Michael Ross: Happy to Help playwright

Everyone has a story. “Happy to Help”, an acerbic new comedy about how we’ve become a nation of shop assistants, opens at the Park Theatre on June 14. Its writer, Michael Ross talks about the challenges of getting a play on to the stage. Interview by Nicola Baird

The same week Sports Direct’s CEO Mike Ashley was being slated for inhuman employment practices in front of MPs – including paying staff less than the minimum wage and a six strikes and you’re out rule, see here  – it’s the final rehearsals for Happy to Help, a new comedy about supermarket workers which opens at the Park Theatre on 14 June.

“Supermarkets are so prevalent and everywhere, so powerful and so big. But there’s a weird expectation that you have to love the company you’re working for even when you are not paid much and are at the bottom rung or just want a day job to pay the bills,” says the play’s writer, Michael Ross.

NEVER MISS A NEW ISLINGTON FACES – on the right panel subscribe to the newsletter by adding your email. Interviews are published once a week.

Michael, who studied playwriting with the Royal Court’s Young Writers Programme, took inspiration from his own experience working in retail. “My focus has been on writing, so I didn’t want a career job taking up too much time and stress,” he says.

“So much is expected of us but we get so much less in return, just look at Sports Direct. And the perks people used to have from having a job – security, pension, weekends off – have all been eroded,” he adds.

Michael’s first plays were performed in 2006 at the Landor Theatre in Clapham and the Edinburgh Fringe. But getting a four-week run for his newest play, Happy to Help, is a game changer, and only possible thanks to the Park Theatre’s Script Accelerator. Begun in 2013, not long after the Park Theatre opened, this annual programme supports emerging writers, producers and theatre companies develop a script.

Each year only six plays are picked – Michael’s Happy to Help comes from the class of 2014. “The accelerator programme was great. It was a real incentive to see the script read aloud and performed and then really encouraging when we did the performance and got more response after the Q&A,” says Michael adding “it was great to be at the Park Theatre. It felt like I was coming to work.” And by that it is clear that he means real work, not the work he does to finance his writing life, which includes fundraising for a play to make it on stage.

“It costs so much to put on a play,” adds Michael. “Even with me, actress Katharine Kotz who is in Happy to Help and producer Celi Dugua it has been a real struggle to find the money to pay actors, the creatives, theatre hire and rehearsal costs at Rowans Bowling Alley. “ But they did it thanks to private funding, a Kickstarter campaign and grants from the Peter Wolff Trust and the Royal Victoria Hall Foundation.

==========================================

4 places Michael Ross likes in Islington

1. “I really like the Park Theatre. I’d seen a couple of shows before the Script Accelerator programmed and then quite a lot. I really enjoyed African Gothic and Dead Monkey.”
2. 

   Rowans isn’t just for bowling. Actors use it to rehearse.

   “I like the halumi bagels at the Happening Bagel Bakery, 284a Seven Sisters Road.”

3. “We’ve been rehearsing in a room at Rowan’s Bowling, 10 Stroud Green Road. I haven’t bowled there yet but all the cast has played on the arcade games.”
4. “I like other theatres in Islington too – the Hope Theatre, 207 Upper Street, King’s Head, 115 Upper Street and the Almeida.”

 

============================================

Even if Happy to Help focuses on the key issue of today, the tension between employee and employer, don’t expect a campaigning rant. This is a comedy that test audiences have loved. Indeed that’s why it’s billed as “an acerbic comedy about how we’ve become a nation of shop assistants.”

“I hope it doesn’t feel like a one-sided denunciation of supermarkets,” says Michael finishing his coffee. “I hope it will make the audience think how powerful supermarkets are and how they dominate the high street, and the effect on farmers when food is so cheap – issues that are not talked about a lot in drama. And when they have been it is in sit coms set in a supermarket looking at the characters’ lives and not how strong and powerful supermarkets are as corporations.”

Islington Faces has booked tickets for the show already, so hopefully some of you readers will also be inspired to go. Do add a comment about your darkest supermarket experience below, and see you there.

• Happy to Help is at the Park Theatre (Park 90) from 14 June to 9 July. Tickets from Park Theatre
• You can read the play, which has been published by Methuen Drama, by ordering the script from here
• Happy to Help is produced by Celia Dugua in association with Shout in The Dark, Kabnis Productions, Claire Evans & Park Theatre. It is written by Michael Ross and directed by Roxy Cook.
• Michael Ross’s website is http://www.michaelrossplaywright.com/
• The Park Theatre Script Accelerator Programme 2016 runs for four weeks from 24 October to 20 November. Deadline for submissions is 7 September 2016.

Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird.green at gmail.com. Thank you.

If you liked this interview please SHARE and/or follow by using the R/H panel and seeing what best suits you – getting an email, joining the Facebook group or hopping on to Twitter

If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z  index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola