CityLife

Theatre: Lucia Cox is busy at the fringe of things across the city

Performer Lucia Cox in her one-woman show, Blackbird

If you need a better indicator of the health and energy of our local fringe theatre scene, then consider this.

Lucia Cox is not only writing and preparing to perform her one-woman show, Blackbird, next week as part of the Not Part Of Festival, but is also producing this week’s Tinned Up, part of the “in development with The Lowry” series, and, in a couple of weeks, The Shadow Of Your Hand, part of this year’s 24:7 Festival.

This flurry of activity is partly coincidental, she explains, while making it all sound very easy indeed.

“I’d been in Manchester for a couple of years and had spent that time concentrating on my Masters Degree in Creative Writing and becoming a terribly important literary novelist,” she laughs.

“Then when I reached the end of my tether and my degree course, I was exhausted. so I decided to take a step back from that.

“I’d trained as an actress first, so I thought I’d go back into acting.

“I’d never been to any fringe stuff in Manchester but I was amazed to find this massive community of writers, directors and actors that I’d been unaware of.

“I went to Studio Salford and met a writer who couldn’t make the 24:7 theatre festival production meeting, neither could the director because he was in London directing a West End show and, because they hadn’t cast it yet, neither could any of the performers!

“So he asked me if I could go as their pretend producer.

“I went along and decided I really liked producing. I’d produced my own short films and I’d worked as a temp before, working as a secretary and admin and events person, so I had transferable skills.

“So I said, ‘I’d actually like to be your real producer’.” That led on to Tinned Up, which is currently playing at the Lowry Studio.

The play, from Mancunian theatre company Shred Productions, explores what really happens to a community when regeneration takes hold.

In it, Shirley Parkin, a 63-year-old spinster and the life and soul of Salford, has lived at 10, Brook Street, Langworthy, all her life. For many of those years she has refused all efforts by the council to move her out of her modest two-up-two-down terrace.

Now she’s been joined by her foul-mouthed friend Beryl, unhappy single mother Joy, and stoner Daz to try keep their local park from the cold grasp of profit-hungry developers.

In her next project, Lucia met writer Michael Stewart.

“He admitted he had no cast or director or producer for this amazing script, The Shadow Of Your Hand,” Lucia says. “So I volunteered and everything has fallen into place.”

Lucia is working with actress and director Sue Jenkins on that script. With over 35 years of experience in the profession and perhaps best known for playing Jackie Corkhill, in TV soap Brookside, Sue is thrilled to be working on this project.

“I have always been a supporter of the 24:7 Theatre Festival,” she says. “It’s a major showcase for new work and I’m delighted to be involved. From the moment I read The Shadow of Your Hand I knew I wanted to direct it.”

The cast includes her 18-year-old daughter Rosie – yet another talented Fleeshman – who has just got into LAMDA, along with Colin Connor, whose own play Black Tie is featured in Not Part Of.

In The Shadow Of Your Hand, Steve, a nervous and obliging advertising executive, invites a homeless girl back to his apartment, but quickly finds himself out of his depth.

As the situation spirals out of control, we are left to wonder how far will Steve go for company in a meeting between psychological drama and black comedy which explores the volatile balance of power between an unlikely pair.

There are some superficial similarities, you might think, with Lucia’s own play, Blackbird.

“I happened to see a documentary about Jaycee Lee Dugard, the 11-year-old American girl who was abducted outside her home and held captive for 18 years.
 
“She bore two children by her captor and there was something about her and her daughters’ real distress when their captors were arrested that just struck a chord, which both moved and intrigued me.

“I wanted to know why.”

In the play, alone in a room full of scattered pomegranates, a grandfather clock and a dress-up box, the Blackbird shares the secrets of her past, her obsession with movie trivia and the disturbing reason she’s in love with the man upstairs.

“I didn’t want to make it just this linear monologue, I thought about what would happen if someone had been captive for such a long period of time,” she explains.

“I remembered how Terry Waite said he had done maths problems in his head and thought, ‘What would I do?’.”

Tinned Up is at The Lowry Studio until Saturday; Blackbird is at Studio Salford on Thursday, then July 9, 11 and 16; The Shadow Of Your Hand is at Sachas, Tib Street, from July 21-29.