This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Josh Mitchell: Hey Queens, what's going on? Welcome back to the Queendom Podcast. I am your host, Josh Mitchell, and this week I'm bringing you a fun episode. I just listened to this episode back for the first time since recording it, and it has got me in tears because of how funny and just amazing this episode is. Alongside Grace and a couple of the other people out there in the world right now, and she is just a big ball of fun, and we chat absolutely everything to do with the show and life, and it's just a good episode, guys. Like I'm not gonna lie to you. If you want to check out more, head to Instagram at OzQueendom. But other than that, let's just get down. Here we go.

[1:01] Josh Mitchell: I'm the Queen of the Castle. Get down, you dirty rascal games. Hey Queens, how's it going? Welcome back to the Queendom Podcast. I am joined by the ever so happy, lovely and giggly Franny Rafferty. How you going, Franny?

[1:15] Franny Rafferty: Hi! Oh, this is gonna be a fun episode, guys. So strap yourselves in. You probably won't be able to understand us half the time because we'll just be laughing at each other, but let's see how we go.

[1:26] Josh Mitchell: So question one. What's your favorite mythical creature?

[1:30] Franny Rafferty: Oh, it's a unicorn, obviously. I'm basically obsessed. I didn't even have to look at my notes for that. See, like I told you, easy stuff. I made a confession to Josh just before we started this recording that I got so nervous about doing this podcast because it's big. It's like proper. This is for the Queendom, all of that, so you make people nervous.

[1:59] Franny Rafferty: So nervous! And what I was so worried about that a question would come up and then I'd be like, and that's me frozen in time. Yeah, the best part is that we haven't—the only person that I've asked similar questions to is Andy that you would have been able to listen to, so you're in for a treat.

[1:59] Josh Mitchell: Oh, here we go, guys. We've thrown a spanner in the works. Here we go. Question two. What's your favourite genre of music outside of musical theatre?

[1:59] Franny Rafferty: Oh, um, okay, I did revise this one and I did write lots of notes just in case I forgot who I was partway through the podcast, which is always the things that can happen. So my answer, Josh, is I love folk alternative, quite a bit of Madison in there, Mumford and Billy—and that's Billy Eilish rather than Billy the one who sang "Honey to the Bee," repny Aussies always come true—but Haim and Wild and Tune-Yards and things like that. I really, really appreciate female voices in rock and folk and alternative music—any music actually. I think, well, I'm sure we will get into the politics of it eventually, but I am somebody who feels like not championing for the sake of it, but I think too often—and it's not just female voices that are not heard enough, but any voice that is not a cis white male middle-aged tends not to be heard as much.

And so I really enjoy hearing those voices. I love hearing pop that's sung in natural accents as well. So like Tones and I, love her. Her the rasp. Oh, I love it so much. We can't go any further than that, otherwise I have to pay royalties and I don't have that type of mind. Oh, but it's that kind of—and like Princess Nokia as well. One of my all-time favorite tunes, which is not folk or alternative—I forgot how to say the words alternative then. Josh, this is not going well. This is that kind of the—I'm a real sort of early noughties, nineties baby in terms of grime. I love it. That female voice that came out, particularly towards the end of the 90s and the early noughties, is so special and extraordinary. Like MIA, yeah. That really unique perspective on pop. Yeah, I find really cool.

[5:05] Franny Rafferty: I'm gonna give you a name of an artist that I have recently rediscovered. It's by no means fantastic music, but it's an iconic Australian artist, Nikki Webster, and the song "Strawberry Kisses." If you guys haven't listened to this song, write it down and listen to it because it is the best song you'll ever listen to in your life, and it will make you so happy. Oh man, that is a promise. That is a real promise. Man, it's just fantastic. It is like proper that flip between late 90s and early 2000s pop music where everything kind of was not quite auto-tuned but not quite clean. And it was just like the sweets with let's see how many like auto-tunish kind of voices we can throw in the background to make it sound good. That type of music.

[5:55] Josh Mitchell: Franny, what's your hidden talent?

[5:58] Franny Rafferty: Uh oh god, no. Yeah, no prep for that one. No, I really didn't. Oh, do I have a yeah? I suppose I do actually. During this period of lockdown isolation, we've killed theatre. I have been knitting quite a bit, and so I've been sending my poor friends—I don't know how I have any friends left actually, because I send them my experiments, and particularly my friend Emma, she was the first one to receive an experiment.

[6:25] Franny Rafferty: I feel like I've seen a few of these on Instagram.

[6:28] Franny Rafferty: You will have absolutely seen some of these horrors on Instagram. So it was me trying to figure out how to make like sort of turbany type knitted headbands. And this—the first one that I made was a cross between a snood, if anybody out there remembers those bad boys, a hood, not attached to anything, and I think we call them buffs here, which is like you can wear it as like around your neck or you can wear it around your head, that kind of thing. But it was also huge and baggy and horrid. So I sent it to Emma, who left me a voice note on WhatsApp, just laughing. Just laughing solidly. And then she started sending me pictures of her and her mum figuring out different ways of using it. So is there anything else? Entertaining. I don't know if that can't be hidden talent because I'm rubbish at it.

[7:28] Josh Mitchell: That is fantastic. And last but not least, this is a bit tougher. If you could direct any show, so it's past, present, what would it be?

[7:37] Franny Rafferty: Um, there's two currently. Am I allowed to?

[7:41] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, go nuts. It's your episode.

[7:44] Franny Rafferty: Cool. Wild. So my first one is I really want to direct Hair, which is an incredible musical, incredible musical. But I don't want to do it how everybody else does it, and so stay with me. I'm intrigued to hear.

[8:03] Franny Rafferty: So for me, Hair is always disregarded so broadly because it's a bunch of weird hippies just singing about love. And people are like, oh, it's just, you know, it's hippies. And I think in the same way that we have done and continue to do, is we disregard the other. Excuse me, I was just—I haven't done my vocal warm-ups this morning. I really want to set it in a mental ward so that Claude is brought into this ward and introduced to all of these people, and it's that line between madness and truth, and actually, we disregard the people who are speaking the truth because they appear mad. When in actual fact, perhaps they're the people we should be listening to.

[8:54] Josh Mitchell: Man, I just started crying. That idea is fancy.

[8:56] Franny Rafferty: Stop it! Fantastic. Holy crap, somebody give this girl money. Let's get this on stage now. Hoorah.

[9:02] Franny Rafferty: Stop. But I just have this image of like Claude walking in, and then you know the idea of like Dion just starting to sing "Aquarius," but then her being hushed. But then you know the idea that musicals are musicals because we sing because the dialogue no longer expresses the emotions in the way that we need it to. Like the emotions have become so heightened that music is the only way we can communicate the depth of the emotion that we're experiencing.

[9:30] Franny Rafferty: And so to just, you know, I think the writers would—well, the one writer who still survives, God bless the other guy—I think he'd have a shit fit. Sorry. Cut that swear out the window. If you see an expletive warning on this episode, that is why.

[9:56] Josh Mitchell: Oh George, I'm so sorry. I even had it written here, don't swear.

[10:01] Franny Rafferty: It's great. You're not the first. There's a couple in the couple weeks before you, so before this episode's been released.

[10:08] Josh Mitchell: It's okay. But I think as a writer, I mean, I don't know how much anybody would appreciate things being slightly deconstructed, but I think if you're being truthful to the story that you're trying to tell, I think sometimes writers are pretty amenable to understanding the tools that you're using in order to tell that story.

[10:29] Franny Rafferty: Yeah.

[10:29] Josh Mitchell: Yeah. That one.

[10:29] Franny Rafferty: I do and wonderful way to portray that. I really want to see that now. Wow.

[10:35] Josh Mitchell: Um let's strip it back. How did you get to this position right here? Talking to me on a podcast. Minus the six part. So how what was your introduction to theatre?

