Welcome to the Bill Cashmore Anniversary Newsletter 2019

Creating the Bill Cashmore Award

As you all know, the idea for the Bill Cashmore Award came from one of Bill’s parting gifts – in the last month of his life he donated a place on an acting course to a young person who would not otherwise have been able to afford to educate themselves further in an industry they – and he – loved.

I wanted to create an award in his name in this spirit. After a long search for the right partner, I have teamed up with the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith who have a long and impressive history in supporting and training young theatrical talent. They also have the resources, venue, skills and motivation to capitalise on and showcase nascent talent.

I’ve spent the last year working with my new partners in crime – The Lyric’s Development Director Lucy Howe, Director Nicholai LaBarrie, and Producer Lara Taylor – and together we have created an Award that honours Bill’s love of theatre, his generosity of spirit, skill in encouraging others, and his belief in the power of education, training and support. Read on to see how we’ve done it, and where we’ve got to.

The search began

In January the search began for the first recipient. Drawing on the Lyric’s longstanding involvement with young people, we put out a call for applications from aspiring actors, writers or directors, between the ages of 18 and 24, living or working in one of the London Boroughs, and who felt they had something to say and an idea of how to say it creatively.

Together we whittled down the many applications, which came in both paper and video form, to just 16 strong candidates, all of whom we felt embodied the kind of talent Bill would have wanted to encourage. These 16 were then given the opportunity to perform a 10-minute Scratch introductory piece outlining their idea to us, and to a paying audience, over 2 nights in March.

These turned out to be 2 fantastic nights of entertainment. Some of my and Bill’s friends and family came to support and help adjudicate as we watched these talented performers give a tantalising taste of their talent and their ideas for a piece that they would like to develop into a full length play, should they be given that opportunity.

It was a really tough decision, so tough in fact that we couldn’t do it and had to invite the most impressive 5 back for an interview and a further performance. This time our judging team was bolstered by the presence of the amazing Rachel O’Riorden, the Lyric’s new Artistic Director. Having only just taken up her post, and with a million more important things on her to do list, Rachel nevertheless saw the potential in what we were trying to achieve and immediately got behind the Award, determining to be personally involved.

I am extremely grateful that Rachel has come on board and wants to be part of making the Bill Cashmore Award as big and important a fixture in the Lyric calendar as I always hoped it would, and should, be. Not only was her help in choosing the first recipients invaluable, but she has also come up with the fantastic idea to develop the Award yet further.

She has proposed that next year we should promote the Scratch evenings as a big event in their own right – call them “The Bill Cashmore Showcase” – and fully promote and market them, inviting the biggest players in the theatre industry to come and watch – agents, producers, casting directors, artistic directors of other theatres, and more. This will ensure that not only our Award winner benefits, but that all the shortlisted artists will in fact be winners in that they will have this platform to try out their work and their ideas in front of people who may be able to help further their careers in other ways. We have added this idea to our long – and growing – to do list.

Enough preamble, who – I hear you ask – did you choose?

We chose a 2-woman team – Eve Cowley and Elin Schofield, recently graduated from Sheffield University. Together they have written a script that is funny, clever, intriguing, and which has a social conscience – all the things Bill was passionate about. Their play ‘Screwdriver’ will be performed by Eve and directed by Elin, and I am incredibly excited by them and their potential. In coming up with the idea for an Award in Bill’s name my hope was that it should provide an opportunity that would otherwise not be available; an opportunity for someone whose commitment to theatre and to storytelling is matched with an ethos of hard work and dedication to the craft. I wanted it to promote new writing and progressive ideas, reflect something of the inequality of the world around us, be experimental, provide new learning and promote integrated ways for collaborating and giving a voice to those without one. I couldn’t have hoped for more suitable winners of the very first Bill Cashmore Award than Eve and Elin.

I believe these 2 young women perfectly embody the spirit of what we are hoping to achieve in setting up this Award in Bill’s name. Not only do they have a great idea and the artistic talent and skill to develop it into something extraordinary, but they have the same hard-working ethos, passion and commitment to theatre that Bill had. Bill spanned the roles of writer, director and performer and was best known for his offbeat observational humour, his openness to new learning, his curiosity about people and the world, and for his compassion and generosity. In Eve and Elin we have found two creatives who in person and in their work carry that forward.

So what do Eve and Elin get by winning this Award? Another good question.

They get a whole range of marvelous things. Since their win in March they have been mentored and supervised by Rachel, Nicholai and Lara. They have had access to Lyric resources in the form of rehearsal space, training and support from the Lyric’s marketing, publicity, fundraising, lighting, sound, wardrobe, backstage and other production staff, access to the Lyric’s Ensemble cast of actors, free tickets to all Lyric shows, pastoral care from me, and a budget to spend on whatever else they need. They will soon also have additional workshops led by some of Bill’s talented and generous friends who have offered masterclasses and internships in their specialist fields.

