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The Disability and…Podcast gets right to the heart of some of the most pressing issues in arts, culture and beyond with a series of bold, provocative and insightful interviews with disabled artists, key industry figures and the odd legend. The Disability and…Podcast is currently monthly.
Intro
Welcome to the Disability and... podcast bringing together thoughtful discussion and debate. This month, Disability Arts Online digital operations manager Joe Turnbull chats with artistic director of Hijinx theatre, Ben Pettitt-Wade about their show Meet Fred, which is currently on its 10th anniversary tour of the UK. If you are intending to see the show, please note that this podcast contains some spoilers. This podcast also contains some strong language.
Joe Turnbull
Welcome to the Disability and... podcast, everyone. My name is Joe Turnbull. I'm digital operations manager at Disability Arts Online, and this month, I'm joined by Ben petty Wade, who's artistic director of hijinks. And hijinks is a professional producing theatre company based in Cardiff, which works to pioneer, produce and promote opportunities for actors with learning disabilities and or autism. Welcome to the podcast, Ben, how are you doing?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Very good. Thank you, Joe.
Joe Turnbull
I feel like I should ask you a silly, random question, what did you have for your lunch today? Ben,
Ben Pettitt-Wade
I had some udon noodles. Actually. They were kind of instant, but not I added some bits and bobs to them, and they were quite spicy.
Joe Turnbull
I hate to use the word, but pimp noodles is definitely one of my go to lunches, adding a few interesting bits to them. Great. So, Ben, if you could be great, if you could just start off by telling us a bit about yourself and your role at Hijinx, and specifically your role in Meet Fred, which is what we're kind of is going to kind of be the focus of discussions for today.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
So, as you said, I'm artistic director at Hijinx. I've been at Hijinx since 2007 and I've been in various different roles. I've became artistic director, I think, in 2015 so I get to work with our wonderful artists in their training. So, we have academies that train our artists across Wales, and then we explore the making of our productions, and co-create our productions with those artists. And I get the pleasure of leading in terms of directing some of those shows in the room with the artists. And I also curate and program our biannual Hijinx unity festival. So, I also kind of programme that event. And Meet Fred is on its 10th Anniversary Tour. So, it is a production we made back in, well, it opened back in 2016 it was the first production that I kind of produced for the company as director, in my role as artistic director. And it was really, I think, the first production, probably, that came out of the training that we had set up, so these academies that we set up in 2012 it was the first kind of product, if you like, from that process of making work with our artists through that training.
Joe Turnbull
Was it quite experimental, in that sense, then when, when you were, when you were first sort of, trialling that out in terms of the devising process,
Ben Pettitt-Wade
I guess it was very much about exploring what this, what this is to make a piece of theatre with the artists that we make theatre with who are all learning disabled and or autistic. So, yeah, I guess in that sense, it is and was experimental. But it all started with puppetry. We hosted a workshop led by a puppetry company called Blind Summit, who are UK based, based in London, and they taught us and our artists their version of Bunraku puppetry, so a puppet that needs three puppeteers, and they're training puppets with these kind of cloth puppets that we that we got to work on. And it was through that experience, both observing how our artists approached it, but also for myself as a as an artist, being inside that process as a puppeteer that led me to want to explore further this form of puppetry with our artists. So what we did is we ordered a number of our own set of Bunraku training puppets from Blind Summit, and we spent 9 to 12 months in sessions, kind of, I guess, experimenting with this form of puppetry, and in that we sort of honed, we kind of honed our eye in terms of what worked on the puppet, what didn't work.
