Danielle:

Today, I am super happy to have Kevin Tomlinson with me, who is a theatre maker and co-founder of Kepow Theatre Company. I first came to Kevin’s work through taking a couple of his really super fun and practical workshops, and also seeing live improv Kepow shows, which are a true delight. But Kevin, that was quite a while ago, and you are a very creative, very productive person. So what else would you like people to know about you and your work as it relates to comedy?

Kevin Tomlinson:

Gosh, I suppose I fell into comedy by accident because like a lot of people, I like doing straight acting as well, but nine times out of 10 when I was on stage just acting in straight plays, people would end up laughing….which isn’t great if you’re doing Hamlet or something. Not that I ever got to play Hamlet, but at school I often got cast in the funny roles, not through any… just because people find me funny. I suppose it’s because I’m short. I got bullied a lot at school and so you learn to be a bit goofy to kind of try and avoid getting punched. And so yeah, I kind of fell into it by accident really. But also it’s immense fun isn’t it to hear the audience laugh. You get the instant gratification.

But in recent years I’ve sort of spent 50% of the time doing non-comic work. So I’ve just finished this very dark psychological thriller in London directing it and appearing in that. And I was getting a thrill from… how quiet can you make the audience? Can you create work that’s so good that nobody wants to move or rustle? And I was getting a real thrill and kick from that, which was nice. But I’m so ready to go back to comedy after a month of that because it is lovely to just hear people laughing and just giving them a good time, especially in these crazy times with Ukraine, Russia and… post lockdown, I’m still feeling the effects of that, even though it’s been a while now since the lockdown.

I still feel many people are suffering from slight post-traumatic stress from it. We were so bombarded with hideous death counts every day and images and reports coming out now that the government were worried that we were being too blasé in this country and lots of internal memos between government officials and saying people are… not taking this seriously enough, we’ve got to emotionally get them more emotionally engaged by basically scaring them into lockdown. And so I think they did a bit of overkill with the bombarding of images and messages. And I do worry about the mental health of everyone. I was gonna say the young people of today, but everyone, what effect that had on us. And so I want to create theatre that combats the sense of loneliness or fear that was induced by lockdown. So yeah…blimey this has gone very heavy very quickly.

Danielle:

Well, the thing is, on this show, people who’ve listened to it before will know that, although there’s a lens on comedy, I particularly love comedy that draws in so many more emotions. And lots of people who have been on the show are interested in the whole spectrum, but comedy plays a part in that, rather than something that’s just all about the gags. So I love that. And for example, your Seven Ages show, I think is super interesting for the way that it brings in….the scope of a life. Again, we’re getting really big and heavy straight away, but it’s also so fun. So when I’ve seen clips of it online, obviously the cameras pointed at you on the stage, but the audience is laughing uproariously and yet there’s also really incredibly poignant scenes. So I wonder actually, if you wouldn’t mind, talking a little bit about that show and the role that improv played in it.

Kevin Tomlinson:

Yeah, absolutely. Those clips on YouTube are funny because they’re from like nine or 10 years ago now. But some people actually said to me, oh, you’ve got canned laughter because nobody laughs that loudly. I’m like, no, genuinely we have not enhanced the laughter at all. It can induce a big laughs, but we’re not always trying to make them laugh because the show is two hours long and it looks at the seven ages of life, starting with a baby and all the way through to me playing an old man at the end.

And I have a range of masks to help me play different characters at different stages of life. And it’s based on that Shakespeare idea of the seven ages. And yeah, towards the end of the second half, I try to go for pathos as well as humour and really explore, you know, the fragility of life and how lucky we are to be alive and what are we passing on to our future generations and really get people to think about bigger questions. Because I think…. It’s great just to make people laugh for the sake of laughing and that’s really therapeutic but I love it when you can somehow make the world a slightly better place… not just through making people happy in the room there and then and the chemicals that induces in the sense of togetherness….that’s valid in itself, but I also like the idea of just maybe making people think about society and how we interact with each other and how we can be slightly better human beings. And I say that for myself as much as anyone else… you know all made huge mistakes… I know I have throughout my life, and all you can do is try and strive to be a little bit better than you were previously… or at least that’s my goal. But anyway yes the Seven Ages is a celebration of life. I want it to first of all be fundamentally enjoyable for everyone and then secondly make them think and maybe make the world a better place.

