Murder, abuse, and romance – the Drama of LUDS

The Tab bumped into drama big shots Martin Poile and Rio Matchett (AKA the Liverpool University Drama Society Presidents) last Wednesday in the Saro Wiwa. We managed to catch an exclusive interview, and they revealed all about LUDS movements this year.

The Tab: Martin, tell us a bit about Macbeth and Resounding Tinkle

Pic: andrewab.com

Martin Poile: Macbeth is the classic Shakespearean tragedy, the fall from grace of a once honourable man. The director is Madeleine Smart. She’s got some new ideas about how to bring it up to date for a different audience. For example, instead of three witches they’re having one witch and Banquo is going to be a woman. And then Resounding Tinkle is an absurdist farce Directed by Rachael Stoward and written by N.F. Simpson. It’s going to be very different from anything we have ever seen, I think.

The Tab: Rio, can you tell us about the play you’re doing called Fanny and Faggot? It sounds interesting, to say the least.

Rio Matchett: I’m directing a play called Fanny and Faggot, which was written by Jack Thorne, he’s a fairly new playwright; he’s worked on TV series like Skins and Shameless, things that have had a lot of commercial success. It’s based on the true story of two girls in the 60s, Mary and Norma Bell that brutally murdered and abused a toddler. It’s quite a heavy play but it’s charting what happened and how it affected the lives of everyone involved. It’s very psychological and I am so excited to work on it, I think it’s going to be a powerful piece of theatre.

The Tab: Doing such a serious dark piece, is there much scope for humour?

Rio: I think especially in such a dark play such as Fanny and Faggot you need to highlight the humour. When the two little girls playing together copy some soldiers they meet, there is a lot of humour in that. It’s important to keep that light and dark balance for the audience.

The Tab: Tell us about the first play of the semester, Still Life. 

Rio: Still Life is a play by Noel Coward directed by Lauren Steele who is a drama school graduate so we’re very excited to see what she has in store. It is the play that the film Brief Encounter is based on, it’s a very traditional straight up play, lots of received pronunciation. A beautiful love story, and again I think that is something people are going to really enjoy and get swept up in that old fashioned black and white romance.

The Tab: Ok guys that’s great! Thanks for chatting!

LUDS is one of the biggest societies in the Guild, and possibly one of the most active. In the words of actress and English student Iona Campbell (starring in Still Life this semester) “You should come see the plays because they are performed by top quality actors who are also fellow students”.

Still Life is on from the 7-9 of November.