About Us
Maverick came to be after former BRMB and BBC presenter Nick Hennegan wrote and directed Henry V - Lion of England - a one person version of Shakespeare's classic. Its first workshop performance was in the tiny Hexagon Theatre of the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham in 1992. Local Musician Robb Williams wrote an original music score. Management company Starward (then managers of Jasper Carrott and Phil Cool) happened to be in the audience and were impressed enough to take the production from the tiny mac to the Edinburgh Festival. After critical success at Edinburgh and with Nick Hennegan being hugely impressed by the accessibility and democracy of his first Fringe, Maverick Theatre was created in Birmingham as a not-for-profit company with a mission to increase access to the performing arts through the presentation of contemporary classics and new works with a local voice. Maverick was officially launched by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham in 1994.
Flushed with the democracy of the Edinburgh Fringe, Nick Hennegan created Maverick's original proposition.
"Forget the TV for a night. Don't rent a film. Come down the pub and see where it all started. No retakes, no cameras, no going back, just live action with real people right in front of you. Have a pint and a pie and if you don't like it you can have your money back."
Twinned with the mission to create a new theatre-going habit with socially excluded communities in Birmingham was a desire to include and encourage new artists and technicians. Many successful theatre professionals have started their careers with the Maverick Theatre Company. We are now working in London and Birmingham and have created the London Literary Pub Crawl - a promenade tour of Soho in central London aimed to increase access to literary classics. We have also built on the early work of the Maverick Academy, initially a youth group and are offering accessible and affordable producer training, a radio show, a podcast,a new People's Theatre Company production and developing our national chain of Maverick HUBS - new community spaces for accessible theatre.
John Slater's History of the first years of the Maverick Theatre Company.
The Lord Mayor of Birmingham and Maverick's first Chair, Nigel Williams.
1994 The Maverick Theatre Company was officially launched at The Billesley Pub in Kings Heath, Birmingham, in January by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.
Ian Brooker and Denise Gilfoyle in Maverick's first production, Educating Rita.
The first productions were Educating Rita and Trench Kiss, a little-known play by Arthur Smith. Educating Rita then toured the West Midlands, as did Henry V - Lion of England, the first play written by Nick Hennegan, Maverick’s Artistic Director. Then, in May, Sir Derek Jacobi played the voice of the ghost in Hennegan’s Hamlet at the MAC.
L to R: Robb Williams, Nick Hennegan and Sir Derek Jacobi, outside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.
During the summer, Ansells Brewery loaned Maverick a disused store room at the rear of the Billesley as a performance space (now the site of a Wacky Warehouse). It was christened by a three-week run of An Evening With Gary Lineker which went on to a week at The Elms in Aldridge, then a week at Manchester’s Thameside Hippodrome, where it made £18,000, and a week in Swindon where it lost £19,000!
An Evening With Gary Lineker.
Later in the year, local actor Glenn Bayes directed his first play, Frankie and Johnny. He was to direct many more for Maverick and others before moving to London.
1995 started with rave reviews and good audiences for a new comedy/whodunit Death At The Done Inn by local writer Tom Nolan. Road by Jim Cartwright followed. It was Glenn Bayes’ second production and hailed as a radical interpretation as the audience were moved around the whole pub, including the car park!
Death at the Done Inn, by Tom Nolan.
For seven weeks through the summer, Maverick, together with Almost Perfect Productions, put on Henry V - Lion of England at the Waterside Studio in Stratford-upon-Avon. Senior RSC actor Julian Glover became a fan!
Back at the Billesley, the first Maverick Youth Workshop was run for a week by the leader of the Alexandra Theatre Youth Company.
In December, Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell was produced in the Billesley Public Bar (now part of the dining area). Former BRMB presenter and rock tour manager, John Slater, was asked to help out for a day and has been managing Maverick productions ever since.
1996 Shows at the Billesley were: Strippers, which sold out for a week; Sexual Perversity In Chicago, sponsored by The Royal Al-Faisel restaurant and CBC; Play It Again Sam, which was part of the Jazz Festival, and Teechers.
Sexual Perversity in Chicago
In March Henry V - Lion of England opened at the Old Rep Theatre, Birmingham, for three weeks, starring Michael Shaw who had performed it in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Michael Shaw in Henry V - Lion of England
The second Maverick Youth Workshop was the last activity in the theatre space at the Billesley before it became the Wacky Warehouse. Instead of bowing to adversity, Nick Hennegan and John Slater meet and perversely decide to produce more than ever at The Billesley, with a show every two months. It worked! Within the next year, audiences had more than doubled.
1997 Superbly acted, Two by Jim Cartwright left audiences emotionally drained with its mix of humour and pathos. Shirley Valentine starred Manchester’s Sue Warhurst who has since appeared in a string of major TV series. Same Time Next Year was directed by Larry Rew, squeezing the production in between directing in Germany and New Zealand.
Same Time Next Year.
Up’N’Under and Up’N’Under 2 saw largely the same cast for both, brilliantly directed by Julia Smith. Most nights sold out. John James Associates sponsored Up’N’Under 2.
