Mick Martin's a busy man and I managed to grab a few words with him hot on the heels of his return from this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He'd been there to promote his latest creation, a stage play called Frog Man. It's not a first for Mick, though, after all he's already had a number of his plays go on to gain national recognition including The Life and Times of Young Rob Scallion, Once Upon a Time in Wigan, The Immigrant Song and When Johnny Comes Marching ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.Ìý
 | | Scene from The Frog Man |
Frog Man began life as a series of workshops for the Hothouse Productions Company back in 2004, but wasn't developed any further. Mick says he was under a lot of pressure at the time with other commitments and his Artistic Director Jude Wright had left the company in order to work for Wakefield Theatres. It was some time later when a group of actors contacted Hothouse to ask if the piece had been finalised, to which the answer was no. It emerged, however, that they'd set up a co-operative aimed at getting an affordable venue at this year's Edinburgh Fringe and wanted to perform the piece if Mick was willing to finalise the script with Jude directing. This arrangement was a blessing in disguise, as Mick explained to me: "The actors were excellent and they really threw themselves into the project.ÌýThe amount of time between the initial research and development and the final product gave us a real perspective on the piece. It made it easier for us to see what the ideas and themes we'd worked on before were really all about at a fundamental level. The piece developed into something both absurd and surreal! It's very funny, but actually quite dark and disturbing too. It's as much about the darker side of children, violence and bullying that lurks behind a veneer of 'niceness' as it is a comedy of suburban life." The play's main characters are Kelly and Kenny who were childhood sweethearts. We gain insight into their lives through a series of comic and absurdist flashbacks to their childhood days. One particularly gruesome and disturbing event involves a dirty smelly boy known to all as Adrian Donefor. When they come across him, they're both marked forever. We also get to meet neighbour Malcolm Glazebrook, a man whose wife has recently left him. His arrival creates such an impact on Kelly and Kenny that they are forced to admit that they've spent years weaving lies around each other. Kelly is probably best described as an asthmatic dancing queen, who loves to boogie with her sweetheart every day. And when Kenny isn't dancing he's either working as a police frogman, or engaging in his favourite fantasy of being a frog. I went on to ask Mick what the initial reactions were to his play at the Festival. He said: "We didn't get any reviews till the second week, because we simply weren't out there pushing it. When they did come thankfully they were very good.Ìý You need those reviews to draw the people in, as well as the right venue. Believe me, you could sink without a trace if you get the venue and publicity wrong!" | "It's as much about the darker side of children, violence and bullying that lurks behind a veneer of 'niceness' as it is a comedy of suburban life." | | Mick Martin |
A typical venue for the three-week festival can set a production back three or four thousand pounds. That's a lot of pressure to get people through the doors by selling as many tickets as possible. But because the actors' co-operative had covered the initial costs, Mick and Jude were able to concentrate on fine-tuning the production rather than obsessing about filling the venue every day. And while they were based some distance from the heart of the Festival, they ended up playing to a half-full house. Not bad considering their initial performances attracted no more than half a dozen spectators. The play also managed to pull in a fairly wide audience, perhaps its irony found common currency among the older Fringe fans! You can catch the Frog Man at a special one off performance commencing at 730pm at the Wakefield Arts Centre on October 4th. Tickets can be obtained by calling the box office on 01924 211311. Mick and Jude plan to develop the play further and tour with it next year, by which time Hothouse will be already thinking about their next production... | 