Joe Turnbull
Did you have trained puppeteers in the room then? Or were you just actually, people who didn't have experience.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
We just sort of took what we learned from that week's workshop and then we incorporated that into the training with our artists. So, it was very you know, hit and miss, if you like, but so we were learned through successes and failures. But during that process of working with the puppet, the story started to take shape. So, this relationship that a puppet has with its puppeteers in that it doesn't, you know, without its puppeteers, in essence, a puppet doesn't exist. It doesn't have life. And then the parallel between that and the reliance that some of our artists have on a on a support network around them, to be able to live their life to the full, to remain independent, to travel, to be with us in our sessions, that parallel became apparent. So that's what we started to explore. But we only found that because we had started with the puppetry at the time of making the show back then, you know, there was austerity, was the buzz word, and a lot of our artists were experiencing directly the cuts that were happening to and changes to PIP and their benefits, Disability Living Allowance benefits specifically. And there was a lot of anxiety. And it was having, you know, obviously an impact, not just with our artists, but disabled people across the UK. So that then kind of started to become part of the story, because the way in which we make work, it's all via improvisations. And some of the situations that were being suggested that we could put Fred in were very much from the life experiences of the artists that were together making the show. One example being the visit that Fred has to make to a job centre. That scene was directly inspired by someone's own experience of going to the Job Centre and the sort of threats that they were put under in terms of potential cuts to their benefits if they didn't fulfil certain requirements linked to that
Joe Turnbull
must have been quite a eureka moment, actually stumbling on that, on that parallel, I bet it all became, yeah,
Ben Pettitt-Wade
yeah. It was, I think that was Yeah, it did. You know, I think as soon as that became apparent that there was suddenly that, okay, yeah, we've got something here that could make a really interesting show. And it's that thing of being able to explore something but not explore it directly, but take a puppet in this example and be able to use that to kind of satirize the subject matter, which I think then really helps to kind of show it for what it is, which is, you know, a really screwed up situation, Kafkaesque, in essence, when you're dealing with these kind of bureaucratic processes,
Joe Turnbull
there's something that, because it's A puppet, makes it sort of comedic, right? The situations, which I suppose means you can go to those darker places and stuff like that, because you've got that sort of slightly comedic foil.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
It's two handed, isn't it? So, it's both allowing us to explore it with a kind of dark elements of humour and comedy, but also not allowing it to be too dark, if that makes sense. So, allowing it to kind of, I think it'd be, it'd be a very different show if, if it was just humans, you know, performing the piece, there's something really interesting when we perform it is the level of empathy people have for Fred as a puppet. And I think there's always a question of whether, if it hadn't been a puppet, whether it would affect the audience in the same way, whether they'd feel the same empathy for that character.
Joe Turnbull
Was there any trepidation around, I suppose the concept of just of presenting disabled people as puppets?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
it is a good question. We've always been when we were making the show very clear that, in our minds, at least, that Fred is a puppet. So, the way he experiences the world is as a puppet. We didn't have in our minds, Fred is a, you know, a disabled puppet, necessarily. But it was simple, the simple fact that for Fred to be part of the world, the real world, there were certain barriers in his way, which then lead to him, obviously, then he is, I guess, based on the societal model of disability, you know, that is what is disabling him. But very much in our minds, it was about exploring it as a puppet. And it just happened that, you know, you put a puppet in real situations, clearly, there are going to be barriers. And we played with lots of things. Like we took when we were making the show, we took him out on the street, you know, we saw how people responded to him simply saying, sitting on a bench, asking people for directions, you know, and we played with stuff like that, booking a table in a restaurant and then turning up with a puppet and seeing how difficult it was simply to just get to a table, you know, with three puppeteers around you. It was explored by a puppet and puppetry rather than directly thinking actually as Fred, as a disabled, personal character or puppet.
