We start rehearsals today for The Jam Diaries and so to mark the occasion we asked the brains behind the project, Gemma Stroyan, some questions. 

Where did the idea for The Jam Diaries come from?
I realised that a lot of my spoken word that I began writing two years ago was about my experiences and feelings towards this culture of instant gratification, and that in fact it can leave us feeling dissatisfied and confused. 
Then when I (rather ironically) had a conversation on tinder about the nature of tinder, the guy pointed out The Jam Experiment. The fact this experiment confirmed that greater choice and greater satisfaction does not always correlate seemed like the perfect metaphor and basis for all the writing I had already done. It was then a matter of piecing it together and experimenting with what I had, and what I wanted to say. 

How long have you been working on the piece?
I suppose you could say for a year and a half really, but it's definitely had a clearer direction for the last 6 months. 

What does a work in progress offer a writer?
It allows you to leave your ideas and concepts open to continuous development, which I think is actually essential with the kind of content of The Jam Diaries. The social landscape of online dating, or people's views towards instantaneous technology is ever changing, so it was important to keep the rehearsal process fluid, to allow for open discussions and progressive work. 

What made you start writing poetry? 
I have always written. Whether it just be putting observations on paper, or writing a diary, but it wasn't until I went to a spoken word event over 2 years ago that I realised the impact of performance poetry, and the importance of hearing the words out loud. 
That same night I wrote my first poem and it features in The Jam Diaries (I still consider it one of my strongest and clearest pieces). 
For the next 6 months, particularly whilst touring the country with a play, I found that writing poetry became my outlet for processing everything I was experiencing at such a fast pace. It became my diary, my way of understanding myself and collecting my thoughts. 

Spoken word and theatre seem to be crossing boundaries more and more, why do you think this is?
I think the power of words on a page is something very simple and special. It is then a totally different thing hearing someone speak those words out loud. You have the vocal quality, the pace, the volume, the emotion that all lift the words from the page and give them life. All of the above add to telling a particular story. I think it's both creatively satisfying and powerful for a piece of writing to flow the way it can do in spoken word. Some moments just land with such specificity in this form. It is also incredibly freeing and playful for an actor to be able to build on the natural impact of the text. 
A funny moment can be brilliantly executed with a little bit of rhyme, or equally an emotional point can really hit home with a particular choice in rhythm. The words are your oyster in spoken word, and for theatre that is what you want; to find creative ways to celebrate the potential of those moments. 

Why do you love theatre?
I think all good theatre can transport you somewhere else for a while. I just feel like in a world where we seem to be increasingly anxious, judgmental and fearful, why not go somewhere where you're allowed to connect, to feel, to open your mind to a perspective you hadn't previously considered, or indeed to feel that you're not alone in your way of thinking? It's so important to tell stories to bring each other together and create change.

You can see The Jam Diaries at Summerhall on 2 December 2016 at 7pm

So it's less than a month to go until we kick off at the Edinburgh Fringe! If you haven't got your tickets yet then you can get them here! 

And to get the ball rolling  we decided to film a trailer for the show, which you all will be able to see very soon! Our wonderful trailer designer and animator, Craig Kirk, had some excellent ideas for creating a short, snappy peak at the Buffer madness! So without giving too much away, here's a look at some snaps from the Sunday afternoon shoot.

Those of you that have followed Thrive since the start will remember our show Riot Squat, written by Alan Gordon. After it's success in the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe, Alan and I have decided to join forces again to present this exciting new production for you. Buffer was originally a project Alan started whilst working with Playwright's Studio, Scotland in Glasgow. They are a great organisation supporting emerging playwrights and nurturing their work with the help of a professional mentor. The play was presented early 2013 as a reading at the Tron Theatre which I saw and loved. And it's been full speed ahead since then. 

So in June this year we decided to organise a workshop to develop and fine tune the script to make it even more awesome for the fringe. We also used these few days to audition some brilliant actors for the two male roles in the play. As the characters of Craig and Spencer are quite complex and require a brilliant chemistry to pull the show off, we wanted to make sure we had the right boys! After an initial day of getting to know the actors, we started looking at script excerpts and mixing things up a little bit. 

Buffer centres around the use of technology and how it enhances or restricts our every day life. And as you can see from our workshop photo montage, we found technology extremely helpful and time saving when the actors performed re-writes of the script on a sometimes hourly basis! 

Over the course of the three days, we managed to cast the final characters, come to a solid conclusion about how the script developed and also have a laugh along the way! And as August approaches, our team is all joining to create the most wonderful show - one thing's for sure, it's going to be a cracker!  

Strong, confident performances from Thrive Theatre, in association with the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, mark out Alex Hope’s cleverly-written and intriguing hypothetical thought-experiment.

