Preview: Me & Robin Hood, Tobacco Factory Theatres

The brilliant Hoipolloi returns to Tobacco Factory Theatres October 2-5 with their latest show, Me & Robin Hood. Following the success of The Duke, which delighted Tobacco Factory audiences last year, Hoipolloi’s artistic director Shôn Dale-Jones presents the second show in the company’s Loose Change trilogy.

2019 sees Cambridge-based Hoipolloi celebrate their 25th anniversary. The company produces the writing of artistic director, Shôn Dale-Jones, changing shape and size according to the scale and needs of each project. It maximises the benefits of being independent and flexible, agile enough to respond to current events, making work that is immediately relevant.

We chatted to Shôn about Me & Robin Hood, and about what Hoilpolloi hope to achieve with the Loose Change trilogy.

“Since 2015, we have focussed on making work that aims to inspire social action in audiences, partnering with charities to present shows, offering a new model for theatre and social justice. Our mission is to bring people together around stories that weave the personal with the political, mixing fantasy and reality, challenging our perspective, making people laugh, cry and imagine. As Luis Buñuel says, ‘reality and fantasy are equally important and equally felt and so their confusion is a matter of only relative importance.’

“While we live in very challenging times, with divisions appearing all over society, we need to find our common ground. Today, theatre has a very real and exciting opportunity to support social change through encouraging empathy and solidarity. We aim to harness the value of art and the power of story, finding ways of immediately and directly engaging with what’s happening in our rapidly changing world.

“We’ve created a trilogy of shows, The Duke, Me & Robin Hood and The Ladder. The three plays that make up the Loose Change trilogy are all about change: personal, social, political. They’re about how difficult it is to change systems – how difficult is it to change ourselves, individually.

“Over the last few years, while creating, touring and performing this trilogy, my main drive has been to find ways of bringing us closer together – trying to counter the divisions that are growing between us. I’ve wanted to seek commonality, while so much of what we hear is what divides us; I’ve wanted us to not just sympathise with people we call refugees, but stand in solidarity with them; I’ve wanted to understand and respect our privilege and be better at sharing our ‘good fortune’; I’ve wanted us to recognise our shared vulnerability and to confront the mistakes we all make.”

Shôn Dale-Jones in Hoipolloi’s new show ‘Me & Robin Hood’. Pic: Murdo MacLeod

“Me & Robin Hood asks us to reflect on the opportunities life has offered us, to question what society truly values and encourage us to challenge and change the story of money…

The background to Me & Robin Hood

“2016 was a momentous year: the UK voted to leave the EU and Donald Trump won the US presidential election. Most political analysts agreed that this was, in part, because of increasing levels of inequality. The world also faced the biggest refugee crisis since World War II and still struggles to find any solution to the problem.

“Me & Robin Hood is my response to how the growing gap between the rich and the poor is affecting the way the world is being shaped. It’s my attempt to encourage us to imagine the lives of those living without the opportunities ‘we’ have – ‘we’, the liberal-minded, well-educated theatre-going public. It’s my attempt to encourage ‘us’ to do something about it, because, as Chomsky says, ‘the growing gap between rich and poor isn’t good for anyone in society’.

“The show has been made to raise money for Street Child United, and it connects audiences to the charity via its narrative content. Me & Robin Hood leaves audiences to imagine a reality in which it is possible for ‘us’ to effect change. ‘We’ have the possibility of making the world a better place. Individually, our generosity can make a difference.

“There are two questions underpinning the work I make: What sort of person do you want to be? and What sort of world do you want to live in? These two questions lead me to asking: is this show ‘worthwhile’ making? Because I need to believe that the show matters.

“We want to connect our audience to Street Child United in order to strengthen the purpose and reach of the work. We want our work to matter and make audiences feel they can make a positive difference.

Pic: Jaimie Gramston / www.chewthefood.com

“The Duke, which began touring in 2016, continues to be a tremendous ongoing success, capturing the public’s imagination with its combination of theatre and fundraising for Save The Children’s Emergency Fund. Me & Robin Hood builds on the success of The Duke, asking audiences to consider their relationship to those living in poverty and reflect on the opportunities that life has offered them. It playfully challenges our relationship with the banks and flirts with the romantic idea of becoming a radical revolutionary that can save the world. It gives the audience the chance to offer an opportunity to a child living on the streets the opportunity to change their life through Street Child United.

“To date we have raised £75,000 to make a difference to the lives of child refugees and street-connected children around the world for Save the Children and Street Child United and hope this amount continues to rise in the coming years.

“We hope you can join us at Tobacco Factory Theatres, and join our movement to empathise with those around us, seek our commonality, help us counter the growing division between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ and support the lives of children living on the streets – all through an enjoyable night out, billed as ‘charming comic drama with a heart of steel’ by BBC Radio 4.”

Me & Robin Hood is at Tobacco Factory Theatres: Spielman Theatre from Oct 2-5. For more info, visit www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/me-robin-hood

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