When was the last time you put pen to paper and wrote a letter to someone close to your heart? When was the last time you felt the scratch of fountain pen on Basildon Bond, or the heady swish of Bic Biro race across a card?
Ages ago, eh? But haven’t we lost something, both the tactility of writing and the impact? Emails rarely arrive with a light flourish, nor indeed a heavy countenance.
That’s where A History of Paper comes in, a new musical theatre show, which is also a love story. The play takes us on a journey with one couple through the passing on of notes and letters.
“It’s about a relationship,” explains Dundee Rep’s artistic director Andrew Panton of a story which begins in the Nineties, (back in the day when Zoom was an ice-lolly) “but it’s an unlikely relationship, and it’s also about the little bits of paper that can change your life forever. The play uses paper as a metaphor for change or catalyst, and it considers that we have a lot less paper in our lives than we did 10 or 20 years ago.”
The story has a terrific meet-cute romcom opener, beginning with a note through a letterbox. ‘Hello Number 4, this is Number 6. Could you SHUT THE **** UP? Ta). And then each new connection unfolds. Yet, the director points out that Oliver Emanuel and Gareth Wlliams’ musical love story manages to avoid the romcom tropes.
“When we sort of cut into that area there’s a knowingness that we’re doing that,” he says, smiling. “But certainly, there is a lot of comedy, in the play, although it does become more serious.”
Andrew Panton adds: “The writing by [the late] Olly Emanuel - this is the last piece he was working on - is beautiful, and what Gareth has done in musicalising the work is incredible, using the language to tell the story. Overall, there is a magic realism element to it and it’s an amazing piece in that it finds its own inner life in the (rehearsal) room.
“What we also have is two actors, Chris Jordan-Marshall and Emma Mullen, who are exquisite, at the top of their game, and they’re finding a real playfulness in the writing. And I worked with them when they were students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, so we are already starting from a place of real trust.”
It's not hard to see how Andrew Panton has again inspired faith and belief from his cast; he brings a massive amount of experience to the artistic director’s job he’s held since 2017. Growing up in Burntisland in Fife, the young Andrew found the lure of youth theatre, of song and dance and school drama undeniable, and combined with a prodigious musical talent a career in showbiz seemed a certainty.
But in which area? After training at Arts Ed in London, stage work followed but Panton came to realise his greatest love was the creation of theatre and in 2002 joined the MA directing course at Glasgow’s (then) Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
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Significant career moves have included becoming resident director on tours of the NTS hit Black Watch and resident at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, working under writing legend Alan Ayckbourn. Panton was also Susan Boyle’s creative director and since joining Dundee Rep he has been responsible for a wide range of work, from revivals such as Passing Places, to vibrant new theatre from Oor Wullie to No Love Songs, the hugely powerful but intimate two-hander which is set to be re-staged in Sydney and in New York.
That experience has certainly informed the development of A History of Paper. “We know there is an audience for new music theatre, and we want to develop the type of work that not only speaks to a local audience, but which has legs and can appeal to an international audience.”
Yet, the task of an artistic director is to programme wide. The next play Panton is directing is an Alan Aykbourn play, the ‘spine-tingling murder mystery’ Snake in The Grass. “It’s about trying not to do one thing, to cater for lots of audiences, yet at the same time create new audiences.”
Andrew Panton’s track record on work to date has resulted in Dundee audiences regularly leaving the theatre with sore hands. Yet, while he’s directing a play about our loss of connection with real writing, the director admits his own talents don’t extend to calligraphy. Panton laughs as he admits he can’t remember the last time he wrote a letter. “I’ve got such terrible handwriting I moved to a keyboard just as soon as I could.”
A History of Paper previews at Dundee Rep July 25-27 then has its world premiere at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, August 1- 31.
Don’t Miss
If you feel you’re now missing out on series’ of shocking revelations, blackmail, sexual scandal and political intrigue, get along to Measure for Measure, Bard in the Botanics, Glasgow, until July 27.
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