Matthew Bourne & Glenn Graham Interview: Maintaining Standards on Tour
Title
Matthew Bourne & Glenn Graham Interview: Maintaining Standards on Tour
Date
14 November 2018
Description
Oral history interview with Matthew Bourne & Glenn Graham of New Adventures, a unique dance-theatre company, a regular visitor to the Theatre Royal.
What's the story?
Sir Matthew Christopher Bourne OBE was born in Hackney, London in 1960. He started training as a dancer at the age of 22. He later went on to become sole artistic director of Adventures in Motion Pictures (AMP) and subsequently his latest company New Adventures in 2002.
Glenn Graham was born in Nottingham in 1980 and was educated at Top Valley Comprehensive School and Clarendon College. He was professionally trained at the Rambert School of Ballet & Contemporary Dance before joining New Adventures in 2003.
In this interview Matthew talks about the high standards to be maintained whilst touring.
“I think we need every single performance to be brilliant for the audience. We don’t accept bad performances from anyone. We also don’t accept the not smiling at the curtain call and being generous with the audience. It’s part of our policy, really. It’s a part of the way that we work. It’s about give and take with an audience. It’s something that we instil in people, and actually, once they get into it, they enjoy that because it makes every performance feel important. And you need to feel it’s important to do your best work. If you think nobody cares and nobody’s watching, another show, you can almost forget there’s an audience there: they’ve not seen it yet. Because you’re just so in this thing of doing shows. So you need things to keep your mind alive and you need to feel that every performance is as important as the last one. And that’s something I believe is one of the keys to our success at touring: you always see a great show. Things go wrong, of course. We’re all human and things happen, but the intention is always to do the best show we can do.”
Glenn Graham was born in Nottingham in 1980 and was educated at Top Valley Comprehensive School and Clarendon College. He was professionally trained at the Rambert School of Ballet & Contemporary Dance before joining New Adventures in 2003.
In this interview Matthew talks about the high standards to be maintained whilst touring.
“I think we need every single performance to be brilliant for the audience. We don’t accept bad performances from anyone. We also don’t accept the not smiling at the curtain call and being generous with the audience. It’s part of our policy, really. It’s a part of the way that we work. It’s about give and take with an audience. It’s something that we instil in people, and actually, once they get into it, they enjoy that because it makes every performance feel important. And you need to feel it’s important to do your best work. If you think nobody cares and nobody’s watching, another show, you can almost forget there’s an audience there: they’ve not seen it yet. Because you’re just so in this thing of doing shows. So you need things to keep your mind alive and you need to feel that every performance is as important as the last one. And that’s something I believe is one of the keys to our success at touring: you always see a great show. Things go wrong, of course. We’re all human and things happen, but the intention is always to do the best show we can do.”
Type
Oral interview
Location of item
Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Interviewers: Jennifer Sherwood and Diane Jones
Transcriber: David Chilton
Transcriber: David Chilton