Hope questions what happens when someone becomes incidentally enmeshed in a fraught and high-profile incident – and the impossibilities that this presents for any attempt to communicate and record both the event itself and the nature of one’s own involvement.

In sparse, clinical surroundings, a woman is interviewed by successive officials. She is attempting to give a set of facts – the narrative of a controversial and critical event – for the last time. But these facts are not her own…

The play’s sparse set – the ominous presence of a hospital bed and a simple table and chairs, all decked out in the same, unsettling sterile, clinical white – makes good use of Venue 13’s impressive black box space.

The cast, Aleda Bliss, Bertie Taylor-Smith and Alex Hope trade,  in the main, on nervous, stilted, formal exchanges between the interviewee and what is intimated to be a medical professional; and between the same interviewee and someone who professes to a be a government official.

The mistrust, anxiety and difficulties and frustrations of framing discourse according to formal and legal convention are well played here, and the tense, nervous physical acting, especially on the part of Bliss as the interviewee is very effective.

The Witness plays out through the composition of official documents, formal reports, a recorded interview and details from a sketchbook. There are strange, disturbing and abstract fragments, of answer phone message recordings whose relation to the main narrative is never entirely clear.

There are only facts here and no real details. The intervention of medical and possibly governmental influences, combined with the intimation of media involvement cut off the possibility of any direct explication of context. Alex Hope’s script works exclusively through allusion and intimation to a situation, intimate familiarity with which is, it is suggested, assumed by each of the characters of the others and therefore ultimately eludes the audience.

Tantalising visual and verbal clues are given (references to ‘Princes’, gender and age are given). There are distinct intimations here and a conclusion is clearly meant to be reached on precisely what is being intimated. A narrative just about promises to unfold here – yet remains tantalisingly and frustratingly withheld.

The Witness is, ultimately, a play about the impossibilities of communication and thus of political and legal self-representation and self-understanding, played out through a hypothetical thought-experiment which obstinately and effectively hovers at the level of thwarted intimation.

Review by Mark Bolsover for Thom Dibdin's ALL EDINBURGH THEATRE - www.ThomDibdin.co.uk

In terms of its slow-reveal dramatic structure, which sustains an effective degree of suspense throughout, and the absorbingly nuanced, understated performances of its three-strong cast, this production of Alex Hope’s first play by Edinburgh-based company Thrive Theatre scores impressively high. What lies beneath, however, turns out at the end to be so ludicrously far-fetched – in terms of its practical, if not necessarily emotional, likelihood – as to comprehensively deflate all the tension that has been painstakingly built up.

It’s only fair to remain vague about plot details, given the way that Hope gradually and craftily ekes out his clues: suffice to say that the plot, set in Zurich, centres on a twentysomething solo backpacker, Rebecca (Aleda Bliss), being quizzed about her hapless involvement in what is described as Britain’s biggest domestic crisis since the financial crash – but if true would be an infinitely greater media cataclysm.

The show’s accompanying publicity talks of Hope’s fascination with the unknowable private griefs of iconic public figures, but as the title suggests, the focus here is more on the intrusive and inconvenient implications for Rebecca, whose parallel travails with her uncommunicative boyfriend back in London, intercut using voiceover recordings of her telephone messages, shed no further light on the piece’s ultimately mysterious intentions.

Review by Sue Wilson.

A very warm hello to all followers of THRIVE! 

Hopefully, like us, you're in the stage of mulling and musing over what to see this year.  If so, 'The Witness' should be right up there with the rest of your 'to see(s)' - we are very, very, very excited to bring our second original play to debut at this year's Fringe Festival! 

Our rehearsals are all done, the cast are away having their break in return for all the dedicated and fantastic work they've done already and now, for the rest of us at THRIVE, the quiet before the storm!

We'll be letting you know throughout our run (10th-18th), ticket availability, production news and of course, what our cast, crew and friends are getting up to during the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2013!

If you've added us on to your list, you can visit the Fringe website for tickets here, contact us at info@thrivetheatre.com. 

Also, don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates from the writer/director of 'The Witness', Alex Hope, and our Artistic Director, Becky Hope-Palmer.

Have a fantastic Fringe!

THRIVE THEATRE

What if the 2011 riots had spread to Edinburgh? This is the question Alan Gordon’s darkly humorous play attempts to answer, setting the action in university graduates Miles and Kristy’s rather middle-class squat. The result is an insightful look at the motivations behind the riots and the bleak future today’s graduates face. All three cast members play their roles with just the right mix of humour and sincerity, and the chemistry between Gemma Stroyan and Alex Hope builds throughout . Ross Donnachie also deserves a special mention for his portrayal of the Glaswegian rioter Billy, giving depth to a what could have easily become a very stereotypical character. An enjoyable and interesting piece of social commentary which remains relevant a year after the riots that inspired it.