[10:50] Franny Rafferty: Let's simplify the question. Um what was my introduction? Well, okay, yes, right. Um, so my first foray into theatre was in my primary school. Um, my teacher—well, she wasn't my teacher, she was like the teacher across the hall, but she was the teacher that was really into drama, Mrs. Ratray, real name. Shout out Mrs. Ratray.

[11:13] Franny Rafferty: And she had one of those kind of long classrooms, beautiful classrooms, in comparison to ours, which was just a bit weird over the corridor. So it was always a bit like if you were in Mrs. Ratray's class, you were winning. Um, but she held auditions for the Christmas show, and her audition method was to get you to memorize a paragraph of speech, and then you would have to turn around and face her bookshelf at the end of the classroom, and if you could say the speech and she could still hear you, you got in the show. Projection, folks, projection.

[11:50] Franny Rafferty: Which I was like at the age of what, seven, genius! This woman just wants me to scream at books for five minutes, which I was a gobby child. I was a very gobby child. I was a tomboy as well, which I'm sure we can get into the whole world of tomboy and being feminine or not feminine and all those kinds of things.

[12:16] Franny Rafferty: But I was always the one who at school was like at the end of the ropes. Did you ever play that rope? Which is where all the big bigger boys in the year above form a human rope, and then whoever is at the end flies, because they so they run around in this rope, and then physics happens, and because I was kind of little and tomboyish and didn't mind getting dragged through mud and then ending up in the air, I was always at the end of the rope.

[12:45] Franny Rafferty: So not literal rope. It was like a rope of human people. They didn't—you know.

[12:51] Josh Mitchell: I have never heard of that game before, but it sounds fun.

[12:55] Franny Rafferty: My mum was viciously angry about it because I always came back with grass stains on my joggers.

[13:07] Josh Mitchell: I'm gonna watch these again.

[13:11] Franny Rafferty: So Mrs. Ratray got you into theatre.

[13:16] Franny Rafferty: Um, I got the narrator in that Christmas show. I had to wear a waistcoat and everything. Hey, hey. First role.

[13:23] Josh Mitchell: And then what? Tony nominated? What was the process of you switching to the direction side of things?

[13:33] Franny Rafferty: So I, beyond Mrs. Ratray and her expert audition techniques, I was always into music, art, performing. I experimented with dance for approximately two weeks, where I skipped across the room as a penguin in ballet class, and then that was the end of that. We discovered very quickly I'm not a dancer.

[14:01] Franny Rafferty: And then I—so we moved around quite a bit, me and my mum and my brother, and then we settled in a town called Hinckley, which for anybody who knows the Midlands is almost the dead midpoint between Birmingham and Leicester.

[14:21] Franny Rafferty: Um and Hinckley is incredibly fortunate in that it has uh this 400 seater Proscenium Arch theatre which is run all by volunteers.

[14:31] Josh Mitchell: Love a good proscenium arch just saying.

[14:33] Franny Rafferty: Love a good pretty new arch theatre.

[14:35] Franny Rafferty: Um and it was an old textiles factory that had been converted and converted beautifully, and I joined the youth theatre there, and it was one of the most extraordinary educations in everything from um from literally being like the prompt in plays when they still have them in a little in in a like they had this little like slip just by the side of the stage, and you would sit in there with your book and a torch, just following along.

[15:04] Josh Mitchell: Brilliant.

[15:05] Franny Rafferty: Um, but also to DSMing and so calling shows to being in the fly gantry and learning how to fly counterweight, crazy to painting scenery. I painted a couple of the shows there. I I I remember one of the billboards I painted for the end of the theatre as well. Um, and then I got into the youth theatre, and again, my god, nice and big. She was a shouter. Um, but I I think I was also I was sort of funny, and I didn't mind being funny, and I didn't mind being the one who would happily chuck herself in the orchestra pit onto Crash Mats to be the fall guy and stuff. Um, and so I did quite a few of those kinds of roles. Um, you know, Rita in Billy as well, give me the cow in ring, all that, all that stuff, and um just experimenting with voices and accents and all of that.

Um, and I think that gradually started becoming me getting interested in directing comedy, directing musicals. Um yeah, that was that was sort of where it all started. Uh I was the assistant director for the youth theatre for a couple of years, and then I directed a couple of their shows, uh, Little Princess and Honk. And yeah, I had an absolute blast actually. Um, and then reality hit.

[16:27] Josh Mitchell: Oh, the R word.

[16:29] Franny Rafferty: Oh gosh, it is a biggie. Um, and I've been thinking about this a lot recently because of all the the grants applications and you know, save me, I'm poor um applications that uh I know everybody's having to do in the arts at the moment because we have no income, we have no way of making any money either. Um, but I've been thinking about the kind of the deep-rooted uh sorry to get a bit dark for a bit, but it's like I remember sitting with we used to have the connections officer would come in to school and you'd get one meeting with them to discuss what your career path was gonna be. So this is like year 11, like GCSEs.

[17:15] Josh Mitchell: Yeah.

[17:16] Franny Rafferty: Um, and I sat down, it was a woman, and I sat down with her and she was like, What do you want to do? I was like, Oh, I'm gonna work in theatre. She's like, right, that's a good hobby, but what do you want to do? How are you gonna earn money? I was like, No, no, no, I'm gonna work in theatre. I think it either I'm gonna be an actor or I'm gonna make theatre, it's gonna be brilliant, it's it's gonna it's gonna be fine. It's like, no, well, maybe you could teach, because you can't, you know, you can't rely on other people for the rest of your life, and that I think has really sat with me since the age of 15 uh of that idea of you can't you can't be asked you, you know, you can't be going to the government for benefits, you can't be doing that kind of thing.

And now, all these years later, we end up in this situation, and it's and it's sort of proved everybody right, you know, it's proved proved my parents right, who bless them, are so they've taught me to be incredibly hardworking because they are so hardworking themselves. My mum worked several jobs when it was just her and me and my brother, and you know, twilight shifts at supermarkets, and um just working her buns off to keep us in clothes. Um, and then my stepdad, who's an electrician, uh, and just the most practical guy you'll ever meet, works seven days a week. Still now, should be retiring, and he still works like seven days a week and just it's away all the time. And it's just like he I don't think for either of them they can imagine a world where they don't work.

Um, and he he's fortunate in the way that his um his job is is needed, and also he's allowed to go and work right now. Um but I think they they are concerned, and you know, my uncle keeps sending me emails about jobs at Tesco and I'm just I think I'm battling at the moment between that old careers advisor who was like, Oh, it's a great hobby, but how are you gonna live? Um, and then having worked it's like a decade that I put into getting to where I was, and then it all got um demolished. It's it's this weird wake up check, but it's not like it's like cool we made this decision for a reason. Everybody told us we were wrong and now they're kind of proving to be right but like give it another like twelve months and we'll be back to where we were doing the same thing and everybody'll be like, oh cool, yeah look they made it like I hope so. I hope so. I hope that I hope that enough people can make it through. I think that's the thing, isn't it? Is like the the hang on in there aspect of it.

[19:56] Franny Rafferty: But if you if you can't pay your rent like I so I can't I'm not in a position that I can go home to my mum and stepdad's place and not not to any sinister things other than just life really.

[20:09] Josh Mitchell: Yeah.

[20:10] Franny Rafferty: Um and so I rent and this is my home. It's this has been my home for uh on and off for about ten years now literally living in this flat. Um and I'm incredibly lucky to have it but I'm also now month to month like how do I make rent? How how do I make enough money that I can just go to the shop and buy the food for the week.

[20:29] Josh Mitchell: Um Yeah.

[20:31] Franny Rafferty: Yeah. It it's a rough time. Like it it's so unexpected that like it's just Yeah but I think that's the thing isn't it it's like it's so and that word unprecedented um which uh I I think I went through a small period a few weeks ago of being like I will turn feral if one more person says to me well these are unprecedented times.