Big noble goal… and some people say that’s just ridiculous, you can’t do that with theatre… but it’s good to have ideals, good to strive towards that. Yeah, it came about, I used to work in scripted theatre when I first left, I did a drama degree at Hull University and I wrote some plays and I was a playwright and I won a writing… the Sunday Times Playwright Award. And so I went down the writing route and I got a job as a writer in residence at the Theatre Royal in Northampton for a year and a half. And I was writing plays for them. And some of it was going around schools, theatre and education and what have you. And then I worked with Keith Johnstone. Just because I was working as an actor as well as a writer, I got my equity card at the rep in Northampton. So I was working as an actor and writer in traditional theatre… I thought I’ll do some training with Keith Johnstone because I’ve read his book and thought it was great. And he wrote this great book called Impro. I also trained with Philippe Gaulier and Desmond

Jones and all that physical theatre. And I’d worked with Trestle and John Wright at Middlesex at the acting course at Middlesex, John Wright. So I’ve done the physical theatre, but anyway, Keith Johnston, I was really interested in that. And I thought, oh, it’ll make me a better actor and writer. And then I went to Canada and trained with him and saw his company get up on stage with no script. And they improvised the whole show for two hours. I was just blown away. And it was incredibly funny and moving. And they didn’t swear and they weren’t rude. And I’d only really seen British Impro, which tended to be a little bit on the rude side, and scatological. And they were telling really good stories that were really funny. And so I was like, I want to do that. And I tried and joined in and I was rubbish. And so I was like, okay, now I’ve got a goal to try and get good at what they’re doing.

And it’s really funny, because at the time I was about 26, 27, and I could see these 18, 19, 20 year olds, 21 year olds, who’d been training with Keith since they were 13. And they were amazing. And I actually thought… oh, I’ve missed the boat. I’m too old….I should have started when I was a teenager…which is ridiculous now that I’m 50. And I look back and I’m like, oh, what was it? So anyway, I came back to England and had my theatre company Kepow and we were scheduled to do a scripted play. And I wrote to the Arts Council and said, can I make 50% of it improvised? And the Arts Council said, yes, you can change the remit. Amazingly.

So instead of doing a fully scripted play, I did a 50% scripted and took it to Edinburgh and it did well. And off the back of that, a producer in New Zealand saw it and said, do you want to tour New Zealand? I’ll pay your flight and accommodation and a fee, but I’ll take all the ticket sales. And I was like, well, if I’m getting the flight and accommodation and a fee, then yeah, go for it. So I toured around New Zealand for a month performing. And then it just took off from there back in the UK. I just started touring around the UK and then other countries invited me out. And that was in 2003, I think, so 20 years ago.

So yeah. So it took me three years to get going from the age of 27 training with Keith to finally creating my own show and then it going to Edinburgh a couple of years in a row actually. Yeah, so the last 20 years I’ve been mostly doing improvised comedy.

But then the last four or five years I’ve been drifting back more into traditional theatre and scripted theatre. But then it’s quite fun to… because my wife runs a theatre company that does straight theatre…scripted very dark… and then my company does comedy. So I employ her to do the comedy shows with me and then she employs me to direct and act in her very dark psychological thrillers. It’s actually kind of like yin and yang. It’s quite healthy psychologically, emotionally, I think, for both of us.

Danielle:

I love it. What a perfect marriage. Yeah, that is brilliant.

Kevin Tomlinson:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Danielle:

Love it. And this is not an easy question because obviously we progress in stages and sometimes it’s hard to see what those things are. But when you try and think back to you, who was that person who was in Keith’s workshop and you were saying that you felt a bit rubbish… what were some of the pieces that you think you were missing at the time that you just couldn’t have known?

Kevin Tomlinson:

I think the main thing was the comedy or the improv I’d done in the UK was very much just high octane, high energy, be fast, don’t censor, just say the first thing that comes into your head. It doesn’t matter how rude or naughty or wacky, just do anything to get a laugh, like a sugar hit. And then Keith said, slow down, calm down, don’t be afraid of being boring. Just be ordinary, be average, think of the story arc, try and lure the audience into a stable world before you rock it. And so it took a long time for me to just calm down and not feel this like… if they’re not laughing every five seconds, I’m rubbish or failing and going… it’s fine if they don’t laugh for several minutes, as long as you’re getting them involved emotionally or intellectually or psychologically into the characters in the situation and they’re investing in it, then actually there might be some really huge laughs down the line if you get them drawn into your world. And to have the… that the silence isn’t that the audience are bored, it’s just they’re interested and you’ve not really done anything particularly funny yet… but that you can down the line make it funny.