Joe Turnbull
I suppose we've already talked around it a little bit. I did for anyone who's not seen the show. Do you want to give any more of a sort of, a bit more of a brief synopsis about, about, about, yeah, about what it is?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
yeah. So, Meet Fred. In the show, you get to Meet Fred. Meet and Fred is a two-foot-tall cloth puppet who's controlled by three puppeteers. Fred wakes up at the start of the show without really realizing he's in a show. So, the opening scene is kind of between Fred and the director, who's also a character in the show, who has to explain to Fred that what's happening. You know, why the people are here in the audience, and kind of asks him questions about, you know, what he wants to be, what he sees his life being like. And Fred has certain ideas, like he wants to kind of live a regular life. He wants to meet a girl, get married, get a job, these sorts of societal ideas around, what, what an inverted commas Mark normal life might be as such, he's then sent to the Job Centre, where he meets Jack, the Job Centre, guy who informs him that he needs to take one of three jobs in order to keep his puppeteers, because if he doesn't take a job, he's going to have his PLA reduced his puppetry living allowance. So that's the first kind of trip up in in his in his story, you know, and other things happen, like he goes on a date that's also a disaster for him. And basically, everything starts to go wrong from the top of the show, things just start to go wrong for Fred. He takes a job as a children's entertainer. That's, you know, he behaves awfully during the scene, which then leads to him losing that job, which then leads to him losing one of his puppeteers. And then the final kind of, I guess, elements of that storyline in the show, we see Fred driven to the point that he's attempting to commit suicide, at which point there's a character, his Maker, the designer, appears, and really, kind of, I guess, gives him some quite tough advice about being himself, you know, fighting for himself and fighting for what he wants, which then kind of he starts to do, but it's a it's a little complicated, because there's a play within a play, so it's a very meta storyline. So throughout the show, also there's these exchanges with the director and the stage manager, who's also part of the show, and this conflict, I guess, between who has control over the show, over his life, in some ways, over the process of making a show like this as well, over what it means to kind of try and co-create or devise a show with a group of artists, and particularly this group of artists, and some of the, I guess, conflict that created during The process is represented within the storyline of the show and Fred's life as well.
Joe Turnbull
Fred must have quite a special place in your heart, or certainly the show must with, if with it being the first show that you produced in this way, and as the artistic director, it's been 10 years since then, I wondered if you could let us in on some of the highs and lows really over that 10 year cycle of the show. If there's been any highlights from the run, or if there were any lows, I don't know. I would be interested to hear about them as well, but feel free to just talk about the highs.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
I think what's incredible for us is that the show, you know, still has the same impact on audiences you know, 10 years later, it's been an incredible journey for all of us that made the show together. And the places it's been able to take us?
Joe Turnbull
It's been internationally, hasn't it?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Oh, yeah, we've travelled all over with it.
Joe Turnbull
Was it China?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
China, we’ve been to Japan, South Korea, US, but and then all over Europe. I mean, I don't know how many countries it's been to now, but it's yeah, it I think when we made it back in 2016 we couldn't have dreamed that it would have seen the success it has, and taken us to the places it has, you know, and some of the opportunity To travel has been pretty special, not just for myself, but the entire kind of team. I don't think any of us, without having been part of the show, would have had that opportunity to go to some of these places, which is, you know, in terms of the types of experiences that offers for us and our artists. It's been pretty unique in that way. You. We made a Korean version of the show in 2024 so that was a really big moment for us to kind of go and work with the production company over there to cast it, to meet both puppeteers, but also disabled artists in Seoul that were able to fulfil the roles in the Korean version of the production, and then open that in autumn 24 and for those artists that were part of that show, certainly the disabled artists, I mean, that was their first professional engagement, you know, in any production. So that was a really nice kind of, I guess, Legacy of the show to leave in Korea. I mean, lows, just keeping it going, sometimes, even on a tour that like we're on at the moment, it's, it's a small-scale production. And what that generally means is, most places we're in, we're doing single nighters, and that that can get very exhausting. It's, you know, it's not easy doing that type of touring and doing it extensively.