[20:59] Franny Rafferty: Is it unprecedented though? Because like this is essentially the black plague, the Spanish flu. Like these things have happened every hundred years. Like Bill Gates said it. It literally happens every hundred years that around the start of a century, around this time it happened through oh sorry, happened through the end of the 1400s, and then repeated two, three times through the 1500s, and then popped up at the start of the 1900s for the Spanish flu. Like it's something that happens all the time.

[21:34] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, we're like, oh yeah, like because the economy's moved so far forward, everyone's like, everything's changed.

[21:40] Franny Rafferty: I'm like, it's the same thing. We just give it a different name.

[21:44] Franny Rafferty: Yeah, and I think there's an there is an element of um invincibility that we as a society have sort of grown to grown accustomed to and not really acknowledged. Um so having the movement, the Greta Thunberg movement, um, the the truth about what is happening in our ecology uh emerging, it's interesting that people again that you sort of well to tie it back to theater and to tie it back to what we were kind of talking about at the beginning is like the dismissive nature of people who were talking who were speaking a truth but speaking a truth in a different way. You know, Trump did it to Greta Thunberg. He turned around and was like, She's a mad child. Yeah, it's like, no, she's just speaking a truth, but it just so happens it's coming from uh a teenager's a teen a teenage girl is telling you uh a man who he who now thinks he's invincible.

It kind of becomes a bit of a I think it becomes a metaphor for us on a on a more global scale, is that there is a teenage girl screaming at us that something needs to change, and there's a middle-aged rich white guy with his daddy's money turning around going, nah, nothing needs to change. We're fine, just inject yourself with disinfectant. Do not inject yourself with disinfectant people.

[23:04] Josh Mitchell: And he just got hella angry folks, so do not do that.

[23:09] Franny Rafferty: But I think there is an element that we've we've become, we've become that thing where it was like, oh, we were invincible. And then and then slightly with theatre, it I feel angry each time Boris Johnson comes onto the television and fails to say the word theatre or art.

[23:32] Franny Rafferty: He he sort of skirts around it. So since saying don't go to the theatre, I mean, he said that before lockdown officially began. He said those words. He told a nation, do not go to the theatre. He shut down the theatres before he even considered what we as a nation needed to do in terms of this pandemic. And then since then has not managed to say those words again, like to say the word theatre, to say the word art.

[23:58] Josh Mitchell: Which is funny because the same thing's happening in New York.

[24:00] Franny Rafferty: And the a lot of the economy in both those cities is based off tourism and based off theatre.

[24:07] Franny Rafferty: Like completely. But what you are doing by doing that, not you personally, Josh, uh the the greatest all our anger out on me. Taking Josh out. Um so but what they are doing is then saying that everybody that worked in those industries is non-essential. Um I think or that that is how that feels, I think. I think to all of us, it feels that actually we've been completely devalued within moments. Um entire livelihoods that you work and strive for and spend an incredible amount of money trying to attain. Um within literal moments, you have been devalued to the point of um well, you can apply for universal credit and get 90 pounds a week.

[25:34] Josh Mitchell: Yeah.

[25:35] Franny Rafferty: Is that that's where you are, and then I know there have been a lot of conversations and there but there have been incredible people um reframing their careers and and really reaching out and doing amazing stuff, and I can't count myself among that because I'm just a bit useless in this crisis. Um, but the conversation of well, retrain, become a nurse, become a carer, become this, become that is valid to the extent that we're in an emergent situation, but then that also continues to devalue what you were doing as a career within the arts.

[26:13] Franny Rafferty: Um yeah, it's just a little bit heartbreaking. Just to look at like people saying that theatre is non essential. Theatre's been around a lot longer than the last hundred years, folks.

[26:26] Franny Rafferty: Like we've been storytelling since we were in caves, yeah. It's literally like an ancient Greek going back caveman.

[26:33] Franny Rafferty: Like the performance here's the thing. Like you look at the native Australians, like the indigenous people here. Dance, music. It's all a form of performance. We've just honed an art form and elevated it to a certain standard.

[26:53] Franny Rafferty: Like it's been around for thousands of years. It's not like uh well the anthropology of it all is um when I was doing my masters, uh I got really interested in the idea of the um the basic emotions and then how we as humans have then adapted our emotions from the basics. So i imagining that um very early evolutionary man uh was could do like happy, sad, angry, hungry, that kind of thing. And then how in performance we have developed each of those and adapted each of those emotions to be much more complex, but then how we also in performance beg of those emotions from an audience.

[27:34] Franny Rafferty: So we we as performers or we as artists then uh help to evolve further and more complex emotions and empathy. Kate Tempest talks about empathy and performance lows and it's beautiful, is that idea that performance teaches humanity within people? Um maybe that's essential, maybe it isn't, I don't know. But I think I think it'll be interesting to see what happens once she crosses her fingers, once all of this is over, because I think performance and art in the same way that I'm currently looking at um the uh the idea of arts and trauma post-World War One, which was arguably the first uh majorly impactful um event, global events, in terms of that, and how the art that came out of that across the board was so vivid and visceral and also grew in ways that we couldn't have kind of imagined at that time.

[28:36] Franny Rafferty: So maybe there is gonna be that stage for all of us post this.

[28:41] Franny Rafferty: I think everyone just has their fingers crossed that people realise how much they need theatre, even if they've only been to a theatre once, or they maybe had their first show booked in the next six months and now can't go, like they'll understand how important this form of communication is because it's a form of communication, like people put a story into words, whether it be with music or a play, whatever it is, it's just oh man. I just hope people understand.

[29:13] Josh Mitchell: Um, they will surely getting angry now. People understand, okay?

[29:22] Franny Rafferty: I think there's a danger that I've been talking about this quite a bit with friends and with colleagues, is that I'm worried that there's a danger that we go, we royal we we go, oh well, theatre can be done via Zoom. Like we don't need to be in a room together, we can do it via Zoom, or that performance can be completely a digital platform. We don't need again, we don't need to be in the room together, and I just I'm so worried that the value in exactly that in the community of theatre, in the idea of shared experience.

[30:01] Josh Mitchell: Oh man, that's exactly where I want to take that because like Newsies on Broadway on Disney Plus, watch it. Like it'll change your life.

[30:11] Franny Rafferty: But it is not the same as even if you're going to a theater by yourself, sitting next to some random person, it is not the same as sharing the emotion with another thousand people in the same room experiencing the same thing at the same time.

[30:25] Josh Mitchell: Completely continuously.

[30:31] Franny Rafferty: Not that I'm a promoter of that stuff, but I know there's links out there and I know you guys. You can watch all of them you want, but it's not the same as sitting there watching it live, seeing the expression on someone's face, because the interpretation they had on that night that that person decided to film that is probably completely different now, and that's gonna be another cool thing to watch is the adaption of characters out of this. How much people have either had time to re-research their character and develop their like it's gonna be a man, I just went into a whole different loop of creativity just then. Like it's just gonna be so cool, and like not only that, but as we said, the advancement of art, like there's probably a ton of people right now sitting at home writing shows, like finally getting the time to focus on something like me with this podcast, like finally getting the time to focus on something creative and do it to their full extent because cool, I have a million hours of time. Let's make something of it.

[31:39] Josh Mitchell: I feel like there's gonna be a major influx of new work.

[31:43] Franny Rafferty: Which I think is exactly what we're gonna need after this. And I think new working processes as well. I think if financially you can do it, is allow yourself that time to I think I think though it it's difficult trying to find diplomatic ways of putting it. I think there is such a the it can feel like there is such a rush if you think of the amount of content that has been digitally put out there in this past seven weeks, it's almost too much for the senses, but not just for the senses, but I think also our minds in terms of just balancing ourselves. So I think as a creative person myself, I have really struggled with I don't want to make digital theatre or digital performance. I have no interest in it. My interest is being in a rehearsal room with people and figuring stuff out and communicating like face to face, seeing the light bulbs go off and working through the barrier.

[32:57] Josh Mitchell: Man, I'm on the same completely, completely.

