Interview - Barrie Rutter: Broadsides’ Barrie takes on Brighouse

Rutter, as his many Yorkshire followers know him, is in what you might consider typical form.

“Sweet circularity,” he pronounces – Rutter rarely says anything simply, his distinct turn of phrase is part of the package that comes with this bluff, gruff and often poetic Yorkshireman who has been at the forefront of the county’s art scene for the best part of two decades.

Not for nothing was he the winner of the Creative Briton Award in 2000, which saw him win £100,000 to invest in the work of his company.

Broadsides, perennially popular throughout the land, but nowhere more so than in its home county of Yorkshire, was formed in 1992 by Rutter as a company which would bring Shakespeare to northern audiences using accents of the Broad Acres.

Awards followed for what was considered a brave theatrical venture. Rutter, of course, always knew the Bard would work in the accents of Yorkshire folk.

He’s like one of those old showmen rounding people up and into the circus. My first encounter with him was as he stood at the entrance doors to West Yorkshire Playhouse’s Quarry Theatre. Welcoming everyone in with a smile and a few handshakes, we took our seats and saw him again, appearing this time on stage in front of us, delivering quite beautifully the prologue from Henry V.

However, one to one, Rutter is a completely different prospect. Bluster and bluff entirely absent, he explains why being at the Crucible in Sheffield, without his Northern Broadsides shield, is a case of “sweet circularity”.

“I was here in ’74,” he says, sounding far more gentle and in some ways humble, than he often ever appears on stage. “I did two shows in the Studio and took a look at the space next door and thought, ‘I wish I could get on that stage’. And now here I am.”

You suspect Rutter is really going to enjoy getting a hold of the Crucible now that he’s finally made it onto the main stage after a 35-year wait.

He has been cast as Henry Horatio Hobson, the put- upon patriarch at the head of a household within which his three independently-minded daughters rule in Sheffield Theatres’ latest production, Hobson’s Choice.

It’s directed by Christopher Luscombe, who was last in Yorkshire with his production of The History Boys at West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Although he is the head of Northern Broadsides, and visibly so, Rutter does have an extensive CV with lots of credits for other companies as an actor. He has served seasons at the RSC, worked at the National and also appeared in other theatres around the country as “just” a hired actor.

Even so, it’s difficult to imagine him in a rehearsal room, taking a part as no more than just another member of a cast.

“It’s terrific,” he says softly. “It’s a very happy rehearsal room, although we go into technical rehearsals next week – that’s always a bit fraught.”

Rutter took the job because Broadsides is on the road at the minute with Conrad Nelson directing a national tour of Hamlet and there was a break in the schedule.

He was asked personally by director Luscombe to take the part of Hobson in the Harold Brighouse play – Rutter starred in the Broadsides production of another Brighouse play, The Game, last year.

“There were one or two Jeremiahs among people I know who said I wouldn’t like, being part of a company and working with another director. But it’s terrific,” he insists.

Of Yorkshire audiences seeing him on stage without the Northern Broadsides banner, he says: “I hope people will be intrigued. It is a bit of a theatrical risk, because I may be damned with faint praise or something, but all theatre is a risk. I think we’re going to be having fun with the audience.”

Despite a very loyal Yorkshire following, Broadsides has not yet performed at the Crucible which means Rutter really has been waiting since 1974 to tread the boards of the famous stage.

“There is something very special about having the audience wrapped around you in that way. It means you have to give an extra few inches of generosity to the audience in your performance and make sure that you’re giving your performance to the person who’s sat on the back row behind you.”

As ever when he takes on a different project, there are questions of Rutter’s commitment to Broadsides. He’s going nowhere, he insists, but that doesn’t mean this will be the only non- Broadsides project we might see him in.

“There’s nowt so boring as hegemony, is there?” he pronounces in one final flourish.

The travels of Hobson’s Choice

Of all the plays Harold Brighouse wrote, Hobson’s Choice remains the most successful and still the most popular. Strangely for a play set resolutely in Brighouse’s home county of Lancashire, it achieved its first popular acclaim in New York, where it opened in 1915. A year later it opened in London and ran for 246 performances, before being made into a film by David Lean in 1953.

Hobson’s Choice, Sheffield Crucible, June 1 to May 27. Tickets on 0114 249 6000.