Meet Fred Programme

It’s been an incredible 10 years with this show. Looking back, I don’t think any of us could have dreamed it would take us to the places it has taken us: to Edinburgh Fringe, across Europe and then the world, and then incredibly to have had the chance to make an entirely Korean version of the show. It has been a phenomenal journey with the most wonderful group of people. I am so thankful to all of those that we made the show with, and all those that have joined us over the years. It is a such a wonderful piece to have been a part of, and a pleasure to perform for audiences. Blown away that 10 years later Fred is still here, still making people laugh and maybe a little bit angry.

I’d also like to thank you, our audience, for supporting your local theatre. These are tough times for the arts, touring in the UK is tough right now, people just haven’t returned to theatre in the same way we used to pre-pandemic. This isn’t a lecture, even those of us that work in this industry do it. We’re in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, it’s so much easier to stay home and watch one of many streaming services, or doom scroll on our phones, but one day soon that community asset that is our local theatre could be gone – so thank you for coming tonight, thank you for supporting theatre.

I expect if you’ve read this far you probably want to know a bit more about the show, Meet Fred. Spoiler alert, you may be best to read this after the show if you haven’t seen it before!

It all started with a puppetry workshop led by Blind Summit in 2014. They taught us their unique approach to Bunraku puppetry, using a set of training puppets which looked very similar to Fred. I fell in love with it, ordered our own set of training puppets from them and we began to explore it as a form with Hijinx neurodivergent artists, all of whom are in training in our Academies. As we played with these puppets a question came to mind – what would it be like to be a puppet in the real world? As we began to explore this question through our research and development what became apparent was that there were many barriers to a puppet existing in the real world, not least of which was the constant need and reliance on puppeteers to exist.

At the time of making the show, between 2014 and 2016, many of our learning disabled and neurodivergent artists were facing changes to their benefits, bought about by a policy of austerity led by the then Tory government. They brought this experience into our rehearsal rooms and improvisations – so we started to think about what it would be like for Fred to lose his puppeteers, just as many of our artists were being threatened with cuts to their own support. The story of Fred and his battle with the job centre very much reflected the lives in that moment of the artists making the show.

Though the show is reflective of a snapshot in time, unfortunately very little has changed. One of our key motivations in bringing the show back for this 10th Anniversary tour was to draw attention, in our own small way, to this issue at a time when cuts to disability benefits and access to work seemed to be on the agenda again.

A word on the Director, Martin and the meta storyline. Meet Fred is a very honest show. I really did want Hijinx actor Martin Vick to be on the feet of Fred, but as we got closer to confirming roles it became clear that the puppetry had to be exceptional, otherwise it simply broke the illusion, and the show would fail. I was faced with a reality that Martin was never going to get to a point where he would have the cognitive ability to maintain the illusion on the puppet for the full hour and half of the show. Though I did not speak to him in the way in which the director in the show does, when I had to tell him he could not be on that puppet it was genuinely heart breaking for both of us. It also made me question my whole approach – I had failed, in choosing a form of performance which was simply inaccessible for Martin. However, we had reached a point where I had to prioritise the show.

Martin was very gracious, and understood the reasoning, but then we had the problem of not having a different role for him. He started helping with stage-management on the scene changes for a scratch performance in late 2015, and this naturally led to him becoming part of the show again and ultimately stealing the show at the end. Often when you devise a show, the ending can be the hardest to find, but there was a very clear light bulb moment when we realised that of course, the only way for the show to end was for Martin to get his wish and be on the legs of Fred.

Our good friend Martin, who we made the show with and who originally played the role of the stage manager, passed away in late 2016. We chose to continue the show with his friend Gareth John in his role, who you would have seen today. In honour of him, Gareth chose to keep Martin’s name as the character name.

We all miss Martin greatly, but for me, a part of him lives on in this show.

I can’t believe it’s been ten years since we first met Fred! It still feels fresh and fun every time we perform it, but when I stop and think about it, we’ve done so much and travelled so far… ten years doesn’t feel long enough to fit it all in. If I had to describe Fred in one word, it would be ‘adventure’ not just for the story in the show, but for all the adventures it’s taken us actors on too.

Being part of Meet Fred has changed me a lot as a performer and as a person. When I started, I didn’t have the same confidence I do now. Touring for so long has taught me so many skills – performing in different places, meeting new people, getting paid and managing that money, learning to travel and work as a team. I’ve grown so much, and I don’t think I’d have found that anywhere else.

I’m really proud to still be part of this show, and I can’t wait to bring it home. We’ve done a lot around the world – now our friends and families here in the UK can finally see what all the fuss is about!