Please welcome acclaimed Theatre Director with many a 'Theatrical Banger' to her name, Lucy Pitman-Wallace. A life in the theatre and her love of Shakespeare in particular began for her at the tender & impressionable age of 8, when her mother ‘laughed in the face of getting a baby-sitter’ and took her to see a production of “Measure for Measure. Lucy’s passion for ‘dense texts’ in particular began from that point on.
Lucy has Directed at the National and at the RSC and at many of the Nation's leading Drama schools, with a particular passion for the power of theatre in building community and for mentoring new talent to be introduced to the wonderful world of theatre.
A delightful episode including some comedy interruptions from a postman and a temporary Zoom crash - but just as there's 'no script for life' we banter on and push on through majestically!
You can even watch our comedy interruptions in all their entertaining glory here:
https://vimeo.com/chrisgrimes/lucypitmanwallace
Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.
Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)
Thanks for listening!
Please welcome acclaimed Theatre Director with many a 'Theatrical Banger' to her name, Lucy Pitman-Wallace. A life in the theatre and her love of Shakespeare in particular began for her at the tender & impressionable age of 8, when her mother ‘laughed in the face of getting a baby-sitter’ and took her to see a production of “Measure for Measure. Lucy’s passion for ‘dense texts’ in particular began from that point on.
Lucy has Directed at the National and at the RSC and at many of the Nation's leading Drama schools, with a particular passion for the power of theatre in building community and for mentoring new talent to be introduced to the wonderful world of theatre.
A delightful episode including some comedy interruptions from a postman and a temporary Zoom crash - but just as there's 'no script for life' we banter on and push on through majestically!
You can even watch our comedy interruptions in all their entertaining glory here:
https://vimeo.com/chrisgrimes/lucypitmanwallace
Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.
Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)
Thanks for listening!
Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, Chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told, and where all my guests have two things in common they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5-4-3-2-1, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare and a cake. So it's all to play for. So, yes, welcome to the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, Chris Grimes. Are you sitting comfortably here? Then we shall begin, and there we have it.
Speaker 1:As always, I give a seamless counter-force, so I don't have to edit it on later. It is my great pleasure and delight to welcome an acclaimed and esteemed theatre director, Lucy Pittman Wallace, to the Good Listening To Show Clearing. It is the show in which I invite movers, makers, shakers, mavericks, influencers and also personal heroes into a clearing or serious happy place of their choosing to all share with us their stories of distinction and genius. Lucy Pittman Wallace, I'll blow a bit more happy smoke at you shortly, but welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm very pleased to be here.
Speaker 1:Yes, we have history in that way, way, way back when I've been directed by you, by myself, in Custer's Last Stand, where I remember playing Custer's dog, who I think met quite an unhappy end he got shot through the head comically, which wasn't good. Well, it was comic at the time. So, the grace of Mary Travis, a Timberlake, a.
Speaker 2:Wilton Baker play.
Speaker 1:And actually so long ago that when I was researching you this morning it's not even on your Scott Marshall CV anymore, oh no.
Speaker 2:It's fallen off the end.
Speaker 1:And, yes, you've done some wonderful work. You've done directing at all the main drama schools Lambda, radha, guildhall You've been in. I really enjoyed finding some getty images about your production of Shawshank Redemption where, googling around, there are about 14 high quality getty images of Shawshank Redemption which I know had Omid Jalali in it and apparently it'll set you back about 345 pounds an image. So your currency is indeed on the ascension. You've also recently done an MA in Applied Theatre, as if you weren't qualified enough already. And the final bit of happy smoke, we're also in an action learning set together, which is a bit like being in a badger set, but different. So there's lots more to talk about how awesome your directing career has been, but just to say welcome, it's lovely to see you. So how's morale? Watch your story of the day, please, or story of the moment, lucy.
Speaker 2:What's my story of the moment? Oh, I'm just getting together with a group of actors that we sort of cleaved to each other and I'm going off to Horn Church, which is quite far away, to have lovely supper with them and catch up on their various goings and goings on.
