Interview: New season at SJT gets special seal of approval

Monks is in an impossible position. He took over

from Alan Ayckbourn at Scarborough on April 1 last year. From the start, Monks recognised he was not just taking over from any old artistic director, but a man who had run the theatre for over four decades and who is one of Britain's best loved and most prolific playwrights.

Just over a year on, Monks appears to have settled in.

He takes to the stage in

the McCarthy Theatre, the second stage of the Stephen Joseph Theatre, to announce his new season and introduces his panel, which includes Adam Sunderland, who will direct two of the season's Off-Peak plays and James Quinn, who has written one of them.

He also introduces: "Mr Alan Ayckbourn, local resident."

It is an amusing aside which reminds us that Ayckbourn is in the theatre these days as a freelance writer and director.

He still, however, feels very much part of the theatre.

Monks says that his determination when he took over from Ayckbourn was that he would revive one of the famous Scarborough resident's plays each year and commission a new one.

Last year's new commission was My Wonderful Day. It opened to rave reviews in Scarborough and then secured even more effusive write-ups when it transferred to New York. Next week

it is up for two awards at the New York Drama Desk Awards.

"I've been very proud to work here in Scarborough. We take our work out on tour quite a lot and the fact that we regularly take companies to New York, and our last production from here is now nominated for these two awards, is something that makes me feel very proud," says Ayckbourn.

"The Tony Awards are exclusively for plays on Broadway, while the Drama Desk Awards take in not just the plays on Broadway, but off Broadway as well.

"So little Ayesha Antoine (who plays Winnie in Ayckbourn's play) has been nominated against these massive Broadway stars, and she's just another nominee against stars like Christopher Walken, Catherine Zeta Jones and Jude Law.

"It's amazing and one's bursting with pride. It shows we can play in the big league. People often used to say to me, 'What are you doing there?'

"Well, it's quality and I'm very proud to be here. Geographically, it doesn't make any difference where you do the work as long as you get the right people to do it. Just occasionally you think, 'Do we stack up

against the big guys?' And then you get these votes of confidence and you think, 'Yeah, yeah we can play in the big league'.

"I don't anything about football, but I do know about cricket and it's like a village team going out to Lord's and thrashing the Australians. It's a great feeling."

Monks knows he is wise to pay tribute to the incredible legacy left behind at the theatre by Ayckbourn, but remains determined to make his own mark.

To that end he is reviving his hugely successful version of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, the play that made his name as a director, which comes to the seaside venue next month.

"I'm a bit of a cricket fanatic really. I did the first version. My re-imagining takes

place in a village cricket club, Titipu cricket club," says Monks.

"I staged The Mikado at the New Vic for the first time and it was great success. It has been revived twice and now it's coming back for a big production."

Monks will also be directing perennial favourite, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and there will also be a revival of Ayckbourn's Communicating Doors and a new play, Life

of Riley.

So, with Ayckbourn still there on stage both at the launch of the new season and during it, Monks appears to continue to pay tribute to Ayckbourn. Is the feeling mutual?

"Since I laid down the baton a year or so ago, I looked at you to pick it up and you're running with it and I'm cheering you from the sidelines," says Ayckbourn.

And so, the new season has an official seal of approval.