Up 'n' Under
In between the Up’N’Unders was A Ghost Of A chance, a new play by Maverick’s Nick Hennegan which won a prestigious Guinness Pub Theatre award, judged by the Royal National Theatre. It starred Paul Henry, forever to be known for his iconic role as Benny, in the original Crossroads, and 13 year old Justyn Luke Towler, fresh from Tommy in the West End. John Slater was the voice of the ghost and the show was directed by former Birmingham Rep Artistic Director, John Adams. It sold out all five nights in the 200-capacity main Function Room.
A Ghost of A Chance
1998 The first show of 1998 was Educating Rita, back at The Billesley to celebrate Maverick’s fourth birthday. Half way through its two-week run it had completely sold out. For the last five shows it transferred to the main Function Room (twice the size!) and still sold out!
In February, Maverick hosted workshops with RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Several local people who attended have since been offered places at RADA.
In March, Glenn Bayes came back from London to direct The Killing Of Sister George.
PALS by Nick Hennegan, directed by Julia Smith, was an enormous hit for three weeks in May. It was greeted by laughter, tears and standing ovations. Amazingly, for a new play, the last two weeks completely sold out, as word spread!
P.A.L.S.
Throughout August, the Maverick team were in Edinburgh at the Festival’s most prestigious venue, The Assembly Rooms, with the original cast and director of A Ghost of A Chance. To raise money for the Edinburgh visit, Maverick had taken to the main stage of Birmingham Rep for one night in June with Henry V - Lion of England performed by its author and its composer. It nearly filled the cavernous Rep on a Monday night!
Henry V -Lion of England was also invited to the Danville College for Performing Arts in Kentucky, USA and rehearsed readings of an expanded production were run for producers in New York.
The year ended with Maverick’s first youth production Our Day Out directed by Dani Parr.
Our Day Out - Maverick Youth Academy
1999 . We saw in the new year with the Dani Parr directed Elsie & Norm’s Macbeth and Dani returned in March to direct Beautiful Thing, the first of Maverick’s first back-to-back run of plays for a season entitled Love Hurts. The plays ran for six weeks continuing with a co-production, with The Mousepeople, of The Wild Party which saw the Birmingham Post arts editor using the word ‘genius’ for the first time in 25 years. The run concluded with a return of PALS which had been so successful last year.
In May Nick Hennegan returned to directing with Bouncers which was immediately snapped up for the Ross-on -Wye International festival and given Critics Choice status in The Guardian.
In August, Jon Morris, who acted in PALS, Bouncers and Up’n’Under, returned as the director of Shakers. It was announced that as most of the original artistic aims and objectives had been met, this was to be the last show at The Billesley - Maverick’s home for over five years.
2000 - ONWARDS.
After we finished at The Billesley, Maverick began a new, more peripatetic role. Other groups began producing pub theatre in Birmingham - one of our initial ambitions. We produced seasons of plays at The Birmingham Library Theatre, including the hugely successful 'People's Company' production of Henry V - using a community cast and employing some of the finest theatrical talent to tutor and mentor, including Barbara Houseman from the R.S.C..
A national tour of a play about Tony Hancock, again, starring the brilliant Paul Henry.
A national and international tour of 'Henry V - Lion of England'
A premiere of a new play at The British Museum.
Training workshops for new producers and those wishing to start their own theatre companies.
A new scheme to find radio writers.
We moved to London and created the London Literary Pub Crawl.
Nick Hennegan adapted and directed the legendary Guy Masterson in a national tour of A Christmas Carol
And we returned to the Edinbugh Festival in 2018, with sell-out hit shows, written and adapted by our Artistic Director, Nick Hennegan -'Henry V - Lion of England' and 'Hamlet-Horatio's Tale.'
2019.
We returned to the Edinburgh Festival in 2019 - bringing Birmingham to the worlds biggest open arts event, with a Brummie focused Romeo and Juliet and our original Birmingham set comedy, P.A.L.S. Both shows attracted 5 star reviews! And as a result of that success, we spent a month at the Tabard Theatre in London.
2020.
In spite of the coronavirus, we launched a new Diploma for Creative Theatre Producers and, managed to raise funds to establish a new West London Peoples Theatre Company.
2022. Once again Edinburgh, with the acclaimed Winston and David.
ROMEO & JULIET
Wiliam Shakespeare and Nick Hennegan
Directed by Nick Hennegan.
TTI in association with Maverick Theatre Co
Assembly George Square
1–24 August 2019
Romeo & Juliet
Romeo and Juliet are the star-crossed lovers who end up dying. Surely a story well-known thanks to lot of ballets and operas, West Side Story, Zeffirelli’s famous film from 1968, the modern version with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio from 1996, ad nauseum.
Romeo and Juliet of feuding families meet and fall in love. But he’s from the wrong side of the tracks and she is promised to another.
So, they devise a plan that makes both look like they are dead and can then run off together. But they haven’t quite exchanged the details of the plans with each other.