Joe Turnbull
I mean, the logistics of traveling internationally with a group of artists who probably haven't travelled much, and actually probably haven't performed much, certainly internationally, they must have been quite something.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Yeah. I mean, certainly we've just kind of jumped into all that stuff in some ways. And people, you know, people did just kind of grow into it. I mean, the team that we have touring with this production now have such experience of touring internationally. They just take it all in their stride. Even when you go to a place like China, which is, you know, so different culturally to here, they kind of loved that element of visiting new and exciting places
Joe Turnbull
There's a very British specific context to this. And, you know, especially around the puppet living allowance. You know this, I wonder how, how you know that cultural translation might be quite strange in some of those contexts. I guess, was there any hint of that? Or, yeah, it'd be interesting to hear about that.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
I think wherever you go, it's about a fight against the system. So, there's that universal kind of theme, and people root for, you know, whoever has that kind of fight in them that's going against. It's like a David and Goliath type setup. But, you know, wherever you go, I think there's, there's a tinge of recognition, even though the system might be structured slightly differently, of the kind of barriers that people face because of systems, specifically when it comes to disability, yeah, even though there's not maybe the exact translation to our own system here, we found that, you know, wherever we go, that people recognize that
Joe Turnbull
because it's puppetry as well as there's A lot of nonverbal stuff going on there. That's just, I guess the gags and the key moments will be part of the sort of the physicality of how Fred moves or can't move when he's as his help is sort of stripped back and stuff as well. So that probably levels the sort of the cultural differences a little bit in some way,
Ben Pettitt-Wade
and people love the kind of British humour feel of it as well. That's a kind of universal, sort of selling point, often for audiences outside the UK, which we'd certainly lean into in the show. I mean, sometimes the most difficult things to translate, often is the swearing. So, Fred does swear a fair bit in the show, and there's some creative swearing in there. And culturally, we found that can be difficult to kind of find direct translation for especially when you're in places like Korea or Japan. We're always having to spend some time to dig out what the most appropriate translation might be for some of that.
Joe Turnbull
But is that form of puppetry a Japanese invention?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Yeah, Bunraku is a very traditional form originally from Japan.
Joe Turnbull
I suppose there was that cultural key in in that, in that context, although I don't know whether, yeah, I don't know whether that was a factor or not to it going to Japan, really?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
we've always been really keen to take the show to Japan because of that and other reasons I mean, it's just a wonderful place, a wonderful country, but the bunraku puppetry connection was kind of really important for us. But it is a very different form. I guess we've taken it quite far from that traditional, from a very traditional Bunraku puppetry. We went to see a piece when we were in Osaka at the National puppet theatre. It's kind of treated like opera or ballet in some ways. So, it's, I think it's. UNESCO. UNESCO protected art form,
Joe Turnbull
yeah.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
So, I think we were slightly nervous in some ways, to see how this piece would be received there. Actually, it was absolutely fine. And, you know, people didn't have any issues with us taking liberties with their form of puppetry. Yeah,
Joe Turnbull
yes, with their cultural iconic, hey, those udon noodles you had for lunch, feeling very on brand now, though, so that's good,
Ben Pettitt-Wade
absolutely, yeah, still, still debt, still kind of trying to recreate here about time we had in Japan. Yeah,
Joe Turnbull
has the story adapted or changed in the 10 years?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
we talked about this quite a bit of whether we would need to adapt or change it, because things in terms of the benefit system have changed. In some ways, terminology has changed. We decided against making changes because, you know, actually, but you know, as Fred describes it in the show, the situation is still a fuck barrel for many, and there's one section of the show where the director really spells it out for Fred exactly why he can't be paid, which is the essence of the argument Fred has in The show because of the impact it would have on his own benefits, his puppetry, living allowance. And that's still true. I think for many of our artists that we work with, it can be there are limits on the amount we're able to pay people, often because of the specific benefits they're on. And the show is very open about that. But things have changed. You know, I'm happy to say everyone in the show now, you know, is on equal pay and paid fair, and rightly so. It's better in that sense, but not fully there. But then things seem to have shifted now to Access to Work becoming a real issue. What we say in the show is completely relevant right now in terms of the threats and the changes taking place with access to work and the complete dysfunctionality of that particular system. So yeah, we talked about it at length, and that we decided, you know, let's we're just going to keep it as is, because also the situation that Fred faces is very much in show. You know, we've adapted DWP to department of work and puppets, and we've adapted what was disability living allowance to puppetry living allowance, but it still kind of all kind of made sense in that way
Joe Turnbull
were the plans for this latest tour, kind of already afoot before the latest attacks on disabled people's benefits?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
we started to make plans for it at the time that the Labour Government, as it is now, first started to talk about visiting the potential of making cuts to the benefit system. So that was around about what I don't know 12/18, months ago. So that was one of the reasons we kind of started to plan it and put in our applications and all that kind of thing, to try and use it as a way of promoting conversation and awareness of the situation. For some of the dates on this tour, we've teamed up with Diverse City and Extraordinary Bodies based down in Bristol, and we've kind of hosted a couple of Q and A's with them to speak directly about, you know, the impact of changes to access to work and the impact that benefit system has on disabled artists. So we had two a Q and A in Plymouth after our performances there, and we just had one last week in Bristol that was specifically about that.