So that was the hugest and it took time. It wasn’t easy. I’d constantly try and panic and hit the panic button and drop the f-bomb or go rude…anything just to get a quick laugh. And Keith constantly was like slapping my wrist and…yeah so it took a while. I didn’t get it to begin with because in Canada it’s brilliant they have these three judges sitting in the front row in black robes and wigs. There’s just three actors that they rotate… the actors rotate every show so once in a while you end up playing the judge…. and they sit there with bicycle horns on a string and if you do something rude or gross on stage they honk the bicycle horn and you have to leave the stage.

And so I dropped the f-bomb and I got honked and the audience laughed. But I had to exit the stage and I was like… but they’re laughing, why are you getting rid of me? Surely I’m succeeding at comedy and impro. And then I got up on stage again, the next scene, and I F bombed and I had to leave the scene halfway through and it was frustrating, I didn’t get it. Until I watched the Canadians be funnier than me without the need to F bomb and I was like, okay, how are they doing that? How are they staying so calm and not resorting to… low common denominator ways of jerking a laugh out of the audience. They’re doing it through character, they’re doing it through narrative choices, they’re doing it through great use of language. It was a real eye-opener. It reduced my ego back to pfft. I thought it was quite good until I went there and I was like, oh no.

Danielle:

Yeah. Oh, but I love it and that you stuck with it. And that was one of the reasons that I enjoyed the workshops that I took with you as well, because I’m very interested in story and character and world and narrative. And also, I started in theatre and devising and I don’t just… it’s not my taste…. I don’t respond to the quick gags as an audience member or a performer. Some people love them, amazing. I don’t. I like character story, development, pacing, all the things you’ve mentioned.

And I remember even at the time you diagramming out structures that you were experimenting with. And I was like, oh, I’ve never seen anyone do this in improv. It’s not, you’re not just setting up a game and playing it. You’re like, you actually, to my mind on the whiteboard, were drawing out what I now see as story arcs and different structures. And I really remember that about those workshops. I think it’s super interesting.

Kevin Tomlinson:

That was a long time ago, wasn’t it? But I remember that. Yeah, I was in rehearsals with a great actor called Chris John and Alec Blythe, who’s now at the National Theatre doing verbatim theatre, and Sophie Russell, who’s now at The Globe doing Shakespeare. So that was quite a room to be in, just the four of us playing around in rehearsals and learning and trying stuff out. And yeah, we created a vocabulary of… oh, you can structure different scenes in different ways. So you can start normal and then something positive happens and it gets better and better, and we’d call that a rocket. Or you could start a scene normally and something bad happens and it gets worse and worse and we’d call that a slide. And then…we came up with a whole range of other ones so that we’d walk on stage and so that different scenes would have different structures.

Otherwise, every scene is mostly…the trap to fall into which Keith taught me was most people go for instant conflict and then just try to make it as mad or as wacky or as conflict based as possible. And every… If you’re trying to do a two-hour show, that gets really boring. If you’re doing eight or nine or ten scenes and they’ve all got exactly the same structure. It gets really repetitive after a while. So that’s why we came up with the different structures to keep an audience interested because our shows are quite episodic. We tend to do eight disconnected, seven or eight disconnected stories. So we need to give them different structures and rhythms.

A bit like a variety show, you know, like the old, I suppose Britain’s Got Talent works on the same principle of… you have a dance show, it’s followed by a solo singer, followed by acrobats and it keeps you interested in the variety. So my company is trying to do that within the format of improvising theatre.

Danielle:

I love that. And you’ve mentioned Keith Johnstone. Are there any other comedy creators or resources or inputs that you’ve had that you feel have really been pivotal to your development? As you’ve had such an amazing career.