Speaker 1:I love cleaved together. That's a great expression. And, by the way, in researching you, what I really enjoyed was the fact that you're particularly renowned for being able to interpret really dense texts, one of which I know is a dense text because I was in a production that not directed by you, but I remember being in the Duchess of Malfi way back when, circa 1985, at the Edinburgh Festival, and to this day I have no idea what I was saying. It's quite a dense text.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So let's get you on the open road and sorry, I've been talking a bit too much I've been very, very excited to see you, so we're going to curate you through the clearing a tree, a lovely juicy storytelling exercise called 54321, some alchemy, some gold. There'll be a couple of random squirrels, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, a golden baton and a cake. So it's all to play for. And also, rather excitingly, we're doing this as a Facebook Live, as we record as well. So, lucy Pittman Wallace, acclaimed theatre director, where is what is a clearing for you? Where do you go to get clutter free, inspirational and able to think?
Speaker 2:So I live in Oxfordshire now in the countryside, so I take my dogs for a walk and that's very much the place where I can feel quiet. And very often I find if I'm walking I might start with a problem and by the time I've finished the walk somehow my brain has gone. Oh, we could do this. So that's very nice. I'm not necessarily consciously thinking about it really hard, so a lovely displacement activity with the dogs.
Speaker 1:You mentioned dogs, plural, so it's not exactly a husky trail. But how many have you got? Just two Lovely, and are they related or acquired at different times?
Speaker 2:Acquired at different times. So one of them is nine and one of them is two and the two year old is very much like I don't know. If you remember, in the Jungle Book they have the elephants and there's the little baby elephant at the end who keeps on trying to do what the grown-ups are doing, and the little one is very much like but is very distracted by squirrels actually, interestingly.
Speaker 1:So that's a beautiful segue for what's coming later when we're going to talk about squirrels of distraction. So is it still? It's bright well, come soft well was the piece which had a delightful well comedy name. I thought obviously it's maybe not too comic to live there, but I just enjoyed savouring bright well, comes soft well as a place to go for a dog walk as you do on the daily.
Speaker 2:That's good. It's a good place to be. It's apparently got a comedy program about Shakespeare and apparently it got a mention in that, as they obviously David Mitchell obviously thought this is a funny name of a funny place, so let's put it in, although it wouldn't have existed in Shakespeare's time. So it's not accurate.
Speaker 1:So that would have been the, the upstart crow in which you got a mention, was it?
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, I couldn't think of the name and it reminded me, by the way, of a place I once did an instant wit comedy improvisation show called Upton Come Kexpie. I still don't know where it is, but I love the sort of the comes soft wells and the come Kexpie's of the world unite. So here we are, then, in your clearing on your dog walk in your local environment and Oxfordshire. And so now I'm going to arrive with a tree in your clearing and, a bit deliberately waiting for God to ask an existential, I'm going to shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out.
Speaker 1:I do have the occasional prop. I'll whip out, no extra charge. You're welcome, and this is where you've been kind enough to have thought about. We've had five minutes to have thought about four things that have shaped you, lucy, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention and thank you, you mentioned the squirrels that will be bringing into the mix as well. And then a quirky or unusual fact about you. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us. So over to you to interpret the shaking of your canopy as you see fit.
Speaker 2:Very good. So, in terms of the things that shaped me, my mum used to take me because I was an only child. They decided that they didn't really need babysitters, so they just wouldn't take me. So I went to see Measure for Measure by Mr William Shakespeare, aged about eight, which I have to say I've never understood the play. But we went to Stratford a lot and I think that really shaped that. I saw those dense texts as you talked about as things that you performed, rather than just that you sat in a classroom and you know endlessly looked at the pages and sucked your pencil or whatever. So that really shaped me. I think I had a wonderful headmistress at school who had copped on quite quickly that academia wasn't really my thing, or not sort of straightforward academia. And I remember arriving in her office and saying I want to direct the crucible and she said but aren't you supposed to be doing your A-levels? And I said yes, but I really need to direct this play and she sort of said I think probably you do.
Speaker 1:So she let me direct the rest of the Help the line. Colin that someone's just knocked on the door. It's a postman. I can edit this bit out. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Back to your wonderful teacher.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so she was great in the sense that she said that's, I think she just sort of Her instinct was let Lucy do theatre, and you know, let her get on with it and let's not try. And because she tried endlessly to teach me Latin and it never succeeded.
Speaker 1:So your first text of your own volition was the crucible, the Arthur Miller.
Speaker 2:Mm.
Speaker 1:Yes. So and have you returned to it since school days to direct it again.
Speaker 2:No, interestingly, I haven't done any Arthur Miller. I would. I'd love to, but I haven't as yet done a professional production of it.
