Lauren Crisp is a book editor, writer and keen follower of arts and culture. Born and raised in Harrogate, Lauren recently moved back to North Yorkshire after a stint in London, where she regularly reviewed theatre – everything from big West End shows to small fringe productions. She is now eager to explore the culture on offer in and around her home town.  You can contact Lauren on laurencrispwriter@gmail.com 

 

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On Sunday evening, celebrated actor and director Barrie Rutter addressed an audience of theatre and poetry lovers at Ripon Arts Hub. This was the finale of a culturally rich season of events in Ripon, and a collaboration between Ripon Poetry Festival and Ripon Theatre Festival.

Yorkshire-born-and-bred theatre legend Rutter received the Sam Wanamaker Award, for pioneering Shakespearean theatre, in 2003, and was awarded an OBE in 2015 for services to drama.

He is perhaps best known as the founder and former artistic director of ground-breaking touring theatre company Northern Broadsides, based in Halifax. The organisation was created to bring together northern casts who would speak in unapologetically northern dialect, delivering Shakespeare to northern audiences to perform in venues that Rutter describes as “non-velvet” – from boatsheds in Hull to cattle markets in Skipton. His work gained him a reputation as a true trailblazer and as an ultimate champion of theatre in the north.

With a career spanning over 50 years, spent on stage, on screen and in theatres across the world, Rutter has a great many stories to tell. He seamlessly interspersed personal anecdotes – from mingling with jazz musicians in 1970s New York, to getting drunk in champagne caves with his friend, Hugh Griffith, of Ben-Hur fame, to his favourite behind-the-scenes Shakespeare stories – with poetry, prose, and musings on language, citing everything from Baudelaire to Bilston, along with his poetry, the poetry of his friends, and that of the north.

An entertainer in the purest form of the word, Rutter is forthright and wry, yet measured and precise in his reflections; in the intimate space of Ripon Arts Hub, his thoughts and tales made for captivating listening. His love for language, the way words work, and the magic of word play were all on resplendent display, and he plotted these, humorously and often poignantly, against the story of his life, career, and the people he has met along the way.

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