Shakespeare switches online as tradition remains unbroken

Horley director Gary Andrews is ensuring an important Shakespeare tradition goes unbroken amid the pandemic.
Horley director Gary AndrewsHorley director Gary Andrews
Horley director Gary Andrews

Every year since 1951 there has been Shakespeare on the beautiful Polesden Lacey Open Air stage on the North Downs at Great Bookham, near Dorking. And despite all that’s happening this year, the show will definitely go on – albeit in different form.

An audio version of Romeo and Juliet will be released online (for free) on Saturday, June 27 at 2.30pm, on the day and at the time of what would have been the first performance.

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As the organisers look forward to next year’s 70th show, they can pride themselves on the fact that this year’s 69th consecutive show wasn’t wiped out by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The recording will remain available in perpetuity, says Gary – a reminder of an extraordinary year.

http://www.polesdenlaceyshakespeare.co.uk“We would have hated a summer to go by without us producing a Shakespeare. We haven’t done the live production, but we have still done something. We didn’t just drop it completely.”

Gary has been involved with Polesden Lacey Shakespeare for a number of years, originally coming in to arrange some fights in the productions before moving on to direct. He has since directed three or four times with them and is now the company’s creative director.

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“The company is purely based at Polesden Lacey. In 1951 for the Festival of Britain, they built an open-air stage and a company was set up for a Shakespeare production. Every summer since, they have done one. For many years, it was supported by the National Trust, and then about ten years ago, the National Trust withdrew funding. The people that were doing the plays said they couldn’t just stop and so they set up an independent charity to keep the shows going.”

2020 threatened to break the tradition.

“But with the lockdown, we said that we can’t just not do anything. We had already cast the play and we were literally about to start rehearsals when lockdown happened. So I said ‘Let’s do an audio version which we can release on the day we were supposed to have started.’

“My day job is in animation. I am used to working with voice recordings. I suggested that everyone recorded their lines independently, and I told them how to set up a sound baffle nest (to reduce noise interference). They recorded three versions of each speech, each with a different intonation which then came back to me so that I could match them up.

“If it was just one take, I would never have been able to match them. It would have just sounded weird. It certainly made the workload bigger, but having three versions was worth it, and I would have to say that it sounds pretty good. There are perhaps a handful of occasions where I have not quite got the take I would have wanted, and if we had had the time, I would have gone back, but there comes a point where you have to say that you have finished. We got to the point where it was close enough.” Gary has also taken advantage of the chance the audio recording gave him to add in sound effects, street noises, footsteps etc: “We have even got the sounds of the sword fights.”

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Gary is hoping that things will return to normal for next year when the planned production is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the very first Polesden Lacey Shakespeare back in 1951.

The company is offering the recording to be enjoyed for free, but they would welcome donations to the Sepsis Trust in memory of Gary’s wife, Joy Andrews, a “fantastic actress” and leading light in the company who was lost to “this terrible, silent killer” in October 2017, at the age of 41. Gary and Joy had worked together on a number of Polesden Lacey Shakespeares over the years.

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