Speaker 1:Ironically it's Well. Happily it's. One of the best productions I ever saw was a production of the Crucible. I know I didn't necessarily see your one at the school, but it was an RSC and I know you're an associate director with the RSC. It had Alan Armstrong in it back in the day when I was at the Central School of Speech and Drama. I don't know if you saw that production. That was done as a promenade. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Oh well.
Speaker 1:And it was just amazing sort of blew me away slightly.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's really good. I worked with him very briefly when we did a little bit of oh God, what is it called? Sorry, Death of a Salesman. Oh, yes, yes, Hello, brain. I used the banner and we did a little platform at the National where you just do it sort of before the curtain opens for the big show. And he was Willie Lohman and he was just extraordinary, even over sort of 10 minutes of it.
Speaker 1:And since that time, by the way, mentioning that play, did you see the Mark Strong production of that, where he was Willie Lohman? That was the very famous production recently. Because he was a similar era when we were, Because we have the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in common as well, obviously.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't seen. I did see the view from a bridge that they did, which was sort of set in a kind of Almost like a kind of Greek foxy ring.
Speaker 1:Yes, and, by the way, thank you for correcting me, that's actually the production I meant.
Speaker 2:No, I was thinking, gosh you, yeah, and I thought that was extraordinary. I mean just the sort of simplification of it.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:The idea that you could kind of get rid of all of the the sort of landscape and concentrate it right down. I thought it was quite extraordinary.
Speaker 1:Anyway, sorry if I interrupted you. You were into the shape-hidges and the fact that it was school and directing your first production of the Crucible.
Speaker 2:And then I suppose kind of my further education has kind of worked in lots of, lots of interesting ways. I went to Aberystwyth and I did English and drama and the English was very useful for those dense texts, I think that actually almost more, kind of more so than the drama section of it. In some ways it fed into that. And then obviously went to the Bristol Orvic Theatre School and that was really, that was really good because it meant that I kind of say it was like kind of getting the word director on your passport.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it meant that from that point onwards I was no longer doing little bits of theatre and a bit of admin. I kind of went Hello, and now I am a theatre director Of a little bit like the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 1:Yes which is Stood you in extremely good stead ever since, actually because you've been on the open path of that ever since.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I think the other thing that shaped me is just having being given the opportunity to direct lots and lots of different things. Oh, I'm so sorry, I thought I'd turned that off.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what that was and I didn't hear anything, so you could have had a postman too. The postman always rings twice, obviously.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, so, yes, so, just that thing of getting to do those really dense texts, doing the Shakespeare's and the Johnson's and the mad Eastwood hoe, that was by like three different people.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Who all kind of went let's write a jail scene, this would be really good. And you go OK, this play's got three identical jail scenes with slightly different tones to them. So yeah, so that density. And then also I've kind of commissioned work, so I've commissioned some new writing, so that those I think those are the kind of shapey things.
Speaker 1:Yes, and Three-Legged Theatre Company is your own company. I know that's the context I met you in back in the day too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's mainly sort of done. A new write from At the moment. It's sort of, when it happens, it tends to be new writing.
Speaker 1:Yes, and the play you were just mentioning, with the three jail scenes, was that part of the RSE Jacobean season that you did.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it was yes.
Speaker 1:Do you feel that you've done your four shapeages, or is there another one in there as well?
Speaker 2:I think that's probably. I mean, obviously the Applied Theatre MA was a sort of slightly different, was looking more in terms of the context of theatre, in terms of community. So that was really interesting because that was a sort of area that I hadn't really come across so much.
Speaker 1:But I oh, you've just frozen slightly there, I think we've. Not only we had a postman interruption, we've momentarily lost Miss Lucy Pitt-Mamolos. You've. Either You're very good at tableau or you've frozen. So this is the live quirks. Other interruptions I've had, by the way, during the course of my nearly 200 episodes of this podcast is a seagull doing a gargantuan on my Velix window in the middle of it all. We can see you, but we can't. You've got yes, you've not got your camera on yet, because it's given me the oh Boom, thank you, we're back in the room.
Speaker 1:The comedies and quirks of Zoom. How marvelous. So we're back in the room where we were just at the point where we'd done the four shape-ages. Yeah, and now it's three things that inspire you, lucy, and if there's any overlap, don't worry about that, but three things that inspire you now.
