The first time I (Julie Robinson) spoke to Mark Smith, Artistic Director of Spike Theatre, it was to interview him for an article (Crowd Funding – We’re All In This Together!) that explored the route of crowd funding as a viable alternative to ACE Funding. At the time, Spike Theatre had just received the disappointing news that they had been dis-invested and had successfully turned to crowd-funding site, WeFund in order to raise the monies to take their new show, The Games, to the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Presented as an ‘undiscovered’ Aristophanes play, it tells the comic story of three nobodies who, as the unwitting players in a celestial bet between the Gods, compete in the ancient Olympics, ‘taking on the heroes of the sporting world with epic results for mankind’.

Catching up with him three months after the first interview, Mark Smith was keen to discuss Edinburgh and the award-winning, The Games, which can be seen at the festival from 5th August onwards:

Okay, so let’s start with the obvious: Would it be safe to assume that ‘The Games’ was inspired (in part) by the upcoming London Olympics in 2012?

The inspiration for The Games was most definitely London hosting the Olympics in 2012. I’ve had a desire to create a sports-based comedy show for years. I love sport, especially as a spectator; I have witnessed some of the funniest moments whilst watching amateur and professional sport (I once saw a rugby player lose his shorts in a scrum, the crowd just howled with laughter). I wanted to create something which had a similar feel. Originally, I was thinking about doing something around football, but failed to get excited about it. The moment came whilst watching Horrible Histories with my son, when I thought about the ancient Olympics and the crazy sports that took place then. After some research, I loved the mad sports such as Pankration, a form of extreme wrestling where the only rule was you were not allowed to eye gouge! Amazingly, everything else was fair game.

You toured the show in autumn 2010 for twelve dates – what kind of response did it receive? I believe you won a couple of awards for it through the Liverpool Daily Post?

The tour was extremely well received by audiences and critics alike; the show opened well and just seemed to get better. We won 3 awards for Best Production, Best Comedy and Lauren won Best Actress, as voted for by the readers of The Liverpool Daily Post. We were very grateful to the folk who voted for us, it was nice to think that the people of Liverpool took the time to vote for us, which made it extra special. My favourite moment in the show is when the cast take their clothes off in the gymnasium – for a split moment the audience think the cast are completely naked when in-fact, we had fake willies made. The laughter through relief is hilarious. We were very conscious about not making the nudity sexual; in Greek society, communal nakedness was the norm and we found that by not sexualizing the characters they were far funnier.

We’ve spoke previously about ‘The Games’ as part of an article on Crowd funding a few months ago; it’s how you raised the funds to take the show to Edinburgh. How did you find the whole experience of that?

The experience was amazing, a real rollercoaster ride. We managed to raise and surpass our target within the final hour! It does not fully cover the cost of going to Edinburgh but basically paid for our venue. It cheered up what had been one of the worst days in Spike’s history as earlier that day, we found out we had been unsuccessful in our application to Arts council England to become a national portfolio organisation. I have to say I wept with joy, and it made us all the more determined to make The Games a success in Edinburgh – fingers crossed!

One newspaper wrote that you can ‘expect the unexpected when you enter the world of Spike Theatre’. Is this going to be true of ‘The Games’? Tell us more about the kind of work that the company creates.

The work Spike makes is created collaboratively; in essence we create plays on our feet. Each show reflects the creative teams who make it, hence ‘expect the unexpected’. Each show is based around a strong story, how we present it is the unexpected bit: we have, over the years, used every theatrical device under the sun. The Games, stylistically, is a very simple design but allows us to use shadow puppetry – this has enabled us to create many different atmospheres as well as tying in the beautiful iconic ancient Greek art we looked at. In addition, the structure of the play mirrors that of ancient Greek playwright, Aristophanes. So we are theatrically literate but, like magpies, we take what we like and mess around with it.

As well as producing new works, Spike Theatre also runs a number of creative workshops – what was the aim behind these and how have they been going?

Teaching has been a massive part of what Spike has done since we first set up in 1997; we love to share our skills in making physical-based theatre (mime, acrobatics, mask, puppetry, etc.). It is so much fun to teach and inspire a new generation of theatre makers, all of whom have their own stories to tell. We have found recently that bookings for work in schools have been a lot slower than usual; I think that this is due in part to the change in government and like everyone else they are tightening their belts. I have been working with a new youth theatre in Ellesmere Port though, and it is so exciting watching a group develop over time and slowly challenging their ideas about what theatre is and can be: we are soon staging their work in a row of cottages within a museum, which I am very proud of.

You’re co-directing ‘The Games’ with Toby Park (Spymonkey), who also wrote the music score: How has it been working with him?

I have known Toby for over ten years; interestingly, we first met at a party in Edinburgh in 2000 when Spymonkey were performing their award-winning debut show, Stiff. It has only been in the past year where we have got to know each other much better. I knew I wanted to push Spike into making a theatre clown show and he seemed a perfect choice, we seem to complement each other very well. Working in partnership is something I would love to do again as it enables you the time to watch and make really informed choices, instead of always being in doing mode. Toby is a fantastic composer and a stunning saxophonist, and a top bloke to boot – not literally. It really makes you very jealous of all his talents and I can’t wait to work with him again.

Are you excited to go to Ed Fringe? It’s not long now; are Spike Theatre ready?

I am so excited about going up to Edinburgh, all of the cast have performed there and they are really looking forward to going. Lauren trained at Queens Margaret in Edinburgh, so she is especially excited as a lot of her class are still living there. I try to go up to the festival every year, it is a great place to and see something a bit different; I deliberately go to things that I know I wont see out on tour later in the year. It is a great place to go and feed your creativity; I have been influenced by the work I have seen over the years, much of it international. For example: I saw Yllana, a Madrid-based theatre company, perform a show called ‘Glub’ a wordless clown show that had me stitches. I was then fortunate enough to work for them in Edinburgh the same year I met Toby.

We are still looking for a programme sponsor and would welcome companies or individuals who might be able to offer financial assistance to help us with this.

I understand the hope is that you’ll be able to tour THE GAMES next year if it’s successful at Edinburgh?

The aim of Edinburgh is to showcase the work to promoters from the UK and the world; we are currently tour booking at the moment and have sold about 25% of our slots so far, so we will be seen across the UK from Feb – July in 2012. We would love in our dreams a transfer to London and some International touring; we live in hope and are keeping everything crossed that this might happen.

Finally, so why should people come to see ‘The Games’?

If you like your theatre funny, then The Games is for you. It is intelligent lunacy performed by three amazing performers; from power ballads, to cranky gods, to a huge puppet Zeus, The Games has the lot and you will learn a bit too. For example, so many of our common phrases are Greek in origin: ‘Starting from scratch’, ‘Don’t rest on your laurels’, ‘it’s all Greek to me’ and my favourite (OMG) ‘Oh My God’!

Spike Theatre’s ‘The Games’ can be seen at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 5-29th August (excluding 16th & 23rd) at the Zoo Roxy venue, 12.30pm.

For more details, go to their page on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival website, or take a look at www.spiketheatre.com

#EDFRINGE INTERVIEW: Ten Minutes with Spike Theatre - The Games, 4.3 out of 5 based on 3 ratings