Kevin Tomlinson:

Wow, thank you, it’s so kind of you. I loved, when I was little, I loved like Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. Buster Keaton slightly later…couldn’t get enough of them. Just learned tons by watching them. And then when I started doing it at drama school, John Wright at Middlesex University was brilliant at teaching me how to free up and be very creative. That was so useful training with him. I followed him. I was his assistant for about two, three years and I sort of travelled around the world with him being his assistant working on different projects. So he was very useful, beneficial. Obviously Keith, massive. And then I just read a lot. So I remember reading Ken Dodd’s autobiography and just watching… I loved it even when I was growing up. Even Hi-de-hi! Allo Allo. Dad’s Army. I loved all that. I’m learning all the time and watching. And then going to the theatre, I’m watching Alan Ayckbourn in the 90s. And then obviously more up-to-date, Ricky Gervais in the early 2000s.

And then there was a time when I was going to the Edinburgh Festival every year, performing, and I would just use every spare hour to go watch other people perform and just admire different people’s skills and then try and learn. And also…if things aren’t working go… why are they… why is that not connecting with me or the people around me, and trying to analyse it? That’s what Keith was really good at, is really helping anyone who worked with him analyse it. And he gave us a vocabulary as well of… oh, it’s because they sidetracked or they cancelled, or oh, that’s funny because they reincorporated or called something back, or oh, that’s because it’s a taboo topic…oh, they wimped, so that’s not very funny. Oh, they were really specific, so that was funny. And just different words like wimp, bridge, hedge, all this terminology he comes up with, which people can read in Keith Johnstone’s books about improv and improv for storytellers. I always recommend those two books are pretty much above any other book on creativity and comedy. And then there’s Truth in Comedy by Del Close.

Danielle:

I don’t know that one.

Kevin Tomlinson:

Yeah, Truth in Comedy, Del Close, he set up… in America…a format called the Harold which is very big in America. The sad thing is in the impro world you get people that say… oh I’m a Keith Johnstonian or I’m a Del Close and then they almost like… it’s almost like religions isn’t it and then you get The People’s Front of Judea,  the all the rest of you know the way the Monty Python ridiculed how religions just fracture and fracture and fracture. And this is something that’s starting to happen in the impro world a bit. There’s these little cliques and it’s silly really because we’re all just trying to be creative.

Danielle:

Yeah, and I… personally, my own learning philosophy is to learn from everything possible. That’s how with this podcast, it’s anyone who’s making comedy in any form, whether it’s to do with memoir or linguistics or film or life theatre… because there’s so much to be learned, I think, from other forms. And I don’t particularly like things when they really, I mean, it can be useful to have a philosophy. Like where I trained… you trained at Gaullier. I trained at Lecoq, and people would joke that they were kind of rivals, because they were both in France. It’s like, that’s just silly. They’re both brilliant people forming schools and there’s so much to be learned from everyone. So I love that you have that approach where you just watch and learn from everyone.

Kevin Tomlinson:

I remember John Wright saying…yeah, you can go to one school and just do Meisner or just do Gaulier. But I remember John Wright saying, it’s better to have a patchwork quilt of training. And I’m a big fan of just borrowing different schools of thought.

Danielle:

Yeah, that makes sense. And that’s great what you’re saying about their language that’s around analysis. So I did want to ask you about feedback because you also have this perspective of being a dramaturg and a director as well. What have you learned about giving feedback for watching other people’s work, for when it’s working, when it’s not working. Because it’s a whole skillset in itself and it can be really hard to do effectively.

Kevin Tomlinson:

Gosh, that’s quite a deep question.

Danielle:

I know.

Kevin Tomlinson:

One thing Keith taught me is, don’t over dwell on the negatives because if something’s

not working, it will drop away anyway. So focus on the positives. Sometimes with comedy, definitely I’ve learned that if something’s working, try not to point it out to the actors or analyze

it or go, oh, it’s funny because of this or it’s really good when you do that. That’s almost, I found, guaranteed to mess them up because then they step outside themselves or they become aware or they try and then fix it and horror. Yeah so if something’s going well I try not to even mention it

because I just want them to just keep doing what they’re doing.

If I’m directing a show 90 percent of my notes tend to be constructive criticism…but then you have to be aware that actors… we’re all deeply in need of support and encouragement and confidence as well. So it’s the classic thing isn’t it? I have to remember that I think the phrase ‘a shit sandwich’ can be quite useful. So start off with giving notes after a show, point out some positive things… then they go okay the director’s happy, I did a good job. Then say even better if maybe this or maybe that and then to not leave them with a crappy feeling end with something positive as well. So positive negative positive.

