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Interviews
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Melanie Tait Philip Fisher interviews writer of The Vegemite Tales and Artistic Director of The Old Red Lion - "a sensitive Australian". It is a delight to spend an hour with Australian theatre director and playwright Melanie Tait. She is doing something that she loves and has a bubbly personality - a smile never far from her lips. As can be seen from the sunny Maddie, the autobiographical character in her Five Star hit, The Vegemite Tales, Miss Tait is that contradiction, the Sensitive Australian. Surprisingly for someone who is now steeped in theatre, until she left her home in a small town outside Sydney at 17, Miss Tait had only twice entered a theatre. She has made up for that since and as artistic director at The Old Red Lion in Islington is now closer to living in them. There is no doubt in Melanie Tait's mind as to the defining moment in her life to date. That is the writing of the house-share comedy, The Vegemite Tales. "Everything that I have at the moment is the result of The Vegemite Tales. My life, my friends and my job have all come from it. It has fed me for the last two years". The show, which still features four members of the original cast, has now been playing pretty much continuously for those two years and has had a successful run in Edinburgh. That is the result of incredible commitment from the whole company who seem happy to wander around town distributing flyers to get the public in. This is part of a family atmosphere that has built up with life following art. The team have moved into a house together. However, much as everyone loves it, this is probably the end of the road for The Vegemite Tales "at least for the moment". Miss Tait fell into a career as a writer. Because she didn't start out that way, she has found criticism hard to take and The Vegemite Tales will always provoke a reaction, sometimes negative. Now though she has reached the stage where it is no longer an issue. "As long as the people enjoy it, that's all that matters". What really frustrates her is "the critics who say that the show is clichéd and that the characters are stereotyped. Everything in the show did happen in real life, either to me or to friends and all of the characters are based on friends". She also has reflective moments. "Earlier in the year, I began to wonder about whether I wanted to spend the rest of my life in theatre after a project went absolutely tits-up. Some great people but a couple of big egos! The festival has really fired me up again". Miss Tait's writing impetus is most unusual. "I need rejection to be able to write easily, then it just flows". Unfortunately, life has been so good for the last couple of years that she has hardly written anything. As a result, she has made a conscious decision to knuckle down and write some plays over the next few months. The main thing that excites her at the moment, is developing the Old Red Lion, where she became artistic director last year. It may only be a 60-seat theatre "but it is a great space for acting in and the stage is surprisingly large" She has firm aspirations for the Old Red Lion. "I want to turn it back into what it was ten years ago, a new writing theatre that can rival the Royal Court or the Bush". A start in this direction is a joint venture with production company Nabokov to have "Shorts Nights" where people bring in short plays for reading and discussion. She is excited about the theatre's programme for the next six months with a new partially rewritten version of Anthony Neilson's Penetrator and a Christmas programme of comedy possibly the highlights. She is also keen to bring more work by her great friend, originally from university at Wollongong, Van Badham into the repertoire. Bedtime for Bastards played in the spring and Camarilla will be coming down from Edinburgh. The relationship between the pair is interesting. "When I met Vanessa, she was really politically active so I was scared of her. Now we hit it off and I think that she is fantastic". One source of joy is the appointment of Maxine Morrison (Gemma the mother hen from The Vegemite Tales) as marketing manager. This will ease the pressure on Miss Tait, give her a friend to talk to and free her up to concentrate on artistic matters. She has had a good time in Edinburgh this year, both with The Vegemite Tales and looking at other work and has no doubt that Boy Steals Train by 78th Street Lab at the Assembly Rooms is the pick. An exciting period is opening for Melanie Tait as she begins writing a successor to The Vegemite Tales and tries to make The Old Red Lion one of London's prime producing houses. It would be a mistake to bet against this bright and cheery lady succeeding with both - and don't write off her favourite earner either. The Vegemite Tales may be off the short-term agenda but could well come back to a bigger venue.
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