 |
|
|
|||
|
Interviews
|
|||
|
|
Guy Masterson - Mr Edinburgh Peter Lathan talks to the man who has been called Mr Edinburgh because of his success as an Edinburgh Fringe producer but who still thinks of himself primarily as an actor. Newspapers, forever looking for the striking phrase, have called him Mr Edinburgh - with justice, for since 1991 he has produced 38 shows at the Fringe, which have garnered fifteen awards (including a personal one for Best Actor from The Stage in 2001, seven Fringe Firsts and one First of Firsts) and fourteen Stage Award nominations. But he doesn't think of himself as a producer - "I'm first and foremost an actor," he says - and more or less fell into production by accident. "I saw plays which I liked, and simply helped the companies bring them to Edinburgh." And it grew from there: this year he had ten productions at the Fringe, including 12 Angry Men which won both the Jack Tinkler Spirit of the Fringe Award and the Strathmore Audience Award for Best Play, as well as the whole ensemble being nominated for the Stage's Best Actor Award. And he was nominated for Best Actor, too, for his one-man performance of Under Milk Wood. So how does he choose the plays he produces? "I saw Cameron Mackintosh being interviewed by Michael Parkinson," he says, "and he said something that sums up just the way I feel. He said, 'If I like it, I know others will.' "That's how I work. But it has to be done my way. If something in a play doesn't work for me, I know it won't work for an audience, so I tweak it and direct it my way." If that sounds arrogant, he certainly doesn't mean it that way. He sees hmself as reflecting taste rather than setting it. And,as almost of of his productions come from Autstralia, New Zealand or the USA, he has a perfect excuse for this 'interference'. "I can say 'It won't work this way in the UK," he adds with a laugh. Does he actively seek out productions? " I spend a lot of time touring my own work as an actor," he explains, "and like tends to meet like. We just somehow come together." Although he is currently touring with Fern Hill and Other Dylan Thomas and Under Milk Wood, and is about to revive his one-man Animal Farm after being asked to take it to Albania, the show of his which is most in the public eye is 12 Angry Men which he produced and directed at Edinburgh with a cast of mainly stand-up comedians, most of whom had never acted before. Wasn't that a big risk? From some points of view, he agees, it was, but he had no doubt they could do it. "Acting," he says, "is releasing the voice and releasing the body. When one of the cast said to me, 'But I'm not doing anything', he was at his best. We'd gone past the feeling that you need to 'do' something and that was when the acting started." His aim as a director is to enable his actors to bring out what is there: to go deeper than they've ever gone before - or even dared to go. And his methods have been fantastically successful, wth critical acclaim greeting almost every show, but critical success does not always bring financial rewards, and so it has proved in Guy Masterson's case. Earlier this year he had a major financial disaster and had to pay off all his staff, so now he is concentrating on doing his own shows but he's optimistic about the future. "I've never had any form of grant aid," he says. "The Arts Council think I'm commercial, so we get no subsidy of any kind. Our only income is what we take at the box office, and any profit is ploughed back into new productions". So when things go wrong, there's no financial cushion: hence the financial disaster at the beginning of the year. "I'm going to be working with William (Burdett-Coutts, who operates the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh) on getting shows which will fill the Music Hall, a difficult place to fill because it has 650 seats - very big in Fringe terms." He also has hopes of further developments in the 12 Angry Men saga and has another exciting piece in the offing. No details yet: he's still negotiating the rights. But watch this space!
|
||
|
|