I tend to do that in workshops as well when I’m teaching, positive and negative, because then people are more open to the negative criticism or the constructive criticism in the middle if you’ve pointed out some good things either side of that. People’s confidence and egos are quite naturally fragile. I mean, I have such huge admiration for anyone who gets up in a workshop, let alone in front of a paying audience. And maybe that’s because I still perform as well. I know what it’s like, so. I’m very aware that acting is a lot about confidence and comedy is a lot about confidence. So I don’t want to do anything that’s going to damage that and undermine the people I’m trying to help.

Danielle:

Not everyone has that approach. Some people definitely..of the people I trained with… feel like the opposite, but I’m more on your side.

Kevin Tomlinson:

When I trained with Gaulier, I mean, I must admit, I did find him funny. And he was brutal. I mean, he very rarely praised. And regularly, people would end up crying in his lessons. And normally on any course, I mean, I did about a year’s training with him. But he did them in modules. So he did like neutral mask, and then clown, and play, and melodrama. Every course, two or three people dropped out, having cried several days in a row. But then whenever he was rude about me…maybe it’s because I’ve done a lot of sport, a lot of rugby and football and cricket. So I’ve been used to sports coaches in the 80s and 90s being quite brutal and you know like the Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest manager quite direct. Just if you’re rubbish, you’re told you’re rubbish.

So it didn’t bother me that he was quite rude. Was he rude or was he just being really honest and wasn’t sugarcoating it? I just think it’s a gift. And I mean, it’s an offer. He’s offering you, if he’s telling you you’re rubbish, then at least he’s honest. And then hopefully you can get… and I think he’s trying to destroy any ego and he’s trying to make you vulnerable…. And he’s trying to, yeah, so didn’t bother me. But I’m not a huge fan of the old drama school philosophy of knock them down and destroy them and then build them up again. That kind of old school drama acting training, I’m not a big fan of either. I think that’s bit outdated now and I’ve seen a lot of actors come out of drama school and they’re just damaged by it because they tend not to be rebuilt in time for when they graduate and so that’s not too clever either.

Danielle:

No, no, I, I agree. And I’m just all for the more people being able to do things that they enjoy creatively, the better. So I don’t really like any snobbery around things. Like you say, if people are coming to training, they’re there because they want to get better. But in general, I’m just not a fan of shutting down people’s creativity. So it’s a balance.

Kevin Tomlinson:

And to give Gaulier credit, he said a lot of the time… he emphasised pleasure. You’ve got to be having fun on stage and you’ve got to be having fun with your fellow colleagues. And so often his bluntness was with a little twinkle in the eye as well. I think that sense of having pleasure in being creative is so important, isn’t it?Keith was a big fan of that as well. The more fun you’re having, the more that releases your creativity, I think, on average.

Danielle:

And are you able to bring that to your work when you’re writing as well? Because you said that you started in writing. What’s that process like for you compared to being in a room, working with others, up on your feet?

Kevin Tomlinson:

Writing is different, isn’t it? I mean. I used to really find writing hard. It was kind of like… I’m sure a lot of writers felt like this, just this strong urge to…I just had to write. But it was often like, sometimes it was fun, but sometimes it was like vomiting. Like you feel better afterwards, but it was quite hard at the time.

Then other times you get in a flow and you’re like…but then sometimes you’d read stuff back the next day and you’d be like, that’s rubbish. And so, and then lack of sleep, because sometimes I’d be writing at two, three in the morning, I’d got most of my ideas at night time so that’s not too clever in the long run because then you’re getting really tired as well. So I found writing torturous. And strangely… winning the Sunday Times Playwright Award when I was 19, then I put pressure on myself that everything had to be as good as what I’d just written. And I remember getting my first negative review having had loads of positive reviews and this lovely award going to Edinburgh and getting slaughtered and well and I remember sitting on a wall just crying. I’m crying, I’m crying. Yeah, being an artist, you put yourself on the line, don’t you, a lot. I

think that’s one thing that even a 50-year-old now, I think sometimes critics, you get a real range of critics. Some of them like Lynne Gardner or Libby Purves are wonderfully sensitive to, even when they’re giving a negative review, they’re very aware that you are a human being. And they

always…then you get some other critics naming none…. Oh, I’d love to name some….seem to be serving their ego, more than helping the reader, or being aware of the artist as a human being. You know, they’re more just trying to write some really scathing reviews of people and really quite nasty and vicious and you go… is that really the best way to go about being a theatre reviewer? Yeah. So you put your neck on the line, don’t you? There’s a poem about…In the arena. I don’t know if…do you know that… the arena one where…

Danielle:

Yeah, I don’t know who it’s by, but I’ve heard Brene Brown quote it. I think we’re talking about the same one, but to paraphrase it…it’s the person in the arena….who’s getting all the dust and the… I’m destroying the poem now…but all the dust and the muck and what they’re…they’re the ones…not the one who’s standing on the outside, just not in the fight.

