You looked after us so well

I've worked at the OFS for nearly nine years, which is a ridiculously long period of time, longer than anyone I know who's worked in any arts venue. So, I was Marketing Manager. Back when I started, all I was looking after was the received programme, which is the shows that were brought in by touring or local artists. I think back to those days, and I think, ‘Oh, my God, how did I fill my time?’ It was direct show marketing, a lot of it was just selling tickets.   

I'm a massive theatre and comedy geek! I was on the programming team and started really taking more of a lead role on that. When the role became Marketing and Programming Manager, Jeremy, who was my line manager at the time, really let me have more of a free rein. It was like, ‘Okay, I'll trust you now. You know what you're doing, go for it.’ We started doing various things like Offbeat, which we started in 2016 and the Christmas show, which I think we also started in 2016. It was a big year. And I ended up leading on those projects, which was really amazing.  

Offbeat, I'm really proud of Offbeat, it's lovely. It's a festival of new work, we wanted it to be like a little mini Edinburgh Fringe. And the first year we just threw open the doors. And we ended up with fifty shows over two weeks, it was huge. It's become a real calendar moment, I think, for lots of artists in Oxford. And we can offer things because we get Arts Council funding. It's our chance in the year to give fees to artists, or to give seed funding to artists, and be generous. Usually, we operate on box office splits. Sometimes with guarantees, but Offbeat’s the time of year when we can go, ‘No, have some’, here's some money that we will pay you to go on our stage, which usually we can't do, which is really nice. 

I'm really proud of us for being able to produce our Christmas show. Because it's one thing to have a received programme and sell tickets, get them in and make sure they feel looked after and loved and everything, and it's another thing completely to make a show from the ground up when you've never done it before, none of you have ever done it before. And we got really lucky, because Jeremy knew Johnny and the Baptists and their producer. Will was producing their tour at the time and had produced a number of theatre shows. And luckily for us, he agreed to help with 30 Christmases because if we hadn't had him, I don't know what we'd have done. And 30 Christmases was great. It was such a joy. 

What's interesting about the Christmas show is it’s always a learning process. And we weren't always confident enough to read the script and go, this needs to change, this needs to be better. And give that really deep feedback, which is what the producer is supposed to do. And actually, we got much better at doing that. So, for Glacier, which is my last show, my baby, we got the first draft and said, ‘Great, here's what needs to change.’ And then the second draft, ‘This is better, here's what needs to change.’ And again, and again. 

And then, one big stroke of luck we had with the Christmas shows was that we were lucky enough to meet the playwright Mike Bartlett, who's very famous: he’s got three Oliviers. We met Mike and, yeah, we went from, ‘Let's try and do a Christmas show’ to “Now we're doing a Christmas show with one of the most preeminent playwrights of his generation.’ Yeah. And also, ‘Let's do a podcast’, and ‘Let's do a playwriting course’, and, and, and... which is really great. 

One thing leads to another. And good people make good places. I think that's a quote, I've stolen that! But like, you know what, you find someone, and they like it here. It's that kind of creative freedom and the smallness of it, and I think theatre-makers who've gone big miss that smallness, and that intimacy, and the freedom, because nobody's looking over your shoulder. So, when people find the Old Fire Station, and they like it, they become part of it, and then they change it. And that's really good. It's a place that is open to that change. Because I think there are some places where people will join and then not be able to change it. And if you have an idea, and it's a good idea they say, ‘Yes.’ 

I think it's lucky. I feel very lucky to have worked somewhere that was like, ‘Yeah, sure, you don't know what you're doing. But neither do we. So go for it.’ And that trust is really extraordinary. And yeah, just watching it grow. And knowing that relationships are key. You find the people, and the people have ideas. It's not up to you to come up with the ideas. A lot of the time it can be that someone says, ‘I want to do a podcast.’ And you go, ‘Great, let's do it.’ 

In 2021… I became Head of Creativity and Communications, and part of the senior management team, so leading on all of the comms stuff, but also on all the creative programmes and projects and just making sure everything goes smoothly with those. Our jobs have evolved, and they are completely different to what they were. Which is remarkable. And I think it's remarkable that this organisation is so good at keeping people and recognising their strengths and tailoring things, changing things and saying, ‘Okay, you're interested in project managing and producing. So here you go. Here's a festival, give it a go.’ But you're always supported, because you're never alone. There's always a team. It's really nice. It's like, if we fail, we all fail together. And if we succeed, we all succeed together. 

I've become confident, much more confident in my industry, an industry that often tries to pigeonhole people and put them in boxes. And it can be hard to break out of those boxes. So much has changed for me. I've developed as a producer, as a theatre professional, as an artist. I became a podcast host. I've produced a Mike Bartlett show. I’ve got a much better sense of what my strengths are. I'm good at producing. I'm good at people. I'm good at smoothing things over between people. I'm good at finding the connections in things and projects. I'm good at making projects happen. 

The nice thing about OFS, people always say like, ‘Oh, you looked after us so well.’ I think people in theatre can forget to be kind to each other. You can make really good stuff happen and you can be kind to people, whereas I think that theatre often has this thing of, like, you must suffer for the show to be good. But you actually don't have to. And I think what's really good is that I can take that ethos with me and bring it to my next place of work.  

And no one ever really leaves. I booked in first my volunteer shift this morning. I'm ushering. I'll be back.