Speaker 2:So I suppose there's sort of Shakespeare plays, dense texts we've sort of covered that. I'm very inspired, actually, interestingly, by drama students. There's such a sort of energy about them I sometimes feel without the sounding too strange like a kind of energy vampire, that they have such kind of brightness and energy and enthusiasm that even on a day where I feel a little bit slow and old, they kind of lift my spirits and make me go. Oh, you know, this is why we do theatre, and the same comes in terms of young actors. So I think one of the things I've really enjoyed is sort of I've worked with some drama students that I've then given their first jobs to, and that's always very satisfying, working with them in the drama school context and then launching them off into there, and that was a similar context in which we connected.
Speaker 1:I remember because I wasn't long out and I'd been analogised at drama school to being like an untrained Labrador, in that I could lick your face, hump your leg. I went to one of those things who in the corner and go and get distracted by something else, but there was that sort of vigor and zest and energy which certainly came into Custer's last stand, I remember, and your love of community theatre is presumably where you can be an energy vampire again for people who are fresh and new and really passionate to do it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, absolutely. I think my sort of most favourite community project was that I directed a village in Midsummer Night's Dream and we had 28 people on stage and as many again backstage, and that was really, I suppose, what was very satisfying about that and this is from them telling me rather than me telling myself that it sort of brought the community together in a way that they kind of weren't expecting that they kind of get on better as a village. In some ways, quite you know, it was the posh people and the not so posh people and they actually sort of worked together, and I think that's the magic of theatre.
Speaker 1:And if you made the not so posh people the rustics, we could all see what you're doing there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:And was the recent production, the Welkin? Am I right in assuming that was a community project as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was. There's a little theatre in Wallingford, which is the next town along, and they do productions in-house productions from time to time and that was for them, so that was community actors. But they've got quite a sort of good structure in terms of they've been doing it for a while, so they have a workshop and they took me around it when I first arrived and I was like, oh, my goodness, you've got a costume store, you've got three huge dressing rooms, you've got a workshop, you've got a prop store Wonderful yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly when can I start?
Speaker 1:Wonderful stuff and also other productions that I know you've done very excitingly. I really enjoyed googling around today. You've done a sort of waiting for Godot. I'm not a sort of you did waiting for Godot with Catherine Hunter at the National Studio as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which was just to die, for it was a sort of workshop project and it was Toby Jones, catherine Hunter and a chap called Toby Sedgwick who's a movement director and clown and awful. I remember he was called David, but I can't remember what his surname was, but he was from, he'd been in Canada for a long time and he told this nice story of going through the National Theatre stage door and them saying oh hi, david, how are you? As though he'd literally left the building. You know he'd been away sort of 20 years and they still remembered his face and his name and you know.
Speaker 1:It's good to feel that you belong. I love that.
Speaker 2:The one.
Speaker 1:I forgot to ask you as well where was the village that you did Midsummer Night's Dream, where you sort of fixed the village and then moved on?
Speaker 2:It's called Ash Hampstead, so another slightly strange name.
Speaker 1:So we're still in the canopy of the influencing, so anything else that influences you.
Speaker 2:I think that's probably it actually. I mean, I'm sure there are things.
Speaker 1:Yes, and now this is where we get onto the squirrels of distraction. So what never fails, borrowed from the film squirrels, what never fails to distract you, irrespective of anything else that might be going on for you.
Speaker 2:I'm a terrible eavesdropper, just terrible compulsive eavesdropper. So people go to restaurants with me and say, oh, the people on the next table so they didn't like that pudding very much. And they'd be like how can you hear that? You know, whilst carrying on a conversation with me it's not that I sort of stop, but I'm fascinated by what people on buses talk to each other about house and things.
Speaker 1:And that doesn't necessarily make you a nosy Parker, that just makes you very, very interested. At drama school, rudy Shelley back in the day used to say Ektus should never be bored. There's always people to watch, and so people watching is a way of filling dead time when you're just waiting around at public transport places and getting inquisitive and just watching people instead.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:So what? What tit bits have you recently picked up in terms of being?
Speaker 2:an eavesdropper.
Speaker 1:Oh, have you gone again? No, you're there.
Speaker 2:No, I think I'm back.
Speaker 1:So any most recent tit bits of eavesdropping that you've enjoyed.