[33:02] Franny Rafferty: And it's the vividness of that human interaction. I am that's what I'm interested in. Yeah.

[33:10] Josh Mitchell: Um, and I very briefly was like, I can fake it, I can fake this, it's fine. I'll just pretend I'm really into digital theatre and digital platforms and making stuff for Zoom, it'll be fine. And I was like, I can't do it, I can't do it. And I had a chat to a mentor of mine, a brilliant, brilliant female director, and she said, Well, why do it? Why pile your passion into something that you have no passion for? When in actual fact, what you could be doing, and you don't have to be shouting about it on you know social media, you don't have to be you know holding up your book and going, no, look, I am, I'm doing work, I'm doing work. Because who cares?

[33:53] Franny Rafferty: Yeah, who cares, really? Um, and I was like, Well, am I not being left behind though? If I'm not proving that I'm working and creating, surely people think I've just you know fallen off the face of the planet and they'll forget me. She was like, Well, who do you want to remember you?

[34:11] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, no, good point. All right.

[34:13] Franny Rafferty: Um, and then we talked a lot about working processes and finding healthier ways of working of returning to the things we really are passionate about. So for me it is not is reading scripts, it's delving into historical context of scripts, it's looking more at the psychology, the philosophy, the kind of yeah, all of that, the mechanics behind us as humans, in order to better inform my rehearsal room when I return to work.

[34:42] Josh Mitchell: Yeah.

[34:42] Franny Rafferty: And she was like, You'll be better for it and you'll feel you'll feel like you've spent your time well, hopefully. So that's why I've been I love that. And that's what I've been doing.

[34:54] Josh Mitchell: I'm gonna stay on this thing while we're here. You mentioned reading scripts. Like I've got like a bookshelf full of them right now, and there's one that I really want to produce. It's called 110 Stories. It's fantastic. And if you guys get a chance to read this script, it is fantastic. It's firsthand accounts from people on the ground in the hours and days after 9/11.

[35:18] Franny Rafferty: Wow.

[35:19] Josh Mitchell: It is so so powerful. And like this is after, I think it's after Tower 1 collapses or something like that, or it's just before, and people are recounting their stories and you're following their lives, and it is so so powerful. And the first time I read it, I was like, whoa. Like I felt that you know that emotion when a show ends. Have you seen Everybody's Talking About Jamie?

[35:44] Franny Rafferty: I haven't. I'm so sorry.

[35:46] Josh Mitchell: No, it's all good. Um, I'm just trying to think. What's a show? I can't even think of one right now. You know when a show just has an act one ending where it's just so spot on that you're like, damn, that was a perfect spot to end act one. That's this, and it's just oh, I just love reading scripts, man. It's so good. Anyway, let's we sidetracked a hell of a lot, but that's okay.

[36:15] Franny Rafferty: I've written it down. I'm gonna read it. 100%. Um if you need a copy, I've got to spare, I can send it to you. Might take four weeks, but it'll get there.

[36:23] Josh Mitchell: Once we get through quarantine, yes.

[36:27] Franny Rafferty: Um let's talk about this wonderful show that has brought us together.

[36:34] Josh Mitchell: Um if you got into this point, Jamie.

[36:37] Franny Rafferty: Yeah, right? 100%. Let's go into that.

[36:42] Josh Mitchell: Um if you got to this point, um, we're gonna start talking about Six now.

[36:47] Franny Rafferty: Yay, go team. Woo-hoo, we made it. I'm so sorry to everyone that it I mean, I'm the most uninteresting person to listen to.

[36:49] Josh Mitchell: I'm so sorry.

[36:55] Franny Rafferty: I completely disagree. You know, you got like a little cult following out on social media.

[37:01] Josh Mitchell: Stop it! It's fantastic.

[37:03] Franny Rafferty: Um, so how did you find out about Six? What was your introduction to this show?

[37:08] Franny Rafferty: So, my introduction to this show, and I don't think I've told anybody this story actually. Exclusives. Real exclusive. So, um we all know Christina Modestu.

[37:19] Josh Mitchell: Yeah.

[37:19] Franny Rafferty: The original Berlin Boba. If you haven't listened to her episode, do it after this one. She is such like a goddess, a real goddess. And she, I was working in the um working front of house and on the box office and in the cafe and on the bar at the arts theatre when Christina came in for her audition. So this is when they were originally auditioning the Queens. Like this show had um, I think Toby's sister, that version of the show, yeah. Had happened, but otherwise, this was the first proper OG.

[37:56] Josh Mitchell: And I remember so Christina came down and she was chatting to me and chatting to our she was um really good friends with who was the duty manager at the time, Anthony. Um and so I just sort of elbowed in on the conversation hi, hello, yes, I'm in uniform, and here's my name badge. I'm meant to be working, but I'm gonna listen to this instead. I'm gonna listen to this and hi, remember my name.

[38:25] Franny Rafferty: I mean, um it's literally it was so similar. If you've seen Extras and Ricky Gervais in the club when he's trying to talk to the director and producer, and he's just like basically falls off the seat, uh trying to muscle in. That was me with poor Christina and Anthony, but she's so gracious and so lovely and so warm. It's just like we were chatting away. And the more she spoke about this project, and she hadn't got the job yet, she'd just been in for the audition, and I was like, Oh my god, this sounds amazing. This sounds amazing, and then um, you know, it came to the art and was doing Monday night shows, which was such a clever way of doing this. Mad props. Can we just how crazy it is that this show went from digging you to like do four Monday night shows and then end to this? I mean, global sensation.

[39:20] Josh Mitchell: Um, it's but that is the thing, it's but it's so clever the way that was done, and I think um Kenny and his production office and uh George Stiles and Andy Barnes and Wendy Barnes are so smart in their understanding of what new work needs. Yeah, and to have that model of um, because what did I think they had it was either Toxic Avenger or something was in at the time, Toxic Avenger, a lot of fun that show. Um, but the Monday nights were then like these work in progresses, and they sold out, people went mad for it, but what they also had was then this time between, so to then have a week to reflect on that show. So rather than doing like a preview period of going one show and then we've got 12 hours of working time before we need to hit another show and then another show, like that frantic um sort of conveyor belt of art.

Instead, what it gave it was it to me as an outsider at that time, because I genuinely wasn't like I was a just a complete observer. To me, as an observer, it looked like it granted it the time to develop into what it needed to be.

[40:34] Franny Rafferty: Um, and it went through lots of changes, and I feel like it was unafraid to go. Oh, perhaps we need to try literally different creative team members, um different elements of uh within the design and the set and all that kind of stuff to find the right formula, which then of course it did in a big way, yeah.

[41:00] Josh Mitchell: Um, and I I was at Edinburgh with my own show when Six was there having its like mushroom cloud, amazing, sensational year. And oh my gosh, you do know what the thing the beautiful um like two worlds collide of this is that me and my friends we had a little uh we came out of RMA with a small theatre company called the Fun Club, great name, right? Um and we took like this little improv show to Edinburgh, and I think we maxed out at 13 people in the 60 seater audience. I wrote a blog about it, it was not a good time.

[41:51] Franny Rafferty: It was it was like four grand of our lives.

[41:51] Josh Mitchell: Four grand!

[41:59] Franny Rafferty: All we had was a laundry bag of costumes, it was ridiculous. Um, and then just round the corner was Six, just having the most incredible um run, and uh I didn't see it in Edinburgh because I was in such a bitter state. I'm so angry I now have to direct the show. I was just so embittered by Edinburgh, so embittered by it. Um but my castmates did go and see it, and they obviously came back and were just like, oh my god, it's a sensation. I was like, I don't want to hear it. We've got our own sensation here. Two stars in Scotsman. Anyway, uh so I came back from Edinburgh, and um I've been really lucky, I've been incredibly lucky.