Joe Turnbull
And what was the, what was the reception to those like? Was there a lot of interest in that?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
For both we had a good portion of the audience that would stay behind the show to listen to that and ask questions afterwards, and the feedback we got, you know that it really opened up things for people who didn't necessarily have that awareness or knowledge at all of these situations and the impact it's having, specifically on artists. So, I think in that sense, you know, it's a small-scale studio touring production, so we're only reaching so many people, but even if we're kind of raising awareness and impacting a small number, it's still hopefully in some way helping out there.
Joe Turnbull
No, yeah, but it's just interesting that if you know a sort of, I don't want to say general, but a more general theatre going audience might stay behind to hear about that, I think is actually really interesting. I mean, so you know, because the impact is so big and the potential impact, and because it's so dysfunctional at the minute, all of our access to work related content is actually hugely popular, and there's a massive demand from it, certainly from the disabled community and within The Arts. I think there is a growing recognition about how big an impact, you know, the loss of access to work would be on I mean, we don't know what it will be, but certainly the impact would be massive. If there's, there's major changes that do eventually end up coming through. Is a, you know, in that 10-year stretch since it first started? Are there any sort of broader things that you think you sort of observed have changed for disabled people, whether in the arts, or wider than that?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
things have, absolutely, in 10 years changed. I feel like, you know, when we first started touring in 2016 things like Ramps on the Moon really had only just kind of kicked off. In general, there's more interest from venues and theatres for this type of work now than maybe there was originally back in 2015/16. And that's got to be beneficial, I think, for disabled artists, but also attitudes within the funders, within Arts Councils, England and Wales. You know that I think in 2016 you couldn't even apply additionally for access artist access costs as part of your applications, and that has been a massive change for us as well, in terms of how we're able to support our artists in work and on tour, and kind of circumnavigate, in some ways, the access to work processes on some projects, and for it not to have an impact on our budgets. Because I think one of our arguments back then was that as a company producing the work with the arts that we co create with, you know, there's a 15/20% additional cost to any project that we're managing. And that not necessarily being fair when you look at other companies that don't kind of have the same, I guess, diversity in terms of how they work and cast and make their work. So being able to separate that out in applications now is for an organization like us is a huge difference, and I think has a positive step that wasn't there 10 years ago. What's becoming worse? I think everything just is tighter now. There's less. Just seems economically, we're in a really tricky moment. Politically, we're in a really tricky moment. And I think all of that filters down to reducing opportunity for artists and disabled artists, kind of specifically, which is why we, you know, we're talking about the changes to access to work and all that kind of thing. It's all part of that.
Joe Turnbull
What about the work that's being made, particularly sort of with learning disabled artists, collaborators, or as even sort of creative leads on things? Do you think that that? Do you think there's been a step change in that? Have you noticed? I mean, I don't know how much I presume you must like see shows by other companies, a fair bit and stuff, or at least have an awareness of. Do you think there's Yeah, do you think there's been anything there that's been that sort of piqued your interest I suppose?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
I'd say yes, there's certainly more. I mentioned the Unity Festival, which, which we run earlier, we kind of introduced that in 2008 and at that time, you know, there was very little opportunity for companies like ourselves to perform in kind of theatres that maybe don't like the term mainstream, but theatres that, you know, have stages like the Wales Millennium Centre, which is where we host the festival. You know, it would have been, it's very difficult without an event like in a festival, to get access to those sorts of spaces at that time. I look around now, and actually there are, more commonly part of theatres and venues, programs work that is certainly representative and of learning disability and or autism. I mean, the play, the perfect play for Rachel That's just touring at the moment, is one example of that, you know, and picking up great reviews. And I would love to have that at a festival like ours, at Unity festival, but it's now, it's completely out of our range of what we can bring in because of the scale of it, you know, which is great, because actually, that sort of ambition, I'm not sure it was there, you know, 10 years ago that you'd see it, that you'd see a show like that performing on the stages that that shows performing on.
