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In October 2007 Adrian Jackson the Artistic Director of the Lichfield Garrick Theatre invited me to direct the pro-am production they were planning with The Lichfield Players. It had already been decided that this was to be Cold Comfort Farm by Paul Doust based on the novel by Stella Gibbons. The film of the book had been released in 1995 and featured Kate Beckinsale as Flora Post and Rufus Sewell as Seth. The play had been performed fairly infrequently and rarely professionally.

I jumped at the chance of course, partly because it was work but also because the opportunity to work with a large ensemble cast was very exciting, not to mention extremely rare in professional theatre. I had worked with companies producing large-scale community projects but usually in non-theatre spaces and with less control over design and logistics. For Cold Comfort Farm I was also able to design and so had an element of artistic control again unusual in the theatre.

The criteria for working with a professional director for the Players was based on their desire to break a number of moulds as well as to test numerous theories and perhaps myths about the difference between professional and amateur directing. This was something that I looked forward to as well, so a learning curve for us both. The Garrick also wanted to build audiences; the Players having a large one for their productions, one that didn’t always transfer allegiance easily to the general programme at the theatre. We were all there therefore to kill a number of birds!

The rehearsal programme followed the Players pattern of weekly evenings and Saturdays, the first major difference for me and the 4 professional actors engaged by then. I was used to short intensive, full-time rehearsal periods and so it took some adjusting to the timelines, pacing of rehearsals and the director’s memory not to mention contractual arrangements. The other major difference at this stage was the level of support that I was given. It seemed to me that there was a ‘body’ to cover everything. Stage management, ASM, DSM, props, costumes, make-up, music/sound, someone was allocated to all roles- a luxury comparatively rare even in the funded and commercial theatres, certainly in the recent past.

However one of the drawbacks of this level of support is that sometimes decisions can be made too early. When someone (or two) is making a note of blocking and plotting of the production from day one of the rehearsal they can sometimes get a bit nonplussed if I suddenly change my mind about something, which I’m prone to do up to the last minute. ‘That’s not what you said last week’ became a bit of a mantra.

Artistically (I think) people were mostly happy to go along with whatever outrageous or weird ideas I threw at them, even the one about being on stage all the time; everyone, without the habitual respite of 20 minutes in the dressing room having a cup of tea. I generally keep people on stage in productions. I think audiences like to see hard work on the part of actors and it also gives them a dynamic stage picture throughout the piece.

This, I hope was what they got from me – a range of dynamic and innovative creative ideas and a raising of the directorial bar. The lower one (bar, this is), they told me was sometimes too much time spent on literary and textual concerns rather than active creative ones, an over-emphasis on ‘blocking’ and a misplaced worry that the audience won’t know what’s going on if we took too many risks artistically.

What I got clearly was a dispelling of any misconceptions I may have had about amateur theatre, an opportunity for lively debate and total support from a highly skilled ensemble company. So when invited to do it for a second time this year I said yes. Fur Coat and No Knickers was performed in April of this year to packed houses. So it looks like a tradition and one that I hope will spread to other theatres and amateurs companies across the country.

Kim Gillespie can contacted at Studio B402, LCB Depot, 31 Rutland Street, Leicester, LE1 1RE

kim [at] jacksongillespie [dot] co [dot] uk 07894 345310