Jessica Regan talks about 16 Postcodes
Writer Jessica Regan’s play 16 Postcodes is currently playing at the King’s Head Theatre – and is possibly spending more time in that venue than she’s spent in some housing over the past few years. We were interested to learn about the show and how Jessica came to write it so called her up for a chat to find out more.
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us here at Everything Theatre! First things first, what is 16 Postcodes all about how did it get to this point?
The show is about my personal experiences of all the different postcodes I’ve lived in since arriving in London to train at drama school in 2004, which tells a larger story about generation rent, how the city has changed and how to hold on, for better or worse.
I did a scratch night three years ago with a very short excerpt and happily it went down well with the roomful of strangers. I was encouraged to take it further and talked to my very clever friend Tom Salinsky about it. He thought the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was the way to go, then he had a hit play – Gang of Three – at the King’s Head Theatre and reckoned my show would be a good fit for their later slot. I can take credit for the writing and the idea, but this show would have had no life without producer Tom, the legend.
Your prior runs of the show at Edinburgh Fringe and in London have been well received. Is there something special about this upcoming run at the King’s Head Theatre big new space?
We have done performances in London but they’ve been few and far between. To have a proper run in this gorgeous theatre when the show is essentially a love letter to London feels very special indeed.
Housing crises haven’t shown any sign of calming at all in recent years, but how has the show changed and developed since it was first conceived?
It has grown from pure storytelling into a piece of interactive theatre. I have fantastic collaborators for movement (Ira Mandela Siobhan), a stunning composer (Claire Regan) and Jamie Beamish who is a thrilling actor but is the eye in the sky for this show, helping me technically and creatively. As stripped down as it is, I still want to give people a transportive experience.
In a daring creative choice you only reveal a portion of your postcode stories every night; what drove you toward this approach and how have you found the response?
It was suggested to me by a friend that if I did all 16 the audience would count down and not be fully present with me. So I thought about how much uncertainty runs through my life and how it would be cool to make that a feature, not a bug in the show. I didn’t know how it would go down but it is probably my favourite thing about 16 Postcodes. Each show is created on the night by the people in the room.
Without spoiling too much, which postcode would you say has been your favourite so far?
Brixton is very special to me to perform – it goes somewhere that’s hard to achieve in other mediums. But I can tell you, fan favourite is Mile End, for reasons I can’t reveal here…
16 postcodes in 20 years is eye-opening. Has your postcode remained static since the show’s conception or have more stories and postcodes come into play?
Oh there’s been two since the show was in Edinburgh! I am still living this show. I am in a lovely place at the moment but who knows for how long.
Finally, the focus of this show is of course 20 years’ worth of living in London, but how would you say your Irish background plays into it all? Housing has such a history in Ireland with topics like the Land War and the modern housing crisis there.
I think there’s more culture shock referred to than historical context…to be clear I came here of my own volition and rent for use and enjoyment so I would never compare my situation to the horrors endured by tenant farmers of generations past. I am paid well for the work I do and any exploitation I have encountered has been as a tenant in London, not an Irish tenant specifically. Which sounds conciliatory until I realise I do actually talk about how the first postcodes in Ireland were introduced in 1917 by the Royal Mail because yep, you guessed, it was before we got independence from those… well you can come and see the show for the rest of that sentence!
Thanks very much to Jessica for telling us about this fascinating show.
16 Postcodes runs at the King’s Head Theatre until Sunday 8 March.
