Andy Smith reflects on 80 years of world history through the telling of a story of a man from Preston—The Preston Bill—at The Continental in Preston from October 14-15, and 21-22.
From World War Two to the election of Cameron, encompassing the fall of the Berlin Wall, Thatcher, the unions and America’s first black president, The Preston Bill charts 80 years of history and socio-political change through the life story of one man from Preston.
Andy Smith, who is known for his close collaboration with writer and actor Tim Crouch, recounts the life of a man called Bill using just a chair and ukulele.
Starting in 1935, it takes in his National Service, marriage, working life, union activity, retirement and his eventual death. The Preston Bill examines the ideas of social change and political rhetoric using verbatim political speeches through the decades and asks how world events affect one person and how one person might try to make a difference in the world.
Smith is a north west born director, performer and theatre maker. Along with Karl James, he has collaborated with playwright and actor Tim Crouch on numerous occasions, including their co-written and performed play what happens to hope at the end of the evening (2013), commissioned by the Almeida Theatre, the world première of Adler & Gibb (2014) at The Royal Court and the award-winning An Oak Tree, recently performed to celebrate its ten year anniversary at National Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe.
Since 2004, Andy has also been creating a body of solo productions, using a simple and entertaining approach to address complex issues, of which The Preston Bill is the latest example. Other recent solo work includes all that is solid melts into air (2011) and commonwealth (2012).
Andy said, “The Preston Bill is contemporary theatre, but in many senses is very traditional. It contains ideas of epic narratives, of telling a story, of political themes. The piece is a solo, but as with all my work, it makes some requests of the spectator to engage imaginatively with what the story offers.
"I think and hope that in some way it might be seen as a collaboration with its audience, which is what I think all theatre should be. It’s also a work that—because of the concerns of the New Theatre In Your Neighbourhood project from which it sprang—plays with locality and place, but I don’t think that an audience has to come from the north of England in order to ‘get’ it.
"We’ve done work-in-progress showings of the piece all over the country in the lead-up to the opening in October, and the story seems to work for a wide range of audiences, which I am really pleased about.”