Young playwright has not forgotten his roots (From Salisbury Journal)

Young playwright has not forgotten his roots

11:07am Thursday 16th February 2012 in Entertainments By Anne Morris

YOUNG playwright Barney Norris is currently enjoying a successful run with his second play Missing at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden, London, working under the auspices of his theatre company, Up In Arms.

His debut, At First Sight, was performed at Salisbury’s Studio Theatre in January 2011 and was critically acclaimed when performed in London.

Barney, now 25, is a former member of Stage ’65, Salisbury Playhouse’s youth theatre and went to Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury before reading English at Oxford followed by an MA in Creative Writing.

Though now living and working in London (he currently works at Out of Joint theatre company as assistant to Max Stafford-Clark) and has been commissioned by the Bush Theatre to write a folk ballad opera to be performed at the Southbank Centre next year, Barney has not forgotten about his Salisbury background and has a project in mind.

“I want to develop a play about growing up in Salisbury and would like to interview people about their experiences.

Ideally I would like to interview as broad a spectrum as possible, talking to people from different decades.”

To this end Barney is going to be running a week’s workshop at the Salisbury Playhouse in July and he was delighted to learn that Max Stafford-Clark will be joining him for the first few days of the workshop.

Asked about working for Max Stafford-Clark, Barney tells me about the huge inspiration the esteemed artistic director has been on his career to date: “He has been a huge influence on me from quite an early age. I first read about his work when I was 14 in Simon Callow’s book, Being an Actor. Then, when I was 16 and an usher at Salisbury Playhouse, I saw his production of Talking to Terrorists. It drank me up and I saw it 10 times. This play spoke to me unlike the plays of Noel Coward or Alan Ayckbourn. I think Out of Joint is the most important theatre company in Britain today as it insists there is life outside London.”

“So many of his plays also came out of a workshop experience. He has advised me to draw out people’s experiences.

The stories will then come to you he told me.”

* Missing is at the Tristan Bates Theatre until February 25. Tickets are available from the box office on 020 7240 6283.

* The workshop at Salisbury Playhouse will be running for the week beginning July 16. Details of how to take part will be featured in a future edition of Journal Entertainments.