Joe Turnbull
We had Zoo Co on the podcast not, not too long ago, actually. So, yeah, it's good. It's good to see some of that sort of starting to come through. If you had sort of one key message or thing you've learned from the whole run of Meet Fred, and it could be from the sort of research or devising process, or it could be from the touring it, or anything like that. If there was one thing you kind of share with listeners, can you think what it would be?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
make sure if you're going on a tour like the sort of touring that we've been doing. This show for 10 years that you bring with you your own bottle of hot sauce.
Joe Turnbull
Okay?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Tourbasco, I would call it.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
helps to kind of just reduce a bit of blandness from some of the premier inn breakfast you might be having along the way. One question I get is, like often is, you know, how do you even get to the point that, because this particular tour, I think we're going to 35 venues, there's 67 shows or something across those 35 venues, and it's January to end of April or mid-April. So, it's quite an extensive kind of tour. So, I often get asked, you know, how do you even, like, get a tour like that in place? How do you get it booked? Because that’s a lot of people to talk to, and in terms of trying to put a piece like this on the road, you have to be really tenacious in terms of, when you're talking to venues, to kind of get everything booked in. So, anyone out there, I guess, who's trying to stage their own work and put it out there in the world, don't give up. Just keep banging on at people because they won't reply to emails. Everyone's very busy, and don't expect to reply straight away. But don't be shy about just keep nudging, and keep nudging and keep nudging, and eventually people will get back. And don't be afraid to pick up the phone if you're not getting an answer, even if it means just leaving an answer phone message.
In general, if someone hears an answer, a message and hears your voice, they'll reply, even if it's a no, and sometimes it's useful just to hear a no, so you could stop bashing on, banging on about it to them,
Joe Turnbull
A no is better than no response, right? That's what I always say, in the in the pitching journalism world,
Ben Pettitt-Wade
be determined. And I think we've always had that kind of determination, although, in general, with this show, we've been very lucky, and we haven't had to sell it that much outside the UK. So, we just rely on enquiries coming in without having to push it. It's only when we're touring the UK we really have to kind of push it and get on the phones to people.
Joe Turnbull
That's slightly damning in its own way, isn't it? Oh, dear, yes. I mean, there's something quite nice about the fact, going right back to the devising and the initial inception of the show, that just getting people together in a room and playing around with a particular medium and something come, you know, an idea presents itself, is quite a nice sort of Learning. It can be okay to just go in with no agenda sometimes, right? And see, you see where it goes?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
trust that something's going to come. And that is the way we tend to kind of approach most of our projects. So that we don't tend to start with an idea. It tends to be starting with the people in the room and seeing what comes from that often exploring a particular genre or style or route into it. Yeah,
Joe Turnbull
that's quite interesting, actually. Yeah, that is, that's almost become a method that it's, you know, yeah, you're kind of working with what you've got in the room, and not bringing outside too much, outside ideas, preconceptions of what, what it might be.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Yes,
Joe Turnbull
it's very particular way of working, isn't it?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
I think so. I mean, it's not writer led, I guess we, you know, I have done productions that have with the writer, and that's, that's great, and that's been a great experience. But we try to kind of just, I guess my see my role as a director and divisor is about collecting collectively what a group of people in a space want, want to make, and what their what the ideas are that are coming through that so often, I don't find it useful to kind of have these kind of sessions where we actually just sat trying to think of ideas. It's more about exploring a process and an approach to making a piece of work which then bleeds into the ideas. We're very lucky in some ways, because of how we're set up with our training. So, we're able to use our training as a way to work with our artists. But then we have an ensemble as well that sits now separate from our art, from our training, which includes some of our artists who are still in training, but then they're paid separately to really kind of work with us on R and D towards the delivery of our productions. So, there's a kind of dual process, both within training and then now separately, within these R and D specific weeks where we focus on a production.