[42:56] Franny Rafferty: I'm not somebody who financially can afford to take on like voluntary positions or you know, training positions and all that kind of stuff. So I've had to straight out of my MA. I was incredibly lucky I got the Brandage Award for assistant directors, and that put me into two productions straight away. One of them, well, both of them were touring productions, which again sort of creates its own work because as an assistant and then associate, your job is literally to look after shows when they're touring. And so that kind of the work created work, and that was fantastic. I've been really lucky in that I've been able to find paid work quite consistently. And then I was looking for my next job, and my friend Lucy Court sent me the ad for SIX, and I was working on the box office, I was back working on the box office at the arts.

The arts has been a complete rescue in terms of that was my muggle job. Was working at the arts and they had and they so graciously had me back each time. So I would go away and do a project, and then I'd be like knocking on the door, going, please, can I have some work? Shout out to the arts. And yeah, complete shout out to the arts and the managers there, and Lucy was a manager there when she first took me on the box office, and Pete who was front of house first took me on as an usher when I was studying, and just yeah, I mean, and Lizzie who manages the place in Chloe, but like all of these people who it's a real family, it's an absolute family. And they will look out for you. And if you can find a family like that, you're darn lucky, darn lucky.

And but I was on box office, Lucy sent me the ad and I sent a really cheeky email to Lucy and Jamie, Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage, basically being like, who better to look after your show than the person who works on the box office every night. Can you imagine receiving that email and being like, who is this donkey? Well, this person's confident. But there was a bit of me that was like, I have no hope in this job because they will be looking for like experts, have been doing it for years and years and years and years and years as in directing. And I'd only been, I'd been out of college for a year and a half. And we've missed a whole chunk of my life where I did like a reframing of my career and finally was doing the jam plan, anyway.

But I'd only been out of my master's, which is, was the same college as Madison actually, central went to central, did my master's there. I'd only been out of that for about a year and a half, and I think there was an element of me sending this application that was like, well, I just gotta give them who I am. And I think if I was stood in front of them, I would literally be like, Well, I work on this box office, I know who comes and sees the show, and I see the show every night. So hi, I'm ideal, right? And then I got an interview, which I was completely thrilled about, but although I suspect the interview was more because I worked at the arts, and it was like, oh, we should see, you know, there's sort of an unspoken thing in the arts industry that I think if you are already connected in some ways, like a courtesy of seeing you, and I was really appreciative of that because, like, yeah, of course, I mean, nobody's gonna look that gift-horse in the mouth.

Of course, I'm gonna go and interview with Jamie and Lucy. I had really bad hair at the time as well, so I was very conscious that my hair was shocking. But Lucy was really complimentary about my hair, and then we spoke. I'm really passionate about the role of the assistant and associate director, not simply being about a training role, and I think it can easily be viewed as oh, this is a stepping stone, this is stepping to something else. Whereas I think there's a large part of me that is a career associate, like that's that is the base of my career and where that will span for a long time.

[47:34] Franny Rafferty: And so I sort of said this to Jamie and Lucy and it was lovely. It was such a nice interview. Then I was lucky and got a second interview and then I got the job and the rest is history. And now we're here. And now we're here so we've dropped a couple of names Jamie and Lucy and they had literally my next question what's the best thing about working with them?

[47:55] Franny Rafferty: Um what is the best thing about working with them um I love how you started that with a laugh like there's some story that needs to be told. Well there sort of is in the way that they're both so human. And I think my previous experiences of some directors you know there's there have been directors in my life and directors I've encountered who like one director literally said to me women can't direct and for anyone that didn't hear my eyes just roll to the back of my head that was what just happened. You all but sprained an eyeball then but he and and he afterwards followed it with oh I'm only joking I'm doing it to get a rise out of you and even then I was like what but what why would you be trying to get a rise out of me by saying something like that. The fact you thought you had to say it means that you believe it because if it comes out it's true.

[49:07] Franny Rafferty: Completely, completely. And for me there has never ever been that sort of element from Lucy and Jamie. And instead they are incredibly gracious in understanding where strengths are, elevating those strengths, but also being really bloody funny. Like that that's why I laugh because what immediately sort of came to mind is, you know, the times when we ended up having to clean the rehearsal room floor. So while everybody was doing vocal warm-up in the other room, we were all with the cloths out with stage management and and Jamie gets distracted quite easily. And his distraction was and I started filming it so I thought it would be funny just to see all of us like our hands and knees cleaning this floor.

And he started performing like this hanky dance in front of the camera. So while everybody else is like working away on the floor there he is just with these little cloths doing this little hanky dance in front of the camera. And you watch these things back afterwards and it's like my gosh these are just really human people.

[50:14] Franny Rafferty: Yeah. Human brilliant people who have been a part of creating a global sensation but have always remained as them if that kind of makes sense. And that's the vibe that I've got from absolutely every single person that I've spoken to involved with the show. Like right from the top down like nobody has adapted one fibre of their being to fit this show. Like everybody is in this show because they are them and that is what this show needs. And oh man But that's always always been so incredibly key in in the casting and rehearsal of this show you know from the get go we say to the actors use your own voice don't don't do like an RP don't do like a mid-Atlantic don't don't do any of that if you are from Northumbria sing in your natural northern accent if you're from London sing in your natural Cockney accent or you know wherever you are from don't be ashamed of that and I think that drew me so much to SIX because I am so passionate about hearing voices on stage that are not like the bog standard drama school knocked my accent out of me version of life and like the perfect example of this is the only two voices that I'd ever heard sing heart of stone until the other day were the Australian and Nat so Lauren and Nat were the only two that I'd heard sing until Caitlin Tipping uploaded her cover the other day and holy damn Scottish accent singing heart of stone sign me up because that was just flat out amazing and if you haven't watched it go to Caitlin's profile and watch it but then imagine being you know being a nine year old girl with a thick Scottish accent and always perhaps always being told oh no no no you need to do to round out your vowels or you need to you need to figure out how you lose you lose the way you say those R's or T's or anything like that.

[52:30] Franny Rafferty: Yeah, and then to hear Caitlin sing it so beautifully and to receive praise and love in return for it. I just I think it's so important that for everybody it's a version of representation. Is that if you are hearing the voices that you recognize from your own hometown from your own family, then it makes it a reality that it isn't just a hobby, yeah. This is something that your voice is valid and valued, yeah. Um and Grace and I touched on the same thing with the Australians because with Australian accents, you're either a very sick Australian accent that nobody actually has in Australia and it's put on purely for the fact to promote you're Australian, or I don't know if you're aware, but I'm Australian.

It's like the full ocha, like nobody talks like that, or it's you're American or British, like there's no so to hear our girls do it in just them, it was just like, yeah, cool. This is but there's also an ownership that comes with that, isn't there? Of it's like you're not.

[53:39] Franny Rafferty: I think SIX is really clever in that what it isn't doing is supplanting itself, yeah. So it isn't like it goes, this is this is the British format, and therefore we're planting it here. What it instead goes is how do we grow it in each of these places? So, how do we grow the Broadway version? How do we grow the Australian version? How do we grow the ship versions, which are then like this mass amalgamation of accents, which at first can be quite jarring, but I think you have to face it head on, and I think you have to accept it head on rather than trying to adapt it or change it for whatever reasons, fear for commercialism for fear that an audience won't be on side. I think trust the material because actually the material is strong enough that it holds up, it withstands, yeah.

[54:25] Franny Rafferty: Um, and that's the I think that's the thing that Jamie and Lucy and Toby and Joe and Carrie Ann and you know, all of the lead creatives on this show are so good at doing is turning around and saying have faith. Trust it. Um and that can feel really beautiful to be a part of that working team.

[54:47] Josh Mitchell: Yeah. Man, I just want to have all of you in a room and just let you guys talk about this show because oh dream podcast episode and putting it out into the universe. We're just gonna have all the creative team in a room and we're just I think it would descend into madness very quickly and start being about Chipotle or how you pronounce Chipotle or what the Joe Baton's latest trousers where he can fit a microphone into the loop of it. Like it would descend into madness before you knew it.

