theatre which is important and then talk about it afterwards and even and you can't often do this in the large theatre chat with the performers afterwards and talk to them about their musical life or their theatrical career and I think it brings a much more intimate experience into the performance and there we are, I think you know there are several benefits but I think those are the principle ones yeah definitely, great, and how important do you think it is to have a facility like yours, live performance included and aside especially post covid, yeah I'll take that one, funnily enough I mean I don't really like to think of us as being post-Covid, you know I think we've still got a lot of difficulty on that front, by the way I can hear someone's mowing their lawn or cutting their hedge or something immediately outside I hope it's not bothering you anyway, I actually I mean obviously it's hugely important to to have a building in the community around which events can happen and people can gather and you know Frittenden is quite isolated it has no public transport and it has quite a mixed community, quite a big, a very wide age range of people here but also class wise as well you know and income-wise there's quite a big difference I mean you know we do have some you know weekenders incomers and all that you know but quite quite often they tend to get straight involved with the community as soon as they arrive so it's actually quite strong in that way but I think actually more than Covid it's actually about austerity at the moment I mean I think that you know people can't travel so freely as they could because they can't afford it you know I think some people also are just more conscious of not traveling so much, I think you know Panto for example this year I think knowing some of my friends in the business who are actually doing quite badly in panto in the big not badly but doing less well than they hoped in the bigger regional theatres you know and I think if you know people come here because it's cheaper they don't have to travel they don't you know they can buy some nice cheap pop and crisps and not worry so much about expense so I think that is awesome so and you know this is a place that people know from all the other things that they do here as well so you know we have well you'd call it a loneliness cafe but I've never liked that word, but we have that here we have you know fitness classes and historical society and the gardening society, you know all those things that you have in a village and you know this just feels like it slots really well into that kind of village life and it's bringing people together after a time when we've been all really separated I think it's pretty wonderful actually and you know your children's show two weeks ago last week that was one of the best audiences you've had for a children's show which I thought was quite interesting, yes it is, we had around about 80 over 80 mums, dads, grandparents and and youngsters, so you know I think that you know that really shows that there's a desire for it and a need for it, amazing, yeah totally agreed and the mowing isn't bothering me at all over here and that's the beauty of being at the centre of the community, so don't worry about that Mike I wanted to ask you because you've been working with Applause for a long time, could you tell us about your experience with Applause and the types of shows that Applause have helped you host over the years? Well as I mentioned I've been doing this since 2004 there was quite a long gap for a few years and so I've dealt with a number of your colleagues present and past and they have all have been terribly helpful and I think you're all very enthusiastic people who want to go wanted to do a good job and help the lives of us to put on these shows I think the great thing about Applause is that, is that you source the various performances, the musicians and actors, the players which we wouldn't be able to do and then you as far as I understand it you review them, you vet them and then you offer a menu and that's something we just couldn't do ourselves, so that's one aspect of it and of course the other is the subsidy which we will probably come to that later and so what do I do? Well I try and offer about one show a month, it might be six weeks and I've tended to organize three types of shows, I think it's important to offer something for children, we have a school just opposite the hall, primary school and so there's a body of youngsters there who would certainly, be interested in children's shows and so I include a children/family show, puppetry always goes down well and if they offer a workshop I usually take the workshop and that's always very popular, yes the last one you had, didn't they make puppets and then the puppets were part of the show, well that um yeah it was built like that but it didn't quite work out like that but it didn't matter at all and what they made was glove puppet crabs, the older children were able to make a puppet of crabs lots of tentacles and the younger ones painted papercraft colored paper crafts and everyone enjoyed it and it was like a party in here particularly when the very young children but it's all good fun, for the grown-ups well I tend to book a play which from Applause may involve several actors or I may just be one actor it could be a monologue or it could be comedy, we've had a number of really good shows here, comedy always goes down well but we've had serious shows as well and in fact we've got a serious show coming up very soon and then the third part of this trio is music of course and we've had some very good shows here, we've had classical music such as guitar and harp, that was very well received and of course we've had a number of world music shows which really do go, I would say go down a storm, particularly the last one which was an Afro Cuban band who had done it before and they came back in the summer to help us celebrate the Queen's Jubilee and it was terrific a terrific night, absolutely overflowing with people dancing I'm going to say dancing in the street, because they really were dancing in the car park as well, the music was very loud so that's what I try and do, the actual number of shows a year is six really isn't it because we don't, six or eight, maybe from September around to June but six or eight shows yeah, amazing such a packed program, and you did mention actually I was going to ask about the subsidies that Applause is able to offer and whether you think you'd be able to host a roster like this without that subsidy that sounds like a very leading question, wasn't it? doesn't it sound a little bit leading, well my initial response would be frankly no and, but the reason is I think well for one thing I find it very comforting to know that I'm not going to have