Interview with Barrie Rutter, founder and
Artistic Director, Northern Broadsides Theatre Company.
Did you consider any direction in life other than
one in theatre?
I was, I think, fifteen and a half when I first got on a stage after
my voice had broke and I just loved it. I’ve no other word for
it, I’d no desire really. English teacher said come and be in
the school play and I said, oh I’m too busy, football, cricket,
etc. And when I finally got on, I just felt comfortable. Six lamps
in them days, the early sixties, I knew where everyone was. I’d
an instinct for it. I didn’t know that at the time, but I did
feel comfortable, I know I did. And then when I scraped five ‘O’
Levels and was allowed to come back for ‘A’ Level, it
seemed the only way forward but equally I was naïve. Somebody
said you should go to Drama School. I said, I’ll go. No, no,
no, they said, you’ll have to get in. I said, I’ll get
in. No, no, no, they said, you have to pass an audition. I said, I’ll
pass it. What’s an audition? It was naïve right through.
And equally, jumping ahead to ’92, when I formed my own company,
Northern Broadsides, I was equally naïve. I didn’t know
how on earth to get my idea off the ground. My agent said, ring the
accountant, and I said, what’s he got to do with it? And she
said, well, he’ll make you a company. So I rang him. He said,
send me £600, pick a title and you’re a company. And that’s
how that started. Ignorance is courage! Innocence is courage! Naivety
is courage! That’s the best.
You served your apprenticeship in the National Youth Theatre in the
1960s, presumably. How important was this to you? What did it do for
you?
It was a great adventure. I was already at the end of my first year
sixth that I did my first season. That was 1964. And then at school,
’64, Shakespeare’s quater-centenary, I played Macbeth.
Then I got into Drama School. Then I went back for my second year
with the Youth Theatre in ’65. I was in the West End of London,
aged 18, and then going back to college---if I had a chip on my shoulder,
they certainly helped to raise its elevation! They’d say things
like, Oh, well, you’ve done that. But now you’re coming
here to learn properly. I used to think, piss off! I left college
early. I remember the head of the college said, I’ve cast you
as Uncle Vanya. I said, I know, but I’m going all round Europe
first class to play Nipple in Little Malcolm. So, I’m going.
And I did. I never looked back.
Did it have the sixties’ buzz about it?
The sixties passed me by. I don’t know what the sixties were.
I knew there was a music for me, but I never had any money in the
sixties, not until very late, around about ’68 and then it was
gone. I remember being in the first term at college: these women used
to gather and drink coffee and listen to this wanker called Bob Dylan.
At least, I judged him a wanker because these women used to collect
and drink coffee to listen to him. I was a fish dock lad from Hull
who supped pints of ale. I was a rock-‘n’-roller, Jerry
Lee, Little Richard, Presley. When I discovered for myself, Bob Dylan,
years later, I mainlined on him; it was wonderful. At the time, you
know, one guitar, one voice and a nasal whine, very much associated
with dope; none of which I was ‘cos dope was secretive and quiet
and you had it in corners. I was garrulous. I was gregarious. A pint-supper.
I was thinking more of the political stuff…
I’d no inkling. That’s not quite true. I wasn’t
totally thick on what my thoughts were. Fish-dock lad from Hull. At
the time I got a very good grant to college; I’d got a private
bursary grant; it was available in Hull to go to the Youth Theatre.
The state paid for everything. I knew what sort of state help I was
getting. I knew there was an enemy out there, and whether you want
to call it the Tory Party, you can, or if you want to call it organized
Christianity, you can. The big jig for me to dance, and lead the dance,
is the disestablishment of the church. That’s the big dance
for me to be led. I just hate the fact that our rules and our government
and our parliament are all sworn in by the so-called established church.
Did you have a Christian upbringing?
I sang in the church choir. I loved singing. But, no, nowt Christian
about it. That working-class ‘there’s a god’ type
Christianity but no-one ever went to church. Nobody bothered. Weddings,
funerals and christenings, like everyone else.
You weren’t involved with Methodism or anything else?
None of that sophistication. There was no articulation of anything
like that in my house. No books whatsoever. None. No.