Review by Charlotte Ryan

The ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster was originally printed in WWII. It doesn’t take a genius to explain why it’s now being mass produced… Of course they want us to keep calm, looking at events globally; people power has proven to be as strong as ever. Closer to home, we have experienced the London riots; when graduating goes hand in hand with signing on, isn’t it inevitable that this generation is going to erupt onto the streets?

In Riot Squat, the riots have descended upon Edinburgh. The city is falling apart. Miles (Alex Hope) and Kristy (Gemma Stroyan) are archetypal middle class graduates. Brought up in the shadows of their parents, they believe the world owes them a living. Now living in a squat, they refuse to accept their fallen state. As the nation fight for liberty this blinkered couple sit beneath their ‘Keep Calm’ poster worrying about climbing the social ladder. When Glaswegian street warrior Billy (Ross Donnachie) arrives to reveal Miles is the heralded ‘Dummy Runner’, the catalyst of the riots. The couple at first horrified, soon manipulate measures to ensure that Miles’s identity remains hidden. The piece becomes harrowing as they find ways of using Billy to their advantage; after all, Kristy can’t go around with a crisp as an engagement ring forever…

Perhaps the issue here could have been politicised more; it could have gone to the core of society’s problems. Then again this could have taken away from what Alan Gordon’s writing is so successful in showing; real characters whose lives we fully invest in. Riot Squat transports one into an all too real predicament. Is it focusing on the past, or predicting the future? Gordon is unwilling to say; yet when there’s not much else for graduates to do, we can make our own predictions.

Review by Charles Tyrer

In a squat in Edinburgh in the midst of the riots, Miles and Kristy have set up their own little home of pillaged potpourri and Wetherspoons sauce sachets. Kristy is the St Andrews born daughter of wealthy parents and longs for the success and advantage she was promised when she came to university. Miles, whose origins are vague enough to suggest sitting comfortably in the middle class boundary, lives in horror that it was his friend’s charm and not his intellect that found employment. Their third roommate is Beryl, a Harvey Nichol’s store mannequin that accidentally found its way into Mile’s hands during the riots and has inadvertently become a symbol of youth rebellion for everybody in the city. The fourth arrival into the squat is Billy, a young Glaswegian with a cut above his right eye and an inexplicable dedication to the cause he thinks Miles has lead. Thus begins something between a comedy of manners, a quirky romantic comedy, and a crucial message about the position of students in modern society.
Thrive Theatre may not be in the most central of venues or have the biggest of reputations, but Riot Squat is a show you absolutely must see, especially if you are young and worried about just about anything. The play is a beautifully scripted, if sometimes too referential: jokes about Facebook and Little Miss Sunshine seem to be there to make a point about a particular generation rather than expressing fresh sentiments from these character’s mouths, but Kristy’s condemnation of her own desire for quirkiness almost feels like a refreshing nod towards these odd moments of problematic reference. In fact, these actors do a rare thing in that they take a blinding three hander and continue to elevate it further and further in spectacular performances.

Gemma Stroyan as Kristy enters the play as your atypical slightly cutting posh other half, but as the play continues both actor and script discover exactly who she is. Her monologue about what she deserves in life hits home like an arrow through the heart and her behaviour throughout the play - whether ethical or not - never feels unjustified somehow. Alex Hope as Miles is also almost impossibly charming, if at times a bit shrieky, and his battle between what one ought to do, and what one ends up doing, is played out on so many levels and is so sublime in part because he knows his course of ‘correct behaviour’ is never going to work for him. He is a sad inditement of what it is to be young today: knowing that a gleaming CV has nothing on a good networking lunch and the capacity to throw a dinner party. Billy, played with heartwarming naivety and yet incredible worldliness by Ross Donnachie, could feel infuriating due to arriving into a play where two characters and their relationship are so delightfully established. However, after some awkward first moments that felt a bit too much like a french farce he slips perfectly into the show when his role becomes clear.

It is often hard to find good pieces of new writing performed simply and well at the Fringe, and Riot Squat is a perfect example of this done right. What Riot Squat does as well, however, is even rarer: instead of just a beautifully written and well acted play that taps into wider, ancient issues, this performance steps into the recent past, grabs issues that affect each and every one of us and take them gently by the throat to be throttled before you. Whilst constantly comfortable and pleasant - and maybe lacking some of the menace they know lurks beyond the doors - Riot Squat talks directly to every person in the room in a way that hopefully will not be relevant in a year or two, and it is this confidence and relevance that makes it a must see this Fringe.

Reviewed by David Levesley.