[55:20] Josh Mitchell: So Franny's gonna help me run the episode because she knows how to control everybody. So go take um but yeah and it would just be so good to just break down this show because like and I I can't remember who whose episode it was that we figured it out. But like the weird the the way the show is built is literally like explode at the start then funnel into heart of stone and then explode for Holbein to funnel in for I don't need your love to explode again. Like it oh it's just so freaking smart man.

[55:58] Franny Rafferty: So smart like but I think it's also it feels like um I mean Lucy Moss's knowledge is beyond her and Lucy Walsley would make the most epic historian team in terms of making the BBC documentary. So putting that into the universe, just make that happen. Thanks so much. Um but the I think rather than rather than it ever having been and this is complete conjecture, I have no idea because I haven't spoken to Lucy and Toby about how this came about. But I think rather than them sitting and perhaps by design going, oh, there needs to be this explosive beginning, there needs to be this like really somber moment in between, and then then needs it needs to have this explosion. Instead, what they did was went to the root of the source material, and the source material has it there for you already.

[56:52] Franny Rafferty: It already has the idea that as a society we only know them as these six wives. They're not even they're not six women, they're they're wives. And they are the six wives of Henry the Eighth. Henry's the only person who gets a name in that in that knowledge. And that sort of explosion of thought process in illuminating that discussion with people is so honest and forms such an honest foundation that in actual fact the design does the work it does the design work for you.

[57:24] Franny Rafferty: Yeah, is that you're looking at the root of the source material in order to find the design of it, if that kind of makes sense.

[57:32] Josh Mitchell: And I think that feels like the magic of it.

[57:36] Franny Rafferty: You just blew my brain. That was such a good explanation.

[57:41] Josh Mitchell: Wow.

[57:44] Franny Rafferty: Wow.

[57:44] Josh Mitchell: I do try.

[57:46] Franny Rafferty: That was great. Maybe I just we'll just sit down and we'll just go through the whole show and break it down, and then we'll take it to Lucy and Toby and we're like, is this right?

[57:56] Franny Rafferty: Um I I'm planning on writing the grimmery version of SIX, so we'll just take it and I'll be like, well, Josh is coming on board as well. So let's go we've got it covered.

[58:05] Josh Mitchell: Um what's the biggest thing you've learned throughout this whole process?

[58:10] Franny Rafferty: Um okay, well it happened.

[58:20] Franny Rafferty: She paused.

[58:22] Josh Mitchell: Um gotta I stumped her.

[58:24] Franny Rafferty: You're welcome. I mean, do you know what I think I think the biggest thing I've learned has been a process of learning since since switching into like the jam plan.

[58:37] Franny Rafferty: So to explain the jam plan slightly is um so when I I my undergraduate degree is in arts management.

[58:46] Franny Rafferty: Um because I spent a brief time at drama school and was told I didn't have an acting bone in my body in an assessment.

[58:54] Franny Rafferty: It was actually written in an assessment, doesn't have an acting bone in her body.

[58:58] Franny Rafferty: Um and that it was in response to a performance where I played a wig stand.

[59:04] Franny Rafferty: So uh it wasn't exactly Linda Lohman, you know.

[59:09] Franny Rafferty: Um and I I took that hard. I took I took that really, really hard, and I took that as a message that I was not built to cope in this industry.

[59:21] Franny Rafferty: Um that no matter how much I thought that maybe I was gonna be a creator, maybe I was gonna be an artist in some way, I was not built with a thick enough skin to understand how to navigate this industry, which is a tough, tough industry.

[59:37] Franny Rafferty: Um, and so I went and did a degree in arts management at uh Leicester de Montfort.

[59:44] Franny Rafferty: Uh had three really fun years actually, and it was really illuminating.

[59:50] Franny Rafferty: And what it did was it did the thing that that guidance counsellor said it should do, which is what's the practical career? How do I earn money?

[59:56] Franny Rafferty: Um, and so from there remained very practical and sort of um spent many years.

[1:00:09] Franny Rafferty: I'm actually 52, uh spent but spent years kind of working as a venue manager, working to become uh the youngest female theatre manager in the West End, um garnering experience, then moving into the production office and general managing, uh into producing, um, and I was the producer at the Lyric Hammersmith, and I worked myself into a financially secure position that I could then pursue what I called my jam plan, which was I'm now in a place my skin is thick enough, I have a level of experience of the industry and knowledge of the industry that I can now go and do the thing I always wanted to do, which was learn or open the door on how I create, how I form an artistry, how I form my ideas, how I how I run a rehearsal room.

[1:01:05] Franny Rafferty: Um and so that happened, um, which was glorious.

[1:01:12] Franny Rafferty: I was so fortunate, so fortunate to study at Central, but also I was incredibly fortunate in that I was supported by so many fantastic people, and I'm really I'm so appreciative of that, and it's a big reason why now when I can I will help other people in whatever way I can because any small kindness becomes a big kindness.

[1:01:35] Franny Rafferty: Yeah um and coming out of that I went into these jobs and I you know I was at the Mercury Colchester brilliant theatre um I went on tour I was lucky enough to travel abroad on tour with various shows and I put so much into it because this was finally it I was doing the thing that I have wanted to do since I can remember having a choice.

[1:02:02] Franny Rafferty: Yeah and I put so much energy in and so much care and so much attention and then would still get so hurt that it wasn't returned and I couldn't understand and I couldn't figure it out and I was like but I've done so much I did this thing I did this thing for you and you you're not happy about it and um and I I just and I think what SIX has taught me is to care less about that is that the level it's the level of altruism you have to employ in terms of it is your choice to go that extra mile you cannot be angry if somebody doesn't appreciate that extra mile they never asked you to do it.

[1:02:56] Franny Rafferty: Yeah um and that's not to say that there is any degree of you know the the the lead creative team are fantastic and so supportive and you know even even through this um isolation period people like Gabby and Justin uh I almost speed in like every other day and usually at four in the morning.

[1:03:21] Franny Rafferty: Uh me and Gabby both suffering slightly with the insomnia at the moment.

[1:03:24] Josh Mitchell: Oh man, I've been the same recently.

[1:03:26] Franny Rafferty: It's like cool, what what is you're awake sleeping until midday? Yay, cool.

[1:03:31] Josh Mitchell: And then like these interviews don't help because I'm like running off your time to kind of adjust my so it's like cool, finish this edit, cool, let's roll.

[1:03:42] Franny Rafferty: It's like what is it?

[1:03:43] Franny Rafferty: Well the day days are so different now, aren't they?

[1:03:45] Josh Mitchell: Um, although if you check my Friday Faves this week, Gabby uh gifted me like one of the best things I have ever received in my life.

[1:03:54] Franny Rafferty: Um, and uh if in fact I can obviously say this like Friday Faves is some big secret.

[1:04:00] Franny Rafferty: Um, but it's called Dawn's Live, and there's a broadcast that covers like two hours.

[1:04:06] Franny Rafferty: It's a live broadcast, uh, and I think it's global, it's from various places around the world of the the the dawn rising in each of these places, and it's like musical accompaniment and poetry and meditation, and it's beautiful.

[1:04:21] Josh Mitchell: That's crazy.

[1:04:23] Franny Rafferty: It was amazing, and and Gab sent it to me the other morning.

[1:04:26] Franny Rafferty: We were both up 4 a.m. and she was like, Oh, I I think I might watch the dawn and there's this thing.

[1:04:31] Franny Rafferty: She sent me the link, and I was just like, this is magical.

[1:04:35] Franny Rafferty: How have I how have I not known about this previously?

[1:04:41] Franny Rafferty: Quarantine is making us discover things that we probably shouldn't have discovered.

[1:04:46] Josh Mitchell: This is the thing.

[1:04:47] Franny Rafferty: Am I gonna be awake for every dawn now? Probably listening to this broadcast.