Joe Turnbull
Do want to say any more about that?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Yeah, I mean, it's something we introduced, so we're now in the second year of that happening. But I think it was an acknowledgement that it's great to be able to explore with our artists as part of their training. Our productions, but actually what we want to be able to do is also pay them for that knowledge and time and expertise and have a really focused group of artists that are able to consider, I guess, some of the wider ramifications of what it is to produce a production as well. We speak about, you know, what it means to make an application for a production, what it means to book a tour, what it means to make a piece of work for a particular audience that we're trying to create something for. So, it's having a wider understanding of theatre making.
Joe Turnbull
Does that mean that any, any of your artists who do perform in a sort of finished production would have been through the training process. Is that correct?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Pretty much all, yeah,
Joe Turnbull
yeah. And so, everyone's sort of starting on a similar at least, means everyone's got the same sort of grounding, which is a which is a good place to be, isn't it?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
It's the That's exactly it. The academies were set up in recognition that for our artists, it isn't really a reality that they would go to drama school or to university and study in that way, in a very traditional kind of form. And so, it was very much a way to be able to train them to know what the expectations would be then if they when they came into our rehearsal spaces or found work outside of Hijinx as well. So, it's very much kind of preparation so that they are able to enter those spaces on an equal footing to someone who might have had the opportunity to go to college or university or drama school
Joe Turnbull
that's really interesting. And does that training within the academy settings? Does that include, is it? Is it mostly? Is it focused purely or not on-stage skills? Or is there any off stage, you know, that kind of thing to it as well, or?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
it's mostly on stage. Yeah, it's mostly performance skills at present. I think what we struggle with, you know, there is some interest amongst our artists in terms of learning backstage, for example, skills, we do some screen acting training as well as part of that. But in terms of the backstage areas, it's difficult for us because we don't own or manage our own building.
I think the ambition would be to be able to provide that type of opportunity, but it never really worked out for us because of not having that control. I think if we had, if there was our own building, and certainly you know that hopefully one day that might be a reality, you never know, but that would allow us to be able to provide that opportunity as well. Yeah,
Joe Turnbull
I know that birds of paradise in up in Scotland are currently sort of at the start of a new program of work which is all focused on backstage and, yeah, those kinds of skills. So, it'd be interesting to see kind of what emerges from that, really, and whether there's a model that can be taken from there, and hopefully it creates a sort of pipeline for those, for those kinds of roles, for disabled people to do those sorts of roles.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Absolutely.
Joe Turnbull
Yeah. Do you think Fred is ever going to collect his state pension, or is he just on the treadmill of benefits, hell, forever?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Is he on the treadmill of benefits forever? It's a difficult question to answer is kind of existential, isn't it? Because he doesn't, he only exists for the purposes of the show. So, in some ways, probably yes, because at the show, you know, it has this kind of secular structure in that he starts the very start of the show. He's kind of taken from his box and laid out on a on the on a flight case, which is his little stage, I guess. And then at the end of the show, he he's kind of dropped in the box quite unceremoniously. And in that, you know, that is his life cycle, if you like. And each and each show, he wakes up again and he has no memory of the previous show.
Joe Turnbull
Okay,
Ben Pettitt-Wade
so, it's kind of it. He's in a complete nightmare Groundhog Day type situation, so he would really have to break out of the show to kind of to get even to experience that.
Joe Turnbull
It was a bit of a facetious question. It was partly a will the show tour forever and ever and ever? But also, I suppose it would be interesting if, if Fred as a character, might ever step outside of the vehicle of Meet Fred, seeing as he's been such a staple for Hijinx. I don't know, I'm just, yeah, those, I'll put those two to you.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
He does occasionally. You know, he's very useful as a character, sometimes for social media type content and bits of videos and stuff. We've had some fun over the years creating some of that with Fred, and it gives that extra Material, if you like, outside of the actual performance, which is nice, but I don't know what retirement would for Fred would look like. I mean, in honesty, if the show goes on much longer, he's simply going to disintegrate physically, in all likelihood, unfortunately, because he's pretty threadbare now, but somehow, he's still managing to, yeah, just about keep it together.
