Fleecehold went down a storm in Folkestone
But how will the Camden Fringe audiences react in two weeks' time?
It’s weird writing stories, both factual and fictional. You have no idea how readers will react, whether something leaves them feeling meh, makes them laugh, scares them or fires them up about an issue. This is especially true when you’ve written something like Fleecehold, which is a mixture of fact (including transcripts from the select committee into leasehold) and fiction over four years ago and have been rehearsing the lines over and over again for the last four months.
Will people get it? Will they think it’s boring? Will anyone actually come and see a play about leasehold, a subject which usually results in people’s eyes glazing over.
So when I heard the audience reaction to Fleecehold at The Grand’s Green Room a few weeks ago, I was totally unprepared. Okay, so I did have quite a few friends in the audience and I had told them to boo and hiss but still over the two nights, it was amazing to hear people boo and, most importantly, laugh in all the right places.
I was completely overwhelmed with the response with people saying they’d been moved to ‘tears and laughter’, commenting that the ‘cast and story were brilliant’ and someone I didn’t know (honest) tweeted how Dario Fo would approve.
But the biggest response was perhaps the biggest compliment - people hadn’t known much about the leasehold scandal and couldn’t believe what went on and is STILL going on with people trapped in leasehold flats at the mercy of greedy managing agents and freehold investors charging extortionate fees (not forgetting the poor people caught up in the cladding scandal).
Gove’s statement that there will be leasehold reform in the Autumn King’s Speech ‘God willing’ does not inspire much confidence. So if the play stops one person from buying a leasehold property, and suffering at the hands of the modern-day feudal overlords, then our job is done.
Thank you to everyone who came to see Fleecehold in Folkestone. I was so happy to see you all there. Thank you particularly to Giles Croft, director and writer, who happened to have just moved to The Grand and very kindly came along to watch the rehearsal. He gave me some fantastic advice about staging the play as well as telling me it was too long and I needed to cut it. It was and is all the better for deleting 20 pages.
And thank you to everyone who is coming to see the play at the Camden Fringe. It runs from August 11 to 13 at 6.15pm at The Little Angel Theatre (close to Upper Street and Essex Road and off Cross Street). There are plenty of tickets for Friday and Sunday but Saturday’s are going fast because the NLC ladies are coming to do a Q&A after the show, so if you want to ask them any questions, grab your tickets now.
Look forward to seeing you there and don’t forget to bring your best booing and hissing voices.