[1:04:50] Franny Rafferty: Um, but I think it's so so there is such a level of support, but I think also is there are so many people involved in in this show, and I think it's not a crime for people to have different priorities other than thanking you for going the extra mile, you know.

[1:05:11] Franny Rafferty: And um just because you work together doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be like best of friends.

[1:05:18] Franny Rafferty: It's it's really understanding the separation of almost church and state in some ways is like okay.

[1:05:25] Franny Rafferty: Well, that's that's job, that's work, that's career.

[1:05:28] Franny Rafferty: Um, and then this is this is life and family and friends and other stuff, yeah, and those those things can exist separately and run uh i in in parallel, they can run contemporaneously, and it's not that you have to give one or the other less or more, it's just that you have to figure out the balance of those two things and then not be hurt if that thing doesn't quite reflect that thing.

[1:05:57] Franny Rafferty: Does that kind of make sense?

[1:05:58] Josh Mitchell: Yeah.

[1:05:58] Franny Rafferty: Um so searching searching for affection in all the right places, I suppose is a bold that's a life lesson.

[1:06:08] Josh Mitchell: That is that is a mic drop right there.

[1:06:12] Franny Rafferty: If you are searching for affection in the wrong places, you're gonna get hurt, so be prepared.

[1:06:17] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, like straight up.

[1:06:21] Franny Rafferty: I I'm not gonna lie to you. I ain't here to mollycoddle and sugarcoat things if you're in bad situations, the chances are you're probably gonna end up coming out of it hurt.

[1:06:35] Franny Rafferty: Um life lessons.

[1:06:36] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, it can be, but I I think we can we can create those situations sometimes.

[1:06:42] Franny Rafferty: True.

[1:06:43] Franny Rafferty: In in the in the search for something that we're just looking in the wrong place for it yeah um and sometimes it's almost too late to know it's a bad situation until it's a bad situation I think so and that doesn't necessarily I mean there is uh I I mean we we could talk about r relationships and that that being an entirely um separate thing but I think there is there is a parallel between searching for uh affection that isn't necessarily about a relationship but is about friendship or is uh is about praise or those kinds of things like affection comes in so many different forms um that you yeah just look in the right place for it and don't be angry that it hasn't been provided for you in the wrong place if that kind of makes sense that just silly just life lessons with Franny we might make this a weekly weekly thing on the story guys we'll just have we'll just drop one a week could do hey hey um in this show Frenny what's your favorite moment like because you've seen it obviously so many times from a director's perspective what what is your favorite moment in the show well I think there's there's a few obviously like seventy five minutes of brilliance um uh between minutes zero zero one and seven around the the the 68 minute mark.

[1:08:17] Franny Rafferty: Um so I think one of the I had the the extraordinary pleasure of uh rehearsing in Sophie Isaac's into the West End as Howard.

[1:08:27] Franny Rafferty: Um and Howard is a really tough role.

[1:08:27] Franny Rafferty: Really tough.

[1:08:37] Franny Rafferty: Completely, and uh like each each of the queens has has their challenge and but perhaps the darkest challenge is Howard's.

[1:08:47] Franny Rafferty: I was gonna say I think we've come to the conclusion that Howard's probably the the most intense to kind of get into.

[1:08:53] Franny Rafferty: I think so.

[1:08:54] Franny Rafferty: I think so, and uh the tricky third quarter, let's call it.

[1:09:00] Franny Rafferty: So like um the all you want to do is like an opera, is the way that I we often talk about it with the actresses playing the role.

[1:09:11] Franny Rafferty: Is so in a musical you sort of have a beginning, a middle and an end, and it's that a formulaic structure.

[1:09:19] Franny Rafferty: And often in musical songs, you have that beginning, middle, and end.

[1:09:23] Franny Rafferty: And it's potentially a beginning, a middle, and then like the the weird dance break and then the end.

[1:09:29] Franny Rafferty: Um but uh the the format of all you want to do is almost operatic in its acts, and instead of having that tidy beginning, middle end, what it does is it that tricky third quarter is almost the the prime moment where you need to take an audience by its shoulders and go, no, this is not what you expected.

[1:09:55] Franny Rafferty: And that's hard, that is really hard.

[1:09:59] Franny Rafferty: And we we do a couple of exercises in the rehearsal room and um Becca Wicks, who I worked with uh for the cruise, it's extraordinary in these in these moments because they're hard.

[1:10:10] Franny Rafferty: It is really hard this general.

[1:10:17] Franny Rafferty: She's incredible.

[1:10:18] Franny Rafferty: She's and for somebody who is deceptively young, actually.

[1:10:24] Franny Rafferty: Um she is uh incredibly um full in terms of her emotional connection.

[1:10:33] Franny Rafferty: She's she's insane in that way.

[1:10:34] Franny Rafferty: And we went pretty deep into that as well.

[1:10:37] Franny Rafferty: Um I can imagine.

[1:10:39] Franny Rafferty: Yeah, she went please go back and listen to that because that was a perfect description of how it and how she goes there and fantastic.

[1:10:48] Franny Rafferty: So sorry.

[1:10:49] Franny Rafferty: And I think no no no, not at all.

[1:10:50] Josh Mitchell: No, Josh, I'm not interrupting this is a discussion.

[1:10:53] Franny Rafferty: We're in a dialogue, my friend.

[1:10:55] Franny Rafferty: Um but I think for me, the tricky third quarter, when that hits I mean it's extraordinary.

[1:11:07] Franny Rafferty: And to see an audience visibly bristle in that moment.

[1:11:13] Franny Rafferty: I remember the first time it hit me.

[1:11:14] Franny Rafferty: Like it it took me three three or four shows, I think, to for it to happen, and I don't know what it was.

[1:11:22] Franny Rafferty: I still can't.

[1:11:23] Franny Rafferty: I just remember for whatever reason, I don't know if I paid attention more that night or because all you want to do is kind of that song I didn't connect to, kind of skip through it on the soundtrack.

[1:11:33] Franny Rafferty: Wasn't my cup of tea. This night, whatever it was, I was like, cool, I'm gonna focus, did it, and oh my god, like I was bawling my eyes out because I was like, Yeah, cool, sh I've been sleeping on this. Holy crap. Like the tension that and Toby and Lucy are so clever, and but also the choreography that's involved, and then the performance from the actresses and working through this with Sophie, for example, and she rehear we often rehearsed, it was either just the two of us or me, Sophie and Mel, um, working really hard in the rehearsal room, and she didn't have the rest of the queens around her. But her discovering how she gets herself to that place without all of those bodies in the place, and then suddenly having those bodies was like a masterclass in watching an actress understand her choices.

Yeah, it was absolutely incredible. And that's and that journey with each of the Howards is really really exciting. Really exciting. Because obviously you've got some younger newer performers like Becca, for example, um, and then you get those experienced performers like your Jodies and your Sophie's that are just kind of like uh more experienced than they understand of the musical theatre stage.

[1:12:51] Josh Mitchell: Exactly. They understand kind of their place in everything a little bit better than those freshies out of college. What what's it like kind of having to understand how to con uh direct the two different experience levels?

[1:13:10] Franny Rafferty: So my process is really actor-led, yeah, which sounds completely uh I understand. Um but it's actor-led in the way that um my discussions are open questions. Yeah. So rather than what I try to do and hopefully do fingers crossed, you're actually Sophie and Jodie and all being like, she didn't do this, it was awful. Um, but what I try to do is present open-ended questions that allow then the actor to turn around and go, Oh, well, these were my initial thoughts, and then we and then develop a dialogue about it. And when you allow it to be an actor-led process, whoever the actor is, they are deciding the process or the um the tone of the process with you. So rather than me going in going, this is how we do Howard, this is how we're gonna do it.

Yeah, what instead is you start to understand, so you understand um somebody's natural speech patterns, you understand somebody's natural humour, you understand um the context that they're perhaps bringing from their own lives, they're um and it varies from actor to actor. There will be actors who uh are who are just discovering feminism or just discovering um the idea of um that abuse of power in uh between genders is not specifically about uh violent physical abuse, but it can also be about the mental impact.

