Experimental theatre maker TIM CROUCH, pushes boundaries and flies in the face of convention. His ideal dinner party follows the same lines – stand back and be inspired!
The venue would be Wooda Farm, nestling on the side of a valley near Crackington Haven in north Cornwall. My old friends Max and Gary farm sheep and goats, make cheese, pickles and bread, host art classes and retreats. We would eat slow roasted Wooda lamb. After supper we’d sit around and look at the stars. In the morning we’d take a swim in the sea.
I’m using the powers this feature gives me to bring some people back from the dead.
Without meaning to suck-up to the Ink Pellet readership, I would bring back my drama teacher, Dorothy Wilson. She arrived at my school when I was 12 and she died when I was 18 – at the end of my first term reading Drama at university. Alongside my parents, she made me what I am. She was a force of nature: fierce, funny, rude, liberal, radical – no respecter of authority.
She arrived with her husband, the playwright John Wilson (also invited) – a tall, stooping, craggy Glaswegian. They rented the old school caretaker’s house and we would go round there for bowls of soup at lunchtime. They were permissive in the best possible sense. They treated us like adults and were interested in us, believed in us. The first play I wrote was dedicated to her memory and I would love to see her again. She was 43 when she died and there is SO much to tell her about. I want her to arrive at least an hour early.
I’d invite Brecht because he’d bring some cigars and would be up for a good time. He said that a theatre that can’t be laughed in should be laughed at. I’d like him to arrive with Arthur Miller. Two brilliant public intellectuals who recognised the need to answer to ourselves and our humanity. I’d also invite their equally brilliant wives, Helene Wiegel and Marilyn Monroe. I’d fix them all Wooda cocktails – champagne and homemade sloe gin. I’d like to hear them talk about commercialism and form in the theatre, about Hollywood, McCarthyism and revolution. Monroe was photographed in a swimsuit reading James Joyce’s Ulysses. Reading is sexy.
Next up would be Adrian Howells, who performed in my play The Author. I want to see Adrian Howells SO badly. He was an artist and performer who made work around themes of intimacy and confession. He washed people’s feet. He bathed them. He held them. He changed their lives. He was his work and, as such, he was the most radical, the gentlest, funniest, tenderest human being I have ever known. He was pure love. He took his life last year after a lifetime of living with depression. I don’t think anyone could have saved him, but I want him at my dinner party because he made everyone feel alright about themselves.
That’s enough of the dearly departed. I’d like Radiohead to play an acoustic set during dessert. Dessert would be a caramelised pear tart with vanilla ice cream and dark chocolate sauce. I’d invite the artist Michael Craig-Martin whose work I love and whose piece, An Oak Tree, was the inspiration for my play of the same name. I’d invite Caryl Churchill, the most inspiring living playwright and her husband, David Harter. They inspire not only my work but also my sense of marriage and family. Last two: Sarah Brigham, who runs Derby Theatre and is a force for good in theatre and education. I hope Sarah will run the National one day. And I’d want my wife, Julia Crouch, who writes books and holds my hair back when I’m sick from over-indulgence.
An Oak Tree runs at the National Theatre’s Temporary Space from June 23rd.
nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/an-oak-tree
Tim Crouch – playwright, director and performer
Tim was an actor for many years before starting to write – and he still performs in much of his work. His plays include My Arm, ENGLAND (a play for galleries), the OBIE award-winning An Oak Tree, The Author, Adler & Gibb and (with Andy Smith) what happens to the hope at the end of the evening. Tim tours his work nationally and internationally. He also writes for younger audiences. A series of plays inspired by Shakespeare’s lesser characters includes I, Malvolio. For the RSC Tim has directed The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear and I, Cinna (the poet) – all for young audiences. Tim is published by Oberon Books, is under commission to Routledge and is currently making new work with the Unicorn Theatre and Spymonkey.