Speaker 2:Oh well, I think I went. I went to dinner with a friend and the people on the next table the waiter kind of spent that. I think they were tourists to London and the way to spend a long time explaining to them about this particular pudding that was sort of amazing. And so they ordered it on his instructions and then they both sort of said we don't like it very much. And we sort of said, all right, I'll take it away. But they were like it's not what we thought it was and we don't like it. So he had the grace to say I'll bring you something else.
Speaker 1:Very good, so next squirrel of distraction.
Speaker 2:Squirrel of distraction. The shoes just can't get enough of them, and I don't.
Speaker 1:Should have been a centipede, really, because we're going sort of a meldemarco stroke centipede. How many pairs of the beauties have you got?
Speaker 2:I think I've got probably about 50.
Speaker 1:So you're half a centipede, you're sort of halfway there, which means there's room to grow still.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, Although as they're in two, you know anyway.
Speaker 1:And what type of shoes are we talking about? Just all sorts, just shoes generally.
Speaker 2:I mean recently it's been Dr Martins, because I find that I'm very comfortable in those and I can wear those happily. But I do have kind of all sorts of different shoes, a lot of which I'm like these are too uncomfortable to actually wear, so they, you know they are your correct icon, by the way.
Speaker 1:I definitely remember you're meeting you and you having black Dr Martin shoes on, so that makes sense. That's a lovely memory actually.
Speaker 2:The return to the mountains in old age.
Speaker 1:Yes and good to reincorporate in a great cool thing to still be wearing Lovely. And now a quirky, unusual fact about you, lucy Pittman Wallace we couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.
Speaker 2:So I don't know when my birthday is, because when I was, when my mother was alive, we used to celebrate it on the 22nd of December. And when, sometime after she died, my dad sent me some wine the day after, on the 23rd of December, and I said, oh, thank you so much. Didn't get here until the day after, but it's always lovely to have a present after the day. And he said oh, about that, dear? I said what do you mean about that dear? He said, well, your mother was so convinced that there was the 22nd, but actually the baby was born on the 23rd. So so we I never felt able to tell her, but actually you were born on the 23rd of December.
Speaker 1:And is that because she'd gone so do lally with childbirth, or she just wasn't somebody? That should be corrected.
Speaker 2:I think she was, wasn't somebody to be corrected, I think. And the chat with the birth certificate, because I was born at my grandmother's house, so I was born at you know, it was a home birth and that with the certificate didn't turn up until afternoon year. So by that time I think there was sort of everybody was a bit vague about when the baby derived.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was born, you know, last year sometime. They're saying so do you do? The obvious thing which I would try and do is celebrate both days. Do you have to?
Speaker 2:yes, I do tend to say and of course, it's still my birthday today, and my children were like no, you can only have one day.
Speaker 1:And it's your. Do you mind me asking, is your dad still with us?
Speaker 2:He is yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, happy to report. That's great. Yes, happy to report. And in your pitman Wallace hyphenated surname, what's the derivation of that? I'm assuming there's some pitman, as in Shorthand, the genesis of shorthand in there. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because so so I was my, I am my. So my father is his father's only son, and I'm, I'm my father's only daughter, only child. Yeah, so basically, if I didn't keep the pitman, that sort of our branch of it would have just vanished.
Speaker 1:No, we call pitman, as it were. So, rather than normally stereotypically, the sort of which is quite a sexist thing, but the male lineage, this is the way of retaining the pitman. So is the Wallace the marital name, then. So that's why you've hyphenated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and actually I did a production of end game way, way back. I've done another one since, but somebody wrote us quite a nice review. A man from the times called Harry something wrote as a nice review and he wrote Lucy Pitman Wallace's production of, and at which point it was like, oh well, then I'm going to keep that.
Speaker 1:Yes, it does it trippingly on the tongue. It spins off rather nicely, actually, that's good. So now where we've shaken your tree, her, so now we're going to move away from the tree but stay in the clearing. And next we're going to talk about alchemy and gold. Please and I've got a comedy prop for you a bit of gold. So when you're at purpose and in flow, lucy Pitman Wallace, what are you absolutely happiest doing in what you're here to reveal to the world?
Speaker 2:I think I love being in rehearsal rooms and I love being in kind of early days rehearsal rooms. So I think I do quite a lot of improvisation at the beginning of a of a rehearsal period and in, because I'm very interested in establishing ensembler and giving the actors that sense that they can, they have choice and that they can make kind of playful decisions.