[1:14:23] It can also be uh the tiniest things, it can it can be um oh Brooklyn 99 did this brilliant episode on this, and I cheered so much. Um, and it's Amy investigating a case where a woman has been abused by a man and she talks to Jake about it, and she says, Look, this is the thing that we have had to deal with for too long, and it's as simple as this is when I got my first job, I thought it was because I've been polite to a man and that I'd flirted with him a bit, and then that was how I was gonna have to do this from now on, and that I always had to be grateful to this man, it wasn't because of my own talents or skills, or me being respected or valued as a person myself, it was because I'd been nice to this man and I'd let him kiss me on the cheek, or I'd let him like take hold of my hand or pinch my bum, those kinds of things, and it's I think understanding for for women for anybody who identifies as non-binary, but anybody who identifies as other um understanding that actually the abuse of the system doesn't have to be of always been visceral and violent, it can be as violent uh in terms of the mental impact, it can be as violent in terms of the the simplest moment that made you feel like you were inferior, yeah.

[1:16:23] And so, yeah, actors can be in different places in that discussion. So it's like I think, especially with Howard's case, for example, you can't you can't with the context of how deep you're going to go into this character, you can't walk in as a director and be like, yo, this is how we're gonna do this, because people are gonna need time to be able to comprehend the the actions that are happening in the seven and a half minutes and what's going on and the level they need to get to, the themes that they've got to present in seven and a half minutes and the the story arc, and but it goes back to what you were saying about um it's it's not about supplanting the characters to another location, it's about growing those characters in that location, yeah.

[1:17:10] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, um, and I think if you did try to do that, if you did try to go, well, this is our template and you have to fit in it, you're always gonna see the air between, aren't you? You're never gonna be able to invest in that character because you're always gonna be going, Oh, something's not sitting quite right. It's like they're pretending to be someone else, pretending to be someone else. Is there's too many layers that end up being formed. Um, you haven't organically discovered and um allowed a character to blossom at the root of a person.

[1:17:41] Franny Rafferty: I love that. Man, I love this show. The creative process of the show is just so freaking well done.

[1:17:47] Josh Mitchell: Isn't it? Oh man as a director in the rehearsal room. What's your favorite moment to create in the show?

[1:18:00] Franny Rafferty: Oh, the one that's most fun is uh House of Holbein and then Tinder. And if you if you when you get to speak to Jade Marvin uh from Bliss 2, ask her ask her about Johannes. Bless her, she put up with some nonsense from me over that. She really did. Um, but it's a lot of fun to so we do uh we do a couple of workshops around that and kind of discovering who are German German characters, uh Eastern European other characters. I got a done. I was doing a live just before we started this, and I had my uh whole burn glasses out, and I'll just put them on for anyone that's listening at home. Get this mana rough immediately. Oh, yeah, I'm getting wish ads at the moment for Ruffs, and I'm like, I haven't even had discussions about Ruff's Facebook. Come on.

[1:18:53] Josh Mitchell: Listening, listening the whole time.

[1:18:56] Franny Rafferty: Um, but it's yeah, that is a tremendous amount of fun because it's also the timing of it chronologically. So we tend to rehearse the show chronologically, um, both in terms of history but also in terms of the the timeline of the show. And by the time we get to House of Holbein, that there is a slight sense that everybody just needs to bust out a little bit and just kind of like let loose um and have fun with it. Um it's kind of like the on stage interval for this show. Like it's it's kind of like cool. We've done three, we've gone in uh fully intense dance-wise, we've got fully intense emotional. Let's let it out because we're about to do the exact same thing again. But it's also it's so smart in the wit of it, like the literal wit of it.

Um the reference to Tinder alone is is fantastic, but also that idea of creating princesses, yeah. Like as a reflection on society, that social media creation of what the perfect person is, yeah. And how ridiculous that is, just utterly ridiculous. Um yeah, smart, super smart, Marlo and Moss. Shout out, man. I can't wait till they come on and we can break this down because it's gonna be one hell of a few episodes. I feel like I feel like I'm gonna have like 10 episodes of and it's gonna be just like a two-hour recording flat out of me just being like all right, we're gonna go start from the top. We're gonna break down every single word. Let's go. They're so super smart as well, as humans, they're just incre it it's slightly intimidating. Slightly. Not gonna lie. Pretty intimidating.

[1:20:45] Josh Mitchell: So our second last question. No, here in the end. It's a bit scary. What is the best thing about seeing everything come together?

[1:21:01] Franny Rafferty: Seeing that first kind of fall out. Um I think sometimes it's the relief at the end. We made it. Oh wait, we've still got bump in and tech and notes and but yeah, the first the first run-through, and I think there's such a level of cohesion that happens as an ensemble. Like it becomes ten women, ladies in waiting and queens, on stage working in complete synergy. And that's that's kind of beautiful. Um and so the celebration at the end of the collective kind of like shoulders down, breathe. Yeah, ah, we did it, but also that we can do it. Yeah, because I think I don't think it's unusual for this show. I think any any musical, any show really, any bit live performance can plant seeds of doubt in a way for actors that you know it sort of goes back to what I was kind of talking about in how drama school sort of told me I was I was not strong enough for this career because I think this career inherent within it is the level of self-doubt that it can um plant within you yeah um and so to see at the end of the first run through can women go yeah I can do it actually I can do it and I did it um and actually I I rocked it I think is pretty yeah pretty awesome.

[1:22:08] Josh Mitchell: I love that guys sadly this is the end um the end of my friend I can miss you Josh I feel like you've been in my life forever right I get to this point in every episode and I'm like damn like I feel like I've just made a friend god damn it um I can almost guarantee you that Franny will be back on again um whether it's with the rest of the creative team or by herself is yet to be defined um but it will happen I I'm gonna force my way back on much like that conversation with Anthony and Christina I'm just gonna be like Franny's just gonna be a regular from here on she's just gonna be talking she's gonna run the conversation I'm just gonna sit here and listen to her talk to everybody.

[1:23:40] If you guys in the meantime wanna hang out with Franny and annoy her on Instagram her apps are down below. So go show her some love. If you want to annoy me feel free uh you know our apps and if you don't it's the Queenham Cast and Ozqueenum Instagram Facebook Twitter. Hit that like subscribe subscribe. I don't have youtube you can't subscribe to any of those platforms. But you can subscribe. You can subscribe to this uh podcast, which will make sure you uh get those notifications next time we upload a new episode new episodes come out.

[1:24:13] Franny Rafferty: I've subscribed.

[1:24:13] Josh Mitchell: Oi, hell. Franny's also only listened to like two episodes, so yeah. There's a lot of damn next bike ride, I'll listen again. Don't worry. It's funny hearing the evolution of the podcast, listening to the early episodes where my interviews were 20 minutes, and now you've got this episode, which is the latest one, sitting an hour an hour and a half. So damn, we've come a long way in 30 weeks.

[1:24:40] Franny Rafferty: There you have Josh, you're doing an amazing job as well. Be proud. Last question, Franny.

[1:24:47] Josh Mitchell: Yeah.

[1:24:47] Franny Rafferty: If you had an acting bone in your body.

[1:24:53] Josh Mitchell: What Queen? Who would you be?

[1:24:57] Franny Rafferty: Um I always get picked as Seymour, but I think I'd be arrogant.

[1:25:03] Josh Mitchell: Oh, powerful. Yes. Love that. That is the perfect ending to this episode, Queens. Thank you for coming and hanging out, Franny. Appreciate the hell out of you. Thank you for listening, Queen. Total pleasure. And happy Pride month as well for June.

[1:25:18] Franny Rafferty: Yay! This that was two months ago by the time this airs, but happy pride from then. Go team. Queens, we will see you next week with a brand new episode of the Queendom Podcast.