All of this incredible support continues and will culminate in February next year when ‘Screwdriver’, the play that they are writing, developing and producing thanks to the Award, will headline the Lyric’s Evolution Festival. I do hope that you will come along between 11 and 14 February to see this amazing play and enjoy the result of what your generous donations has produced.

As always, my verbosity is getting the better of me, so thank you for bearing with me thus far. I have a couple of other quick announcements to do with the Award then I will move on to other news – also exciting, so please stick with it.

First quick Award-related announcement is Simon Marlow’s wonderful idea that – just as the Olivier Awards are affectionately and luvvie-ly nicknamed The Larrys, so this Award could be nicknamed The Billy. Please start practicing now.

Second quick announcement is to say a massive thank all of you who made this Award possible with your generous donations this year – hopefully you have received your filmed thank you from Eve and Elin. Come February you will also be invited to see the show, and to celebrate at a small thank you party. Those of you feeling jealous, don’t worry, a small donation to next year’s Award means you won’t miss out a second time, and you can still see this year’s show by booking a ticket via the Box Office. Please do!

Third quick announcement is that we are now taking donations for next year’s Award! And you can help me choose next year’s winner by booking a ticket to some or all of the Scratch performances which are also taking place during February’s Evolution festival – dates still to be finalised. Last year’s Scratch nights were great fun and you get to give your two penneth worth on who next year’s winner should be, and so shape the future of the Award. Tickets for the Scratches, and for Screwdriver will be available on the Lyric website very soon.

Finally, a massive thank you to all of you who have offered your time and expertise in delivering workshops and more. As soon as we’ve completely nailed down Eve and Elin’s remaining schedule and needs, I will be getting in touch and taking you up on your kind offers – and inviting you to see the show as well.

Ink Festival and Bill’s other plays

In other award news, this year’s winner of the Ink Festival’s “Bill Cashmore Prize for Best Newcomer” went to 25-year-old Martha Loader for her play After Prospero. This later transferred to London for a short run, so many congratulations are due to Martha. Clearly another talent to keep an eye out for.

I am still pursuing the hope that Bill’s final play, Gerald, will be made into a R4 play but the wheels of BBC radio seem to grind glacially slowly.

I am also still pursuing the hope that we can stage some of Bill’s other plays in time, but in this instance it is my own wheels that are grinding painfully slowly. Sorry!

Bill Cashmore website

Andy Powrie has now set up a website to memorialise Bill and his work. Andy has already sourced some great photos and quotes and I will be adding to it in time as well so we can all remember Bill’s humour, his plays, performances and journalism. Please send either Andy or I your own stories for us to add in there too. It will be a way for those of us who loved him to stay in touch with each other, and also a way of staying in touch with Bill’s own words and values, and to learn more about the progression of the Award, and other Bill inspired projects. Also please don’t forget to visit Bill’s Facebook page occasionally and re-read the hilarious posts he wrote.

Charity donations

The £4,150 we raised at the Memorial for the Woodland Trust has gone to two different woods: £3000 has gone towards sustaining 3 acres of ancient and secondary woodland in Brede High Woods in Sussex , while the remainder has gone towards a new venture for the Trust – helping them to buy their first mountain – on Ben Shieldaig estate in Scotland – in order to create habitats for wildlife to flourish.

The Order of St John

I told you last year of Bill’s medal from the Order of St. John in recognition of his organ donation. I have now received amazing letters from two of the recipients whose lives have been saved by Bill’s generosity. But I will have to tell you more about them another time as I still can’t think about them without crying. When I can, I hope to be able to respond to their lovely letters and maybe even meet the recipients, if they would be willing.

Theatre Seats

Bill is now commemorated on theatre seats in The Nottingham Playhouse, London’s Bush Theatre, and the Lyric Hammersmith.

Narcissist’s Corner

I’m afraid I am once again going to ask you to indulge me in telling you a bit about what I’ve been doing. The book I have written about Bill and me, about his death, and about how I weathered the first year of my grieving, is to be published by Yellow Kite on April 16th next year and is called “Languages of Loss: a psychotherapist’s journey through grief”. The real cover is currently being designed and will be revealed shortly. Bill’s, and now my, great friend Tamsin Greig has very kindly written the foreword, which may well turn out to be the best thing about it, so buy it for that reason, if nothing else. However, another great reason to buy it could be the following – I am donating 100% of my royalties to The Bill Cashmore Award so please do encourage as many people as you can to buy it too. Rather ridiculously you can even pre-order (one of Billy’s most hated phrases, sorry my love) from Waterstones or Amazon now if you are worried the stampede at time of publication may be too much for you.

To publicise Languages of Loss, I have been encouraged (forced?) to start my own website and to engage a bit more with social media, so please do have a look at that and also follow or friend me in the usual ways on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. In an attempt to get even more technologically minded I will be sending this newsletter, and other related news, out via the website from now on, but GDPR means that I do need your permission to do that, so if you don’t want to hear from me again, then please just unsubscribe. I promise not to overload you.