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ET4.3 The shocks are just the opening act · The Downing Arts Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Downing Arts Podcast.
• 0:04
  It's week three and revision is in full swing for many people.
• 0:08
  The chapel choir are busy preparing for the special commemoration of benefactors service
• 0:12
  next week. And elsewhere in college, the student written musical A very divine election
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  is about to kick off.
• 0:19
  I have in the studio with me Orlando Timmerman, who's a PhD student
• 0:23
  here at Downing. Welcome, Orlando. Hello, Luisa. Thanks for having me.
• 0:27
  Hi, it's good to have you with us. So you're doing a PhD and you've
• 0:31
  been here a while now, haven't you? The thing you should never say to a
• 0:35
  PhD student. Yes, yeah, yeah, I've been here. This is my third,
• 0:39
  third year, so I'll be wrapping up by Christmas is
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  the plan. Wow. And what's your subject?
• 0:48
  Almost hard to say, but basically ecology from a computational
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  perspective. So looking at data via statistics
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  and seeing what it says about the response of marine ecosystems
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  under the next 50 to like 300 years of climate change.
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  Wow. Gosh, that's. That's very, very topical.
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  Yes, yes. Crazy. Yeah. Cool. Great.
• 1:12
  So, I mean, I see you around college a lot. I know you're involved in
• 1:14
  various aspects of college life, but you're going to talk to us today about something
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  you're doing outside college with other Downing students, is that right? With other
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  Downing students outside of college. Exactly. Not that there's a world outside of college,
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  of course. Yes. So we're putting on a play.
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  I am the producer and Ed Campbell,
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  who I believe has been on the. Been on the show before, is the director
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  and one of the actors, Isadora, is also in the
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  play, which is Scenes from the Climate Era by an
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  Australian playwright called David Finnegan. It started on Tuesday,
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  so a couple of days ago now. And we'll finish up
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  with shows tonight, Thursday night and Friday and
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  Saturday for its five night run at the ADC Theatre.
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  Fantastic. And how did you get into this in the first place? Because I
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  know we were chatting earlier and you said this was your first foray into the
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  world of directing plays, and I can't help noticing that
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  the title is perhaps related to your PhD. Is this a kind of all consuming
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  interest that you have? I think in many ways it can feel
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  all consuming and I think that's the case for
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  a great many people and for many more. It's something
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  that sort of just lurks in the background and it's just easier and much nicer
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  not to think about this being climate change,
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  of course. But in terms of how I got involved,
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  really by accident, I had a tip off From
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  a friend here about this show going on in London
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  that he thought I would like. And it was Scenes from the Climate era,
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  performed back in October, and it
• 3:00
  had come to London after four other shows around the world.
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  It started in Sydney in 2023, then went to the
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  Philippines and Auckland in New Zealand
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  and also Singapore before landing in London.
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  So I saw it in its, yeah,
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  it's UK first iteration and it
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  was astounding. It was so, so impactful.
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  So, well, breathtaking, really, in very
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  good and sort of hopeful, but also very sort of
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  devastating ways, but in the perfect combination
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  that I thought this is amazing and deserves to be
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  more widely seen. So I got in touch with the writer and David is a
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  wonderful man who's apparently very easy to reach online. And we
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  had a few chats and one thing led to another and now a few
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  months later it's being put on because I got
• 3:59
  in touch with some theater people and they pointed me to the pitching that closed
• 4:03
  like the next day. So I threw together something and went into
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  a panel of theater producers, managers,
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  scary people having absolutely no idea what I was doing,
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  and came out with a show. So here I am a couple of months
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  later. That's brilliant. Gosh, what a whirlwind.
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  Is it how you expected the show or
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  has it been a very, very steep learning curve? Definitely a steep
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  learning curve. I mean, at the end of the day, it's mostly admin, but it's
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  also jumping into every role which needs filling.
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  So I've been doing a lot of publicity. I've redownloaded
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  Instagram, despite what me several years ago thought,
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  and still not sure how I feel about that. But it means I've made my
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  first reels now and it's been great
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  to resurrect some old skills like web design and graphics
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  to sort of fill gaps. But mostly
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  it's been amazing to work with an awesome team of people who do know what
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  they're doing, Ed included, and Isadora, who make
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  up the rest of the sort of 30 strong team who
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  are putting this all together. So you say you have zero experience with producing
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  a show, but have you ever done anything to do with the theater before?
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  I mean, I know you're a singer, for example. Sure.
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  Well, you've seen me sing here. And I
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  guess maybe the transition point was that I had quite an
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  a cappella career in undergrad, which I guess
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  sort of connected the two together, that it's arguably a bit
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  more theatrical than singing in a chapel,
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  for example. Other than that, there were a few
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  sort of Ill fated acting roles in throughout school,
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  which again, I sort of never remember signing up for,
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  but just sort of. This seems to be a theme. It does,
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  yeah. Maybe I need to be more active with my, my choices.
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  But yeah, there were, there were one or two plays in, in school,
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  I think in the way that, yeah, I don't know,
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  happened by accident, so. And you know, you said there's people who are very
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  experienced. So have you had a lot of help? You know, is it, is it
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  good to kind of. Are there people you can talk to or ask advice from?