Speaker 2:You know, obviously with me kind of being the oh, I like to be better than me kind of person, but not I'm very much a more of a facilitator really than a kind of dictatorial director. So I'm very happy in the presence of, you know, lots of actors jumping up and down.
Speaker 1:And being playful, right, so you're not a blocker. You don't just turn up and shove people into blocks. This is very much allowing us to play, which is obviously preferred. I would say I'll wager.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely play. Playful, you know, and it is that sort of cliche, isn't it that you know it's called a play, so let's do some playing.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and now I'm going to award you with a cake. So it is a multi layered cakes effused with more metaphor, obviously. But first of all, do you like cake, lucy, and what flavor would you like please?
Speaker 2:I like a very much and I like chocolate cake particularly.
Speaker 1:So a chocolate cake is yours, and now we're going to put a cherry on the cake, whether which is looks bit like this. Actually, it's good, this is a dog's toy, but it fits the bill rather nicely. So the cherry on the cake is now stuff like what's a favorite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker and pulled you towards your future.
Speaker 2:So I think, am I allowed to have two? Was that?
Speaker 1:yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So the plays, the thing which I suppose kind of goes back to that playfulness and also a sense that I'm always. I'm always looking for what is the essence of the play. So I don't necessarily come to it with a sense of I have this amazing construct that we're. I imagine that we're going to set it in outer space and then kind of working back as to sort of how you justify that. I tend to try and come very much from the writing and the play and then kind of, you know, it doesn't mean that sometimes it doesn't get set in a spaceship, but it's like being really rigorous.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's not like in position of your own direct and sort of taste. It's very much a sort of, as you say, the plays a thing, and that's I mean right in your team. That's from the Hamlet quote the plays a thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king, isn't it? That's right? Yeah, exactly so I wasn't being pedantic, I was just checking if that's the source of it.
Speaker 2:No, no, no you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love the fact you just halved it, because the essence is, the play is the thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's. And the other one that I really like is try again, fail again, fail better, which is Mr Beckett.
Speaker 1:Mr yes, wonderful, and he's inspired my tree, by the way. Shake it see which storytelling apples have fallen out. It is very much waiting for God to ask tree. It is very much. And just say that one again because it's lovely.
Speaker 2:I really enjoy that Try again, fail again, fail better.
Speaker 1:That's such a perfect through line for the proper way to apply a rehearsal process, because unless you experiment, play, fail, try again, you can't arrive at the gold really.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's absolutely true. You need, and I always want that sense that actors have permission to fail.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:That actually sort of one of the scary things is, where people kind of turn up and go this is how I'm going to be performing it and you think, oh, hello, this is going to be interesting.
Speaker 1:And the next question is what notes, help or advice might you proffer to a younger version of yourself now, with the beautiful gift of hindsight?
Speaker 2:I think it's enjoy the moment, you know, enjoy the piece of work you're doing. I think when you're younger and kind of very hungry, kind of waiting for the phone call about the next thing can sort of interrupt the process of the thing that you're doing now, Sort of trying to give as much attention try and get Lucy, try and give as much attention to the thing that you're doing now, rather than always sort of looking kind of over the fence that the grass is always greener on the other side. You know what are you going to do next, and I think that's very hard for freelancers. I think we, you know, tend to be looking over the fence.
Speaker 1:Yes, I call it the freelancers Twitch, but also I really love the fact that that's a real testament, what you just described, to the true quality of presence to be in the now, and that beautiful through line with your own dogs as well. As we all know, dogs are the best creatures to be there, running to the clock of now, now, now, now. It's always now. Yeah, absolutely Well, again back to drama school. How you know, animal study was always a very interesting thing, but again, harkening back to our days at the old Vic as well. But Rudy Shelley would always talk about people watching dogs. Watch a dog, a dog. They are the best thing to watch, harrah. So next question is what's the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
Speaker 2:I can't quite remember the quote exactly, but Seamus Heaney talked about about himself. He said I have a Star Wars like defence mechanism and what he. Sorry I'm not articulating this nearly as well as he did, but basically he was saying that he only really took seriously criticism from people that he admired and respected or felt were on his wavelength, that he didn't listen to a lot of the noise of, you know, as it were, somebody from the newspaper who actually is doing normally does the horse riding but has been sent out to the play. Yes, and I thought that that was a very good piece of advice, that thing about not not listening to all of the noise yes thinking about who you admire and would take seriously but not be sort of totally downhearted by.