Kevin Tomlinson:

Yes. On the outside standing like that…going, oh, you’re doing it wrong, you should do this, you should do that. That’s the easy…anyone can do that on the outside and just judge it. But yes, the people in the arena with the sweat and the dirt and the blood that are taking the risk, they’re the real heroes. Yeah, I think somebody’s accredited to Roosevelt, I think one time, but I’m not sure whether it was Roosevelt or not.

Danielle:

Oh, I’ll Google and we’ll find out. Amazing.

Kevin Tomlinson:

But whenever I get a bad review, I always go back and read that.

Danielle:

Yeah, yeah, it still hurts, doesn’t it?

So I’d love to ask you about physical theatre, physical comedy. You’ve mentioned, some of the performers that you used to watch when you were growing up and also the Gaulier trainings, really physical. What else do you think has helped you with that physicality because obviously there’s so many different kinds of training, but to be able to make the masks work in the way that you do, it does require a particular skill set. What’s helped you be a physical comedian, do you think?

Kevin Tomlinson:

I think it helped when I was younger that I’d done a lot of sport. So I did a hell of a lot of sport. I didn’t really want to be an actor in theatre. I just wanted to be a sportsman. So I loved cricket and rugby and golf and tennis and football. I did everything for my school and played American football for Great Britain under 19s. And went off to America and played for Great Britain under 19s against this team in Chicago. Yeah, it was amazing. It was brilliant. My local team in Northampton, we were British champions. And even though I was short, I was like five foot five. I was one of the shortest on the team, but I was the captain and I was, yeah, I got selected for the Great Britain team. It was immense fun. And then I fractured my spine in a game

Danielle:

Oof.

Kevin Tomlinson:

and nearly ended up like Christopher Reeve, you know, the guy that played Superman, paralyzed from the neck down. My doctor said I was really lucky if my head had been a bit lower, I would have totally severed everything and been in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. And after I got over the shock of that, and I had to stop playing. That’s when I really got into acting and theatre more and left the sport behind. But I think that, having done it for years, I think that gave me physical coordination and good balance. So that helped with masks and clowning.

And then John Wright was great. I learned a hell of a lot from him. I did so many of his workshops. And you know, he’d do like two days at a festival and I’d go up and stay in a B&B and do the two days with him. And then he’d do a week at the Battersea Arts Centre and I’d go and do that with him. And I just kind of followed him around like a puppy dog for quite a long time, a couple of years, just trying to do as many workshops with him as possible, as well as training with him at Middlesex. And… So he was a huge help. And then in the workshops, like watching other people, watching what works, watching what doesn’t work. And then in every workshop, writing down as many notes. I did a workshop with Clive Barker, the guy that wrote Theatre Games. You know, I did a week with him. Went to the Desmond Jones School of Mime and Physical Theatre for six months and trained with him. But I made sure that every lunchtime I wrote down everything as much as… as I can remember in the evening, because I knew that if I didn’t, I’d forget it in a day or two. And I think that helped.

I think the main things I realized early on were… work with really good people, and write down what you’re learning so that your learning curve is steeper, you get further quicker, and keep getting up, even though, you know, when they go, to volunteers….even when you’re really nervous, just get up and try it. Try not to get up too much and not to piss off the other people in the workshop. But don’t be too timid either because you’ve got to get up and fail and fail and then have a success and then fail again. And then so yeah, work with really good people, take lots of notes and then just keep getting up and taking risks and think over time and then really analyse and watch other people. Don’t be in a bubble. Don’t just sit there dwelling on what you did. But try and spot what they’re doing. What are they doing with their feet? What are they doing with their hands? Why was that funny? And practice at home sometimes.

Danielle:

I love that. And again, now you’ve mentioned the sports element as well, plus I can see this extreme openness to training and improving. It’s probably usual to you, but I don’t think everybody does… I think for some people it peaks at a certain level and then they still have their career in productions, but you’ve had so many different inputs. You could have just done the Gaulier and not done the Desmond Jones or whatever. So I think that’s really interesting.

