EDINBURGH 2023: THE GREAT RUCKUS Q&A

BWW catches up with Izzy Tennyson to chat about bringing The Great Ruckus to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about The Great Ruckus

Well in ‘The Great Ruckus’ two sisters have to navigate their way through their mother’s funeral and quickly find the warm embrace of their family turns into a seething snake-pit of selfish and self-absorbed relatives. Grandparents argue over whether the funeral reception will be a celebration of Marks and Spencer catering packs or a piece of Victorian Gothic tragedy.

Jo and Ida dutifully march to death’s drumbeat, only to tumble as their delicate relationship cracks under the pressure. I have tried to create a wickedly dark play about people behaving badly, but also about the shock of loss and grief. I don’t want to tell you too much more about the plot, as there are some twists and turns. Another unusual thing is the use of original artwork which adds a whole new dimension to the show, which I’m happy to speak more about later, but you can get a ‘sneak peek’ of in the show’s poster which I illustrated myself.

What was the inspiration behind writing it?

Well my mum did die nearly ten years ago so her funeral did provide some  source material, but in my last play ‘Grotty’ which was autobiographical I made a lot of the characters larger than life, and in the ‘Great Ruckus’ I’ve taken this a step further and a lot of the characters are fantastical and more imagined than real, and in fact I represent them through projections of cartoon-like images which I and two collaborators have drawn. This is not, I am pleased to say, an accurate representation my family! They are not saints, but these characters are far worse!

My writing has in the past been compared to Hunter Thomson’s ‘Fear and Loathing’ books, which are of course illustrated by Ralph Steadman, and I have always loved his and the work of cartoonist Ronald Searle, famous for creating the St. Trinians cartoons. So the biting satire of the writing is enhanced by the exaggerated features of the cartoons and I hope the projections allows a show with just two performers multi-roling a whole cast of characters to be a really fun experience for the audience with this extra dimension. I have been also inspired by Thackery. I love ‘Vanity Fair’ that is a sort of 19th century ‘Fear and Loathing’, with these exaggerated satirical characters like Becky Sharp and Lord Stains. The 19th century literature of Thackery and Dickens often had the richness of character and social nuance that is less common in some modern literature.

The play is in part about families, and funerals are the sort of events that throw a family together, with often less than happy results. In my extended family, like a lot I guess, there are people who have gone up in the world, people who have gone down and people who have stayed the same and the only thing that can be guaranteed from throwing them together is a big car crash, which is what ‘The Great Ruckus’ is about. Although a lot of this is humorous satire, there is a sad and serious side to ‘The Great Ruckus’ which is about loss and grief.

Where else might we know your work from?

My first professional play ‘Brute’ was a one-woman show which won the Ideastap/ Underbelly award for the Edinburgh Fringe and transferred to Soho Theatre, London. My second play ‘Grotty’ had a one month run at London’s Bunker theatre. Both got lots of great reviews, including the Sunday Times and Guardian Top Picks of the Fringe, and were published together in a single volume by the lovely Nick Hern Books. I have also done some screenwriting and I am thrilled to be back writing for theatre.

Who would you like to come and see it?

I am first and foremost a writer and so I hope ‘The Great Ruckus’ will be enjoyed by people who like good new writing. But my partner Grace Chilton is a great actor and I hope people will see a play with lots of pace and a lot of changes of pace and mood. I also think that the original cartoons and artwork shown as projections will provide a unique show, that will appeal to people who like that aspect. I am a young writer but I really think my piece will be an enjoyable performance for people of all ages to watch. What would you like audiences to take away from it? As I said ‘The Great Ruckus’ is about families, and I guess it is also a bit about social class, because in Britain, class is often forms the fault lines that run through families and cause friction. ‘The Great Ruckus’ does not look to preach, but is very much about the observed nuances of class in the way that author’s like Thackery portrayed it with his low born but upwardly mobile schemer Becky Sharp, or Dickens with the more naive Pip in Great Expectations, although it is in the modern context, where you might not have the Workhouse to fear, but there remains the threat of the Jobseeker Coach’s sanctions.

The show is also about loss and grief, and this is portrayed through the characters of the two sisters, Jo being a very ambitious person, whose life and plans are turned upside down by her mother’s death, while Ida is a more spiritual person who is affected by dreams and is looking for signs. I guess in a way they represent the two sides of loss and grief, the practical everyday side and the deeper psychological trauma that your conscious mind cannot control. I say that life doesn’t stop being funny when someone dies, any more than it stops being serious when you laugh, and ‘The Great Ruckus’ very much embraces that. So I hope audiences will see a funny and amusing play, but also take away some of the experience and sadness of loss and experience a complete emotional journey. But most of all enjoy a great show, with great writing and acting, and great art, that makes them laugh and makes them feel something, which I hope ‘The Great Ruckus’ will deliver.

Tickets are available at The Great Ruckus | Theatre | Edinburgh Festival Fringe (edfringe.com)

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