Full circle with The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry in Chichester

SussexWorld

Rachel Joyce comes full circle as she brings her own adaptation of her multi-million-selling novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry to Chichester’s Minerva Theatre (May 5-June 14).

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Huge pleasure

00:06today to speak to Rachel Joyce, who is returning to Chichester in the years, 27 years after

00:11Race and Demon, in which you were, in which you appeared on stage, but returning this

00:16time as the author and the adaptor of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, the opening

00:21play in the Minerva. That's an incredibly exciting prospect. But the really interesting

00:26thing is, the book started as a radio play, and now you're turning the book into a play.

00:33Yes, I know. I mean, the other day, I did say to someone, short of turning this into a board

00:39game, there is absolutely nothing left to do with this story. But it does feel, because I,

00:46you know, because my background is the theatre, it's so exciting to see actors putting it on

00:54stage, this story that's been in my head now for, you know, for 20 years. I find it incredibly

01:00moving. Does it help that it did start as a radio play, so you now take it back closer to its

01:06original form? I think, I mean, I think I'm always been happy with dialogue, you know,

01:13because I came, as I said, from that acting background. But also because in my writing,

01:17I started off as a radio playwright. So I was used to telling a story through dialogue.

01:24But I mean, obviously, over the years, I've become used to telling it through a novel,

01:27and I kind of was very ready to have that. But to have the experience of, it's more actually just

01:33seeing actors, and the kind of movement and everybody bringing a story to life, and then

01:39giving it music, which is something, you know, not in my wildest dreams, could I, I can't even sing.

01:47So to see them doing that with it feels like they're sort of lifting it to this sort of,

01:53I don't know what I mean, sort of like, sort of slightly universal level. It's sort of,

01:58what is, what is small in the story, they magnify.

02:03Absolutely. And that's a huge part of the attraction from the audience point of view,

02:06that it's not just the book that we all know and love. It's the book done as a musical,

02:11was that an easy decision, a natural decision to take?

02:14In a way, it was a natural decision. I mean, when I first began to think about it, I thought, well,

02:20it, in a way, it has these set pieces, it has these stories along the way of, you know, Harold's

02:26meeting with people. And actually, because of the nature of Harold, who is this man who

02:31seemingly to an outsider has a sort of emptiness about him, so people feel free to open up their

02:36biggest stories. In a way, those big stories invite themselves to be told musically, and not

02:44as a soliloquy, you know, bent over a table quietly. It's as if the songs allow the characters

02:52to be the people they really are, and hidden inside the ordinary, you know, day to day living

02:59that they do. So it works brilliantly. I mean, you know, it works brilliantly, because the music

03:06and the songs, the lyrics, and the settings of the songs are so extraordinary. And now I'm

03:12seeing the movement as well, the choreography. It just has been blowing my head away.

03:17Such an exciting prospect. But for you, you're seeing it reborn, or born for the third time in

03:23the third different form. That's quite something, isn't it?

03:26I know, some people would say it was greedy. But I'm very happy. I'm very happy. I mean, I love,

03:35I love this process of collaboration, which obviously, when you're writing a novel,

03:39you know, you do get towards the end when you start working with an editor, but

03:44so much of it, you spend alone. So to be in a rehearsal room again is, is a joy.

03:51Absolutely. And you're saying so intriguingly, that as you were writing it, you were Harold Fry,

03:56not knowing whether you could reach the end of the journey of actually writing it.

04:00Well, absolutely. It was my first novel. And even though it was the thing I'd always wanted to do,

04:04I didn't know when I started off, whether I could get to, you know, get to the end of 10 chapters,

04:09let alone the end of 80,000 words. And then I didn't know whether anyone would want to read it,

04:16certainly didn't know if anyone would agree to publish it. So Harold and I,

04:20I realised very early on, we're kind of in the same boat to mix our metaphors completely. But,

04:25you know, we were both embarking on something that we didn't know that we could do. And,

04:30you know, in which the odds were kind of against us. So we learned from one another.

04:35And what a response when it was published. I mean, you couldn't possibly have anticipated

04:39that. But looking back, can you see now why the book did strike such a chord with people?

04:44I, I still find it, I still find it quite hard to understand. And maybe it's good that I don't

04:51understand because then maybe I don't know. But I think it must be to do with it had a sort of,

04:59there's a sort of archetypal quality to Harold, I think he is the everyman. And also he's walking

05:05out without his phone. And I think even then it felt as if it had an appeal. But I think it's

05:13it's got even more of an appeal now, you know, like it's now 13 years since Harold Fry was

05:20published. And in that time, social media, you know, all those pressures have, you know,

05:26it's kind of become even bigger. So I think the idea that you would try and step away from all

05:32that and reconnect with nature and find your part. Well, these days to walk away from your phone is

05:39the closest we get to freedom, isn't it really? Exactly. So maybe that was part of the appeal.

05:46Fantastic. We're really lovely to speak to you. Really excited to see it before too long.

05:51Thank you ever so much. Thank you.

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