And I’d love to know for where you are in your career right now, you’ve just had this really successful run. I’ve been seeing some of the reviews on Twitter, incredible reviews. As you look forward, do you know what you want to be doing next…and how far can you see into the future in terms of things that you’d still love to take on as challenges? You might be like, no, I just need a nap. I’m quite tired after this brilliant run.

Kevin Tomlinson:

If you’d have asked me three days ago, definitely. I just needed my bed for three days. I was exhausted, because I directed it and I was in it. I had a small part and I was producing it. It was full on. I mean, we’re doing eight shows a week. So, it’s funny because just before lockdown, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer and I didn’t know if it was gonna be terminal or not. So that was very scary. So I was rushed in for emergency surgery and they cut it out and they found out that it was luckily low grade. They got it early, hadn’t gone through the bladder wall into my lymph system and that I potentially could have many decades of life instead of two or three, which at one point it looked like it might be. So. I mean, there’s a 33% chance it will come back within five years. So I’m very aware that I’ve got a one in three chance. But then they said they’ll cut it out again. But that’s physically…taking its toll on me, this, you know, the operation and the chemo.

Plus, I broke my ankle, many years ago, and that didn’t heal. The operation went wrong when they operated on it, so they had to reoperate on it. And I’ve been left with a kind of reduced movement and continual pain in my ankle. So talking about physical comedy, that’s…. And then because of that I had to stop playing football, Sunday League football. And so then I put on weight. And so that’s… these have a big impact on my physical performance, especially physical theatre and comedy. So I can’t be as physically goofy and as wild.

So I’m trying to keep my weight down so that when I put different masks on, I can still transform and become different characters. Otherwise, all my characters are gonna be overweight, little round rotund characters. Do you know what I mean? Which is great, they can all be family members, but it’s not ideal. So I’m trying to keep my weight down, trying to get healthy, trying to eat better. But it’s made me think, oh, I need to focus more on verbal humor as well now, not just physical. So it’s, and also the health. scare and the recovery and the lockdown has just made me so grateful that I’m trying not to think too far ahead and I’m just grateful for anything and I’m just enjoying being alive and being creative.

Having said that, you know, my wife and I talk about different projects that we’ve got lined up… so we are writing a couple of new plays and I want to devise a brand new mask physical theatre show that I’ve started mulling over in. I got my masks out a couple of days ago after I’d had a big sleep. After our show ended on Saturday and got the masks out and started playing with them. It was so refreshing because I’ve been playing a complete psychopath in Abbie’s play that beats up his girlfriend. He’s a real horrible character so it’s so nice to put on these funny goofy masks and think about doing comedy again.

So yeah, I’m excited to create a new mask show but I’m aware it’s going to take time. I think that’s the main thing I’ve learned now as well is not to rush. To put stuff on in London especially because you can get savaged by the critics. And you’re up against like the Royal Court, the National Theatre, that these companies that have got immense resources and they can do weeks of R&D and then they can try it out in this space for this amount of time. And sometimes when they eventually get their shows on in front of the critics, they’ve been working on it for a year or two and really honed in.

So we haven’t got the financial resources or the space. So… but we still want to do quality work, not necessarily quantity. So we’ve got to just give ourselves permission to do more R&D and take our time. And so that when we put something in front of the audience, it’s worth their while and it’s worth their money and time, because I’m very aware that time and money is very precious in any country at any time, but even more in cost of living crisis. And so I want when people come to the theatre, I want it to be as meaningful and nourishing as possible. So. In order for that to happen, we’ve got to put the time and the effort in to make it as good as possible. I think in the past I’ve rushed a bit, so I’m going to take my time.

Danielle:

I think that sounds incredibly wise. I feel like we’ve come full circle from the micro slow down in the scene to the slow down in the bigger picture. Which…

Kevin Tomlinson:

Oh, you’re good. You’re very good. Yeah, I did that. It was deliberate.

