Stop me if you’ve heard this one…
January 2009. Four blokes in a pub decide to put on a new play but have no real money to stage it so enter it into a local theatre festival that will alleviate their financial concerns by giving them a free venue to perform at as well as a built-in audience who frequent the festival every year. Only downside is you only get to perform it once (alongside nine or ten other companies performing). Unless of course you win the festival then you can compete in the next stage of the competition. But that’s not going to happen! They just like the play, an absurdist comedy by a local writer they all know and one of them is itching to have a go at directing.
It’s now July 2009 and the four blokes find themselves in the English Final of the festival with this new play having picked up several awards on the way. They seem a bit shocked as it was only meant to be a one-off performance. After the festival season has ended the bloke who directed pipes up “we should do one next year. I’ve got an idea for a new play”. So, Whole Hog Productions was born. Okay, not the best punch line ever but still very funny to the co-founders who never intended for the company to last beyond the one festival performance.
Jump forward seven years and Whole Hog Productions is still going. Our last production was in August of 2015 but this seems a good time to take stock and, after a bit of a break, look to the future as Whole Hog looks to roll again from this spring.
That first festival entry set the ‘mission statement’ of the company from then on, to produce new plays written by local actors and directors and stage them at theatre festivals across the country. In fact Whole Hog’s first eight productions all premiered at local and national theatre festivals. We started off with One-Act plays but soon moved onto full length productions incorporating all kinds of genres and styles. Since then we have branched out into staging productions that are not part of theatre festivals but are stand alone Whole Hog performances in a diversity of spaces from pub theatres through to railway museums! So, what’s to come in this our seventh year?
Since we performed at the Alma Tavern Theatre, Bristol last summer a few things have changed. Two of the company’s leading ladies have taken the reins from co-founder Matthew Clift. Becky Cann and Fenella Harrop have appeared in a variety of roles for the company and now under their artistic directorship Whole Hog enters a new era. There will be a return to Swindon’s One-Act Play Festival in April, the very place Whole Hog appeared at seven years ago. Local actor, Mike Sly (who joined the company last year) is directing a production-yet to be decided (watch this space!).
One of the directors, Becky Cann, is off on a four month theatre tour of Spain so will communicate by phone, facebook and Skype as Fenella leads the way! When Becky returns the company will be staging a major new production for summer 2016.
Keep checking this website for updates and information of Whole Hog’s return…