Joe Turnbull
He could always join your board of trustees.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
My God, I would never that would be awful. I'd be gone. I mean, he hates the show. He just hates it. He's the one person who doesn't enjoy any of this travel and getting to go and visit lovely places, so I think if he was to join the board, that would be my days numbered.
Joe Turnbull
Fair enough. Yeah, I wondered if you wanted to say any more about any other projects that you're working on, at Hijinx or, or, more broadly, outside of, outside of the Meet Fred tour. If there's other stuff you've got on the horizon that you'd like to, like to preface or talk about,
Ben Pettitt-Wade
just very busy a lot of the time, it seems. So, we've got, we've just preparing for our Hijinx unity Festival. It's going to be taking place in June, July. So, we've got a couple of satellite events. We do kind of a day event in Llanelli on the 25th of June, and then a day in north Wales at Theatre Clwyd on the 27th of June. And then we have a week of events down here in Cardiff at the Wales Millennium centre and Chapter Arts Centre from the 1st to 5th of July. So that's a kind of as a studio program that takes place at Western studio at Wales Millennium Centre. And then we have a kind of big program of outdoor and free street performance over the weekend of the fourth and fifth of July, again around the Millennium Centre. But it's an international program. So, there's a lot of artists, disabled artists, but inclusive theatre companies and dance companies as well from across Europe.
Joe Turnbull
And do you know who they are going to be yet?
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Just about so it's people like Tanzbar Bremen, who are a company from Germany, fantastic dance company. They're bringing a couple of pieces for the outdoor program. Collettivo Clochart, who are an Italian company, Blaumeier-Atelier again from Germany, Theater Thikwa, quite a big German program this year, who are from Berlin, Danza Mobile from Sevilla, oh and a fantastic piece by Belgian circus company called ADM, À 2 mètres is the name of the piece, and that's a kind of two hander on it with a Chinese pole, yeah. So, it's kind of variety of theatre, street theatre, circus, music.
Joe Turnbull
Get your train in hotels for Cardiff booked for then listeners. To my shame, I've never been. I've read and heard about the festival quite a lot, extensively in my, funnily enough, 10 years, I've been at Disability Arts Online now as well, but I've never been to my shame. So maybe this is the year.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
That would be great. That'd be great. We'd love to have you. We do have, like, an artist exchange event that's on the Friday, the third of July. That's kind of which we're running in collaboration with Cultural Bridge, who fund connections between UK and Germany. What's interesting with the festival is that what that is one as an organization, that's one of the ways in which we've managed to grow internationally as well, external to Fred happening. But Fred kind of went hand in hand with it, because it brought us into contact with a lot of different companies like our own, making similar sort of work across Europe, which then led us to traveling to visit festivals that some of them were running, and now we have this kind of network, if you like of likeminded organizations with similar ethos’s, that we kind of see each other quite a bit across the festival circuit over the summer without being part of that.
Joe Turnbull
Yeah, it's good to have an International Circuit like that. Is,
Ben Pettitt-Wade
yeah,
Joe Turnbull
yeah. So valuable. Well, Ben, thanks so much for your time today. It's been great to have you on and to hear more. Yeah, it's a shame we couldn't hear from Fred, I suppose.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
But he's off, where is he today? He's in Brecon, I think, today. So, he'll be in his box in the back of a van somewhere I expect, at the moment,
Joe Turnbull
I thought you might have said he's on annual leave. He's taking some time out, or maybe something more nefarious. knowing Fred, probably right.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
I mean, if he was left up to his own devices, I'm sure. Yeah.
Joe Turnbull
Well, on that bombshell, Ben Pettitt-Wade, yeah, it was great to have you on the show. And yeah, thanks for joining us, and all of you, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.
Ben Pettitt-Wade
Thanks Joe. Take care.
Outro
Thank you for listening. We do hope you've enjoyed this episode of Disability and... further episodes of Disability and... can be found through the Disability Arts Online website at disabilityarts.online