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Interviews
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From Star Wars to Battersea Philip Fisher talks to Paul Higgins about his unorthodox career Paul Higgins' professional life has in some ways been like a well-constructed drama. So often in biographical plays, one gets a scene showing the protagonist as a successful professional, before flashing back to their earlier career to see how they got there. On leaving university, Higgins started out as a runner with a company making TV commercials but soon climbed the greasy pole starting with "my first drama, Smith and Jones" to become assistant director to George Lucas on a Star Wars movie. He also worked with other great names such as Nicholas Roeg, Franco Zeffirelli, Richard Eyre and Nicholas Hytner. His ambivalent feelings about the silver screen are perhaps best summed up by the fact that he has still not yet seen that Star Wars picture "because I knew it wasn't a very good film". However, since "my passion has always been theatre. It has greater immediacy for drama", he chucked it all up for a place at RADA. In doing so, Higgins relinquished a position that had taken seven or eight years to reach in an industry that many would kill to join. As he admitted, he is is a real theatre junkie and is probably seen in theatres more often than almost any other director , currently spending about four nights a week watching other people's plays but accepting reluctantly that with a new-born baby, that is rather too much. However, as the writer knows all too well, this is an addiction that it is not easy to give up. The man who has always loved the stage clearly enjoyed his three years learning how to act but that was never really his ultimate goal. Having graduated from RADA, he took on a playwriting course bu,t in reality, Higgins was never in doubt that his future lay as a director. The question was where? As he says, after directing some new plays at the Finborough and Southwark, he was looking for something more settled. He had often passed the Latchmere Pub in Battersea and wondered why its theatre was not as active as it should be. Eventually, he asked the question out aloud and was given the opportunity to set up what became Theatre503, one of the new writing success stories of the early years of the current century. While the National Theatre, the Royal Court and the Bush have been promoting new writers for many years, Higgins spotted a gap in the market in that there were far too few stages available to aspiring playwrights. In fact, he managed to forge partnerships with many of the established theatres and has been eternally grateful to Jack Bradley at the National and Graham Whybrow at the Royal Court, both of whom were kind enough to pass on plays that were not appropriate for their spaces. In a relatively short period of time, Higgins had established this small theatre above a pub as an exciting new producing house that was constantly showcasing high-quality work and allowing both untried and established writers to develop. This not only helped the writers but also enabled the adventurous young artistic director/producer to build a strong reputation in his half-dozen years in the post. He is proud that he managed to help new starters such as Dennis Kelly and Jennifer Farmer and more established writers like Naomi Wallace, Ron Hutchinson, Rebecca Prichard and Gary Owen. Having staged 45 plays there, he eventually decided that it was time to move on to other projects on bigger stages, although he retains a fondness for both the theatre and the idea of working in small studio spaces. He was also building up great connections within the industry and had worked at Chichester as assistant to the late Steven Pimlott. When Sonia Friedman decided to make a Find a Playwright reality TV, with his new writing credentials, Higgins was an obvious man to be drafted in as assistant director to Pimlott. The programme was called The Play's the Thing and as well as featuring a large number of would-be playwrights who were competing for a slot in a West End theatre, Paul Higgins was to be seen helping around the edges. Sadly, his involvement became far greater when Pimlott had to drop out of the project through ill-health. The final result, On the Third Day by Kate Betts got its fifteen minutes of fame at the New Ambassadors and perhaps demonstrated that it is not as easy to write a hit drama as many might think. It was though an interesting education for all concerned. Since then, Paul Higgins has been working on three different projects at places that could hardly be more diverse. First, he assisted Neil Bartlett on a rather eccentric sounding Twelfth Night that has just closed at the Courtyard in Stratford. As he says, "I enjoyed it immensely. It was a nice break from working with new plays. It's so good sitting down with a script that you know is bloody good, especially Twelfth Night - it's a delight ". This production featured American film and stage star, John Lithgow - "a wonderful actor - the real thing" - as Malvolio, increased the bardic cross-dressing by ignoring gender in much of the casting. This meant that hot young talent Chris New played Viola, while Marjorie Yates and Annabel Leventon were Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek respectively. His next project is the first step in his apprenticeship as an opera director, about which he is clearly very excited. As he says, "When theatre works there is no art form to touch it but music is very powerful and I'm very happy to be working an opera". He has been commissioned by the Opera House in Covent Garden to assist on the re-cast revival of Richard Eyre's La Traviata. From there, it is back to more familiar ground at the Arcola, where Higgins will be directing a new play by Mark Wheatley, perhaps best known as a writer for Complicite on work such as Lucie Cabrol and Street of Crocodiles. As an ambitious young director, Paul Higgins wants to succeed in many different fields. He likes to feel that his future career will include projects on the West End stage working with both new writing and classics such as Shakespeare and a particular favourite of his, John ('Tis Pity She's a Whore) Ford; in the opera houses of the world; and also a return to the glamour of the big screen. With his track record and commitment, this intelligent and likeable director should have no trouble in achieving all of that and more.
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