to pay the full fee if only one person turns up and I find the structure of you know paying a basic fee and I'm paying a percentage of the surplus works very well and we break even, sometimes we make a surplus and that surplus goes towards the Memorial Hall here, buying equipment and so on but it also goes towards subsidising some of the other shows that don't actually make surplus which the children shows tend not to as the ticket price is cheaper for a start so it's much more difficult with the children show and you don't make much money at the bar, no sadly no double gins so you know we're a small village maybe 900 people, the hall is about 120 capacity so we're now we're going to have a huge number here and the other thing is I don't think we can charge more than the recommended 10 pounds per seat for the grown-up shows and actually Rosalind mentioned austerity and actually well this season we've started to offer free tickets to some of the local villagers who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to come yeah yeah and that was partly something that was inspired by the Let's Create fund, it was yes, because we knew we wanted to do you know what they call Outreach in the professional sphere and you know that's quite a particular job and we don't have those skills or necessarily those people that have the hours of the time to do it and and that really made us think actually and you know Mike did do some successful Outreach and you know we talked to the parish council and various other people and I think we're very pleased about that aren't we, yes we are, you know that if we hadn't been doing that you know Applause linked work with Let's Create we wouldn't have had the opportunity to sort of put a little bit of money and some thought behind actually trying to get people out who might just look at us and just say that's, you know we can't afford it which you know we don't want that, we don't want that to happen we want this to be something for everybody. So thank you thank you for your candor, it is one of those tricky things that we do have to financially support the work to ensure the artists get paid but the outreach that you're doing and the subsidy we're able to provide I'm just really glad you're managing to make it work because it sounds like you're doing great things On the subject of that do you have any advice that you would give to someone who's thinking of hosting a show in their village hall or community space, yeah I do actually and that is get a Mike you're too kind, also get a Rosalind, team work, you know if you have someone who has the enthusiasm for and the will, someone who would be the sort of person to say let's put the show on right here in the bar, you know that's the enthusiasm, you have people who have a great love of theatre and music and performance and they have that connection to the community and they just think well it's possible let's do it and I mean the second thing I would say is get an Applause, I don't know if all counties have or regions of Britain have similar things to Applause but you know it's so important because we just couldn't source those performances without it and you know I speak as someone who used to work in the theatre, well it's a few years since I've been working in the theatre you know, I know people who put on shows, I've been an actor in shows in village halls and school halls and things myself and so you know I know what it's like to be in a little company you know it's good for the companies that they can come to you and then we, you know you act as a broker between us because you know the work that is going on out there is exceptional and you know it's about spreading the word really I think about Applause and saying that this is possible for you this is actually it's you know it's hard work and it's especially hard work the weekend of the show, yes , you know when you need volunteers to sell squash or gin, we don't actually sell gin, wine, but you know you need volunteers to do it, you need to set it up, you know there's a whole day when people are doing the get in/get out and we're clearing up and you know yes that's an effort but it's a kind of joyful effort I think and you know it brings something really special to the community and I think once you've done it a few times I think I think there's well, Mike came back to doing it after not doing for a few years because it was like come on something's missing you know and you do need a bit of leadership from someone like Michael from, you know from people who, you need the kind of person that can sort of charm other people into joining in and then realising though I would say that so Mike and Applause is what we need yeah we've luckily got that well I'm not sure where to tell everyone else to source a Mike unfortunately, you might have to leave that up to the communities, but Applause do work across East and West Sussex, Kent and Essex, so for anyone watching do get in touch and countrywide there are rural touring schemes all across the country and if you visit the National Rural Touring Forum website they'll have information about where your nearest scheme is so thank you for mentioning that and thank you for all of the above, the last question I have to ask you today is what have you got coming up at Frittenden that people can attend we've got two shows coming up at the moment there will be more when I booked them but the first one is next Saturday 28th of of January and that's an interesting play that centers around the life of a deaf woman in 1920s England, she's in a loveless marriage she's not getting support, her deafness is a barrier to others and she takes solace in studying insects and in fact research insects and unfortunately, her research was largely ignored so it's a tale that resonates in a number of different ways and it's had excellent reviews around the country so that's on the 28th of January, it's called Earwig by the way, I'm sorry yes I do a lot of publicity for small theatre companies and yes our next one is called The Wilderness Yet and that is a musical trio, it's folk and they play their own compositions and songs and they also improvise and sing other well-known songs generally related to the natural world and that is in March on March 4th, yeah so all those Johnny Flynn fans, it's not Johnny Flynn, but it's going to be a good night, yes yeah, so that's what we've got coming up, how very exciting That was the end of my rigorous questioning for today, thank you so much for your time we really appreciate it and taking the chance to celebrate one of our favourite village halls in village halls week, so yes thank you Mike and thank you Rosalind and have a great Village Halls Week everyone, thank you Sam and happy Village Halls Week everybody as well from us, good luck
2023-02-03 13:56
