“I often hear people leaving the theatre saying, ‘I’ve got to phone my mum’…”

Following a hugely successful 2016 Australian and UK tour, Frantic Assembly and State Theatre Company South Australia’s critically acclaimed Things I Know To Be True visits Bristol Old Vic from February 6-10.

The play tells the story of a family and marriage through the eyes of four grown siblings struggling to define themselves beyond their parents’ love and expectations.

Parents Bob and Fran have worked their fingers to the bone and, with their four children grown and ready to fly the nest, it might be time to relax and enjoy the roses. But the changing seasons bring home some shattering truths.

Co-directed by Frantic Assembly’s Tony- and Olivier Award-nominated artistic director Scott Graham and State Theatre Company’s AD Geordie Brookman, Things I Know To Be True, featuring Frantic Assembly’s celebrated physicality, is a complex and intense study of the mechanics of a family that is both poetic and brutally frank.

“A thing of beauty. Exquisitely observed. An absolute gem” Daily Telegraph
“An intricate, inventive study of family life. Genuinely beautiful” Evening Standard
Here’s Scott Graham to tell us more.

So, Scott. What drew you to this play?
It was my co-director Geordie Brookman who got in contact with me and asked if I fancied going out to Australia to work on a project with the writer Andrew Bovell – whose work I didn’t actually know at the time. Geordie said he’d been lucky enough to get Andrew to write a play, but that Andrew wanted to do something different, to start something from scratch and have his process challenged.
He said it would be great for me to come out and get involved, and I selfishly thought, ‘that’s exciting – I want to be in the room with the guy who wants to have his process challenged’. I don’t just want to be the person who challenges it, I want to get something out of this, I want to be inspired by what we all find.

Tell us the origins of the story.
There was no play to start with, just a book of photographs by Gregory Crewdson. We worked with six fantastic Australian actors and a brilliant designer Geoff Cobham and we just looked at those photographs and tried things out and improvised. The more we looked at it and talked, we felt that the play should be about family and that family started to emerge in front of our eyes, much of it led by Andrew.
Then Andrew would go away and continue to be inspired by this, and he developed Things I Know To Be True. It took about three years, and a couple of trips out to Australia, to come to fruition. It was just brilliant to start from nothing.

How did you get into theatre – and directing?
I was at Swansea University doing English and I joined a drama society. Nothing particularly revolutionary about that, but I saw a particular production that a friend of mine was in and the two of us were totally inspired to go off and make work. We’d suddenly discovered this world of physical theatre and just wanted to get involved. We were lucky enough to be encouraged by people, lucky enough to have each other, and with a third friend we decided to form a company. We were fortunate that it caught on.

Scott Graham. Pic: Helen Maybanks. All other pics: Manuel Harlan

Any Bristol connections? Excited to be playing at Bristol Old Vic?
I am excited about bringing the show to Bristol because it’s where my old English teacher now lives and he was the guy who put my name down for a play when I was 15 (even though I’d never volunteered for a play before and I never had any interest in theatre at that stage – or at least I didn’t think I did). But he put my name down, which was an outrage to me. This teacher saw something in me and it completely changed my life. And so I’m really excited about catching up with him and him seeing the show.

What should we expect from a Frantic Assembly show?
We like to tell stories that open up hearts – by which I mean that everyone is more complex and fragile than they seem. I think our work shows that through its characters and their stories. That often has quite an emotional impact on the audience.
Also, there is a physical language within the work – but I like to think that it’s just natural, so when you see it you just accept it. For example, when you see a musical and someone starts to sing, you accept that because there is no other way to express that emotion. So theatre with physically choreographed moments within it should be exactly the same in its naturalness.

Why do you think audiences across the globe have connected so strongly with Things I Know…?
It’s an incredibly accessible show. I think it’s beautiful because the emotions are real, the family dynamics are real and every night there is an extraordinary connection with an audience.
Also, it’s honest. It’s about family dynamics and whilst there is a lot of bad stuff that’s happening and bad things are said, none of it is done with any malice – it’s actually said through love. Sometimes that love can be bitter, it can make us do things we regret, but it’s still love. It means it’s also full of regret because all the characters are flawed, just like we’re all flawed. They all make mistakes, as we all make mistakes. I think we see ourselves, our family members, our relationships in moments throughout the play.
There are a few emotional twists that could be upsetting and people might cry at but I’ve actually found people cry at all kinds of moments, the moments you wouldn’t expect. I think that’s because they see someone in the show, or they see something in themselves or a particular relationship. I often hear people leaving the theatre saying, “I’ve got to phone my mum” or “I need to speak to my sister…” – which I think is lovely. It’s very interesting how the different moments in the play make that happen for people. Ultimately it’s all because they see themselves in the work.

Why did you want to bring the play back to the UK so soon after its first tour?
The responses have been extraordinary, really quite beautiful. Sometimes that means people who can’t move at the end, they are left embracing the person next to them. Sometimes people have got in touch with us the next day to tell us that the impact it had on them has meant they’ve reached out to someone and spoken to them for the first time in years.
We wanted to bring it back because of the audience reactions from the first time round. On one level you’ve got an audience in tears about the trials of a family in the suburbs of Adelaide. But it’s not that: you don’t know those people – it’s really about seeing yourself in this story. It’s been fantastic to see so many young people coming to see the show and getting their hearts wrapped around this family in all of its mess and its glory. It’s such a lovely experience watching people engage with it.
I also felt we could make it better and wanted to take it to new audiences. I’ve had such a great time working with Geordie and with the cast. Every time I go back to Andrew’s script I see something new, I unearth a new part and understand it more.

Things I Know To Be True is at Bristol Old Vic from February 6-10. For more info, visit bristololdvic.org.uk/things-i-know-to-be-true.html