This October and November, Doubletake Theatre bring new playwright Janet Taylor's solo show performed by Jonathan Mayor Varnish to ten venues in the South East across the house network.

Doubletake Theatre is a new collaborative theatre company created by Ella Pound and Molly Byrne, focusing on the development of new writing. The company prioritises work which takes a second glance at familiar narratives and structures, offering a ‘double-take’.

We talk to Doubletake Theatre producer Ella, to Varnish playwright Janet Taylor and to actor Jonathan Mayor ahead of the start of the tour.

Janet - can you tell us a bit about the background as to how you came to write Jonathan’s story as a play?

"Jonathan and I have been friends for more than 30 years and I’ve loved seeing him develop a successful stand-up career. If anyone was born to be on a stage, he was. Jonathan has always used his life-story in his act, but he uses it for shock value and comic effect, which he does brilliantly. As someone who cares about him, though, I’ve always been aware that some of those things that he makes so funny really aren’t that funny at all and could just as easily make you cry."

"Jonathan’s is a story with real dramatic power and originality. I really think, if I’d sat down and made it up, you’d tell me to go away, stop being silly, and come back with something more realistic. But I know he’s not telling tales. I’ve met his parents and his siblings: I know it’s all true."

"I also knew he could act, because I directed him in a show I wrote at uni. For a long time, I’ve been waiting for Jonathan to do something more dramatic with his material – we’ve discussed it loads of times - but he never quite got round to it. Then, after years of working and raising kids, I started writing plays again, and Jonathan’s story kept popping into my head. So, I suggested I write it for him and that we try and take it to VAULT Festival. He was immediately up for it. So, we spent hours and hours on Zoom, where he told me even more things than I already knew. By the time he’d finished, I was even more certain that his is a story that I hadn’t heard before and that it should be told."

And were there any parts of the piece that you found particularly challenging to write?

"Not so much any particular parts, but it was tricky to work out how to approach the material Jonathan had given me. Initially, I felt a responsibility to tell the whole story as it happened. That really didn’t work as a sixty-minute drama. The breakthrough came when I realised I could be more playful with the material. Jonathan’s stand-up persona is a high-status diva, which is quite different from Jonathan my friend. That seemed to give me permission to create the Jonathan in Varnish who is a fantasist who has created a glittering edifice to hide behind. The character in the play shares the facts of Jonathan’s life, but has had fewer decent people around him, so his outcomes are different. Jonathan describes it as a dark timeline version of his life."

"The other tricky moments came in rehearsals when Jonathan had to embody this dark timeline and I realised that I was reflecting aspects of his life back to him in a new way, which could be emotional. I think that would have been quite difficult if we weren’t such good friends. I recognise the trust that he’s shown in me, allowing me to play fast and loose with his life. It’s a bit like he’s given me his family photo albums, a pair of scissors and a glue stick then watched as I’ve created monstrous collages out of them. He knows I’m coming from a place of love, though, and trusts the heart of the play."

Finally, do you have any tips for someone looking to write their first play?

"I guess my biggest tip would be to learn about structure. It’s relatively easy to write good dialogue. You just have to listen to how people around you speak. It’s much harder to turn that into a piece of drama that works. I can’t recommend Stephen Jeffreys’ book Playwriting enough. If you’re only going to read one thing, read that. It’s really practical and covers everything."

"The other thing is that it’s really hard to finish a play without hearing it out loud. Even if you just get some friends around a kitchen table, it’s worth doing. It’s difficult to judge pace on the page. Every time I thought I’d finished a play, I realised I hadn’t as soon as I heard it performed."

"Then, once you’ve heard it, and recognised it could be better, be prepared to be brutal in the edit. I’ve deleted so many great lines, usually because I’ve written them thinking they’re funny, then had to admit it’s not something that character would ever say. It hurts to delete a good line, but it can make your play much better."

Jonathan - you’ve been performing stand-up comedy for some time now, what are some of the different challenges you’ve encountered performing a piece of theatre that is inspired by your real life?

"When I’m doing stand-up, I’m very much in control. Whilst I’m using the facts of my life, they’ve been crafted to make people laugh and that’s what I’m focused on. It’s not about me: it’s about the audience reaction. There’s also a very interesting power dynamic in stand-up. Making people laugh is a powerful thing. I guess that’s why so many people use it as a defence mechanism."

"Performing in Varnish makes me more vulnerable. The performance demands that I don’t deny the emotions in my story. Janet has changed things about a bit and tells stories that I use in my stand-up act in different ways. It’s surprised me how emotional that’s been at times. It’s interesting, because Varnish is funny too, but it’s not the same kind of funny. The Jonathan in the play is often being laughed at, not with. The audience might be laughing when I’m in a very different place."

What do you hope audiences may take away from the show?

Mostly, I hope audiences will come away from the show feeling like they’ve been entertained. I also hope they’ll come away feeling like they’ve seen something a little bit different, both in terms of the style of the show, but also the story we’re telling. I don’t think there are many stories out there told from the point of view of someone who’s been adopted. It’s more common to see a story about someone who wants to adopt.

I also hope that it will give people something to think about in terms of how much more difficult it is for some people to find their identity than others. Those of us who don’t have a clear understanding of our heritage or family - and perhaps aren’t white, or straight, or cis-gendered – have to work harder to construct a sense of who we are and who others see.

Ella at Doubletake Theatre - how do you think this piece of work meets your company aim to challenge the established in interesting and unexpected ways?

"I think the main way in which Varnish meets our company aims is in telling a story that we’ve not seen being told before. It asks some questions about adoption that are uncomfortable, but important. It’s also not a traditional piece of storytelling. The audience has to work to interpret and find the truth amongst the entertaining, if outrageous and egomaniacal, fantasies that Jonathan shares with them. They’re never told what’s true: they have to work it out."

"As a company, we’re also interested in working with archival material to explore lived experience. We’re working on another project at the moment where we’re doing exactly what you’d expect from that description – we’re spending time in archives, reading historical documents, as well as seeking out people who participated in those historical events to interview. Varnish is an interesting play on that idea. It too is based on hours of research, in the form of the interviews that Janet conducted with Jonathan. However, in this instance, it’s all told through that one lens. That’s partly because it was always conceived as Jonathan’s story, but it’s also because most of the other people that you would want to interview are unavailable, for a whole host of reasons, including because Jonathan doesn’t know who they are. That then becomes a theme within the play, allowing Jonathan to construct his own crazy version of the truth."

And what are you most looking forward to about touring Varnish this autumn?

"It’s really exciting to think that Varnish will find a new audience. The tour will make it accessible to so many people who wouldn’t come and see it in the centre of London. We want to be a touring company. We want to share our stories with as many people as possible, so this tour is exactly where we want to be."

A huge thanks to the Varnish team, we can't wait to see the show out on tour this autumn.