8 1GT Monday July 27 2020 | the times

arts

D

avid Mynne likes to

think of it as the only

place in the world

where you can be

upstaged by a

butterfly. Or a

dolphin. Or, the

veteran actor might

have added, a speedboat. It was one of

those noisy beasts that was doing its

best to cause a disturbance as Mynne

delivered his hugely entertaining one-

man version of Great Expectations.

Not that those of us in the socially

distanced audience were particularly

bothered by the intrusion. After

months of lockdown and peering at

streaming productions on laptops, we

were too busy savouring the sensation

of being back in a real-life theatre.

Most of them remain closed, of course,

but when Oliver Dowden, the culture

secretary, announced this month that

open-air venues would be allowed to

stage productions again, the Minack

— nestling on a cliff in Porthcurno,

not far from Land’s End — announced

a series of scaled-down shows.

In normal times this gorgeous

amphitheatre, one of Cornwall’s

main tourist attractions, plays host

to audiences of between 700 and

800 people. For now, the 2m rule

means that the numbers are

kept down to between 200 and

250. Productions have had to
     be trimmed accordingly to
     balance the books.
     Which is why on Wednesday
     David Mynne — who lives down
     the road in Penzance — was
     performing with just the help of
     a table, a chair and an impressive
     array of accents. As he picked a
     cheerfully inventive path through
     Charles Dickens’s tale, the touring
     show that he and the director Simon
     Harvey had originally conceived for
     village halls took flight. The Cornish
     weather was on its best behaviour too,
     even if, by the end of the 75-minute
     piece, a mild sea breeze left me
     wishing I had brought a jumper.
     When I bumped into him at the
     end of the evening, Mynne admitted
     that his legs were still shaking — not
     with cold, but a mix of nerves and
     adrenaline. “I’ve been keeping myself
     fairly isolated in Penzance,” he
     explained later, “so walking out on

The DIY spirit comes

instinctively to a theatre that

began life as a quixotic

venture. The Minack is the

creation of Rowena Cade,

a single-minded figure who

bought the surrounding land

in the 1920s. When she

became involved with a

troupe of actors she offered

them the use of the cliff

garden near her house

and eventually set about

creating a proper

performance space. She and her

gardener, Billy Rawlings, embarked on

a project that lasted for decades, using

hand tools and sometimes sticks of

dynamite to shift the heavy rocks.

Most of the structure was built

from concrete mixed with sand from

the beach below. Legend has it that

Cade and Rawlings used timber from

a ship that had run into difficulties to

build some of the facilities. Cade kept

at it until she was in her eighties

(she died in 1983). The result is a

wonderfully atmospheric, steeply

raked space that resembles a cross

between a remnant of ancient Rome

and the otherworldly spirit of that

north Wales landmark Portmeirion.

Many of the seats have the titles of

past productions inscribed in them

(Antony and Cleopatra, 1937. Julius

Caesar, 1957). Rawlings has one named

in his honour too. Today many of the

Minack’s visitors come just to visit the

site and inspect its glorious array of

flora. According to Curnow, there’s

also a large contingent of German fans

of Rosamunde Pilcher’s novels, which

are set in the area and have become a

‘Walking out on

to the stage to a

sea of faces was

quite a shock’

With strict social-distancing rules and scaled-down

shows, the picturesque Minack Theatre in Cornwall is

welcoming audiences once again. Clive Davis reports

David Mynne performing Great

Expectations. Left: Stephen

Tompkinson and Jessica

Johnson in Educating Rita

to the stage to a sea of faces was quite

a shock; I haven’t seen that many

people, gathered, for a long time.

After having my last tour cancelled

and a difficult three months of

lockdown, I was wondering if I would

be working again, so to

be actually out on stage

and interacting with

a live audience was just

the best feeling.”

For the theatre’s executive

director, Zoë Curnow, the

reopening brings some

respite after months of

uncertainty. When lockdown

started, the Minack — like

hundreds of venues around

the country — was thrown

into turmoil. At first, Curnow

hoped that something of the

original season would survive,

but by the end of May that

was a forlorn hope.

The damage was alarming

— £330,000 worth of tickets

had to be refunded. Of the

70-odd staff, 60 were

furloughed initially and 25

are yet to return to work. The

theatre, which functions as a

charity, gets no public subsidy.

Fortunately, it has had

enough cash reserves to cope,

but when, Curnow and her

colleagues wondered, would it be

safe to open again?

Being a tourist attraction has

always had its advantages; Curnow,

a fresh-faced 43, likes to joke that

she could put on Richard III in

French and still sell out. Some

ticket prices have been raised

slightly to compensate for the

smaller audiences. It’s not clear yet

whether the Minack will need to

apply for any of the government’s

emergency funding, but the new

regulations are a test of nerve and

ingenuity. Will a venue that is only

a quarter full generate the same kind

of atmosphere? Will small-scale

productions look marooned against

the imposing stone backdrops?

Curnow and her team are still

figuring out how to make it all work.

After the audience had left at the

end of Mynne’s show, some staff

were busy spraying aerosol paint on

the grass between the stone seats,

Willy

Russell is

rejigging

Educating

Rita for a

run in late

August

trying to measure whether there

was room to squeeze in a few extra

punters. Curnow is improvising in

other ways too. She is booking local

actors who live in social bubbles.

Willy Russell, meanwhile, is

rejigging Educating Rita, starring

Stephen Tompkinson and Jessica

Johnson, for a run in late August.

And one addition to the summer

programme is a version of Stravinsky’s

The Soldier’s Tale, which Curnow —

a double-bass player on the side —

had been rehearsing with half

a dozen other local musicians and

the conductor Patrick Bailey. What

had started as a private workout has

been turned into a public event, with

the associate director John Brolly

providing the narration. It was,

Curnow says, a way of broadening the

musical programme as well as giving

beleaguered classical musicians work.

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A pre-lockdown performance