Sir Ian Mckellen makes a surprise visit to the 10x10 Festival of New Writing

What a week it has been! Who would have thought I'd be rubbing shoulders with (or photo bombing Sir Ian, as the pic to the left suggests) at the Chesil Theatre last Saturday. Certainly not me! Well...that is... not until 3 weeks ago when I found out Sir Ian was coming to the first performance of 10x10! Eeeek!!! At that point I had still not managed to fully cast all 10 plays!! Arghhhh! No pressure whatsoever... or so I kept telling myself!! I was, of course, fibbing! 

It had been a couple of angst ridden weeks beforehand with me wondering if I was ever going to get a full complement of actors (I needed to cast 31) plus the 10 directors and at that point I only had 8 directors and 26 actors! My daily mantra became "It'll be fine!" But who was I kidding? Myself actually! But of course, in the end it was more than fine! It turned out to be bloody brilliant and a night none of us present will ever forget. 

NEWS RELEASE
Oct 2014

SIR IAN MCKELLEN ENJOYS NEW WRITING AT THE CHESIL THEATRE

Sir Ian McKellen, award-winning actor in British theatre and film, who is probably most well-loved for his roles as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies and Magneto in X-Men, surprised Winchester’s Chesil Theatre members and a packed auditorium when he attended the biennial 10x10 Festival of New Writing, which took place over the weekend of 18th/19th October 2014. The Festival, a showcase of ten short scripts performed back to back, was the culmination of the 10x10 national playwriting competition, which originaly started in a small way eight years ago, but has grown in popularity; this year attracting over 120 entries from across the UK.

The ten winning plays ranged from the hilarious comedy Good Luck, Commander Mulberry, in which three astronauts find themselves cast adrift in space halfway through a 300 day mission to One Hundred and Fifty Questions, highlighting the cultural bias of questions when interviewing lesbian asylum seekers and All or Nothing tackling the subject of child abuse. More Drama Offstage Than On ventured into the all too recognisable world of amateur dramatics, whilst Burger Boy found two unlikely teenage friends facing a moral dilemma with an unexpected ending.

Sir Ian commented that he was keen to see this production as the format of ten completely different but entirely new works performed in one evening was rare. He said: “At the end of each play, I thought the next one might be a dud, but none of them was. It’s a pity there are only three performances. 10x10 merits a longer run and the whole set could easily form a touring production.”

10x10 Producer, Deborah Edgington, said: “This has been yet another big ambitious project for us – 10 writers, 10 directors, a cast of over 30 plus our valiant technical and backstage team who set it all up in under a week. It has been a great team effort! ”

Following the event, Sir Ian sent a letter of thanks in which he described the Chesil as a “unique theatre which was a pleasure to visit” he went on to write “I thought the whole enterprise was startingly good.... You should be very proud of the result of your labours.”

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