Singer, actor, composer and writer Natasha Sutton Williams, 29, is co-founder of the theatre company, Working Birthday. Her one woman show Freud the Musical ran to great acclaim in the recent Vaults Festival and will be part of the Reading Festival in July. Susan Elkin caught up over a coffee.
Where do you come from? I can’t place your accent. I was born in London but lived in Canada from age 5 to 8 (my dad’s Canadian) and yes I know I have a Canadian accent. My brother’s is even stronger. They were three formative years. Then we moved to Oxford and after that to Wales.
So you went to school in Wales? Yes, because that’s where we were when I was 10-18. The school was in special measures – deemed the second worst in Wales. It couldn’t even manage the distinction of being the very worst! Most of the teachers were terrible. When I left, my A Level English teacher asked me if I’d leave her my copy of John Donne’s poems because I’d made lots of notes and she wanted them – and she was one of the best teachers there. There was, though, a really good peripatetic double bass teacher who encouraged me with music.
How did you train? In a whole range of ways and with lots of different influences. I got seriously interested in singing when I was about 16 and did as much music and drama as I could at school. I joined the Bristol Old Vic Youth Theatre then came to London where I did a year’s Musical Theatre at Arts Ed and worked as an usher at National Theatre. I took part in a National Youth Theatre writing course and they picked my play I’m Not Sick for performance by Playing Up which is their scheme for young people at risk. And I took a four-year creative writing course at Birkbeck tutored by David Eldridge and Colin Teevan.
And you must have done specialist music training? Yes, I studied singing with Anna Simms who is wonderfully eccentric and a terrific teacher. I had lessons with Peter Knapp too. And did four years of Kodaly musicianship under David Vinden at the Kodaly Centre, London. It’s an excellent approach to music teaching which teaches you how to pitch and breathe among may other things. It should, in my view, be taught in every school.
So what instruments has that left you with? Well, I’m primarily a singer. But I also have practical piano and a bit of double bass.
What triggered your interest in Freud? I got very absorbed in Freud when I was about 17 because I was interested in sex. I like sex, in fact! So I read a lot of what Freud wrote and what others had written about him. Gradually I realised that he really wasn’t a very likeable man and then, a bit later it transpired that he was a cocaine addict and I knew I had a good story.
And the show? I wrote some funny songs and took them to a 2014 Arvon course led by Willie Russell and Nick Stimpson. They were hugely encouraging – and to be honest I was already much farther advanced than most of the others on the course. Willie and Nick told me simply to go out and do it and that gave me the confidence I needed.
Why did you choose to do it as a one woman show? Well that’s what most of my work has been so far. It means you don’t have to pay other actors and you can make your own decisions. Every show is teamwork though. Freud is directed by Dominic McHale whom I first met when he directed I’m Not Sick at NYT. And I need a brilliant accompanist and have one in Phil Blandford who has also arranged the numbers.
What’s in the melting pot? A show about Michael Barrymore called More More More which I’m co-writing. That led us into trouble when we advertised for some actors to work on it as we developed it. Two tabloids picked it up because we hadn’t discussed it with the family of Stuart Lubbock, the man who died in Barrymore’s swimming pool. It was a difficult week from which we learned a lot – research and development continues and we might get it on next year. I’m also working on a trio of playlets called Sound Sex which will be three short solo shows.
How do you pay the bills between all this? I do a bit of arts journalism for London Calling and Disability Arts. I tutor children in music theory, singing, English and maths. And I’m part-time PA to a woman in Hampstead. Like most performers I live a portfolio life.
And somehow you manage to do all this despite health problems?
That’s right. I have endometriosis, a condition affecting the womb lining which to a greater or lesser extent, affects one women in ten but isn’t much known because everything to do with menstruation is still taboo. Even doctors are very bad at diagnosing it. It involves the growth of uterine cells in other parts of the body outside the womb. For many endometriosis results in regular excruciating pain, infertility and a whole host of other problems. And I’m very keen that it should be talked about openly.
Perhaps you should write a show about it? Yes and maybe one day I will – when I’ve thought of a way of doing it which is neither worthily earnest nor off-putting. I want to make theatre which entertains!