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  And for sure, for sure. I'd say 30 is. Feels sort
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  of middling actually for a play. Maybe on the upper side of middling,
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  but especially for like an ADC main show.
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  So one every week on the main theater. Theater capacity of
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  upwards of 200. So quite a big
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  thing and certainly the biggest theatre in Cambridge.
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  So we have quite a small cast, only seven actors.
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  But this play is huge in
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  scope and in ambition. It's sort of non linear.
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  It's not a natural narrative. It doesn't tell a story in
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  the traditional sense. Instead, as the name suggests, it sort of bounces
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  around from place to place and even like decade to decade as every
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  actor plays multiple roles, multiple characters from
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  scene to scene, rather than sort of sticking as Juliet,
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  for example. So in order to achieve that sort of
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  ambition, we've had to have loads and loads of input
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  from incredibly talented lighting and sound designers.
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  We've been working with an external projectionist
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  who's an artist who does this sort of visualization of
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  like climate futures to sort of catapult
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  you from place to place. And in terms of people to
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  talk to about all of this, our funder is the Cambridge University
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  Amateur Dramatic Club, cuadc.
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  They were. They basically grabbed
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  the pitch, like accepted the pitch for the pitch. I don't know how much.
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  Yeah, so. And they've been on hand and on board to help
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  with everything we eat. And they are obviously
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  relatively incredibly experienced, but also absolutely incredibly
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  experienced in theatre and especially in the Cambridge theatre space.
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  So certainly lots of people to talk to, lots of conversations.
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  Had. Great. And has the author been. Or the playwright,
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  I suppose I should say, has he been sort of actively involved in the projects
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  after you had those first conversations? Yeah. So we've
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  been in touch throughout. And an
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  exciting aspect is that at every new location that the play has been performed,
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  it's adapted to its local context and we've done nothing different
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  here. We have got a wonderful set of student writers
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  to contribute additional scenes and minor edits to the script.
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  So we've been sort of back and forth with David about that.
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  Sadly, David is based in New York these days,
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  so dealing with a bit of a time difference and he
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  won't be able to attend the performances, although he
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  is likely free. Well, he is free and we're arranging a
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  panel event in June to follow up on things and
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  more broadly talk about arts and climate. Fantastic.
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  And will the play be going elsewhere once it's been here?
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  Do you have any plans or does anyone else have any plans to take it
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  somewhere? I can only hope so. I didn't know that this
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  was possible really, that you could just contact someone and ask
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  to perform their play. And I mean, I would hope that that inspires
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  other people to do the same with this play specifically.
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  I don't know of any future plans.
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  Got plenty to deal with and plan just for the minute.
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  But honestly, in as
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  crazy a way as I got involved to begin with, it would not take
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  a lot for me if I could sort of help put it on elsewhere.
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  But currently no future plans. Get in touch or watch this space
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  if you're interested. Awesome.
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  I know you said at the beginning that your PhD is is very much
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  centered around climate and so on. Has doing this play
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  changed the way you think about anything? Or has your PhD
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  helped inform decisions you make about the play? One of the things that really resonated
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  for me without giving too much away about a particular scene, is that there
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  was some discussion of coral, which is an area I research quite a bit,
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  and it was so bang on,
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  so accurate and so emotive that I was left thinking,
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  oh, firstly, this person really knows what they're talking about and that's
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  because they themselves have a scientific background and
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  they've worked with scientists to basically fact check everything.
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  But the other thing was that it was just a brilliant example of
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  how research could be applied in a way which arguably is
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  far more emotive than writing a journal article, for example, or even more
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  emotive than writing a great blog post or something.
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  So basically the PhD inspired
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  me to follow up with this play basically because
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  of its accuracy and because it showed me what research could be
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  applied to in terms of how the PhD has sort of
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  fed into the play. Perhaps it's just, I guess,
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  the usual skills of organization. I have lots
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  of contacts in the sort of climate community who have been very
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  supportive and helping in various ways.
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  Well, thanks so much for sharing all that with us. And could you
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  just remind our listeners, when is the show on? It started on Tuesday Right.
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  And it's all this week. Yes. There are three performances remaining Thursday night, Friday night
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  and Saturday night. And I will just say to sort
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  of wrap things up, perhaps if you're sick of hearing or thinking about
• 12:17
  climate change at all, or if you're completely unsick and can't get enough,
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  then this is absolutely something to come and see.
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  It's definitely something for everyone and it has Stephen Fry having
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  recorded narration for it. So if you just want to hear his dulcet
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  tones, then also the show for you. Brilliant. Thanks so much.
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  Well, thank you very much for having me.
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  This week in College Tonight and tomorrow in the Howard
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  Theatre, the student written musical A Very Divine Election takes place at 7pm
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  See the show Notes for details on where to get your ticket. On Monday at
• 12:57
  6:15pm The Chapel Choir will sing this year's commemoration of Benefactor
• 13:01
  service in the chapel, featuring Barstow's epic anthem Blessed City,
• 13:05
  Heavenly Salem. Outside College in the ADC Theatre, a number of
• 13:09
  Downing students are involved in scenes from the climate era, which we just heard Orlando
• 13:13
  speaking about. Tickets for the remaining three nights are still available. See the Show Notes
• 13:17
  for details. Whatever you're up to this coming week, remember to look after yourself in
• 13:21
  between. Thanks for listening.