Speaker 2:You know, as I say, the gentleman from the horse racing.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's a lovely testament to the proper when high quality feedback is delivered. It's all about testing whether you trust the source that's given you the feedback. Yeah, and that's really interesting. I'm just asking the source. That's a really nice. I really like that, thank you. We're now ramping up to Shakespeare shortly, where I'm going to talk about a bit of legacy by the conduit of this complete works here. This isn't the first folio, but it was my first folio because this is the actual book that I have when I went to the Bristol Orbit Theatre School. It says in the front page here 1689, 86,. Ages. Me terribly, but that's him obviously, billy Rattle Javelin. He's at the past. The golden baton moment, please. So who in your network, now that you've experienced this comedy of postman and internet dying not withstanding, but who in your network would you most like to pass the golden baton along to to keep the golden thread of the storytelling going?
Speaker 2:So there's a wonderful woman called Zoe Waterman who is also is a theatre director, and we worked together when she was sort of a wee director and she's now, you know, gone on and on and on to marvelous things and she's, I think, she one of the things that she has been doing, because of the nature of her family increasing is working out how can you be a theatre director and have a family?
Speaker 1:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:And you know that that, which is very much, I think you know, it's a question that lots of primarily women are thinking about. How do you combine those two things?
Speaker 1:Wonderful. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to furnish me with a warm introduction to Zoe Waterman. Thank you very much indeed. You're welcome. And now this is the Shakespeare bit, so inspired by all the world's astage and all the men and women merely players. How and all is said and done. Lucy Pittman Wallace, would you most like to be remembered?
Speaker 2:I think I'd like to be remembered in a sense by the students that have been taught by me and the actors that have worked with me, to be to. You know, I suppose in terms of legacy, this, you know something lovely for me about the fact that Michelle Terry, who's at the globe now, you know I gave her her two first jobs and I take complete credit for her career as a result. So I think that's it. It's those seeing people thriving and going on. You know, that would be that sort of legacy for me really.
Speaker 1:Lovely, and in Googling around I didn't notice whether you'd also directed at the globe. I mean, you probably have said have you directed at the globe as well? So that'll be something that's next. Yes, and obviously get back in touch with Michelle Terry seems to be a no brainer and give us a job, michelle, to sort of play it forward, for what happened all those years ago when you gave her first two jobs. I forgot to also say where can we find out all about you? On the internet.
Speaker 2:So probably the best place is because I don't have a website, which I know I should.
Speaker 1:Well, the three legged do? I was looking at it just before we spoke.
Speaker 2:Three legged do so. Scott Marshall is probably my agent. Scott Marshall that they they have sort of my CV and things and you can just Google Scott Marshall and then it comes up new.
Speaker 1:That was your first hit, by the way, as in not I don't mean your first hit in theatre, but when you Google you, the Scott Marshall CV is the first thing that comes up.
Speaker 2:That's good, because it used to be a horrible review for something.
Speaker 1:We've all been there. Yeah, you go. What so, as this has been your moment in the sunshine, in the Good, listening two shows Stories of Distinction, Genius. Is there anything else you'd like to say, lucy?
Speaker 2:No, except it's been great and I've really enjoyed it, and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:This has been Lucy Pittman Wallace. Check out the website TheGoodListeningTwoShowcom if you'd like to be my guest too. Thank you for watching, too, on Facebook, if you have been. You've been listening to the Good Listening Two Show here on UK Health Radio with me, chris Crimes oh, it's my son.
Speaker 1:If you've enjoyed the show, then please do tune in next week to listen to more stories from the Clearing. If you'd like to connect with me on LinkedIn, then please do so. There's also a dedicated Facebook group for the show too. You can contact me about the programme or, if you'd be interested in experiencing some personal impact coaching with me, carry my level up your impact programme. That's chrisatsecondcurveuk On Twitter and Instagram. It's At that, chris Crimes. So until next time for me, chris Crimes, from UK Health Radio, and from Stan To your Good Health and Good B Lucy Pittman-Wollis, acclaimed theatre director, you've just been given a damn good listening to in the Good Listening Two Show, stories of distinction and genius. If I could just ask for your immediate feedback on what that's like for you to be involved in this show?
Speaker 2:It's lovely. It feels like being given a Christmas present or an early Christmas present. It's lovely to do and it's lovely to be listened to. So thank you.