Writer/director Nick Hennegan has culled the basics of the story and made it current. Equal parts of Shakespeare and Hennegan. The weight of the issues of the Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet lack the realism to start the modern-day play off. The chaste characters in Shakespeare are nothing like the easy access of today. It’s hard to find a way to make this happen.
But wait!
When, with Hennegan’s razor sharp direction, the actors find the relationship, it becomes breathtakingly inspiring.
The two-minute wordless love scene is one of the most powerful I’ve seen. (Hennegan or movement director Katie Merrit.) It is neither sexual nor salacious nor titillating. It is a dance, a ballet.
From here forward, Hennegan and his actors are masters. The cast is flawless and well matched. This is a masterclass on how to do Shakespeare with four actors and one very wise director.
Reviewer: Catherine Lamm
© 2021 British Theatre Guide
Scotsman review
The Scotsman. Theatre review: Romeo and Juliet
Romeo & Juliet, Nick Hennegan's fresh, feminist take on Shakespeare's classic
SALLY STOTT
Published: 10:35
Tuesday 13 August 2019
Romeo, wherefore? Oh, on the sports field perchance
There’s another kind of Capulet in da house party – one from the Midlands – in Nick Hennegan’s sport-themed Romeo & Juliet set around two warring football clubs, Birmingham City and Aston Villa. Here, a female Juliet is equally at home kicking a ball as she is listening to R&B and sending gossipy texts. This is a place where “examine other beauties” means getting on Tinder and living your life obsessing over a man is a definite no, no – at least until “lips” start doing “what hands do” and it becomes a definite yes, yes.
Here, the banter is as up to date as the latest i-Phone, thanks to amusing colloquial asides woven into the dialogue by Hennegan to create a culture clash between Shakesperian and contemporary language – one that’s as invigorating as the physical theatre battles between the two teams of players at the start.
With the inevitable tragedy looming, the comic interjections subside in a way that reveals their limitations, but as Romeo and Juliet wishfully plan their future together in Manchester – an unlikely alternative to Mantua – the remaining flecks of humour makes what we all know is going happen next even sadder.
With epic musical interjections reminiscent of queuing for a major theme park attraction, it’s a piece that could be developed through a bigger production that integrates sound and physicality more throughout, as well as a full set. But when the young performers take their bow, it’s a surprising reminder of how large a story they’ve managed to tell with only a cast of four.
Fringe Review
Edinburgh Fringe 2019
PALS
Written and Directed by Nick Hennegan
TTI in association with Maverick Theatre Co
Genre: Theatre
Venue: Assembly George Square
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A play about growing up. A rare combination of great writing and directing backed up with acting of the highest class.
Review
Peter, Andy, Linda and Sue are pals and have been since they can ever remember. Playing together, forever in and out of each other’s homes, they grow up over the course of this sixty minutes of powerful, pithy and poignant theatre, from chatterbox primary school kids into teens on the cusp of adulthood.
This four-hander, written and superbly directed by Nick Hennegan is set in Birmingham and begins smack in the middle of the baby boomer period, running through to the point when punk was just beginning to grab our attention. Like a lot of really good writing, what we see is based on Hennegan’s personal experiences and the nodding heads and murmured conversation of the exiting audience told you that many who watched this superbly acted piece of theatre identified with the many and varied issues it addressed – those of friendship, loyalty, choices, ambition and actually understanding who you really are and what you stand for.
The high energy of pre-teens morphs into the awkward, gawky teen years as the quartet starts to break apart, driven in no small part by the education system which, at that time, split you off aged 11 and a bit into the “haves” and have nots”. The former ended up running the country, the latter keeping the lights on.
But as the foursome develop, so things take on a darker, less rosy hue. And the denouement hits us right in the heart – beautifully scripted, sympathetically acted, leaving the audience in complete and utter silence.
The set of four white wooden chairs is deceptively simple, given the intricate manner in which they are deployed by the cast. Costuming is similarly stark, with the one on-stage change (to indicate the switch from primary to secondary education) being cleverly choreographed to avoid any break in the flow.
Someone has also had great fun with the sound segues – it was like a trip down memory lane listening to each snatch of music which, without fail, helped signpost the next stage in the development of the relationships of our quartet.
But it’s the acting that catches the eye. There’s an obvious on-stage chemistry and Phillip John Jones (Pete), Andrew Greaves (Andy), Amy Anderson (Linda) and Kizzy Dunn (Sue) are as universally excellent in their core roles as they are in the many and varied other characters they flip between over the course of the play. Accents are perfect, as is the ageing (they play roles aged from 11 to 50 plus) and you know in an instant just who they are representing. And the tricky issue of how to handle the multitude of props that might be required in a show like this was dealt with by having the four actors mime (with great conviction) everything from eating their dinner to reading the paper to…..well, let’s not go there shall we?
As someone said to me on the way out, “that was deep”. Yes, it was. And all the better for it. A rare combination of great writing and directing backed up with acting of the highest class. This is clearly a theatre company with a great deal to offer. Others agree – they’ve just got a month’s run in London on the back of their efforts up here. Catch this if you can up here though. Highly recommended.