Danielle:

I was like, ooh…very wise Kevin. But in all seriousness though, I just remember running a theatre company and the budgets, and it can be so frustrating sometimes. Like it can be really fun at first to make a show in a week, to make a show in three weeks, to make it in six. The exhilaration….and we pulled it off… and nearly had a nervous breakdown, but we’re okay. But there comes a point where it’s just like you say in terms of the quality that it can be quite frustrating. And as you say, when there are so many other people that can deploy more resources and have that developmental time, the same as, you know…We’re hearing about it from all different angles with the writer’s strike at the minute…how important the developmental time is for their different writers’ rooms and those different inputs. So I think that’s very wise.

And I think it’s extraordinary that even three days after your show, you’ve already got ideas percolating, got your masks out. It might be slow for you, but the rest of us might be feeling like slouches right now. So I tip my hat to you for sure.

Kevin Tomlinson:

Well, let’s see, let’s see. It might not come to fruition until 2025, who knows.

Danielle:

Yeah, no, but that’s brilliant. And thank you for sharing as generously as you have today. I’ve learned so much. So any parting advice to listeners who are fellow writers, creatives, comedy lovers who are doing their best to make work right now.

Kevin Tomlinson:

I think one of the best things I’ve learnt now, now in my 50 years on this planet, is I try and think to myself, what type of show would I like to sit and watch?

Danielle:

Hmm.

Kevin Tomlinson:

It’s very easy to go, oh, what do the critics want? Or what does this audience want? Or that audience or that venue? But actually when I’m writing and creating now, I go, what do I, when I go to the theatre, what do I crave? What do I want to see? So I’m always trying to put myself in the… imagining myself in the audience watching my show and how can I make it as entertaining as possible. And I suppose there was one other thing and that’s just gone out of my mind. Oh heck. I had another What was it…

Danielle:

Oh, that’s okay. That’s the fleeting nature of live conversations. But I, but I love that as a, entiment. And I kind of make this podcast to be able to make the podcast that I want to listen to that’s quite nerdy about comedy and digs into all the questions. And I’m writing in fiction the things I want to. Has it come back to you?

Kevin Tomlinson:

It’s come back to me, thank you. Yeah, when creating a show, when I was working in traditional rep and had a steady job and I went freelance and set up my own theatre company and decided to produce my own work and that’s quite scary….one of the best things that was ever said to me was what’s your USP? What is your unique selling point? Try and find out, try to step outside yourself and see what have you got that will make…. Yeah, what’s your unique selling point?

And so for mine, it was combining masks and Impro and then a bit of Shakespeare. I was like, nobody else is doing that. Impro plus masks plus Shakespeare. So that created a unique product that, then there was a gap in the market that I found. And so I think that’s quite useful. It’s a horribly like business school talk, but I do think it’s useful to think what is your USP as well? Or what’s the hook? What are you offering the world?

Danielle:

I love that. Because it is a business as well. If you want to survive, or if that’s where you want to make your money, financially. I don’t mind whether people do it for money or not. Like I don’t care amateur… professional….but if, if it is to support a career and all the things that go with that financially, it is a business too. And also the flip side of that, I think it’s fun to think of what’s uniquely you. What can only you write, only you bring. That’s awesome. I love it.

Kevin Tomlinson:

Oh good, I’m glad.

Danielle:

Yeah, so where should people go to find out more about you and your work?

Kevin Tomlinson:

My theatre company that I’ve co-set up with Paul Jenkins 30 years ago is Kepow. I personally am on Twitter and Facebook showing my age because I’m not on Instagram and Snapchat which my daughters in their 20s are. Although I’ve been reading recently about Facebook and how their ethics and… I’m starting to question whether that is a good platform. It’s lovely and brilliant for getting back in touch with people I haven’t seen for ages but… I don’t know, it’s just…I’ve been reading some articles by whistleblowers who’ve worked inside Facebook.

Danielle:

So don’t go and find Kevin on Facebook. Go find him on Twitter instead and his website…

Kevin Tomlinson:

But then what the hell is Elon Musk doing as well with Twitter? It’s like, how do we communicate nowadays? It’s like, oh my goodness.

Danielle:

Find Kevin, send a carrier pigeon to his house with a note that says, you’re awesome. Keep going

Kevin Tomlinson:

Put my phone number up on the screen.

Danielle:

But great. But I’ll put those, I will put the links to website and those things in the show notes so people can find you legitimately. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Kevin. I really appreciate it.

Kevin Tomlinson:

Thank you. I’m getting darker and darker. It’s going to be a black screen in a minute. I’m going to  be just a voice. Thank you. It’s been immense fun talking to you.

Danielle:

Amazing.